Gizmo’s and Gadgets
Like any good geek I was following the release of the iPad with bated breath. Sadly one was a bit underwhelmed in the end. That’s not to say this isn’t a seriously cool gadget and oh yes I most certainly want one, (gee what a coincidence, the release is right after my birthday :D) but one was hoping for a little bit more than what is effectively just a giant ipod touch.
The lack of multitasking is silly when they are marketing this as a netbook killer. I mean come on, I would love to listen to pandora or xm radio while I am browsing the web. Hopefully that is something that will be fixed when the rumoured OS 4 comes out.
Still when you have just dead lifted 100lbs or more several times in a row ones hands can be somewhat shaky, trying to record info on my iPod is nigh on impossible with that tiny keyboard. Bring on the iPad, I’ve always also hated trying to browse on it let alone use logmein to remote access my work computers. This is where the iPad will shine over the iPod Touch, include the 3g Connection and we are talking about a handy little gizmo that I am looking forward to getting my grubby paws on.
And the name? Lol, don’t get me started, the Max-iPad jokes took all of about 5 minutes to start circling I think.
Ants – 48 & 72 Hours
They are actually starting to make tunnels at the top with the chunks of gel they are pulling put of the main tubes. Hard to get a picture of though. I did find two casualties last night, have been wondering how long they will live.
Ants - 48 hours
Ants - 72 hours
Ant Farm – 24 hours
Progress is being made, we have noticed that they seem to be heading directly for the 4 lights at the bottom, this brings up all kinds of ideas for setting up future farms with different light sources or none at all and seeing what they create.
Oh yes we are nerds, lol – Bring on the pocket protectors 🙂
Ant Farm - 24 hours
My Ant Farm
So like any good geek I got given an Ant Farm for Christmas. This thing is pretty darn cool, they live in a nutritious blue gel (you can get green and red gel versions too) which becomes their food and home. My harvester ants finally arrived yesterday and so I decided to take a pic a day. Oh and it has an awesome light base attachment to make it all glow.
This was taken about 5 mins after putting them in. You can see the initial holes I poked in the gel to get them started:
Ant Farm Day 1
Within about 4 hours they had the middle tunnel excavated down about an inch. By the this morning they had started on the other two tunnels and hit the bottom with the middle one.
What’s pretty cool is the way they are plastering the chunks of gel they are excavating to the sides of the tank in a very deliberate manner. Oh and these guys are huge! I’ll keep you updated 🙂
Workout
Day 1) 183.2 8) 176.2 15) 173.8 22) 173.6 2) 180.8 9) 176.2 16) 174.0 3) 179.8 10) 175.2 17) 174.4 4) 179.6 11) 175.4 FM 18) 174.2 FM 5) 178.2 FM 12) 175.6 19) 174.2 6) 176.8 FM 13) 175.4 20) 173.0 7) 176.8 14) 173.6 FM 21) 172.4 FM
FM is Free meal, I get two of these a week for a mental break and to give hormones etc a respite from the diet.
Food:
Lunch: salmon patty, broccoli
Dinner: 6oz turkey cutlet, 2 oz shrimp, 1/2 cup eggbeaters, 2 slice fat free cheese, mushroom, zucchini, salsa. 1/2 cup sugar free jello
Protein: 114g, Carbs: 32g, Fat: 7.8g Cals: 660
Workout:
Mobility workout for warm up:
Leg Swings – 2 x 15
Wall Slides – 2 x 15
Single Leg Deadlift – 2 x 10
Wall Hip Flexor Mobilizations – 2 x 10
Bent Over Spine Rotation – 2 x 10
Wall Chest Stretch 4 x 30 secs
Weights:
Squats: 65lbs x 15, 65lbs x 12
Deadlift: 95lbs x 15, 95lbs x 12
Incline Push Up: 2 x 12
Cable Row: 60lbs x 15, 60lbs x 12
Crunches: 2 x 12
Yay for Nerds
Well apart from going to see Legion this weekend not much else happened. The movie was meh.. Not great, but not a waste of time either. Noms afterwards were most enjoyable. It was one of my free meal day’s so we went to Logan’s for steak. Followed by Maggie Moo’s icecream. Dark Chocolate with reeses mixed in. Heavenly goodness in every bite 🙂
Here are some nerd stats to bore you with on my weight loss:
1/4/2010 – 1/11/2010
| Date | Avg. Weight | Avg. Body Fat % | Fat Free Mass | Fat Mass |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1/4/2010 | 183.19 | 38.90 | 111.93 | 71.26 |
| 1/11/2010 | 180.48 | 38.71 | 110.62 | 69.86 |
| Difference | -2.71 | -0.19 | -1.31 | -1.40 |
1/11/2010 – 1/18/2010
| Date | Avg. Weight | Avg. Body Fat % | Fat Free Mass | Fat Mass |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1/11/2010 | 180.48 | 38.71 | 110.62 | 69.86 |
| 1/18/2010 | 177.55 | 38.16 | 109.80 | 67.75 |
| Difference | -2.93 | -0.55 | -0.82 | -2.11 |
1/18/2010 – 1/25/2010
| Date | Avg. Weight | Avg. Body Fat % | Fat Free Mass | Fat Mass |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1/18/2010 | 177.55 | 38.16 | 109.80 | 67.75 |
| 1/25/2010 | 175.48 | 37.51 | 109.66 | 65.82 |
| Difference | -2.07 | -0.65 | -0.14 | -1.93 |
Numbers courtesy of PhysicsDiet.com
New Year, New Life
This is the year, I will make everything work out.
