Chez FitMercy

When we talk of personality, we are referring to who you really are , what stuff you are made of, what you do as habit or attitude effortlessly or sometimes without thinking. For example you can never advise an extrovert to start talking because it is done without thinking neither will you force an introvert to socialize since he won't bulge. In the psychological world, they have a lot of classifications that I am not delving into in this post. I will be referring you to some quiz (at the end of the post) where you can find out where you belong and what you can do to help achieve your healthy goals. Did you wake up 4:30am everyday to get some runs in and after a week you were either exhausted, bored and uninterested in it any longer? Were you in a monthly challenge and your schedule did not see the light of the 5th day? Have you tried Yoga and you wondered what the slow motion is all about? Did you register in a gym at the beginning of a year and you wondered why t

Last week, I was very religious with tracking both food and workout on a daily basis and all was going well till Saturday when I was supposed to have tabata, I just realized my heart rate was high, my body was not ready and till this morning I had not lifted a finger in my home gym.  It would be a lie if anyone told you it's all rosy and active through a weight loss journey there are lots of ups and down. In fact I think my own journey had been unique. I cannot work on a regimen for 4 weeks straight, No I can't! BUT I WILL, as you know that I get bored easily, so to be frank the road is not easy at all and I am not exempted.

It is two weeks and two days today that I had been planning and journaling. In these few weeks I can call myself a planner , woohoo! Planning also called forethought  " is the process of thinking about and organizing the activities required to achieve a desired goal" . I love this definition because of the these words ' thinking ' ' organizing ' and 'goal',  since that's what I have been doing, although not the deep kind of thinking but the just-do-it type. I mean all I do each night is just know what my workout plan for tomorrow is and I get everything ready including Plans A, B and everything to Z. I wake up each day not planning to finish the whole exercise in my journal but as much as I am satisfied with while there is still time. I write the meal plan for the next day including my snacks in my journal and for the past 16 days, it's been worth it. Every night I end the day completing my workout or writing how the day had been food-

I weighed in this morning at 170.2lbs and that is a gain of 0.6lbs this week. I did well because I had NSVs . I feel so proud of this achievements and I know that the scale will soon move towards the right direction.  NSV means Non-Scale Victory , it is very important for everyone on a weight loss journey to imbibe this as a culture if they want to ever make a headway. It is often said that the scale nor the numbers on it does not determine what success you have. I agree with this and I think it is fact even though it is easier to feel bad and misbehave after any weigh in that shows an unfavourable number. 

It had been great completing this week with daily exercising and cautious eating. My feelings was mixed on what the result would be because I am just days past TOM,  the weight is always maintained at this time but I did try my best to take healthy steps towards a weight loss this week. Low numbers on the scale doesn't come by accident, it comes through a conscious and consistent effort. I weighed in at 169.6lbs this morning (0.8lbs loss) I was determined to do something positive this week and I am grateful that lines were falling to me in pleasant places. One of the most important things that happened was my journal, it became a bestie this week and I wrote in it everyday. I planned and tracked my workout, planned and tracked my food, I wrote down my feelings including reasons for my failures and ways out.

Indoor fitness could pop up for many reasons, the weather being the ultimate of them all. It could range from a scorching sun, heavy/light rain, darkness, dawn etc. A lack of time during the day or even cash crunched to pay for a gym can make an ardent exerciser resolve to stay indoors to do the needful. My own reasons being : I cannot run outside because DH feels it's not safe for me  I am not always buoyant enough to pay for a gym subscription  I am not rich enough to get the complex machines like a treadmill, stationary bike etc  According to Liz Noelcke a staff writer with Sparkpeople, "there is no reason that you can’t make a home gym part of your reality. A home gym adds convenience and privacy to your workouts. When you exercise at home, you save time, money, and the rush hour headaches (on the road and in line for the elliptical). Although you might be cautious due to budget and space limitations in your house, building a home gym isn’t as impractical as

As I sat down on my chair today and in a brief moment I was thinking of when my weight loss journey started some 6 years ago. I was a field worker for my organization and trust me I was not enjoying my job then, I felt cheated everyday when I got to work because of some "discrepancies" in posting of staff members and my assumed lopsidedness in the treatment field workers were getting. Also, I was not really a happy person because of some challenges I faced as a newly-wed and trying to even understand the relationship that I was really working hard to be the best at. One day I was on the field and I came face to face with my most dreadful equipment then "a scale". Before then I never wanted to know what my weight was because I was really scared I might have to face some realities of a pending health issue or something close. Well, that day my colleague on the field persuaded me (he has a really small structure) to check since it wouldn't hurt to know. 

