I'm trying a couple of things new, this time around.
First off, I don't really care how much I weigh. I don't want to know the number. I don't want to think about that. The number doesn't make me happy. It never has. It was never enough, it was always too slow, or it wasn't as much as last week, or even though I had a good week, Thomas would have a better week. (That always happened... if I lost 4 pounds in one week, Thomas would lose 7. And I know it's not fair to compare, but fuck it, I do it anyway. Did someone sign a contract with you that said life was fair? No, me either.)
Never made me happy. Ever.
So, I'm not weighing in. You won't see the "I lost 10 pounds!" over here. Because in the end, it does not matter. I'm not going to be happy with that number, so that number is fucking irrelevant. I'm not setting goal weights or goal sizes, or anything like that.
My plan is to eat well and exercise and what happens, happens.
I have walked over 10 miles since Wednesday. Gold Star.
I have logged my food - I do still have to count calories because I am NOT good at "intuitive eating" yet - every day. Gold Star.
I am also doing something a friend called "Front Loading."
Apparently we start out with a given amount of willpower each day - according to the friend - and as we go through our day, we use it up. We resist the muffin for breakfast, or the ice cream in the afternoon, and by 9pm we eat a whole bag of chips.
The idea is to Front Load my day; to not use all my willpower up at the beginning of the day. To eat between 35 - 50% of my daily allotted calories FOR breakfast.
My breakfasts are looking like this
2 egg omelette, a piece of cheese, tomato/spinach filling (240 cals)
cream of wheat and peach slices (150 cals)
2 slices of bacon (140 cals)
I'm not trying to limit my fat intake, as long as it's fat from a natural source (meat, eggs, etc). I'm not trying to stack fiber. I am trying to increase my vegetables/fruits and protein and cut down on boxed or pre-packaged food.
I'm also doing my workouts first thing. I get up, get the kiddo ready for school and get into my workout clothes. I take her to the bus-stop and as soon as she gets on the bus, I head out for my walk. I'm home by 8:30 and I eat breakfast, and I still have all the rest of my day to get things done without feeling like anything is hanging over my head.
- Lynn
- Chesapeake, VA, United States
- "How does one become a butterfly?" she asked pensively. "You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar." - Trina Paulus, Hope for the Flowers
Showing posts with label excercise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label excercise. Show all posts
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Zoooooooooomba
I tried Zumba yesterday.
The operative word being "tried."
Yoda, with his "do or do not" obviously never attempted any baking, since we all know you can try to bake a cake, and sometimes you just don't succeed.
The class was HUGE - quite a shift from the morning Yoga class - something like 40 people were crammed into the same room. The instructor was very tiny. Not just thin, but the kind of woman that the slang word "shawty" was made for. I mean, I'm not exactly tall, but this girl was... maybe 4'8"? Given that the class was so large, this made her extremely difficult for me to see, even when she was standing on the stage.
Also, there were four new people, of which I was one, and most of the rest of them were very familiar with the class. She didn't call out moves or anything. Often she made a hand gesture over her head when we were getting ready to change up moves, but since I'd never been to a class before, I didn't know what any of them meant.
Now, don't get me wrong, none of the basic moves were all that hard. I've done regular dance aerobics before, and these were just modified steps like I've done before. Except with a lot more hip and leg movements. And for instance, when I started rhythm boxing, I was remarkably uncoordinated the first few dozen times, but I kept at it, and eventually I learned. Well, the basic steps, at least. I'm just not up to shaking what my mamma gave me... I think the instructors hips are attached to the rest of her with string, like those little toys, you know the ones, where you push the button on the bottom of their stand and they collapse like wet noodles?
And I learn pretty fast - it's one of the advantages of being a genius (which is completely countered by being socially inept and uncoordinated!) - so usually within a series, it wouldn't take me long to get it.
I ended up leaving the class after 40 minutes, when it was a 60-minute class, but that was because all the jumping around had annoyed my bladder (one of the joys of getting older and having babies that no one ever told me... ) and I had to go visit the ladies room. Next time, I'll remember to go RIGHT before class!
That's right, I said NEXT TIME.
Despite being relatively uncoordinated, I had a good time for those 40 minutes.
(to make up the cardio, I hit the elliptical for 25 minutes after I used the facilities before heading home...)
I also got macked on by someone who overheard me discussing raiding with Drew. (one of the guys from the gym that I've talked to several times... we discuss Warcraft, which is actually kind of fun to talk about while on the elliptical... PS - it is also very funny to be listening to mathematical formulas while doing cardio... badass fucking fractal!) Ok, dude. Seriously. Yes, I'm a girl. Yes, I'm a gamer. No, I'm not going to sleep with you. Go away.
The operative word being "tried."
Yoda, with his "do or do not" obviously never attempted any baking, since we all know you can try to bake a cake, and sometimes you just don't succeed.
The class was HUGE - quite a shift from the morning Yoga class - something like 40 people were crammed into the same room. The instructor was very tiny. Not just thin, but the kind of woman that the slang word "shawty" was made for. I mean, I'm not exactly tall, but this girl was... maybe 4'8"? Given that the class was so large, this made her extremely difficult for me to see, even when she was standing on the stage.
Also, there were four new people, of which I was one, and most of the rest of them were very familiar with the class. She didn't call out moves or anything. Often she made a hand gesture over her head when we were getting ready to change up moves, but since I'd never been to a class before, I didn't know what any of them meant.
Now, don't get me wrong, none of the basic moves were all that hard. I've done regular dance aerobics before, and these were just modified steps like I've done before. Except with a lot more hip and leg movements. And for instance, when I started rhythm boxing, I was remarkably uncoordinated the first few dozen times, but I kept at it, and eventually I learned. Well, the basic steps, at least. I'm just not up to shaking what my mamma gave me... I think the instructors hips are attached to the rest of her with string, like those little toys, you know the ones, where you push the button on the bottom of their stand and they collapse like wet noodles?
And I learn pretty fast - it's one of the advantages of being a genius (which is completely countered by being socially inept and uncoordinated!) - so usually within a series, it wouldn't take me long to get it.
I ended up leaving the class after 40 minutes, when it was a 60-minute class, but that was because all the jumping around had annoyed my bladder (one of the joys of getting older and having babies that no one ever told me... ) and I had to go visit the ladies room. Next time, I'll remember to go RIGHT before class!
That's right, I said NEXT TIME.
Despite being relatively uncoordinated, I had a good time for those 40 minutes.
(to make up the cardio, I hit the elliptical for 25 minutes after I used the facilities before heading home...)
I also got macked on by someone who overheard me discussing raiding with Drew. (one of the guys from the gym that I've talked to several times... we discuss Warcraft, which is actually kind of fun to talk about while on the elliptical... PS - it is also very funny to be listening to mathematical formulas while doing cardio... badass fucking fractal!) Ok, dude. Seriously. Yes, I'm a girl. Yes, I'm a gamer. No, I'm not going to sleep with you. Go away.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Yo(ga)!
So, I took my first Yoga class yesterday.
Wow.
I just can't say that enough. Wow.
I've done a bit of yoga before, mostly in front of the TV. There's a bit of yoga poses on the Wii Fit and I have a 15 minute Yoga workout on one of my DVDs, but there's a huge difference between Wii Fit and an actual instructor. (First of all, while I love my wii, the "trainer" is annoying - I have an overworked A button thumb from hitting the "skip whatever you're saying" button - and the background is the most cheerless gym in the world.) Not that the decor in the Onelife is anything to write home about, unless you're into weird color scheme letters.
The class is pretty small. I was the only new person, and there were six of us total. The instructor, Melissa, was a tiny little woman. She came in and asked if there was anything we particularly wanted to work on; to which I responded that I didn't know, since I was new to the class.
So she took us through an entire body-stretching routine, to kind of see where my flexibility was and what poses I would need work with. Melissa is, of course, a Bendy Wendy, but I didn't feel particularly out of place. I was about in the small-to-middle side of the class. (One of these days, I'm going to STOP playing Fattest Girl in the Room. Check back with me in 2020.)
I don't really remember the names of any of the poses, except cat-cow and downward dog, both of which I've done before. But the stretches felt really good - a little tight through the backs of my legs and calves - but good. And one of the things we did - thumb against the mirror, arm straight, bending away from the arm? - fixed a weird pull I've had in my shoulder for about a week now. It was *really* nice to be able to sleep last night without waking up because my shoulder was hurting.
At the end of class, Melissa and I talked a bit and she asked me why I'd decided to do yoga, so I told her about my car accident. (Eight years ago, I hit a woman in a conversion van who was making an illegal left hand turn across four lanes of traffic. I spent 3 months on the sofa and six months learning to walk again. Given that I was told I'd never walk again, I've come a LONG, long way. Last year, I walked 60 miles across three days in a charity event.) Still, my flexibility isn't what I'd like to be, especially in the ankle that I broke - shattered would be a better description! My ankle doesn't actually bend forward very well. Much better than it used to, but I think there's still room for improvement.
She was impressed with the flexibility I did have, especially in the hips. "I would never have guessed you as a beginner if you hadn't told me."
I will definitely be going again. I feel completely relaxed. Also, I got two vertebrae in my back to pop, which desperately needed to. So despite being mad about my weigh in last night (according to WW's scale, I maintained this week. According to my scale at home, I should have been down 2 pounds! Argh! I am TIRED of paying $12 a week to feel like a failure.) I feel pretty relaxed today.
Wow.
I just can't say that enough. Wow.
I've done a bit of yoga before, mostly in front of the TV. There's a bit of yoga poses on the Wii Fit and I have a 15 minute Yoga workout on one of my DVDs, but there's a huge difference between Wii Fit and an actual instructor. (First of all, while I love my wii, the "trainer" is annoying - I have an overworked A button thumb from hitting the "skip whatever you're saying" button - and the background is the most cheerless gym in the world.) Not that the decor in the Onelife is anything to write home about, unless you're into weird color scheme letters.
The class is pretty small. I was the only new person, and there were six of us total. The instructor, Melissa, was a tiny little woman. She came in and asked if there was anything we particularly wanted to work on; to which I responded that I didn't know, since I was new to the class.
So she took us through an entire body-stretching routine, to kind of see where my flexibility was and what poses I would need work with. Melissa is, of course, a Bendy Wendy, but I didn't feel particularly out of place. I was about in the small-to-middle side of the class. (One of these days, I'm going to STOP playing Fattest Girl in the Room. Check back with me in 2020.)
I don't really remember the names of any of the poses, except cat-cow and downward dog, both of which I've done before. But the stretches felt really good - a little tight through the backs of my legs and calves - but good. And one of the things we did - thumb against the mirror, arm straight, bending away from the arm? - fixed a weird pull I've had in my shoulder for about a week now. It was *really* nice to be able to sleep last night without waking up because my shoulder was hurting.
At the end of class, Melissa and I talked a bit and she asked me why I'd decided to do yoga, so I told her about my car accident. (Eight years ago, I hit a woman in a conversion van who was making an illegal left hand turn across four lanes of traffic. I spent 3 months on the sofa and six months learning to walk again. Given that I was told I'd never walk again, I've come a LONG, long way. Last year, I walked 60 miles across three days in a charity event.) Still, my flexibility isn't what I'd like to be, especially in the ankle that I broke - shattered would be a better description! My ankle doesn't actually bend forward very well. Much better than it used to, but I think there's still room for improvement.
She was impressed with the flexibility I did have, especially in the hips. "I would never have guessed you as a beginner if you hadn't told me."
I will definitely be going again. I feel completely relaxed. Also, I got two vertebrae in my back to pop, which desperately needed to. So despite being mad about my weigh in last night (according to WW's scale, I maintained this week. According to my scale at home, I should have been down 2 pounds! Argh! I am TIRED of paying $12 a week to feel like a failure.) I feel pretty relaxed today.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Cure the Creep
[Just for those of you who are wondering, I think I'm actually out of my depression... Or at least, I've been in twilight/manic for about 10 days now, and that's a good sign. I'm feeling more like myself instead of like a paper-doll cut out with a Lee Press On Smile...]
I belong to a discount service, called Groupon. (That's my referral code.) Groupon offers - 5 days a week - a discount coupon to one service or company in my local area. Today's deal was a month's membership to Onelife gym for $29 instead of their normal month-to-month fee of $69. So, I decided I'd go check it out... I didn't want to buy a membership, gym unseen, so I added a gym tour to my list of things to do today.
I admit, I felt some qualms as I parked in the lot and headed towards the gleaming building. A tiny-thin lady left the building just as I got there. I started feeling all weird and uncomfortable. I don't know why I do that; maybe it's just I associate the word "gym" with "gym class". Or I have some obscurely weird paranoid delusion that I'll walk in and one of the personal trainers will look actively horrified that someone like me thinks I could possibly belong to a gym. Logically, I know this is NOT going to happen. But there's still a part of me that expects a Jillian-esque drill instructor type to pop out from behind a cardio machine, yelling "What the hell are you doing here, fatty! Run run run!"
Bah.
Needless to say, my experience was exactly nothing like that.
I tucked Darcy off into the kid's club - they have a fairly large area for kids to play in, with a hamster tube, TV-room, bunches of toys and books - and went on the tour.
Who am I, and what did I do with the old Lynn? I was actually excited that they had a ton of stair masters. I've always wanted to try flight-climbing as a form of workout. Everything I've heard about stair masters has been really good.
The clientele seemed to be various amounts of fit. There were some bulked out dudes and some thin ladies, but there were also others who were less than perfect. A personal trainer nodded at me from where she was working circuits with a lady who was probably a good ten years older than I am, and ish 30-40 pounds heavier. And she wasn't even YELLING! Woah, I like that. I'm just not inspired by people yelling at me. Being yelled at or called names doesn't inspire me to work harder, it inspires me to walk away and not come back.
They have a "cardio cinema" for watching movies while you do your machine work. They've also got a ladies' only weight room. (Not sure either of those will be on my list... the air flow in the ladies' only room seemed particularly stagnant.)
The guy who gave me a tour - Drew - was nice, enthusiastic, and asked me questions about my fitness goals, past experiences, and previous goals. He was impressed as hell with my weight loss, and encouraging about my ability to get rid of these 7 pounds of creep.
(Ug. Why the HELL have I let my weight get so out of control that I'm back to 140 pounds?? Ug ug ug.)
Anyway, I went home (after the farmer's market and the grocery store) and signed up.
