Work it, Momma! (A Pregnant Mom's Rant on A Pedometer)

Lately, life has been busy.  Trying to organize life into manageable bites rather than huge chunks has been helping, but it is still a work in progress.  One of the things that has been severely getting me down lately... my weight gain.

Yes, I know, I'm pregnant, so gaining weight is to be expected.  That said, I only ever gained 25 lbs with each of my kids.  I've already gained 24 lbs with this pregnancy, and I have at least 12 weeks to go.  Yikes!  Considering that I'm gaining at a rate of over 1.5 lb per week... well... I'm not happy with the 40+ lbs that I'll likely be putting on over this 9 month period. 

Anyway, weight aside, I do feel pretty good.  I tire much more quickly than before, and I'm finding I do not have the strength or energy to do half the stuff I want to, which is disappointing at best, but I'll live.  I started trying to exercise on a rather regular basis using my Wii Fit Plus game once again.  Started up in June, but not so regularly until September.  I love looking at that graph and seeing all the colorful lines showing how much 'exercise' I've been doing.  Halfway through September I pulled out my step counter from my Personal Trainer Walking DS game.  It didn't take long for me to remember why I had put it away in the first place.

That thing makes me feel LAZY!

I know that I tend to not walk as 'hard' as some people, and it does say that it will not register as well if you are bare foot (which is usually the case as I spend most of my walking in the house) but when you pace the entire duration of a half hour conversation on the phone, and your usual walking pace is about 100 steps per minute, to only have the thing register about 100 steps is a huge disappointment.  Even worse, since almost none of my maternity 'home' pants have any pockets, that means clipping the thing to my waistband... which is not level and contributes to the problem of not reading my steps.  Even my workout steps where I jog for 10+ minutes were not registering correctly.  I have a pedometer on the 3DS as well, which I hold in my hand while I jog, and it was registering twice the steps the clip-on was.  Double.  And when I would count my steps, they were right in line with the 3DS.

So what is the problem with that silly little piece of technology?  Or... is it me?

I read reviews, tried to find troubleshooting recommendations, nothing helped.  Most everyone loved the little device and found it to be accurate to their steps.  My day would end, I'd feel exhausted and as though I walked plenty, only to see that the counter was still flashing red at me... set at 5000 steps.  What?  I hadn't reached 5000 steps?  Checking it on the DS would make me see red in more ways than that little light provided... 3000 steps.  That was it.  I exercised for half an hour (I try to do 30 minutes each weekday on the Wii Fit), 10-15 minutes of that was jogging, walked my daughter to the bus and went to pick her up, paced while on the phone, cleaned and vacuumed in my 2 story house with basement... and still only 3000 steps?!?!

Needless to say, in my pregnant hormonal state I started to cry, and my poor husband could not figure out why a little piece of electronics would bother me so much.  Yeah... I'm a bit of a 'goal' person.  I wanted that thing to turn green every day.  I work for it.  It motivates me... but now it was making me feel like I was lazy. 

After a good night sleep, I realized I needed to make a change.  I'd been using this thing for well over a month now with poor results (unless I was walking outside, then it was fine) and I did not wish to wear shoes in the house.  It was depressing.  So, I changed where I clipped the thing.  Hips?  Nah... my hips apparently don't move up and down enough when I walk.  So... what moves up and down enough? 

Socks.

Yup... my solution was to put the thing on my sock. 

I admit, I was a little worried I'd lose it, but it actually has been staying pretty well!  It's been there for a week now, and I must say, I definitely feel better about the step counts I've been getting!  I matched it pretty well to my 3DS on the workouts, and my mornings (which I feel like a crazy woman running about trying to get breakfast on the table and my daughter out the door for the bus) is registering closer to 1000 steps in under 2 hours vs the 200 it gave me before!  I actually upped my step target to 6000 last night as I finally met the 'quota' the entire week!  And I'm only about 100 steps from that point by noon today (and I have yet to vacuum the house)!  Most of my days this week registered 6000-7000 steps in the day, and that is without me TRYING to get more steps into my day compared to what it was prior to changing where I clipped this thing.

So while I still hate that my weight is on such a steady incline, at least I feel like I'm doing something about it (and maybe, just maybe, some of that weight is increased muscle mass *wink*).

Now with that aside... WHY can't they have a pregnancy option on the Wii Fit Plus?  I KNOW I'm not 'borderline overweight' as I'm expecting a baby, but really!  (and I heard the Wii Fit U doesn't have that option either.  Seriously, Nintendo... Moms want to use this thing, and we have other reasons to 'gain weight' than 'snacking all day'). 

;)

At least I will get the satisfaction of that little balance board freaking out at my two day drop of 10+ lbs at once, hahaha.

Update...

Another 101 update... wow. It's been awhile... again. And I haven't really been doing as many as I would have hoped. Ah well.

32. Help with a play (Nov 28, 2010)
Done. I sang a song. No, I wasn't in the play, but I did contribute, so I'm gonna say this one is complete.

