No Celery Please

So I got my Bone Density Test Results…

I have “mild” osteopenia.  Which, Osteopenia is already mild… so a mild version is, basically… “hey, you passed 35, lady, get used to it”

Anyway…  to make sure it stays that way I need…

A Calcium supplement (which I have already been taking for years)

An additional Vitamin D Supplement (which I started taking last week when my Doc said my vintamin D levels were low)

And…  weight bearing exercise…  which, it just so happens, I’ve been wanting to start lifting weights…  really lifting… havy ones, not just the little dumbells I’ve got at home.

So I guess it all works out then.

Yay Bones!

And no, I still haven’t scheduled that pesky mammogram… I guess that’s coming soon.

So…

Went to the dr. yesterday and was told that I am now of an age that I need to get a mammogram.

I’m not against them, per se…  it’s just that they don’t do them AT MY DOCTORS OFFICE… so now I have the pain-in-the-assery of having to set up a separate appointment at some other facility.

They shouldn’t have told me that I had to get one some time in the next 4 years.

That’s gonna leave an awful lot of time available for procrastination .

Counting Calories…

Now this is not a post I would have done if not for the comments in the last post.

Because I would not normally evangelize my lifestyle. It takes a lot of work to count everything.  Every little thing.

It helps to have a touch of OCD and some disordered eating habits to start with.

I don’t think people who could describe their relationship with food as “normal” would have the energy to keep on doing it all the time.  It takes work.

So while I certainly wouldn’t “recommend” the obsessive counting of calories as a lifestyle.  It’s certainly helped me tremendously in getting healthier, fitter, stronger, while still being able to deal with some of my “food issues”… hey.. I ate cheese calzone today for the first time in… I dunno… 2, 3 years?  I ate it, and I loved it and there was no guilt or bad feelings because I knew exactly what I was getting, thanks to my little counting app.

So how do I do it?  The counting?

Well, to start with, I couldn’t without the web site and app… http://caloriecount.about.com.

There are others out there… if you have an iPhone, there’s actually a better one called Lose It!… but I do not iPhone, so I use my Calorie Count web site and I love it.

There are a few other popular ones out there, but I found Spark People to be a bit too pushy, and the Livestrong site is always asking you to upgrade to the paid version… which might be worth it, but I don’t know, because I’ve picked my site and am sticking with it.

So I signed up on the site… and put my stats in, etc, and it tells me how much I burn based on my body and activity level.

Now, I get pretty specific on mine.  I set the burn meter to “sit on my ass all day”, which at my height / weight is roughly 1600 calories a day, and then I use a heart rate monitor to track my workouts and I add them.

But they also have estimates you can use based on how generally active you think you are, depending on how much time and effort you want to expend in entering data.

You tell the site whether you are there to lose, maintain, or gain and then it gives a recommendation of how many calories to eat.

One caveat… it tends to recommend levels that are too low.  No female (except maybe a 4’6″, 95 pound tiny woman) should eat below 1200, even if it means losing weight slower.  (men shouldn’t go below 1500).

But realistically, the best, most stable way to lose weight is to look at your daily burn and eat only 500 calories less than that.  That should give you a loss of about a pound a week, which is really the fastest you want to lose, lest your body start to think the famine has arrived and it has to start storing everything you take in.

The thing that is harder is making sure that what you are counting as calories is accurate.

if you don’t have a food scale, then you have to start guessing… is this a medium banana?  large?  How much apple is this?

It’s even harder with things that do servings by things like “tablespoon”.

Because you’ll see, really, that the actual serving size always has a weight.

I can fit 32 grams of peanut butter in a single “tablespoon” measure.  But 32 grams is what the jar calls “two tablespoons”… which I think is crappy…  16 grams isn’t even a LEVEL tablespoon… it’s WAY below the rim.  Who measures like that?  No one.

Hence the need for a food scale.

