The amount of calories that 20 minutes of walking would burn would greatly by the person’s weight, fitness, speed of walking, and probably minor other factors. It’s not hard for people to learn what calories mean.
First, I’m glad so many people are having success. Olives, I hope everything is ok and that it was just a freak occurance.
This week has been horrible so far. I start the day well and eat a good filling breakfast but people keep bringing snacks to work and having lunch meetings. I have done a good job not snacking on the pastries (except for one donut yesterday) but the stress of saying no to myself makes it really hard come dinner time. Since I haven’t had full control over lunches, dinner is extra tough. In the past two days, I’ve eaten though all but one point of my weekly allowance. On top of that I haven’t been exercising like I told myself because I get back to the hotel at 8:30 pretty much spent. I know I have time and if I did go and at least walk on the treadmill it would help but I don’t. I just go to sleep. I’m so frustrated with myself and the guys I’m working with right now. I just want a day off to just be around people I care about.
So 5-6 weeks of swimming and I shoot up 5-8 pounds and then slowly lose back the weight that I shot up. Then I hurt my abdominal muscles badly and take a week off to recover, and during that week I lose 7-8 pounds.
Lesson: Exercise is bad for you.
Just poked my head in here - I sometimes make “banana fritters” with egg whites and ripe bananas (dash of vanilla). They are actually super good. 
Really? Because that sounds kind of terrible. I think I’m going to try it though. How do you prepare them?
The best way I have found to counteract the fluctuation monster is to drink A LOT of water. I usually consume about a gallon of liquid a day.
It gives you good skin, too. (Though, I have to pee about once an hour.)
I made my recipe yesterday and they were delicious!
I used 1 banana, 1 egg, 1/2T butter. Then I drizzled a little maple syrup over top.
The first one wasn’t so good, it was lumpy. So I blitzed the mixture and the second one was delicious! Needs to be cooked on a medium rather than high heat, otherwise the outside burns. I definitely had the feeling of having ‘eaten pancakes’ afterwards, with none of the flour!
Did a nice dish for dinner tonight too. Meatballs with napoli sauce and moz cheese on top, served on julienned courgette instead of spaghetti. Also delicious!
I’m back on the low-cal phase of my diet and while I’m happy I’ve lost 5 pounds already, I’d really like to eat some cheese. Thank goodness it will be dinner time soon.
I’ve been off wheat for a week, if I’m going to feel better from just that when might it kick in? FTR, I don’t have any reason to believe I’m allergic to wheat, I’m just curious because so many people have said they feel so much better after removing grain from their diets.
GUYS GUYS GUYS
I got my latest A1C in! 5.3! For those of you who don’t play the diabeetus game, a normal person should be between 4.0 - 6.0! My blood is no longer liquid sugar 
My fasting glucose is still a little high though at 7.1 (128 for y’all 'Muricans).
My doc’s been after me forever to drink more water. I don’t like water. A severe UTI this last weekend (as in “your WBC is off the charts”) sent me to her for antibiotics. Cranberry pills and juice weren’t touching it, and I was in a lot of pain. So I got the antibiotics and a big lecture on water. A fear of a painful recurrence has made me start drinking water, like more than a gal. a day. I’ve lost 3 lb. in 3 days. So what the hell is this “water weight” people talk about?
Water weight is what you get when you don’t drink enough and your body (who only wants to survive) stores all the water it can. When you finally hydrate up your body says to itself, “Yay, we’re not living in the desert anymore!” and tells the kidneys to get busy.
Keep drinking, that three pounds will stay off. Stop or significantly reduce your intake and it will come right back.
eta: Good for you, kushiel!
Lost another 0.6kg this week, taking my total lost to 22.6kg, wahoo!
A word of caution going into the summer months!
Today I discovered that unlike hot coffee, iced coffee will be sweetened with sugar unless requested otherwise. Checking out Tim Hortons, McDonalds and Starbucks nutritional info all of them add a sugar syrup or base. Make sure to specifically request no sugar base! And here I thought when I had asked for an iced coffee, one cream, two sweetener they’d be smart enough to realize I didn’t want any sugar. 
