Day 19 of 21 Day Challenge: Habit Forming

My mom has been really sweet and invested all through this challenge, and she asked me the other, “So why is the challenge 21 days? Is that a specific amount of time that it takes to do something fitness-wise?” I actually didn’t know. I explained to her about the several different challenges that BodyRock has, and that there are 5 day, 7 day, 30 day challenges, but her question got me thinking about fitness statistics. Thanks to google, I found out that it apparently takes 21 days to form a habit. Here are some of my other fitness fact findings:

• It takes 7 days to lose 1lb if you eat 500 calories less than you burn every day
• Women who lift weight burn 100 more calories in the next 24 hours, then women who only stick with cardio
• It takes 22 minutes of running to burn off a small chocolate bar
• 1lb of muscle burns 9 calories per day, 1lb of fat only burns 2 calories
• It takes 1 hour and 45 minutes of running to burn off a Big Mac Medium Meal
• It takes only 4 hours of inactivity to cause a near shut-down of the enzyme that controls fat and metabolism
• It takes 48-72 hours for a muscle to fully recover after a strenuous strength training session

And of course, one of my favourite motivational statistics: (which makes me a little bit more okay with the fact that my after photo isn’t going to look all that different from my before photo – I’ll just keep going, my June after photo will be better, and my July after photo even better) WORKOUT: I did a lot of housework today, which in itself can be a bit of a workout, but I also tried to up the burn a bit. While vacuuming I did one-handed bicep curls, switching between left and right (which may have actually been more of a workout for the hand controlling the vacuum, because I suck at one-handed vacuuming, I’ve discovered). I also did some squats with a basket of towels. Putting away dishes: squats for anything in low cupboards, the around the world exercise from the day 17 workout with all the plates, bowls, and glasses/mugs. Then I added in some cardio cooking, basically, I just danced around my kitchen the entire time I was making pad thai – fun, and surprisingly tiring. Fit dishes: FOOD: For breakfast I had leftover Mediterranean food from last night’s dinner (falafel, lentil rice, and a potato/pea curry). For lunch I finished off the Mediterranean leftovers (curried chickpeas and lentil rice), and made a small salad. For dinner I tried a new recipe and made tofu vegetable pad thai, with a homemade peanut sauce. I have never tried cooking tofu before and it actually worked out really well! THOUGHTS:

• I feel like I’m the leftover queen.
• I think I have done more cooking and baking these past few weeks than I have all year. I mean, I generally do love to cook and especially to bake, but I’ve tried out so many new dishes because of this challenge. Definitely adding a bunch to my recipe book.