Hollaback

I’m always late to these things. *fumes* This week was National Delurking Week.

Delurking means, you’ve been reading my blog since day 1, or day yesterday, and have yet to leave a comment. You can use a fake name, I rarely hunt people down  and you don’t have to be long winded, a simple, “Hey Renee!” will do.

Copy and paste if you’re feeling lazy.

I won’t harass you to sign my frappr map or be myspace friend…*sniffle*…just delurk why don’t ya? I’ll leave this posted @ the top till next Saturday.

c'monnnn you know you want to...
(I made the graphic. You don’t need to ask me if it’s okay to use it.
If you do use it, just linking back to my site saying where you got it from is thanks enough.)

Quarterly goals 2007

This is an annual tradition, as I don’t make resolutions.

Unlike past years where I focused on a # on the scale, I’m changing things up. These goals are going to focus on things I can physically accomplish. Each quarter I reach my goals, I get special fitness related reward. I have already vowed no clothes this year. I will make one exception and make Quarter 1′s reward a new pair of running shoes. Trust me, you don’t want to know how long I’ve been hoofing around in my current pair…

tore up from the floor up

…nuff said

Below the fold are the dates, goals I can control and just for piss and vinegar, goals I can’t.

Quarter Dates
#1 – 1/1 – 4/1
#2 – 4/2 – 7/1
#3 – 7/2 – 9/30
#4 – 10/1 – 12/30

Q1 Controllable Goals
- walk, run, precor or arc train a total of 175 miles (14.6 miles week/2.08 miles a day)
- start my 30 day challenges: January: 30 days of 30 minutes, February: 30 days of love, March: 30 days of 1 gallon of water
- per day, drink @ least 30 oz water in January, 60 oz water in February & 1 gallon of water in March

Q1 Out of my Control Goals
- Lose 12lbs (192lbs -> 180lbs by 4/1/07)
- Lose 3% body fat (38.1 -> 35.1 by 4/1/07)
- Reduce BMI 1.5 pts (31.9 -> 30 by 4/1/07)
- Reduce resting rate 3pts (80 -> 77 by 4/1/07)

When each quarter is done, 4/2, 7/2, 10/1 and 12/31, based on where I’m at, I’ll set goals for Q2 and so on and so on.

B/c this tends to get lost in the shuffle of the year and to keep my eyes focused on the controllable goals, each week, along w/my weekly weigh in, I’m going update my mileage progress here and on the sidebar.

For the next 3 months, Renee is hoofing it for a new pair of shoes!

Great Rewards

Not One Stitch

A very very bad habit of mine is to buy clothes. Ok, it’s really a necessity, but not how I do it. I end up going on mini shopping sprees every 3 months or so, after finding out my current clothes no longer fit, and not in a good, WOW I’m a smaller size kinda way, but in the SONOFABITCH I have to go up 2 sizes sucky kinda way.

This year, my ultimate reward is to go on a true shopping spree when I both reach my weight loss and 1000 mile goal (see below). Till then I am not buying a stitch of clothes. No shoes, no socks, no underwear, no shirts, no pants, no bras. Nothing.

How can that last?

Fairly easy.

During previous shopping sprees, I’ve managed to purchase enough things from size 8/10 to size, as of late November, 18. Let’s just say, clothing wise, I’m good. Put it like this, I even pre purchased a black pudge pic ‘kini in small.

One year I started to reward myself $ for every lb loss, but it gets tricky when my weight fluctuated back up. This time when I do my 30 day updates, for every lb shed $5 will go into the clothing jar.

With a goal of losing 50-60lbs that’s $250-300 in the clothing jar.

1000 Miles Reward

I did this approach in ’05 and started if off in ’06, but somehow my focus changed to weight and lbs lost which are things I can’t control. As previously mentioned, my focus is going to be on things I can control. Minutes worked out. Miles walked.

For every 10 miles I walk or run or elipp (is that even a word?), $5 goes into the clothing fund jar.

With a goal of 1000 miles, that equals $500 in the clothing jar.

Since I am not buying clothes for the entire year, it’ll truly be an end of year treat.

Get Lost
Now that I’m aiming to do 30 minutes of physical activity every day of the year, this isn’t so much a reward as it’s a treat. A non-food treat. Each week I knock out my 30 minutes, I will finally watch 1 episode of Lost Season II. When that ends, I have unseen episodes of Arrested Development Season III, The Office Season I. and Entourage Season III to enjoy. There are a few things I can delay gratification like you would not believe.

