I AM MOTIVATED...at least for now...

On Sunday I went to the gym that my husband and I spend a ton of money at but use rarely and asked a trainer to "measure" me. So these are my stats.
*I weight 133 lbs. at the gym (130 lbs.) on my home scale
*I have 22.4 % body fat (He measured me in 7 spots)
*I got a clean bill of health on all my blood work at my last yearly visit
SOOOOO....I am healthy. Actually really healthy for a 38 year old person.

Now- Why in the heck am I doing this???? I'm not over wieght. I do not have high blood pressure or cholesterol. I am just fine-right????

How many "within range" in weight and body fat 38 year old women do you see writing blogs??
I want to live to see my grandkids have kids and I want to take control over waht I have control  over (my life). It is up to me what I eat and when I exercise. It is in my control.
Now the hard part is getting myself motivated to actually do it. So this blog is making me accountable.
These are my goals:
*Get my body fat down to 19% (excellent range...not just normal range)
*Get my butt and hips back into my size 4 jeans without a muffin top.
*Get certain body parts to stop jiggeling. It has been 8 years since my last baby..time to tone up!
*Keep my bones and joints healthy as I age so I can be an active great grandmother someday.

I have an iPad and I have began using an app called MyFitness Pal to determine how many calories I need a day. I use an app called Calorie Counter to keep track of my food and exercise diary. I LOVE the Calorie Counter becuase I can punch in a bar code on any food label and it will download all the food info for me. I also like it becuase it counts housework and shopping as exercise!!!!

Notcie that I did not add my losing weight into my goals. First off- I do believe watching the scale is necessary for some people and it can be a help in determining weight loss. For me I really am not trying to lose weight but I am trying to lose body fat.
I did some research and this is what I found out:

Body Fat Percentage Isn’t Rocket Science

Your scale weight is a measure of your body’s total weight: this includes body fat; lean tissue like muscle; your internal organs like the heart, lungs, and liver; the food and liquid currently passing through your digestive tract; water retained by body tissue; and skeletal material like bones and their connective tissue.
The number the scale displays when you step on it doesn’t make distinctions between they types of weight it is measuring. It just lumps it all together.
But it should make distinctions.
A person can actually have a high body weight on the scale, but be extremely lean. I know this runs counter to what you’ve heard, but it’s true.  What really matters is how much body fat you have sitting on top of all of that lean tissue and skeletal and connective material. If you have a lot of body fat, you’ll appear “fat” and bulky, if you have very little, you’ll look “lean” and slim.

The Differences Between Body Fat and Muscle

Body fat (adipose tissue) is metabolically inactive. This means it’s primary function is to store calories, not to consume them.  A pound of fat burns around 2 calories per day to maintain itself. The purpose of body fat is to store energy (in the form of excess calories) for use later, when food is scarce. This is an evolutionary adaptation based on the way we lived thousands of years ago, when the availability of food was spotty. 
But today, people can consistently consume enough calories (and often more) to maintain their basic functions.
Fat storage is not as critical as it once was, yet we continue to eat as if famine was just around the corner. Even worse, changes in our diet from whole grain, complex carbohydrates to highly-processed foods have encouraged our bodies to store more calories as fat, even though it’s unlikely we will ever need them.
Muscle, on the other hand, burns around 6 calories per day — and that is at rest. 

Now, this relates to me. I need to gain muscle and not lose weight, I will probably gain weight during this process. So I am not going to look at the scale to determine my success or failure.

I should also tell you i have three underlying medical issues. 1) I have severe hypoglycemia. My blood sugar can drop so quick I barely have time to grab my suagr pills. The only way to control it is eating correctly. Balance my protein and carbs to stabalize the glucose. I have become a pro at it with the help of a great nutritionist. 2) I have had 3 lower colon surgeries in 4 years. It is just my thing...my weird illness. Once again to keep a colon healthy is a strict diet. 3) I have an intolerance to gluten. Not so bad that I have celiac disease but bad enough that I blow up like a pufferfish 30 minutes after I eat it. Once again- it is a diet issue that works well with all three of my health issues.
The question of the day is-----Do I follow my nutritional needs the way I should???? Hell no!
I love brownies, pasta, bread, pizza and anything sugar!!!!!!!!!!
Ok- not that bad but 90% of the time I do eat correctly. I need to eat right 100% of the time. So that is also a goal.
Lastly- I do not eat beef or pork. I made the mistake of taking my family to the Ft. Worth Stock Show and made a personal connection with about 1000 cows and pigs. I just cannot eat beef or pork after that day.
My kids have never caught on to the fact that all my dinners have white ground meat in them. I have replaced beef and prok with ground turkey in all my cooking. They never question it until their friends come over for dinner and question why their tacos have white ground meat in them. For years we have only had ground turkey in our food.

OK- I plan on blogging once a week with my calorie intake and exercise log. Just knowing that I have to write it in a blog to the world will help me pass up the chocolate cake sitting in the teachers lounge at work.
Bye for now!!! Hopefully I will be successful this week!!