Tickers!

First off, please accept my apologies for falling off the face of the earth. We lost internet access for a few days, and it was like losing a limb.

S. K. Walker had a great recommendation that we could have tickers on the sidebar for our weight loss. I put one up for me, using the tickers at www.tickerfactory.com. It took me less than two minutes to make it.

If you'd like me to feature your ticker, go create one, email me the html (please email to brigidmary@gmail.com), and I'll create a box for you! You'll have to regularly log into www.tickerfactory.com to update your weight, and it will automatically update the ticker on my blog. Go give it a whirl!

Keep in mind, as with mine, you don't have to reveal your actual weight. (Though really, if you've been sticking with me and can do simple math, you've probably figured it out.) You can set it to reveal only your weight loss.

If you don't want to make it public, no worries! I'm still here, we're all still here.

Good company, good friends. I'm glad to have you guys along for the ride.

Here's a quickie...

My husband pointed me to this Yahoo Health article about fifteen common dieting myths. Usually I skim these because it's the same old crap.

This one's not.

Give it a read. It's by the same guy who did the "Eat This, Not That" books that are a staple in my kitchen. My favorite recommendation from this article? Eat your goal weight's worth of protein a day, in grams. (Maybe I could speak English.) If you want to be 150 pounds, eat 150 grams of protein a day. 

Any success stories to share?

Another tool

My husband pointed me to...

(Wait, I just realized I titled the post "Another tool" and then started out with "My husband." Haha.)

*Ahem* I'm probably only laughing because it's 5am while I'm writing this.

Anyway.

Another tool my husband showed me was the "Calories Per Day" Calculator, which tells you how many calories you actually burn just by existing. If you're following the calorie route, this might be a useful tool for you.

My goal for today (and going forward) is to drink more water during the day. Does anyone know if drinking Crystal Light gives you the same benefit as drinking straight water? For some reason I always feel more thirsty if I'm drinking a lot of Crystal Light. And Google isn't too helpful in finding an accurate answer to this question.

How's everyone else doing? Still up here on the wagon with me?

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Tools of the Trade

So yesterday, on our long car ride, Mike was asking me how I'm going to lose five pounds this month.

I actually thought he was kidding, so I rolled my eyes and said, "I'm going to burn more calories than I consume."

He said, seriously, "No, do you even know how many calories you have to burn to lose a pound?"

I didn't. It's 3,500.

So for 5 pounds, that's 17,500 calories for which I have to create a deficit.

Now, if you do Weight Watchers, the point system is really a calorie counter. Yes, fat makes the point value go up and fiber makes it go down, but you can always guesstimate that 50 calories = 1 point, and you won't be too far off. Yes, it's easier to count 25 points and write down your food than to get hugely anal and write down 164 calories for a baked potato or something (I completely made that up), but that's the real deal. It's calories. They're counting them.

For January, I'm going to use www.fitday.com to track my food, and see how it goes.

As far as my caloric intake, I went to  http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/calories-goal.php, and here's what it told me:

Results

You should consume about 1,200 calories a day to reach your goal weight of 150 lbs This is at a reasonable weight loss average of 1.46 lbs per week, which should be reached by September 05, 2011.

Now, my goal is 5 pounds a month, and I'm shooting for an end date of December 31, 2011, so I'm going to ease up on the throttle a little bit. Remember, I don't want this to feel like a hardcore diet -- I've already learned that those are a pain in the ass, and I invariably fall off the wagon at some point or another.

Remember: Five pounds, one month, that's it.

Also, I put in that I'm mostly sedentary, which is true for right now. My gym habits have gone from 5 days a week (last March), to basically nonexistent. 

So for January, I'm going to set my target caloric intake to 1,400. I'm going to go to the gym three times per week, for 45 minutes each day. (I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet.)

I now have a few followers, and people who have jumped in with comments. Welcome, guys! I'm so excited we're doing this together! Tell your friends! I think this is going to be fun.

What are you guys doing this month?

Should I create a sidebar with everyone who's doing it, so we can all cheer each other on?

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