Tag Archives: my fitness pal

Counting Every Calorie (or Seeing Things In Black and White)

Posted on October 24, 2014 | Comments Off on Counting Every Calorie (or Seeing Things In Black and White)

The other day I seriously went crazy with food. Not just a little. Crazy to the point I felt sick.

Usually when this happens, I make sure that when I’m done I throw out any remaining “bad” food so I can start over the next day. And since I track my calories, I put in something into the MyFitnessPal app so it doesn’t show that I skipped a day.

That’s not exactly how things went this week.

First of all, I forgot to throw out all of the “bad” food. And so when I discovered it the next day, I decided to eat it for breakfast (I have no clue why I did this).

So I was already feeling pretty horrible about my day after eating something I shouldn’t have first thing in the morning. But I decided to make myself accountable for what I did.

First, I went back to the day before and entered in all the foods I ate. I went well over my calorie goal for the day, but at least I had a number to put to it.

Then I entered what I ate in the morning. It was over half of my calories for the day. But by having that information in, I found a way to manage my calories for the rest of the day so that with my workout that afternoon, I was just under my calorie goal for the day.

Taking the emotions out of food is really helping me. While I’m in the moment of weakness and eating what I shouldn’t, it’s a completely emotional experience (even if that emotion is being numb). But when I regain my senses, putting the calories of everything down really does help put things into perspective.

I could have easily said that I screwed up with my breakfast so why not screw up for the entire day. And I’ve done that over and over again. It’s so easy to believe that you will start being good tomorrow or after the weekend or after the holidays. But starting over right after the “bad” meal is really the best.

I hate that I’m still struggling with all of this. I wish that it would just go away. But the reality is that I will most likely have these issues for the rest of my life. Hopefully it won’t be as frequent as it is now (which is way less frequent than it used to be), but I have to allow myself to have slip-ups.

And at least by tracking everything I can see that I didn’t really screw up and that I can get back on track and still have a successful day.

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Posted in Food, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

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Cheesecake With My Birthday Twin (or Continuing A New Tradition)

Posted on January 6, 2014 | Comments Off on Cheesecake With My Birthday Twin (or Continuing A New Tradition)

In 2012 around Christmas time, my birthday twin Joanna and I went out for cheesecake. We decided then that we would make Christmas time cheesecake one of our new traditions (like us getting our free birthday meal).

Somehow, we both totally forgot that we said that this would be a new tradition until after Christmas. I texted Joanna to see how we could fix this, and she suggested that we get cheesecake right after New Year’s (it could still be considered holiday cheesecake then).

I was super lucky to have the day after New Year’s Day off so that ended up being our cheesecake day.

We went back to The Grove where we had cheesecake last time. But this time it was in the daytime so there were no holiday lights. And there were people taking down all the Christmas decorations so I didn’t take any pictures (you don’t want to see a tree coming down, do you?).

We got lunch and cheesecake this time. Since I’ve been working on being good with my calories, I looked at the low-calorie options that Cheesecake Factory had. Most of their regular dishes have about 1,000 calories in them and I couldn’t do that plus my cheesecake.

I’m normally not a fan of the low-calorie menus, but I have to say that this one was actually pretty good! Joanna and I both ended up ordering off of it. Joanna had a salad and I had a sausage and cheese flatbread (which was 460 calories if you were interested).

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Then it was time for the main event (at least what we both considered the main event). While I would have loved to have gotten the red velvet cheesecake again, my calorie budget did not allow for that. So I checked on MyFitnessPal to see which cheesecakes that I like fit into my calorie budget (it helped that I didn’t have time to eat breakfast that day so I had some extra calories to play with). I ended up getting one of my all-time favorite cheesecakes, the tiramisu cheesecake.

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Joanna got the plain cheesecake with strawberry topping on top.

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It was a great meal! And of course, any time I get to hang out with my friend Joanna is awesome (we don’t see each other as often as we used to). We had a fun chat discussing our day jobs, acting, and just having a catchup talk.

I’m so glad that I have this new tradition continuing. Hopefully this year we will remember to do it around Christmas time so we can see all the awesome decorations again.

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How Speedy Is My Heart? (or Another Gadget For Me)

Posted on April 2, 2013 | Comments Off on How Speedy Is My Heart? (or Another Gadget For Me)

I’ve previously mentioned that I track all my calories on My Fitness Pal. I keep track of both the calories I eat as well as the calories I burn in a workout.

Tracking food is pretty easy. Most things are already in My Fitness Pal, and if they aren’t and they have a bar code, all you do is scan it in.

But tracking workouts are a bit more difficult. There are preset calorie burns for walking and Spinning (you just have to put in how long you’ve worked out), but I don’t entirely trust those.

So I decided to make another investment in my health. I bought a heart rate monitor that also tracks my calorie burns during workouts.

I did a bunch of research online, and I decided to get the Polar FT4F (and I got the pink one because it’s cute).

I ended up buying it at a store near my house instead of online so I’d have it to test out (and it would be easier to return if it didn’t work). I had an old heart rate monitor years ago, but this is way better.

First of all, the chest strap is really comfortable. It’s all fabric (compared to the plastic one I used to have) and it doesn’t stick out a bunch under my clothes. All you have to do before wearing it is get the sensors wet. I tested it out as soon as I got home and it was pretty easy.