********

Next week I’ll share my quarterly plans. Since the ultimate reward is tailored toward the end of the year, to stay motivated throughout the year, I have a different set of really cool fitness related things.

Have a great weekend!

Brand New for 07

As far as I’m concerned, the past is the past. Every success or failure I’ve had in the last 2 years on this site, all have led me to this point. I’ve gone extreme, I’ve kept it simple. I’ve had short term challenges, long term challenges. I’ve had group challenges, non-weight related challenges, food challenges ad nausea.

I start 2007 with 2 basic challenges that’ll run the duration of the year.

One night while doing my fast, I took some time to clean out my email box and came across the quote I posted to mark the New Year. It’s an oft repeated quote, and as much as I’ve read it before, I really read it that night.

“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” – Chinese Proverb

The thousand miles part kept playing in my head.

I did a quickie calculation to see if that can be done in a year. It’s a bit under 3 miles a day and if 10,000 steps roughly equals 5 miles, 3 miles should be +/- 6,000 steps.

That’s goal number 1.

Goal number 2 came to me the last week in December.

Stumbling across a site that said you can try anything out for 30 days and later reading two people who made a goal to exercise every day for an entire year, I figured, why not me?

Just to clarify, in this example I really mean being physically active on a daily basis, not necessarily busting out an intense workout every day. Workouts are what I’ll do on a regular basis w/rest days and all.

But when I’m resting up, I still commit myself to doing 30 minutes of some physical activity.

It can be 30 minutes of running, weight lifting, a 30 minute walk around the park or it can be a Sunday stroll through my neighborhood w/Callie. The sole requirement is that it’s 30 consecutive minutes.

In the next few weeks I’ll share some rewards I’ll be working towards, my annual tradition of posting my quarterly goals, though for the Oh-7 they’ve been reformulated.

In ’05 I was on the right track deciding to get fit. Somewhere in ’06 I was all about pounds & the weight. It consumed me. The goals I once had, to be a runner, to be athletic, disappeared.

Which meant, working out felt like a chore and if the scale didn’t budge, my mood soured.

This year, I want to get back to focusing on things I can control. I can’t control if the scale’ll move. I may truly lose weight every 9.5 days so it’ll take 2 weeks for my weekly weigh in to reflect that. But, I can control whether or not I walk 2.8 miles or being active 30 minutes.

If I’ve learned nothing else in the last 2 years on this site, the best laid plans go up in smoke. I also learned I’m not a quitter. Who knows what emotional rollercoaster ’07 will bring, I’m up for that challenge too.

Have a wonderful new year to all my readers, listeners and viewers

Be fit!

Suing donuts

Krispy Kreme has blamed its problems on popularity of low-carbohydrate diets …

Or perhaps could it have been those glazed-flavored drinks?

I’m in

I just signed up online for the National Body Challenge. Supposedly you can get the same goodies as if you come into the store, so I figured why not. Start date is the 15th, but no time like the present is my motto. ;)

And the winner is…

And all this time I’ve been a big NutriSystem cheerleader.

A review of 10 of the nation’s most popular weight-loss programs found that except for Weight Watchers, none of them offer proof that they actually work at helping people shed pounds and keep them off. Only Weight Watchers had strong documentation that it worked – with one study showing that participants lost around 5 percent (about 10 pounds) of their initial weight in six months and kept off about half of it two years later.

I’ve always had a brain fog when it comes to Weight Watchers. Could never grasp the points concept. But that was in my health ignorant years. I took a look at it over the summer and it seemed a bit clearer. Still I’m a no fuss no muss kinda gal and prepackaged eats from NutriSystem just does it for me.

Guh?!?

Uh…waitaminute? Junk food in hospitals? Isn’t that an oxymoron?

Why Diets Fail

Ok so these tips are from Men’s Health, but I think it’s applicable to both sexes. And it’s suprisingly realistic about the phases you go thru when starting a new “diet”.

Features coming soon

Technically I’m shooting for weekends off from the blog, I’ll be working behind the scenes but no posting, but I must commerate the first of the year with an entry, for posterity sake if nothing else.

Some of the features I alluded to will be having a weekly poll. Just for giggles. While I don’t want the site to get too cluttered I’d like to make the site more interactive. In the original version of my old site, the one started back in the winter of 03, I had TONS of things for people to do, I made myself dizzy. Not this time.