My 80/20 Rule

When trying to loose weight, 80% comes from nutrition. The other 20% comes from everything else. This of course is a general rule and there are always exceptions. Like when I was young. Because then I could loose weight eating a bunch of stuff, but then I was doing about an hour of cardio a day (mostly intervals) and weight lifting like crazy. I was playing a ton of DDR, running miles (never more than 3, but daily it adds up), and biking lots and lots. Oh, yeah, and swimming a ton of laps (trying to help my back). Most of that was all on the same day.

So, now that I’m not doing hours of cardio, I’m starting to see the light that nutrition does matter. Who would have thought!

So I've been reading around about nutrition and the general consensus is that 80% of weight loss is nutritionally related. That not eating enough can slow you down just as much as eating too much as well. Not eating enough slows us down, less twitching, less miscellaneous movements… And of course eating too much just gives us excess calories.
Then also about calories and weight loss… If a person is eating double the calories they should be (sort of an exaggeration here), and cut down their calories by 25%, they are still in a caloric surplus. For anyone math inclined, say I’m eating 4000 cals a day, I’d gain weight steadily. Now if I cut that by 25% I’d be eating 3000 per day. I’d still be gaining steadily even though I dropped my caloric intake.

It is important to know what your maintenance level is to be able to eat the right amount of calories. Just cutting calories doesn’t really do much if you don’t know if it’s enough or too much. There are online calculators for this on pretty much any food tracking site. I personally like the daily plate.

So, if nutrition is our 80%, the rest of weight loss is everything else. It’s how much exercise we do. It’s whether we choose to sit or stand, walk or run, sleep or play a game with the kids. All those random choices in a day to take the easy way out or to take those few extra movements do add up. Taking the far spot at the grocery store might only burn an extra five calories, not nearly as much as a mile run, but it does beat burning zero extra calories. Toe tapping during lectures, being fidgety, all those things add up. Of course, some of us who do crazy amounts of intervals, cardio, and other stuff might bump this 20% category to 30%, and those of us with desk jobs and who do a mere 30 min workout here and there- well then nutrition might play a larger role and the “extra’s” might only add up to a measly 10%.

I'm so getting old if I have to worry so much about nutrition! I remember the good days when I ate everything in sight and lost weight :(.

Do more, be active, live life :)

On The Way Home From 2013 Mudder

I've blogged about our awesome team before. 

But this is me, driving home from last years Tough Mudder in the back of the van. 

Completely untouched image here, no editing at all. Can you see the exhaustion? I can :).

And I cant wait to do it all over again!!

Tomorrow AM, we're driving down and kicking some butt :). 

Here we come 2014 Mudder!!! 

University of Wisconsin Trail at Dusk

We've been to the UWGB trail before. It's quite pretty. As before, this trail is stroller friendly for walking or slow jogging, not so sure about if you're running. It's a bit over 4 miles and is quite pretty. It goes along the water and through the forested area as well as along a more prairie area with a nice field of clovers (which are edible!). This was a gorgeous trail in the afternoon and beautiful again nearing dusk.  

I wandered this trail around dusk a weekend or so ago. The trail closes at dusk according to the sign so I barely made it in time, not that I saw any officers around. 

This is the picnic area where there is a nice parking lot. I plan to come back to watch the sunset before it gets too cold out here in this weather! 

1000 Islands

Thousands Islands is a nature reserve in Kaukauna. I've been here before. I visited here with Grandpa Muddy and the path in the lower woods I would say is NOT stroller friendly and parts of it are baby carrier friendly. 

This stairway is the way to the "upper woods" of 1000 Islands. The stairway is probably the most baby friendly part of the path. These pathways would probably be best for kids who listen well and can walk pretty well, like the 8 or 9 range or a very well behaved 6 or 7 year old. The outer loop of the trail is about 2.25 miles with a few trails intersecting back and forth so you could make this quite a good hike. 

Who can resist a selfie in the woods???

