#fitnessfriday - Fitbit Charge 2

Hello, my fellow fitness junkies. It's been more than 6 months since I embarked on my #eatclean diet (you can read my 21 days detox diet HERE and my tips on sustaining it after the 21 days HERE) and I thought that I should reach out to you peeps again with an update.

And so my total weight loss till date is about 6kg and it has been fluctuating around this figure for a while. Well, I probably could cut out more kilos but I will probably need to go into high calorie-deficit, which I'm really not keen on. 

Anyhow, the huge failure of the accelerometer on my new OPPO R9s phone has made me decided to get a proper fitness tracker. Not like miband or what, but something 'smarter', which can tells me more about my daily level of activities and help me track my calories in and out.

And so, after tons of google searches, quite a few of forced discussions with friends, and a couple days (or was it weeks) of consideration, I finally decided to take the plunge and burn 200 bucks on the fitbit charge 2.
I assure you, I didn't get this just for the salmon pink strap.

But still, it's so chio (pretty), isn't it?

They even have super cool leather straps (HERE) and super pretty metal chains (HERE) for you to switch out as and when you felt like it.

Apart from the usual steps tracking, Charge 2 also track your stairs climbed, daily active minutes, calorie expenditure (BMR and daily activities), continuous heart rate monitoring, sleep monitoring, daily travelled (walked) distance, and allows you to record your daily meals to check your calories in-out, and also allows you to set notifications from your phone to track text messages, calls and set vibrating alarm. Charge 2 also has a few special exercise tracking functions, which includes the ever so popular spinning, running, yoga, pilates, weights and etc.

Charge 2 also allows you to choose your preferred layout on the main "screen" of your tracker and I've chosen the one that shows both my heart rate and steps taken on my main screen, you can easily flip though the screens to check the rest of your stats (calories burnt, distance travel etc) by tapping on the screen. 

And no, it's not a touch screen so... you might need a few taps before it responds. 

Accuracy wise, I'll say the Charge 2 is pretty accurate when it comes to steps counting. I've once checked it against my own manual counting of 100 steps and my charge 2 counted just 1 extra step. As for stairs counting, it can get a little unstable. Certain days it's 100% accurate while certain days it just goes way off. But that doesn't really bothers me as this stairs climbing function isn't what I really focus on when I made the purchase. 

Having a specific spinning and yoga tracking under the exercise tracking function gave this gadget a lot of brownie points IMO, because these two exercises are what I usually do! But it's a shame that there's only ONE yoga function, when we all know there's TONS of variations to yoga and each very different from another in terms of intensity. 

For example, my Charge 2 tells me I burn roughly 266 kcals per hour of Hot Yoga on this particular yoga function, but isn't Hot Yoga supposed to burn more calories as compared to, let's say, Hatha Yoga? And 266 kcals does seem a little too low for hour's worth of near-dying experience in the hot studio too, doesn't it? 

Anyhow, I guess this booboo will actually work in your favour if what you want is to lose weight by maintaining a calorie deficit, because you may be underestimating your actual calorie expenditure. 

So, erm... yay?

In terms of food logging, I didn't feel that their data of food choices is that awesome, hence I'll prefer to log my daily meals on myfitnesspal instead and sync and data over to the fitbit app. 

So after 2 weeks on my Charge 2, I can say it's so far so good. But whether or not it helps in weight management (loss), I can't tell yet. So let's just wait for my next update, yeah?

If you're interested in getting a Charge 2 yourself, do check it out at lazada.sg

Till then,

Mia Foo

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#fitnessfriday - Mia's sustainable #eatclean diet plan for weight loss (Part 2)

Previously in Part 1 of this #eatclean diet post, I've shared with you an extensive 21 days diet plan that's based on the idea of Weed-Seed-Feed detox diet, which has taken 3.4kg off my weighing scale.
And then you may ask, what's after the 21 days?

