10 in 2010 - Ten weeks to Healthy in 2010: Week 2

Many of my favorite blogs are participating in the online challenge Ten in 2010.  The challenge is to incorporate new methods of healthy living into your life over 10 weeks.  Each Saturday participating bloggers write about their weekly progress.  What are the new methods of healthy living you might ask?  What ever you choose to make your goal. 

My goals for the ten weeks are:

• Write down what I eat every single day
• Weigh myself every day
• Be able to do the yoga pose Downward Dog with my heels on the floor

Write down what I eat. 

This has been a key part of me being healthy. If I write down what I eat I have to consider it and select the best food option. When I lost weight back in 2002, I used Weight Watchers. One of their main focuses is to record what you eat. I found an iGoogle Application called WW Points Tracker that allows me to write down everything I eat and assign it a points value. The running total for the day is the big number at the top.

I know that for WW to maintain my weight I should eat about 29 points worth of food a day and to lose weight I can eat as few as 21 points. The application even keeps a history of everything I have eaten and a list of each day's total points. It's the perfect tool for me.

Weigh Myself Everyday

This is another weight management technique I am employing. I have read multiple studies showing if a person knows their weight they are more successful keeping it in a good range. One study where the control group does not weight themselves and lives normally and the test group weighs themselves daily, but otherwise is not ask to change their lives and guess what? The ones who weigh themselves maintain or lose weight. Sometimes all it takes is being aware.

I found another iGoogle Application called The Google 15 that I can record my daily weight and it will chart my progress. I started just after Christmas on the 27th of December. You can see I had a little spike there around New Year's. (hmm wonder why?)  Even with some indulgences I weigh four pounds less than I did when I started recording. That's pretty gratifying.

Be able to do the yoga pose Downward Dog with my heels on the floor

I started taking yoga classes with my mom this fall.  We go once a week for an hour.  I love the guided meditation and the stretching, that I leave feeling calm and ready to get stuff done.  However, I want to be able to do the poses and for some of them I don't have the strength to hold myself for long or I lack the flexibility.  One of the basic moves is Downward Dog.  I really want to have the strength in my arms to hold myself as long as I am supposed to and be able to put my feet flat on the floor.  Right now my heels can't quite make it. 

Yoga once a week probably isn't enough to actually see much improvement.  I found on Hulu a couple free yoga videos and I've been doing one a day in hopes of seeing results.  The AM Yoga has the full Sunrise Salutation which incorporates Downward Dog, so I've been doing that one a lot.  So far, I can't really tell.  I'll report back next week. 

If you are interested in  participating in Ten in 2010, you can sign up to be one of the bloggers here.  Or you can join the twitter group.  They are posting under the hash #10in10.  Go to Twitscoop and search for #10in10 and you'll see all the buzz going on.