steve, Author at FitnessFor.Us

November 11, 2019November 12, 2019

Weighing in with Noom

I’m starting Week 3 of my Noom program, and it’s going great. I’m exercising more. I’m watching what I eat from a holistic perspective, rather than singling out some foods as “bad” (even if my writing and attitude may sometimes lean that way).

I’m enjoying myself!

But one thing I don’t like is weighing in daily.

I know from my many past experiences with weight loss programs that weight fluctuates daily based on a lot of factors, including food consumption, level of hydration, and, by the gods, whether or not I’ve emptied my bowels.

Noom says that daily weigh-ins are motivational. I’ll bet they are for a majority of people, but, as we know, if we think scientifically, it is folly to apply generalizations to individuals.

We know that smoking causes lung cancer. 80-90% of all lung cancer cases are a direct result of smoking!

Did you also know that only 10-15% of smokers ever develop lung cancer?

November 10, 2019November 11, 2019

My relationship with ice cream

I love ice cream.

I don’t think that puts me in the minority of humans. What’s not to love about ice cream? It’s creamy. It’s sweet. It’s delicious!

I’m including gelato under the “ice cream” label, even though I like it more than ice cream. It’s smoother, and usually not as sweet, which I would imagine is true because it’s retaining its European roots, and it seems to me that Americans prefer their foods too sweet.

My father was in the US Air Force, so I spent more than half of my school years living in Europe. England when I was very young, for first and second grades, and Germany when I was older, junior high (what’s usually called “middle school” now) and high school.

Because of all the time I spent in Europe as a youth, I developed less of a sweet tooth than other people I know, because, when I was a kid, anyway, Europeans made their sweet pastries with a lot less sugar than Americans do. A German cake, for example, was very enjoyable to me, because ingredients other than sugar shone through.

November 7, 2019November 7, 2019

Losing weight with Noom and hitting milestones

I’m pretty excited, because I weighed in this morning, and I am at 189.8 — under 190 for the first time in many years.

I don’t know how many years. You may think that because I run a fitness blog I am obsessed with weighing and charting and tracking. I’m not. Except when I am. And I am right now.

I am pretty sure this will be short-lived. Tomorrow I’ll be heavier. That’s how my body works, always 2-3 days behind.

Take the current situation, for example. The two days prior to yesterday, which would be Monday and Tuesday, I was at or under my daily calorie budget. Yesterday, however, I ate a whole pizza and a large portion of gelato. That pushed me way over my target calorie count, even with the extra calories from a walking workout.

Side Note: With Noom on I get one extra calorie for every two I burn during a workout that same day. Yes, my caloric budget increases with exercise. How cool is that? Very cool. That is very cool.

November 4, 2019November 6, 2019

Evaluation of Noom after one week on the program

I’ve been involved with the Noom program for a week now, so let me give you my first impressions.

On the plus side:

I like the psychology behind the program. It’s geared to help me change my habits. There are no banned foods, nothing I can’t eat, but all my foods are classified as Green, Yellow, and Red, based on caloric density. Green foods are best with low caloric density. Red are highest in caloric density. Learning that, embedding that into my mind, will help me as I make future dietary decisions.
Along those same lines, Noom is designed to train me and let me go. No lifetime commitment. That makes me think that once I’m done with Noom, I may be able to maintain a healthy diet. It’s not like other plans I’ve been on where I was essentially told what to eat, but once I was done with the plan, I was left hanging, and I inevitably went back to my old eating patterns.
There are no mealplans, no boxes of food to subscribe to. Noom is all about training and coaching. I get some kind of knowledge sharing each day, and periodic coaching. This means the program is more affordable, because the cost is only for the electronic infrastructure. No food or supplement purchases are involved.
The app is pretty easy to use. It doesn’t sync with my Letsfit fitness tracker, but it’s easy enough to manually enter my steps each day.

November 3, 2019November 4, 2019

I’m pushing myself with walking as my primary exercise

This morning, as part of my Noom program, I walked 3 miles in 54 minutes.

That seemed really fast to me, so I doubted the reading on my Letsfit fitness tracker, but I mapped my route with Google, and the distance was actually a bit more than that, so I went with 3 miles.

At almost 60 years old, I feel really good about that. That’s a brisk walk, and I never felt pressured physically. Well, a little weirdness in my left ankle, but that’s normal. I must have hurt it at some point in my life.

This is part of the positive influence that these electronic devices and the Noom program has had on me: they allow me to document and understand that I am really doing something, not just going for a stroll. I truly had no idea I was walking that fast.

Walking is an excellent form of exercise for us older folks. It helps improve heart health, lowering the risk of heart attack and stroke. That’s important.