First Ski of 2018!

Today was my first cross country ski of the year!  My mom and I went to Kamview for about 45 minutes.  I checked my glucose along the way and all was fine!  The only issue came later - I went quite high in the aftermath (even after doing some insulin as soon as we finished), so I'll have to look at dealing better with that next time.

My mom and I decided not to get our skis hot waxed since we only went a few times last year.  Hilariously, my skis for some reason had all the grip on them - I was able to walk up all the hills (it was like when I used to wax my glide area with grip wax - oops!) My mom is going to take both our skis to be waxed this week, so hopefully I'll actually be able to glide next time!  ;)

Weight Update for Jan 19

So just for fun, I weighed myself again this morning.  I wanted to see if there was any difference.  Here's what I got:

weight: 205.4 lbs
fat percentage: 43.5%
hydration: 38.8%
muscle: 27.8%
bone: 10.8%
cal: 2313

So yeah, three pound difference, and a 2.7% decrease in fat percentage over one day.  I weighed myself slightly earlier today than yesterday (by about an hour).  Also I weighed myself before jumping in the shower today, vs after jumping in the shower.  So I don't know if that makes any difference or not, but otherwise I have no explanations.

This does go to show you though that weight fluctuates (sometimes wildly) on a day to day basis.  

Weight Update for Jan 18

Just a quick weight update:

weight: 208.4 lbs
fat percentage: 46.2%
hydration: 36.9%
muscle: 26.5%
bone: 10.7%
cal: 2337

I gained a little, but that's not super surprising since I had a weekend-long event where I ate out for lunch and dinner.  I knew the first few weeks of January were going to be a bit rough for all of my goals (plus I was sick, which didn't help), so I'm going to start in earnest next week, particularly with the eating out goal.

Bad Idea: Forgetting to Take the Plastic Backing Off a Sensor

So I ran a sensor over the last few days.  Everything went really well except for one thing: when I inserted it, I suddenly realized that the sensor had not come off the backing plastic/paper stuff.  That meant it wasn't sticky and couldn't stick onto my abdomen at all.

I debated about pulling it out and trying again.  But the site looked and felt good - it was in a spot I was confident would work well over night while sleeping.  So I decided to leave it in.  I used extra pieces of the donut tape stuff that the sensors all come with (the tape with the hole in the middle) to make sure it would stay.  Everything seemed fine, so I made sure to keep an eye on things in case it let go.  But through the whole six days, the transmitter and sensor stayed securely on my side.

The problems started a few days ago.  Something under the tape was hurting.  It wasn't happening all the time, so I was pretty sure it was that plastic stuff starting to rub against my skin.  Once again, I debated about what to do.  The sensor was functioning fine, so I didn't want to yank it.  I decided to keep a closer eye on things; if I saw any indication that things weren't going okay with the site, I would pull it then.

The sensor lasted the full six days, ending today around 2:30pm.  I peeled it off to find - as expected - a few points where the plastic had clearly been bothering my skin, rather than the usual one point where the sensor was inserted.

The darkest point isn't the one where the sensor was inserted - it's a point the plastic was rubbing. :(

So if you're ever using a sensor, please please please make sure that plastic comes off before you insert it.  Your skin will thank you!

Weight Update for Jan 7

Ok, I've mostly survived the holidays.  Yesterday was another big meal, so I don't know that weighing myself today was a good idea, but I did it anyway.

weight: 207.6 lbs
fat percentage: 44.2%
hydration: 38.3%
muscle: 27.5%
bone: 10.7%
cal: 2332

So not horrible numbers all things considered.  This is after almost all the big meals plus my period.

I've got one more holiday event to get through tonight then life should be getting relatively back to normal. :)

2018 Goals

Alright, I gave this a lot of thought.  Here are my goals for 2018:

1. Walk 5000+ steps on 5 days of every week
2. Eat out only once a week MAXIMUM
3. 60 minutes of non-walking a week
4. Weight to 190 lbs

Over the last few years, I've found that the goals I can break down and measure in some way are the ones I do better with (over the super vague ones like 2017's "control my portions" - I didn't even remember I had set that as a goal). So this year the three goals I've set are measurable - I'll be keeping track of them all in the calendar I already use for tracking my steps.

Ideally, I would also like to make a goal about limiting eating junk food at work because this is something I consistently struggle with.  But I can't come up with any way to conceivably limit this and measure my progress.  So I'll have to leave this out as a goal for this year.

So here's my rationale for the 2018 goals:

1. Walk 5000+ steps on 5 days of every week

My original thought was to increase the number of steps I aim for daily (like going up to 5500, or 6000 steps).  And while my average daily steps in 2017 say I took over 5000 steps, I only made this goal during 21/52 weeks.  So I think I need to redo this goal in 2018, to better hit those numbers overall.  I know I've already lost this week due to being ill, so I'll be starting next week in earnest.

