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D is for the Doctor

Today’s favorite alphabet letter is about me and the Doctor. Doctor who you might ask. Exactly. Doctor Who. I absolutely love Doctor Who. And David Tenant is hands down my favorite Doctor of all time. I’m not ashamed to say I wept for days after he regenerated. So what exactly does this have to do with me? Well I’ll tell you.

Recently I was editing for a pal of mine. I don’t do any line edits, since as you can see from my posts, my grammar and comma use is atrocious. The one thing I have a knack for is content editing. Specifically, helping with a narrative voice. After giving my friend all the feedback I could, she gave me the coolest nickname ever– the Voice Doctor. My brain made the clear and obvious jump to imagining me alongside the Doctor. Him, fixing the world with his sonic screwdriver. Me, fixing manuscripts with my red sharpie. Yep, I should totally be the next Companion.

What’s your favorite D scifi word?

Snack Smart: My calorie budget

Several people have emailed me about my calorie budget, so here you go. Keep in mind, I am in a maintenance phase. I am not trying to lose any more weight, just stay balanced.

On a rest day where I have no exercise, I aim for 1750 calories. This is what I have found works the best for my body. You might need more, or less. Once you get to a healthy weight, you can tweak it and see. Here’s my usual breakdown.

Breakfast- 250 calories
Morning Snack- 200 calories
Lunch – 550 calories
Afternoon Snack- 100 calories
Dinner – 650 calories

If you guys are interested, I can post a few sample meals and snacks. On days where I run high miles I obviously need to eat a an extra 500 -700 calories depending on the exercise. But this is my typical day if I am just doing light cleaning at home and do nothing else physically.

Fitness Tip: Quality not Quantity

Have you ever seen those people that do like 200 stomach crunches a day? But their crunches are super fast and only come up part way.

Well guess what. If you did one songs worth of ab exercises, at rhythmic pace, you’d get a much better workout. First off, when you take your time, you create resistance and use strength of muscle as opposed to momentum. Secondly, if you use about 3 different ab exercises in one song, you can exercise upper, lower, and side abs.

Next week, I will post my favorite ab workout that’s helped me have a really strong core. For now just remember that it doesn’t matter how many repetitions you do, if your form is off. You won’t be working the right muscles or getting the most out of your time and sweat.

B is for Birthday

B is my all time favorite letter of the alphabet. Here are a few of my favorite B things.

Obviously, B is for Betsy. But it’s also for bear, baby, baboon bums, biscuits, and best of all…. birthdays.

My Birthday is in 2 days, I will be 30…again. My favorite birthday tradition is the Happy Birthday video texts. Each of my sister’s families and my in-laws SMS me a text video of them singing Happy Birthday as a family. The kidlet ones are cute and have the little extras like “Ohh lala” and “Cha cha cha”. The in-laws video is extremely off key and it’s become a matter of pride to see who’s video is the most ear shattering.

Then there’s the Birthday dinner. The one night a year where I take off all my food restrictions ad my hubby prepares all my favorites. This year it’s Sweet corn spoon bread, sweet potato, caramel mash, and Lion House Rolls. Life doesn’t get any better– until the weigh in the next day 😉

B is also for book. As in I have a deadline to meet and a book to finish writing.

What’s your favorite B word?

The Long Run: Breathe

A key to exercise and weight loss that is often overlooked… breathing.

When you are in the middle of something particularly hard

A is for AHHHHHH!!!

My other blog that I collaborate on is doing the A-Z Challenge, so I thought I would give it a try too, because it sounds fun. (gulp) So the idea is that you post a topic devoted to the next letter of the alphabet all through April. Except for the first one, there are no posts on Sunday. I am opting for the theme, “These are a few of my favorite things, A-Z”

So here goes, A is for AHHHHHH! Ahhh, is one of my favorite expletives. This whole blogging experiment is a scary idea, and a little intimidating. But if you have read me before, you know I am all about goals and challenges. They make you feel Alive and like you’ve really Achieved something.

Now if you’ll excuse me, A is also for my daughter’s pink stuffed Alligator Ally, that is need of immediate tail surgery.

What’s your favorite A word?

The Long Run: I am not a Camel

So I was going through pictures from a recent vacation and found this picture of my sister and my kids riding a camel. I had to explain to the five year why a camel had a hump and how they fill their hump. That reminded me of yet another animal that I may act like at times, but shouldn’t.

I have a bad tendency after a workout, or perhaps just lunch in general, to eat large quantities of food or breads in particular. I eat way way over the suggested serving size. Before my transformation, I would binge almost and not worry about the calories, just eat less for dinner. You can imagine how well this went. I would try to starve to make up for my overeating, and then binge again until I was overfull because I was so hungry. I was turning my self into a camel, only my hump was my big fat belly on the front.

Now I know better, and make sure I stay within my budget for the day. Yet I am still making this mistake with my portion control. By eating to much in one meal, my tummy gets overfilled and expands. It doesn’t feel very good. Not to mention, you body can only process and use so much food at a time, even after a big run. What do you think happens to all the carbs and proteins that the body can’t process? That’s right, it turns to fat.

That is one of the reasons we have all heard “experts” suggesting 5 small meals a day. It gives your body a chance to efficient process the fuel it’s been given. If I give my body more fuel than it can use at a time, it’s going to dump the excess, right on my bum, thighs and belly. Even if I am within my caloric budget for the day.

So I am standing up and saying no more. I am not a camel!! I don’t like feasting and gorging and feeling like crap afterwards. Wondering where the entire plate disappeared, or if I even remembered to chew. How is that satisfying? It’s not. So in about 5 minutes I am going on my long run, 15 miles today. And when I get back, I will find something to eat and savor every bite instead of shoveling it it and saving it in my hump for later.

Exercise for the Soul: Emotional Eating

My big fat waistline was a physical representation of an emotional issue. They were so inextricably linked, that I couldn’t solve one without the other.

I was happy– I needed cake to celebrate. Rough day– Ben and Jerry’s had a flavor custom made for the heart ache.

I personally had to take a good hard look as to why I was fat, and it wasn’t just because of a love of food.

Take a deep hard look at your eating habits and figure out if a love of butter is making you hefty. Or is it more that the self esteem issues are keeping you from getting thin?

Potpourri:10 pounds a year

Here’s a little something I read.

If you cut off 100 calories a day, (that’s either by limiting your snack intake or walking one mile a day), you should lose 10 pounds over the course of a year.

Conversely, if you add a 100 calories over your daily budget, you will gain 10 pounds a year.

Scary to think that 5 stinkin extra starbursts a day could make you gain 10 pounds if you do that for a year.