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Hasta la pasta

2008-04-25T11:00:00.003-05:00

Friends, I'm outta here (for a week, anyway). Time to get some last-minute word done, pack, and go on vacation!

Oh, how I need a vacation.

For those of you who didn't see my added stuff yesterday about my liver MRI test results, I heard from the doctor. There are no definitive answers. They suspect this is a typical not-of-concern hemangioma, but they don't know for sure. Now they're sending me for a Nuclear Medicine Scan. That'll have to happen after I get back from vacation. I'm going to do my best to not think about it until I return, too. I need a vacation from that mess as much as I need a vacation from work!

Although work is kicking my arse right now. I found out there's a big presentation the day after I return. Um, no, I can't have those analyses ready for that meeting, folks.

I can't wait to sit on the beach with my wonderful hubby of 5 years (happy anniversary to us!), relaxing, listening to the ocean, and forgetting about anything and everything stressful. Yay!

Have a wonderful, on-plan, healthy, active, run-like-the-wind kind of week. I'll be back around May 5th or so.

"Don't spoil your dinner!" ~~ EDIT: Test results

2008-04-24T16:13:00.004-05:00

I posted a comment on Ashley’s blog, and then decided to expand on it here, because I wonder if others had the same childhood learning that they had to unlearn (or if you learned it but it still works for you).

I know a lot of us were members of the “clean plate club” … you couldn’t leave the table until you finished your dinner, there are starving kids in China, blah blah blah. A lot of us had to drop out of that club and change that learning before we could successfully lose weight.

That's not the club I'm talking about, though. I was a member of another club. I was a member of the “don’t spoil your dinner” club. I remember being RAVENOUS waiting for dinner to be ready. Mom was cooking, kids were helping out, and OH the hunger. And I remember not being allowed to eat anything during that time because it would “spoil my dinner.”

I carried that idea into my adulthood … if I was cooking or especially if I was going out to dinner, I wouldn’t let myself eat anything. That way I’d be good and hungry at dinner.

Oh my gawd! Talk about a recipe for overeating!

I really had to retrain myself on the whole eating before dinner thing. It’s extra-important for me these days, since my husband gets home from work fairly late. Now, I have a late afternoon snack with some protein (often a vitamuffin and skim milk – 3 points and oh so good), and then sometimes an even later right-before-dinner snack of raw veggies. I find it really helps me keep the overeating at dinner in check, and I make better food choices when I’m looking at a menu because I’m not ravenous.

Was anybody else a member of the “don’t spoil your dinner” club? I’m curious – have you dropped out of the club?

Tangent … the phrase “ruin your dinner” makes me think of this video, which makes me very happy:

Can you tell I’m totally trying to distract myself from thinking about the fact that I still haven’t heard from the doc with my test results? I called the office four and a half hours ago (after three hours of watching the clock), and asked them to call me, and they said they’d call me back. No word yet. ARGH!

I did get my MyShape clothes, though. I’m holding off on the review for now … details to follow (I wouldn’t consider the MyShape experience over at this point).

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EDITED TO ADD:
I heard from the doctor. STILL no definitive answers. STILL they THINK this is a typical not-of-concern hemangioma, but they don't know for sure and they need to know for sure because the alternatives are bad news. Now they're sending me for a Nuclear Medicine Scan. That'll have to happen after I get back from vacation.

I guess inconclusive news is better than bad news, right?

I was really hoping for good, or at least reassuring news, though ...

Eager anticipation and anxious waiting

2008-04-23T12:24:00.004-05:00

For some reason it really didn’t hit me until yesterday that I’m going on vacation in a few days. Only a few days! Yay! But, damn! I have a lot to get done before then.

One thing I meant to do before I left was go get a new swim suit and a couple nice sundresses. I have a couple swimsuits that’ll do (getting new suits was just for the fun of it), but the dress thing is a little more necessary. Most of my clothes are casual or (in rare cases) business casual or business attire – I don’t have much in the way of pretty lightweight feminine dresses or skirts. I definitely don’t have enough of that sort of thing for a week’s worth of dinners. Last time I had to dress up it was for a trip in the fall … methinks the velvet and long-sleeved stuff isn’t going to work (at least without me getting heatstroke).

Yesterday, I looked at the calendar (soon! We leave soon!), and looked at my closet (oh crap, what to wear!), and I decided that desperate times call for desperate measures. I decided to take a shot at ordering the dresses online. When it comes to clothes, I don’t usually buy anything but tops online, because it’s sooooo hard to know if something will fit. But maybe, just maybe, there’s a way around that …

Have you guys heard about MyShape.com? I saw it on the news a while back.* You enter in all kinds of measurements, and then the website categorizes you into body types and gives you specific recommendations for clothes that will (at least in theory) look good and fit. It chooses the size for you … you know how when you go shopping and you’re a size 14 in one skirt and a size 4 in another? (Yes, I’m exaggerating, but you know what I mean.) The website matches your measurements against the fit of each outfit and figures out that in this dress you’re a 10, but in this you’re a 6. And if they don’t fit, there is free return shipping.

Interesting, right?

I have no idea if it works. But I figured what the hell. I have no time, no time, no time to go try on 14,000 different dresses to find two that actually fit and look good. Why not let a website do the work for me? So yesterday, I ordered two dresses from them. I spent waaaaaaaaaaaay more than I would usually spend on pretty damned near anything clothing-wise, but I was so intrigued by the concept and if the dresses truly are fabulous …

Now I’m waiting at the window, obsessively checking FedEx.com, and at the same time obsessively checking MyShape.com to see if they’ve put up any new clothing options for me. I can’t wait to find out if the system worked. Granted, the clothes are so darned expensive in most cases that I couldn’t shop there often, but what a great option for a splurge on rare occasions. IF it works.

We’ll find out soon! I’ll let you guys know.

And speaking of anxious waiting, I still don’t have my MRI test results. Argh! I did get a call from the nurse on Monday with news that my chlamydia test results were negative. Uhhh, great. I didn’t even know they tested me for chlamydia. I recognize the need to rule out all possible causes for abdominal/pelvic pain, but really? An STD? *sigh* I understand that you truly never know, and some couples sometimes aren’t quite as monogamous as is assumed, but, um, yeah. This test result was not something I would have been terribly worried about (if I’d even known they’d run the test in the first place). I feel pretty safe from STDs at this point in my life. Thanks for checking, thanks for the phone call, but can’t you just get me the MRI test results, please? I’m so tired of waiting. On Monday they told me it would likely be today (not Tuesday as I’d originally heard). So … soon. Hopefully I’ll know something soon.

Oh, and speaking of possibly damaged body parts, my knee has very slight but definitely still present soreness from my run on Saturday. I think my Monday workout wasn’t as low-impact as I’d intended. Grrrr! I really want to stay in the running habit! I want to keep the momentum going and eventually build more speed and endurance! But I think for my long-term well-being I need to stay off the knee today. Maybe it’ll be better tomorrow or Friday.

* Can I just say that it seems strange to me that this was on the news? Is this truly NEWS? Don’t get me wrong, I love that I found out about it, but “news” … come on people, really?

Where am I? Volume 11 (Alternate title: There was a little girl …)

2008-04-22T09:02:00.002-05:00

It’s Tuesday – time to take a step back and get a feel for where I am in my ~~weight loss~~ health and fitness journey.

Weeelll … do any of you remember the poem:

There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
And when she was good
She was very, very good*
And when she was bad she was horrid.

Basically, I’m that little girl.

Well, minus the curl … my hair is straight as a board.

But “very good” and “horrid” describe the past week for me, when it comes to health and fitness.

Let’s get the “horrid” unpleasantness out of the way first. My eating. Ugh! The past week was horrid, at least until yesterday. I ate junk and crap, and then some more junk. I stress-ate on Friday and mindlessly ate socially on Saturday and Sunday.

Friday I pigged out on cookies and indulged in fried ~~goodies~~ food; Saturday I ate too many pancakes with full-calorie syrup and butter and later drank lots of beer and ate fried chicken strips; and Sunday I had lasagna, then went to a hockey game and ate (I kid you not) a couple cups of popcorn, a small plate of tortilla chips and salsa, 1 beer, 2 Dr. Peppers, part of a cookie, some cotton candy, and part of piece of cake. My stomach ached Sunday night, not surprisingly.

And also not surprisingly, the scale reading isn’t looking the way I’d like it to look at the moment. It’s above the maintenance range I’d set for myself. I’m over my 134 “stay below this weight” target, and my past-week average is over 133. The numbers did drop today vs. yesterday, and I’m back on track now so I expect it to get back down into my goal range in the next few days. But MAN! I lost it there for a few days.

Thank goodness that a few bad days don’t undo months and months worth of work.

And, from a health and fitness perspective, the past week was not all bad. Despite my complete lack of being on-plan from an eating perspective and slightly over goal, I had a very, very good week when it came to exercise.

In fact, I even earned my exercise badge:

My goal last week was to do two couch-to-5k runs during the week, and run an official 5k on Saturday. I also wanted to do one full-body strength training workout and, later in the week, an upper-body strength training workout. I did it! I did all of it!

And in running the 5k, I beat my goal in terms of time. I’d walked a 5k in the past (with an occasional jog thrown in) at around 45 minutes. That time was without any real training – I was doing step aerobics so I wasn’t completely out of shape, but I wasn’t training to run or walk at all. I decided I’d try to beat that by 10 minutes, and aimed to come in at or around 35 minutes. When I did my test run on Wednesday I hit just over 35 minutes, and when I actually ran the 5k on Saturday my chip time was 32:08.

Not only did I meet my goal, I beat it! Woo hoo! And I officially graduated from the couch to 5k program – Hooray!

So, looking back at the past week, it wasn’t a bad week, but it wasn’t a good week either. My goal for this week is to be able to look back and say it was a good week.

Goals for the week:
- Eat on plan from Monday-Friday (Monday went well – yay!)
- Go to Mexico for vacation on Saturday and eat reasonably (but not perfectly)
- Do cardio and strength training Monday (done), and then run 30 minutes on Wednesday and Friday (or Saturday in Mexico … I’m aiming for Friday, though). I want to get an upper body workout in before the end of the week, too.

I’ll be away next week on Tuesday “where am I” check-in day, since my husband and I are going to Mexico for vacation for a week to celebrate our 5 year anniversary. We leave Saturday and return the next Saturday. I’m looking forward to a nice, relaxing week. I’m actually excited to be going to a place that I can wear a bikini. My body is by no means perfect (far from it!), but I’ve worked really hard on it, and it looks better than it’s looked in a long, long, long time.

My plan for the week of vacation is to eat reasonably (but I have no delusions that I’ll be perfect), and to do 3x cardio and 2x strength training (with one strength session being only upper body if my cardio is a 30+ minute run). There’s a fitness center, but I’m hoping there’s also a place for me to run outside. Cross your fingers for me.

I’ll post a couple times before I leave, but for those of you who are Healthy You Challenge Tuesday-only check-in-ers, have a great couple weeks!

* Apparently this line should actually be “She was very good indeed,” but that’s not how I learned the poem. I’m mis-quoting it the way I learned it. Also, this poem was written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Who knew!?!

I think I might be a runner now

2008-04-21T09:34:00.003-05:00

I ran my first official post-c25k 5k on Saturday morning. Yaaaaaaaay!!!

I enjoyed it thoroughly. My husband and I invited lots of friends to join us at the run, and since there was a 10k, a 5k, and a 1k, there was a little something for everyone. Our group had a total of 17 people running or walking – 7 of us ran the 5k, 3 of us walked the 5k, 4 of us ran the 10k, and 3 of us walked the 1k.

When it came to the seven 5k runners, I was right smack in the middle in terms of finishing times – two guys finished significantly ahead of me, two finished later, and three of us were right in the middle. I was the only female who ran the 5k – most of the women walked the 5k or 1k, although one ran the 10k (she graduated from the couch to 5k program in July of 2007).

My official chip time was 32:08 minutes. I am completely satisfied with this time. My goal was to be at or near 35 minutes; I beat my goal!

I ended up running the entire distance with my husband, which was fun – we’d planned on running separately but figured we’d start out together and separate once one person needed to slow down or speed up. But instead of separating, we stayed together the whole time. I think his ability to run faster than me was offset by the fact that I’d trained more consistently, and I'd recently done much longer training runs than he’d done.

The run felt very right to me. I feel like the couch to 5k program prepared me for the run … well, it prepared me for everything except dodging strollers and waist-high children, anyway. There were LOTS of little people who would sprint forward and then abruptly stop, and lots of folks moving not-so-quickly while pushing strollers. I don’t know if my time was hurt by the obstacle course-ness of the beginning of the race, or if I actually ran faster to get out of the first-mile chaos.

Unfortunately, my knees are a little sore. I think I upped my distance a little too quickly in the last couple weeks. I’m going to rest my joints for a day or two (maybe I’ll do the recumbent bike tonight rather than running), then get back to 30 minute runs 3 days a week.

I’ve definitely caught the running bug. Right now I’m contemplating doing a 5k a month through the summer, and then beginning to train for a 10k towards the end of the summer or in the fall. I need to figure out what 10k will be my goal race and plan around that. There’s a 10k in August, but I’m not so on board with doing a 10k in August in Texas. I’d rather do a 10k after it’s cooled off a bit.

I also need to settle on a 10k training program. I was originally leaning towards Hal Higdon’s 10k program for novices, but now I’m considering the Becoming a One Hour Runner program instead. I really like training based on time instead of distance … I think that works better for me.

It’s good that being active is the game plan – with the way I ate on Friday and all weekend I’ll need to find ways to burn calories. I had some stress eating on Friday, then on Saturday we went out for pancakes after our race, and then we went for beers. On Sunday I did fine all day, but we had Stars hockey tickets for that night and I went a little crazy on the stadium food. The scale and I … let’s just say we’re not friends this morning.

Thank goodness for Kathy’s “one perfect day” challenge … hopefully that’ll get me back on track.

Diagnosis: Unknown

2008-04-18T09:45:00.003-05:00

Yesterday wasn't the best day I've ever had.

First, I took my new car in to the shop to get window tint added, and I ended up sitting in the car rental place for an hour before they had a car for me. I was sooooooo late to work.

Then in the early afternoon I went to my doctor's appointment to get the results of my CT scan, and (before she'd even talk to me about the test) my doc (TMI warning) gave me a pelvic exam. Not my favorite activity, let me tell ya.

The good news is that the pelvic was fine, but when we (finally) talked about the CT scan I found out that the CT scan results were inconclusive. There is a lesion on my liver that could be nothing at all to worry about, or might be something to worry about. Guess what I get to do this afternoon? I'm going to get an MRI. Joy. Not only do I have to wear a paper outfit and get injected with strange contrast chemicals again, I also get to spend yet another weekend wondering what the hell is going on with my body. I hate waiting on test results. I'll probably hear results on Tuesday.