So, tomorrow will be my first day in the gym.
I'll keep ya posted.
But I'm a creepI joined a gym today.
I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here
I don't care if it hurts
I want to have control
I want a perfect body
I want a perfect soul
I want you to notice when I'm not around
You're so fucking special
I wish I was special
- Creep, Radio Head
I belong to a discount service, called Groupon. (That's my referral code.) Groupon offers - 5 days a week - a discount coupon to one service or company in my local area. Today's deal was a month's membership to Onelife gym for $29 instead of their normal month-to-month fee of $69. So, I decided I'd go check it out... I didn't want to buy a membership, gym unseen, so I added a gym tour to my list of things to do today.
I admit, I felt some qualms as I parked in the lot and headed towards the gleaming building. A tiny-thin lady left the building just as I got there. I started feeling all weird and uncomfortable. I don't know why I do that; maybe it's just I associate the word "gym" with "gym class". Or I have some obscurely weird paranoid delusion that I'll walk in and one of the personal trainers will look actively horrified that someone like me thinks I could possibly belong to a gym. Logically, I know this is NOT going to happen. But there's still a part of me that expects a Jillian-esque drill instructor type to pop out from behind a cardio machine, yelling "What the hell are you doing here, fatty! Run run run!"
Bah.
Needless to say, my experience was exactly nothing like that.
I tucked Darcy off into the kid's club - they have a fairly large area for kids to play in, with a hamster tube, TV-room, bunches of toys and books - and went on the tour.
Who am I, and what did I do with the old Lynn? I was actually excited that they had a ton of stair masters. I've always wanted to try flight-climbing as a form of workout. Everything I've heard about stair masters has been really good.
The clientele seemed to be various amounts of fit. There were some bulked out dudes and some thin ladies, but there were also others who were less than perfect. A personal trainer nodded at me from where she was working circuits with a lady who was probably a good ten years older than I am, and ish 30-40 pounds heavier. And she wasn't even YELLING! Woah, I like that. I'm just not inspired by people yelling at me. Being yelled at or called names doesn't inspire me to work harder, it inspires me to walk away and not come back.
They have a "cardio cinema" for watching movies while you do your machine work. They've also got a ladies' only weight room. (Not sure either of those will be on my list... the air flow in the ladies' only room seemed particularly stagnant.)
The guy who gave me a tour - Drew - was nice, enthusiastic, and asked me questions about my fitness goals, past experiences, and previous goals. He was impressed as hell with my weight loss, and encouraging about my ability to get rid of these 7 pounds of creep.
(Ug. Why the HELL have I let my weight get so out of control that I'm back to 140 pounds?? Ug ug ug.)
Anyway, I went home (after the farmer's market and the grocery store) and signed up.
So, tomorrow will be my first day in the gym.
I'll keep ya posted.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Gravitational Absolutist
I'm not much on organized religion. I don't find the idea of God particularly upsetting, but I've found, unfortunately, a lot upsetting about God's churches. God's okay. People... not so much, sometimes.
And I was That Kid, when I was younger. You know, the annoying little shits who think they're so clever...
"If Adam and Eve were the first people on the earth, and they had two sons, one of whom killed the other, where did Mrs. Cain come from?"
"Could God make a rock so big that He couldn't move it?"
You know... I think it's mandatory that all church groups have one. We're a plague, that way.
Now that I'm older, and especially as a mother, I can see some uses for God. Child, "Why do I have to clean my room?" Me, "God said so, now get it done!"
All kidding aside, I've settled into a sort of comfortable philosophy. "Gravitational Absolutist. Gravity works. All the time. Under all circumstances. Everything else... is up for debate." (No, please don't fill my comments with stuff about Zero Gravity... zero gravity is not, actually, being unacted upon by gravity... any mass - and even light - are affected by gravity, whether we are aware of it or not. Zero gravity means only that we do not feel the effects of earth's gravitational pull. If there was no gravity in space, our planet would not stay in its orbit, as well as many, many other Bad Things.)
Ok, I'm finished discussing physics, you can pay attention again.
A few years back, I saw graffiti on a bathroom wall.
"There is no gravity, the earth just sucks."
For a gravitational absolutist, this sort of sentiment is the blackest heresy.
The earth does not suck.
Even in the deepest despair, there is something worth looking at, admiring, doing, being.
It's not always easy to find. It's usually not easily achievable. But it's definitely there.
I say all this because I am beginning to really HATE maintenance. I don't know why I expected maintenance to be easy... why I thought losing the weight would be the hard part. Why I thought I'd "have it down" by the time I got here.
I haven't.
I don't.
It's not.
(As an aside, I still hate my husband, for whom maintenance has also not been easy, but for a different reason. The bastard can't stop LOSING weight. His goal weight was 175. He now clocks in around 157 - 161 pounds, depending on how many cheeseburgers he ate last week. Now, I know - I even feel this way! Frequently! - that many people say "Oh, that's a problem I'd love to have." Except the thing is, it's still a problem! It's difficult to find pants that fit him, especially since he has such long legs... you try finding 30/34s off the rack! His blood sugar, which used to only bottom out once in a while, does so ALL THE TIME now.)
My goal weight is 134. I bounce back and forth between about 135 and 138. If you're familiar with Weight Watchers and their rules, this means I'm paying for meetings. A lot. Still.
At $12 a week.
That's $12 a week I really could be using for something else.
And I debate, back and forth; am I a failure, because I can't maintain in a 2 pound range? Does it really matter to anything other than my pocket book as long as my jeans still fit? Why am I so freaking hungry all the time? I do try, about every other week or so, to go back to eating 19 points a day in an attempt to lose more weight. And it's just not working for me. Days I eat 19 points, I'm so bleeding hungry that the next day I end up eating 29 points.
Part of it is, I think, that I'm not training for my walk anymore. Walking upwards of 5 hours in a day, plus another 2 or so a week, plus hitting the gym twice a week? I'm not doing that most of the time. If I'm doing "well" then I'm getting in about 90 minutes of exercise a week, which is a significant decrease from last year when I was doing 9 - 12 HOURS of working out weekly. The annoying thing is, just because I'm not working out like I used to doesn't seem to mean my appetite has decreased, like it theoretically should.
Part of it is Thomas... in order to not lose any more weight, he's having to eat out, or get sweet or high-fat treats more regularly. This leads those things to being in the house. Or it leads to a LOT of resentment on my part; he can do it, why can't I? Why can he have four slices of pizza and LOSE two pounds this week, and if I have one slice, I gain weight? It's not fair. I feel like I deserve to be able to have an ice cream. Or a candy bar. Or whatever.
And you know, it's not about deserving.
I recognize that it's stupid, childish, pointless, and useless to have those thoughts. We're just made differently, and being mad about it isn't helping. Doesn't make it any easier, sometimes. Recognizing that I'm being stupid, childish, pointless, useless (AND FAT!) doesn't make me feel any better either.
The only thing I can do now is decide what I am going to do now. I can't control Thomas's weight loss, or his frigged up metabolism. Where am I going to go with what I know about myself?
I miss the walking, I really do. And I miss training, and feeling like I'm accomplishing something.
So, I think what I am going to do is sign up for a new event. As much as I liked the Komen 3 day last year, the fund-raising for it made me sick to my stomach. So, I don't want to do that again this year. (I may try to do the 3-Day every other year...)
And then my Weight Watcher's Leader was talking about something she was thinking about doing... The Virginia Beach Rock and Roll Half Marathon.
The thing with the 3-day, it was about endurance.
A half marathon, where I have to do all 13.1 miles in 4 hours? That's about speed. My normal walking speed is about 3 miles an hour. I won't be able to walk that slowly if I'm going to complete the half-marathon before it ends. I won't be able to take sit-down breaks every 2 miles or so.
So... I'm going to do that; sign up is by the end of May and will cost me $85.
Gravity works. All the time. Under every possible circumstance. The rest... is open for improvement.
And I was That Kid, when I was younger. You know, the annoying little shits who think they're so clever...
"If Adam and Eve were the first people on the earth, and they had two sons, one of whom killed the other, where did Mrs. Cain come from?"
"Could God make a rock so big that He couldn't move it?"
You know... I think it's mandatory that all church groups have one. We're a plague, that way.
Now that I'm older, and especially as a mother, I can see some uses for God. Child, "Why do I have to clean my room?" Me, "God said so, now get it done!"
All kidding aside, I've settled into a sort of comfortable philosophy. "Gravitational Absolutist. Gravity works. All the time. Under all circumstances. Everything else... is up for debate." (No, please don't fill my comments with stuff about Zero Gravity... zero gravity is not, actually, being unacted upon by gravity... any mass - and even light - are affected by gravity, whether we are aware of it or not. Zero gravity means only that we do not feel the effects of earth's gravitational pull. If there was no gravity in space, our planet would not stay in its orbit, as well as many, many other Bad Things.)
Ok, I'm finished discussing physics, you can pay attention again.
A few years back, I saw graffiti on a bathroom wall.
"There is no gravity, the earth just sucks."
For a gravitational absolutist, this sort of sentiment is the blackest heresy.
The earth does not suck.
Even in the deepest despair, there is something worth looking at, admiring, doing, being.
It's not always easy to find. It's usually not easily achievable. But it's definitely there.
I say all this because I am beginning to really HATE maintenance. I don't know why I expected maintenance to be easy... why I thought losing the weight would be the hard part. Why I thought I'd "have it down" by the time I got here.
I haven't.
I don't.
It's not.
(As an aside, I still hate my husband, for whom maintenance has also not been easy, but for a different reason. The bastard can't stop LOSING weight. His goal weight was 175. He now clocks in around 157 - 161 pounds, depending on how many cheeseburgers he ate last week. Now, I know - I even feel this way! Frequently! - that many people say "Oh, that's a problem I'd love to have." Except the thing is, it's still a problem! It's difficult to find pants that fit him, especially since he has such long legs... you try finding 30/34s off the rack! His blood sugar, which used to only bottom out once in a while, does so ALL THE TIME now.)
My goal weight is 134. I bounce back and forth between about 135 and 138. If you're familiar with Weight Watchers and their rules, this means I'm paying for meetings. A lot. Still.
At $12 a week.
That's $12 a week I really could be using for something else.
And I debate, back and forth; am I a failure, because I can't maintain in a 2 pound range? Does it really matter to anything other than my pocket book as long as my jeans still fit? Why am I so freaking hungry all the time? I do try, about every other week or so, to go back to eating 19 points a day in an attempt to lose more weight. And it's just not working for me. Days I eat 19 points, I'm so bleeding hungry that the next day I end up eating 29 points.
Part of it is, I think, that I'm not training for my walk anymore. Walking upwards of 5 hours in a day, plus another 2 or so a week, plus hitting the gym twice a week? I'm not doing that most of the time. If I'm doing "well" then I'm getting in about 90 minutes of exercise a week, which is a significant decrease from last year when I was doing 9 - 12 HOURS of working out weekly. The annoying thing is, just because I'm not working out like I used to doesn't seem to mean my appetite has decreased, like it theoretically should.
Part of it is Thomas... in order to not lose any more weight, he's having to eat out, or get sweet or high-fat treats more regularly. This leads those things to being in the house. Or it leads to a LOT of resentment on my part; he can do it, why can't I? Why can he have four slices of pizza and LOSE two pounds this week, and if I have one slice, I gain weight? It's not fair. I feel like I deserve to be able to have an ice cream. Or a candy bar. Or whatever.
And you know, it's not about deserving.
“Wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us, come because we actually deserve them? So now I take comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the Universe." - Marcus Cole, Babylon 5
I recognize that it's stupid, childish, pointless, and useless to have those thoughts. We're just made differently, and being mad about it isn't helping. Doesn't make it any easier, sometimes. Recognizing that I'm being stupid, childish, pointless, useless (AND FAT!) doesn't make me feel any better either.The only thing I can do now is decide what I am going to do now. I can't control Thomas's weight loss, or his frigged up metabolism. Where am I going to go with what I know about myself?
I miss the walking, I really do. And I miss training, and feeling like I'm accomplishing something.
So, I think what I am going to do is sign up for a new event. As much as I liked the Komen 3 day last year, the fund-raising for it made me sick to my stomach. So, I don't want to do that again this year. (I may try to do the 3-Day every other year...)
And then my Weight Watcher's Leader was talking about something she was thinking about doing... The Virginia Beach Rock and Roll Half Marathon.
The thing with the 3-day, it was about endurance.
A half marathon, where I have to do all 13.1 miles in 4 hours? That's about speed. My normal walking speed is about 3 miles an hour. I won't be able to walk that slowly if I'm going to complete the half-marathon before it ends. I won't be able to take sit-down breaks every 2 miles or so.
So... I'm going to do that; sign up is by the end of May and will cost me $85.
Gravity works. All the time. Under every possible circumstance. The rest... is open for improvement.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
A Merry Workout Pledge
If you don't read A Merry Life, you should. Mary is adorable, and I'm personally in awe of her... she has done a TON of cool stuff - especially visiting her boyfriend Kepa in New Zealand and I am desperately envious...
Here's a word of advice; DO THOSE THINGS... not necessarily bungee jumping, but get OUT there and do that you can, while you can do it. Don't let your weight get in the way... don't let "what people think" get in the way. There are a lot of things I wish I'd done, and while they're not impossible to do now, it is harder with child...
Anyway, she's been having a tough time recently and asked for some support to get her back in the gym... she said yesterday she'd walk on the treadmill for 30 seconds for each comment she got on her blog... well, she's got some sadistic readers, because she got a TON of comments.
She's also got some masochistic readers, since a slew of us said we'd do it with her. (I personally feel my job as "support" isn't just to pat you on the shoulder and say "You can do it" but to get out there and get dirty/sore/crazy with you!)
Now, by the time I read about it, the possibility for my getting to the gym yesterday were nil. (There's nothing to DO at our apartment complex's fitness center except work out. Which is fine under normal circumstances, but I really didn't think that Darcy would want to sit around for 2 hours and watch me on the treadmill... ) And while she is up for walking certain distances, she gets cranky after about 3 miles or so, and I just really can't carry her very far any more. She weighs like 40 pounds these days! (I know, I know, I used to carry more than twice that around ON ME, and god only knows how I managed to do that, because carrying her for more than half a mile makes me want to throw up.)
So, I said I'd do it, but that I'd get my wii fit and step-raiser out and do step instead...
