04.25.08
Posted in wls at 12:36 am by Shari
People have been mentioning this segment that was on 60 Minutes last week. I don’t know how long it’ll be up there, but it was definitely a good piece. Check it out.
I did well today toward my goals of walking. My step count was over 7700. On the other hand, I determined that to make the average get up to 7500, I’d have to walk 8600 steps a day from now until the end of May. Maybe I’ll do a 28 day average and try to get that to 7500 instead. A little analysis w/ the spread sheet shows that if I do 7500 a day starting now, I can have a 28 day average up to 7500 by the 6th of May. Maybe that’s not aggressive enough? I’ll have to think about this whole thing.
The main idea, though, is to just keep walking. Today I dropped Chuck off at work and then went for a mile walk before going in to work myself. It didn’t take much to convince myself to do it either. He’s talking about getting the bikes in shape this weekend so we can start riding together soon too. That would be nice, though I know from past experience that it’ll take me a bit to get up to speed w/ the bike.
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04.24.08
Posted in wls at 1:00 am by Shari
Tuesday was a shocking day to me. I didn’t really make the time for a walk for the sake of walking. Nonetheless I ended up walking 14131 steps that day! WOW!
How did it happen? Well, I just had my typical steps on there before mid-afternoon. I volunteered to take an extra shift that evening as backup cashier, so I had to go back to work. Chuck was running late, so to make it easier for him and give me some walking, I had him drop me off about 3/4 of a mile from work and walked that. Then, while I was there as backup, I did reshops, which meant more walking than I normally do at work. Later, Chuck asked me to look for something at Home Depot for him, and when I didn’t find it there, to check the Super Wal-Mart. And after that, I still had time to kill before he was done work, so I shopped walked the aisles at Wegmans for awhile too.
That was my all-time high since starting to wear the pedometer, the 7th day in a row that I beat my average and it raised my average by 200 steps!
Yesterday wasn’t as impressive, but with a little effort I did beat my average. It was a lazy day - I slept in, then worked on the computer before taking Chuck to work. His mom and I went out shopping for a little while, but she doesn’t walk much or fast, so that didn’t add up like me walking all over walmart and wegmans does. I did stand the whole way through my class I was teaching last night, but I wasn’t walking, so it didn’t add much there. So, when I was done teaching and had time to kill before picking up Chuck, I stopped at a huge wegmans and walked the aisles there. I think the guy running the machine to clean the floors wondered what I was doing with just one little bag in the cart as I walked up and down the aisles, but who cares - I beat my average for the 8th day in a row. I even changed my spreadsheet to create a column that counts how many days in a row I’m beating my average.
My goal has been to beat my average each day, which will naturally push the average up, perhaps slowly, but in the right direction. The average right now is 6538. I think I need a new goal - probably something about getting to a specific average steps. I was reading something on SparkPeople today about how your lifestyle is classified based on the average daily steps.
Classification of pedometer-determined physical activity in healthy adults:
1) Under 5000 steps/day may be used as a “sedentary lifestyle”
2) 5,000-7,499 steps/day is typical of daily activity excluding sports/exercise and might be considered “low active.”
3) 7,500-9,999 likely includes some exercise or walking (and/or a job that requires more walking) and might be considered “somewhat active.”
4) 10,000 steps/day indicates the point that should be used to classify individuals as “active”.
5) Individuals who take more than 12,500 steps/day are likely to be classified as “highly active”.
So right now, I’d be considered “low active”, which is more than I was before (pre-surgery I was 4500/day). So I’m thinking the new goal should be to get to 7500/day to be “somewhat active.” Now the quandry is to decide when to get to that goal. Any suggestions?
Oh, wait… I just occurred to me I can get to 7500/day on a daily basis quicker than I can get to that as my daily average. So… If I shoot for getting 7500+/day on a consistent basis by…. lets say May 1, and get the overall daily average to that by…. end of May? Maybe sooner?