There's also a cyst on my ovary, which she suspects is just your typical uninteresting and not-of-concern cyst. She's going to leave it alone and re-check the size in 3 months. So in three months, I get to have an ultrasound.

Woo hoo! I'm so excited, because you really can't have too many radiological tests!

Yes, that's sarcasm.

Anyway, to top it off, I get back from the doctor's office and I find that the mailman brought me a present. The car dealership had sent me a big tin of cookies as a thank-you for purchasing my car.

Yummy, tasty, chocolate-chip cookies.

What do I do? I eat a big freakin' pile of them. Yes, I totally regressed into stress eating late yesterday afternoon. I hadn't done that in a loooooooong time.

Argh!

Hey, at least I ate them with non-fat milk, right?

Couch to 5k: Final Week

2008-04-17T11:59:00.003-05:00

I’ve completely lost track of what week and day I’m on in the couch to 5k program. Week 9, maybe? Is that the last week? I guess that’s the downside of switching to my own music rather than using the magical podcasts that help me keep up with this stuff. Oh well. Bottom line: I’m done with the prep-work for the 5k, and I'll be a couch to 5k graduate after I run my official 5k run on Saturday.

Yesterday I did my final pre-5k run, and I approached it differently than the other c25k runs. The couch to 5k program is set up such that you can run based on length OR time. All along, I’ve been running based on time … time was easier to keep up with, and I could pace myself as needed as I built up to longer and longer runs. But yesterday, for the first time, I ran based on distance. Instead of running for 30 minutes, I went to mapmyrun.com and created a course that was exactly 5k. Then I didn’t set my timer to beep at 30 minutes – I walked to my starting point to warm up, and I ran until I got to the end of my 5k distance.

I ran 5k yesterday!

It took me 35:35 minutes to run my own personal unofficial 5k. When I’d been running based on time I’d only worked my way up to running for 30 minutes, so this approach increased my running time by a little over 5 minutes. I could definitely feel the difference. It was hard. My original plan was to finish the couch to 5k program about a week or week and a half ago, and then work gradually up from the 30 minutes to longer to get to 5k. I think that extra time would have benefited me from a comfort perspective. But whatever – comfort schmumfort – I did it, and now I know with confidence that if I pace myself on Saturday I can do it then, too. Woo hoo!

I was very pleased with my 35:35 time. My hope was that I’d be at or close to 35 minutes. I’d run/walked a 5k and the time was around 45 minutes, so 35 minutes seemed like a good first-run goal. Now, the question is whether I can do the Saturday run in around 35 minutes. I figure I’ll have the adrenaline going for me, but I know the actual race route is a little hillier than my completely flat neighborhood. But I also had the wind working against me during some of my run yesterday, so if the wind is calm Saturday morning, maybe … just maybe … I can still be around 35 minutes.

And hey, ultimately, it doesn’t matter all that much how long it takes. The primary goal is to RUN the entire 5k. If the running is slow, so be it. That’ll just give me another goal to work towards.

5k, here I come!

(Oh, and PS, I did watch BL last night. Yay!)

Coming soon

2008-04-16T11:25:00.005-05:00

I feel like there will be so much to talk about SOON and nothing to talk about NOW.

Soon, tomorrow afternoon, I should get the results of the CT scan I had last week.

Soon, tonight, I will bottle my homemade wine. Yes, I'm making homemade wine. It's a Merlot. I expect it won't be wonderful, as it's my first attempt at wine making. I won't be able to tell you how it us until a month after bottling, though - it won't be ready for consumption until then.

Soon, Saturday, I run my first 5k. (I've done a 5k before, but never running.)

Soon, this afternoon, I do my last pre-5k run.

Soon, sometime very soon, I will get to see the Biggest Loser finale that's saved on my DVR. (NO SPOILERS PLEASE!)

Soon, in 10 days, I go on vacation to Mexico.

I'm full of anticipation, but I'm not full of things to write about at the moment. But soon! I'll have stuff to write about soon.

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EDITED TO ADD: OK, I really want to go catch up on everyone's blogs, but I'm coming across unexpected and without-warning Biggest Loser spoilers. ARRRRGH! People! Warn us only-watch-TV-on-DVR folks before you go abruptly giving away surprises! Come on! I'll avert my eyes, but work with me here and warn me that eye averting is necessary!

!!!

No more blog reading for me today!

Where am I? Volume 10 (Alternate title: Look at the bright shiny badges!)

2008-04-15T08:51:00.004-05:00

It’s time to ask the question I ask every Tuesday … Where am I in my ~~weight loss~~ health and fitness journey?

Except I didn’t ask that question for the past two weeks. I was MIA for a little while. You can see my last couple posts for an explanation of that mess. The important thing is that I’m back now.

Anyway, where am I? I am at goal and maintaining! Woo hoo! I made goal a few weeks ago, and I’ve been able to successfully maintain the weight loss, staying within my goal weight range. So, a badge is in order.

And actually, come to think of it, even though I’m maintaining I technically get another badge or three, because my weight has crept down a little within my goal range and within the past week my exercise has been on track. Let’s look at the numbers:

Weight loss since fall 2007 (most recent leg of weight loss journey): 20.8 lbs (152.4 vs. 131.6). Hooray, a 20 pound badge!

Total weight lost (entire weight loss journey): 35.4 lbs (167 vs. 131.6). Woo hoo, a 35 pound badge!

Exercise: While I was MIA my exercise fell off some … I wasn’t feeling up to working out as much, unfortunately. I did get at least one run in per week (although one week it was just 1 mile – not an official C25k workout) and one weight training session in per week. But I definitely didn’t do as much as I would have liked.

Last week, my goal was 3x cardio via couch to 5k workouts and 2x strength training. And I did it!

I’m on the last week of the couch to 5k program. Wow. Yesterday I ran 30 minutes. THIRTY MINUTES! I never thought I could do that. In that 30 minutes I went approximately 2.8 miles (I'd definitely be over 3.1 if I included my 5 minutes of warm-up walk and 5 minutes of cool-down walk, but I'm not counting that). Tomorrow I’m going to measure my run by distance, and I'll run a little further - at least 3.0 miles. And then my real-deal 5k is Saturday! After that I’ll be an official couch to 5k graduate. Woo hoo!

So my exercise goal for this week is my 3x/week couch to 5k runs, including running my 5k on Saturday. I also want to do 2x strength, but I’m going to say only upper body for my 2nd workout, since I don’t want to mess with my ability to run my 5k.

Wish me luck on the 5k! I wish all of you luck on your weight loss and fitness journeys, too.

Symptom, my ass

2008-04-14T13:39:00.002-05:00

In my post on Friday I mentioned that I’d been having some abdominal pains, and I went to the doctor, and she ordered a CT scan. Still no results of that scan – I’ll keep you posted. Anyway, I want to share one strange twist to this story, which I thought of when I was eating my low points, high fiber lunch this afternoon.

Last week, the doctor did an initial exam and asked me a few questions, and then she referred me to the radiology center. When I took the referral papers from the doctor’s office to the radiology center so I could pick up my barium (YUMMY!), I saw the following on the “reason for ordering” section:

Reason for ordering: Abdominal/Pelvic pain and weight loss

Um, hello??? If weight loss is a symptom, it’s a symptom I sure worked hard to get! After months of tracking my points and water intake and increasing my exercise and changing my life, it was somewhere between humorous and annoying to see my weight loss being listed as one of the reasons the doc ordered a CT scan.

What the heck?

And yes, we did talk about the fact that my weight loss was intentional. We talked about how she herself suggested I lose a little weight and increase my exercise, since the last time I was at her office I had slightly high cholesterol. We talked about how I’m doing weight watchers and running.

I guess the doc has to cover her buns and go ahead and list weight loss as a symptom, but damn! I went in expecting to be congratulated for losing weight, and instead I added concerns to an already concerning situation!

Harrumph.

How many points in 2 bottles of barium?

2008-04-11T18:10:00.003-05:00

Yes, I went MIA for way too long.

Things have been wacky in my world the past couple weeks. I bought a new vehicle, my best friend's mother died, I got a raise, I had severe abdominal pains and today I had my very first CT scan! Let me just say, the barium isn't sitting so well for me this evening. I am not so much HappyBlogChick as GassyBlogChick at the moment. I haven't a clue what the abdominal pain is all about - it is fine this week but last week was a nightmare. I'll keep you all posted and you'll know soon after I know.

So anyway, I apologize for being out of touch. Everything got a bit overwhelming and I had to take blogging off the list for a while.

I hope all of you are doing fabulously on your weight loss and fitness journeys.

As far as my exercise and weight goes, I stalled on the running last week completely, and maybe part of the week before that ... it's all running together (so to speak. Or should I say all NOT running together? Anyway...). But I'm back at it this week - I ran Monday, I ran Wednesday, and I will run Saturday. My couch to 5k schedule is all whacked, but I'm up to running 28 minutes. Unless something gets in the way, I'm still doing the 5k on April 19th.

Weight-wise I'm maintaining. I've had a day or two when my weight bobbed up into the above 134 danger zone, but only a couple times. I'll update my weight tracker soon and you can see for yourself.

Chances are in the next couple days I'm going to hit everyone's most recent posts and get caught up at least a little. And I will try to post again before too much time passes - really! I will!

Body fat & other test results - woo hoo!

2008-03-28T11:07:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I went to the gym and got a follow-up fitness test. I was originally tested back in October, right before I started working out with the personal trainer once a week. The plan was to re-test in January. The assumption was that I’d be at my goal weight in January – let me just say HA! to that. But anyway, now I am at goal so it was time for the re-test.

I am pretty darned happy with the results of the test. Check it out:

Some observations:

Based on my body age, my husband is officially robbing the cradle. OK, maybe not, 15 years isn’t THAT much, but still. I’m a young’un.

My husband was concerned that my blood pressure was too low, but I looked it up and I’m fine.

I’m disappointed that my biceps don’t seem that much stronger. I can only lift 3 more pounds? Come on, really? That just seems downright WRONG to me. And how annoying is it that bicep strength is the only strength measure? Hello … I have a LOT of other muscles. But nevertheless, that’s the measure. I think I’ll be exercising my biceps a little more in preparation for my next fitness assessment. Full body workout, schmull body workout, I always say. (Kidding, I’m kidding.)

My body fat is nice and low but not too low … either the low end of normal or in the athlete range depending on what chart you look at. I do wonder if it's accurate, though. Not to geek out on you or anything, but I really wish she'd repeat the test over a few days so we can assess test-retest reliability here. I'm half tempted to see how much it would cost to get a DEXA test done.

My weight ALWAYS measures higher at the gym than at home. I figure that’s not a concern since when I weigh myself at home it’s the morning (vs. the evening at the gym) and I’m near-nekkid (vs. wearing workout clothes and running shoes at the gym).

I wasn’t focusing on flexibility, but somehow I got more flexible anyway.

In my real age, I got a year older. Dammit.

All in all, those are big changes!

Yay!

In other news, my weight is 0.2 lbs above my goal (looking at the past 7-day average). I think this is completely annoying and I’ve decided the answer is to change my goal to “below 134” because I’m perfectly comfortable with how I look at the moment, I'm making healthy eating choices, this is normal fluctuation, and, quite frankly, to think I’m over goal right now is nuts. SO THERE. I thumb my nose at you, you stupid scale.

Couch to 5k Week 7: DONE!

2008-03-27T16:05:00.002-05:00

Last night I completed week 7 by running my last 25 minute run. The run was extra-special and extra unusual. How so? My husband and I ran together! That has never happened in the history of our 7.5ish year long relationship. Granted, we’ve only been running for a few months, but even so … wow!

Hubby called on his way home from work saying “I’m heading to the gym to run.” At the time, I hadn’t done my run yet. I figured what the heck, and invited him to run with me here in our neighborhood. I was nervous about the idea … he runs faster than me, I’m used to running with music but didn’t want to be rude and play music while we ran together, we’d never done it before (what if I look funny when I run; what if we end up fighting about running and all hell breaks loose and bad things happen; what if my heavy breathing repulses him … or excites him…) … I wasn’t sure how it would go. But I figured it couldn’t hurt to try.

So try we did. I set the pace, which meant that he started out slower than he was used to. He said in the long run it was OK, though, because the pace felt right for him towards the end. Maybe it’s because this was my last 25 minute run but his first 25 minute run, I don’t know. Whatever made it work, I’m glad it seemed all right to him. And it worked for me, too. Although strangely enough I found I went a little slower yesterday than I’d gone in my last 25 minute run. I can’t explain it – I don’t know if I was just tired, or if having him with me changed my pace. I guess I’ll find out, because guess what?

Now we’re talking about making this a weekly thing! Woo hoo!

Wednesday night may become husband/wife running night. We might even invite a friend who works with my husband to join us – he was doing c25k too, last I heard. As long as he can tolerate my turtle-pace, the more the merrier. If I head across town to meet him/them near their office we could go to a number of different pretty running trails instead of running around our neighborhood.

This plan would be great for both hubby and me, since it means I have another reason to get out of the house (yay!) and we’ll end up always working out at least twice a week, on Monday (with the trainer) and Wednesday (doing our together-run). Some weeks hubby has a hard time getting all his workouts in – maybe this structure is the key.

My husband was SO sedentary when we got married. Looking back to 5 years ago when we were just about to be married, and then looking at now, it is AMAZING the difference. He’s eating better, he’s working out, he’s lost weight, and he’s gaining muscle. He’s no super-athlete, but that’s not what I’d want anyway. I’m just so happy for him that he’s becoming healthy.

And from my perspective, it’s great for selfish reasons, too. It’s easier for me to stay on track with healthy eating and exercise when he’s on the same page. It makes me soooo happy that this increases the chances of us having a long life together. And … um … TMI WARNING … the healthier we both get, the better the sex is (and I tell ya, it was good before).

Now THAT is a benefit! Hooray for being healthy!

Where am I? Volume 9 (Alternate Title: Second verse, same as the first)

2008-03-26T14:32:00.003-05:00

It’s Wednesday, so it’s time to ask the question I ask every Tuesday … Where am I in my ~~weight loss~~ health and fitness journey?

Yeah, I’m late this week. Oops.

Anyway, where am I? Well, as I mentioned yesterday, I am AT GOAL in terms of weight! Yay! The last few weeks I've been de-emphasizing weight because it was making me crazy to focus on the scale when the numbers were decreasing soooooo slooooowly, but this week I’m all about talking about weight. I’m at goal! All my pants fit again, shopping is fun again, I’m satisfied when I look in the mirror. There’s nothing crazy-making about being at goal.

The thing is, there’s nothing FINAL about being at goal either.

This isn’t the end of anything, really. I get to eat a wee little bit more, I increase the calories some, but otherwise I have to keep doing what I’ve been doing. Don’t get me wrong, I have a sense of accomplishment about reaching goal and I’m going to reward myself for getting here, but I’m also well aware that the journey isn’t over. Heck, it’s hardly begun.

