piebird79 Member

I never hold on to the treadmill. I occasionally walk at a slight incline and my pace varies, but is usually 3.5 or 3.8 mph. It really is a much better workout. FYI, you shouldn't hold on to the bars of the elliptical either for the same reason.

I happily eat back my exercise calories. You could eat lots of fruits and veggies to make up the difference. Nuts pack lots of calories in a relatively small package. You could try protein bars or powders. I like Pure Protein bars and EAS vanilla powder. Both of those options are very low in sugar.

Losing 3 pounds in 2 weeks (i.e. 1.5 pounds per week) is great. I think you should eat back your calories. Ultimately you may need to eat more than 1200 calories as well. I'd lift weights as well. Muscle burns more calories resting than fat burns. You're not going to bulk-up unless you're one of the rare women genetically…

Congratulations!

Thanks for the link; this makes so much more sense now! To dismount, I simultaneously drop my feet to either side of the ball and then walk my hands back up toward the ball. It works pretty well.

Check out "The New Rules of Lifting for Women" by Lou Schuler. It should get you started down the path to lifting heavy without hurting yourself.

lol...bump!

I thought that the program was to do Workout A and Workout B on the same day and repeat (i.e. A,B,A,B or B,A,B,A). I started on Monday 01/02/12 and only did Workout B,A because I was so exhausted. On Wednesday and Thursday I did Workout A,B,A,B both days. It takes me about 1 1/2 hours to do all the lifting including the…

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I can't believe no one's mentioned "Psycho Killer" by Talking Heads. Run, run, run away......

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Talking Heads "Stop Making Sense" or Outkast are my go to work out music.

[/quote]Make sure your settings are fixed for a half a pound - yes 1/2 pound of weight loss per week. Do this for 1 month to help you over this hump. Too often people get all hot and bothered come Jan 1st, set unreasonable goals, then starve themselves before failing totally by March. Slow down. Go to a half a pound and…

Great job! I agree, you're oozing confidence!

It definitely depends upon the instructor. I think what they normally say is you can burn about 500 calories an hour. Calorie burn depends upon so many variables though, so who knows. It took me ages to get the moves down, but my instructor mixes it up frequently. Also, a few weeks after I stared Zumba I found out I was…

We have a family membership for the YMCA and it costs $79/month. Our children are young, so this includes 2 hours of child care per day per child. Our Y has 2 pools, a big slide, bunches of cardio machines, weight machines, free weighs, a circuit training area, 2 courts, classes, an outdoor track, 5 locker rooms (one for…

One more thing, use a darker lettuce, like romaine, or even spinach, instead of a light lettuce like iceberg.

Choose 100% whole wheat bread. I disagree with FG, I'd skip the mayo and use avocado or hummus instead (mmm...turkey and hummus, yummy!) Mayo in any form is not good for you despite however much I wish it were. You could also use whole wheat wraps instead of bread if you like. In terms of peanut butter, you could look for…

I'd cut down on the cardio so you can start strength training. You can do 2 or 3 days a week of strength training - just make sure you're hitting all/most of the muscle groups on those days. Note, cardio is great for burning fat, but it also burns muscle mass. Check out this book:…

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As previously stated, you can not spot burn. You should include strength training from the beginning. I know a lot of people advocate starting off with cardio so you lose some fat first and then adding strength training later (if at all), but this is pretty backwards in my opinion. If you do a little research you'll…

You could start by replacing every other drink with water. You'd cut your calorie consumption in half. You'd also save money, a powerful motivator for me.

One more thing, my children love the Brown Cow yogurt. The freezing method is perfect because it thickens the yogurt and keeps it from being so messy (they're 5 and 2 years old - my son is too young for solids).

I get Brown Cow organic greek yogurt. They sell big multi packs at Sam's Club with the strawberry and blueberry flavors. They have 13 g of protein and 130 calories per 5.3 oz cup. A tasty way to eat greek yogurt is to put it in the freezer about an hour before you'll eat it. It partially freezes so you stir it up and it's…

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You can enter breastfeeding in the search criteria for food. It'll bring up a number of options. All it does is add calories to your daily allowance. I breastfeed exclusively and I've been on MFP since my son was 6 weeks old (he's 5 months old now - he'll start solids next month). Personally I don't bother adding the…

Ha, ha! That reminds me of a German idiom I read about a few years ago. The word is Backpfeiffengesicht and it means something along the lines of "a face that begs to have a fist put in it".

Exactly what I was thinking. I logged Thanksgiving too as best I could.

I'm 32 yo, 5'5 3/4 and have about 22 or so more pounds to lose to hit my initial goal weight. I'm really more interested in hitting a goal feeling than a weight though. Strength training may increase or decrease my goal weight depending upon how it goes. We'll see.