Activity, schmactivity

I was pretty certain that I was a reasonably active person who ate fairly healthily.  I mean - we never have fast food.  We cook most meals at home.  And I - you know - leave the house somewhat daily.

The fact that the scale kept creeping slowly upward over the last 10 years was certainly due to the effects of naturally slowing metabolism - because - I still see myself the same way I did when I was 25 - happily delusional.

Well, I now have a Fitbit and a MyFitnessPal app to quantify how wrong I was about basically every point above.  Except the slowing metabolism... I'm pretty sure that's still true, but my belief about it's relative importance is certainly diminishing.

For instance - today - I got up, got the kids ready for school, drove them to school, came home and worked for 2 hours at my computer trying to staff the engineering classes next year.  A pretty productive morning.  744 steps.  744!!  That's less than 10% of 10,000 at it's 11am.  Know what I'm doing this afternoon? Sitting at a computer advising incoming freshman students and preparing my summer online class. 

So I have to make time to walk, something I was not doing before. 

And food - 2000 calories does not go as far as I think it should.  I had a jello jiggler the other day thinking that it was a nice high-protein snack.  100 calories!  One little jello square.  And a "serving" of cereal is like 3/4 of a cup.  Do they think we're all toddlers?  I measured out 3/4 of a cup and it was not much.

The MyFitnessPal app is funny though with it's food commentary.  So, sometimes I'll eat something unhealthy (like a Starbucks Latte) and I'll get a little green symbol that says "this food is high in protein" or whatever.  You know - keep up with the Starbucks habit, it's clearly good for you.  Not like that handful of dried apricots and nuts which has way too much sugar and sodium.  Perhaps the app gets a kickback from Starbucks, I don't know.

I'm trying to prepare for all my high altitude activity on this summer's vacation by coming to terms with my sloth-like self, and by trying to be as active as I believe myself to be.  Or - half as active as I believe myself to be.  :)