I’ve been at goal before. Actually, I’ve been at goal a couple times. I’ve never STAYED at goal. When it comes right down to it, my big overriding goal isn’t to be at my goal weight, it’s to stay at my goal weight. That, for me, is the true challenge.

So, a quick moment of celebration and badge-tasticness:

(It says at goal and maintaining … I am at goal, and since I’m looking at the average weight from the past week, I’m calling that maintaining. Yay for a pretty badge!)

Now, back to the business of living a healthy life, because the journey isn’t over.

On to EXERCISE!

Exercise: My goal for last week was 3x cardio via couch to 5k workouts and 2x strength training. Uhhh, yeah. I’m glad I got that “goal” badge because I sure wasn’t going to get the exercise badge this week. I did 1x couch to 5k and 0x strength training. Thank goodness for new weeks – this week has already gone better than last week.

And thank goodness my slackerness last week doesn’t seem to have affected my ability to run 25 minutes. I did OK with my run on Monday (which is, for me, the start of the new week). It was hard, but I took it slow and it wasn’t impossible. I’ll do a 25 minute run again today – wish me luck! Today will be couch to 5k week 7 day 3 … later this week I start week 8 and increase my time to 28 minutes. YIKES.

Oh yeah, and let’s do the official numbers on the weight loss:

Weight loss since last Tuesday: 0.8 lbs (134.0 vs. 133.2).

Weight loss since fall 2007 (most recent leg of weight loss journey): 19.2 lbs (152.4 vs. 133.2). Hmmm, I bet I’ll get a 20 lb badge at some point. We’ll see. I’m happy with my weight right now, but it never hurts to see a bright shiny new badge, and it falls in my weight goal range …

Total weight lost (entire weight loss journey): 33.8 lbs (167 vs. 133.2).

I want to thank all of you for your support on this journey and helping me celebrate my new at-goal status. It means a lot to me. I’m looking forward to having all of you join me here in maintenance-land!

GOAL!

2008-03-25T10:24:00.005-05:00

I'm illegally accessing Blogger from the office. This will be fast, as any moment the computer police will swoop down upon me, confiscate my computer, and lock me away for eternity.

But I wanted to let everyone know the big news. Not only am I at goal today, I was at goal yesterday!

Yay!

But d'oh! I could have already been celebrating!

Apparently I was temporarily unable to average numbers yesterday. Please don't tell my boss ... I'm supposed to do analysis type things for a living. Averages should be the least of my analytic worries. Ha!

Anyway, did you hear what I said? I'm at my goal weight! My past 7-day average is a tad under 133,* and my goal was to get an average of 133 or below.

Woooo hoooooooo!

* Please feel free to check my math. Because it seems that's necessary, you see.

Worst timing EVER

2008-03-24T22:29:00.004-05:00

I need to go into the office tomorrow (like, real live in-person drive aaallll the way to the office kind of go in to the office), and the timing could NOT be worse.

I may weigh in tomorrow morning and officially be at my goal weight.

Maybe.

But can I share the news with my blogger friends tomorrow morning, one way or the other? NO.

Aaaaaaaaaargh!

People, people who need people ...

2008-03-24T09:20:00.003-05:00

This past week was officially the worst couch to 5k training week I’ve had. I ran one time – only one time! – out of the three times I was supposed to run. I also did ZERO strength training. Phhhhhhhht.

When I look back at what I did instead of run, I have to say it was very good for me in a non-physical way. I saw my friends more this past week than I have in a loooong time. It sounds frivolous, and it was fun, but it was also a very good thing for me. Working from home, I really need opportunities to be around people. When I was working SO much week before last, I was getting a little crazy. My poor husband tolerated at least one meltdown that probably would have been prevented if I’d just gotten myself out of the house and into a face-to-face encounter with friends. It is hard on me mentally and emotionally when I go a while without seeing anyone but my husband, and I only see him a couple hours a day at most on weekdays. The working from home thing has its benefits, but it also has some serious drawbacks from a mental health perspective.

So although my physical health from an exercise standpoint went to hell this past week, I feel better mentally and emotionally than I have in a while. Although my not-running on Tuesday was due to house-cleaning, the rest of the time it was all about PEOPLE. I did dinner with friends on Wednesday, happy hour with different friends Thursday, girl-time shopping and dinner with yet another friend Friday, lunch out with friends and my friend’s new boyfriend Saturday, dinner out and then going to a bar with husbands/significant others Saturday night, and then my husband and I had our neighbor over for dinner last night.

Human beings! It was so nice to spend time out of the house with real-live-and-in-person humans. How I’ve missed the human beings! Oh, the joy of human contact!

I know you think I’m kidding, and I am being overly dramatic, but I’m dead serious about needing human contact to stay sane. And not just contact with people who bag your groceries or ring up your purchases – contact where you connect with people via in-person conversation.

The challenge for me is to figure out how to fit in exercise AND human contact AND eating well all at the same time. This past week I definitely got the human contact, and (even with all the eating out) I did fairly well at the eating well. I ate a lot of grilled fish and veggies, asked for lots of substitutions, and avoided a lot of breadbaskets. The scale is up a little this morning, but the pattern isn’t different from the pattern I see most weeks (up a little on Sunday, up a little more on Monday). The scale numbers will start dropping again tomorrow or the next day.

But anyway, how do I fit in all three – exercise AND human contact AND eating well – every week? I think that’s something I need to work on. I have some ideas, but if you guys have suggestions, I’m all ears.

Six Word Memoir

2008-03-22T08:11:00.003-05:00

This week I was ~~punished by~~ tagged by CDJ write my six word memoir.

Six words! To sum up my life! If you've read my posts before, you know I'm lucky to limit myself to writing six paragraphs on a run that lasts less than 30 minutes. Now I have to write six words to sum up a life that's lasted over 30 years? Hmmm.

Not easy.

No no, that's not my memoir. That won't do; it's only two words.

I had lots of false starts, many that summed up one small part of my life ("Overworked, underpaid; Calgon take me away!"), many that were true at one point but not so much anymore ("Why doesn't spell checking work, dammit?"), but I only came up with one that seemed to sum up many aspects of my life over many years. Drum roll please ...

"Without goals she would get nowhere."

So there you go! My life in six words.

Now I get to ~~torture~~ tag six people. Hmmmm ... how about Ashley, Briy, Sauchagirl, LoserIrene, MomOf3, and JavaChick. Are you guys up for the challenge?

I think the cart looks rather nice in front of the horse

2008-03-21T09:10:00.003-05:00

I really need to focus on work today, because mid-afternoon I’m going to skip out of work early and go shopping with an old friend of mine. So what am I doing? Reading blogs and writing a blog post. Brilliant. At least I have my priorities straight.

Hooray for going shopping this afternoon. I haven’t reached goal yet technically, but you wouldn’t know it from how I’ve been buying clothes lately. Over the past two weeks or so I’ve been clothes shopping more than I’d been for the past year. Actually, that doesn’t mean a whole lot since I hadn’t been at all in the past year … but it’s safe to say I’ve hit about 5 different stores in the past few weeks, and I actually purchased things at most of them.

I’m not usually much of a shopper – when I’m not in pajamas working here at home, I live in jeans and t-shirts typically. But I’ve decided that I need to clear out most of my old tee’s and try for a more interesting look. If nothing else, I should aim to pair my jeans with cute tops. Over the past couple weeks I’ve gotten rid of approximately 4.6 million t-shirts and purchased 8 or so tops. It makes me happy to look in my closet and see fun clothing options. It makes me feel good to wear clothes that flatter my slimmer, fitter figure.

To make room for new, cute stuff that fits, I’ve managed to clear out quite a bit of my old clothes … the old stained and/or pill-y and/or stretched out and/or hole-y and/or too-big t-shirts are gone. The jeans and pants that are two big are sitting on my dresser waiting for a trip to the consignment shop. I’ve given some hand-me-ups to my Mom, some sweaters went to a friend, and I have some other clothes that are homeless but I’m actively looking for a new home for them.

I might be putting the cart in front of the horse to do this cleaning-out and shopping before I technically reach goal, but I’m so close. Over the past few weeks I’ve felt good about how I look physically, and any physical changes that’ll happen between 2 weeks ago and actually reaching goal (which will happen very soon) will be subtle to the point of being non-existent. And I tell you, it’s a lot of fun to go shopping when you’re comfortable with how you look! Trying on clothes and having some of them look flattering is a great feeling. Not everything looks great, but some things do. I've found that some jeans are still disturbing-looking, but some look good. Maybe today I’ll even have the guts to try on a bathing suit – I haven’t gone there yet. *shudder* Anyway, for the most part, shopping lately has been very fun.

So if I’m putting the cart before the horse, so be it.

Speaking of putting the cart before the horse, lately I’ve been contemplating what to do AFTER I finish the couch to 5k and run the April 19th race. I know, I know, I’ve got a month to go. But I’ve been wondering … what comes next? I think I’ll need to find a new goal/program. The couch to 5k has worked out so well for me; it motivated me to exercise in a way I hadn’t experienced before. I think the key for me is structure and having a solid end-goal.

I’ve been contemplating the Hal Higdon 10-K Training for a Novice program. I like it because it is a running program that isn’t ALL about running … I can actually cross train, so that (to me) means that in addition to running I can do aerobics or bike or something else I enjoy. The running has been fun, but I do miss the other things I used to do. Incorporating these other activities into a training program is really appealing to me.

I think I’ll have to come up with some “in between the couch to 5k and Hal’s program” program for myself, to work myself up to exercising 6 days a week … right now I’m only exercising 3 days a week. I’ll start mulling over what that in-between program will look like as the next month passes.

I’m not 100% sold on the Hal Higdon program, though. It looks good, but I’m sure I’m not aware of all my options. As someone new to running, I don’t really know what programs are out there. If anyone else has any suggestions for what might come next, I’m all ears.

Couch to 5k Week 7 Day 1: It didn't kill me

2008-03-20T13:31:00.001-05:00

So much for going into the nearest office this morning – yesterday afternoon I got caught up in an urgent project at work, and I it ended up that I needed to be online bright and early this morning. That meant driving in to the office wasn’t an option. Maybe I’ll head out later this afternoon … I’ll call Mr. Computer Man and see if he thinks we can knock this “getting the laptop set up” thing quickly.

Anyway, first thing this afternoon I finally took advantage of the working from home situation when it comes to doing the couch to 5k workouts. I snuck out of here around 12:30 and went and did my week 7 day 1 run. With some working-late days last week, working over the weekend, and working late yesterday, I can’t say I feel bad for skipping out of work for 40ish minutes. And actually, at that time of day I can just claim it’s a lunch break anyway, right?

The run went OK – this was my second 25 minute run. It wasn’t easy, but I didn’t keel over so that’s a bonus. I think (don’t quote me on this) I have two more 25 minute runs before my time increases again. I’m glad, because I feel a little like my body needs more practice at the 25 minute level. Three more minutes … well, MAYBE I could have done it, but it wouldn’t have been pretty.

I accomplished something else this morning, too. My entry form and fee is in the mail to the 5k organizers. It’s official – 5k day is April 19th. It’s been official in my head all along, but I hadn’t managed to pay the money and make it official to the people organizing the race yet. Now that is done, too (well, it’ll be done once the postal service does its part).

Now that I’ve knocked out some decently long runs, I’m excited about the actual 5k. April 19th – that’s less than a month away! I can’t say I feel ready yet, but I feel like I’ll be ready by then. Or ready enough, anyway.

Quick subject change: I said I wasn’t going to focus on weight while I take off these last couple pounds, because the last pounds come off slowly and I was beginning to make myself crazy. And I’m NOT obsessively focused on them, although I am watching what’s happening on the scale. Do you see those scale numbers over there on the right? How exciting is that? I’m not at goal yet (remember, I need to average 133 or below for a week before I consider myself at goal), but I’m darned close.

Yay!

Missing: One run

2008-03-19T09:20:00.001-05:00

In my couch to 5k program, I made it through weeks 1 to 6 without getting behind in training. For the past six weeks I’ve religiously been getting my three runs per week in.

But this is week 7, and unfortunately I’ve officially missed a run for the week. Ugh!

This week I didn’t work out with the trainer on Monday – our trainer was out of town PLUS it was St. Patrick’s day. The plan was to work out last night (Tuesday) instead, which would keep me on track if I did the Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday/Monday schedule. But did I run yesterday? NO.

Instead, I cleaned the house. I couldn’t ignore the building chaos anymore. With working so much lately it was getting out of control … and yes, I’m here all the time, but when I work from home I’m working, not cleaning. If I could have done a run in the neighborhood I probably would have squeezed my run in, but it was raining like mad and I didn’t manage to get myself to the gym.

I’m quite annoyed at myself this morning. My options are to let myself fall behind in training, or to do two runs in a row without a rest day, which isn’t recommended. I’ve never tried to do two runs in a row – at this point in training it means I’d be running 25 minutes two days in a row. Yikes. Neither option sounds good to me, so … who knows. I’m going to see how the week plays out, see how I feel, and decide what to do based on that.

Not good news on the C25k front. Assuming I don't run two days in a row, I’ll still finish in time for my 5k, but I won’t have as much extra time to build speed and endurance.

On a brighter note, I just heard that a new work laptop is ready for me. Yaaaaaaaaay! I won’t be online tomorrow, as I’ll need to drive into the closest office and get that squared away.

Maybe the multi-tasking isn't so wise

2008-03-18T15:24:00.003-05:00

I just re-read my post below and I am laughing hysterically.

Um. Yeah. When I said "I ran 25 miles!" I meant "I ran 25 minutes!"

Hahahahahaha!

I've got to stop working so hard. I'm completely losing it.

Where Am I? (Volume 8) … Answer: RUNNING!

2008-03-18T10:57:00.003-05:00

Life has been kicking me around a little this past week. I’m overdue on the blogging and out of touch on the reading. Rather than having a fun-filled weekend, I ended up working all day on Saturday. Instead of socializing on Sunday, I did long-overdue yard-work (which is fun in a way, but I'm beginning to miss human beings). To top it off, neither my husband nor I are sleeping well … he has the “can’t get to sleep” insomnia and I have the “stressed out about work and waking up extra-early” insomnia. It’s a barrel of fun around here, I tell you what.

In the midst of all of this, exercise and eating are going pretty well. Let’s discuss the gory details, shall we? Because it is Tuesday … time for the “where am I in my ~~weight loss~~ exercise and wellness journey” stats check.

Exercise: My goal was 3x cardio via couch to 5k workouts and 2x strength training. I did my couch to 5k runs, but (once again) I only got one strength training workout in. I probably worked my muscles some by doing the yard work (it involved hauling heavy stuff around), but in my opinion that doesn’t count as OFFICIAL strength training. So, technically, I did not meet my exercise goal.

