Hi there,
I'm new to being serious about being healthy. I am a nursing student and I want to be a good example for my future and current patients by living the best life I can. I want to be as balanced as I can so that I am healthy overall, not just worrying about my weight and looks.

I want to keep a record of my activities, thoughts, moods, and foods every day so that I can track where I need to improve.

My bigger goals are to get up to an hour of physical activity every day, 5-10 vegetables and fruits every day, and to complete a sprint distance triathlon by next summer. In the process, I am hoping to lose 25 pounds, from 150 - 125, which is what I used to be when I was at my healthiest.

In the meantime, I will start with smaller things.

3 veggies and one fruit daily.
1/2 hour of time spent outdoors every day.
5 minutes of meditation every day.
4-6 small meals through the day, eating until I am 80% full only.

It's been an interesting first day.
I saw that lots of people on here keep track of calories with FitDay, so I went on there and recorded what I was eating. I knew that a lot of things I ate weren't healthy, but seeing the numbers come up really hits hard.

Today, I had granola, saskatoons and milk for breakfast. And because I saw how much it was worth before I ate it, I only ate half and put the rest in the frig for later.
That's more than 400 calories right there. Yikes.

Then I had broccoli and cauliflower with veggie dip, and two slices of rye toast with an egg.

Then a carrot and dip and the rest of my granola.

Then a pear for a snack.

All told, about 1400 calories, and I didn't even wash it down with a beer or two like I normally do. Jeez, a beer has 150 calories!

I said earlier that I know the principles of eating well and exercising, but I already feel faudulent in that statement. If I knew what eating well was really about, why haven't I been doing it!?

And no exercise today, but I have a legitimate excuse. I twisted my ankle a few days ago and I've been walking on it because I had to work, but I wanted to give it a true break before I have to go back so it doesn't get any worse.
Although, I suppose I should have done crunches or something. Damnation!

This is going to be tough.

ah, a fellow nursing student huh??? what semester are you in??

Hi Korrie,
Nice to meet you!
I'm just finishing up the 1st year of an after-degree program that speeds us through in 2 years. I get two months off, and then 12 months straight coming up!
How far are you in your program?

Rachel


Aside to myself...

I just realized that I didn't post anything about mood, thoughts, meditation etc.
My mood was pretty good. I woke up early, did some work, then wasted lots of time on the Internet.
I will meditate before bed.
I met my veggie/fruit goal today, so that's good

Canada must do things differently than we do??? We only have 3 semesters (one year) of classes for nursing. I just finished up my 1st semester, we mainly focused on skills (trache tubes, shots, IVs, ect) and pharmacology. I did take the summer off though, so i'm gonna graduate later than I expected, but I needed the time off!!

good luck on your weight loss journey! let me know if you have any questions !!

Today I woke up early. I hate that on a weekend! I had hoped my ankle would be better, but it is still swollen, so no running or biking for me. It sucks. I was just getting into a routine, and now I am all de-motivated again. I could do an exercise video, but we are having nice weather, and I hate being indoors. Maybe I'll do one later...

I started eating well early today, but it fell apart right away. I went out to go grocery shopping, and my cousin called me to go do some errands, so I went with her. Then I got hungry and bought a store-bought turkey sandwich that had butter/cheese/mayo on it. Blech. And I also bought a coffee, which I normally drink black, but it was too bitter, so I added full cream because I hate the taste of skim in my coffee.

Then we went for sushi, which would normally be fine, but we got some of it deep-fried. Not such a healthy choice anymore!

Now I am seriously considering the call of that nice cold beer in the frig - sitting out on my balcony on this beautiful sunny day with a book, tunes, and a beer or two. Even though I know it might be a poor diet choice, I'll probably do it anyway because it sounds deliciously decadent to me, and I am feeling a bit sorry for myself because of all the homework I have to do and the fact that no one is calling me to go out tonight. (I told everyone I had homework so it isn't that I have bad friends, but I am feeling sorry for myself anyways!)

I read somewhere, maybe on this forum, that a craving usually takes between 3 and 10 minutes to pass. That is doable, right?

I'll wait 10 minutes and have a glass of water, and then we shall see, shan't we...

To Korrie,
Yes, I guess it's different in Canada. To be an RN here, you need to do a 4-year Bachelor of Science in Nursing. I am lucky because I did a previous degree, so they have a program that lets you skip the arts courses and such and just do straight science and nursing courses in 2 years instead of 4. We also have LPN programs that are shorter than 4 years, but that's not the stream I am swimming.
Thanks for your support so far. I will definitely let you know if I have questions.

Oh Shit.

Well the waiting on a craving to pass thing definitely didn't work. I had three beer and a bowl of cherries while I avoided my homework, and then I went out dancing and had two more beer. At least the dancing was vigourous!
So I had a whopping 2500 calorie day yesterday, thanks to all the beer.
Nicely though, I didn't get wasted. That's a plus. Those 5 beer were over 9 hours.
However, the homework is still not done, so what am I doing HERE?

Today I'm having a good start again, an apple to keep the doc off my back.
More later.

Well, today went much better than yesterday. Still no exercise though, which I am being silly about. Just because my ankle still hurts isn't an excuse to not do sit ups or some stretching or yoga or something. The truth is, today, I am suffering from lack of sleep and overage of alcohol, which made me very lazy.

