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Thursday, April 17, 2008

Thursday

Meant to add another post yesterday, but didn't quite get to it last night. So I just went back this morning and added my food/exercise log for the day. Lately this has been the only place I've really been tracking things, so I'm trying to keep it as accurate as possible.

Yesterday I got my workout in before supper. I wasn't feeling hungry when we got home from work and Moon grabbed a bottle of water and disappeared into his computer room without saying anything about supper. I was feeling in the mood to get the workout accomplished and out of the way, so off I went. Hoping I can do the same today. I feel more energetic when it's still light out, and lately when I wait till after supper it's getting dark and the temperature is dropping in the basement which does not motivate me at all.

This morning, just for fun, I entered my planned food for the day in my fitday account, and in the Weight Watchers online tracking tools, just to see how they compare. Assuming I stick to what I have entered, my calorie total for the day is 1213, and it works out to 21 points (my daily allowance from weight watchers is 20 points). I sat down and did some calculations last week, kind of comparing how points map to calories, and I think I want to do some tracking for a few days to compare. I'm thinking that I'm probably going to switch back to fitday at the end of the month since it is free - why keep paying for Weight Watchers when I'm not consistently using it? With fitday, you can also publish a link to a public version of your journal (I've included it below my Daily Record for today).

Boring today aren't I? Okay, switching gears.

A couple of interesting articles I read yesterday (in case we weren't all confused enough already):


Vitamins A, E and beta-carotene increase mortality, not longevity: study

Results of a study in Denmark:

Researchers found that 17,880 of 136,023 study participants who took the supplements died (13.1 per cent), compared to 10,136 of 96,527 participants who did not take the supplements (10.5 per cent). They did not track causes of death.

The antioxidants also appeared to offer no benefit to people with gastrointestinal, heart, neurological, eye, skin, rheumatoid, kidney and endocrine diseases, according to the authors.

Vitamin C also showed no health benefit, though in some of the studies, selenium did seem to reduce mortality.



Low-calorie diet may help stave off skin cancer: study

In a study done on mice:

The researchers believe a high-calorie diet activates receptors on the skin cell's surface: epidermal growth factor and insulin-like growth factor. These two receptors in turn send signals, such as whether cells should divide and spread — factors critical in the development of skin cancer.

In the case of low-calorie diets, the lack of signalling prevents the cells' growth and development.

Different levels of calorie restriction were applied, and a 30% reduction in calories appeared to be the most effective.

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Daily Record
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Weight: 143.3

BF: Steel cut oatmeal w/brown sugar & milk, coffee w/cream
Lunch: Raw cauliflower & Curried Red Lentil Soup
Snack: Fibre 1 bar
Supper: Salad, spaghetti

Workout: Walk - maybe out side?

Fitday Journal

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I really like the way you have your blog set up. Do you think that is has helped you in your efforts? Getting it all in public? I don't know if I have the guts to do that.

JavaChick said...

Hello pj! Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment.

As far as being public, I have tried to keep things as anonymous as I can. I haven't told friends & family about the blog (though if they were to stumble across it and read the right posts, they'd figure it out) because I wanted to be able to write honestly and not worry about what anyone might think.

I do think it has helped in that whenever I start to feel like giving up, I realize that I don't want to admit that here on the blog, so it keeps me going. It helps me focus, gives me an outlet to work through things that are on my mind.

I still have a long way to go, but I am determined and I hope this blog - and the supportive comments left by fellow bloggers - will provide the extra push I need. :)

the Bag Lady said...

And you have me!! Me...me, who has lost 2 lbs! And hopes to keep on losing, unlike the 3 billion other times recently that she has lost a little weight.
Hoping you register a loss tomorrow, kiddo.

the Bag Lady said...

How are your tomatoes doing, by the way?

JavaChick said...

Bag Lady - congrats! 2 lbs is awesome! I do count on your support a lot by the way, it definitely helps. As for the tomatoes, just when I was starting to give up hope, I am seeing sprouts. They are still in the cold basement (well, cold when the window is open for the cats), so I have only myself to blame that things are so slow. Really must figure out how to move things around and bring my little seedlings upstairs this weekend.

Crissy Rae said...

Hope you are able to get the early bird workout in today. I find it's easier for me to get it done right away when I get home or go to the gym before I go home, otherwise I can talk myself out of it altogether.

Crabby McSlacker said...

Shoot, I saw your post after I wrote my Random Friday--you beat me to the antioxidant study and summarized it much better!

And that calorie reduction study is interesting, but 30%?? No way! Not worth it for me--but then I guess it depends how many you start off with.

And way to go Bag Lady!

HappyBlogChick said...

I should probably cancel my WW online membership. I don't use it enough to justify it, probably. But I kind of like knowing it is there. It's my online security blanket. Hmmmmm.

You're doing really well with eating and tracking - good for you!

meredi said...

Hey Chica!

Don't pay that vitamins article any attention... honestly, the journalists don't even give us enough information to decide whether or not the study was well-designed. There are so many potential flaws in something like that, it's hard to know where to start, and we can't even START because the journalists don't give us the relevant information. Ugh, it really irks me that this passes for "news".

You should read "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan. It really put my mind at ease in respect to these awful conflicting studies that come out. He argues that it's impossible to design a truly controlled, blind experiment around anything involving food, and therefore we can't trust any results that come out of studies like this. Truly fascinating research, and I completely agree with his argument. It's a good read, as compared with the vitamin article crapola :) hehe

meredi said...

Sigh, I did some more digging into that article and I really can't make up my mind. It's a reputable journal, and the studies were randomized, but it's so difficult to tell whether 200,000 is a big enough sample size for something like this. But these people design studies for a living, so... arg!

Anyway, I reread your post and wanted to say that I did the same thing... went for one of the free sites rather than pay WW an outrageous fee every month. (I'm still bitter that I didn't get any sort of discount as a lifetime member!) It's harder to look up some foods on the free sites, but I don't think I'll ever go back!

Have you tried anything other than FitDay? Why did you choose it?