Goal Girl’s Blog

When I got my Body Bugg a couple of weeks ago, I weighed 231lbs.  I still weigh 231lbs (ugh! yuck!), but my body fat has gone from 50% to 46% in that same time frame.     Two weeks ago I was carrying around approximately 115.5 pounds of fat.   This week, I’m carrying around 106 pounds of fat.   So I’ve lost around 9.5 pounds of fat in a couple of weeks and gained as much back in muscle and/or water (who can tell?  I hope it’s mostly muscle).

I’m having one issue with the Body Bugg.   When I try to upload my data, my laptops don’t seem to recognized the BB, even though the drivers are there.   I have to delete the drivers and re-download them at the Body Bugg site every third or fourth time I try to upload my data.    On the upside, the device has been a great conversation starter.  It’s August in Irving, TX… I am not going to wear long sleeves!

I’ve done four things recently to push harder toward the weight loss goal.

• Forgiven myself… again.  Sometimes forgiveness is not an act, but a process.
• Returned to practicing Kenpo Karate after a couple year’s hiatus.
• Got my four year old hooked on Kid’s Club at 24Hour Fitness
• Bought a Body Bugg

I have lots of “reasons” but no excuses for setting aside thoughts of losing weight for four months.   The reasons are not going to go away, so unless I want to be overweight forever, I have to shake them off and keep marching.    I spent about a week beating myself up over 10lbs gained back while I was on ‘vacation’ from the struggle.    Now it’s time to move on.    It appears I might need to forgive myself more than once during this endeavor?

I only practiced karate sporadically after I had my daughter.   After a couple of years, I did get back on it.  I took a bunch of private lessons because work schedule didn’t mesh with the class schedule.    Finally in July of 2006, I earned my first degree black belt.    Since then, I’ve gone to classes here and there, and every now and then to a seminar, but largely slacked off.     A little over a month ago, I was invited to a picnic being held by the instructor who had helped me most with my last big push toward first black.  She’d broken away from my Sifu’s school and started her own school.   At the picnic, she said I should bring my daughter to a couple of Little Dragon’s classes.     Well, of course, my daughter, who has been around Kenpo from before birth (I taught Little Dragons up until I was 7 months pregnant with her and she used to watch from her pack-n-play in the corner of the studio while I had classes or sparred) loved it (after some initial coaxing to get her on the mat).    I signed her up.   Since I was going to be there three times a week for K’s classes, might as well attend the adult classes immediately following.    So now I have a new Sifu (not really new…  I’ve studied with this lady for about eight years, but not with her as the one in charge).      I can’t say I’ve lost a ton of weight after doing Kenpo for four weeks, but I can feel myself getting firmer in places where I’d gone soft, and my gi pants are starting to feel a bit more comfortable.    The cool thing is that my daughter is seriously into it and asks me three or four times a day to practice with her.   For me, it’s a good review of basics and a wonderful way to spend quality time with my daughter.   I’m bringing home a free-standing punching bag (WaveMaster) today so that we can work on our kicks together.  I’m looking forward  to this as this is where I burn the most calories!

I also had a 24Hour Fitness membership that was laying fallow.  I was only using it to grab a shower at lunch time, if I got a lunch time (yes, my schedule is nuts).    Then one day I took K with me and let her hang out at the kids club there.  She ran into a couple of friends from her daycare, they had a blast, and now she asks for Kids Club whenever we don’t have karate.  So far, I’ve mostly been doing cardio until I figure out the proper balance between the strength training and the Kenpo.  I don’t want to over train and get injured while I’m still trying to build my strength back up.   For example, several Kenpo forms, done with deep stances, are a good leg/butt workout, so I wouldn’t want to hit squats hard and fast the day after really working low stances.  I would love to get back in fighting form and do a few tournaments next year.    For K, she gets some un-structured playtime with her pals, and a chance to run off extra energy and make new friends.   Here in the Dallas area, it’s also wonderful to have an air-conditioned place for her to play so she doesn’t blister herself on scorching playground equipment or develop asthma in the “level-orange” air quality during the summer.