HOWEVER …

I’m THRILLED to say that I successfully ran 25 minutes this past Saturday! Woo hoo! Twenty five minutes! That’s a lot of running. I ran slow but steady and I got it done. It wasn’t even that bad. I think the run before it was harder (two 10 minute runs separated by a 3 minute walk), which makes no sense at all. Thinking about what made that run hard and the Saturday run easier, I bet some of it was the time of day. I ran the two 10-minute runs at the end of a very long, hard work day. On the other hand, I did my Saturday run in the morning, post coffee but pre- everything else. Plus, it was a beautiful day, and I was able to enjoy my own music for the first time, and … it was a good morning.

I am NOT a morning person, but maybe I could become a morning person when it comes to running. Hmmmm. I’ll have to consider it. I can always try it, and if it doesn’t work out go back to afternoons. Besides, if I keep waking up well before my alarm, I might as well get something done, right?

Today I run 25 minutes again, then I do it again on Thursday (come to think of it, Thursday would be a perfect day to try a morning run, since I’m busy that night), and then on Saturday I go up to 28 minutes! Wow.

I read an interesting post by MomOf3 - she’s also doing the couch to 5k program. She mentioned that sometimes when she runs for periods of time that she’s never run before, she has the urge to just STOP. She isn’t in pain, she isn’t incapable … but something inside her tells her to stop. I SO can relate to this. I’ve experienced that many times during this couch to 5k program, and it’s very odd. What is it that makes us feel that stopping is the answer, even when the messages from our body tell us that we really can keep going? I have no idea. But the good news for me is that during my 20 minute run, I didn’t hear that "time to stop" voice. I had no strange urge to stop running … and I tell you, those last five minutes were uncomfortable. But I REALLY wanted it, and I did it.

Again, another example of how mental this running thing is. Who knew?

Anyway, the running is going well, and every time I put those running shoes on I’m able to do more than I ever thought I could do. That feeling is GREATNESS.

Now, on to weight loss (which, if you recall, is not my primary focus these days, but I still have my eye on losing a couple more pounds) …

Weight loss since last Tuesday: 1.4 lbs (135.4 vs. 134.0). I’m glad to see I took off that 0.2 lbs I gained last week, plus more. More than I expected at this point in my journey, actually. I guess there’s something to be said for working your tail off all the time … if you’re heads down at work, you’re not out making bad eating choices. (Honestly, I’d still choose less work, though.)

Weight loss since fall 2007 (most recent leg of weight loss journey): 18.4 lbs (152.4 vs. 134.0).

Total weight lost (entire weight loss journey): 33 lbs (167 vs. 134.0).

All in all I had a good week when it comes to eating and exercise. No badges earned … but I earned the “I ran 25 miles!” badge that exists in my head, and that’s good enough for me!

Couch to 5k realizations

2008-03-14T07:54:00.003-05:00

I considered going to yoga yesterday, and then based on the feedback I got in my comments I decided that wasn’t the best idea ever. Instead, I went shopping. That’s always better than an extra workout, right? OK, maybe not always, but it’s better for me right now while I’m doing this couch to 5k thang. Someday I’ll add in additional workouts. I’ll get back to you on that in a couple months.

About the couch to 5k program … yesterday I had two realizations about the program and my progress, and my husband realized something else and shared it with me. My two realizations are happy – his not so much. I’ll start with his … might as well get the unpleasantness over with first.

Realization #1: Hubby (who is also doing the couch to 5k) looked up the program info on coolrunning.com and calculated the miles per hour it assumes we’re running.

It assumes I’m running 6 miles per hour. HA! Now that’s funny. Or depressing. It kind of depends on the moment as to how I feel about that news.

It’s just not happening. I am NOT going that fast. I’ll have to work my way up to that. This info changes nothing, really, but I hated to hear that I am OFFICIALLY slow. Oh well. When I finish the couch to 5k official program, I have a couple extra weeks before my 5k … I’ll keep training and hope my speed increases during that time.

Now, on to happier things …

Realization #2: Over my last post or two I’ve talked about how my Week 6 Day 3 run today will be 25 minutes. Last Friday I did a Week 5 Day 3 run that was 20 minutes, then this week for Week 6 Days 1 and 2 I went back to doing walk/run sequences. I assumed after my Week 6 day 3 run I’d go back to doing walk/run sequences for next week, too.

NOPE!

This week’s Wednesday run was my last run where there is walking in between periods of running. From here on out, I’m scheduled to run 25 minutes straight, then 28 minutes straight, and then 30 minutes straight.

EEEEEEEEEEEEK!

I didn’t realize that I was at that point in the program until yesterday. When I was doing my run on Wednesday I had no idea it was my last day alternating walk/runs. I may have been blocking this out. It is overwhelming to think about those long runs. But hey, I’ll try. I’ll try, and if I am not ready I’ll back up a week and then try again. Hopefully I’ve progressed enough that if I run slowly I can do it, though.

Anyway, despite the long-and-concerning-length, there’s something wonderful about this “I will be running X minutes at a stretch from now on” thing. I can now discard the podcasts and listen to my own music. Woo hoo! Plus, I figured out how to use the timer on my heart rate monitor yesterday*. That means that once I finish my 5 minute warm-up walk and set my timer I won’t even have to watch the clock. After 25 minutes an alarm will sound. Cool stuff!

Yay! I’m so looking forward to my own music. And it’ll be good for me to not be reminded how far I still have to run while I’m doing these long runs. In the early weeks, the “you’re halfway done!” messages were reassuring – now they’re becoming a little anxiety provoking. Only halfway!?! Yeah, I didn’t need to know that.

Realization #3: I’ve been plugging along on the couch to 5k program, and somehow I did not notice until yesterday that I AM MORE THAN HALFWAY DONE WITH THE PROGRAM! Now granted, as noted in Realization #1 I’ll need to keep training for my 5k after my official Couch to 5k program is over, but still! Yay! Lookie here:

That’s where I am right now, before doing my run today. Woo hoooo! Look at that pie, with those more-than-half-finished numbers. (…mmmm pie…) I'm over 60% done, even before I run today! And next Wednesday is officially one month out from my 5k.

It’s all very exciting and intimidating at the same time.

Wish me luck on my run tonight!

* This makes a whopping two things I’ve figured out how to do on my heart rate monitor … 1.) look at the time and 2.) use the timer. Note that my heart rate has nothing to do with either of these things. Ugh. I’ll figure the durned thing out at some point.

Help! Questions for you yoga-doers.

2008-03-13T08:43:00.002-05:00

On Monday I finally had to give up and set everything in Google reader to “read.” I hated to do it, but I just couldn’t get caught up. And now, after a busy work day yesterday, I’m behind on my reading/commenting again. Ack! Hopefully I can get caught up this morning. Yesterday at work I worked my ass off to get some stuff sent out, and as of yet NO ONE has responded to my email, given me feedback, nothing. So I’ll take some time to get caught up on ME stuff until I hear back from them (or until my next meeting, whichever comes first).

My point is that I'll be stopping by your blog soon.

Anyway, tonight my husband has a poker game, so I have an evening to myself. I looked at the gym schedule and there’s a yoga class I could go to. I’ve never really done yoga before … I did it one time around 6 or 8 years ago at the Bally’s I used to belong to, and I couldn’t walk for two days after that. I hear that’s not typical. I got a yoga mat for Christmas, though, so I’m tempted to try it. But I have a couple questions for those of you who do the yoga thang.

First, today is a rest day for my couch to 5k run. I try to take my day of rest as truly a REST day … I don’t do aerobics classes or strength training or anything that might make it harder for me to run the next day. This is especially important today, since I do a *gasp* 25 minute run tomorrow. So … what do you think? Would I regret going to yoga tonight? I tell you, my one other experience with yoga suggests the answer would be YES. But the way some of you talk about yoga I’m not sure that’s true.

Also, I’m truly a yoga beginner. They have beginner’s yoga classes at our gym, and the one tonight isn’t one of them. Do you think I should wait and attend the beginner’s class first?

Those are my questions – what do you guys think? I definitely want to do my run tomorrow; I don't want to do anything that'll prevent me from running. I don’t have time to run on Saturday, so if I miss my run tomorrow it’ll set me back in my training schedule. And FYI, I don’t know anything about the yoga classes at my gym, so I won’t be able to answer questions about the class tonight.

Any answers/opinions/advice/suggestions/warnings/encouragement is appreciated!

And it wasn't even on a silver platter

2008-03-12T19:32:00.003-05:00

I got my ass handed to me at work today. Damn. I’m not a fan of the super-intense 10 hour days, no sir I’m not. If I could take a break and talk to someone every so often it wouldn’t be so bad, but working from home on days like this I just … work. I don’t trust myself to start reading and commenting on blogs because I can get carried away, and I didn’t have time to get carried away today. Just heads-down work work and more work, with breakfast and lunch in front of the computer, and a little more work.

But the good news is that the analyses I had to do before tomorrow morning got done. Thank gawd. Granted, there's always more work to be done, but at least SOMETHING got finished.

And you know what? I sat in front of that computer all day, and after I sent out my work the first thing I did was go running. Yes I did! I got out of my pajamas at 6 PM (seriously – it was that kind of day), and got straight into my running clothes, and I did my week 6 day 2 run.

Yay!

It wasn’t the best run ever. There were two 10 minute runs with a 3 minute walk in between. It started off great, but went downhill. It went something like this:

Minutes 1-5: Walk walk walk, glad to be outside walking
Minutes 6-10: Run run run! Yay running! I’m happy to be running! Running feels great!
End of minute 10: (Dude on podcast comes on and tells Day 1 that their first 5 minute run is done. But I'm day 2, and I run 10 minutes.) What? I’ve only been running 5 minutes? Oh crap!
Minutes 11-13: Oh so tired. Oh run run, so tired, keep running, tired, must run run more run.
Minute 14: "Bark bark bark!" Oh crap, a dog! It’s running towards me! Too tired to run faster! Should I kick it? I don’t want to kick a dog! Oh, it’s tied up. Good.
Minute 15: Running running … can’t wait to walk …
Minute 16: Walking! Yay!
Minute 17-18: More walking. So good. Nice to walk.
Minute 19-21: Run again! Go slowly, go slowly, slower, you can do this, keep going…
Minute 22: Oh no, my side is starting to hurt. Breathe, breathe, breathe and step in time with the left leg and … what did that website say? Breathe …
Minutes 23-25: I have no memory of these minutes. I may be blocking them out because of some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder reaction. Or maybe the endorphins took over. Who knows.
Minute 26: What!?! I still have three minutes? Ugh! Run run run. Breathe breathe breathe.
Minutes 27-28: Must keep running. Almost over. No one ever died from side
stitches. Must keep running. Almost over. No one ever died from side stitches. Must keep running …
Minute 28: I did it! I finished the running part! Hooray! Time to walk. Ahhhhhh…
Minutes 29-32: More nice walking all the way home.

That was my run. Hey, I didn’t enjoy every moment, but I did it and I feel great now. Hopefully I can say that (or something even more positive) about my next run. Next time I run 25 minutes straight.

!!!!

That's a lot of running. Wish me luck!

You know, I hope that someday I can feel the way I felt during those first five minutes of running for a lot longer than 5 minutes.

Where am I? (Volume 7)

2008-03-11T09:43:00.005-05:00

Happy Tuesday! It’s time for a “where am I in my ~~weight loss~~ fitness and wellness journey” update.

I’m still losing weight, but last week I said the focus would be on exercise, and I mean it. This week I’m starting with exercise and non-scale victories and THEN I’ll talk about the scale.

Exercise: My goal was 3x cardio via couch to 5k, 2x strength, and 5x abs/planks. I met my cardio goal, but other than that I only got one strength session in and only did abs/planks 2x. I think the 5x abs/planks may not have been feasible with my busy week, but I should have been able to get my other strength session in. Oh well … it’s hard to be concerned because I had a fun week.

NSV #1: My brother commented on my weight loss and an old friend commented on my weight loss. Both comments were unprompted and they were said as soon as I saw them. Note to self – spend more time reconnecting with people who don’t see me often – they can see the changes!

NSV #2: I went on a mini shopping trip and I was able to fairly consistently fit into size 6 clothes. There were times I brought three different sizes into a dressing room because I wasn’t sure what size I would be, and most of the time the answer was a 6. I ended up buying a skirt and a dress. I didn’t try on jeans or bathing suits … I decided to stick with the more forgiving articles of clothing for this first shopping trip. Anyway, size 6 = good as far as I’m concerned.

NSV #3: I had a wonderful week which involved no obsessions about the scale, and I didn’t completely lose control … I ate reasonably the majority of the time, and I got some exercise in. I wasn’t in any way perfect in my eating, but I’m not striving for perfect.

With all those non-scale victories, I think a badge is in order:

Weight: Weeeell, I’m up 0.2 lbs. But my body fat percentage over the past week averages lower than my body percentage over the week before my last weigh-in. My goal was to maintain or lose each week for the next 1.5 months … I think I’m going to call this maintenance. Close enough, right?

My goals for next week are the same as for this week – 3x cardio via couch to 5k, 2x strength, and 5x abs/planks. I’m also aiming to maintain or lose from a weight perspective. I'm on week 6 with couch to 5k ... that means that on Friday or Saturday I'll be doing a 25 minute run! Ack!

I think it can, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can ...

(A big thank-you to Wikipedia for the image.)

Couch to 5k Week 5 Done: Oh hell yeah!

2008-03-10T17:46:00.002-05:00

I RAN 20 MINUTES STRAIGHT!

Well, I mean, I didn’t run straight the whole time, I ran around my neighborhood so I actually went in circles a little, but you know what I mean. I ran 20 minutes without stopping.

I almost didn’t do the 20 minute run. The 20 minute run was week 5 day 3, and I almost repeated week 5 day 2. I just couldn’t imagine that I was ready for a 20 minute run. I’d almost talked myself out of trying, and then I told myself that I should at least TRY. If I can’t sustain a jogging pace for 20 minutes, fine, no harm done, but I should at least TRY. And I tried, and I did it!

I look back at the fact that I almost didn’t try it, and it makes me wonder how many other things in my life I didn’t do because I didn’t think I could do them. I suspect I’ve missed out on a lot because I was scared I would fail, and failing seemed worse than not trying.

That is so messed up.

So anyway, I ran! And it was good! I was grinning like a fool when I finished.

Truth be told, I ran slooooooowly. I’m not sure I’m going as far as I’m supposed to go each time I run. The program is set up where you either run a certain distance or a certain time, and I’m going with time so I don’t know if I’m getting my distance in. But I’ll worry about that when I’ve finished the program – I can work up to running faster/longer. One thing at a time, right?

Hmmm, what else do I need to tell you guys? It seems like ages since I’ve checked in. I completely fell out of the blogosphere for almost 6 days. I have a lot of catching up to do on everyone’s blogs … my Google reader overfloweth! If you’re reading this and I haven’t been to your site yet, I promise I’ll stop by soon.

