Changing up my fitness approach and goals

[sarahmichigan]

Expanded from a comment I made over at fathletes:



I'd been tracking my activity on a daily and weekly basis and my fruit/veggie intake on a similar schedule since last November, via joesgoals.com and then posting a summary over here on my LJ.

In some ways, this was really good for me:
-I exercise largely because of the mental health benefits and not for any weight-loss reasons, and I find I get achy, cranky, and moody when I'm not getting enough activity. Tracking daily/weekly cardio activity helped me stay on track with at least a minimum level of exercise for optimal mental health.
-Tracking fruit and veggie consumption helped me develop the habit of getting in at least half a serving of fruit for breakfast and one full serving of fruit and one of veggies minimum at lunch each weekday. I've always had a pretty good diet in terms of fruit/veggie consumption, but the tracking has helped me be more consistent.
-The tracking also helped me identify trends- such as when I overdo it with exercise one week, I tend to have to recover and go easier than normal the next week. I also notice that I bite my cuticles and nails less when I'm doing a consistent level of exercise and other "self-care" activities.

But, I found that tracking these things closely also pushed some of my negative buttons from years of weight-loss dieting, too:
-For instance, I can't just go out for a walk or a bike ride without thinking about how many "points" this will be toward my daily or weekly goal.
-Tracking fruits and veggies sometimes puts me back in that old "good food/bad food" mentality that often accompanies weight-loss dieting. I feel righteous when I've had my 5+ servings, and feel like I'm "bad" when I have an off day.

I gave myself off the last 10 or so days of August to stop doing my tracking and to let up on the workouts. I was still walking and biking and stretching and doing some situps and push-ups, but not really doing structured "workouts" the way I had been. I started back to a new gym on Saturday, and I'm glad to be active again. However, I've also simultaneously cleared out and deleted my old joesgoals.com log. I feel it's time for a fresh start. I want to continue to track activity in some way, but now that I've pretty much established my fruit/veggie habits, I don't feel the need to track that as closely any more.

I think I want to continue to track the number of days per week that I get some kind of structured exercise/activity, but I also need to find room to acknowledge non-traditional exercise and activity, like mowing the lawn (with our hilly lawn and old beater of a mower, believe me when I say that this is a low-grade cardio workout) or leisurely non-cardio walking. I also think that if I'm going to be taking some classes that combine cardio and weights and flexibility exercises, then the format I was using before isn't going to work as well for me anymore.

I'll probably be ruminating on this once or twice more until I figure out a tracking system that works for me. I'm also open to hearing what has worked for those of my readers who track fitness/health goals, if anyone wants to share.

Comments

[effy.livejournal.com]

I agree with this...I've been tracking every workout since September 2006 with my heart rate monitor. A lot of times I think I focus too much on the statistics, and not the fact that I just exercised for an hour, if that makes sense.

But I'm not ready to exercise without it...

[flyinglemurs.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I wished we lived closer, so you might inspire me to go on walks and stuff...

[rossja.livejournal.com]

I've never been very good at tracking my progress or keeping a journal of what I eat and stuff. I think that's partially why I've always sucked at going to WW meetings. I'm not very on top of things in that way and I'd feel bad if I gained or ate more than my allotted points. It was kind of a waste of time for me. Informally following it years ago with just doing some of the recipes my cooperating teacher gave me back when I was student teaching and I did a lot better.

I haven't journaled about it yet b/c I'm kind of waiting to hit a particular point in all this, but since I got back from ME in May, I've started a real basic exercise program/eating better. The goal is rather simple at the moment, get at least 30 minutes of exercise more days than not. I accomplish that by walking for a half hour on lunch (even when it's stupid muggy out and 90 degrees - yes I'm insane) or by walking on my treadmill. I could technically do more, I just get bored easily on it. Plus I started back doing water aerobics. I couldn't do it last fall and winter b/c I had classes and didn't want to give up my Friday nights to go. This fall and this winter (if necessary) I will give up my Friday nights to go. I just feel better when I exercise. Plus I've been trying to eat better and I find that I haven't been having my issues with back pain as much, etc. It's been nice. As for tracking, I used to use a calendar that I created in a Word doc, but like with WW, I find that I don't end up keeping up with it. So mostly it's in my head for a short period of time. I can tell you that since May the least I've gotten 30 minutes of exercise has been 3 days a week and the most is 7. With the biggest combined total being 2 hours in the beginning on a given day and lately the most being 1 1/2 hour if I tread and go to water aerobics.

I should probably find a point in telling you this huh? Perhaps if you'd like to keep track, I would recommend keeping up with doing it on LJ. Keep a little note book and then at the end of the week or even daily, type it into LJ with the trends you want to look at. You can keep it public or private and if you want to look it over to see the trends you can put a tag on it, so that you can do a search for just those.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

That is so awesome, Jenny- good work. don't you find that regardless of weight loss/lost inches, regular exercise helps you feel more relaxed and loose and so on? It does for me, I know.

Sometimes I start feeling achy and realize it's not because I've "overdone it" but because I have been slacking off and my body wants to move MORE.

[rossja.livejournal.com]

Yeah I definitely find that I feel better when I move in a given day. Some days it's hard to get started, but I'm always happy after I start and when I finish. Mostly I'm happy that the incidents of my stomach hurting are less and less. It was starting to get to a point last year to where it was worrying me. I'm also finding that I crave sweets a bit less. Not that I don't still eat them, but it's not an overwhelming craving and I don't eat as much more often than not. So I'd call that success. Throw in a loss of 45 more lbs and I'll be very happy. That sort of puts me back to my happy goal weight. Not a size 6, but I've never wanted to be a size 6.

Although I'm still kind of stressing out this week and no amount of movement is going to help that. *sigh*

[chimalis.livejournal.com]

I have all kinds of fears of documentation and counting, too. I have a long way to go before I kick the good food/bad food thinking, and way longer a way to go before I kick the good food day/bad food day thinking. A stint with one of those calorie-counting websites that added up your food and subtracted your activities almost sent me over the mental edge. The only way I keep track now is in a notebook, where I note the kind of exercise I did and how long I did it for. I've discovered some useful things, such as 20 minutes a day is better than 40 minutes for only three days a week. It still gives me reason to yell at myself, though, and I wish I could keep track without writing it down - or, I guess, I wish I could write it down without yelling at myself about what I didn't do.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

I'd also like to be able to track without going to either extreme: using it either to beat myself up OR to congratulate myself. Eventually, I'd just like to treat it as objective data, data to help me spot trends and figure out what works best for me. It's hard, though.