And what does consistent mean? Hmm… 5 days out of 7? 6 days out of 7?
I’m at 345 right now… at 1pm… I guess I’d better get moving!
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04.20.08
Posted in Crafts, knitting, wls at 9:14 pm by Shari
since I last posted. I know it wasn’t quite a month, but that’s quite a while in blog-land.
So what’s been happening? Well, I was going gangbusters on the walking for a good while, then fell off the wagon when we had a spat of bad weather. Then I got a bad cold and was under the weather for a few days.
This last week+ the weather and I have been better again, so I’m back at it. Today I walked 2 miles for the first time in a single session. I’m wearing my pedometer every day, whether I go for a walk or not, and am logging my daily steps. My average steps/day right now is at a high of 6300+. Yippee! Pre-surgery I was at about 4500 steps/day and it’s been steadily increasing lately. The image to the right is the graph from my excel spreadsheet for post surgery steps.
I figure that if I shoot for at least hitting my average each day, that’ll keep pushing the average up more and more. Not that I get there every day, but it is on an upward path rather than downward 
Another average that has gone up (but it’s NOT a good thing) is my fasting sugars. A few weeks ago it was running about 83-84. Right now I’m at 87 for the last 30 days 89 for the last 2 weeks and 91 for the last week. I think I’ve been having more carbs, such as some rice in my red beans and rice, soups that have noodles in them, etc. The numbers aren’t “bad”, but I don’t want to see them go higher.
Another thing that I don’t like lately is the fact that more things I try to eat are bothering my stomach. I’m not getting sick from them, but I’m not feeling quite right either. I guess it’s probably the same thing as the previous paragraph. So, I’m going to back off a bit and go back to just a carnation instant breakfast in the morning, cheese or eggs and that’s about it for a few days to see if that’s what’s happening.
Other good things: I got a few pairs of pants from Mom last week. I held them up and thought… “I guess I’ll have to wait a little bit on these”. NOT. I can wear 2 of them, and one of them is okay for wearing to work. Just in time, because really only about 2 prs of my pants from before actually stay on these days. I wore a jumper to work one day last week and as much as I don’t usually care for dresses, it did feel pretty good to have that on. Since nobody is used to seeing me like that, nearly everyone commented (positively) about how I looked. That was nice. I also found out I can wear one of Chuck’s pairs of jeans as long as I don’t have to sit in too low of a chair. Okay, so I’m not going to wear them until I can really sit down well, but I did get them on and zipped, and sat on the bed. My goal is to wear them when I go back to Dr. D’s office.
People who see me once a week or so are telling me that they can see differences each time they see me. I don’t really see it myself. I did notice this weekend that my arms seem to be getting a bit thinner. I weighed myself on Dr. K’s scale last week and was down 12 lbs from the last time I was there (I think I was about 3 wks post-surg then). A week from Wednesday I have a followup with Dr. D again, so I’ll have a better feel for where I am then.
On the crafting front: This week is skein gang. I had the crochet project done before surgery, but I’m still working on the knit project. It’s a sweater and I’m actually doing it for me. It’s coming out nicely - the fronts and back are done and I’m well on the way for the first sleeve. I shouldn’t have too much trouble getting it done this week. The socks that I posted about before are still languishing since my legs are still swollen and they are on the small side. I’m about to just jump in on a different pair.
This week is also the beginning of spring classes at the high school, so I have classes on Monday and Wednesday evenings. Monday’s class is likely to be fairly small - Wednesday’s is a bit bigger.
Last week the kids were off of school, so we had a number of kids classes at the store. I taught “Fiber Fun 101″ last Monday to 5 girls and then a quilted tote bag to 3 on Wednesday/Thursday. The quilted tote bags came out really cute! I decided I needed to make myself a purse in the same style, so I am nearly done with that. Need to stitch the binding on the top edge and then stitch down the webbing for the handles.
Well, tomorrow I have an early meeting w/ Jim and a client before I go to the store, so I need to hit the hay early.
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