Potato chips and water weight gain

Salty snacks are not so much a calorie problem as much as they cause the body to retain fluid. Salt is present in most hydration sports drinks to help you retain fluid during extreme heat and exercise. If you have been eating potato chips or salted nuts then be aware that your weight will go up temporarily due to retained fluid in your body.

Salty snacks can be a good thing to have during the summer months when people are more active and sometimes forget to drink fluids. The retention of fluids will keep them from getting heat stroke.

I gained 3 pounds!!!

just look at this photo for inspiration to get in shape

I have been a bad girl. I pigged out for the last 2 days without exercising and now I have gained 2 pounds from it. Well, so much for food indulgence...now back to a normal diet and daily working out.

I have been losing muscle tone lately so I had better get back in the swing of things exercise wise. I'll go and put on an exercise DVD and workout now.

I love to swim

Swimming is one of my favorite pastimes. I will swim for exercise but I am limited to the summer months. We have an above the ground pool that is long enough for a few laps but the water is so cold. This year we are thinking about tearing down the pool because it is not used enough and almost everyone hates the cold water.

I have seen the new swim spas and I would love to have one of those. I actually wanted one so badly that I sat down and figured out how to save up for one. With the savings that I am seeing in not buying extra food for the whole family (we are all on diets), I am able to save at least several hundred dollars a month. What I plan on doing is setting up a savings account at the bank that will automatically take $50 a week out of the checking account and put it into the savings account. That will put $200 minimum a month into savings. I will also be selling a few items on eBay and that money too will be going toward the swim spa. The goal is to have enough money saved up by the end of September so the spa can be used during the fall and winter months. I don't plan on buying it on credit.

I bet you are wondering what one of those things would cost. We have a local spa dealer that sells them for around $5K to $7K. I have seen them priced as high as $28K but that was on the internet.

Diet advice from the Biggest Loser

Here is some diet advice from Bob Greene the coach on the TV show the Biggest Loser. He goes to a grocery store and picks out what to stay away from and advice on what to buy. He says "your diet can be made or broken in the grocery cart". He is so right on with that statement. Watch the video.

Are you an exercise equipment hoarder?

Exercise equipment is thrown at us at almost every TV commercial break - at least it seems that way at times. If we bought every device hawked on TV we would need another house just to keep them in. Now comes the question, if you have bought a few pieces of exercise equipment because of the "miracle" of the results they said you would, how often do you use it?

Do you remember about 15 years ago when the Health Rider was all the rage? I did not get one but my sister did. She ended up giving it to me and I used it for about a month until it started to hurt my back. It seems that the motion of the Health Rider induces back pain. That was something that I had not heard about until I started to talking to other people that also gave up on the Health Rider because of back pain. Now I was not overweight when I used the Health Rider. I was using it to get in tone. I returned to free weights after that and no more back pain either.