In general, it is best to specify sugar free. People expect iced coffee to be sweeter and milder that hot coffee and the way restaurants achieve that is with a little bit of milk and a whole lot of sugar. I think Starbucks has at least made it easier now that you can pick your milk, syrup and amount of espresso. You can have a lot more control over your drinks.
I’m down 45 pounds from last October’s start weight of 187. Why I no look thin yet? Damn but I’m tired of being on a reduction-diet.
All is well and fine now. Saturday we went to Eagle Rock for 3.6 miles. It was fun. Yesterday I went back to the place I fainted - covered 4 miles on hilly terrain with no major problems! 7.6 miles of hiking - not bad for a newbie!
Though I have to add, as I was pulling out of the park last night, I was almost in a fatal car accident. I swung out to turn left on a blind hill and found a car barreling toward the driver’s side door of my little Honda Fit. I don’t even think he saw me at first, and I started stepping on the gas to try to get the hell out of his way, but realized I was just positioning my car more directly in front of him. At the last second he jerked the wheel and went into the oncoming traffic lane (but hit nothing thank god.) I had enough time to think, ‘‘I’m about to die. Not like this.’’ and brace myself for impact and when the car didn’t hit me, it was like a miracle had occurred. My heart is pounding just remembering.
I’m just saying, I’d rather have the hiking without so much drama, please.
Holy carp Olives! I’m glad your game of chicken didn’t end horribly.
Run before breakfast briefly after you wake up (if you can). It gets your metabolism going for the day.
I can barely crawl before coffee. Probably find myself outside with my underwear on my head. Not safe for the neighborhood to see that.
I seem to be stuck at 12 lbs off. I certainly feel better, but the weight is being difficult. I had hoped to lose more before my job goes into seasonal overdrive, when I work 7 days a week, 12-14 hours per day and lose most of my exercise time. I guess I’ll try to keep off the 12 pounds and get back to trying to lose after the season is over in late July. Too bad.
I might give this a shot. I have a long commute (no, seriously, I spend 3.5-4 hours driving each day) and I find I start to get drowsy on that long expanse of boring ol’ turnpike. I might try running around my apartment building before jumping in the car next time. If that doesn’t work, I might start stopping halfway through the drive, doing 100 jumping jacks and carrying on. I’ll probably get some funny looks, but I’m trying to get used to that anyway.
[QUOTE=Mrs. Cake]
I can barely crawl before coffee. Probably find myself outside with my underwear on my head. Not safe for the neighborhood to see that.
[/QUOTE]
Unfortunately, caffeine is not an option for me, because it makes me a nervous wreck and I’m already high-strung enough as it is.
[QUOTE=kushiel]
I got my latest A1C in! 5.3! For those of you who don’t play the diabeetus game, a normal person should be between 4.0 - 6.0! My blood is no longer liquid sugar My fasting glucose is still a little high though at 7.1 (128 for y’all 'Muricans).
[/QUOTE]
Holla!!! That’s awesome. I mean, that’s the whole point of this, right? To be healthier. What a wonderful success!
Today I had my benchmark workout - the Coach has me do it periodically, as fast as I can, to monitor my progress. My first time, about three weeks ago, was 18:18. Today’s time? 14:40. Nearly 4 minutes faster! Oh, man will I be feeling it tomorrow, though. I literally cursed my Coach as I did it (he lives on the other side of the country, so he didn’t hear me.) Never have I had more mixed emotions about a workout.
I found out today that the kind of hiking I’ve been doing burns about 1300 calories per trip. Wowsa! I keep that up I’ll be slimming down in no time.
And finally… anybody have any thoughts on Paleo? I’ve been eating clean for almost two months, but I’ve thought about cutting down on whole grains a bit. I don’t know if it would really make a difference, or maybe it’s too soon to make more changes.