The Bare Minimum

For people like me, we are not interested in looking like this:

I mean, she's ugly, right.

Hahahaha, just kidding.

But seriously, I know that I can't have that body and nor do I even care about looking like that.

What I want (and many people, I'm sure), is to feel a little better and look a little better. In my case, I'll take what I struggled with 10-15 pounds ago! I'll take that NOW.

What's really confusing for me is trying to figure out what is realistic and what will get me the best results. Or, in other words,

THE BARE MINIMUM.

When going from doing practically NO exercise and eating whatever the hell I want, I want to know the pivot mark that starts to affect change. What exercise do I need to do to improve cardiovascular function, muscle tone, and burn fat? What do I need to eat/not eat to start losing weight without uprooting my entire existence?

From my own research on my own body, I have learned a few things that are not really surprising, but don't make book deals.

I learned that it really isn't THAT much.

Forget all the fad diets! Forget killing yourself at the gym.

The best way to get on a healthy track is to work slowly. Commit to what you can manage and go from there.

When I had success with Weight Watchers, it was usually when I was SERIOUSLY tracking. Not when I was depriving myself. I remember sharing this many times. If I was honest with the tracking, I was able to compare a "bad" week to a "good" week and learn that the difference was not 1,000 calories per day, but perhaps 200-300!

I tracked last week using My Fitness Pal and lost about a pound. I didn't feel deprived. I had cake. More than once. I drank some wine. According to the reports on MFP, I was near the red line of where I needed to be: sometimes below, sometimes above.

And I lost a pound.

Exercise was decent. I made it into the gym three days. Because I'm having some back pain issues, I didn't exercise as rigorously as I have been.

Blood pressure was up a bit.

So there you have it.

What do I need to do next week to make things a little better?

Not all that much, apparently.

So, instead of going to the gym for three days next week, I'm going to shoot for four.

And, I'm going to try and stay at or below the MFP for at least three days.

I'll report back and we can see what happens.