Steps and calories

The week of Christmas before and after are rather interesting days when it comes to exercise. Usually the few days before hand, you get busy, buying food, presents, and preparing for the big event, whether its Christmas eve or day or day after.  

My daughter Miss P. flew in from London late Monday night.  We then started a week trying to keep exercise in our day, as well as getting ready for the holidays, and for her to meet up with old friends. She is used to 6 hours a day of exercise from dance and body conditioning. Obviously we aren't going to do that here, but she does require some maintenance. 

She told me she does not like yoga, so I took her to Hot Yoga and there she discovered its not so bad,- her first class was a fusion class, followed by a Hatha class, and then tonight we did a power sculpt class. All of which she excels at while I struggle but that's to be expected...with our difference in age and physique. But it does leave this mother a little jealous that she can no longer function as a young adult. Argh, the natural process of aging needs to be slowed down for sure.

So then I've been so busy, trying to run around and get things done, I wasn't checking my body media but I was wearing it. After shopping trips, and I wish it would record yoga better as and activity, because the movements aren't more athletic i don't get much credit for it, But it does make my calorie burn go up, so I guess its the trade off. I plugged in my media today and was fascinated to find that Christmas eve and Christmas day, had large numbers for both steps, and calorie burns.  I did not expect this at all!  Christmas eve,  I spent preparing the meal for Christmas day- we had at that time a count of 18 coming for the family meal. I made a low fat lasagna- using chicken and turkey sausage, cottage cheese, low fat mozzarella.  It turned out delicious and no one knew it was lower calorie than me. Christmas eve my immediate family of Miss P and Mr G always have enchiladas, fresh fruit salad, and either black beans or rice (we are not Hispanic- we just like Mexican food alot).  This year again, using 2% cheese, and lower fat turkey my meal was healthier. You can't go wrong with fresh fruit. I always look for the fruits we don't usually have like pineapple, kiwis, pomegranate, fuyu persimmons. They are treat anytime but extra special all together. My daughter made cookies for gift boxes, a tiramisu from scratch, and a traditional cranberry cake we serve with a hard sauce for Christmas day desert..

 I found that while we were busy spending all this time in the kitchen I managed over 14000 steps.
Christmas day, after opening presents and my daughter made us breakfast of panatone bread french toast, left over fresh fruit and some bacon.  It was delicious!  We then had to start on the re-arranging of furniture to figure out how to seat 19 people for sit down dinner. Mr G and I spent the time doing this, finding and adding table leaves, searching through our home to find adequate seating, dressing the tables,  etc.  My steps again over 14000 and calories burn up to 3400. 
My calorie burn minimum is 2050 but lately even on days that are light activity I've been burning more in 2300-2500 level. Pretty cool for sure.

 I'm seeing small changes in my body, these days. I've never been comfortable with it, too much ridicule when I was young from someone who was important in my life. Consequently I don't have a body that I love, but one I'm struggling to. I can tell you more things I hate about my body than I love but my most hated are my upper arms.  I have those kinds of upper arms that although muscular, encompass as much fat as they possibly can squeeze into them.  Mini little ham hocks they are like. When I focus on lifting weights or doing kettle bells I can tolerate them, however I try to wear longer sleeves for anything besides yoga, because I hate them so. Having had melanoma a few years ago, I wear long sleeves more than most anyways. So now you know, my arms are my kryptonite.

So as my year comes to a close, I've been wearing my body media since late April.  When I started wearing it and until just 2 months ago, I had severe chronic anemia, unable to do 8000 steps at the time, or if I did one day the next required  a day of rest. so I was averaging about 3-4000 steps at the time. I'm thrilled that my steps have increased not just to 8000 but more often over that.  My weight loss isn't as satisfactory, but you can't have everything at one time can you? I have 4 more months to reach more of my weight loss goal, which as I've been healthier the last two months, it should be easier to achieve it.