This is Baby Muddy and myself. I had just gotten done with an overnight shift and figured a quick walk was the best thing to do before going to bed. We did not see even one bit of wildlife because... ahem... someone... ahem baby boy... was being VERY loud! Baby Muddy was very excited the morning of this walk and squealed all the way to the end of the path and back. He had a great time!

Baby and I walked this path below. It's the Valley Bike Trail and runs 1.25 miles. Because even in the carrier, I couldn't walk the trails of the upper woods with Baby Muddy, we stuck to the bike path. The bike path would have been stroller friendly with the very well packed crushed stone/gravel pathway. Though the bike path ran along some homes, it was still quite a scenic walk in the woods.  

Wimpy Arms Part Two

Beginning of August I had some wimpy arms and my goal was to not have such wimpy arms. 

I'm keeping my arm goal for yet another month doing the 30/30, 20/20, 10/10 push-ups/tricep dips on the counter top here at work. 

Here it is after a month:

August Goals

1- Run 10 miles every weekend

Generally met this one. I ended up doing closer to 8-10 miles and this past weekend only four miles but another few with Grandpa Muddy walking. Hip pain got the best of me but we'll keep it up for this month too. 

2- Pictures and posting three trails

I made this :). Sunset, Thousand Islands Upper Woods, and a random third which was the trestle trail all made it into my blog in August. As well as yet again the East River trail. 

3-Pull ups and Amazing Arms

Check! My pull up bar will likely be returning upstairs soon but it was well used this month in the hallway downstairs. Kind of an eyesore though right off the kitchen like that. 

4-nutritional goal was a complete loss. 

5- Carpet

My hallway carpet is down. I need to get the transition strips in but otherwise, it's all set and I can finally stop getting irritated every time I walk through my hallway. It was more of a pain than I expected but it's so much nicer to have it out of the way. 

6- Family Time

I didn't get to spend as much time as I'd like with my daughter since she spent  a lot of time camping and out and about this month. And Mr Muddy and I didn't even get a night out :(. But we did some running and biking together which is just as good to me :). 

So for September:

1- Tough Mudder the first weekend and continue to run as close to 10 miles per weekend as I can. Adding in a 2 mile run every Wednesday or Thursday after my call night.

2- Three more trails. Heesacker Park and Doty Park in Menasha/Neenah on the same day since apparently they are quite close to each other. Memorial Park in Appleton. And a third to be determined close to home. I'm thinking Pamprin Park might be a good one or possibly Humbolt.

3- Continuing the Arm plan from last month while I'm at work as well as the 30 Day Ab Challenge I'm doing with some friends on facebook. 

4- Really got to get a bit better on the whole nutrition aspect and damn it... I'll do it. This month, writing down everything I eat and drinking at least 3 glasses of water a day. 

5- A full top to bottom house cleaning is in order.

6- More family time driving with my teen and a night out watching the sunset with Mr Muddy would be very nice. 

Sunset Park

Sunset is a park in Kimberly with a boat dock and also a swimming beach. I used to do a lot of swimming there as a kid. The beach was closed and water drained when I was there this past weekend, so no pics of that. 

I walked with Baby Muddy and Grandpa Muddy. We ran into an old friend as well! 

Trails, very stroller friendly. It's a nice scenic area, maybe 2 or 3 miles of trail altogether, but not certain on that.  

There are a few smaller trails that go into the wooded area more that are not stroller friendly but still appear to be generally baby carrier friendly. There are a couple hills that can be a little hard to push a stroller up, but Grandpa gave a helping hand there. 

There are two play areas, the one in the photo is the smaller one. The other is at the top of the other hill and near a pavilion and bathrooms. This smaller one is a bit away from bathrooms, but near enough to see the pavilion from this spot. 

The day was a little hotter than anticipated but it was absolutely beautiful out. This is also a good park for professional family photos. Lots of bridges and a nice build up stone area. 

Overall, very stroller friendly for walking, also dog friendly on the pathways, and great for the bigger kids too so they can get a break to play as well.