2015 Goal: February

[rowyn]

Health/Fitness

I am up a couple of pounds from January. I am at the stage where I need to diet in order to stay the same weight. Maybe I will try that this month. Does anyone know a good app for diet/exercise tracking?

Exercise in February was maybe a smidge more frequent than January, so still pretty bad.

Writing

None to speak of in February. Some book reviews and a few dragon bio updates.

The Business of Writing

I am about 25% through my (hopefully final) pass on editing A Rational Arrangement. Slow progress is still progress. (Man, I need to pick up the pace on this, though. I do not want to still be at the editing thing in June. I'm gonna try to get through a minimum of 15 pages per day in March: that'll see me finished with it by the end of the month.)

Art/Other

I actually did some of this in February! Some pencil sketches (posted to my Twitter), some life drawing from the session at Conflation last weekend, and colored one of the pictures from haikujaguar's Not in Need of Quests.

Gaming

I didn't do any gaming in person this month. I have also stalled out on posting to the Elect PBEM, though I don't think my neglect has killed it yet. I really need to get back to it before that is no longer true.

Socializing

I did some of this too: Corwyn and I went to Conflation last weekend, and to his birthday party yesterday (which had 17 adults in attendance and was actually smaller than he'd anticipated, due to snow.) Melody and Andi drove in from Springfield to attend, which is a 2.5 hour drive that took 5 hours due to weather. Yikes! I met Melody last Contraception, in an amusing way. Contra has a "virgin raffle", where people buy tickets and "win" first time attendees: the basic concept is "raise money for the con and act as a way to introduce newcomers to old-timers so they don't feel lost and alone. I'd bought a bunch of tickets by way of supporting the con. When Melody came up for auction, I stood up and called out to Corwyn: "I need to win this one. We have matching corsets!" And we did: hers was an underbust corset and mine was an overbust, and the patterns weren't identical, but they were similar and the colors were exactly the same. And then they drew her lot and I actually did win her. Hee! She was also amused by the matching corsets, and we hung out for a while and chatted while at the con. It was neat to see her as well as all the long-time friends again.

Happiness

This month was kind of up and down. Better than January, I think, but still struggling. Last nine days or so have been pretty good, although this weekend I've felt exhausted. Which is probably a mood thing. -_-

Comments

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

I've had good success with the Weight Watchers program, including the points tracker app. :) I have it on my phone and pull it out at restaurants to check point values on items I'm thinking of having, which has kept me from falling into several traps.

-TG

[rowyn]

I know I should just Google it but ... how does Weight Watchers work? Do you just download an app and it tells you everything you need to know? Is there a website? Do you have to buy a book or something? I have always been confused by Weight Watchers talk. @_@

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Basic premise: You have X number of points to spend on food choices daily (based on your age, gender, height, goals, etc.), plus a bank of "weekly" points you can dip into if you go over. For instance, as a 45 yr old, 6'2" male with the goal of losing weight, I have 58 daily points, and 49 weekly points.

Whenever you eat something, it has a point value based on its nutrition information. For example, a typical bowl of breakfast cereal + milk is 5 points. A typical piece of pizza is about 12 points. A typical restaurant-style cheeseburger is 20+ points. There's an enormous database of food items by brand, recipe, or type, and you can also create custom items if you know the nutrition information, or build recipes if you know the ingredients. Using the app (or the website, or even just a journal if you'd rather), you track your daily points spent. Assuming you stay within budget, your weight should go up, down, or stay the same, based on the goal you set.

Exercise gives you "activity points," which can be added to your weekly pool if you go over-budget. A half-hour of intense cardio will give you 8-10 activity points, while a ten minute able around the block would give you 1 activity point.

There is a monthly subscription fee (I think it's $18/mo?) for access to the site and the database; I would imagine there are books containing a lot of the info as well if you prefer a paper-and-pencil option. The apps are a free download, but you need a membership for them to be useful.

Hope this helps! :)

-The Gneech

EDIT: I should mention, you will probably need to tweak the plan for best results. I need to stay 5-10 points under daily to get weight loss results, for instance, which is probably a factor of my "anything to stay chubby!" metabolism.

[rowyn]

Aha! It's subscription-based. I guess that makes sense. I try to avoid things with a subscription, but given my general upward trend on weight over the last several years, maybe I should break down and try it anyway. :/

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

So are you stuck in the doom snow thing from the east coast?

[rowyn]

No, the midwest has been getting normal amounts of snow for this time of year, if not a little lighter than usual. Just happened to have some yesterday. Inconveniently timed!

[alinsa.livejournal.com]

the patterns weren't identical, but they were similar and the colors were exactly the same

Were they blue-and-black corsets, or white-and-gold?

[rowyn]

Green and black.