My time away was lovely. I had a great time with my brother and the rest of my family. I hadn’t seen my brother since Christmas, and guess what the first words out of his mouth were? “Hi, skinny! You’ve lost more weight!”

I love that man.

I took the day off work on Wednesday, and it was fun. We didn’t do anything too exciting … we met some old friends for lunch, then did some shopping, met some other friends for dinner, and then went to see the Spiderwick Chronicles. I bought myself a couple of treats … I got a Nike+ gadget for my iPod that will track my run distances. I don’t have the special shoes, but I found something on Amazon that I can attach to my shoes that should do the trick. The attacher thang should come in this week – when I get it and I’ve had a chance to play with it I’ll let you know how it all works. I also bought myself an on-sale skirt from Old Navy in a size 6. Woo hoo!

On Thursday I went back to work, but my parents and brother came over and spent the night that night, then my brother flew out Friday morning. It was a great few days. Over the weekend I had to get caught up on work … with a day off and people in my house for part of two work days, I was a little behind.

I’m still a little behind, actually. I have a TON to do at work. It’s going to be a busy week.

Oh, and did I mention that my eating got a little off track during the family time and the weekend? But it’s all good; I’m back on track today. I have to say that any gain was worth it. Last week was a great week.

I hope the last week has been wonderful for all of you, too!

Happy goes missing

2008-03-04T16:34:00.003-06:00

Hey everyone!

I mentioned in my last post that my little brother is in town. (If you can call someone who is 33 and taller than me little, that is.) I'm going to be spending some time with him, trying to get some work done (that pesky job - ugh!), and getting that exercise in, so I don't think I'll be around much these next few days.

I'll catch up with everyone this weekend, I promise.

You guys have a great rest-of-the-week!

Where Am I? (Volume 6)

2008-03-04T09:11:00.001-06:00

Happy Tuesday! Where am I in my weight loss journey, you ask?

Weight loss since last Tuesday: 1.4 lbs (136.6 vs. 135.2). Yay! I’m super-close to goal!

Weight loss since fall 2007 (most recent leg of weight loss journey): 17.2 lbs (152.4 vs. 135.2).

Total weight lost (entire weight loss journey): 31.8 lbs (167 vs. 135.2). I earned my 30 lb badge last week, so nothing new to report here.

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I’m having some minor motivation issues. Nothing that is going to derail me completely, but I do think my heart isn’t in the weight loss groove as much these past couple weeks. I’ve been close to goal but not AT goal for a while now. My goal is 132-133, and I’m currently at 135.2. SO. CLOSE. I have to say that I’m eager to get to goal, but maybe not as eager as I should be. It’s a little frustrating to be so close to goal but not there, but …

While one part of me is a little frustrated, another part of me is OK with where I am, as strange as that sounds. Like I said, my goal is 132-133 lbs. Why such a strange number as goal? Because I bought a lot of clothes the last time I was at 132-133. I’d like those clothes to fit again, and I need to lose a couple more pounds and firm up just a little more for all of them to fit.

Right now most of the clothes fit, but a couple things don’t fit perfectly. The non-fitting clothes? One pair of shorts and a pair of Capri pants are a tad bit tight in the thighs. I can put them on, but the thighs are just a tad too big for them to be a perfect fit.* But have you looked outside? SNOW. I’m not exactly in need of shorts and Capri pants at the moment, and the jeans I bought at the same time do fit.

Right now, if the scale moves slowly downward I’m a-OK with it. I think I’m going to officially take my focus OFF the scale and focus more on exercise. I’ve decided that as long as I get these last couple pounds off by mid-April, I’m happy. The key for me is to not let it start moving BACKWARDS. As of right now, I’m aiming for a maintain or a loss every week for the next 5 or 6 weeks. If I can do that and exercise at the same time, I’ll be back in those shorts and capris just in time to wear them on vacation at the end of April.

So everyone, I have a couple favors to ask. Please support me in thinking that maintaining or tiny losses are great, wonderful, and exactly what I need.

Also, I want you guys to know that for me, reaching goal isn’t touching it one day. I weigh daily, so my scale goes up and down and up and down and up and down. In my mind, I’ll have reached goal when the average weigh-in for a seven day period is 133. I’m telling everyone this so that I don’t get lots of premature congratulations when I have a downward blip in my weight. It’s disheartening to have to say “Actually, I’m not at goal. See, the scale every day since then is 2 pounds higher.” Maybe on my daily posts I’ll start giving the running last 7 day average so we’re all on the same page.

Anyway, enough about that damned scale.

I think that I’m much more focused and motivated about exercise. This is a change – usually that’s the hard part for me. But I’ve really gotten into this couch to 5k program. I love seeing the progress, I love finding that I’m capable of more than I think I am, I love having a specific goal (running a 5k on April 19th), I love that I can do it outside when it’s nice and in the gym when it’s not … I love it.

Now, we’ll see if I keep loving it after this week. Tonight I run a couple of 8 minute periods – 8 minutes! Ack! Then the next run after that, I run 20 minutes straight. TWENTY MINUTES! I don’t even know what to say about that.

How did the exercise go this week?

Exercise: I did it! I earned my exercise badge! My goal was 3x couch to 5k runs and 2x strength training, and I did it. It feels good to say I met that goal.

My exercise goal this week will be very similar: Couch to 5k runs 3x, strength training 2x, and this week I’m also adding in a short abs workout 5x. As the week progresses I’ll keep you posted on how the progressively longer runs on the couch to 5k program are going.

It’ll be a challenging week to get all my workouts in. My brother is visiting from out of town, so my free time isn’t very free. But luckily I think he’ll understand completely, so I should be able to sneak out to get a quick workout in when I need to. I’m so excited about seeing him! I’m also curious if he’ll notice that I’ve lost weight since Christmas.

Anyway, I hope all of you have a wonderful week, and that you are successful in meeting your goals.

*Yes, some of that is muscle. But I can look in the mirror and easily see that it isn’t all muscle. Saddlebags do not equal muscle!

Just keep on keepin’ on

2008-03-03T09:56:00.002-06:00

I have to confess; this past week I’ve been feeling a little weary when it comes to my weight loss journey. I’m losing weight, there’s no doubt about it, but for the past month my average loss is less than a pound a week, so it’s slow going.

I’m not giving up – I’m on plan and actively working to find my motivation. I tell myself that losing slowly is the way to go, since I’ll be more likely to keep it off. And I tell myself that going at weight loss reasonably, without depriving myself all the time, is going to teach me how to watch my weight and still live life at the same time. I tell myself that I should focus my mental energy on exercise, and try to get my mind off the scale. And I tell myself that I’m close to goal, and to hang in there. But all the messages I’m sending myself aren't always effective motivators.

I think learning how to send ourselves positive messages is an important part of the process of getting healthy. I think that what we believe will come true - if we send ourselves negative messages we’ll lose faith in ourselves and get off track, and if we send ourselves positive messages we’ll have faith in ourselves and stay the course. But, no matter how important positive self-talk is, sometimes the positive self-talk isn’t enough. Sometimes re-energizing words come from other people’s mouths.

I get an enormous amount of positive energy from reading other people’s blogs and the comments on my blog. I get positive energy from hearing people’s weight loss and weight maintenance success stories. And sometimes, I get positive energy from VERY strange places.

Over the weekend I was in the car clicking around to find a radio station, and I ended up on a 70’s station. Time passes, I’m day dreaming and chatting with my husband and half-listening to the radio, and Ease On Down the Road by Michael Jackson comes on the radio. I’m half-listening, but the more I hear the closer I listen. As strange it as it sounds, I found that song very comforting. I’m not a huge Michael Jackson fan, the man clearly has issues, but put that aside for now and look at some of the lyrics …

… Come on, ease on down, ease on down, down the road

Pick your left foot up
When your right foots down
Come on legs keep movin’
Don’t you lose no ground
You just keep on keepin’
On the road that you choose
Don’t you give up walkin’
‘cause you gave up shoes, no

Ease on down, ease on down the road
Come on, ease on down
Ease on down the road
Don’t you carry nothing
That might be a load
Come on, ease on down
Ease on down the road

‘cause there may be times
When you think you lost your mind
And the steps you’re takin’
Leave you three, four steps behind
But the road you’re walking
Might be long sometimes
You just keep on steppin’
And you’ll just be fine, yeah

Ease on down, ease on down the road
Come on, ease on downEase on down the road …

(Etc. etc. etc.)

I’m sure ol’ Mikey was not thinking about weight loss, but his song is so appropriate for what we’re all going through. It sends a message about just keepin’ on keepin’ on through the long journey down the weight loss and maintenance road, and not getting discouraged when you take a few steps backwards, and if you keep on walking down the road you’ll be OK, and … I tell you, back in the day, Michael Jackson might have been able to lead a Weight Watchers meeting or two.

So, as cheesy as it sounds, my Monday message to you all and to myself is that the road we’re walking might be long sometimes, but just keep on steppin’, ‘cause we’ll be just fine.

My inner critic has shut up for the moment

2008-03-01T08:55:00.002-06:00

Last night I ran my couch to 5k week 4 day 3 run – I completed week 4! Woo hoo!

When Stephanie told me in my comments that the first 10 minutes of a run always sucks, she was spot on. In my case it was more like the first 8 minutes, given that I was running in 3 and 5 minute segments. The first 3 minute segment and the first 5 minute segment were so much harder than the second 3 and 5 minute segments. I guess endorphins really are our friends.

Sunday* I’m on to week 5. Yikes! (no no no, stop with the yikes. I can do this.) I mean, yay! (there, that’s better.) AND I met my exercise goal for the week! Extra-yay!

So I’ve managed to smother the inner critic for a while. While I was running yesterday I felt so good about what I was doing. I am 100% doing the best I can, and it kicks ass. What is there to get frustrated about? Nothing. So what if I finish a couple minutes after my husband in the 5k. I’m extremely happy that he’s working out. It’s all good.

Actually, I’ve realized part of what bothered me about my relative speed is that we’re doing this 5k with quite a few of our friends, and I expect all of them to finish before us. So, what I really mean is: So what if I finish absolutely dead last amongst all our friends. I’ve finished! I’m good with that. Especially since I’ve decided that I clearly need to find someone who runs more slowly than me to join us in the run. Problem solved!

JUST KIDDING!

No, seriously, starting out slow gives me lots of room for improvement, and getting faster will be an excellent, satisfying new goal to work towards starting in May.

*My workout with the husband/friend/trainer has been moved from Monday to Sunday because I somehow double booked myself for Monday night. Thank gawd everyone else was able to reschedule.

Telling my inner critic to piss off

2008-02-29T12:35:00.001-06:00

I was talking to my husband yesterday about the couch to 5k program. He’s also doing the program, although he’s doing his 100% on the treadmill and I do mine on the treadmill 1-2 days a week and on the road 1-2 days a week. I’d been out of the loop on how it’s been going for him, since I’ve tried to stay out of his business about it. He’s relatively new to exercise, and I didn’t want to seem like a nag or a critic. Because of our different work schedules and his commute we’re not really doing the program together as much as we’re doing it over the same span of weeks. Over the past few weeks we’ve ended up on treadmills side by side only once or twice, and those times we each had our headphones on listening to the podcast that told us when to walk and run.

So anyway, the topic came up, and we chatted about how we’re feeling about the program. We’re both feeling good, the podcasts are helpful, blah blah blah. Then the topic turned to how fast we’re running.

Dammit! The man is running MUCH faster than I am.

For some reason I find this irrationally maddening.

He’s 6 inches taller than me so that’s a very slight advantage perhaps, but other than that it seems like I should have the advantage here. He’s been inconsistent with his training, but I’ve been on track (with the exception of one missed workout). He’s skipped parts of weeks, and I’ve been following the training program religiously and by the book. He started out at a lower fitness level than I did. When we do the personal training together weekly, he lifts heavier weights than I do, but I seem to have better cardio endurance than he has and I seem to be able to handle physical discomfort better. He’s never been an athletic person; I’ve had two periods in my life where exercise was the norm.

Right now I’m feeling annoyed at myself for running slowly, bewildered at how the realities above translate to him running faster, and, well, just COMPETITIVE.

I didn’t want this running thing to get competitive.

I’ve been surfing around online trying to get a sense if I’m at least “normal” when it come to how quickly I’m running. I’m not finding many answers – what I am finding is repeated suggestions to do it slowly and to pace yourself. Great, wonderful, I’m doing what I’m SUPPOSED to do with the program.

Why isn’t that good enough?

I need to find a way to silence my inner critic and to stop comparing myself to him or anyone else. It does NOT matter how fast I run, it matters that I run. It matters that I’m stretching myself and doing something new, something I never thought I could do. I don’t have to do it better or faster than anyone else. In my heart I know all this. And I also know that once I’ve run 5k, I can move on to building my speed, and/or building my distance, and/or move on to some other completely different goal. I know this.

So why am I having such a hard time with the speed thing? I guess I’m a competitive person – I don’t think of myself that way, but I guess I am. And I really didn’t want this to be competitive – I wanted to do this for myself. Now I’m a little worried that when we do run our 5k, I’ll be disappointed in myself when I cross the finish line many minutes after him. I hate the thought that I could let something like that take away from how I’ll feel about accomplishing this goal.

If you guys have any suggestions about how I can tell my inner critic to piss off, please, suggest away.

In the meantime, it’s payday. I’m going to head out after work to buy a heart rate monitor.

Q&A Day

2008-02-28T09:20:00.002-06:00

I've had some questions in my comments over the past couple weeks, and I'm not sure of the best way to answer them. At risk of being tremendously boring and/or having the longest post in the history of blogkind, I'm going to answer them all at once.

If I missed any questions, let me know!

So, here goes ...

What do I do on my “intense” workout days?
For me at this point, my intense workouts happen once a week on Monday night. On Mondays, I head to the gym, do my couch to 5k run on the treadmill, and then I spend an hour working out with my husband, our friend, and a personal trainer. We save money on the trainer by all working out together. The trainer wants us to warm up before we get to her so that we’re ready to really work out by the time our hour starts – she loves that I do the couch to 5k run beforehand.

The trainer does a lot of strength training with intervals of cardio. I can’t tell you exactly what we do because the exact workout varies week to week, but by the end of each session we’ve always done a full-body workout. Sometimes we use weight machines, sometimes we use free weights, sometimes dumbbells, sometimes bosu thingies, sometimes balance balls, sometimes medicine balls, sometimes equipment-free exercises like planks and pushups etc. etc. etc. After the first couple months, she started having us work multiple muscle groups at a time. So, for instance, we might be doing bench presses while lifting our hips and holding a medicine ball between our knees with our feet up on a bosu. That crazy move works arms and legs and core at the same time. The cardio intervals could be sprints around the track, or running up/down the stairs, or jumping jacks, jump rope, etc. etc.

