Yesterday was just an off day. Mr. Prevention had to get up at 5am for work and while I normally get up with him at 6am-ish, I decided to set my alarm for 6:45 and see if I could sleep through his morning routine. If he woke me, my plan was to workout in the morning. Of course, I slept through his morning routine. And from there on out, I just felt off.
It took me ridiculously too long to get ready for work, and I went through the day feeling guilty for not getting in my morning workout. I rushed home from work, made pizza dough to rise, and hopped on the treadmill for a quick 3 1/4 miles while catching up with The Bachelor (for those that watch, are Michelle and Ashley H. total psychos or what?). I ran to pick-up Lily from daycare and started lesson planning for tonight while my pizza dough went through its second rise.
When I got home from Weight Watchers (down 2.2 pounds!!!!! :-D), I made individual pizzas! With my yummy $1 pineapples, I made Hawaiian pizza for me and turkey pepperoni for the hubs.
But before I go into the pizzas, I want to recap what the leader at Weight Watchers said last night. And if you’re a WW member, you may have heard a similar message this week. The topic was to move more, and the leader very clearly stated that every day tasks count as exercise: grocery shopping, running errands, etc. However, I tend to disagree with that claim. I don’t think living life and performing its demands is exercise.
I have always viewed exercise as going over and beyond daily activities… the action behind getting up and moving more. So if you make a concerted effort to park at the very back of the parking lot at the mall, or head out to walk around your neighborhood, or running on a treadmill — all of those activities take additional effort. Grocery shopping is a necessary evil (or pleasure!), and I (personally) would not consider it exercise. Unfit “non-exercisers” grocery shop all the time, and I imagine they don’t consider grocery shopping exercise. And people certainly won’t lose more weight this week if they reward their errand running with additional calories (or PointsPlus).
For what it’s worth, Wikipedia defines physical activity as any bodily activity that enhances or maintains physical fitness and overall health and wellness.
What I did appreciate from the leader’s message was starting small. While I sat through the meeting thinking, “I worked out 5 hours last week at high intensity!”…most people in that room did no physical activity. And I know that because they shared that with the group. Starting small is important — a walk around the block…to the end of the driveway. Something. A concerted effort. That’s what I consider exercise.
And what I consider a fabulous, (slightly) indulgent dinner…voila!
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Hawaiian Personal Pizza
1/3 Thick Crust Pizza Dough
1/3 cup pizza sauce
1/2 cup 2% mozzarella, shredded
1/4 cup pineapple
2 pieces lean ham, sliced
1/2 Tbsp unsweetened coconut flakes
Directions:
Make dough according to directions. Cut the dough into 3 pieces and roll out to desired thickness.
Place pizza stone in the oven. Preheat oven to 375 F. Once at 375 F, remove the pizza stone and put your dough on the stone. Bake for 5 minutes.
Remove pizza dough and layer with toppings, starting with the sauce and cheese. Garnish with coconut after baking an additional 12-15 minutes. The pizza edges should be puffy and golden brown. Serves 1.
Nutrition Information (per pizza): 534 calories; 24 g. fat; 60 mg. cholesterol; 1624 mg. sodium (eek!); 48 g. carbohydrate; 7 g. fiber; 31 g. protein
Result: This hit the spot! I have been craving Hawaiian pizza since I spied those $1 pineapples. It was worth the wait, and the coconut was the perfect touch! I hate that the recipe is so high in sodium, but that is the nature of the pizza beast — pizza sauce, cheese, and pizza toppings are usually packed with salt. Luckily, my breakfast and lunch were very low in sodium (about 400 mg. total). Remember, anything (in moderation) can fit into a healthy diet, it may just take some maneuvering of other meals! Enjoy!
[/print_this]Question: What do YOU consider exercise? Daily chores/errands? Only breaking a sweat? Please share!
Workout, dialysis, teach…off I go!
Pizza looks delicious!!
For me, I need to break a serious sweat for my exercise. I feel so cleansed afterwards 🙂
Sorry to hear about the off day 🙁 It sounds like it improved, especially with your delicious Hawaiian pizza 🙂
I consider “exercise” to be a more planned effort, involving a higher heart rate and sweat. IT can be biking or running or playing sports, etc. I consider walking further or taking the stairs to be “light exercise” – still requires some planning, but are good to include in everyday activity that keeps us moving (and will hopefully become second nature!). The danger sounds like those who would use the “light exercise” as an excuse to eat more, and I can see how people would interpret the WW suggestions that way!
Congrats on the weight loss!!!
Pizzza looks amazing-yum!
You sure caught my eye with the title of this post–Hawaiin pizza is by far, and always has been my favorite pizza combo. I can’t believe it when some people tell me they’ve never tried it..they are WAY missing out 🙂
Congrats on your success Nicole! You still got a lot done, despite having an “off” day – I hope you at least see that and give yourself a pat on the back.
I agree with life itself not being enough exercise. Maybe it was in 1900, but not now! I think part of some people’s problem IS that they say I walked the dog and bought food, that’s enough. I ask people in my practice what they do for physical activity and they say they do laundry, walk upstairs (in their own home, 1 flight) frequently, or watch a child.
Personally, I wear a pedometer and go for 10,000 steps even on my nonworkout days. And I take it off at the gym. It’s helped me avoid the “workout an hour but sit on my rear the other 23” syndrome. 🙂
Thanks for the great pizza recipe!
Congrats on your lbs. loss!!! And YES, those girls are totally crazy. I’m hoping Michelle won’t make it too much longer, and will self-destruct in some incredibly entertaining way. I like it that she keeps pounding her fist down and throwing out gang signs when she talks about the other girls. Classy.
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LOL! The gang signs are hil-ar-ious!
The pizza looks and sounds great!