I went for brunch this morning and had some amazing poached eggs on an english muffin with smoked salmon, capers, and a cream dill sauce and cheese, all baked in the oven. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I skipped the last egg and english muffin though, although I didn't miss a single piece of salmon or cheese.

Then I had snowpeas, plain airpopped popcorn, a ham sandwich with tomato, and a pear throughout the rest of the day. All told, not too bad.

Tomorrow, I start the pushup challenge.

I had a relatively good day foodwise. I feel overtired today though, so I ate too much, as I usually do when I am tired. Counterproductive, really, as all that digestion makes me sleepier!

It's a good thing I checked in here today though, because I already forgot I am supposed to start doing the pushup challenge today! I would have left it and then kicked myself. Now I can do it when I get off here.

I had a funny day in the mental hospital today where I am doing a practicum. One patient escaped his bath helpers and ran naked through the unit, to the glee of the other patients, and one patient who cut his knuckle somehow in the night decided to use it as an opportunity to express himself by writing on the walls in his blood...

It's too funny though because in reality these patients are very sweet. They just do crazy things!

Okay, off to do pushups. Hopefully it will get me started on the exercise train.

Hello Kaiser & fellow Albertan, welcome to the Forum.

LOL, sounds like some of the patients I was in with...

Those are some awesome goals!! Keep workin hard, I'll be cheerin ya on! WOOT!

Lata

Hi RunningGirl, thanks for the post!

I totally $%#^$ed up yesterday. But since I am trying to be truthful I will tell all.
Foodwise, I started out not so bad, veggies, and whole wheat and ham. But then I went grocery shopping to get some supplies for making a cake for where I am working and bought a package of those Annette's donuts, (cake donuts covered in powdered sugar) and ate 9 of them.
Jeez.
Then I came home and cooked a frozen pizza that I bought along with the donuts and ate half of it. I would have eaten the whole thing but for the fact that my brother came home and surprised me, so I gave him the rest, pretending I wouldn't have eaten it all in one go.
I have to admit, this is not a one-time thing for me. I go on these binges, not too often, but often enough. This is definitely one of the reasons I stay pudgy.

On the positive side, I am doing the push-up challenge just fine. At least one thing isn't falling apart.

Today though, I went out with my ex for a couple beer just to chat as he was picking up some stuff he left at my place. It was great to see him, and good to have the beer, but it is dietarily not a good choice. And I plan to have more drinks tomorrow as a celebration with some nursing buddies.

I was doing really well before I bunged up my ankle. I just have no motivation now, and I don't know how to get it back. I am not good at pushing through the rough times.

Okay, I am feeling better today. I think I am partially recovered from my binge.

I decided to follow my own advice I gave to someone else and decide on definite numbers for my calorie requirements. Then I will know how far off I am when I am off. I am using the site BMR Calculator to figure this out.

When I am sedentary, I need 1777 calories per day to maintain my weight of 150 lbs. To lose a pound a week, I need to reduce that to 1277.

When I am exercising lightly 1 - 3 times a week, I need 2036 calories to maintain my weight. To lose, I should eat 1536.

When I am exercising harder 3-5 times a week, I need 2300 to maintain, 1800 to lose.

Obviously if I lose weight, I'll have to recalculate this, but that seems doable for now. Since my ankle is sore, I won't be doing any hard exercise for awhile, so I will aim to take in 1200-1500 calories a day, depending on my exercise.
Now I have a goal.
Slowly but surely, I hope to get there. I have never been successful with weight loss before, but maybe with these more specific goals, I can do it.

According to the same site I cited in my previous post, my waist of 35, hips of 41, wrist of 6, and forearm of 9.6 inches gives me a body fat percentage of 32.78.
That seems very high, as it puts me in the obese category, and I don't think I am, but whatever. I will use it only as a measuring stick to determine whether I am decreasing the percentage, not as an absolute number.

I do see that my because my waist to hip ratio is not great, .85, I need to work on decreasing my fat percentage to put me in a lower risk category for things like cardiovascular disease. I see that when they measure the waist though, they say put the tape measure at the top of your highest hip bone. If I put it above my belly button, my waist is 32, which makes me healthy. I am confused as to where 'waist' is defined. Is it just above the hip, or at the belly button?

Hello Kaiser,

I am not too exactly sure about which waist (oops) measurement is the correct one either.

In the challenge I am in so that it is fair to everyone, because some are larger and not able to find certain measurement's is what my understanding of it is. Is that we've been measuring our "waist" across the belly button. Which makes mine 27, BUT when I measure my "other waist" it's 24...so the Hip bone being easy enough, but the waist, I think it is where it goes in (if that makes sense) Although I have found other pics of bodies and where is the right area of the Waist...it seems to be one of those two places. You could always measure both places weekly...

I've seen ppl measure their "higher thigh" and than "lower thigh" along with their butt. LOL and why not?

Anyways, good to hear you pulled through that tough spot. I know all about those lil white powdered doughnuts. In another two weeks I will be fighting those lil cinnamon doughnuts at the Stampede.

Take Care, Lata

In my training we were taught to take the hip measurement at the iliac crest and the waist at the narrowest point. but as long as the measurement location is consistant it should be fine for tracking changes. I have measurements done each month by another trainer including calipers for bf%