Baseline

I'm going to try to keep my momentum strong by getting something up here daily or as close to daily as school and my business will allow.

Today's topic: Methods

I started this attempt to get healthier shortly before downloading the Noom app. to my Nexus 7 tablet. I know, it sounds ridiculous - "Why on Earth would you seriously trust your health and weight loss to an application that could give you poor advice?!" No one's actually asked me that, but I assume they're thinking it. :P

I use Noom and Restaurant Weight Loss (an app that features the nutritional information of almost every restaurant available in 2 or more states nation-wide) for a few reasons.

Noom gives me notifications, which keeps me accountable when I'm not with friends or family members who are helping to remind me of things. It has a lovely calorie-counting food log system that lets me track my meals and encourages me to split my meals into 5-6 smaller, healthier meals. It lets me log a number of forms of exercise, either in real-time (recording as I do them), or as a Log Previous. It lets me track my weigh-ins, and see on a graph where I am in relation to my goal weight.

Now, these reasons aren't even my favorite ones. Noom also gives you 4 goals every day (3 for me, since one is always "Buy Noom Pro!" which you complete by simply reading the suggestion), and tracks your progress with regards to those goals through a Noom Score. It's a 0-100 point score, and often the challenges will be things like, "Log Your Lunch," or, "Do Your Scheduled Exercise." Often, they will have you weigh-in as a challenge, or even measure your waist-line, emphasizing how unreliable weight alone can be. They also include challenges such as, "Read [Blah] Article," wherein you read an article related to maintaining good health while trying to lose weight. Things like, why variety in your diet is good, why calories matter less than the quality of those calories (milk chocolate vs. dark chocolate), etc. The app informs you and provides you with other sources.

Have a question that you need help with? They have a forum even free users can access, and other users can provide answers for them. I usually don't rely on this unless it's a question about how to log something, or if the responder provides a source for more information.

Anyways, I use those apps to help me track my progress and keep me on task, but they're not as important as my work-out buddies. Two of my friends (unnamed for the time being because I haven't asked their permission) work out with me 4-5 days a week. An important thing to know about me: I love food, and I love sleep. So getting up at 5:45 in the morning to work out was not an appealing prospect. But my friends, being the awesome people that they are, helped me realize that I was making excuses for myself by trying to find ways not to work out with them, and now we're into our second week of scheduled work-outs.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we do Tai Chi and Yoga, and reserve the right to add free weights, ab work-outs, and stationary biking to that list if we decide we want to do more. On Wednesdays and Fridays (so far, though I will likely be joining them on Mondays as well), I meet them at their apartment, we walk to our university's Wellness & Recreation Center (WRC), and do the elliptical, some weight lifting, sometimes walking on the track, and other exercises (Are crunches/sit ups aerobic, anaerobic, calisthenic, etc? We do that stuff, too).

This has let me determine a lot about my body's capabilities right now, which means that I can establish a baseline (encouraged by Noom). For those not familiar with this, a baseline is the minimum amount of exercise you will do in a day/week. This helps keep people from doing a ton of work outs and then quitting because they can't keep up a high intensity and thus lose their drive. You can always do more than your baseline, and it is good to increase your baseline periodically. For example, here is my current baseline:

10 minutes on the elliptical at least twice a week.
Today, I did 15. I have to start at a leisurely pace due to my lungs, so my baseline here will be increased by intensity over time before the amount of time changes. It may also become three times weekly if we do Monday morning WRC visits.
Typical Days: WF


20 minutes of weight lifting at least twice a week.
This also depends on how early we arrive there, since we're students with morning classes. Last Wednesday, we did about 20 minutes, but today was a little bit less than that because we arrived a little late. This may also begin occurring on Mondays, as well as Tuesdays and Thursdays if we decide to switch up our routine.
Typical Days: WF


7 miles of walking a week (or 2 miles of walking 3.5 times a week).
This is the equivalent of walking from my house to campus or back. If it's not a walk to or from campus, I can always walk independently, or to the closest gas station (0.5 miles away from my house, according to Google Maps) twice if needed to meet one of those requirements. We also walk 1.2 miles twice a week to go to the WRC and back, and I intend to try to walk to the Farmer's Market in town (0.5 miles one way) once a week on Saturdays.
Typical Days: TThSa

20 minutes of Yoga at least twice a week.
We use videos, so this is pretty consistent. This will probably increase over time to number of times per week or number of videos per session depending on my work-out buddies, my schedule, and possibly Netflix. :)
Typical Days: TTh

20 minutes of Tai Chi at least twice a week.
We get through the video we're working from right now in closer to 15, but I can do some of the stretches at home when my muscles feel a bit out of sorts.
Typical Days: TTh

If anyone has any advice for a newbie, please link to the source for credibility's sake. :) I'd love to learn more about establishing good habits, both eating and work-out wise.