[written in Yuma, Colorado as a sidebar to my storm chase blog]

Despite portrayals in movies like “Twister”, storm chasing does NOT consist of adrenaline-packed days of running toward, away from, and alongside photogenic tornadoes most of the day.

I’m at the midpoint of my chase-cation and am harshly reminded of how much “just plain sitting’ ’round” happens when you are only a passenger on a 300-mile drive each day. The challenge is two-fold: (1) eating healthy when time constraint force almost every meal to be fast food, and (2) trying to sneak in exercise at gas stops, bathroom stops, meal stops, and motel stops (in locales where most motels don’t have exercise rooms).

Fortunately, about 2/3 of the motels include a continental breakfast with some fruit available. I typically grab an apple or banana for the road, as these are both healthy and filling.

Snack purchases on the road are challenging, as gas stations stock best-selling, unhealthy foods (read: “candy, cookies, chips”) rather than healthy foods. I am often faced with the “bad food or no food” choice. Perhaps once or twice in a ten-day chase expedition, we squeeze in a Walmart visit. When these happen, it’s important to stock up on healthy food that does not require refrigeration.

In the end, it’s just difficult to eat right and exercise crammed into a van with all the cameras, computers, and communications devices on a 300- to 500-mile trek to see a severe storm.

5 days into my vacation , I’ve all but given up on my diet (for now). The food choices are almost completely unhealthy or oversized and there is little opportunity to exercise. The tiny towns we’re in have no exercise rooms in their hotels. It’s pretty ‘basic’ out here, folks!

I’ve reduced from 1500 calories per day (which I’ve upheld for a month) to 1400. Wish me luck!

Any suggestions on low-cal, low-carb grains?

Ok, gang! here is the challenge: How does one achieve a balanced nutrition ratio ALL DAY long.

I am a bit confused on what ‘lights up’ the various sectors on the ChooseMyPlate.gov pie chart under the LoseIt.com REPORTS section.

I’ll do my usual breakfast and all but the protein and grain sectors will be lit up.
Then I’ll eat a healthy lunch and sections that were lit (like the vegetable sector) will ‘go dark’, even though they were lit up after breakfast.

Can somebody explain the inner workings of the pie sectors on THIS site?

How do I get here

The Elusive Pie O' Balance (ChooseMyPlate.gov)

and STAY here throughout the day?

[also posted to the LoseIt.com FAQ forum]

Every few weeks we have a big software deployment at work.
About 20 people gather in a room and we plow through all the work with few distractions.

We don’t even have to worry about lunch: it’s ordered for us:

The downside: it’s hard to resist all that tasty food.
(I had to spend an hour and a half on the stationary bike to wear off the 1300 excess calories from this little indulgence!).

Lisa’s Supplement Salvo

(supplements are described, left to right, in the table below)

Exercise: Biceps curls

Reason: I need to focus of something beside legs, legs, legs. (And I have 10-pound free weights collecting dust)

Calories burned (1 hour): 177 (for 130 lb person), 211 (155 lbs), 245 (180 lbs), 279 (205 lbs), … , 415 (305 lbs)

My Home workout room: stationary bike (left), treadmill (with TV, to pass the time pleasantly), and ab-crunch machine (foreground).  These are my tools to jump-start my exercise program.

The old adage is to “Plan the work, then work the plan’. I’m starting with an admittedly ambitious plan for exercise.
I will just start with the first exercise for the day and get as far into the routine as humanly possible.
The next day I will repeat this for ITS routine. As I build stamina, I should get further into each routine, until I eventually will start getting through each one, here and there.

Here’s the plan:

Who says lunch can’t be health and delicious.
Check out the stuffed cantaloupe that was my lunch today.