Sorry about the off day, but congrats on the weight loss! 🙂
What do I consider exercise? Great questions. Just a year ago, my response would have been quite different. I only considered “real workouts” with buckets of sweat “exercise.” But today I have relaxed a bit. I focus more on moving more, which means neighborhood walks, parking further, etc. I also try to add little “bursts of extra activity” throughout my day. 20 lunges after grading 5 papers. 20 squats while doing laundry. 20 push-ups while folding it. I also try to go up and down our stairs at least 20 times a day and purposefully make extra trips. I agree that walking through the grocery store or just doing laundry as usual isn’t exercise. I think the key would be to do something “extra,” which isn’t really that hard but adds up over the course of a day.
I consider “exercise” as anything above and beyond. I guess the same as you? An activity that is higher in intensity than an average person’s routine.
However, I do believe in the idea of constant “movement” to keep healthy. This was something I made a really big deal about when I was down and out due to injury last year. I was off crutches, but not allowed to exercise. So as you can imagine, I found every way possible to keep moving in order to maintain myself. My life consisted of multiple mini grocery runs and the cleanest apartment I’ve ever had!
Your pizza looks delicious. I’m still super jealous of your dollar pineapples…I almost drove an hour to my closest Kroger just to get them!
Mmm…Hawaiian pizza. It’s been forever since I’ve had that. I love it.
My WW leader also talked about exercise yesterday but said the opposite of what your leader said. Bev wears a pedometer but she only counts the steps/points that are on purpose exercise….her normal running around during the day doesn’t count. Perhaps your WW leader recognized that a majority of your group are non movers and wanted to get them to start really small. I was also down 2.2lbs at my meeting yesterday too 🙂
oooo…yay! great loss this week.
I agree with you 100% on the exercise. I should “push” myself more, but I don’t often do. For that reason, I do not eat ANY of my activity points. I do try to get at the minimum 30 minutes of something…treadmill or dog walk or exercise dvd or wii just dance…each day though. I calculate it and record it, but never eat it. If I worked really, really hard, I might consider eating the activity points….but I don’t normally work that hard. And yes, I don’t ever consider cleaning or grocery shopping or the activities of daily life, as they are known, to be “exercise”.
I posted a pizza recipe today too!!! lol Yours looks absolutely wonderful!!!! I do like pizza with pineapple, ham, coconut and dried dates. Yum.
Way to go with the weight loss progress!
I’ll have to try out your pizza dough – I’d have mine with pepperoni and not pineapple though! 😀
Thanks for your virtual hug Nicole!
And I don’t think doing routine things counts as exercise either! 😀
I consider exercise to be above and beyond your normal activities and wouldn’t count normal daily activities/chores as exercise. While I think there is value to moving more and doing things like parking further away or taking the stairs instead of the elevator, it isn’t formal exercise to me. I don’t think every workout needs to be a formal one. You can definitely work up a sweat shoveling snow, yard work, painting, etc and I would count these things as exercise if they aren’t typically part of your day.
Hawaiian pizza really doesn’t appeal to me, but I might need to give it a try. Congrats on the weight loss!
I agree with you – going grocery shopping is not really exercise. However, I do think an hour of scrubbing, vacuuming and cleaning floors is exercise – I always sweat when I do it!
For me, excercise is moving more than I usually do and breaking a sweat while at it. Great job on Weight Watchers!
The way I shop, its totally exercise, but I dont consider it a workout. If that even makes sense. I go in there on a mission, and power walk my way up and down the aisles holding a way overfilled basket. So its exercise, but not the kind I WANT to get.
I agree – while it’s good for people to take those small steps it really should count as “exercise”. Hawaiian is also my favorite pizza! I never thought about adding coconut though – sounds so good!
I love pineapple on pizza. Probably my fave topping. Intersting about WW. I consider the household cleaning as physical activity (like when you break a sweat doing it) but not the walking around and stuff. That’s all really part of your baseline energy expenditure, not really over what would be expected for a relatively sedentary lifestyle. Out of curiosity, do they know at WW you are a dietitian? I’m wondering if it makes them “nervous”.
Mmmm girl that pizza sounds so good! I love Hawaiian pizza. It always hits the spot. I don’t think of daily activities as exercise, but I do believe the more you move the better. Getting my sweat on with a tough workout is exercise to me.
My favorite pizza!
I’m in total agreement with you about daily tasks not counting as exercise.
Do you have a daughter? If so, I did not know. Anyway, I consider exericse to be of the organized strenous sort. All the other things are just bonuses and NEAT activity. I try to fidget as much as possible, get up and walk around whenever I can, and just plain MOVE…but that is NOT my exercise!
Anyway, that pizza looks great! YUM! Have a great day!
Wahoooo! You are kickin’ serious butt on WW – awesome job, Nicole!!
You know, I used to consider only “major, intense” workouts as exercise. But now I realize you don’t *have* to do those all the time to be fit and stay active. One example is that I ALWAYS park my car out in BFE no matter where I go. Hey, it probably adds an extra mile of walking each day!
You make such a good point, every step forward is a step in the right direction…and a huge congrats on your weight loss this week! Mmm, the pizza looks delicious!
You made pizza dough and let it rise TWICE on a Wednesday? That’s one ambitious weeknight dinner. *applause* I probably would have opted for TJ’s whole wheat pizza-in-a-bag dough. 🙂
I agree with you that everyday activities don’t count as exercise. I say exercise has to get the heart rate up at least. Its been sunny and in the 50s all week here in Seattle, so I’m ecstatic to be running outside again! Have a happy Thursday.
Congrats on the loss at weigh in!!! The pizza looks amazing, and I’ve never thought to put coconut on a hawaiian pizza before. Great idea, thanks!!!! Hope tomorrow isn’t an “off” day for you!!!
looks too good…