I'm crazy.
I know it.
You know it.
Now my legs know it.
Mary got 180 comments.
So I did step for 90 minutes. Three 30 minute free-step sessions on the wii. Watched two episodes of Buffy (And, coincidentally, watched the one where Buffy was doing step in the beginning, and Giles was complaining about her deplorable taste in music... )
And then we went to Darcy's soccer practice and I walked around the field for twenty minutes with Thomas. Usually we go around three or four times. (well, it's not just the soccer field, which is actually a half-sized field for the "tiny tots" league, but the entire field, which is the half-sized, the full sized, the baseball area, and a good section of just grass that needs desperately to be mowed.) I've measured the route we walk, it's about half a mile per lap, so in addition to 90 minutes of step, I walked another mile or so.
11,622 steps yesterday. 900 calories burned. 5 and a half miles.
So... I really, really hope Mary feels inspired today.
Because I feel like a noodle.
Here's a word of advice; DO THOSE THINGS... not necessarily bungee jumping, but get OUT there and do that you can, while you can do it. Don't let your weight get in the way... don't let "what people think" get in the way. There are a lot of things I wish I'd done, and while they're not impossible to do now, it is harder with child...
Anyway, she's been having a tough time recently and asked for some support to get her back in the gym... she said yesterday she'd walk on the treadmill for 30 seconds for each comment she got on her blog... well, she's got some sadistic readers, because she got a TON of comments.
She's also got some masochistic readers, since a slew of us said we'd do it with her. (I personally feel my job as "support" isn't just to pat you on the shoulder and say "You can do it" but to get out there and get dirty/sore/crazy with you!)
Now, by the time I read about it, the possibility for my getting to the gym yesterday were nil. (There's nothing to DO at our apartment complex's fitness center except work out. Which is fine under normal circumstances, but I really didn't think that Darcy would want to sit around for 2 hours and watch me on the treadmill... ) And while she is up for walking certain distances, she gets cranky after about 3 miles or so, and I just really can't carry her very far any more. She weighs like 40 pounds these days! (I know, I know, I used to carry more than twice that around ON ME, and god only knows how I managed to do that, because carrying her for more than half a mile makes me want to throw up.)
So, I said I'd do it, but that I'd get my wii fit and step-raiser out and do step instead...
I'm crazy.
I know it.
You know it.
Now my legs know it.
Mary got 180 comments.
So I did step for 90 minutes. Three 30 minute free-step sessions on the wii. Watched two episodes of Buffy (And, coincidentally, watched the one where Buffy was doing step in the beginning, and Giles was complaining about her deplorable taste in music... )
And then we went to Darcy's soccer practice and I walked around the field for twenty minutes with Thomas. Usually we go around three or four times. (well, it's not just the soccer field, which is actually a half-sized field for the "tiny tots" league, but the entire field, which is the half-sized, the full sized, the baseball area, and a good section of just grass that needs desperately to be mowed.) I've measured the route we walk, it's about half a mile per lap, so in addition to 90 minutes of step, I walked another mile or so.
11,622 steps yesterday. 900 calories burned. 5 and a half miles.
So... I really, really hope Mary feels inspired today.
Because I feel like a noodle.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Falling Down
If you asked people about their greatest fears, people come up with some pretty exotic shit.
Snakes. Like how often do you actually get into a situation where there is a snake in your house? Under your pillow? - sorry, had to throw that in there, I have a friend with a really, really funny story involving a nagging wife, a fork and a bad dream.... He tells it better than I do, tho.
Spiders. Ok, spiders are kind of icky - although I am oddly fascinated by them and have tons of pictures on my cellphone of spiders that I've seen in weird places - but logically, we all know that spiders really aren't all that dangerous. In my whole life, I've been bitten by a spider... ONCE.
Of course, the "persons of size" group has a whole other category of fears that generally boil down to public humiliation. Sitting in a chair and having it collapse under you. Not fitting in a booth/roller coaster ride seat/airplane. Knocking over a shelf in a shop.
My fear?
Falling down.
I'm not talking about falling off the theoretical wagon. And I'm not talking about falling off a building kind of thing. I'm talking about tripping over the cat. Losing my balance on the stairs.
Typical, every day sort of tumbles that my child does fifty times a day.
There are a lot of things I can't/won't/don't do because I'm scared of falling. Utterly terrified.
Now, admittedly, my fear has some basis in reality. I've fallen, just walking down the street, and broken my elbow in three places. There was a actually a chip of bone that came OFF and was free-floating. Which could have involved all sorts of expensive and painful surgery if it didn't reattach during the healing process. It did, and I was spared a franken-arm to go with my franken-ankle. But it could have. I've had an arm in a cast for six weeks for walking into a tree. Sprained ankle taking a tumble in a kiddie pool. Two fractured wrists for falling off a horse. That's not to mention all the injuries I've gotten having something fall ON me. (At least I'm not my mother. She's had trees fall on her. MORE THAN ONCE! New joke, if a tree falls in the woods and there's no one around to hear it, will it fall on my mother?)
Part of my easily breakable state is because I took steroids. For years. For asthma complications, steroids are the go-to drug of choice by emergency room doctors. I spent better than nine years being on steroids more often than I was off them. Which did some majorly craptastic things to my bones, my immune system, my weight.
And then there's the part of me that seems to be perpetually clumsy. I have a near-permanent bruise on my left shoulder from my frequent habit of walking into the door frame in the kitchen. I have knocked myself out at least twice coming up under things like cash-register draws and wall-mounted antique telephones. (don't ask.) I am still astonished that my breakfront's door isn't broken (pun intended) from the number of times I've clipped myself on it.
And, honestly, part of it was that I was fat. Being fat, you're more likely to walk into something because there's just not enough room for you. You misjudge how far out your hip is. How far back your butt extends. I used to joke (self-hatingly, but still, joking) that my boobs came into the room a week before the rest of me. And there's all that pounds per square inch FORCE that being fat complicates. Climbing stairs, for instance, puts four pounds of pressure PER POUND that you are, on your knee. At my heaviest weight, that's 880 pounds of pressure I was putting on my knee. Imagine what that weight is like on your bones when you fall down. It takes eight pounds of pressure to break any bone in the human body. (and those are for normal-people bones, not weird old lady butter bones like mine!)
So, why am I talking about this today?
I fell down yesterday.
And not just a simple tripped over one of my daughter's toys fall.
I was outside. Racing my daughter on a scooter (she was running, I was using the scooter...) And I turned the corner too fast and clipped the edge of the sidewalk.
And aside from a slight bruised ego and a wet spot on the knee of my jeans, I was perfectly fine. I didn't even have those long moments where my heart rate is waaay too high and I feel faint and dizzy.
To me, that's impressive.
Snakes. Like how often do you actually get into a situation where there is a snake in your house? Under your pillow? - sorry, had to throw that in there, I have a friend with a really, really funny story involving a nagging wife, a fork and a bad dream.... He tells it better than I do, tho.
Spiders. Ok, spiders are kind of icky - although I am oddly fascinated by them and have tons of pictures on my cellphone of spiders that I've seen in weird places - but logically, we all know that spiders really aren't all that dangerous. In my whole life, I've been bitten by a spider... ONCE.
Of course, the "persons of size" group has a whole other category of fears that generally boil down to public humiliation. Sitting in a chair and having it collapse under you. Not fitting in a booth/roller coaster ride seat/airplane. Knocking over a shelf in a shop.
My fear?
Falling down.
I'm not talking about falling off the theoretical wagon. And I'm not talking about falling off a building kind of thing. I'm talking about tripping over the cat. Losing my balance on the stairs.
Typical, every day sort of tumbles that my child does fifty times a day.
There are a lot of things I can't/won't/don't do because I'm scared of falling. Utterly terrified.
Now, admittedly, my fear has some basis in reality. I've fallen, just walking down the street, and broken my elbow in three places. There was a actually a chip of bone that came OFF and was free-floating. Which could have involved all sorts of expensive and painful surgery if it didn't reattach during the healing process. It did, and I was spared a franken-arm to go with my franken-ankle. But it could have. I've had an arm in a cast for six weeks for walking into a tree. Sprained ankle taking a tumble in a kiddie pool. Two fractured wrists for falling off a horse. That's not to mention all the injuries I've gotten having something fall ON me. (At least I'm not my mother. She's had trees fall on her. MORE THAN ONCE! New joke, if a tree falls in the woods and there's no one around to hear it, will it fall on my mother?)
Part of my easily breakable state is because I took steroids. For years. For asthma complications, steroids are the go-to drug of choice by emergency room doctors. I spent better than nine years being on steroids more often than I was off them. Which did some majorly craptastic things to my bones, my immune system, my weight.
And then there's the part of me that seems to be perpetually clumsy. I have a near-permanent bruise on my left shoulder from my frequent habit of walking into the door frame in the kitchen. I have knocked myself out at least twice coming up under things like cash-register draws and wall-mounted antique telephones. (don't ask.) I am still astonished that my breakfront's door isn't broken (pun intended) from the number of times I've clipped myself on it.
And, honestly, part of it was that I was fat. Being fat, you're more likely to walk into something because there's just not enough room for you. You misjudge how far out your hip is. How far back your butt extends. I used to joke (self-hatingly, but still, joking) that my boobs came into the room a week before the rest of me. And there's all that pounds per square inch FORCE that being fat complicates. Climbing stairs, for instance, puts four pounds of pressure PER POUND that you are, on your knee. At my heaviest weight, that's 880 pounds of pressure I was putting on my knee. Imagine what that weight is like on your bones when you fall down. It takes eight pounds of pressure to break any bone in the human body. (and those are for normal-people bones, not weird old lady butter bones like mine!)
So, why am I talking about this today?
I fell down yesterday.
And not just a simple tripped over one of my daughter's toys fall.
I was outside. Racing my daughter on a scooter (she was running, I was using the scooter...) And I turned the corner too fast and clipped the edge of the sidewalk.
And aside from a slight bruised ego and a wet spot on the knee of my jeans, I was perfectly fine. I didn't even have those long moments where my heart rate is waaay too high and I feel faint and dizzy.
To me, that's impressive.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
I Should Be Committed
Thought I'd take a few minutes to answer a reader question. (I like answering questions... it's like being handed a paper topic... the hard part of writing is often what to write about... So if you ever have a question, please ask!)
Anyway, now that I'm completely off-track, allow me to make an awkward and grammatically ugly transition sentence and get back to talking about commitment.
(Keeping in mind that commitment has a lot of definitions; including referring a potential law to committee, the perpetuation of a crime, and being confined to a mental institution. Yes, I love to play with Dictionary.Com... Of course, what I'd really like is the CD version of the Oxford English Dictionary, but it's still ungodly expensive and no one likes me enough to buy that for me as a gift...)
(Again, standard disclaimer; what works for me might not work for you. You know - or you should know - yourself better than I do... )
So... I will dispense advice... now.
Start Small.
Here's where I see a LOT of people making the same mistake. Much like with their food plans, sometimes people just decide they're going to change their lives. They're going to eat next to nothing and work out 9 days a week for 27 hours a day. (I exaggerate slightly for effect. Sue me.)
Seriously. Slowthe fuck down.
Rome wasn't built in a day. Noah didn't start building the ark when it was raining. Baby steps. Whatever you want to use as your mantra.
If you haven't been doing any form of exercise at all (aside from fork-lifts and fridge-runs) you will want to start very slowly. Put on your shoes and walk outside for 5 minutes, then turn around and come back. If that didn't bother you too much, walk 10 minutes out and 10 minutes back.
When I started, my husband and I walked around the block. That's a little less than a mile. It took us a little more than 20 minutes the first time. And god, I hated it. We did that a few times a week, got thrown off by a bout of food poisoning... and eventually got back to it.
Gradually we increased the length of our walks, and we've varied a lot in how dedicated we are to them. These days, we do them at least once a week, and sometimes twice. Once in a while, we'll get three in, but as both of us have moved on to other things, that's fine.
So, start small. If you have a workout video, don't decide to do the whole half hour, or sixty minutes, or decide you're going to do it EVERY DAY without FAIL for 30 days. (I get really annoyed with people and their 30-day shreds that they quit 6 days in... it's too much. SERIOUSLY. Chill. Out.) The first time I did a workout dvd, I did... 7 minutes?
Do what you can. Push yourself, but not too hard. Because otherwise all you're going to do is push yourself OVER.
You Do Have Time.
"I don't have time."
Yes. You do.
I don'tgive a rat's ass care how busy you think you are. My best friend has two kids (one is a juvenile diabetic) and a full-time job and has several different doctors that she has to see on a regular basis, and even though she doesn't always get to the gym as regularly as she'd like, she does get there. And when she doesn't, she hops on the Wii Fit when the kids are in bed.
Please, trust me on this; you have time. Somewhere in your week, you have time.
Maybe you don't have time to drive all the way to the gym, do a 90 minute workout, get a massage, have a smoothie, take a shower, and drive home. I'll agree with that.
But somewhere in your day, you have time. You just need to find it.
Priorities. Priorities. Priorities. Ok, let's look at your day; Non-optional stuff: Work. School. Kids. Eating. Sleep. (Yes. Sleep is a priority. Get some!) Some fun stuff. (Yes. Relaxing is mandatory. I don't care what you do for fun, but you should do something. Watch TV. Read a book. Play a video game. Go to a baseball game. I don't care, but at least three times a week, you should do something for you that you enjoy. Otherwise, what the hell is the point to life anyway? Besides, if you never do anything fun, YOU are not a fun person and... who the heck wants to be THAT person?)
Everything else you do is optional. Helping out your aging, cranky, disagreeable aunt? YOU decided you would do it. Volunteering at the homeless shelter? Again, you. Getting together for a stitch-and-bitch with that woman from church that you really, really don't like. Guess who made that an obligation. YOU did.
(This blog entry is getting long enough as it is without my going into detail about learning to say NO to people and reorganizing your life. I may get back to those topics later.)
There's a standard visual aid for time management; Rocks, gravel, sand, water. You can read this and then come back here, since it's well-written in many other places, so why reinvent the wheel?
