My Very Active Day

Last night my husband took me out for a birthday dinner at From The Boot, a great new italian place nearby.  The food was A-Mazing, and I loved every bite.  I made a real effort not to eat everything in sight, and to leave the restaurant full, but not stuffed.  In addition, I got a great workout in the morning and went lighter on lunch than usual.  Still...after the garlic bread, bruschetta, pesto pizza and homemade cheesecake for dessert, I consumed about 3500 calories for the day.  YIKES!  According to my my BodyBugg, I only burned 3000 calories, even with a 600 calorie workout in the morning.   Sooooo...Sunday is going to be all about burning as many calories as possible to counteract yesterday's indulgence (and the upcoming week's 3 dinners out).

Obviously, I need to do an extra long workout today to help pick up the slack.  And that is definitely on the schedule - 60 minutes on the treadmill and another 15-20 in the pool.  However, that will account for maybe 600-700 calories at best, and I need to generate a deficit for today as well as yesterday!  Which brings me to today's strategy:  stay on my feet all day to generate a slow but steady burn.  My husband would call this a Very Active Day - a technique he uses when training for his many endurance events which require several hours of activity - but more about that another time.  Very Active Days have a great benefit besides conditioning your muscles to be active for long periods of time...they burn a lot more calories than just sitting around watching TV after your workout!

For inspiration on incorporating this strategy into my everyday life, I consulted this article from Apex Fitness which provides a side-by-side comparison of the extra calorie expenditure for things like taking the stairs instead of the elevator, standing instead of sitting when talking on the phone, etc.  I tend to be extremely sedentary by nature, and this information really opened my eyes to how much the small things really add up.  Could this be the secret of thin people everywhere?  Have the modern conveniences I am so used to having really contributed that much to my current poor fitness level?  What can I do besides the obvious stair-elevator swap to keep the burn going?  Turns out, there's a lot of opportunities just waiting right in my own home.

This morning I got up at about 5am, and started wandering around the house picking things up and returning them to their rightful locations.  Normally I would put everything that needed to go upstairs in a big pile and take it up at one time.  Not today!  When I found a book that belonged upstairs, I took it right up and put it away in the bookshelf.  Then I found a pile of clean dishtowels that needed to go down to the kitchen.  So down I went.  Back and forth, up and down, constantly moving with a high degree of inefficiency!  That took about a half hour (the house was a bit of a mess, I'll admit).  Then I walked the dog around the yard for 10 minutes or so.  Then I decided to get all the summer clothes out of my closet, another 20 minutes.   So far so good, on my feet and moving around for an hour and it's only 6am!  Looking around, I found a lot more things to do today to keep the calories coming off: wash all the silverware and the tray in the drawer, clean out the fridge and wash all the shelves, organize the guest room in advance of my inlaws' visit next week, clean the doggie noseprints off the windows, you get the picture - any chores that require standing and movement.  The finale will be a trip to the mall wearing my MBTs and of course I will park far from the entrance and not use the escalator!

I'll report back tomorrow on the burn rate from my BodyBugg - my goal is a 3500 calorie day, with about 2000 calories of food.  Wish me luck!