What strength training program are you doing?
I think “program” implies a degree of structure I don’t have! I do strength training 2x per week (or that’s my goal anyway). One day it’s with the trainer, and that’s described above. On the other day I do strength training post-running on my own. That workout could either be on machines or at home. At home I have dumbbells (5, 10, and 15 lbs), a balance ball, and an 8 lb. medicine ball. I don’t do the same strength exercises each time, but each time I try to get a full-body workout with a little more focus on abs and arms than legs (since the running is leg-focused).

For instance, last night after my couch to 5k run I worked out at home and did:

- 1 set of 20 reps of wall squats with the balance ball while holding 10 lb. dumbbells
- 1 set of 15 reps (x2 – one time for each leg) of single leg squats with the balance ball
- 2 sets of 20 reps of one-arm 15 lb. dumbbell rows with the balance ball (x2 – one time for each arm)
- 2 sets of 20 reps of 10 lb. dumbbell shoulder press on the balance ball (note that in this video the gal takes her dumbbells low – lower than a 90 degree angle. My trainer tells us not to do that.)
- 2 sets of 20 reps of 10 lb. dumbbell chest flys on the balance ball
- 2 sets of 25 reps of crunches on the balance ball, holding the medicine ball between my knees
- 2 sets of 20 reps of 5 lb. dumbbell triceps extensions on the balance ball
- 2 sets of 20 reps of 5 lb dumbbell reverse flys lying on the balance ball
- 2 sets of 20 reps of oblique twist using the medicine ball (in link, scroll to where it says “twist”)

I downloaded the workout above from SparkPeople.com – I tweaked it minimally, adding on the oblique twist and the use of the medicine ball when I did the other crunches. Sometimes I browse through a couple books I have or websites and come up with my own full body workout - but the SparkPeople site has made me a little lazy lately.

Am I running an actual 5k? When?
Yes, my plan is to run this 5k on April 19th. I don’t have a speed goal – I just want to be able to say I ran it. I’ve done 5k runs before where I walked most of the distance and ran a little, but this time I will run the whole time. (Notice how I say WILL instead of WILL TRY TO. Will Will Will. I’m working really hard to believe myself here.) I suspect I may run more slowly than some people walk it, but so be it. Speed will come later if I decide to continue this running thang.

What do you listen to on your iPod when you do your couch to 5k runs? Is it inspiring?
There are these free podcasts you can download for the couch to 5k program that tell you when to walk and when to run. They work great for me because I’d get very annoyed and probably lose track if I tried to check my watch the whole time. From what I understand I might be able to program a heartrate monitor to tell me when to walk and run, but I don’t have a heartrate monitor yet. The podcasts have music, and the music is good (not what I usually listen to, but good for running). The music does help keep me going, and it’s nice that the guy on the podcasts tells me “you’re doing great!” and “keep your shoulders relaxed and arms loose” and all. I’m looking forward to being able to run using my music though – it may help a little with the motivation, from what you guys tell me.

What do you look like? Where are your pictures?
You know, I have to tell ya, I'm a little freaked out by the idea of posting my picture on here! I have no problem with revealing my innermost self and thoughts and twisted sense of humor, and I’ll willingly share my outermost stats (like weight), but I could be in a very bad position professionally if someone I works with runs across this blog and reads about my frustrations with someone I work with, or my thoughts about possibly changing careers, etc. I don't think I've said anything that would get me fired (yet), but I’ve definitely said things that would make for a sticky situation. And better safe than sorry … being dooced is not something I want.
So ... yeah. I say “Not yet, maybe never” on the request for me to post a picture … or maybe someday I’ll post an "after" picture from the neck down (although unfortunately I didn't take a before pic). Maybe. I know the chances of any of the abovementioned folks coming across this blog are slim to none, but it is a small, small world. I've run into friends at gas stations hours away in different states, my brother ran into someone he knew when he was in London, I ran into someone I knew at an airport halfway across the country ... these things can happen!* It might be irrational, who knows, but I’m not paranoid about most things so I’m going to trust my instincts here. I don’t think my concern is unfounded. Hey, what did you say? Are you talking about me? Stop talking about me! I’m not paranoid! I’m not!

You’re almost at goal. How will going on maintenance change what you eat?
When I go on maintenance I can add a few more points a day to my daily points target. I start at 4 more points (so, approximately 240 more calories), and then experiment, gradually adding on from there if I keep losing weight (since the goal will be to stay the same weight). But from a “what exactly are you going to add,” I’m not sure. I’ve contemplated doing more to wipe artificial sweeteners out of my diet. I eat yogurt with artificial sweeteners almost every day, and ice cream bars with artificial sweeteners every couple days, and the occasional diet soda – I could switch from those products to the real deal, which will up the calories/points. It’s quite a debate, though, because being able to eat MORE food would be awfully nice. My points target right now is 20 points a day. That’s not a lot of food. So … I'm not sure. I guess we’ll see how it shakes out when it happens.

When you had the healthy-eating meltdown and ate the McDonald’s food over the weekend last weekend, was it at least good? Sadly, no. The burger was not fresh. It was a total waste of points. On the other hand, the French fries were a little bit of greasy heaven …

* Given the small world we live in, I recognize that theoretically someone I know could stumble on this blog, read it, think “this sounds just like someone I know!” and ask me about it. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Couch to 5k Week 4: It's all in my head

2008-02-27T07:15:00.003-06:00

Today I do my couch to 5k (week 4 day 2) run. I did my couch to 5k week 4 day 1 run on Monday (and then an hour of strength training with some intense cardio mixed in – I was soooore yesterday, and I’m still recovering today!).

Monday’s run went better than I expected. It’s strange – at the end of every week I doubt that I’m ready for the next week, and so far every week I’ve been able to it. This week I have to run 5 minutes at a stretch two different times. I’m pretty sure I’ve never run that long in my life. I certainly haven’t run 5 minutes at a stretch in my adult life, anyway. And if I did it as a kid it would only have been when it was demanded by a brutish gym teacher.

I slowed my pace for the 5 minute run – I’m finding that I can’t keep up the faster pace that I was going when I was only running a minute at a time. (And my faster pace was pretty slow! Oh well.) I focused on my breathing and got through it with minimal discomfort. I was worried about side stitches, but they didn’t happen. I did have some very very slight pain in my right knee, which is new. Hopefully that won’t become a problem for me.

I am to the point where I’m starting to see that running is as much mental as physical. Running 5 minutes … well, this may sound wimpy, but it seemed like a long time. I had a lot of thoughts of “is the 5 minutes over yet?” and “why would anyone ever want to run this long?” and “if running 5 minutes feels this long, how am I going to run 30 minutes?” etc. etc. etc.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of positive self talk, and I told myself that I was doing great and to keep it up, and that the folks who designed the couch to 5k program know what they’re doing, and that people run 5k’s all the time and I’m no different from those people, and that I could do it.

So, I could talk myself into continuing using positive self-talk, but I also had all those other not-so-positive thoughts. I have a feeling that I’m going to have quite a mental debate on my hands for the next 6-8 weeks. If any of you guys are runners and you have any suggestions to the mental side of this running thing, I’m all ears. If I can stop those negative voices sooner rather than later it would be a good thing.

I’m a little concerned about having the positive talk, the negative talk, and the music/walk-run instructions on my iPod all happening at the same time. With all that, I’m going to be so distracted as I run down the street that I’ll get flattened by a car.

Ack! I want flat abs, but that’s not the way to get them!

Where am I? (Volume 5)

2008-02-26T08:36:00.002-06:00

It’s Tuesday, the day to review where I am in my weight loss journey.

Where am I? Is sore a location? Because after my workout last night, I’m sore. Last night I did my couch to 5k week 4 day 1 run, and then an hour of strength training with some intense cardio mixed in. It was a great workout, and an interesting run. I’ll talk about couch to 5k run in more detail in another post, though.

Let’s talk about the weight loss part of this journey for now. Where am I in my weight loss journey? We’ll start with the data.

Weight loss since last Tuesday: 0.6 lbs (137.2 vs. 136.6)
Yay for a loss! I had a wonderful on-plan week last week until Saturday, and then I crashed and burned over the weekend. I’m glad to see the loss this week.

Weight loss since fall 2007 (most recent leg of weight loss journey): 15.8 lbs (152.4 vs. 136.6).
I got my 15 lb badge last week, so there’s nothing new to report this week.

Total weight lost (entire weight loss journey): 30.4 lbs (167 vs. 136.6)
I earned my 30 lb badge! Woo hoo!

Exercise: Last week was the first week I’d earned my exercise badge, and I felt confident I’d earn it this week, too.

I was wrong.

I worked out Monday and Wednesday, but I dropped the ball on my 3rd workout of the week. Life got in the way on Friday and Saturday, and because of the intensity of my Monday workouts a Sunday workout is unwise.

I’m bummed that I didn’t reach my exercise goal for a couple reasons. First, I’m going to be in maintenance soon, and I’ll need to shift some of my focus from my weight to my fitness level. I don’t just want to be skinny, I want to be fit and healthy and strong. I need to ramp up the exercise, not slack off on it.

I’m also bummed because I’m training for a 5k that’s on April 19th. That should be completely doable; if I follow the couch to 5k plan by the books I’ll finish on April 4th or 5th. That means I have a couple weeks in between in case I need to repeat weeks … but only a couple weeks. I’m annoyed with myself that I gave up some of my ability to repeat weeks if I need to by missing my workout this past weekend. Life happens, I know that, but … well, I need to find a way to fit these workouts into my life.

Oh well. Maybe now that I’ve annoyed myself, I’ll be more focused on making sure I get the 3x/week couch to 5k run in, right?

My exercise goal for this coming week stays the same … 3x/week cardio doing couch to 5k and 2x/week strength training. I am going to try something different, though. I’d been doing strength and cardio on Monday and either Friday or Saturday, and cardio-only on Wednesday. Since my Wednesday evening is unscheduled, I’m going to plan to do strength on Monday and Wednesday this week, which means my Friday or Saturday workout is shorter. I can always do strength on Friday/Saturday, too, if I have time. Who knows, maybe if I do that I’ll get 3 strength workouts in, exceeding my goal. If not, maybe I’ll at least meet the goal.

And as far as a weight loss goal for the week, I’m not setting a specific goal. I’m going to stay on plan eating within my WW points, drink lots of water, and track everything I eat. If I do that, the weight will come off.

Oops.

2008-02-25T10:25:00.002-06:00

I did not have the best weekend.

I mean, from the perspective of “was it an enjoyable weekend?” it was quite nice. But from a fitness and healthy eating perspective … ugh.

Friday night I met up with some friends for happy hour, and we ended up staying for dinner. Luckily we were at an Asian fusion restaurant, so I was able to have sushi for dinner. I didn’t drink much and I stayed on plan using a few flex points. It was all-good on Friday … my healthy eating halo remained untarnished.

But then Saturday came along.

To stay on plan, I would have needed to do my couch to 5k run on Saturday, and I’d need to eat reasonably but not impeccably on Saturday and Sunday … I had about 20 flex-points left. Completely doable, right?

Apparently not.

Remember late last week when I was saying that I needed to go to the grocery store? By Saturday morning, it was a desperate situation. If you opened the cabinet door, moths flew out.* Anyway, I got up Saturday morning, did some cleaning and organizing, and then got ready to head out of the house. My plan was to go visit a friend in the hospital, then go grocery shopping, then go to the gym, then go home and have dinner with my husband. Unfortunately, by the time I got out of the house on the road, I was RAVENOUS. I’d eaten a little something, but not much. And when I get to the point where I’m so hungry I could gnaw my arm off, I don’t make good choices.

And then I saw those golden arches. And as I was driving by, somehow a quarter pounder with cheese and a large order of fries jumped through the window and into my mouth. It happened just like that, I swear! Damn you, combo #3!

Ugh. That was definitely the largest single misstep on the eating side of things. But it all just snowballed … I got back from seeing my friend hours after I expected, making my grocery trip much later than expected (yay! We have healthy food again!), making going to the gym before dinner not an option, and the Saturday gym hours making a post-dinner gym visit impossible … ugh. That meant no weekend workout, since I didn’t want to do my couch to 5k run on Sunday because I knew I’d be doing couch to 5k and strength training tonight.**

Add a couple late-Saturday and Sunday not-horrible-but-not-the-best-choice-ever food choices to the Mickey D’s fiasco, and by the end of the weekend … well, let’s just say that by the end of the weekend my points balance was waaaaaaaaaaaay into the negative range.

All I can do after a weekend like this one is get up, brush the crumbs off my sweater, and move on. I’m trying to look back and learn from the weekend, and not beat myself up about it.

What went wrong? Looking back, it boils down to priorities. Not going grocery shopping did me in. I should have jumped out of bed Saturday morning and gone straight to the grocery store rather than doing cleaning/organizing. I’ve been trying to do some de-cluttering every weekend, but the de-cluttering should have been a lower priority than the grocery shopping trip. I shouldn’t have let myself get into the position of being that hungry, because I get irrational. I don’t give a rat’s ass about healthy eating when I get that hungry.

Also, I hate to admit it, but I should have gotten up earlier on Saturday. Beauty sleep be damned - there just wasn’t enough time in the day. If I’d gotten my arse out of bed there would have been more time. If I’d shifted the hospital visit to earlier in the day, there would have been time for the workout before dinner.

All in all, though, it’s not the end of the world. The scale is up, but it will go down again. I made some bad eating decisions, but I also made good eating decisions. My “bad weekend” was nowhere near as bad as the weekends I had before I was being health-aware.

I’m not having a terribly hard time getting over the food mistakes. I’m more annoyed with myself about not doing my couch to 5k run. Not doing the couch to 5k run has set my 5k training plan back; the missed run shifts the workouts I’ll be doing for the next 6 weeks. Since I’ve got my sights set on a specific 5k to run, now I have a tad less flexibility when it comes to repeating days or weeks as the running gets more intense.

Oh well. Time to move on. Tonight, the gym and I will get reacquainted. Sorry I blew you off Saturday, gym!

* Even though I suspect moths are a low-point choice, I'm not eating moths. Period. I ate a stir-fried silkworm pupa once when I was overseas ... I'm not eating bugs again. Blech.
** Remember, Monday is always workout night - I meet up with my husband, a friend, and a trainer.

Motivation looks a lot like a bikini

2008-02-22T11:22:00.002-06:00

In a couple months, my husband and I celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary. It’s been a great 5 years, and we have a lot to be grateful for. There have been ups and downs, but many more ups than downs. To celebrate, we just booked a trip to a beach resort in Mexico.

Now there’s a reason to lose these last few pounds!

I tell ya, going to Mexico feels a liiiittle bit like a cop-out. Typically we like to visit places we’ve never been before; we like to go, see and do … we like to sight-see and learn and experience local culture and change hotels every night or two to see more of the countries we visit. Not this time – this time we are going to a region we’ve been before, we’re staying at one place all week, and we may never leave the resort. We talked about doing an interesting go-see-do vacation, and decided that isn’t what we need right now. This vacation is all about relaxing. As far as sightseeing goes … well … been there, done that, pass me a cocktail.