There are all sorts of ways to find extra time. If you watch a lot of TV, maybe you could cut out a show. Or TiVo it to watch later. Or get up during commercials and do jumping jacks (or tricep stretches, or bicep curls, or whatever.) Wake up a little early and go for a walk (or run) before you even shower. Go for a walk at lunch. Hire a babysitter once or twice a week so you can get to the gym. (Many gyms have programs for kids, or at least daycare, so check out that option.) Make exercise a family priority and have a work-out day where you all do something active (play volleyball, badminton, softball, tag, go swimming...) at the same time. Take your kids to the park and let them run around. While they're doing that, you can get a pretty good workout with standard playground equipment.
Find Something You Like.
Or at least, something you don't actively loathe.
This may take quite a while. You may have to try a lot of different things to find something that you actually enjoy. Lucky you, there's a lot of different things to try!
Walking, running, weights, workout dvds, biking, elliptical, jumping rope, playing tennis, swimming and yoga. These are the things I have tried. There are other things that I'd like to try that involve a little more money on my part (dancing, rock climbing, fencing...)
Be flexible. How do you know you don't like doing push ups? Have you tried recently? Well, just do a few. (Yes, if I sound like your mother pointing at your plate of green beans, that was deliberate.)
Keep trying. I didn't like the elliptical the first time I tried it. It was weird and wobbly and scary.
I didn't like it the second time I tried it either. I felt awkward and weird and ridiculous and I got off in less than six minutes.
Then, during my few sessions with a personal trainer, she made me get on it again as part of my warm up routine. I'd said I didn't like it, and she decided to "take me out of my comfort zone." I did 10 minutes that third time, and by about 5 minutes in, finally figured out the damned rhythm. She advised me to use the elliptical for 10-15 minutes as cardio at least once a week, before heading back to more familiar territory with the treadmill or the bike. The fourth try at the elliptical, I ended up staying on it for thirty minutes.
And now, I freaking love it.
Mix It Up
Now that you've found something you like to do (or at least, don't hate it more than anything else in your life) and you've got time to do it... well,shit darn. Now you're bored.
If you get bored easily, you may have to mix your routine up frequently. This isn't a bad thing. Trying new things regularly can help keep your body guessing, keep you from falling into a rut, or a plateau. Even if you find your one thing (or three things) and can keep doing them constantly, you may want to vary your times or intensity, just to keep it fresh.
Set Specific Goals.
I find it a lot easier to work out if my work out goals are very specific.
If you've been trying to get fit/lose weight/eat better for any length of time, you'll know as well as I do; the scale is fickle. My mantra for this is "Biology is not chemistry." Changes to our bodies take place on a cellular level. And between the mouth and the scale, there are so many things that can happen, it's a miracle that anything does happen. Sodium, time of day, time of the month, time of the universe. Water weight, over-exertion. The list is endless, and much like the weather, there is absolutely no way to predict it with any certainty whatsoever.
Setting specific weight goals, particularly if you set them with a time-line attached to it... you're setting yourself up. You'll either meet the goal easily, get overconfident and fall flat on your face later, or you won't accomplish it, and you'll be angry and frustrated. (Not that anger, frustration and exasperation aren't all part of the grand scheme... get used to it. It will happen. And you're not a freak for feeling bad about these things. You don't need to always slap on the Lee Press On smile... this is hard work, and you are entitled to your feelings.)
"I want to lose 20 pounds by summer."
Good for you. I want a pony and a glittery bridle. Let me know how that works out for you.
You can't always control your weight. Not down to the pounds and pence of it.
But you can control your exercise.
One of my eFriends says that a good goal is something you can barely accomplish. I'm not always sure I agree with him, but whatever works for you... I like goals. I like ticking something off a checklist.
If you're currently walking for ten minutes, you might set a reasonable goal as, "I'd like to be able to walk for two miles." And then add in little increments of time or distance...
For me, the 100 push up, 200 squats, 200 sit ups challenges have been a great inspiration. I may not be able to control the scale, but doing the challenges was a way to see some improvement. I have completed two of the three and am currently working on the sit up challenge. I do plan, when I finish the sit ups, to go back to the push ups. (I do push ups in my circuit training, but usually only 10-15 at a time, so I am pretty sure that while I did do 100 push ups in a row a few months back, I cannot do that now. So, I can start over. Cool, huh?)
If you're not into challenges, you might do something like my husband's done. He couldn't seem to dedicate himself to exercise (well, not unless I was dragging his butt out to go walking) until his friend signed him up to run a 5K. With a specific deadline, he's thrown himself into training for it. The money is paid, his friend is counting on him. So, he's getting it done. And, as he said to me yesterday, "I'm not hating it as much as I was afraid I would." (This from the man who used to say that he only ran when chased.)
Walking a Mile Does Not Justify an Ice Cream Sundae
One problem I see a lot is people who overestimate how many calories they burn. Weight Watchers gets around this a little bit by doing a 2:1 return. A food point is 50-70 calories, but an Activity Point is 100 calories. There are lots of sites out there to gauge your caloric output (here let me google that for you.) so find one and use it.
I know it can be confusing and annoying, but really, the average calorie count for an Ice Cream Sundae is not 20 minutes of low-intensity workout. (For example: I burn about 300 - 350 calories on the elliptical going over 5mph for 45 minutes. That's maintaining a heart rate of 145 - 160...)
Get Over Yourself.
I know people who won't touch the weight machine (or the elliptical or any other piece of exercise equipment) because they don't know how to use it. Get someone to teach you. You didn't know how to read and write before someone taught you.
So you can't lift as much weight as Mike Manly Muscle-bound. So what? Get a stepladder and get over yourself. You have to start somewhere.
Anyone else who cares how much weight you're lifting (or not lifting) has too much free time and too little self-confidence. (And yes, actually, that means that if you're eyeballing Sally Slender or Mike Manly, you have too much free time and why aren't you using it to work out?? I know it's hard sometimes to not peek at someone else's workout summary, but you don't really need that information. I promise.)
You don't have to do something well in order to do it. And you will get better with practice.
You are the only competitor who matters. Let your competition be with yourself. You may never be better than Mike Manly. But you can be better than YOU are today.
The second part of Rebeca's question (remember Alice? This is a song about Alice...) was about snags.
Snags happen.
Life happens.
When you stumble on the stairs, is your immediate response to throw yourself to the bottom of the flight, just because you missed a step?
When you scratch the paint on your car, is your first impulse to go out and ram your car into a dump truck? Because, really, if you've scratched the paint, you may as well wreck the car!!
Do you chip a plate and then throw the plate at your entire cabinet of dishes?
(If you do, please seek help now, because I'm not qualified to deal with your issues!)
Accept these facts now.
You will miss workouts.
You will have shitty weigh ins.
You will gain weight unexpectedly.
You will have bad days at the gym where you can't lift, run, or otherwise get anything done.
GET OVER IT.
I know, it's easier said than done. But in the end, if you let one snag throw you off track completely, that's the failure. Having a bad day? Normal. Natural. Ordinary. And frankly? Boring.
You had a bad day. You didn't feel well and you didn't work out. Ok. Bitch for 10 minutes and then move along. Nothing to see here.
People tell me I'm an inspiration. People tell me how much they admire me and are impressed with my weight loss and my dedication. They want the "secret."
Honey, there is no secret.
You just have to do it.
What I did? That's in everyone. Anyone can do it. I just did it. One day at a time. One meal at a time. One workout session at a time. One complete screw up at a time. (I am not a complete screw up; some parts are missing!)
Do I skip gym trips? Hell, yes. Do I miss walks? Sometimes. Do I fall off the fucking elliptical? With alarming frequency.
It's not what you do one day that makes the difference.
It's what you do most days.
"Okay... so how did you get to a place where you could earn that many activity points? A place where you could really commit to this lifestyle? I'm trying and I do well for a few days (or a day) and then let it all go at the first obstacle." Rebeca from All Vegged Out asks.I've eKnown Rebeca for quite a while; started following her old blog quite a number of months ago back when she had (in my opinion) absolutely the Worst Job Ever! and have followed her through her journey. She takes some great pictures of food. I don't personally tend to take pictures of my food, but man, for whatever reason, I'm utterly fascinated by looking at other people's pictures of what they're eating.
Anyway, now that I'm completely off-track, allow me to make an awkward and grammatically ugly transition sentence and get back to talking about commitment.
(Keeping in mind that commitment has a lot of definitions; including referring a potential law to committee, the perpetuation of a crime, and being confined to a mental institution. Yes, I love to play with Dictionary.Com... Of course, what I'd really like is the CD version of the Oxford English Dictionary, but it's still ungodly expensive and no one likes me enough to buy that for me as a gift...)
(Again, standard disclaimer; what works for me might not work for you. You know - or you should know - yourself better than I do... )
So... I will dispense advice... now.
Start Small.
Here's where I see a LOT of people making the same mistake. Much like with their food plans, sometimes people just decide they're going to change their lives. They're going to eat next to nothing and work out 9 days a week for 27 hours a day. (I exaggerate slightly for effect. Sue me.)
Seriously. Slow
Rome wasn't built in a day. Noah didn't start building the ark when it was raining. Baby steps. Whatever you want to use as your mantra.
If you haven't been doing any form of exercise at all (aside from fork-lifts and fridge-runs) you will want to start very slowly. Put on your shoes and walk outside for 5 minutes, then turn around and come back. If that didn't bother you too much, walk 10 minutes out and 10 minutes back.
When I started, my husband and I walked around the block. That's a little less than a mile. It took us a little more than 20 minutes the first time. And god, I hated it. We did that a few times a week, got thrown off by a bout of food poisoning... and eventually got back to it.
Gradually we increased the length of our walks, and we've varied a lot in how dedicated we are to them. These days, we do them at least once a week, and sometimes twice. Once in a while, we'll get three in, but as both of us have moved on to other things, that's fine.
So, start small. If you have a workout video, don't decide to do the whole half hour, or sixty minutes, or decide you're going to do it EVERY DAY without FAIL for 30 days. (I get really annoyed with people and their 30-day shreds that they quit 6 days in... it's too much. SERIOUSLY. Chill. Out.) The first time I did a workout dvd, I did... 7 minutes?
Do what you can. Push yourself, but not too hard. Because otherwise all you're going to do is push yourself OVER.
You Do Have Time.
Your only real obligation is to live until you die. Everything else is optional. --Harley HahnYou should work out.
"I don't have time."
Yes. You do.
I don't
Please, trust me on this; you have time. Somewhere in your week, you have time.
Maybe you don't have time to drive all the way to the gym, do a 90 minute workout, get a massage, have a smoothie, take a shower, and drive home. I'll agree with that.
But somewhere in your day, you have time. You just need to find it.
Priorities. Priorities. Priorities. Ok, let's look at your day; Non-optional stuff: Work. School. Kids. Eating. Sleep. (Yes. Sleep is a priority. Get some!) Some fun stuff. (Yes. Relaxing is mandatory. I don't care what you do for fun, but you should do something. Watch TV. Read a book. Play a video game. Go to a baseball game. I don't care, but at least three times a week, you should do something for you that you enjoy. Otherwise, what the hell is the point to life anyway? Besides, if you never do anything fun, YOU are not a fun person and... who the heck wants to be THAT person?)
Everything else you do is optional. Helping out your aging, cranky, disagreeable aunt? YOU decided you would do it. Volunteering at the homeless shelter? Again, you. Getting together for a stitch-and-bitch with that woman from church that you really, really don't like. Guess who made that an obligation. YOU did.
(This blog entry is getting long enough as it is without my going into detail about learning to say NO to people and reorganizing your life. I may get back to those topics later.)
There's a standard visual aid for time management; Rocks, gravel, sand, water. You can read this and then come back here, since it's well-written in many other places, so why reinvent the wheel?
At any age, it's important to know what your "big rocks" are. Then, you can start to have the balance you want in your life/career and the satisfaction of knowing you chose your goals.If a healthy lifestyle, complete with exercise is a priority for you, then you have to make it a priority.
There are all sorts of ways to find extra time. If you watch a lot of TV, maybe you could cut out a show. Or TiVo it to watch later. Or get up during commercials and do jumping jacks (or tricep stretches, or bicep curls, or whatever.) Wake up a little early and go for a walk (or run) before you even shower. Go for a walk at lunch. Hire a babysitter once or twice a week so you can get to the gym. (Many gyms have programs for kids, or at least daycare, so check out that option.) Make exercise a family priority and have a work-out day where you all do something active (play volleyball, badminton, softball, tag, go swimming...) at the same time. Take your kids to the park and let them run around. While they're doing that, you can get a pretty good workout with standard playground equipment.
Find Something You Like.
Or at least, something you don't actively loathe.
This may take quite a while. You may have to try a lot of different things to find something that you actually enjoy. Lucky you, there's a lot of different things to try!
Walking, running, weights, workout dvds, biking, elliptical, jumping rope, playing tennis, swimming and yoga. These are the things I have tried. There are other things that I'd like to try that involve a little more money on my part (dancing, rock climbing, fencing...)
Be flexible. How do you know you don't like doing push ups? Have you tried recently? Well, just do a few. (Yes, if I sound like your mother pointing at your plate of green beans, that was deliberate.)
Keep trying. I didn't like the elliptical the first time I tried it. It was weird and wobbly and scary.
I didn't like it the second time I tried it either. I felt awkward and weird and ridiculous and I got off in less than six minutes.
Then, during my few sessions with a personal trainer, she made me get on it again as part of my warm up routine. I'd said I didn't like it, and she decided to "take me out of my comfort zone." I did 10 minutes that third time, and by about 5 minutes in, finally figured out the damned rhythm. She advised me to use the elliptical for 10-15 minutes as cardio at least once a week, before heading back to more familiar territory with the treadmill or the bike. The fourth try at the elliptical, I ended up staying on it for thirty minutes.
And now, I freaking love it.
Mix It Up
Now that you've found something you like to do (or at least, don't hate it more than anything else in your life) and you've got time to do it... well,
If you get bored easily, you may have to mix your routine up frequently. This isn't a bad thing. Trying new things regularly can help keep your body guessing, keep you from falling into a rut, or a plateau. Even if you find your one thing (or three things) and can keep doing them constantly, you may want to vary your times or intensity, just to keep it fresh.
Set Specific Goals.
I find it a lot easier to work out if my work out goals are very specific.
If you've been trying to get fit/lose weight/eat better for any length of time, you'll know as well as I do; the scale is fickle. My mantra for this is "Biology is not chemistry." Changes to our bodies take place on a cellular level. And between the mouth and the scale, there are so many things that can happen, it's a miracle that anything does happen. Sodium, time of day, time of the month, time of the universe. Water weight, over-exertion. The list is endless, and much like the weather, there is absolutely no way to predict it with any certainty whatsoever.
