Huzzah! Move It Mama Monday is back! After several weeks off due to too much work/holidays/family visits/laziness, it’s time to get back in the saddle and start the new year. Of course a new year means New Year’s resolutions and a new exercise regime and new vows to eat healthy and drink lots of water…
Okay, how many of us are really going to do all that? At least past the month of January?
Yeah, a lot of hands just went down, didn’t they?
No worries. I’m not judging. I’m with you. I’ve been there, done that with the whole New Year/New You thing. It lasts for a while, until it doesn’t and then it’s back to the bad old eating habits and exercising maybe when we get the chance. That’s how life works. Exercise and good eating are fun and exciting at first, but then they get routine and boring. So how do we we keep ourselves going? How do we make these exercise and diet resolutions stick?
Well, in my case I’m trying something new this year. I’ve downloaded the Livestrong calorie tracker app on my iPad. The calorie counter allows me to set a calorie goal for the day, then input what I eat and how much I exercise and then tells me if I’m on track or not to meet the aforementioned goal. I’ve been using it for about a week, and so far it seems to be working pretty well. It took me a couple days to cut back on the eating (which is no surprise given how much holiday food there was in the house), and to increase the amount of physical activity (also no surprise considering we had 3 extra people in the house and no time for me to even hop on the Wii). But now I’m consistently logging it at or under my daily calorie goal. I threw in a short extra workout in the early AM, choosing to do 15 minutes on the elliptical machine we have. It’s not a long workout, but it’s intense and it burns quite a few calories in a short time. And since I can see what I eat, I’ve also upped how many fruits and veggies I get each day.
Like everything else, tracking my calories is fun right now, but it will also get routine after a while. But hopefully, having a visual record of my progress will help me stick to my fitness resolutions this year. And those resolutions are…
Don’t be a big, fat slug.
Yep, that’s pretty much it! Have fun and let me know if you made any fun resolutions yourself for this year!