I can’t wait!

This upcoming vacation definitely gives me a motivation boost. Knowing that I’ll be in a bathing suit … knowing that I’ll be in PUBLIC in a BIKINI… that’s definitely going to keep me focused. Plus, most of my nice clothes will only fit when I’m at goal. And won’t it be nice to look at pictures of myself on our honeymoon and look at pictures of our 5 year anniversary trip and be able to say I’m the same size?

Heck, I may even be able to say I’m in better shape. We leave for our vacation exactly one week after the 5k I’m planning on running.

Yay! If I wasn’t focused before, I’m definitely focused now.

How are things going, you ask? I’m still on track in my “back to the basics” week. I drank all my water yesterday, journaled everything yesterday, and managed to make healthy choices eating out last night. Even after splurging a little on Tuesday night, I still have plenty of flex-points left for the weekend.

From an exercise standpoint, I finished Couch to 5k week 3 day 3 on Wednesday. It was hard but not impossible … it was easier than Week 3 day 1, but harder than Week 3 day 2. (Even though all three days were the same – isn’t it odd how the difficulty seems to vary even though the workout doesn’t?) Tomorrow will be much nicer weather than today, so I’m planning on doing my couch to 5k week 4 day 1 run tomorrow, along with a strength training session. I’m still on track as long as I do it before Sunday. I’m nervous about week 4 (it looks a lot harder than week 3), but I’ve surprised myself before doing these runs so maybe I’ll surprise myself again.

I’m going out to dinner again tonight, but based on what I hear about this place I should be able to make healthy choices. If all goes well I may even be able to get a little popcorn at the movies tonight and still be on plan.

All in all, things are good! The only challenge is that I still haven’t made it to the grocery store. To get my fruits and veggies in, I’m dipping into the cabinet and freezer … applesauce, edamame, and other frozen veggies are my friend right now. I’ve got to get to the store – I miss fresh produce!

Back to the basics check-in

2008-02-21T09:22:00.002-06:00

Tuesday I mentioned that I needed to get back to the basics of the Weight Watchers program. Here’s a quick update on where I stand in my week of “back to the basics.”

I got aalllll my water in yesterday. I’m tempted to count activity points for running to the bathroom, I was peeing so much.
I journaled all my food yesterday, and I went back and journaled my Tuesday food intake, too. Looking at the numbers, Tuesday was not great, but it could have been worse. Thank goodness my husband and I split the cheeseburger and fries that we ordered Tuesday night. And thank goodness for flex points.
Yesterday ended up being a very good on-plan day from an eating standpoint.
Yesterday I blew off my evening plans, and went for my couch to 5k run (which I didn’t manage to do at lunch – stupid work). I was able to relax at home, eat sensibly, and watch The Biggest Loser which I’d recorded on the DVR. Unfortunately, I also had a great deal of guilt because I blew off entertaining a co-worker visiting from out of town. If it had been any other week, I wouldn’t have blown her off. But … I needed a night to relax. I’ll live with the guilt and the career fall-out. It’s not like I enjoy my job much these days anyway.
The scale FINALLY moved in the right direction this morning. The up up up up trend has been broken.
Tonight and tomorrow are both nights out. I have every intention of making healthy choices both nights. I'll keep you posted.

In short, getting back to the basics is going well. Yay!

Now I need to find time to get to the grocery store. Yesterday I ate the last apple and all the carrots and celery in the house.

Couch to 5k Week 3: In Progress

2008-02-20T08:45:00.002-06:00

Alternate Title: “You’re going the wrong way!”

On Sunday I wrote about doing my Couch to 5k Week 3 Day 1 run, and how I got these crazy side stitches. Well, thanks to some great advice from Cami, I ran a side-stitch-free week 3 day 2 on Monday. Thanks Cami!

I’m extra-glad to rid myself of side stitches as I do more research into what causes them. It seems that as you go running down the road, you’re bouncing your guts all around. If you don’t get your steps and breathing just right, you stretch ligaments that hold your liver in place, which causes pain. Yikes! I need that liver for cleaning up my blood and creating its fat-breaker-downer stuff! I’m glad Cami helped me figure out how to jog without joggling my liver around.

Week 3 day 2 went really well – better than I expected given my discomfort on day 1. I’m due to run week 3 day 3 today, but I’m a little concerned about having time for it. I’ll have to run it at lunch time to fit it into my day. Let’s hope it isn’t raining.

The whole week is concerning, actually. Once again I saw an increase on the scale this morning. Unlike yesterday, if I look at my weight today vs. my weight a week ago, now I see a slight gain. Ack! Like I said yesterday, it’s time to get back to the basics and focus. But every single night this week I have to go out in the evening for one reason or another. Every night involves a food-related social events in restaurants I didn’t select. This is a rough week to try to get back to the basics.

Of course, if I maintain or gain this week, I can lose next week. I totally get it – this one week is not tragic from a big picture perspective. Life happens, and when it comes right down to it I wouldn’t want to give up weeks like this. I am trying to be patient. In time I will get to goal. But to be so close, and be moving backwards … it’s maddening!

Where Am I? (Volume 4)

2008-02-19T08:19:00.004-06:00

Happy Tuesday! Time for the "Where am I in my weight loss journey" stats check for the Healthy You Challenge.

Let's start with the official numbers. The envelope please ...

Weight loss since last Tuesday: 0.6 lbs (137.8 vs. 137.2)
Well, I was aiming for losing 0.8, but 0.6 is a-OK. I'd been losing fairly quickly given that I'm close to goal. Losing 0.6 is completely respectable. I'll take it. I'll just aim to lose 0.2 or more this upcoming week, right?

Weight loss since fall 2007 (most recent leg of weight loss journey): 15.2 lbs (152.4 vs. 137.2)
I earned my 15 lb badge!

Total weight lost (entire weight loss journey): 29.8 lbs (167 vs. 137.2)
So close, so close, so close to the 30 lb badge. Next week. I'll get it next week.

Exercise: I'd been having a hard time with exercise up until very recently. My current goal is 3x/week cardio doing the couch to 5k running plan, and then 2x/week strength training. Last Tuesday I couldn't say I earned my exercise badge. But this Tuesday ...

Ta daaaa! I met my exercise goal!

I did the couch to 5k run on M/W/Sat, and did strength training Monday and Saturday. I'm on track for earning the badge again this week, too ... I did my run and strength training yesterday, as well.

All in all it wasn't a bad week; in fact, it was pretty good. That said, my scale numbers drifted down until Saturday and drifted back up through today. I don't pay much attention to one number on one day, but I do watch trends. I'm slightly concerned about this upward drifting. It might just be normal weekend weight gain combined with some water retention from the exercise, but it might be that I need to focus a little more.

In case it is a lack of focus, here's my plan for the week:

Meet my exercise goal again. That's 3x cardio via couch to 5k runs, and 2x strength training.
Eat on plan, and journal everything. I think I've been on plan, but I've been slacking on journaling lately. I keep a running total of points in my head, and generally it works OK, but it is much safer to write it down. It keeps me focused and helps me plan. I'm less likely to go over my daily points accidentally if I write down what I eat. So ... I've got to get back to journaling.
Water and more water. I suspect some of the upward drift on the scale is water retention. I'll fight back by being extra-focused on water. As soon as I finish this post I'm going downstairs to fill a pitcher to the line I measured years ago when I first started Weight Watchers. I'll do that daily, keep it in the fridge, and I'll make sure it gets emptied every day.

The last two bullets are very "back to the basics of the Weight Watchers plan" for me, which is exactly what I need when the scale isn't sayng what I want it to say. I'm not sure I have a scale issue here, but I'm not taking any chances.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to a great week. Hope you all have a great week, too.

Couch to 5k Week 3 Day 1 (aka, OUCH)

2008-02-17T08:58:00.002-06:00

Yesterday I ran C25k week 3 day 1. This week includes warming up, running for 90 seconds, walking for 90 seconds, running for 3 minutes, walking for three minutes, and then repeating all the run/walk patterns again.

Weelll … I did it, but OW! I had the worst side stitches. They started during my first 90 second run, eased up some on my 90 second walk, then got REALLY uncomfortable during my 3 minute run. I kept going and worked on my breathing, but it didn’t ease up until I started walking again. Thankfully, by the time my next 90 second run the side stitch was gone, and the second 3 minute run was much easier.

I looked up the side stitch thing on CoolRunning, and it says that it could be that I was running too fast (maybe, but I ran more slowly this week than in the past because I knew I’d run for twice as long at a stretch), maybe I ran too soon after eating (I know this was not the problem), or maybe my breathing isn’t controlled and disciplined. I suspect it’s the last one. I need to do some homework on how to fix my breathing, because that side stitch quite frankly sucked.

Although I guess I should be grateful that I don't have runners trots or bloody nipples, which are both mentioned on the same page as the side stitch issue. Thank you, no. I'll pass on those other two.

Anyway, after the running I did strength training. I was at the gym so I got to play on all the machines – it made me realize how much I enjoy working out with machines sans trainer. I can get a good workout at home with my dumbbells and push-ups/sit-ups/planks/etc., but the machines are a nice change.

Today I’m pleasantly sore but not incapacitated. And I’m pleased to say that on Tuesday, when I check in for the Healthy You Challenge, I’ll FINALLY be able to say I met my weekly exercise goal.

Welcome to the land of DUH.

2008-02-16T09:32:00.004-06:00

If you've been reading my blog, you know I weigh in daily. (If you haven't, here's the background on that.) Well, when I stepped on the scale this morning, I was surprised to see a number below 135.

WOW.

I guess it's silly that I found today's number surprising. My weight has been varying slightly, up and down, like it always does. And like it always does when I'm on plan, it generally trends downwards. (No, I don't always lose, but I always lose over time. When I'm on plan, that is.) I've been up and down near 135-136 for a while, so it should be no surprise that I got below 135, right?

But it was a surprise. It was a pleasant shock to the system to see that number. I don't think it had hit me before. I'm really close to goal!

I'm going to be on maintenance soon!

A Weight Watchers confession

2008-02-15T18:24:00.004-06:00

I was supposed to go to a Weight Watchers meeting with a friend of mine tomorrow morning, and it looks like she’s bailing on me. I’m not terribly disappointed about this change in plans.

Why? Weeeelll …

I haven’t been to a Weight Watcher’s meeting since early October 2007. There. I said it.

I used to get a lot out of the meetings. People had words of wisdom and advice, everyone was supportive, you could help others and others could help you, someone would always have a new product to tell about … good stuff. It really was. It was good stuff. I have no regrets about going to the meetings. In the past, I could not have lost weight without the meetings.

If you asked me today if you should go to the meetings, I would say yes. Go.

They were the best thing ever for me … in 2003.

And they were pretty darned helpful … in 2005.

But when I went back last year, I wasn’t feeling the love. I went back twice when I started losing weight again. And I liked and respected the leader. I didn’t mind weighing in. I had faith in the program. I didn’t even mind paying … they came up with a great program, so I’ll pay for it. But … ugh! The lines! All those people! All the waiting! And this was back in October … I’m not even talking about January, when the place REALLY becomes a zoo.

I think somehow in my mental cost/benefit analysis, the costs became greater than the benefits.

It probably sounds crazy, but I feel like a bad Weight Watchers person. I feel like I should want to go to the meetings. I feel like I should encourage YOU to go to the meetings. I feel like I should keep my big fat mouth shut about the fact that I’ve stopped attending meetings. (I also feel like I drank the Kool-Aid, since I feel bad about all this.)

Know what’s even worse than the fact that I’m not going to the meetings? I don’t really miss the meetings. Especially now that I’m blogging. I feel like there is a community out here that is just as supportive, if not more supportive, than the community at the meetings.

But I was willing to give it a shot, since I had a friend who was going, too. If nothing else, I’ll be there to support my friend, right? The meeting we were going to attend tomorrow is in the next town over, in a different center than the one I used to go to. Maybe this place will be less of a zoo. Maybe it won’t just be about supporting a friend, maybe I’ll regain my love for the meetings.

But I won’t find out this week, it seems …

Couch to 5k Week 2 is ...

2008-02-14T17:36:00.005-06:00

... DONE!

On to week 3!

Oh, and I got some good advice from Erin at Our Wicked Weighs. She said "Don't necessarily tell yourself you know you will have to repeat a few weeks; you may be surprised at how fit you get and how quickly you are able to do it! Don't sell yourself short."

Thanks, Erin. That's good advice. No more saying "I KNOW I'll have to repeat a few weeks." Forget that. I may, but that's sure not my goal. My intention is to finish this without hurting myself, but I will absolutely stretch myself to achieve this goal. Maybe I can do it without repeating weeks. Maybe I can't, but maybe, just maybe, I CAN.

Erin also mentioned in her Couch to 5k post that she found Couch to 5k programs for 4 and 7 month intervals. The C25k thing I'm doing is a two month program, but that's not going to be a good fit for everyone. I was happy to know there are other options, so I wanted to let you know, too. There are links in Erin's post if you want to check it out.

Week 3 starts Saturday. I also need to get a strength training workout in. Ugh - the weather Saturday looks like it will be 100% rotten, with a slight chance of extra-crappy. That means I have to get over to the gym to do it. I have to try to convince husband to join me. If I can get him on board, it'll be much easier to make myself go. Wish me luck!

And Happy Valentine's Day!

Did I mention that life is short?

2008-02-14T09:28:00.003-06:00

(I can’t even pretend that this post is fitness related. This one definitely falls into the “I'll also occasionally ramble on about other life experiences and events. There's more to life than fitness” category.)

Thanks for your support yesterday, everyone. I can’t tell you how much it means to me.

What I can tell you is what contributed to my thoughts about a career change. There’s more to it than my escalating work dissatisfaction.

I recently saw links to the video sites below on someone else’s blog.* These are videos of Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch giving his last lecture. He is dying from pancreatic cancer, and his talk is "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams." This guy is amazing, inspirational, and … really amazing. He talked about life lessons learned and gave advice on how to achieve career and personal goals.

Here’s the version I would recommend. It’s long. About an hour and a half long, to be specific. But watch it. Seriously, watch it. Come on, there’s a writers strike, there's nothing on TV … step away from the TV and watch this instead. It is worth every second.

Here’s a much shorter version, where he gave a mini-lecture on Oprah. It’s not as good … he’s rushed and there’s a lot of interesting stuff missing. But not as good is still damned good, so if you really only have 15 minutes then watch this one. FYI, I watched the short one then went back to watch the long one because it was so good. I’m glad I watched the longer one, and I wish I’d skipped straight to it because watching the shorter one was like reading the end of a book first.

So I watched this video.