Setting specific weight goals, particularly if you set them with a time-line attached to it... you're setting yourself up. You'll either meet the goal easily, get overconfident and fall flat on your face later, or you won't accomplish it, and you'll be angry and frustrated. (Not that anger, frustration and exasperation aren't all part of the grand scheme... get used to it. It will happen. And you're not a freak for feeling bad about these things. You don't need to always slap on the Lee Press On smile... this is hard work, and you are entitled to your feelings.)
"I want to lose 20 pounds by summer."
Good for you. I want a pony and a glittery bridle. Let me know how that works out for you.
You can't always control your weight. Not down to the pounds and pence of it.
But you can control your exercise.
One of my eFriends says that a good goal is something you can barely accomplish. I'm not always sure I agree with him, but whatever works for you... I like goals. I like ticking something off a checklist.
If you're currently walking for ten minutes, you might set a reasonable goal as, "I'd like to be able to walk for two miles." And then add in little increments of time or distance...
For me, the 100 push up, 200 squats, 200 sit ups challenges have been a great inspiration. I may not be able to control the scale, but doing the challenges was a way to see some improvement. I have completed two of the three and am currently working on the sit up challenge. I do plan, when I finish the sit ups, to go back to the push ups. (I do push ups in my circuit training, but usually only 10-15 at a time, so I am pretty sure that while I did do 100 push ups in a row a few months back, I cannot do that now. So, I can start over. Cool, huh?)
If you're not into challenges, you might do something like my husband's done. He couldn't seem to dedicate himself to exercise (well, not unless I was dragging his butt out to go walking) until his friend signed him up to run a 5K. With a specific deadline, he's thrown himself into training for it. The money is paid, his friend is counting on him. So, he's getting it done. And, as he said to me yesterday, "I'm not hating it as much as I was afraid I would." (This from the man who used to say that he only ran when chased.)
Walking a Mile Does Not Justify an Ice Cream Sundae
One problem I see a lot is people who overestimate how many calories they burn. Weight Watchers gets around this a little bit by doing a 2:1 return. A food point is 50-70 calories, but an Activity Point is 100 calories. There are lots of sites out there to gauge your caloric output (here let me google that for you.) so find one and use it.
I know it can be confusing and annoying, but really, the average calorie count for an Ice Cream Sundae is not 20 minutes of low-intensity workout. (For example: I burn about 300 - 350 calories on the elliptical going over 5mph for 45 minutes. That's maintaining a heart rate of 145 - 160...)
Get Over Yourself.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. - Voltaire.My husband - before starting the training for his 5K - never wanted to work out unless he could dedicate an hour to it. And he could never find the hour. He liked his sleep a lot more than he liked getting up an hour early to go to the gym.
I know people who won't touch the weight machine (or the elliptical or any other piece of exercise equipment) because they don't know how to use it. Get someone to teach you. You didn't know how to read and write before someone taught you.
So you can't lift as much weight as Mike Manly Muscle-bound. So what? Get a stepladder and get over yourself. You have to start somewhere.
Anyone else who cares how much weight you're lifting (or not lifting) has too much free time and too little self-confidence. (And yes, actually, that means that if you're eyeballing Sally Slender or Mike Manly, you have too much free time and why aren't you using it to work out?? I know it's hard sometimes to not peek at someone else's workout summary, but you don't really need that information. I promise.)
You don't have to do something well in order to do it. And you will get better with practice.
You are the only competitor who matters. Let your competition be with yourself. You may never be better than Mike Manly. But you can be better than YOU are today.
And if this is your first night at Rock Band.... you have to sing.Don't throw yourself down the stairs.
-- Matt Brooks.
The second part of Rebeca's question (remember Alice? This is a song about Alice...) was about snags.
Snags happen.
Life happens.
When you stumble on the stairs, is your immediate response to throw yourself to the bottom of the flight, just because you missed a step?
When you scratch the paint on your car, is your first impulse to go out and ram your car into a dump truck? Because, really, if you've scratched the paint, you may as well wreck the car!!
Do you chip a plate and then throw the plate at your entire cabinet of dishes?
(If you do, please seek help now, because I'm not qualified to deal with your issues!)
Accept these facts now.
You will miss workouts.
You will have shitty weigh ins.
You will gain weight unexpectedly.
You will have bad days at the gym where you can't lift, run, or otherwise get anything done.
Life sucks. Get a helmet.So you hit a snag? So what? Did you think you were never going to fail? Wow. You must be God!
- Denis Leary
GET OVER IT.
I know, it's easier said than done. But in the end, if you let one snag throw you off track completely, that's the failure. Having a bad day? Normal. Natural. Ordinary. And frankly? Boring.
You had a bad day. You didn't feel well and you didn't work out. Ok. Bitch for 10 minutes and then move along. Nothing to see here.
People tell me I'm an inspiration. People tell me how much they admire me and are impressed with my weight loss and my dedication. They want the "secret."
Honey, there is no secret.
You just have to do it.
What I did? That's in everyone. Anyone can do it. I just did it. One day at a time. One meal at a time. One workout session at a time. One complete screw up at a time. (I am not a complete screw up; some parts are missing!)
Do I skip gym trips? Hell, yes. Do I miss walks? Sometimes. Do I fall off the fucking elliptical? With alarming frequency.
It's not what you do one day that makes the difference.
It's what you do most days.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
I'm not a doctor, Jim
Both the feedback and the enthusiasm I've gotten over the last blog post have been pretty amazing...
I've gotten a bunch of hits, emails, twitters, etc about my new eating plan and I wanted to say a few things.
Standard disclaimer: I am not a doctor, nurse, nutritionist, dietitian or otherwise qualified to make any medical decisions. Any advice you read here is my personal opinion, which is to say, as likely to be complete crap as anything else you read on the internet. Please use standard discretion before following advice. Consult your doctor before starting any diet or exercise program. Yaddah yaddah.
Substandard disclaimer: My friend is. Geoff (who absolutely does NOT want his contact information given out and I'm going to respect that because he is a friend and I don't want him to beat me with a stick) is a licensed dietitian and is currently about a year out from getting his PhD in kinesiology in the field of sports medicine. Before he gave me all his advice, he had me give over my food logs, had me keeping track of my workouts (including keeping a log of my heart rate - I was to measure my heart rate first thing in the morning, before even getting out of bed, randomly through the day, before, during, and after workouts, and before bed) and rather ruthlessly questioned me over the phone about my entire life (even so far as asking how often I had sex, what my sleep schedule looked like, mood tracking, headache tracking... etc).
His advice to me, which was a lot more detailed than I discussed in Tuesday's post is custom tailored FOR ME.
There's some standard advice in there that I don't think is generally bad for anyone to follow (avoid overly processed 100 calorie packs, eat all your weekly flex points, eat at least 3 hours before you sleep) and then there's some advice that's probably slanted towards my High Intensity/High Activity lifestyle.
Please keep in mind that on your average week, I'm logging between 25 and 40 activity points. (And I'm very careful to double check and triple check my activity points - I don't go with what weight watcher's site says, I'm tracking my activity by my heart rate monitor and often rounding down.)
Among Geoff's other admonitions, he was very clear on his opinion of crap-food. As far as he's concerned, food comes in a couple of varieties: lean protien, vegetable/fruit, dairy/calcium, good carbs, healthy fat and crap. I'm supposed to limit myself on the crap food. (Crap food is a 100 calorie pack, or potato chips, or white bread, or ice cream with more than 5 ingredients... he's a big fan of simple ice cream where the ingredients are like milk, sugar, cream, flavoring.) No more than 1/10th of my eating is supposed to be crap. So, if I eat 24 points in a day, no more than 2.5 of those points can be crap. He says I can spread that over the week or eat it all at once; so if I want a McCrap Burger (his name for it, not mine) then I need to eat over 120 points in the week, so I can save 12 of those for the McCrap burger.
He also laid out for me a specific healthy fat/vegetable/lean protien/dairy ratio for me, which leans a bit to the protien side because I am specifically building endurance muscle. I didn't cover it specifically in Tusday's blog post because I didn't think it was particularly important. I'm not going to cover it specifically now because, as I said, it's laid out specifically for me and what Geoff sees as my particular nutritional requirements.
Anyway, end of lecture. I just am a little whelmed by the response I've gotten to that blog entry and I want everyone to be sensible when adopting a new eating or workout plan.
Thanks!
I've gotten a bunch of hits, emails, twitters, etc about my new eating plan and I wanted to say a few things.
Standard disclaimer: I am not a doctor, nurse, nutritionist, dietitian or otherwise qualified to make any medical decisions. Any advice you read here is my personal opinion, which is to say, as likely to be complete crap as anything else you read on the internet. Please use standard discretion before following advice. Consult your doctor before starting any diet or exercise program. Yaddah yaddah.
Substandard disclaimer: My friend is. Geoff (who absolutely does NOT want his contact information given out and I'm going to respect that because he is a friend and I don't want him to beat me with a stick) is a licensed dietitian and is currently about a year out from getting his PhD in kinesiology in the field of sports medicine. Before he gave me all his advice, he had me give over my food logs, had me keeping track of my workouts (including keeping a log of my heart rate - I was to measure my heart rate first thing in the morning, before even getting out of bed, randomly through the day, before, during, and after workouts, and before bed) and rather ruthlessly questioned me over the phone about my entire life (even so far as asking how often I had sex, what my sleep schedule looked like, mood tracking, headache tracking... etc).
His advice to me, which was a lot more detailed than I discussed in Tuesday's post is custom tailored FOR ME.
There's some standard advice in there that I don't think is generally bad for anyone to follow (avoid overly processed 100 calorie packs, eat all your weekly flex points, eat at least 3 hours before you sleep) and then there's some advice that's probably slanted towards my High Intensity/High Activity lifestyle.
Please keep in mind that on your average week, I'm logging between 25 and 40 activity points. (And I'm very careful to double check and triple check my activity points - I don't go with what weight watcher's site says, I'm tracking my activity by my heart rate monitor and often rounding down.)
Among Geoff's other admonitions, he was very clear on his opinion of crap-food. As far as he's concerned, food comes in a couple of varieties: lean protien, vegetable/fruit, dairy/calcium, good carbs, healthy fat and crap. I'm supposed to limit myself on the crap food. (Crap food is a 100 calorie pack, or potato chips, or white bread, or ice cream with more than 5 ingredients... he's a big fan of simple ice cream where the ingredients are like milk, sugar, cream, flavoring.) No more than 1/10th of my eating is supposed to be crap. So, if I eat 24 points in a day, no more than 2.5 of those points can be crap. He says I can spread that over the week or eat it all at once; so if I want a McCrap Burger (his name for it, not mine) then I need to eat over 120 points in the week, so I can save 12 of those for the McCrap burger.
He also laid out for me a specific healthy fat/vegetable/lean protien/dairy ratio for me, which leans a bit to the protien side because I am specifically building endurance muscle. I didn't cover it specifically in Tusday's blog post because I didn't think it was particularly important. I'm not going to cover it specifically now because, as I said, it's laid out specifically for me and what Geoff sees as my particular nutritional requirements.
Anyway, end of lecture. I just am a little whelmed by the response I've gotten to that blog entry and I want everyone to be sensible when adopting a new eating or workout plan.
Thanks!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Me and Michael Phelps
My weight loss has been a real case of the running in place recently. Down 1.4, up .6, down .2, up 2.2, etc. Netting out to zero, or close to zero.
And my god, I've been hungry.
Not Oh, that doughnut looks tasty sort of hungry, either.
But My bleeding Christ, I would kill someone to have a half cup of tuna fish!
You know when you find yourself feeling guilty about the six or seven grapes you ate (packing up your husband's lunch for the next day and snitching them as you washed them off...) that there's something really, really wrong.
I wasn't hungry for chocolate, or cake, or even cheese. I was just hungry.
Constantly.
And I got scared of my points again. I wasn't losing weight when I was eating my activity points (altho I wasn't eating most of my flex points... maybe 5-10 in the course of a week). So I stopped eating my activity points. And I still wasn't losing weight. And then I started skipping food from my regular points...
For the last couple weeks, without really confessing what I was doing - or even really thinking about what I was doing - I've been starving myself.
I get 19 points a day. Calculating that out, if I avoid the full fat stuff and eat mostly high fiber... that's 1,330 calories per day. My basal metabolic rate (rough guestimate based on height, weight and gender) I'm supposed to use up 1,400 calories laying in bed and pretending I don't exist.
You know that's not what I do.
I hit the elliptical a few times a week. I walk. I swim. (Hell, I even swim with my 35-pound child piggybacked on my back, and let me tell ya, that's not as much fun as it sounds... not for me, at any rate... good workout, though...) I do step while I watch old episodes of Buffy. I clean.
So, the question in my mind was this; how can I not be losing weight?
With the sort of calories I'm burning versus the amount of not-eating I was doing... calories in < calories out = weight loss, right?
I continued to cut calories. I was continually hungry, and I was getting to the point where I wanted to cry every time I opened the fridge. Every time I walked past a mirror. Every time I got dressed.
So, I'm talking to a friend of mine - bitching, really... and he said this;
"Girlfriend, you're working out like an athlete. It's time to start eating like one."
(Ok, maybe not that much.)
"Seriously, I want you to do this - do it for me, for just a month, and see where you are..."
- Eat the twigs in a bowl for breakfast NO MORE than twice a week. The rest of the week, eat an egg, or a muffin with some soy peanutbutter (we have to eat the soy stuff because of my daughter's peanut allergies, but it's really quite good, and loaded with protien.)
- eat at least one chocolate bar per week. Not the kind with goo in it, but a plain hershey's bar, or a lindt bar.
- eat your activity points. All of them. The day after you earn them. For snacks from activity points, chose high protien, low-carb foods. Cheese. Eggs. Grilled chicken strips. Yogurt.
- Avoid those 100 calorie stupidsnacks as much as possible. That means no more than 2 packs per week, and really, you should cut them out entirely. If you want a cookie, buy a damn COOKIE.
- eat all your flex points. ALL of them. Not 10. Not 20. 35. Points.
- drink 8oz of low-fat chocolate milk after your elliptical training.
