My new fitness tool…the FitBit.

So I work for probably the greatest company ever! We recently started a fitness challenge to try to get people more active and healthy, since we all work desk jobs. The first phase of this two part challenge, was to wear a big bulky pedometer for 15 days. I did my 15 days right away so that I could move on to phase 2. That was when we received our glorious FitBits!

This is such an awesome fitness tool! First of all it is sleek and slim, which was already a huge improvement over my bulky pedometer. Second of all it has so many additional features that my other pedometer did not! And lastly, it syncs to a website so you can track all your data!

 

Sorry the picture is kind of blurry. It’s from my phone. Anyway…so this pedometer, which is an understatement, tracks your steps, your distance traveled, the flights of stair you have climbed, calories burned, sleep efficiency and general daily fitness score. How awesome is that?!

This has been a great tool to get me moving. I didn’t realize how much time I spent sedentary throughout the day! It was absolutely appalling. I work a desk job so there’s 8 hrs of sedentary time plus the time I spend watching tv, or reading or just being lazy in general! There is a section on the website that gives you a pie chart of your activity levels throughout the day and I had way too much sedentary time! So that was my first goal. Get more blue lightly active time!

Also, since you can join groups of people to help motivate you, I had some competition to motivate me to increase my steps everyday. On average people walk 5,000 steps, supposedly. I was averaging under 2,000 steps some days! I needed to get off my lazy ass!

My favorite feature is the sleep tracker. You put the FitBit in a little sleeve, which is the left picture, and put it on your non-dominant hand. When you are actually ready to sleep, you start a stopwatch on the FitBit. Then when you wake up you stop the stopwatch. When it syncs to your computer, which happens anytime your are within 15 feet of your base, you can then see your sleep efficiency and how many times you woke up throughout the night. I knew that I wasn’t sleeping well, but I didn’t realize how bad it was! So I am considering finally going to see a doctor about it.

The website also offers so many awesome features as well. You can log activities, just about anything you can think of. You can also log your food which is great if you are trying to lose weight. You can see your calorie input vs. output. There are also several apps for your phone that you can link to the website that make it even easier to track activities and food!

I seriously can’t tell you guys what a fantastic tool this is and how much I love it! I recommend this to everyone, lightly active to extremely active. It gives you so much valuable information either way. If you want to get some more information or purchase your own FitBit for just $100, check out the website!

 

GM Cleanse

I know I said I wasn’t going to post again before the weekend, BUT I had some extra time and I wanted to share the GM cleanse with you guys! This seriously changed my life and I had so many people ask me about it on Twitter and Facebook. So here it is…

First a bit of background. If the first thing you thought when you saw GM was General Motors, then you would be correct! This was actually generated by General Motors to keep their employees healthy. This is not a long term diet! But it IS a really great 7 day cleanse. I had been wanting to lost weight for so long and I just keep quitting everything I was trying because I wasn’t getting results fast enough. When I saw that this cleanse claims to help you lose 7-12 pounds in 7 days, I knew that would give me the motivation that I needed! And sure enough I have been on the right path since then.

Day 1: All fruits. They do recommend that you eat fruits from the melon family, but I quickly discovered that I HATE all melon family fruits! I tried to choke down some watermelon and I thought I was going to vomit! So I had kiwi and berries. You can eat until you are full as long as you are only eating fruits. NO BANANAS. You also need to drink 10-12 glasses of water a day. Plain water! Lemons and limes are ok for  flavoring if necessary. I lost 3 lbs the first day!!

Day 2: All veggies. You can have whatever veggies you want! Start your day with a large baked potato and then no more potatoes for the day. You can cook your veggies any way that you want, but only veggies are allowed. Again 10-12 glasses of water. I lost another 3 lbs this day!

Day 3: Fruits and veggies. Still no bananas! You again can cook them any way you want and eat as much as you want. This day is when it started getting hard for me because I was so tired of fruits and veggies! But I made it and lost another lb.

Day 4: Bananas and Milk. NOTHING ELSE! This is the day that most people give up on! It was hard trust me, but not harder than day 3 for me. You can have up to 8 bananas and 1 glass of milk. Other than that you are drinking your 10-12 glasses of water. By this point my hunger pangs and cravings were gone. You start to fill up on water and don’t need all the extra calories to tie you over. I didn’t have any weightloss this day.

Day 5: Tomatoes and beef. For those that didn’t give up on day 4, day 5 did them in. I love tomatoes so I didn’t mind this day. You can have up to 6 tomatoes and I believe 16 oz of meat. I actually had chicken on this day, only because it was what I already had. It didn’t effect my results though. I had 5 tomatoes because one had gone bad before I could eat it. You also have to increase your water to 12-14 glasses because of the uric acid your body will be producing. I lost 1 more lb this day!

Day 6: Beef and veggies. Again I had chicken and I also tried pureed cauliflower! It was really good! Other than that I had carrots, celery and lettuce wedges. By this time, this cleanse was a breeze! !0-12 glasses of water again. I didn’t have any weightloss this day.

Day 7: Veggies and brown rice. You are allowed to have 1 cup of brown rice and unlimited veggies. I didn’t like this day because plain brown rice is not good. But I choked it down and had some veggies. Don’t forget your 10-12 glasses of water! I lost my last lb this day and was done! A whole new person.

So if  you weren’t mentally keeping track, that’s 9 POUNDS TOTAL! That was so incredible for me and I was feeling so great. It gave me the kick start I needed to start eating better.

Since then I have lost 5 more pounds. I altered this cleanse a little to allow myself enough calories to workout. They strongly suggest NO EXERCISE during this cleanse. Once you start you will know why. You really don’t have enough energy do to anything real strenuous. A light walk would be ok. Anyway, I coupled my new diet with lots of exercise and now I feel incredible. I was so proud of myself for sticking to something and bettering myself.

I really recommend this cleanse to anyone that needs a boost or maybe just to lose a few pounds. There is an extensive break down here. There is also a soup that you can eat as much as you want from day 4 on. I made the soup but never ended up eating it. Like I said, by day 4 my cravings were gone. So the soup is optional.

If you guys try this, I would love to hear how it goes for you! It seriously changed my life and I feel so much better about myself! I hope that sharing this with you guys will allow that to happen for someone else! 🙂

Sorry my before and after pics were taken on my phone and I can’t make them big enough to see. I will try to get some added if you guys want. Just let me know in the comments!

Good luck and have a great weekend! 🙂