Which brings me to the Body Bugg.  One of the ladies at the Kenpo school had one of these.  For those of you who don’t know, it’s a small electronic device that you strap to your left arm (or right, depending on model).  It keeps a log of how many steps you take and how many calories you burn.  It measures calorie burn by measuring galvanic skin response, motion (has a 3-axix accelerometer), and two other factors I can’t remember (I’ll get the facts and present them in another article).   You then plug the Bugg into your computer and upload the data recorded to Apex Fitness’ website where it uses the data to calculate calories burned per minute on a minute-by-minute basis.    First, this appeals to my geeky side.  I love gadgets.

Second, it appeals to my scientific side (I’ve a M.S. in physiology)… it’s fascinating for me to be able to look at a specific time frame and see how many calories i’m burning per minute.   For example I’ve found that on a non-workout day, the time I burn the most calories per minute is in the morning hour while I’m rushing around the house getting myself and kiddo together, breakfast made, lunches packed, taking my mom her coffee and news paper (she moved in with us two years ago when she retired),  trying to find my car-keys (will I burn fewer calories if I get more organized?).    I’ve had the Body Bugg for a couple of weeks now, and I’m loving it so far.  I’ll write more about it tomorrow.  For now, I hear my daughter stirring in the other room… time to start getting us ready to face the day!

I wrote this post last March and never published it.  It’s still relavent, so here you go.     I’ve fallen down on the job as far as maintaining this blog and a couple of other goals, but I’ll forgive myself and move on now.

Photo Credit: Rob Wallace

Have you set too many goals? When you first get excited about the process of goal setting, and really get the bit in your teeth, it’s easy to vomit goals all over the place. The problem with this is that goals have to live in the real world, and unfortunately, the real world doesn’t usually stop so that you can pursue every single goal that pops into your head.

That’s ok. Try a bunch of goals on for size, the ones that you are really passionate about will stick with you and the rest will fall by the side of the road. Let them go for now; you may revisit them later when things get a little less busy.

Pick the one or two goals that really light your fire. This is what I am having to do. While losing a lot of weight would be a wonderful thing to do. I’m finding that with my current work schedule, it’s just not possible to do everything I need to do to make that a workable goal for the time being. I can still eat healthy food, try to get a little more exercise by say, letting my 4 year old piggy back while I hang laundry or park far away from the door, but as far as spending a couple of hours a day in the gym… with a 50-70 hour work week, that’s just not feasible.

What I find I can do with the little time I have is stuff relating to my other goal of replacing income. When I succeed at that, I’ll have a better shot at the weight loss goal, because ultimately that success will buy me a lot of time. Residual income does that for you.

So for right now, I’m focusing on that part of my goal-suite. I’ve found a product that I can believe in. The guy who owns that product treats his affiliates like gold, really helps them along… and this may be why his product has such great gravity in ClickBank (meaning that a lot of affiliates are making sales with that product). I was actually surprised when I found out who the true creator of the product was, since he used a pseudonym. I signed up for the emails that he sends his affiliates and it turned out to be a marketing guru whom I greatly respect, and from whom I’d already learned tons of good stuff.

My problem has been a)finding time to properly implement One Week Marketing/Bum Marketing and b)inertia.. when I’ve had a particularly difficult week at work (several of those lately), it’s super hard to get myself to get out of bed and work on my marketing projects after my daughter has gone to bed. With the resources that this fellow provides though, I can kick out two or three articles a day by stopping in a coffee shop by my daughter’s daycare 20 minutes before I pick her up. Now that’s not a ton; I know people who habitually write ten articles a day, but given enough snowflakes, you eventually have a snowball. I’m able to do something every single day to help grow my business.

And something I need to make a note of and put in my back pocket for later is this: By building a relationship with me over time (several months), I’m eager to promote this guy’s product. I believe in his success, so success seems that much more tangible when I play ball on his team. Of all the gurus I’ve read, contacted, subscribed to, this one guy is the only one who has really gotten down to a friendly, personal level.

Hopefully soon that success will buy me more time to spend with you guys and gals!