- don't eat after 8:30pm (or, more exactly, don't eat in the three hours before bedtime. If you go to bed at midnight, you can bump that up to 9pm, etc.)
Me, looking at this list, actively horrified: I'll gain weight!
Him: You won't.
Me: Yes, I will.
Him: Ok, let me put it to you this way; I will pay for your weight watcher's membership for as long as it takes you to lose any weight you gain in that month.
Me: Oh, all right. What's the worst that can happen?
So... I tried it. I wore my Mio Stride almost all day so that I had a more accurate count of how many calories I was using up in a day. I ate. I wasn't hungry most of the time (after about Thursday, I was surprised by how hungry I was first thing in the morning, but after breakfast was eaten, I was fine...) and I had a pretty good week. I wasn't tired. I wasn't headachy. (I've spent the last two months having a low-grade headache all the time. So, you know, if I've been a bit of a bitch recently, that's probably part of why...)
My Wii Fit told me I was down about two pounds for the week, but you know, I didn't believe it. I've been having serious discrepency problems with the Wii versus the Weight Watcher's scale.
And actually, I have to admit, I was looking forward to yelling at my friend. See! See! You are so full of crap! That food-plan works FOR A GUY! You idiot!
But... I probably won't get to.
I lost five pounds this week.
Five.
Holy shit.
Me and Michael Phelps.
Well, anyway, I'm committed to trying this for 30 days.
Eat more to weigh less.
And my god, I've been hungry.
Not Oh, that doughnut looks tasty sort of hungry, either.
But My bleeding Christ, I would kill someone to have a half cup of tuna fish!
You know when you find yourself feeling guilty about the six or seven grapes you ate (packing up your husband's lunch for the next day and snitching them as you washed them off...) that there's something really, really wrong.
I wasn't hungry for chocolate, or cake, or even cheese. I was just hungry.
Constantly.
And I got scared of my points again. I wasn't losing weight when I was eating my activity points (altho I wasn't eating most of my flex points... maybe 5-10 in the course of a week). So I stopped eating my activity points. And I still wasn't losing weight. And then I started skipping food from my regular points...
For the last couple weeks, without really confessing what I was doing - or even really thinking about what I was doing - I've been starving myself.
I get 19 points a day. Calculating that out, if I avoid the full fat stuff and eat mostly high fiber... that's 1,330 calories per day. My basal metabolic rate (rough guestimate based on height, weight and gender) I'm supposed to use up 1,400 calories laying in bed and pretending I don't exist.
You know that's not what I do.
I hit the elliptical a few times a week. I walk. I swim. (Hell, I even swim with my 35-pound child piggybacked on my back, and let me tell ya, that's not as much fun as it sounds... not for me, at any rate... good workout, though...) I do step while I watch old episodes of Buffy. I clean.
So, the question in my mind was this; how can I not be losing weight?
With the sort of calories I'm burning versus the amount of not-eating I was doing... calories in < calories out = weight loss, right?
I continued to cut calories. I was continually hungry, and I was getting to the point where I wanted to cry every time I opened the fridge. Every time I walked past a mirror. Every time I got dressed.
So, I'm talking to a friend of mine - bitching, really... and he said this;
"Girlfriend, you're working out like an athlete. It's time to start eating like one."
(Ok, maybe not that much.)
"Seriously, I want you to do this - do it for me, for just a month, and see where you are..."
- Eat the twigs in a bowl for breakfast NO MORE than twice a week. The rest of the week, eat an egg, or a muffin with some soy peanutbutter (we have to eat the soy stuff because of my daughter's peanut allergies, but it's really quite good, and loaded with protien.)
- eat at least one chocolate bar per week. Not the kind with goo in it, but a plain hershey's bar, or a lindt bar.
- eat your activity points. All of them. The day after you earn them. For snacks from activity points, chose high protien, low-carb foods. Cheese. Eggs. Grilled chicken strips. Yogurt.
- Avoid those 100 calorie stupidsnacks as much as possible. That means no more than 2 packs per week, and really, you should cut them out entirely. If you want a cookie, buy a damn COOKIE.
- eat all your flex points. ALL of them. Not 10. Not 20. 35. Points.
- drink 8oz of low-fat chocolate milk after your elliptical training.
- don't eat after 8:30pm (or, more exactly, don't eat in the three hours before bedtime. If you go to bed at midnight, you can bump that up to 9pm, etc.)
Me, looking at this list, actively horrified: I'll gain weight!
Him: You won't.
Me: Yes, I will.
Him: Ok, let me put it to you this way; I will pay for your weight watcher's membership for as long as it takes you to lose any weight you gain in that month.
Me: Oh, all right. What's the worst that can happen?
So... I tried it. I wore my Mio Stride almost all day so that I had a more accurate count of how many calories I was using up in a day. I ate. I wasn't hungry most of the time (after about Thursday, I was surprised by how hungry I was first thing in the morning, but after breakfast was eaten, I was fine...) and I had a pretty good week. I wasn't tired. I wasn't headachy. (I've spent the last two months having a low-grade headache all the time. So, you know, if I've been a bit of a bitch recently, that's probably part of why...)
My Wii Fit told me I was down about two pounds for the week, but you know, I didn't believe it. I've been having serious discrepency problems with the Wii versus the Weight Watcher's scale.
And actually, I have to admit, I was looking forward to yelling at my friend. See! See! You are so full of crap! That food-plan works FOR A GUY! You idiot!
But... I probably won't get to.
I lost five pounds this week.
Five.
Holy shit.
Me and Michael Phelps.
Well, anyway, I'm committed to trying this for 30 days.
Eat more to weigh less.
Doc Hudson: I'll put it simple: if you're going hard enough left, you'll find yourself turning right.
Lightning McQueen: Oh, right. That makes perfect sense. Turn right to go left. Yes, thank you! Or should I say No, thank you, because in Opposite World, maybe that really means thank you.
-- Cars
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
500 Miles
I would walk five hundred miles
And I would walk five hundred more
Just to be the man
Who walked a thousand miles
To fall down at your door--The Proclaimers
I went out for my training walk on Sunday. We used to have a cute little bunny rabbit living in our front yard - I think he nested under the shrubbery near our apartment. Anyway, this is all that was left of him the other day. And the lovely scavengers who decided to clean the road. Ug. Turkey vultures.
Most of the road I walk along looks like this... sidewalk, a few feet of grass, and then very thick woody areas. There are tons of wild flowers. Unfortunately, the trees are far enough back from the road that I don't get lots of shade. And I just discovered yesterday that the reason I'm getting lobstercated every weekend is that my sunblock lasts 80 minutes. Less if I'm sweaty. Ahem. That's not nearly long enough, and I can't carry it with me, the canister is too big to go in my pack. So I need to start making other sunblock arrangements before I save the world from breast cancer just to die from skin cancer. Also, my back looks quite weird from all the different tan lines I have.
Sometimes there are fields upon fields of flowers - ok, yes, to those weird people who have to mow their own lawns, these are dandilions, but I like them. You don't have to.
I thought this tree was particularly lovely.
This weekend, I wanted to add like 2 miles to my walk without really going anyplace different, so I walked through two parks. This one is City Park, not to be confused with the second park, City View park. Don't ask me, I didn't name the dang places. City Park often has "events". This weekend there was an Indian PowWow and a farmer's market, neither of which I actually got to see, since I was at City Park 'round about 9:30 or so, which was at least 2 hours before either event started.
This gentleman's name is Reggie. We passed each other twice (I was going one way around the park and he was going the other way) and had a bit of conversation the second time we passed each other. He also took down my url for the 3-Day and said he was going to hit the page for a donation, at which point I said I'd give him a mention on my blog, so here he is. And if you're reading this, Reggie, it really was a pleasure talking with you! See you next weekend, maybe!
Planes, trains and automobiles... Heh. Anyway, this train was just parked there, and I rarely get to see a train so close up. I could have walked over and touched it...
This caboose is part of the display at City Park. I'm not sure why, the signage for it is on the other side, and I didn't feel like walking all the way around the fence, which spreads over almost the entire south side of the park. Thanks Reggie for taking this picture of me in my walking gear. Even if my tongue is sticking out. I can't figure out what I was doing that my tongue is sticking out...
Well, they're not steel, but magnolia trees are very common in this area, especially huge ones like this. Whenever I get visitors in during the magnolia flowering season (who are not native Virginians) they comment about these trees. 
I ran into this little fellow about three miles in to my walk and he let me get pretty close before he took off into the underbrush...
You are here!
Where is here? I stopped at this Exxon for a rest break. There was a teenaged kid here, driving his mom's SUV and playing music extremely loudly, and squeeling his tires and generally acting like someone who's never been laid... I was tempted to yell at him about it. "Hey, you know they have herbal suppliments for your problem!" but decided it wasn't worth the effort.
Someone's impressive garden. I don't really know anything about gardening, but I have noticed this flower bed a few times before. I guess noticing is the point, right?
Everybody needs a thneed.
Okay, this is my second rest stop, City View Park. I walked twice around this park, since their walking path is only 1/2 mile long, but at least it's mostly shaded, so that was nice. They also have a lot of little league games being played here and a fairly large playground area. I plan on having a picnic/party here later this summer.
I've never actually seen a Scottish Thistle before, although I understand Sean Connery has one tattooed on his ass, I've never seen that either.
And these are my favorite sorts of flowers. There's a bunch of them growing about a mile away from my house.
(For those of you checking in for Healthy You, I'm up a pound. Getting really sick of this whole weight loss - or lack thereof - thing. Also getting a lot of "well, you're in range for your weight goal, you could just stop here..." which alternates between pissing me off and making me want to cry. I should quit? Here? "You're a size 4, what more do you want?" I want to feel good about myself. Damnit. Sorry... anyway, I'm going to give it six weeks and if I end up maintaining between 135 and 139, I'm going to be "done" and call it "good enough." and if I'm still losing, albiet slowly, I'll try and push further. But really, that's a whole nother entry.)
Monday, April 27, 2009
Sacrifice
You know, October looks a lot closer from the end of April than it did from February...
I feel like I'm not training hard enough. The "suggested walking" schedule that the 3Day sends out has got me walking 4 times a week, plus a day of "cross training." I missed two weeks of walking because of illness and cut one week of walking short in order to bring home a hatchling turtle.
And yet, at the same time, I'm starting to really resent the time this is taking. I spend all day Sunday on the road, or recovering from the walk. (getting sunburned two weeks in a row really isn't making me very happy... it's my own fault, I know that, but at the same time, it's still really exasperating.)
Technically, according to the training schedule, I should be walking both Saturday and Sunday, because the really important thing will not be that I can walk 20 miles one day, but that I can walk 20 miles three days in a row...
I don't want to give up my whole weekend. I don't feel like I have enough time with my husband as it is. And I don't have anyone to sit with my kid for six hours on Monday... and now Thomas is thinking about training to run a 5K with his friend at work, and that'll just be more time that we're not home and not together.
Not to mention the fact that I'm not planning well for meals.
I'm so freaking hungry by the time Sunday evening rolls around.
And it doesn't seem to matter that I save my weekly points for Sunday (and my activity points.) I haven't yet - in the 16 months or so that I've been on Weight Watchers - ever, actually exceeded all my points...) I can lose weight all week, and then Monday rolls around...
The wii fit says I'm up 1.8 pounds from yesterday.
Yesterday I ate a salad from Subway, a clif bar, some popcorn, and 3 pieces of pizza.
Why this caused me to puff up like some sort of freak of nature, I just don't get it. I walked eleven flipping miles yesterday in 90 degree heat.
Also, I'm not even halfway through raising the $2,300 I need to be able to enter the walk in the first place. I really need to get my act together, because otherwise, all the sacrifice of my time, energy and honestly, to the detriment of my weight loss, will have been for nothing, and of course, the Charity will take my doner's money and say "Oh, too bad..."
And the worst thing about it?
I felt *really* good yesterday.
I feel like I'm not training hard enough. The "suggested walking" schedule that the 3Day sends out has got me walking 4 times a week, plus a day of "cross training." I missed two weeks of walking because of illness and cut one week of walking short in order to bring home a hatchling turtle.
And yet, at the same time, I'm starting to really resent the time this is taking. I spend all day Sunday on the road, or recovering from the walk. (getting sunburned two weeks in a row really isn't making me very happy... it's my own fault, I know that, but at the same time, it's still really exasperating.)
Technically, according to the training schedule, I should be walking both Saturday and Sunday, because the really important thing will not be that I can walk 20 miles one day, but that I can walk 20 miles three days in a row...
I don't want to give up my whole weekend. I don't feel like I have enough time with my husband as it is. And I don't have anyone to sit with my kid for six hours on Monday... and now Thomas is thinking about training to run a 5K with his friend at work, and that'll just be more time that we're not home and not together.
Not to mention the fact that I'm not planning well for meals.
I'm so freaking hungry by the time Sunday evening rolls around.
And it doesn't seem to matter that I save my weekly points for Sunday (and my activity points.) I haven't yet - in the 16 months or so that I've been on Weight Watchers - ever, actually exceeded all my points...) I can lose weight all week, and then Monday rolls around...
The wii fit says I'm up 1.8 pounds from yesterday.
Yesterday I ate a salad from Subway, a clif bar, some popcorn, and 3 pieces of pizza.
Why this caused me to puff up like some sort of freak of nature, I just don't get it. I walked eleven flipping miles yesterday in 90 degree heat.
Also, I'm not even halfway through raising the $2,300 I need to be able to enter the walk in the first place. I really need to get my act together, because otherwise, all the sacrifice of my time, energy and honestly, to the detriment of my weight loss, will have been for nothing, and of course, the Charity will take my doner's money and say "Oh, too bad..."
And the worst thing about it?
I felt *really* good yesterday.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
The Cycle of Flation
This was my day, yesterday.
Start with an empty balloon. Stretch it out. Flick it across the room a few times at your friend. Blow it up. Tie a knot in the end and bat it around like a ball. Then, when it's floating gracefully across the room, BANG! The cat jumps up, sinks his claws into it and splodo... and instead of a cheap, pretty toy, you've got a bunch of shapeless scraps of plastic and a terrified cat.
