Today for lunch I went over to the WW meeting near my office. I caught a ride with my co-worker who has already met goal but has six weeks more until she hits lifetime status. The sign-in was easy enough and I got weighed on the official scales. They are in line with what I showed at home – except they are more precise and even had the .4 at the end of the weight. But based on my weight this morning after my shower and at the meeting with clothes on it looks to be in sync.
When I came back I spoke with another co-worker who lives in Fort Mill in the subdivision just behind mine and we’ve agreed to at least TRY to meet up a couple times a week to walk. She has a mini-gym in her basement, so I may force my way into her house as well in order to avoid joining a real gym.
One thing that is disappointing is that the leader stressed the importance of finding a form of exercise that you really enjoy so that you will stick with it. Well, I hate running (which I tried doing after I gave birth to CootieGirl). I hate walking – it’s boring. I hate elliptical trainers – still boring. I hate sports – not good at them. The exercise I love is dancing. This weekend I danced for about 30 seconds to a commercial with CootieGirl and I loved each second of it and wanted to do it again when the commercial ended. I love dancing. Notice that’s not past tense – I still love dancing and freely admit that I really miss it. I miss that I can’t call Glad-ball and say, “Hey, let’s go out tonight,” and know that for at least 2-3 hours or more I’ll get to dance while also getting in some good exercise. If I had the ability to go dancing even just 2 nights a week I’d lose weight in a heartbeat without even trying. According to a website I found, an hour of easy aerobic dancing at my weight can burn about 550 calories. So three hours of dancing can rid me of 1650 calories. That’s half a pound right there. So two night’s a week, three hours dancing each, would be a pound lost. Add in following the WW plan and reducing calories and I could easily lose 2 pounds a week without even trying. I’d be at goal by next June.
Anyway, it’s pointless to talk about it since it’s not going to happen. I’ve got a husband and kids at home – I can’t be a clubber anymore.
So at the meeting they gave me my little notebook, the point tracker and the meeting seems like it has a great motivational leader (she lost 100 pounds). There were about 20 men and women of various ages at the meeting. Looking forward to next week’s.
Have you thought of Jazzercise? Or Body and Soul?
Those don’t appeal to be because it’s doing specific aerobic “dance” routines that you have to learn (I’ve done those classes before). I’m more into FREESTYLE – just letting loose and doing what I want to do. It’s much more enjoyable and satisfying.
I’d gladly stay home with the kids two nights a week if you wanted to go dancing, but you’d have to go by yourself unless you can find someone else who would want to go. Plus, you are about 20 years too old for the club scene. Sorry, old lady. You can always dance with CootieGirl at home for a few hours.
You are NEVER too old for the club scene if your intention is to dance the night away. You ARE too old for the club scene if you are in your late 30s and going in trying to find a boy/girlfriend.
And back in the 1970s one of the most popular clubbers at Studio 54 was a woman in her 70s. And when I went to Fifth Column in DC back in the early 1990s there was an old guy there (in his 60s or 70s) that was kind of the club hero for a while since he was there every week shuffling around the dancefloor.
So, it sounds like it’s a go for you then. When are you going to your first club down here?
I think I have a woman at my office talked into going with me, but I’m going to start asking some of the young kids around my office about any potential nightspots that they’d recommend.
I hate to be a pedant here, but if you’re burning XX calories per hour then you won’t lose that weight, you’ll just compensate for that much weight gain from plain ol’ food. i.e. You’re gonna have to a hell of a lot of dancing unless you’re living on lettuce and water. Or else (more likely) you’ll have to find a way to make less engaging exercise more exciting for yourself. Got an iPod? God knows elliptical machines are watching paint dry but they’re easy on the knees; coupled with a little weight training it’ll knock the pounds right off.
Or so I’m told. It’s not like I’m posting recent pictures on MY blog for damn sure. 🙂
Wax, I think in a lot of cases that can be true. But here is where I’m coming from (this is just an example – the numbers are not true to my case in particular):
Say my old habit was no exercise whatsoever and consuming 4,000 calories per day.
I start WW, which gives me about 2000 calories per day. I’m already lowering the amount of daily calories I normally consume by HALF.
By dancing even one night a week I’m also burning about 1600 calories per week that wouldn’t have been burned off if I had been living by my old sedentary lifestyle and just done my normal routine (which burns calories in itself but not many).
So I’ve gone from 28,000 calories taken in each week and 0 extra burned off to 14,000 calories per week and ~1,600 burned off, or 12,400 calories.
That means I’m reducing my overall weekly caloric total from 28,000 to just 12,400 – a 56% drop. For a fat person, that’s MAJOR and will result in weight loss even though exercise seems minimal. And the other key is that as I lose more weight, the daily calories that WW allows me goes down. In the above model, I’d go from 2000 calories per day to 1800 to 1600 to 1400, etc. until I reach my goal weight and the associated number of calories that WW recommends to maintain that weight.
Can other diet/exercise gurus weigh in? Are my numbers right? Is my thinking off?
Jane you should get the video game “dance dance revolution”. I had a friend that lost like 40 pounds just doing that in her living room. They have them in arcades too. You have to buy a game system and the game but it comes with this pad that the dance steps light up on. It’s suppose to be a lot of fun and easy.
I like your thinking, Jaynee…but, then again, I’m no guru. 🙂 I’d go dancing with you if I lived near you, which doesn’t really help us out, much.
DDR is not too tricky to learn, but it’s definitely not easy, once a person gets into standard or heavy step patterns. There’s even a Workout mode, where you can plug in your weight and it will keep track of your calories burned. I like it. I need to get back into my DDR routine. 🙂