-credits to mqfactor.com-

To be honest, revert to your usual unhealthy
eating habits (eg. stuffing yourselves silly with sugar and fats) and you'll gain them all back in no time. But the idea of this #eatclean diet plan is, you shouldn't, because it takes us as short as 21 days to make or break a habit. Although.... well, some articles has debunk this myth and came up with a much longer time period of 66 days, but just for my case, these 21 days (compared with a significant results obtained to further fuel my motivation and belief in this diet plan) has worked wonders.

However, I still couldn't see myself on a diet that totally avoids refined carbohydrates and added sugar forever. There's also a risk of me losing the battle against my suppressed cravings and eventually losing it altogether. Hence, to keep my (probably) growing gluttony under control, I decided to add in a cheat day per week!

-credits to relatably.com-

And what's a better day than Sunday for some naughty indulgence? Well, it's also because Sundays are my sleep in days, so the craziest I can go is to have 2 full cheat meals instead of 3. 

Portion control, yeah? 

-credits to blitzyourbody.com-

A few pointers to know when adding in your cheat meals/cheat day are:

1. NO GUILT

Well, you've eaten clean for the past 6 days. I know, we don't rewards ourselves with food. We're not dogs. But heck, you earned the chance to satisfy your cravings. So savour it, and enjoy! If you're going to feel guilty after the indulgence, then you're totally missing the whole point of a cheat day.

2. PLAN YOUR INDULGENCE MEAL(S)

This might sounds crazy, almost like you're forcing yourself to eat clean for 6 days with the goal of an unhealthy eating day in mind. But no, you absolutely have to plan your cheat meal(s) beforehand! They should not be a spur of the moment decision, as you'll tend to overeat when your 'emotion' takes over and you'll start to lose focus on your healthy eating goals.

3. LIMIT YOUR CHEAT MEAL(S)

If you're born to be on team #eatclean and has minimal cravings, always, go ahead and limit yourself to just one cheat meal a week. If not, do limit it to 2 cheat meals a week (I usually do just brunch and dinner on my cheat days). Do not, I repeat, do not ever let your cheat meals turn into cheat days, which will eventually turn into cheat weeks and then into cheat months. 

A sensible diet is to always eat healthily with occasional indulgence, not the other way round.

4. PORTION CONTROL

Your cheat day is not your license to binge. 

Yes, it's cheat day so by all means indulge in some potato chips. But if it's stated 7 chips per serving, you eat just 7 chips and not the entire bag of 7 servings at one go just because it's cheat day. 

Doesn't work that way, sweetie. 

Well, I actually cheated for my first cheat meal and had it on the 21st day of my Weed-Seed-Feed diet.

Despite chomping down the entire deep fried battered chicken thigh that's bigger than my face and polishing off half of the crispy-fluffy waffles (I didn't touch the syrup though), I still managed to get a 0.7kg loss on my 3rd week's diet plan. :) 

But things got a little out of hand when I got to the 'true' cheat day on my 4th week.

First, I ate 1/2 a regular box of salted popcorn at Golden Village Cinema.

And then, lunch was more sodium from this bowl of yummy ramen at Menya Musashi.

Then it was half this bag of sugar coated churros with milk chocolate dip, along with half a bag of Chipster potato chips.
Dinner was Yu Tou Lu (fishhead steamboat) and marmite pork chop, which yet again, are sodium laden.
It was a total (refined) carbohydrates plus sodium overload in one day and the result was an almost 1kg weight gain from water retention the very next morning. Luckily, it normalised after 2 days and I actually lost another 0.4kg.

See my point about planning your indulgence meals beforehand and not just eating whatever you see?

My cheat day for my 5th week was definitely better, as I already had in mind what my indulgence for the week would be - WHITE RICE.

And so, brunch was sharing this huge plate of 3 Flame Monster Curry with the BF (I made a mental note eat less of the rice), followed by finishing 1/3 of a bowl of the Blackball Signature Grass Jelly dessert during mid afternoon, and finally Nasi Lemak with Fried Chicken and a small piece of mashed banana filled prata for dinner at Old Town White Coffee.

Weight loss for week 5 is another 0.7kg, increasing my accumulated weight loss over 5 weeks to be 4.5kg.

So how's your #eatclean diet plan coming around? Do share your experiences with me in the comment board below! :)

Till then,
Mia Foo

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