Now, once I started weighing and measuring everything, and breaking packages up into single serving bags and knowing EXACTLY what I am eating…  well it’s MUCH easier to accurately account for intake and output.

What I thought I used to eat was too little for me, but still more than I actually thought it was, due to the measuring issues.

So I would say the two most important things are… know what you burn, and really know what you eat.

Once that happens, the rest is kinda just math.

Once I got the hang of counting the calories (took about 2 months), then I moved on to really paying attention to the “analysis” of my food and caring about whether I was getting enough carbs / protein / fat etc.

But I wouldn’t bother with that when starting out.

The accurate burn/eat measuring is hard enough.

The site also has excellent forums to help with motivation, questions, all kinds of stuff.  It’s a very supportive and well informed community.

So that was step one… if you want to move into the madness that is accurately counting your calories, that’s a good place to start.

But don’t say I didn’t warn you… it takes a little bit of crazy to want to spend your time thinking about this stuff.  And the further you go into it, the harder it becomes to accept eating anything you did not personally prepare (well, OK, for me, because again with the OCD on accuracy.

So word on the adjustable sit / stand thingy for my desk is no.

Well… or… I have to have a letter from the doctor stating that I need it for medical purposes.

Which…  I do not.

I am not trying to get them to make an accommodation for a disability.  I’m not injured and in need of help.

I just want to spend a few hours every day standing up!

Just getting my butt out of the chair for four out of my 9ish work hours has increased my average “calorie per minute” burn from 1.1 to 1.28. (Yes, I know this because I have a monitor and I am a data geek!)

OK, sure, in a single day, that’s doesn’t mean much…  If I spend 600 minutes at work, that’s only about a 100 extra calories in a day.

But… hey now… that’s 500 in a week.  That’s ONE WHOLE PIECE OF CAKE EVERY WEEK that I am burning JUST BY STANDING UP!

I’m not jogging in place, I’m not doing jumping jacks… merely standing up at my desk as I go about my general typing, mousing, etc. etc.

As I build up my endurance, I could perhaps reach 5 or 6 hours of standing each day.  I COULD HAVE ICE CREAM!!!

But the company (and, admittedly, for good reasons*) does not see fit to spend the $600 on an appliance that will allow me the luxury of simply pushing a lever or something to raise my work area.

So.. in the interest of not doing myself a back injury  by staring down at my screen while I stand…  I have acquired for myself…

A SECOND BOX!!

So now I have the box that I pick up and put on my desk to raise my keyboard and mouse.

And I have another box that I leave on my desk behind the monitor that I place the monitor on so it’s at eye level.

Small issue – I think I strained my shoulder just a teeny bit today lifting the monitor up… It’s a flat screen, but still, those are not incredibly light.

I’ll make sure to lift it with better form tomorrow.

The boxes, BTW, look absolutely hideous   But they are accomplishing the goal!

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* I do not blame the facilities folks for this at all.  If they get me special furniture, then they would have to get EVERYONE special furniture.  I understand corporate life.  If I get a Dr. note, then it’s a reasonable accommodation.  If I just “Want” something, well…  that’s a slippery slope, my friend, with a couple thousand “wanters” on the campus who I am sure would all like their special thing.

Sigh – I wish I could be peeved about this, but I’m just too darn understanding

Having conceived of this brilliant plan to mix standing up at my desk in with the sitting down portions of my day, I did not realize it would be yet another training endeavor…

Seriously, how hard can it be to stand up for a couple of hours here and there?

Well…. harder than one might think.

No matter what kind of physical shape I am in, it never translates from one activity to another.

I can be doing great at the derby, and the climbing… but when it warms up and I get back on my bike, it will totally kick my butt.

I’ll have to admit, though, I kinda thought I would be in shape to just be able to stand.

But it appears that this, too, is something that needs to be worked in to…

So I guess I’ll deal with being stiff and sore in a few new places for a while until my body gets the idea that work is no longer 100% sedentary.

That which does not kill me will (quite literally in the case of my lower back) make me stronger!