So this past week I figured out why I wasn't losing weight.....I was eating too much! Ha ha!
Seriously, I started tracking my diet and exercise on a free iPhone app called "Lose It!" and realized that my morning smoothie was around 1000 calories by itself! I got in that habit during chemo because I was losing too much weight too fast after my first infusion, so I bumped up my calorie intake.
I started 6 days ago and have lost 3.2 pounds. I want to lose 35 pounds ultimately, but 20 would be a very good start. Before my cancer diagnosis and chemo I had a very difficult time losing weight, but maybe that was part of the imbalance with the cancer. Plus I drank a lot of beer...
I would recommend this app for anyone wanting to track their progress, but there are a lot of good ones out there. My strategy is to keep my calories in check, keep carbs to 100 - 125g per day, and keep protein to at least 75g per day. Nearly all of the fats in my diet are good fats and carefully selected, and almost all of my animal products are local from pastured animals. I eat lots of veggies.
I've been spending 30 minutes on the treadmill per day for about a month and a half now, and I listen to Anthony Robbins for motivation. During the 30 minutes I spend 10 minutes also lifting 3 pound weights for my arms. I love the Anthony Robbins stuff and it makes me look forward to my workouts!
During chemo exercise made my head feel clearer and I felt a little better overall, but it just 20 minutes would make me feel so tired I had to do it at night before bed! It's better now that I've been off for almost 2 months, but it was still making me too tired. I talked to the nutritionist at the cancer center about it, and she suggested that I take my pulse readings and make sure I'm staying in the cardio range. Sure enough, I checked it and I was going at it too hard! So I slowed down and now my workouts are way more pleasant.
Getting outside more is a big thing for me. Lately we've had a lot of snow and I shovel it a little to get myself outside. But I tend to stay inside too much and I'm working on changing that.
Thank you Europa for the cake recipe! I will try that one for sure!
Thanks Paula for starting the thread, I'm enjoying reading what everyone is doing to stay healthy!
Way to go ladies!!