Things started out sort of eh. My daughter woke me up; I got up, set her up with a wii game and attempted to go back to bed for a while (I'd stayed up pretty late the night before finishing off the sparkly vampire romance novel series... ) but that didn't work out so well, as Tuesday (did I tell you that if being clumsy was a crime, I'd be incarcerated for the rest of my life?? I didn't? Oh, well, anyway...) I fell over on Tuesday and nearly killed myself, managed to avoid death by concrete block to the head at the cost of one completely scraped toe and another one that... well, sort of hurt. Yesterday, the sort of hurt blossomed into a massive bruise under my toenail. Quite ugly, and for whatever reason, rather excessively painful. Resting the toe on the mattress? Hurts. Allowing the blankets to rest on the toe? Hurts. The only really comfortable place for my foot is uncomfortable for the rest of me. So, I got out of bed.
But my weight is doing well; according to the Wii Fit, I've lost about two and a half pounds this week. (Most of last week's gain, I'm convinced, was water weight.)
I finally got around to making up my mind about the 200 squat challenge. (The same guy who does the pushup program has a 200 sit up and 200 squat program as well...) It took me so long to decide to do it because I really, really hate squats. Not so much while I'm doing them; they're really not all that hard individually; and not the next day; I'm only a little sore the next day. But the third day? Oh, ow.
So I cleared some space and began with my squats. I had decided my personal challenge to myself was to do at least 36. That would put me squarely in the Very Good category... room for improvement, but certainly no slackard. (Keeping in mind that I've never done more than ten or twenty squats in a row, and these usually make my legs pretty sore, you can see where I might not want to aim higher than 36, right?)
But it was so easy... thirty came... and went.
And forty.
And fifty.
Around sixty I started mentally joking with myself that it wasn't much of a challenge if I finished the whole 200 today, but wouldn't that be impressive?
At sixty-five, Darcy started 1) talking to me (or more exactly, asking questions. If you know anything about five year olds it's that they are not actually physically capable of ending a sentence without a question mark. Even if they're saying something like "I have to go to the bathroom?" They want/crave/need/require/are possessed by demons to demand an answer of some sort. Even if it's just "well, for God's sake, go to the bathroom, then!") and 2) getting in the way. She'd stand just in front of me so that I'd have to shift my arms just slightly so that I wouldn't bonk her in the eye with my finger. And as soon as I'd figure out how not to do that, she'd move again. (And no, telling her to go away would have just ensured that instead of standing there, being in the way, she'd grab onto my leg and start crying and asking me if I still liked her... she's been a little insecure recently. Exasperating as that is, I didn't think getting into that particular little cycle again was going to be conducive to getting my squats done.)
So, I'm doing squats, dodging a five year old, and attempting to answer questions like "What are you doing?" "Squats." "Why a squats?" "Because I'm exercising." "Why are you exercising?" "Because it's good for me." "Why is it good for me?" "Well, it's not good for you, honey, you're not doing them, are you?" "I don't know." "Doesn't look like you are to me." "Why doesn't look to you?" (I am really. Really. Epically. Looking forward to her going off to school in the fall... oh yes. I am.)
And... because I'm talking, working out, the door is open and there's a breeze coming in from the porch... I managed to inhale a piece of dust. At 70, I start coughing. I try a few more squats, hoping I can get my breathing under control, but...
Nope. Not happening.
So... 72 squats.
Ok, that's not bad, really. Twice as good as my personal goal. I'm vaguely disappointed, however, because I think I could have done more, if I hadn't started coughing.
My babysitter came over about an hour after that and I headed off to the gym. For the first time since I got sick, I got a full workout in. 30 minutes on the elliptical, bicep curls, tricep lifts, rowing, chest presses, chair dips, crunches, stretches, walking. (Also, I walked 1/4 of a mile while carrying a 14 pound plastic jug of cat litter! That's got to count for at least a bit more...)
After my workout, I headed over to the drugstore to pick up a soda (yes, I still drink them... just only like 1-2 times a week...) batteries (the wii fit has been complaining about dead batteries for a few days now. I need to get a charging station for both the wii motes and the fit board...) and cat litter.
I'm feeling pretty good about myself; it feels good to be pleasantly wrung out and sweaty from my workout. I have those little twitches in my muscles that tell me I did good. My asthma has - at least for the time being - taken itself off to the back of the room, instead of sitting right up there in the first row waving its arms around like that idiot in Welcome Back, Kotter.
"How was your workout?" the cashier asks me. I'm on fairly good chatty terms with most of the people who work at the drug store. They see me a couple times a week.
"Oh, good, good," I said, grinning. "I did 72 squats today."
The cashier blinks. "Oh. I do 150 everyday."
BANG!
There goes my balloon.
Well, don't I feel pathetic.
Start with an empty balloon. Stretch it out. Flick it across the room a few times at your friend. Blow it up. Tie a knot in the end and bat it around like a ball. Then, when it's floating gracefully across the room, BANG! The cat jumps up, sinks his claws into it and splodo... and instead of a cheap, pretty toy, you've got a bunch of shapeless scraps of plastic and a terrified cat.
Things started out sort of eh. My daughter woke me up; I got up, set her up with a wii game and attempted to go back to bed for a while (I'd stayed up pretty late the night before finishing off the sparkly vampire romance novel series... ) but that didn't work out so well, as Tuesday (did I tell you that if being clumsy was a crime, I'd be incarcerated for the rest of my life?? I didn't? Oh, well, anyway...) I fell over on Tuesday and nearly killed myself, managed to avoid death by concrete block to the head at the cost of one completely scraped toe and another one that... well, sort of hurt. Yesterday, the sort of hurt blossomed into a massive bruise under my toenail. Quite ugly, and for whatever reason, rather excessively painful. Resting the toe on the mattress? Hurts. Allowing the blankets to rest on the toe? Hurts. The only really comfortable place for my foot is uncomfortable for the rest of me. So, I got out of bed.
But my weight is doing well; according to the Wii Fit, I've lost about two and a half pounds this week. (Most of last week's gain, I'm convinced, was water weight.)
I finally got around to making up my mind about the 200 squat challenge. (The same guy who does the pushup program has a 200 sit up and 200 squat program as well...) It took me so long to decide to do it because I really, really hate squats. Not so much while I'm doing them; they're really not all that hard individually; and not the next day; I'm only a little sore the next day. But the third day? Oh, ow.
So I cleared some space and began with my squats. I had decided my personal challenge to myself was to do at least 36. That would put me squarely in the Very Good category... room for improvement, but certainly no slackard. (Keeping in mind that I've never done more than ten or twenty squats in a row, and these usually make my legs pretty sore, you can see where I might not want to aim higher than 36, right?)
But it was so easy... thirty came... and went.
And forty.
And fifty.
Around sixty I started mentally joking with myself that it wasn't much of a challenge if I finished the whole 200 today, but wouldn't that be impressive?
At sixty-five, Darcy started 1) talking to me (or more exactly, asking questions. If you know anything about five year olds it's that they are not actually physically capable of ending a sentence without a question mark. Even if they're saying something like "I have to go to the bathroom?" They want/crave/need/require/are possessed by demons to demand an answer of some sort. Even if it's just "well, for God's sake, go to the bathroom, then!") and 2) getting in the way. She'd stand just in front of me so that I'd have to shift my arms just slightly so that I wouldn't bonk her in the eye with my finger. And as soon as I'd figure out how not to do that, she'd move again. (And no, telling her to go away would have just ensured that instead of standing there, being in the way, she'd grab onto my leg and start crying and asking me if I still liked her... she's been a little insecure recently. Exasperating as that is, I didn't think getting into that particular little cycle again was going to be conducive to getting my squats done.)
So, I'm doing squats, dodging a five year old, and attempting to answer questions like "What are you doing?" "Squats." "Why a squats?" "Because I'm exercising." "Why are you exercising?" "Because it's good for me." "Why is it good for me?" "Well, it's not good for you, honey, you're not doing them, are you?" "I don't know." "Doesn't look like you are to me." "Why doesn't look to you?" (I am really. Really. Epically. Looking forward to her going off to school in the fall... oh yes. I am.)
And... because I'm talking, working out, the door is open and there's a breeze coming in from the porch... I managed to inhale a piece of dust. At 70, I start coughing. I try a few more squats, hoping I can get my breathing under control, but...
Nope. Not happening.
So... 72 squats.
Ok, that's not bad, really. Twice as good as my personal goal. I'm vaguely disappointed, however, because I think I could have done more, if I hadn't started coughing.
My babysitter came over about an hour after that and I headed off to the gym. For the first time since I got sick, I got a full workout in. 30 minutes on the elliptical, bicep curls, tricep lifts, rowing, chest presses, chair dips, crunches, stretches, walking. (Also, I walked 1/4 of a mile while carrying a 14 pound plastic jug of cat litter! That's got to count for at least a bit more...)
After my workout, I headed over to the drugstore to pick up a soda (yes, I still drink them... just only like 1-2 times a week...) batteries (the wii fit has been complaining about dead batteries for a few days now. I need to get a charging station for both the wii motes and the fit board...) and cat litter.
I'm feeling pretty good about myself; it feels good to be pleasantly wrung out and sweaty from my workout. I have those little twitches in my muscles that tell me I did good. My asthma has - at least for the time being - taken itself off to the back of the room, instead of sitting right up there in the first row waving its arms around like that idiot in Welcome Back, Kotter.
"How was your workout?" the cashier asks me. I'm on fairly good chatty terms with most of the people who work at the drug store. They see me a couple times a week.
"Oh, good, good," I said, grinning. "I did 72 squats today."
The cashier blinks. "Oh. I do 150 everyday."
BANG!
There goes my balloon.
Well, don't I feel pathetic.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
8 Mile
I've been a little MIA around here...
First, I've got a collaborative blog project here: A bunch of us at Twitter are walking "together" for this Weight Watchers 5K... So, if you're interested in that project, just shoot a DM to @bwjen and she'll hook you into that project. I'm going to actually be physically walking with my meeting group, so's Thomas and Darcy will be joining us as well, altho truth be told, Thomas will probably have to carry her at least part of the way. But our leader, Beth, is going to be setting up the walk so we'll end at the Skinny Dip. That's for Carla, who refuses to work out at all... except where there's Ice Cream involved.
Secondly, I have another collaborative project of my own. The weekly Wii Fit Challenge. It started off with just me and another girl and I now have four or five people who are interested. So, if you're interested in that, just leave me a comment with your email in it, and I'll send you an invite to that project.
So those are my current web projects; at home I'm trying to clip coupons and stick better to a grocery budget. I don't think I'll ever get to the point of some of my web-mommy friends who can feed a family of four on $40 a week, but I'm getting better. I've ordered the newspaper, which is $9 a month and started collecting coupons. Tuesday, when I was at the laundrymat, I took out all the coupon fliers and went through them while my dryer loads were going. Yesterday, I went to the store with $ 7.79 worth of coupons. (the 40 cents off and 50 cents off were doubled, and the B1G1 got me a free packet of tuna fish; normally $1.99)
Now, part of the frugal mommy thing is that I'm not supposed to buy anything that's not a grocery at the grocery store; no shampoo, cat food, lightbulbs, feminine supplies, etc. Those items are supposedly cheaper at drug stores, pet shops, Wal-Mart. I'm sure this is correct, and I am trying to remember (well, except that I won't ever shop at Wal-Mart again... long story.) to pick those items up at other times. Also, it's not always the best deal. Yesterday, the Harris Teeter had a special, buy one box of dishwasher tabs, get one free. Plus I had a coupon for them, $2.50 off. So I got 40 tabs (about 5 weeks of dishes) for $3.49.
On the plus side, I may be well stocked for dinner meat for at least 3 weeks. The Harris Teeter (if you have one in your area, you should go check out this sale) is offering the 2.5 pound bag of pre-frozen chicken breasts Buy One, Get Two Free. That's 7.5 pounds of chicken for $9. Also, last week they had a huge package of beef cubes (stew meat, kabobs, stir fry) on sale for $8 for 4 pounds, so I divided that package up and stuffed it in the freezer. And I have one packet of veal, a pound of ground beef, and 2 packages of turkey cutlets. That's 18 dinners with meat, plus I've got tuna, pasta, and other vegetarian dishes planned. So, while I spent $102 yesterday, I have fed my family for the next couple weeks, only picking up vegetables and produce...
Cool.
Now, Friday we got together with Leslie and headed over to City View Park to walk and play with Darcy and whatnot. While we were driving there, I commented to Thomas that I was planning - eventually - to walk to Lynnhaven mall, depending on how far away it was. If it's over 15 miles, I wasn't going to do it just yet, but I thought it was about 10-12 miles, so in the next few weeks...
"And walk back," he says.
"Oh, no," says I. "I was going to call you when I got there and have you pick me up."
"Oh, I see how that goes."
"You could walk to my house," Leslie pipes up from the back seat. "I'd give you a ride home."
So, Sunday, I mapped it out. It's 11.4 miles to Lynnhaven mall and 8.6 miles to Leslie's house. Since I've missed my walks because of illness recently, I didn't want to try eleven miles, but I figured 8 miles was doable.
I packed my bag (note to self: please, please buy a new bag soon, this one is killing my shoulder...) and headed out. It was a nice day, a little sunny, and about low 70's. The roads had sidewalks the whole way (always a plus) and were just busy enough to make me happy I'd decided to go ahead and wear my iPod. (If there's no sidewalks, I won't wear it... it's not safe. On the other hand, if I'm on the sidewalk and someone decides to run me over, the likelihood that not wearing my iPod will save me is pretty low...)
I passed this tree about 1/3 of the way there and thought it was quite pretty. Actually, it's prettier even than the picture shows, because the surrounding bushes were also covered with these purple flowers. (Yes, I'm sure the owner of the tree and bushes isn't happy about it... I think this purple stuff is one of those parasitical types of flowers, but hey, it's not my yard, and it does look nice...)
However, all the walking I did on Sunday, combined with some high sodium food choices made my weigh in on Monday... not so great. I was up 1.4 pounds.
On the other hand, over the last three days, according to the wii fit, I've dropped 2.4 pounds... stupid water weight.
First, I've got a collaborative blog project here: A bunch of us at Twitter are walking "together" for this Weight Watchers 5K... So, if you're interested in that project, just shoot a DM to @bwjen and she'll hook you into that project. I'm going to actually be physically walking with my meeting group, so's Thomas and Darcy will be joining us as well, altho truth be told, Thomas will probably have to carry her at least part of the way. But our leader, Beth, is going to be setting up the walk so we'll end at the Skinny Dip. That's for Carla, who refuses to work out at all... except where there's Ice Cream involved.