My weigh in today looks well and with such small loss (0.2), it is a movement towards the right direction. The retreat had not allow my routine to be back to normal but I am focusing on my diet more. I intermittent fast everyday, a 14:10 pattern i.e. 14 hours fast and a 10 hours eating window. Let's speak more about food fast, for 40 days we had been involved in a 19:5 fasting pattern (spiritual exercise), and I may say I am reaping some benefits both physical and spiritual. I wasn't 100% faithful like DH was but I did up to 65% of the fast. I really learnt a whole lot of stuff about myself and hunger during these fasted periods, I will highlight a few: Intermittent fast or what I call "short term" hunger cannot kill me or anyone. I am well able to exercise in the morning fasted hours than when I break the fast at night, when I tend to be weaker. Hunger pangs bite hardest into me between the hours of 10am and 1pm. After these 3 hours I don't fe

google Motivation Mondays on my blog will be about featuring personalities who had done extra to achieve their goals in life. It is all about the extra steps towards being better at issues they are passionate about and ready to do all what it takes to be best at it. google I intended bringing on people who have experienced success in their weight loss journey and other journeys in life to this blog but I somehow realized people are a bit skeptical about appearing online and for God's sake I understand that quite well because I personally will have reservations on being featured anywhere in a public blog. Anyways I contacted a friend and she obliged but not without some restrictions. You can only get to  know about her and her journey if you will follow her on IG and support her blog on Sparkpeople . This lady had been so much of an inspiration to my journey through life and especially the determination to lose weight and be healthy. I know she has a s

168.2lbs flashed me yesterday on the scale. It's a relief since I have not had a number this low in the past 12 weeks of my Wednesday Weigh in. I tried to do all that is in my power to exercise throughout this week (as promised in the last post), though not the expected minutes. I have strongly decided not to make excuses nor complain anymore (as Nia advised in her blog), I am going to shut up and do something . I love to plan whenever I can and this in turn helps batch cooking which also eases me off every wrong choice in meals, unhealthy snacking, binge eating, exercise rut and overeating as the case maybe.  Now I really wonder why we don't plan to plan??? The place of proper planning cannot be over-emphasized in any weight loss journey.  When you plan : You will likely have extra time on your hands to rest or have some ME time You make your exercise sessions an appointment that must not be disappointed You will save a lot of money because the plan

It's another weigh in today and I am happy with the results - 169.8lbs. I overate over the weekend but IF helped me and here I am back to my pre-TOM weight and a little more. I usually mindfully measure my body before climbing the scale, what I means is this, there is a feel of lightness and when I weigh in I find that the scale is down and the same happens when the scale will go up. This is an indication that I am in charge on this matter, nobody will do this for me. I need just a little discipline and I will surely get it right and anybody can too. Last year , I was down to 162.8lbs, I could almost not believe my eyes that day but it was there and I am making a determination today (3/23/2016) that nothing will stop me again till I get back to this number between now and the 13th of April, 2016. Some things worked last year and it will work again, I was under some discipline last year and it worked. Here they are: Bread is a bane to my weight loss success and therefore,

It is going to be a quick post today because less had happened other than lots of clutter and disorganization, ish. Today is another weigh in and I can say I did not do badly with a gain of a pound from last week. TOM is here and I normally have a 3lbs gain for other months. To be candid, I hate making excuses but not when life keeps getting in my way. I have issues with people who are disorganized and they keep assuming that is the way every other person around them is. I became a little organized after reading Eat That Frog! (21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time) . The book is about handling your stuff in the order of importance, the "frog" is actually the activity that is hardest for you and shouldn't be delegated or delayed for another time, this is marked "A", a "B" is what is second most important but that is not so vital but equally necessary. A "C" is an activity that can be delegated or shif

Today is week 1 since I decided to stop the monthly challenges and tweaked to weekly plans . That is rather doable for me and I think I am reaping the dividends of the change coupled with intermittent fasting (Church matters).  My scale had been misbehaving for a while now so I decided to weigh my 10lbs dumbbells this morning before weighing myself, it showed 9.8lbs so I concluded I will be removing 0.2lbs from every of my weigh in pending when I will reward myself with a new scale. I eventually weighed in at 169.2lbs and that automatically gives me a 169lbs for Wednesday Weigh in. That truly made me happy because I was tired of seeing 170 something every time for the past few weeks now. I was both surprised too because while breaking my fast last night, I ate everything in site including BREAD (my weakness). I was doing this because today was going to be a full day fast no tasting, no water too till breaking period.  Food is on point because there is no way I would over

