The new taskmaster is in the house, an old-fashioned HoMedics® Analog Scale. Product shot above framed by Starburst Lilies just coming into full, glorious bloom along edge of the front porch.
Feeling pretty cocky, having lost close to 20 pounds in eight weeks on our Cold Turkey Diet, we bucked decades of denial, headed out to Bed, Bath & Beyond and bought a bathroom scale to replace the one we had thrown down the stairs and kicked out of the house in blind rage many years and several diets ago. Since then, the only time we had stepped onto a scale was at the doctor's office, about once a year on average.
Walking for an hour -- as we do daily -- at a rate of four miles per hour: 364 calories. According to "So you wanna lose weight" (see below), you can lose two pounds a week if you eat 500 fewer calories than a person of your age, sex, and weight usually needs in a day and burn off 500 calories a day.
We already knew what do to -- eat less and exercise -- but couldn't resist Googling the topic, from Oprah's weight-loss guru Bob Greene's "Best Life Diet," where "you never have to count a calorie!" to "So you wanna lose weight," an amusing and sensible source that turned us on to something called the "Activity Calculator," where you plug in your current weight to find out how many calories you can work off in a given amount of time at a variety of activities. We've highlighted a few of them here just for fun.
Bending down and picking up street coins -- something we do thousands of times a year during walkies, where we've "earned" hundreds of dollars through the years: The Activity Calculator doesn't say, but like the bottom line of the coins themselves, the number of calories burned must add up.
Weeding: 327 calories per hour. We love to weed anyway, and our terrace, garden and yard are most helpful in providing the raw material. Smooth Crabgrass (Digitaria ischaemum), above.
Thatching/raking lawn: 312 calories per hour. Two weeks ago, the green lawn beyond Tuck's boots in the photograph above was as brown as the patch he's currently thatching -- dethatching? -- in the foreground. Removing the layer of living and dead grass stems and roots with a thatching rake "forces buds to grow near the base of the grass stems, preventing the grass plants from being dead underneath and only green on top."
Watering the yard by hand, standing/walking: 41 calories. "The Rosa Multifloras, enjoying their best year ever, frame Tuck front and back as he waters the indoor plants that have come outside for their day in the sun," we captioned this image of a rare day in June.
Sleeping: 65 calories.
But, of course, we aren't taking this dieting thing lying down.
Welcome back from the big blackout!
WooHoo you are doing soooo well! I haven't done scales in years. Can't stand the things. *grin* I go by clothes... I don't want to buy new ones. So if mine start getting tight - I figure it's time to cut back. ;-)
I'm so proud of you though - you go girl!
Posted by: Teresa | July 25, 2007 at 12:39 AM
He is getting too skinny.
Posted by: bird dog | July 25, 2007 at 05:54 AM
Congratulations. I suppose for those who can't walk an hour a day that typing at the keyboard of the computer uses a few calories and consuming less food can reduce an over abundance of pounds.
Posted by: goomp | July 25, 2007 at 06:10 AM
Sissy, you manage to make everything look beautiful, even a scale. It's a gift!
Congratulations on sticking with the lifestyle change... it takes fortitude, but you've obviously got the thing whupped. :D
Posted by: pam | July 25, 2007 at 08:32 AM