34. Make Christmas shoe boxes each year
Done... finished in October already! I love doing these!

91. Go to a worship service
The play was also a worship service... and I didn't think about it before, but I've actually been involved in many worship services over the last two years... so this one is also done.

93. Host a Nintendo Party
Yup... did this one on Nov 5... and it was a lot of fun. I posted about it here, but here's a pic or two for you to enjoy anyway.

The food... loved making the mushroom cake... ok... actually that's a lie. I enjoyed planning and eating the cake, haha.

A little editing fun...

Now for the rest of the items I still want to finish by 2011... likely not happening.



24. Clean out garage/storage behind/above garage

Will I ever do this? Sure could use the extra space...

58. Renovate office
I'm clearing out the spare room so I can move our office into there temporarily while the dust is flying...

60. Make kitchen curtain
Sigh.

69. Wash carpets
Boy oh boy do I want to do this one already...

71. Learn to play guitar
I clipped my nails... yes, that is a step forward, haha.

100. Get a massage
Come on... really... is a phone call that hard to make?


And, since my list is so close to done, here are the rest of them...

47. Finish cross-stitch
75. Take a course in web design
86. Go to Encounter or Empower Weekend
101. Create another 101 in 1001 list

Thats 91 down, 10 to go... and 69 days to do them in. Yikes!

Projects, and the Wii Fit Plus

I am super excited about... well... stuff! Take a look at the pictures below! I grabbed the last of the TSP I had sitting in my workshop and put it to good use. I plan to repaint (in black) the magazine rack and the planter (this week). The table and chairs took a LOT of work to get clean (and they have some paint on them, which I was unable to remove. I'm thinking of painting them a bunch of lively colors anyway eventually).

As for the cradle... it is an heirloom. I was just going to give it a good cleaning and then use it that way, but after cleaning it I noticed that there were paint spatters on it and holes drilled in the bottom (my mom-in-law used it for a planter for awhile, apparently), so I'm planning on having it stripped, re stained and re varnished. My mom volunteered to strip it for me. Apparently I'm not allowed to do so (which I don't mind. I wasn't going to use paint stripper, I was just going to sand the dickens out of the thing... which isn't as good, apparently). My mom has stripped antiques before, so I totally trust her. And it really needs to be refinished. It doesn't look as nice as I'm sure it did years ago... before it went into storage... but it looks a lot better than it did before I cleaned it!

As for the magazine rack... that probably made the water quite dirty by itself. See, it had large spots of... I'm guessing tar or something like it, on the top. It also needed to be tightened up. The thing would wobble a good six inches from side to side! I only paid $2 for it at a garage sale, so I'm totally fine with tightening a few screws.

And, because I'm weird that way, here are the two buckets of 'water' after the cleaning fiasco. The one on the right is the one with the TSP, and the one on the left is the 'rinse' water (to 'remove' the TSP). Doesn't that look appetising?

Eww... gross.

Exciting thing #2... my Wii Fit Plus workout routine! I've had on my list for a few weeks that I wish to exercise daily (weekdays anyway) on the Wii. Well, I have. And in approximately 30-35 minutes I generally burn the 120 calories I aim for.

Yesterday, I was having some fun.

I just went on for no reason (it wasn't one of my goal days, you see), and Baby M loves watching me play anyway (she will get on the balance board while I'm doing 'non board' exercises and mimic me. She will also go 'up and down' like the 'trainer' on the screen when I'm doing lunges or squats or something. She dances and everything). It didn't take long before I was past my 100 calorie mark. So, I set the goal higher... to a piece of yellow cake... 310 calories. I managed to exceed that one as well (after an hour and 13 minutes total). So, just because I was so close anyway, I decided to go for the '3oz of milk chocolate' calorie burn goal... 455 calories... the highest food goal on the game. I didn't think I'd ever find myself getting to that point again anyway, and really wanted to say I did it just once! We were going to watch a movie that evening, so I set my wii fit to the 30 minutes of 'free' jogging, and got it ready to do once I finished eating (in such a way that we could continue the movie uninterrupted... how can you tell I've owned this thing awhile?). I ended up burning a total of 490 calories that day!

I love how this game tracks calories and time like that! It really makes me feel like I've done something!

Anyway, I'm so psyched! I can hardly believe I did it! It took almost 2 hours of 'exercising' on this thing, but I did it! And to be honest... it will make me think twice before I go scarfing down 500 calories of non-nutritious goodness. Because after working out that long... it just doesn't taste as good.

That said... I still crave sugar. Maybe I'll try to stick to the healthier kinds... like fruit. (mmmm, apples, bananas, and pears, OH MY!)

We're starting her early...

Yup... the following picture may shock a few of you. I'm sorry. In the electronic age we live, I didn't think I would be one of these moms... but alas, I am. And now... the incriminating evidence!

Yes. That is my daughter. She is on a wii balance board. She is enjoying it.

Oh, what kind of mother am I?
Although I'm pleased to report she is not over or underweight at a nice 14 1/2 lbs (hahaha). And apparently has really good balance, too!

Must've gotten that from me (haha)!