Thanksgiving Day has passed in the US, although some of you might be on the hook for another feast this afternoon. I think I did alright… I loaded up my plate, but mostly with salad and veggies (and of course, a piece of challah bread I made). I had a couple strips of turkey, a bit of dressing, and some gravy, but I didn’t go overboard with the cholesterol stuff — as much as I like deviled eggs, I didn’t have any. The chocolate cake tasted a bit strange to me, so I didn’t have more than one piece of that and concentrated on the fruit salad.
More important than a single large meal, I managed to ride the exerbike every evening, Monday through Saturday! The display said I burned roughly 100 calories with each ride, but there were side benefits that I consider more significant:
- I felt warmer the rest of the evening. Where I might have been chilly without a sweater before the ride, after I was comfortable just wearing the t-shirt and pants (a couple nights, the shorts I wore on the bike were fine).
- Sleep came quicker. I tend to have a hard time getting to sleep, always have. This worked as well as several drinks, without the hazardous side effects.
- It had a noticeable effect on my blood pressure.
It wasn’t a difficult thing to accomplish, once I figured out how to work it: I streamed the AOL Trance station on my iPhone and read a magazine while pedaling away. How often can you get two things done at once that you want to do?
All in all, it’s been a positive week for me. I didn’t blow up my calorie intake too much, and I’ve been getting a decent amount of exercise while figuring out how to turn it into a healthy habit. I tweaked a tendon in my left ankle a couple weeks ago, not sure how, and if walking was the only thing I could have done to exercise, I’d be in trouble. Fortunately, the exerbike doesn’t work that joint and I can pedal comfortably. So I’m in pretty good shape to get through the next five weeks of Eating Season, as long as I keep up my end of things.
How did your week go? “I decided not to worry about it” is an acceptable answer; after all, letting go for one day is fine — as long as it’s only one day! How can you apply what you did this week to the week ahead?
Don’t forget that when you exercise your metabolism increases past the time of exercising–probably why you stayed warm! And my last week was huge for “applying” as I took training in teaching senior fitness!
I did fairly well on the eating. I didn’t over do it, and I’ve been drinking plenty of water too.
Watch out for that tendon.
Sounds great, folks!
Conda, good luck with the fitness training!
FM, I’ll definitely be treating it with TLC as often as possible.
I actually worked (on Nancy Pickard’s website) all weekend and kept meaning to come back her to read and comment. But, didn’t.
How sad is that?
(getting cup of coffee and settling in to read now)
Well, I’ve been THINKING about health alot, FAR….
My shoulder has been killing me lately. It’s pretty much all I think about (it’s a bone-spur) … So I’ve been reading up on it and found that WEIGHT can have an impact on how painful or irritating it is.
I don’t know if it’s from fat actually taking space (which is VERY limited) in the shoulder. Or the already overstressed shoulder & back having to support extra weight.
Who knows?
But, losing weight seems like a smart thing to try before jumping to amputation of the shoulder.
So I’m going to step up the walking to as close to 6 miles a day. Which always makes my weight fall off. And has the added benefit (as FAR pointed out) of helping me to sleep like a log (which should benefit Mister too)
Oh, and on Thanksgiving… We’re the second shift for the kids. They got to our house in the evening. So we just treated the meal like a Dinner with SPECIAL stuff.
No one even had pie until the next day.