I will also need to keep a better eye on my daily steps with the intention of actively working towards the 5000 step goal every day.  Over this last year, particularly in the fall, I noticed that I walk (or not) without paying any attention to what my steps are at.  I need to make more of an effort to pay attention and work to move a little more this year.

2. Eat out only once a week MAXIMUM

This one is a weird one.  Over the last little while, I feel like I've been eating out more at weird times.  Like I'm hanging out with friends and they want to go through the drive-through; I order something because I'm there, even though I JUST ATE.

So for this goal, I'm going to count "eating out" as eating out at a restaurant or fast food place.  Having a meal at home/my parent's/a friend's is fine (as long as it's not like random fried freezer things we're heating - that will count as a meal "out").  Leftovers is fine.  Putting something healthy together to be reheated at work is fine.

*I'm going to track this in the same calendar I use to track my Fitbit steps.

3. 60 minutes of non-walking a week

Last year I attempted to swim twice a week (which if I swam for 30 minutes each time, equates to 60 minutes a week).  I stalled out badly in the summer.  And I ran into problems in general: if I swam twice a week, I had a hard time fitting in yoga.  Or skiing.  Or if I skied once during the week, how do I also fit in swimming twice?  So this year I'm going to open it up to any activity.  If I feel like swimming, I can go swimming.  If I want to bike, or snowshoe, or whatever, I can do that too.  If I go snowshoeing for a couple of hours, cool, I hit the goal for the week.  But if I swim for 30 minutes, I'll have to fit something else in, too.


I'm hoping that flexibility will work better for me than the rigid "twice a week" did. 

4. Weight to 190 lbs

 I almost didn't bother setting a weight goal this year.  Over the last like two years, my weight has stayed between about 210-205lbs.  I get it down to 205lbs, then back up it goes.  My overall goal is to get to a healthy BMI.  But after the last few years, I've honestly been getting discouraged because a BMI of about 24.4 is 170lbs.  How the heck am I going to get to that weight (AND MAINTAIN IT????) when I can't even make it to 200lbs?

But rather than focus on the huge goal, let's break it down.  15 lbs.  Let's see if I can do that this year.  I don't have to do 40 lbs.  I don't have to do 30 lbs.  I don't have to even do 20 lbs. 

So that's it.  My goals for 2018.  Wish me luck as I work at being more active than last year.  Ideally I want to build good habits that help me lead the healthiest life I can.  I'm hopeful that this year's goals will build off of last year's goals

One final note: I'm going to define success as 80% of the time with goals 1-3.  I know that life happens sometimes (heck even this week I got sidelined because I'm sick).  So I will aim for 100%, but as long as I hit 80% I will consider it a success. :)

2017 Year in Review

Happy New Year!  Sorry that this is a bit late.  It's been a rather rough week (I've been sick). :(  But I'm feeling better, so it's time to look back at my goals for 2017, to see how I did with them (and to set new goals for 2018).

My goals for 2017 were the following:

1. Walk 5000+ steps on five days of every week
2. Swim twice a week every week
3. Control my food portions.

So let's start with goal #1, walking 5000+ steps on five days of every week.  But first, here's December's Fitbit stats:

Dec: 126,057 steps, 30 days tracked, 4,202 average

 And here's the year in total:

 2, 003, 209 steps, 346.5 days tracked, 5781 average

This is an interesting statistic.   I took more steps than in 2016 and tracked more days.  But my average steps per day was actually lower by about 200 steps.  But my average is still over 5000 steps a day, so that's alright.

Alright, for the purposes of this goal, I am counting a week as starting on Sunday and ending on Saturday (because that's how the calendar I'm using looks).  There are 52 weeks in the year.  I walked 5000+ steps on five out of 7 days on only 21 weeks out of the year.  So that's kind of crappy because it's less than half. :(

I also want to note that one thing that sucks about the Fitbit is that "active minutes" and "steps taken" often don't equate.  So going swimming doesn't help my steps.  It's something to keep in mind when setting activity goals in the future.

So now, goal #2, swimming twice a week every week.  This was a complete failure.  I managed to swim twice a week on just five weeks.  I managed to swim once a week on 14 other weeks.  So really I swam on only 19 weeks (which also means my gym membership was completely wasted).  I did much better in the winter and spring of 2017, but stopped going in the summer and had a heck of a time motivating myself to get back to swimming.

Which brings us to goal #3: control my food portions.  I forgot that I set this as a goal.  I didn't track it in any way (I don't even know how I would track it?)  So let's just say this was a total failure.

As a completely unrelated side note, I used my snowshoes for the first time ever on Jan 1, 2018.  They worked well and I had a lot of fun!  :)

So after looking at all of this, I'm going to have to take a bit of time to think of goals for 2018.