I had a Fitbit activity tracker two years ago and it got lost never to be found again. I got a new tracker but not a Fitbit this time, it is called I5 Smart Bracelet . I realized there are hundreds of such activity trackers with no popular brand names that are out now for our use. I ordered my own tracker from AliExpress at a cheap rate of about $20 (N6,000.00) approximately. When it arrived in the mail, I sincerely did not know what to expect considering the cheapness of the product, I was preparing my mind for the worst ranging from a hyper-counting of my steps, to a faulty band, low battery etc. But with over two weeks of consistent use, I had really been surprised and impressed. Surprises : 1. Not different from the Fitbit I had 2 years back 2. Steps counting are almost near accurate (fitbit was not exact either) 3. It was not ambiguous 4. Battery life is quite reasonable (chargeable) 5. The color was just perfect for my skin. 6. There is a buzz feature t

Yesterday Wednesday, was my Challenge weigh in day (Mondays are my official weigh in day) and as I stood on the scale and the number 170.4lbs (77.4kg) was staring at me, I was rather unhappy and wondered what went wrong between Monday (167.4lbs) and Wednesday. 5 things happened: 1. New workout plan started on Monday 2. White Bread on Monday diet 3. Fried Plantains (4 slices) on Tuesday 4. Reduced steps on my tracker for Tuesday 5. Post TOM week Some of the above could have been responsible for a 3lbs gain in three days. I was sad because of this but I did not allow it to dampen my morale to stop moving forward. Irrespective of what happens on your weight loss journey especially when it is negative e.g. a binge week, a gain or a workout rut, you have to tell your mind that there is another opportunity to be the best. Do not over-flog the issue and be in despair, just brace up and know that you can do it. It's within this ups and downs that lies your success, o

Here are mine for 2016 - Wake up by 5a.m. daily for devotion and then exercise. - Workout for at least 10 minutes every morning - Workout for at least 10 intentional fitness minutes throughout January.( I did not meet this goal, I had flu and was down for 3 days ) - Eat healthy (more whole grains, limit processed foods, drink more water) - Build a saving culture (20% of my monthly earnings) - Reward myself whenever I meet a fitness goal ( An activity tracker on 1/28/2016 ) - Exercise at least 6x a week - Intermittent Fasting on two days of the week (Wednesday & Friday), Leangains 2 days a week (Tuesday & Thursday) Note: I will be adding more as the days goes by and of course auditing myself monthly. Today is day 15 of my fitness streak and I have exercised for every single day in January so far, I have also lost 2.6lbs.  January 4 - 172.2lbs January 11 - 171.6lbs (I unofficially weigh in today at 169.6lbs i.e. a 2.6lbs loss) Other Goals with Da

I am truly looking to the stop to this ups and downs and getting under 160lbs before the end of August. My goal for August ending is 155.7lbs, I know I can do it.

Hey Friends, I decided to stop the former streak at Day 142 and I am starting a new one, in this month of May. I started with so much energy till TOM stopped me in my tracks but I am most grateful that it was not a really painful experience. Week 1: May 1 - May 7, 2015 Weigh In Wednesday : 165lbs = 74.8kg Nutrition : Food was not in range most part of the week because of TOM and there was a terrible craving for carbs. I ate bread twice within the week (I take bread only on weekends), but I still tried to put myself in check at every point of eating. Fitness :  Friday - 15 minutes Saturday - 74 minutes Monday - 40 minutes Tuesday - 30 minutes = 159 Fitness Minutes NSV: No clothe is snugly on my body this week. I could also kneel down for 30 minutes praying. Above is the guide for my weekly streak. Workout 5-6 days of the week with a minimum of 250 minutes each week.

Hey friends, I had been on a vacation for the past two weeks and thus MIA. I am happy to be back home to everything especially DH and my workouts. During the period of my vacation, I had a workout buddy [a beginner though] who pressed me for a sweaty session for every single day I was in her house. It was truly not convenient because I wanted to just rest, eat and sight-see, I became an instructor instead and sweated on a daily basis. I am eventually grateful for the "push" because my weight was much lower to my surprise and excitement. Well, back to business. I was out to church for a retreat today and on my way back, I bought a slice of watermelon [deciding to eat my water]. As I moved up I saw a cart with carrots and I was thinking I should have bought those instead, but right in my head, I thought "who said losing weight is easy" and the best gift you can give yourself as you lose weight is to tell yourself that 'it is not easy' [just worth

I woke up and felt like weighing myself yesterday and voila 162.6lbs = 73kg That is a 15-pounds-loss since 27th December, 2014 when I started to be "different". I had really gone from good to better and I am on my way to "best". I have lost weight and it is looking so evident right now. (I will post my pictures, I am still searching for a good "before") This little success did not come without some "little" challenges. Unfortunately, I was armed and ready for them; I was so surprised that the 'challenges' could spur me to become even more determined to get to my goals. One of them was "it is okay like this you can stop now". An Aunty (fitspiration) who had lost weight had once reacted on Facebook, she said and I paraphrased "Don't tell me to STOP because you never warned me to stop when I was on the unhealthy path".  I agree with those words, people don't warn you to stop growing fat and out of