- I will get fit
- I will get healthy
- I will look sexy in a bikini
- I will get pregnant 🙂
In addition I will attempt to resurrect this poor blog on a more regular basis so as to document and be accountable to the very small selection of people who actually read this thing , I appreciate you guys 🙂
So far we are doing awesome on these goals. I am almost 3 weeks into a new round of RFL (see my last blog post August) having put everything I lost last year back on over Christmas. *sigh*
I am tracking over at hackers diet online amoungst other places, they give me neat web gadgets and make it real easy to post my charts so I am definitely sticking with them.
Water retention is a bitch on RFL so it is really good to watch the trend lines as opposed to the actual daily weigh ins.
Here is my pretty trend chart since Jan 1:
I’m allowed 2 free meals a week on RFL, those days are the yellow dots, scale going up the couple of days after is completely expected as RFL is a low carb diet. I also started some heavier weight training this week and sore muscles retain more water so again on the spike up.
From here on out you get to see all the dirty details of what I do day to day. Do not however expect pictures until such times as I have achieved the aforementioned bikini goal. 😛
Updates
Life has wandered on a bit since I last updated this obviously. Hubby and I made a major decision in our life which for anyone that really knows me will kinda knock you off your feet..
We are gonna have a kid..
I never thought I would say those words and no, this was no accident, I’m not actually pregnant yet but we have decided to go for it. I haven’t gone googly over kids either, a friend and his wife brought their newborn over this weekend and I have to say past the initial aww, cute politeness I really didn’t want much to do with her, I had no desire to hold her or anything but I could definitely see where if she were mine I’d have been totally in love. She didn’t do much but eat and peer around at everyone, I think she is maybe 3-4 weeks old so not exactly the life of the party, she had a cute smile though. 🙂
I’m not totally sure what changed my mind, getting older perhaps, realizing that at 31 it was now or never, we couldn’t keep putting it off anymore. I know people have kids much older but for us it was a case of wanting to be fit and able to play with grandkids if such a thing were to happen.
I’m looking forward to seeing my husband as a father, I know it is going to bring him such tremendous joy and he is going to be a wonderful Dad. I do fear perhaps for my own sanity however as I just know that I am going to end up the victim of a whole bunch of pranks… 🙂
We’ve been talking a lot about how we are going to deal with the trials and tribulations of rearing a child. I am definitely hoping for a boy, I think the occasional broken bones, skinned knees and fist fights from a rambunctious boy will be much less of a headache than a female tween with body image issues, clothes, hair and makeup etc. And I know Murphy will be laughing his arse off when I get a fairy princess for a daughter. (If you don’t know me in person I hate clothes shopping, don’t wear makeup and am a geek and a tomboy, oh and dolls freak me out, they are as bad as clowns.)
So as far as my personal body image issues go I am now highly motivated to lose this damn weight so that 1) I won’t be the 200lb pregnant lady and 2) I can set a good healthy example for my kid and not show them a do as I say not as I do attitude.
This led me to find Lyle McDonald and his Rapid Fat Loss Diet. I’ve been on a planned diet break for the last 10 days or so but I finished off round 1 at 164lbs. That’s the lowest I have been in over 7 years. I managed to lose 18lbs in 6.5 weeks with his plan. I’m currently at 169lb which is some bloat from my week off (I was not well behaved believe me *lol*) but also glycogen replenishment because the diet is a low carb one. (Actually low carb, low fat and low calorie 🙂 – if you are gonna try a crash diet, this is the one to do. Plenty of protein though which keeps me full.)