Also, the watch part of the system is nice too. The only downside is you can only see one thing at a time (heart rate, calorie burn, clock). It would be nice if there was a screen where you could see everything. But at least it’s easy to read.

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I’m hoping to make it to spin class today. But I have a doctor’s appointment in the middle of the day as well as some family things going on (more about that in the next day or two).

If nothing else, I can test it out when I do my 5K this Saturday. Hopefully this will give me a more accurate number of calories I burn in a workout so I can adjust my food intake accordingly.

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Weight Loss

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Brick + Mortar (or Another Happy Hour Adventure!)

Posted on January 8, 2013 | Comments Off on Brick + Mortar (or Another Happy Hour Adventure!)

With Mondays now being my early days, my happy hour adventures with my friend have been moved to Mondays as well.

I let her know the switch of date over the weekend, and she sent me a list of happy hours near Santa Monica that she wanted to check out. I think we should try them all, but yesterday we decided to check out Brick + Mortar. When we got to the location, we realized that it was where Salute used to be. We went to Salute a few years back with a few other people before my friend moved to the LA area. But I guess that place shut down (I liked the wine machines so I’m sad about that).

Brick + Mortar was pretty fun! They had the BSC game on in the background so we kind of paid attention to it (I had a ton of people rooting for Alabama, so I wanted them to win). The happy hour menu had a bunch of cheap but yummy options.

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We decided to split the truffle fries and the short rib pizza. I also ordered my traditional Dirty Shirley.

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I will say that the bartender at Brick + Mortar pours strong drinks! I took a sip of my drink when they set it down, and it tasted like straight vodka. I waited for some of the ice to melt to make the drink a little weaker.

Our food was delicious.

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And once we were done eating, we both ended up opening our My Fitness Pal apps on our iPhones to track our food for the day. I get a kick out of that. I also finally friended my friend on the app (if you use My Fitness Pal and want to be friends, leave a comment with your user name and I’ll add you!).

I’m still adjusting my internal clock to my new schedule, but a fun and delicious happy hour is totally making the transition a bit easier!

 

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Posted in Food, Fun Stuff

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What I’ve Been Eating (or Does It Really Matter If I’m Still Under My Calories?)

Posted on October 8, 2012 | 7 comments

If I’m being honest with you all (and myself), my food has not been too great lately. With my work schedule, there are only certain days that I can go to the grocery store. And when I did go this past week, I didn’t really feel like getting enough to last all the days it needed to.

I’ve had some fast food this week. When I don’t bring a lunch with me to work, that’s almost the only option. We only have 30 minutes and most of the restaurants near my work would take much longer than that.

Even though I’ve been eating some foods that I probably shouldn’t, I’m still tracking my calories in My Fitness Pal. And shockingly, I’m staying under my calorie goal most days. These calories are not the best to have, but I’m wondering if that matters.

I’m maintaining the weight loss that I had from both not being able to eat food and being sick. Sometimes, it will go up a pound or two, but I think that’s more from sodium than anything.

I don’t want to be stuck in this routine. It’s not good. But it’s tough to get out. I should have gone to the grocery store yesterday, but I didn’t. And tonight, I’m working until 9pm and I really hate going to the grocery store that late. Honestly, I probably won’t make it to the store until Wednesday.

So I have to figure out what I’ll do for lunch today, tomorrow, and Wednesday. Dinner for tonight and tomorrow most likely will be Subway. Subway is my go-to place and since I get a veggie sandwich, I know I’ll get my vegetable servings in for the day. But lunch is the tricky meal. Since I eat lunch at 4:30, my body isn’t always hungry. But if I don’t eat then, I’ll feel faint by 9pm.

I wish I could write that I have a great plan figured out for this week, but I don’t. I’m probably going to have fast food again. But all I can do is track the calories and work as hard as possible to stay under my numbers for the day.

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Posted in Food, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

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Continuing the Birthday Celebration (or Eating at Benihana for Free!)

Posted on August 16, 2012 | Comments Off on Continuing the Birthday Celebration (or Eating at Benihana for Free!)

Last night, I enjoyed another birthday perk. If you sign up for the email list at Benihana, you get a $30 gift certificate to use for yourself in your birthday month! I don’t frequent Benihana, but this is a deal that is tough to pass up.

The $30 can only be used on your food, so I got the filet mignon and a strawberry lemonade. I ended up going only like $1 over my $30. And then my friend who joined me got to splurge and get scallops because she and I just split the bill.

It was a fun festival dinner, and you can never go wrong with having a free meal. The only obnoxious thing was it seemed like everyone was celebrating a birthday in the entire restaurant. And at Benihana, they don’t just sing “Happy Birthday”, they shout it in very shrill voices.

After hearing the singing over a half-dozen times, I made sure to ask the waitress if they could skip singing to me. She looked at me a little confused, but when I explained that I had a headache, she completely understood. That made the meal a little better.

Oh, and an added bonus about going to Benihana? On MyFitnessPal there is already a category for the calories in all the sides that come with a hibachi meal (soup, salad, shrimp, vegetables, tea)!

I managed to have a free meal and stay under my calories yesterday! Double win!

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Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff

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