Dear glass of amber liquid...
Cooled so gently by ice.
Refreshing,
Energizing,
Just plain perfect.
You are my weakness,
But I will triumph in spite of you!
Yep, there's a glass of Coke sitting on my desk right now, what of it?? Don't be a hater!
Okay, reality is a bitch. (Some say that about Karma, but I've found Karma to be pretty easy-going) Reality taps me on the shoulder and says "um... yeah, you have to update your blog, and you said you were going to be strong and all that crap. What gives??" And then she smirks at me too. So, I have to be honest and all that, and let you know that it's hard to stick to your weight-loss goals! I know this comes as a shock.
The best way to deal is to offer a lesson, so here I go. I may not look like Jillian, but I can teach you something! A standard Coke is 140 empty calories in a glass. My plans, as stated in my first post, are to be attentive to my intake, and make choices that will help balance the intake with activity. So, if I want to erase those 140 calories from my diet today, what could I do? I did a little search online, and found this website that lists a ton of different activities - both recreational and occupational - and lets you calculate the calories burned in an amount of time that you plug in. I don't have a lot of free time, so I looked at what I could do for 30 minutes to get rid of the demon on my desk...
I can burn 132 calories by doing one of these: Frisbee, bowling, miniature golf, weight lifting, water volleyball, ballroom dancing, or cleaning house.
Or I could bump it up to 155 calories by doing one of these: Hang gliding, sky diving, playing golf (using cart), trimming shrubs w/ power tools, vacuuming, carpentry work, bathing my dog, or archery (non hunting).
Or maybe I'll just go all out for 30 minutes, and do one of these to kick 177 calories off my intake today: Ping pong, Tai Chi, water aerobics, hacky sack, gymnastics, playing w/ kids (moderate effort), gardening, horseback riding, or motor cross.
Quite a selection, right? And I don't want to hear any laughing - I know some of you have hacky sack balls in that drawer in the laundry room that holds all your random crap... tape, mis-matched screws, flashlight bulbs, zip-ties, and hacky sack balls. My personal fave on the list is the "moderate effort" allowed while playing with the kids. Goes without saying that there are some days when even moderate is too extreme for me.
My point (thought I didn't have one, didn't you!) is that the key, as I've said before, is balance. Balance the good with the bad, in with out, up with down... you get the idea. I'm going to spend 30 minutes this evening getting some laundry done, picking up living areas and vacuuming. I'm fairly certain that the level of activity will burn off enough calories to make me feel okay about this Coke.
What do you do when you need to get up off your butt? What activities do you think you could add to your week to help put more things on the scale to balance the weaknesses you have?
9 years ago
So how many calories do I burn reading for half an hour?
ReplyDeleteMy dear sister,
ReplyDeleteThe 140 calories you get from that glass of soda is the least bad part of sodas. 140 calories of fruit or pure fruit juice can be worked off. What goes into a coke stays with you, though. The caffeine itself doubles the effect of the calories on your body. The high frusctose corn syrup is one of the worst things in the American diet today. (Jillian wrote an entire book on the subject) One of the leading theories about why America is so overweight blames a lot of the problem on our reliance on sodas. We drink more than any other country. And it shows.
Do a google search for 'Soda is bad' and read some of the things that soda does. Especially look at the article "what happens to your body if you drink a coke right now?"
My $.02 - because I love you.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOh dang - I accidentally deleted a comment from Martinis or Diaper Genies! She basically told me that regular coke is gross and she's judging me severely. Which of course is fine, since she knows her stuff. And coke probably is gross.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the support folks - I need constant kicking in the ass, so feel free to keep swingin' those shins.