I can actually finally see me achieving my goals, this is it, this is the diet that works for me. I’ve been through so many and I knew a long time ago that the only secret was in finding the one that suited you personally.
I started round 2 yesterday and can’t wait to see what the next few weeks gets me too.
Silence is golden?
Heh, maybe not.
Well I’ve been back up a bit and today am down to the weight I was in my last post.. yay.. Gotta love wastes of time.
Anyhow.. no longer on weight watchers. While I was liking it I wasn’t 100% happy with the points system. Some days when I tracked actual calorie intake it would be 1200 (read bloody hungry) and others it would be 1600 (aka not so bad).
That and I was learning what things could fudge the points counting and I think subconsciously I was playing that game a little too much which stalled me. That lead to frustration and munching. I can’t cheat straight calories in any shape or form.
I also got a new gadget. It’s called the GoWear Fit (which I still think is a stupid name and I tend to refer to it as a bodybugg which is the original device)
GoWear Fit
It is very cool. Basically via a number of gizmo’s inside including a pedometer, accelerometer, temperature sensors etc it works out how many calories you are burning per minute and thusly shows you for the day.
One major thing I have learned and is something that Leigh Peele (my fav nutrition guru these days – FLzine.com and fatlosstroubleshoot.com ) likes to emphasize is that it’s not all about the workouts. It’s about your daily activity and this is something that the bugg shows really well. All those stairs, housework, pottering around making dinner, grocery shopping etc really can add up. And knowing and seeing that makes me much more aware of my NEAT (Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis). I get up from my desk more often, take the stairs more often, park my car further away and walk a bit more.
It’s definitely not 100% accurate (and I don’t ever expect it to be) but I am happy that for the most part it seems to underestimate which I am more than happy for it to do. Far rather that then over estimation leading to frustration.
So the upshot is I get to geek out over fun data and nifty graphs which makes tracking intake calories much less tedious.
On that note Hubby and I are cutting all refined sugar from our diet for a month. No candy, no dessert, no pre-processed products that have any form of refined sugar (HFCS, Sugar, Dextrose, Maltodextrin, etc) . This does not exclude natural sugars found in milk or fruit (fructose and lactose) nor does it mean sugars found naturally in vegetables like corn or carrots.
So our diet is pretty much 100% whole foods, I am cooking a lot more again but it’s good stuff. Shepherds pie (made with buffalo and venison so far, Yum!) a Chicken enchilada bake that was delicious (used carb balance tortillas with no added sugar for that one, gonna try it with corn chips next time though, the tortillas were not so good on day 3 ) – found the recipe for that on the back of a kraft cheese packet.
As you can see, I am eating carbs, white potaotoes!! and still losing weight 🙂 – After reading Girth Control by Alan Aragon (my other fav guru) I have my macros on a pretty evenly divided split. Something else Alan also suggested which I am really liking is eating for your target bodyweight not your current with a deficit. So after some math I decided 132 was a good goal for my height and muscular desires and so I am eating maintenance calories for that body comp and general activity level. (Which works out at about 1600)
Much less math, no recalculating and no dismal reduction of food as I go down. After just under 2 weeks with no sugar (we’ve been doing it for almost 3 but I had derby day party foods at the end of week 1 (mm cheesecake) ) I feel great, no cravings, no bad head space. I am eating good healthy food that is leaving me satisfied and my weight is going down steadily. The week before we started was not so good and accounted for most of my weight gain lol – a few to many 1 last pizza (which ended up being 2), 1 last ice cream (don’t ask), gotta finish this off etc etc
I’m the energizer bunny..!
I just keep on going lol…
177.2 this morning, thats a total of 16lbs down from January and 9lbs on weight watchers. Yehaw 🙂
Got my first workout in since I got sick last night. Felt good. Actually considering talking to Beth and dropping my Monday BJJ class to do another training session with her. I think 3 weight sessions a week would do me the world of good. Not that I’m not doing great right now but I need to keep my muscle active and I wanna get mean and lean which means hitting the weights.
So I got bored and stuck stuff in sparkpeople to figure out what I am really eating. Turns out to be about 1500 calories, 50% carbs, 30% Protein, 20% fat.
Funny, I’m pretty sure I was eating around that point before and not having much luck.. So I dunno, maybe it’s just cause I’m doing it this time with some chocolate and stuff that is keeping me sane.
Life O'Limey 