Secondly, I have another collaborative project of my own. The weekly Wii Fit Challenge. It started off with just me and another girl and I now have four or five people who are interested. So, if you're interested in that, just leave me a comment with your email in it, and I'll send you an invite to that project.
So those are my current web projects; at home I'm trying to clip coupons and stick better to a grocery budget. I don't think I'll ever get to the point of some of my web-mommy friends who can feed a family of four on $40 a week, but I'm getting better. I've ordered the newspaper, which is $9 a month and started collecting coupons. Tuesday, when I was at the laundrymat, I took out all the coupon fliers and went through them while my dryer loads were going. Yesterday, I went to the store with $ 7.79 worth of coupons. (the 40 cents off and 50 cents off were doubled, and the B1G1 got me a free packet of tuna fish; normally $1.99)
Now, part of the frugal mommy thing is that I'm not supposed to buy anything that's not a grocery at the grocery store; no shampoo, cat food, lightbulbs, feminine supplies, etc. Those items are supposedly cheaper at drug stores, pet shops, Wal-Mart. I'm sure this is correct, and I am trying to remember (well, except that I won't ever shop at Wal-Mart again... long story.) to pick those items up at other times. Also, it's not always the best deal. Yesterday, the Harris Teeter had a special, buy one box of dishwasher tabs, get one free. Plus I had a coupon for them, $2.50 off. So I got 40 tabs (about 5 weeks of dishes) for $3.49.
On the plus side, I may be well stocked for dinner meat for at least 3 weeks. The Harris Teeter (if you have one in your area, you should go check out this sale) is offering the 2.5 pound bag of pre-frozen chicken breasts Buy One, Get Two Free. That's 7.5 pounds of chicken for $9. Also, last week they had a huge package of beef cubes (stew meat, kabobs, stir fry) on sale for $8 for 4 pounds, so I divided that package up and stuffed it in the freezer. And I have one packet of veal, a pound of ground beef, and 2 packages of turkey cutlets. That's 18 dinners with meat, plus I've got tuna, pasta, and other vegetarian dishes planned. So, while I spent $102 yesterday, I have fed my family for the next couple weeks, only picking up vegetables and produce...
Cool.
Now, Friday we got together with Leslie and headed over to City View Park to walk and play with Darcy and whatnot. While we were driving there, I commented to Thomas that I was planning - eventually - to walk to Lynnhaven mall, depending on how far away it was. If it's over 15 miles, I wasn't going to do it just yet, but I thought it was about 10-12 miles, so in the next few weeks...
"And walk back," he says.
"Oh, no," says I. "I was going to call you when I got there and have you pick me up."
"Oh, I see how that goes."
"You could walk to my house," Leslie pipes up from the back seat. "I'd give you a ride home."
So, Sunday, I mapped it out. It's 11.4 miles to Lynnhaven mall and 8.6 miles to Leslie's house. Since I've missed my walks because of illness recently, I didn't want to try eleven miles, but I figured 8 miles was doable.I packed my bag (note to self: please, please buy a new bag soon, this one is killing my shoulder...) and headed out. It was a nice day, a little sunny, and about low 70's. The roads had sidewalks the whole way (always a plus) and were just busy enough to make me happy I'd decided to go ahead and wear my iPod. (If there's no sidewalks, I won't wear it... it's not safe. On the other hand, if I'm on the sidewalk and someone decides to run me over, the likelihood that not wearing my iPod will save me is pretty low...)
I passed this tree about 1/3 of the way there and thought it was quite pretty. Actually, it's prettier even than the picture shows, because the surrounding bushes were also covered with these purple flowers. (Yes, I'm sure the owner of the tree and bushes isn't happy about it... I think this purple stuff is one of those parasitical types of flowers, but hey, it's not my yard, and it does look nice...)
However, all the walking I did on Sunday, combined with some high sodium food choices made my weigh in on Monday... not so great. I was up 1.4 pounds.
On the other hand, over the last three days, according to the wii fit, I've dropped 2.4 pounds... stupid water weight.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
What Matters
My weigh in was good; down 1.8 pounds. My Wii Fit says I am snugly in the 130s... Weight Watchers (later in the evening, and with my clothes, says I'm at 141... if I lose anything at all this week upcoming, I'll officially be in my weight range for Weight Watchers, too.)
Last night was our quarterly "You should get more exercise" meeting.
Sometimes I wonder about the people who decide the meeting topics for Weight Watchers... I picture a board room with a bunch of men who've never been on a diet in their lives, mocking fat women and trying to decide how best to torment them with the meeting topics.
Seriously....
I mean, I know, there's a limited amount of things to talk about when you're talking about Weight Watchers. Food, food, portion control, food, sugar versus artificial sweeteners, food, exercise, restaurants, food, controlling hunger...
Deciding on a meeting topic each week would not be a job that I'd want to do.
I wonder how long in advance they decide these things... do they map out the entire year, or do they map it out one season at a time?
Anyway, yesterday was the "you should work out, even a little bit" meeting. We cover that topic about once every three months or so. (The problem with being someone who's been at Weight Watchers for over a year is that I've heard it all before...) Of course, this year, Weight Watchers is doing this walking challenge thing; getting people to train to walk a 5K.
We talked about it a bit, and one of the girls at our meeting was seriously rolling her eyes. Carla's been a member of Weight Watchers since before Thomas and I joined... and she hates working out, hates exercise and isn't the least bit interested in doing any of it.... despite that, she's still getting thinner... she's not quite to goal yet, but she looks pretty good. So, you know, you don't have to work out. It's not necessary.
On the other hand, it does have a lot of benefits, and I know we've all heard them before.
Improves mood
Lowers the risk for certain diseases
Improves sleep
Increases lung and heart health
Improves the ability to concentrate
Relieves stress
Builds muscle, which aids in weight loss
Yeah, we all know these things, right?
What I have noticed, in my more than a year now of losing weight and increasing my workout is that none of those things matter to me.
I started my exercise program, at first, because I thought I should. I didn't really want to. But I thought I should do it, so we started slow. We walked a mile. I didn't particularly enjoy it. It was cold and after about half a mile, my back, legs and feet ached.
Eventually, walking became more than just an obligatory form of activity and I started looking forward to it as a time to reconnect with my husband and do something with my child. Quality time with my family. My husband and I got between 35 minutes and an hour or so to talk without the distractions of computer and television... over time, I started to feel better about walking.
I tried adding new exercises in; I did a workout DVD for a while. Thomas and I went out and played tennis a few times. I tried Couch to 5K. Some things worked, some didn't. I didn't stick with much for very long; tennis got more and more inconvenient as the weather got warmer and more people were inhabiting the courts; running gave me wicked shin splints and even after multiple attempts, I have not been able to continue running for more than three minutes... unless I'm jogging in place in front of the Wii, something that makes no sense to me whatsoever. The DVD got boring. But I did continue to get some activity in.
Then our apartment complex added in a fitness center. So, I usually hit that three times a week now, doing elliptical, walking, biking, weights... I joined and completed the 100 pushup challenge.
So, there we are in our meeting, talking about the benefits of exercise.
I said, "Well, working out makes me feel Hard Core."
Some wiseass from the far side of the room mutters, "Hell, you are hard core."
"It doesn't matter what I am," I said, looking over at her. She's been coming to Weight Watchers for about five months now. I smile a bit, trying to be reassuring. "It doesn't matter what other people say. People can tell me I'm doing well, or that I look good, or whatever. None of that matters to me in the slightest. I don't usually believe them anyway. What matters is how I feel. And doing pushups makes me feel good, makes me feel strong, makes me feel sexy. It may seem silly, but I feel better about myself for doing 100 pushups than I have for losing almost 80 pounds."
Last night was our quarterly "You should get more exercise" meeting.
Sometimes I wonder about the people who decide the meeting topics for Weight Watchers... I picture a board room with a bunch of men who've never been on a diet in their lives, mocking fat women and trying to decide how best to torment them with the meeting topics.
Seriously....
I mean, I know, there's a limited amount of things to talk about when you're talking about Weight Watchers. Food, food, portion control, food, sugar versus artificial sweeteners, food, exercise, restaurants, food, controlling hunger...
Deciding on a meeting topic each week would not be a job that I'd want to do.
I wonder how long in advance they decide these things... do they map out the entire year, or do they map it out one season at a time?
Anyway, yesterday was the "you should work out, even a little bit" meeting. We cover that topic about once every three months or so. (The problem with being someone who's been at Weight Watchers for over a year is that I've heard it all before...) Of course, this year, Weight Watchers is doing this walking challenge thing; getting people to train to walk a 5K.
We talked about it a bit, and one of the girls at our meeting was seriously rolling her eyes. Carla's been a member of Weight Watchers since before Thomas and I joined... and she hates working out, hates exercise and isn't the least bit interested in doing any of it.... despite that, she's still getting thinner... she's not quite to goal yet, but she looks pretty good. So, you know, you don't have to work out. It's not necessary.
On the other hand, it does have a lot of benefits, and I know we've all heard them before.
Improves mood
Lowers the risk for certain diseases
Improves sleep
Increases lung and heart health
Improves the ability to concentrate
Relieves stress
Builds muscle, which aids in weight loss
Yeah, we all know these things, right?
What I have noticed, in my more than a year now of losing weight and increasing my workout is that none of those things matter to me.
I started my exercise program, at first, because I thought I should. I didn't really want to. But I thought I should do it, so we started slow. We walked a mile. I didn't particularly enjoy it. It was cold and after about half a mile, my back, legs and feet ached.
Eventually, walking became more than just an obligatory form of activity and I started looking forward to it as a time to reconnect with my husband and do something with my child. Quality time with my family. My husband and I got between 35 minutes and an hour or so to talk without the distractions of computer and television... over time, I started to feel better about walking.
I tried adding new exercises in; I did a workout DVD for a while. Thomas and I went out and played tennis a few times. I tried Couch to 5K. Some things worked, some didn't. I didn't stick with much for very long; tennis got more and more inconvenient as the weather got warmer and more people were inhabiting the courts; running gave me wicked shin splints and even after multiple attempts, I have not been able to continue running for more than three minutes... unless I'm jogging in place in front of the Wii, something that makes no sense to me whatsoever. The DVD got boring. But I did continue to get some activity in.
Then our apartment complex added in a fitness center. So, I usually hit that three times a week now, doing elliptical, walking, biking, weights... I joined and completed the 100 pushup challenge.
So, there we are in our meeting, talking about the benefits of exercise.
I said, "Well, working out makes me feel Hard Core."
Some wiseass from the far side of the room mutters, "Hell, you are hard core."
"It doesn't matter what I am," I said, looking over at her. She's been coming to Weight Watchers for about five months now. I smile a bit, trying to be reassuring. "It doesn't matter what other people say. People can tell me I'm doing well, or that I look good, or whatever. None of that matters to me in the slightest. I don't usually believe them anyway. What matters is how I feel. And doing pushups makes me feel good, makes me feel strong, makes me feel sexy. It may seem silly, but I feel better about myself for doing 100 pushups than I have for losing almost 80 pounds."
Friday, April 10, 2009
New Shirt and Wii Challenge
I stared at the shirts.
What kind ofmasochistic bastard crazed fashion designer came up with this?
The shirts were pale colored, light blue and white, peach and white, pale pink and white. With a breast pocket. And a row of four buttons at the neck.
And horizontal stripes.
Now admittedly, I stopped shopping in the plus section quite a while ago, but I still view horizontal stripes as clothing only for stick women who are pretending they have breasts and prisoners.
I made a face. I loved the style of the shirt. And I adore that pale teal color. And I've always liked that semi-tye-die patterning... also, it was on sale. $2.99.
Ah hells.
What was the worst that could happen?
I snatched it off the rack and tossed it in my cart. I was already trying on a couple pairs of shorts. (Jean shorts, I'd grabbed a 6, and 8 and a 10. I've been having trouble with shorts recently... and some bright colorful cotton shorts in small and medium.)
I ended up trying it on without actually looking too carefully at it. I made sure it fit, and then took it off again.
This morning, I decided to wear it. I slid it over my head and then turned to the mirror, smoothing out the wrinkles.
Wow.
One of the problems I've recently been having (with me and the mirror) is that I feel like my chest has shrunk enormously while the fat layer just below my ribs has... well, NOT.
Not according to this shirt. Wow.
Just seriously. I'm not being able to get over looking at myself.
I look like a brick house.
I think I'll be headed back to the K-mart this weekend and pick up several more of these tees in the other available colors.
Me and some friends are going to be doing a Wii Challenge this week, starting the 13th and running until the 19th. For starters, we'll be just doing 4 sessions during that week, of at least 15 minutes, and posting our high scores to each other.
Sounds like fun, I'll keep you posted on how we're doing...
What kind of
The shirts were pale colored, light blue and white, peach and white, pale pink and white. With a breast pocket. And a row of four buttons at the neck.
And horizontal stripes.
Now admittedly, I stopped shopping in the plus section quite a while ago, but I still view horizontal stripes as clothing only for stick women who are pretending they have breasts and prisoners.
I made a face. I loved the style of the shirt. And I adore that pale teal color. And I've always liked that semi-tye-die patterning... also, it was on sale. $2.99.
Ah hells.
What was the worst that could happen?
I snatched it off the rack and tossed it in my cart. I was already trying on a couple pairs of shorts. (Jean shorts, I'd grabbed a 6, and 8 and a 10. I've been having trouble with shorts recently... and some bright colorful cotton shorts in small and medium.)
I ended up trying it on without actually looking too carefully at it. I made sure it fit, and then took it off again.
This morning, I decided to wear it. I slid it over my head and then turned to the mirror, smoothing out the wrinkles.
Wow.One of the problems I've recently been having (with me and the mirror) is that I feel like my chest has shrunk enormously while the fat layer just below my ribs has... well, NOT.
Not according to this shirt. Wow.
Just seriously. I'm not being able to get over looking at myself.
I look like a brick house.
I think I'll be headed back to the K-mart this weekend and pick up several more of these tees in the other available colors.
_______________
Me and some friends are going to be doing a Wii Challenge this week, starting the 13th and running until the 19th. For starters, we'll be just doing 4 sessions during that week, of at least 15 minutes, and posting our high scores to each other.
Sounds like fun, I'll keep you posted on how we're doing...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)