Thread: Fitness Challenge III - Come join us!

Evening ladies!! I ended the day with 471 calories to spare after burning 411 with exercise. I did my meditating in the sauna in the gym today. No one else was in there and since I'm used to doing hot yoga, it seemed a perfect time. I also did my stretching in there. NICE!! Did weight machines for 30 minutes, then left to get my dog and meet up with a cute boy for a nice long walk.

29 in fiber today
60 in protein

Something I'm struggling with is sodium. I don't add salt to much of anything, but it seems that EVERYTHING is loaded with it. For example, my recommended salt intake is to stay less than 1500 mg, and today I had 2600! Shesh! I went a bit over on my carbs today. Should stay around 150-160 and I had 200.

I'm totally pooped tonight. Gonna sleep hard!

good morning all. i had a really good day yesterday. my food calories consumed was 1130 with protein of 58, fiber of 40 amd sodium of 2537. exercise calories burnt was 179 which put me 343 calories under budget. i did my meditation. i had 80 oz of water yesterday and for exercise i did 2 sets of squat thrusts, lunges, pushups and leg lifts. i did 4 sets of stomach muscle strengthening exercises. and i walked for an hour. no cardio yesterday but i will do it today. oh yea, i parked my car at the senior center which is 5 blocks from where i work and i walked this morning!!!!

as for the sodium, bd, i have read numerous sites and from what i see, sodium intake should be 2300 or less if you are 50 or younger. if you are older than 50, they say it should be 1500. do a search on how much sodium you should have per day. but even still i have been having a hard time keeping it under 2600. it really seems like everything that is processed has tons of sodium in it. thats why it is my firm belief, that we all should strive for nothing out of a box or nothing out of a window. how much water did you drink yesterday bd? i like cute boys!!!! they're fun! i married a cute boy. it sounds like your meditation room in the sauna was amazing. how relaxing. good for you bd. love what you are doing. did you get your cardio in? did you do your squat thrusts?

allllll rightttt chey! wow. great job on the exercise yesterday. you rocked it out for sure. i was thinking about how you could get more water. i was thinking that inbetween each class, you could stop at a drinking fountain and take 10 sips of water. this will help you get your water consumption up more thru out the day. give it a shot, maybe it will help. but for sure, i am so proud of you. i love kick boxing. when i am walking at the office, i do round house kicks and front kicks down the hall!!!!

have an awsome day ladies. chat at ya later

did you get your cardio in? did you do your squat thrusts?

I didn't do cardio yesterday, but did my squat thrusts. I'm focusing most of my efforts right now on building muscle rather than fat burning. So I'm trying to incorporate the weight lifting into my routine. The hardest part, oddly, is my hamstrings. They are, and have always been like concrete. (not to be fooled by the cellulite...lol) Since I've started doing hamstring curls (I'm doing the minimum weight on the machine!), they are so tight I can hardly lean forward in my chair. It's so odd. So I'll stretch, they feel better, then the next time I go to stretch it's as if I've never stretched them before. I'm even making time at work to stretch them. Whew...they feel like they'll just rip!!!

My water yesterday was somewhere around 6 oz glasses. I definitely do better on my water intake when I keep the Sassy Water made up. I had NO trouble getting in my 2 liters on those days.

Sodium levels... I've heard conflicting things on what is "healthy". I'm like you, I try to make as much of my food as possible, buy the "low sodium" broth if I make soup, etc. I guess that's all we can really be expected to do. It's alarming how much sodium is put into our foods. No wonder so many women retain excessive amts of water...our bodies just don't need all that junk.

I'm looking forward to my stretching and meditation in the sauna today. Whew, these hamstrings!!

Good morning ladies! I didn't have a plan for the morning so I hit the fitness center again. My appetite is crazy. Lol. Yesterday my calories were 1807, 117 over, fiber was 27, protein was 58, and I burned 498 calories. I'm noticing the same thing with my sodium. My snacks are mostly fresh fruits and vegetables, but for dinner and lunch, we use the packaged sandwich meat, processed cheese, and canned veggies. I'll see about switching to frozen. I don't like getting a lot of fresh produce because it spoils too fast. I pick up 3 or 4 different kinds of fruit, some baby carrots, and some fresh spinach to use on sandwiches, but other than that I go for the canned stuff. We have to do a lot of budgetting and canned is just cheaper.

The other thing was I'm only getting about half my potassium. I found a list of foods with high potassium, but being a picky eater, I only saw a few things I would go for. Bananas, grapes, avocados, and pistachios. Dark chocolate or cocoa was one, but I don't think that would be a healthy source. Lol. I get enough chocalate with my fiber plus bars. Paprika and a few other seasonings were listed. Ummm...dates, and there was more but it didn't seem appealing to me. I can't remember the rest. I think it has my daily intake at 3000mg and I'm lucky if I get half of that. All my other nutrition looks good though.

Oh, water was 9 cups again for yesterday.

i haven't added any salt to my food in years so thought that my sodium intake would be in line. i started to analyze it when i started to gain weight after going out to dinner. i realized that even healthy picks off the menu were loaded with sodium so the next day i would bloat out! i personally love the taste of food. i don't need a whole bunch of unneccessary stuff like sodium added to my meal. it is said that it is used for flavoring. well i use other things for flavoring like spinach, endives and other greens. i put chickory endives (adds only 11 mg of sodium per cup) in my homemade chicken pot pie. it was yummy and good for me too! It was a win... win....

hey crystal, did you get your squat thrusts in? how about cardio?

My weeks been full of cardio. Lol. Sunday was basketball for 2 hrs. Monday was my recoup day, so no cardio there, and the last two mornings I've been mixing it up in the fitness center. Tuesday I did 25 minutes on the elliptical, then hopped over to the treadmill for 20 minutes. Today I did 20 minutes on the stationary bike, 5 on the stairmaster, and 35 on the elliptical. No break in between. Just from one to the next. I'm trying the squat thrusts today. I'll let you know how they go. I just finished up all my house cleaning, so I'm going to do my ankle exercises too.

whoaaaaa! you go crystal. you are going to be rock hard. no jiggle on crystal.

Lol. Thanks Cyndie. I just did the squat thrusts, Wow! Those are tough. I added the pushup in just for fun. I'll wait a bit and throw in another set. I gotta get used to these. I'm doing my ankle exercises now. No problems with it on the squat thrust this time, so it should be good to go. Hopefully my ankles are a little more prepared for basketball this Sunday. I plan on wearing some ace bandages for a little extra help.