Well, That's Depressing

Today, while I was just watching stuff run at work, I decided to look up calorie burn for the exercise equipment. See, I didn't think the machines were right, that maybe they just don't have the right information when someone weighs 400 pounds. How could I be busting my ass and burning so few calories? The answers I found were even more depressing. Turns out that most exercise machines overestimate calorie burn by up to 30%. Turns out that my 15 minutes on the bike at a medium-ish level only burns about 190 calories.

Hmm.

I had to estimate what I burn with Walk Away The Pounds--I do a mile at a time, and a mile is generally 15 minutes of the workout. So I just looked up 15 minutes of walking at 4 MPH. This is also somewhere between 150-190, I don't remember what the actual count was.

I couldn't find the elliptical, but since I only do it for 5 minutes, it doesn't matter too much (and it STILL kicks my ass).

So now I have some serious thinking to do. What is the point of rushing to get to the gym, have to change, worry about getting locked in the gym, and getting home late when I'm only burning let's say 250 total at the gym? Is it worth it? A pound is 3500 calories, so it doesn't seem like it. Would I be better off just doing Walk Away The Pounds at home instead of going down to the gym?

Let me know if you have any thoughts on this, I really need some guidance right about now, and this isn't the type of help I could get from my nutritionist.

Of course, now that I'm back on my "diet," there's a ton of new snack foods and cookies in the office. Temptation is a bitch. I did eat 2 granola bars today, but mostly just to get them out of my desk and be rid of them (yes, I should have given them away instead of eating them myself). I also drank 40 oz. of Crystal Light in the office, really going to try to make it to 64 by the end of the night. I realized that it's REALLY hard for me to drink that much during the day, I'm usually focused on other things, and when I put the cap on my bottle for lunch (no drinking before and after meals--at least one Lap-Band rule I try to follow pretty well) I usually forget to drink again until maybe 2 hours afterward.

The bike is getting easier and easier for me. I put my new gym shoes on today (I only wore them the first day and my feet hurt too much to wear them again last week), my feet still hurt, but I made myself finish my routine. The elliptical isn't getting easier though. I find myself dreading it, and I don't know what to do. My heartrate goes up a LOT more than it is during the bike, so I don't know if I should just go longer on the bike or stick out the 5 mins on the elliptical.

I did borrow an idea from Gloucester and bought some stickers for my calender for the days I work out. I got 2 different kinds: one for days I go to the gym, and one for days I do Walk Away The Pounds. I need an incentive of some sort, or it'll be too easy to skip a day here and there.