To understand where I was mentally and emotionally when I watched it, I have to put it into context. I watched this video two weeks after my best friend’s mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. It was also a little under five months after my grandmother died of terminal cancer. My family spent nine months in 2007** caring for my grandmother, and I anticipate that my best friend and her sister will spend most of 2008 caring for her mother. It goes without saying that these are life-changing experiences. (Although apparently I felt like I had to say it anyway.)

So here I am, confronted repeatedly by life’s fragility and transience. Add to that my work dissatisfaction, and is it any wonder that the video had an impact?

Life is short. TOO short. We should live it fully, and I’m not sure I can say I’m doing that right now.

After watching the "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" lecture, I started to think about my childhood dreams. I was a creative child … I took art classes and wrote stories (unprompted – not as school assignments) and I daydreamed. I was an introvert with an active imagination, and when I grew up I wanted to be an interior designer. This was in the mid to late 70’s – long before HGTV! All of that drifted away around puberty; I think the social pressures were such that my dreamy introverted artsy way of being didn’t work with the boys and friends scene.

Fast forward through high school and college and graduate school and over a decade in the work-force. Somehow I’ve become this analytic creature! Granted, I find that my employers typically like me because I have a creative problem-solving approach, but still. There’s a big piece of who I am that I left behind a long time ago. A couple years ago my current job used to tap into that creative side occasionally, and I think it’s what kept me happy here. But the last two years have been different. Management and organizational focus has changed. Now, creativity is a thing of the past and, because of that and other crapola, I’m becoming an analytical cynical dissatisfied employee.

And I started thinking … what brings me joy? What do I like to do on my days off? And the answer is … you guessed it … putting together fun, funky, functional home décor, as well as landscaping my yard. Which leads me to think that my childhood dreams weren’t too off-target. Becoming an interior decorator or landscape architect would be a good fit for me in terms of aligning my career with things I love. And the more think about it, the more appealing those options are.

But is either one of those feasible? That’s a question I can’t answer yet.

To answer the question, I think the first step is research research research. Research, and list-making. I’m glad I’m not alone in my anal-retentive OCD list-making. My blogger family understands … ya gotta make a list. So, my next step … well, my next step is to do research and figure out my next step. Right now I have more questions than answers.

What are my options? What can I do while I’m still employed at my current job? How long would I need out of the workforce, if any? Financially, what do I need to do to prepare for the possibility of being out of the workforce for a while, and returning to the workforce at a lower income? How do the degrees I have reduce the time it’ll take to get new degrees I may need? What is the job really like? How can I use the skills I have to position myself well in the new industry?

I have work to do!

Thanks again for your support. You guys have helped me think this through. I don’t know if I’ll actually do this career change thing or not, but I have to at least check into it. It’s too important to blow off. Life it too short!

*I’m so sorry – I don’t remember who had it. It was a while back, and I just don’t remember who it was. I’d totally link to you if I remembered

** Someday I’ll talk more about 2007 – those 9 months were the worst months of my life by far. Oh, as a side note? Please don't smoke.

No pain, no gain?

2008-02-13T07:21:00.002-06:00

Oh my gawd, yesterday I was SO sore. It hurt to move. My muscles were very upset with me. My Monday night couch to 5k run which I followed immediately by a very difficult strength/interval training session just about did me in on Tuesday. Somehow the pain and discomfort got worse as the day went on, too. Ugh! I was staggering around the house like Frankenstein. Eventually I got into a hothothot shower and stretched, and that helped a little. Today seems mostly (although not completely) better, thank goodness.

If I feel like that every Tuesday, I really have to re-think the Monday exercise game plan. I love the idea of knocking out both the couch to 5k run and a good long strength/interval training session in one day, but man. I was hurting. The Monday night training is with my husband, friend and a trainer, and the trainer just kicked our butts this week. I’ll try this another week or two and we’ll see … the trainer thinks it’s a great idea to do the run before our session because then I’m all warmed up for her, but … damn.

I just kept telling myself that all this pain will equal a big loss and a nice toned body. Of course, I was responding to myself by saying: shut it; at this rate I’ll need a walker. Or maybe even replacement limbs. It was like I had the whole devil on one shoulder/angel on the other thing happening. Gotta love the internal dialogue.

I don’t know if it was because I was so physically exhausted, but I ended up having a bad day at work. Nothing major happened, but lots of little annoying things happened, and these were the same kind of little annoying things that have been happening a lot over the past year or two.

The little annoyances got me thinking about something I’ve contemplated more and more lately … maybe I should consider a career change. But although it is appealing, I am terrified by the idea of starting down a new career path at this age. I have a well-established career and I have a decent salary. I make a little more money than my husband, so without my job our household loses more than half our combined income. Although we’re not wealthy, right now we aren’t struggling to make ends meet, either. That wouldn’t be our situation if I stopped working at my current job; it would become a struggle if I went back to school. Plus, it would take years to re-establish myself in a new industry. It all seems so risky and scary.

But at the same time, life is short. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m going to look back at my years at my job and wonder why I didn’t get the heck out of dodge. I like some things about my job, but less and less as time passes. I’m afraid I’m limiting myself. Right now my entire work existence is about being analytical, and I feel like my creative side is being stifled. It might be hard, but maybe it would be a positive change in the long run. Life isn’t all about being comfortable, you know?

Hahaha, maybe my ability to tolerate my physical discomfort made me think about my ability to tolerate financial discomfort.

Anyway, I’m mulling it over. This is something I’m going to have to think about a while.

Have you guys ever been through he same thing?

Where am I? (Volume 3)

2008-02-12T07:54:00.000-06:00

Happy Tuesday! It's the Healthy You Challenge stats check day.

Weeeeell ... I had a kick-ass week last week, but indulged a little on Sunday and a little on Monday (damned bagel), and now the scale is up a bit from late last week. The official numbers are a-OK, though.

Drum roll, please!

Weight loss since last Tuesday: 1.4 lbs (139.2 vs. 137.8)
Woo hoo! I'd set the goal of trying to get 1.2 lbs per week for this week and next week in order to earn a couple badges next week, and I made it! Next week I need to lose 1 lb to stay on track. Possible, but it might be challenging with the long weekend this weekend.

Weight loss since fall 2007 (most recent leg of weight loss journey): 14.6 lbs (152.4 vs. 137.8)
Wow, 0.4 lbs until my 15 lb badge.

Total weight lost (entire weight loss journey): 29.2 lbs (167 vs. 137.8)
Ooooh, 0.8 more lbs until my 30 lb badge.

Hmmm, I'd said I needed to lose 1.0 this week to earn my badges, but it looks like it is 0.8 instead. And I do math-y stuff for a living. How embarrassing.

Last week I also set out to earn my exercise badge. I'm doing the couch to 5k, and I wanted to do those three runs as my cardio workouts plus two strength training workouts. Unfortunately I only did 3 cardio + 1.3 strength workouts (since my strength workout was interrupted Saturday). Oh well. Next week! Next week I will earn the exercise badge. Same goal - three runs/cardio workouts plus two strength training workouts.

Oh, I did earn one badge this week - I had a definite non-scale victory. Ta daaaa!

I talked about this in my post yesterday. I went in to the office (a rare event), and one person said I look thinner (yay!) and taller than I used to look, and another person mentioned I looked “about a foot taller.” Taller ... crazy eh? Grumpy Chair asked if I'm doing pilates because apparently that makes you stand straighter and feel and look taller and leaner, but I'm not doing pilates. I’m interpreting taller as thinner + well-fitting dark pants + boots with a heel. Hey, and (even sans pilates) maybe I am holding myself better. I'm feeling a lot better about how I look these days.

Maybe feeling better about how I look is a kind of non-scale victory, too. I am no supermodel, but when I look in the mirror I like what I see. I'm back in 95% of my old tops, and I can wear my old jeans now since they have stretch through my thighs, which are my trouble spot. I have shorts and pants that are still obscene, though. My fingers are crossed that a few pounds from now and a few more workouts from now, I'll be back in those, too.

You can call me the jolly green giant. Except I'm not green. Or jolly, even.

2008-02-11T18:36:00.000-06:00

I work from home, and Friday afternoon something very terrible and yet potentially wonderful happened. My laptop went on the fritz! I get up from in front of my computer late in the afternoon, I walk away, and when I walk back the laptop won’t stay powered up, and in the few moments it is powered up I have a very very very dark screen. I fiddle with it, I mess with it, there is much rebooting … nothing.

With a non-functional laptop, I had no recourse but to go into the office this morning. HORRORS!

I suppose I should be grateful that I have an office to go in to. I work from home because I work for a department that isn’t located in our local office. When I used to go into the office, I found I could go for days without talking to anyone in the same building as me (except for the occasional “hi” in the hallway, and sometimes not even that). I did get to know 6 or 7 people, but not well and I didn’t actually work with them. When I made the point that I could work during hours I’d otherwise be commuting, folks up the ladder agreed that my working from home would be a-OK.

Anyway, I get in to the office this morning and Mr. IT man and I figure out that if we change the power supply and use an external monitor and keyboard, the computer works.* I have to take some parts and pieces home with me, but I should still be able to work from home.

The potentially wonderful part? Mr. IT is implying to my bosses that my department should buy me a new laptop (although he’s not pushing it at all since they have to pay for it). WOO HOO! I hate my laptop. I swear it was designed by someone out to break my back – the thing is so danged heavy that every time I take it on a trip I’ve lost all blood to my arm by the time I get on a plane. It’s like hauling a very small, dense dead body around with me all the time. I broke down and got a backpack, which helps evenly distribute the pain but doesn’t go very far in the “try to look professional” department.

It isn’t a done deal that I get a new laptop … many people up the ladder have to approve the request, and I’m afraid some of those people will think repairing it is a good idea. The idea of getting this one repaired makes me sad on two levels – 1.) it is heavy. Very heavy. I don’t want to have to haul this monster everywhere anymore. Did I mention it’s heavy? But also, 2.) if I have to send in my laptop to be repaired, how am I supposed to work? If the laptop is far away, how do I function? Do I have to go into the office every day and use a crappy loaner computer? Please no!

Everyone, please send lots of “approve the new laptop request” vibes out to my company.

In the meantime, if I have to travel, I have no idea how I’ll manage an external monitor, keyboard, and the docking station I need to make my computer function. Anyone know of a good Sherpa I can rent?

Oh, a side note. While I was in the office I ran into three of the people I know. One didn’t say anything about my weight, one mentioned that I looked thinner (yay!) and taller than I used to look, and the third person mentioned I looked “about a foot taller.” Odd about the two taller comments, eh? Although it is tempting to try to believe I’ve had an abnormally late-in-life growth spurt, I don’t buy it. I’m interpreting taller as thinner + well-fitting dark pants + boots with a heel. So hooray for all that! I’m good with being taller and thinner!

On a not so bright side note, I didn’t resist the bagel shop I passed on the way into the office. I used to love bagels and I haven’t had a bakery bagel in … man … I can’t think of the last time. My only hope is that my couch to 5k week 2 day 2 run tonight combined with my training session will offset it somewhat. I’m sure I’ll have to use some flexpoints, too. Grr. I hate using flexpoints on a Monday (which is day 1 of my week).

Back to my point. Please remember … think “Approve the request for a new laptop, approve the request for a new laptop, approve the request for a new laptop …”

* You fancy techie folks who might think “oh, I can totally fix that” … you guys can just shut it. I want a new computer.

Exercise, Interrupted

2008-02-10T08:47:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I officially ran couch to 5k week 2 day 1. It went well ... I could tell it was harder than week 1 when I was running it, and today I'm a wee bit stiff. Since I was doing some walk/run alternations on the treadmill before I started the official program, I think my body was ready for week 2. On the other hand, it is safe to say that week 3 will be out of my comfort zone completely. I'm very interested to see how that goes. Interested, and fearful, and excited, actually. All at the same time. Nothing like a little emotional stew to make the exercise interesting, eh?

When I was out in my neighborhood running yesterday, I had a paranoid thought. If I keel over on the road next week, I can't call anyone. I don't carry my cell with me. Hey, runners out there: Do you guys carry your phone when you run? Where do you put it? And if I pass out cold, I have no ID with me, either. Do you carry ID? Where?

I'M TOO YOUNG TO DIE!

Riiiiiight. OK, shake it off, shake it off. But I am curious.

Anyway ...

After the run, I came home to do strength training. I did lunges down the street, and then came inside to do abs and arms and more legs. I have dumbbells and a balance ball and a medicine ball in a corner of our living room. I call that decorating style "Early American Losethebadonkadonkbutt." But I digress.

I was saying, after running and lunges I head inside to strength train. Fate was against me, though. I got a phone call 1/3 of the way into the strength workout, and by the time I was off the phone I was out of time for working out. Typically I don't answer the phone when I'm working out, but I had to take this call. I guess this means that I didn't officially reach my exercise goal this week. THAT STINKS! I was so psyched to be able to say I actually got all my exercise in. POOP.

Technically, I could do strength training today and meet the goal, but since tomorrow is my evening with the trainer and we'll do LOTS of strength training, I don't want to it today, too. Every other day, recovery time, blah blah blah. Bummer.

Nevertheless, I'm happy with the progress I'm making on the exercise front. The momentum and motivation are finally there. Yay for that!

My love/hate relationship with Buffalo Wild Wings

2008-02-07T12:49:00.000-06:00

Tonight I’m meeting up with some friends to go to Buffalo Wild Wings. (From here on out Buffalo Wild Wings = BWW because that’s too durned much to type.) Do you guys have BWW in your area? My gawd they have good wings. I credit some of my 2007 weight gain to BWW and their wings.

I used to go to BWW with my friends all the time. I’d order 12 wings with sauce, plus a little ranch dressing, a couple 24 oz. light beers, AND some sort of appetizer to share. Hey, at least they were light beers, right? Ugh. Based on what I found online, the 12 wings cost me about 35 points, the beer would be 8, I’m going to throw another 4 points for the ranch, and who knows how many points for the appetizer. That’s 47 points before the appetizer is even factored in! That is MORE THAN TWO DAYS WORTH OF POINTS FOR ME! In ONE MEAL!

Sorry to yell, but that’s just crazy.

When I got my eating back under control last fall, I stopped texting people saying “BWW 7 PM” … and our friends stopped going for a while. It seemed my husband and I were the big BWW pushers in the group. But then in December when a couple of months had passed without a BWW trip, my friends started talking about how much they missed going. At that point, I started trying to hunt down BWW nutrition and points information.

There is a little bit of information out there. You can find info if you really dig around, but in general the company does not openly provide nutritional information so it isn’t easy to come by, and I wonder if the information that I do find is spot-on. Anyway, from what I did find, it was clear that I’d have to seriously alter my menu choices. Since my friends started organizing BWW visits every few weeks or so, I had to figure something out. I’m not willing to kill my social life because I’m eating well. I work from home – if I don’t get out of the house, I go a little insane.

What stinks about BWW being the hangout, though, is that some of the healthy choices there are really not good.

They have naked wings – basically “grilled” unbreaded chicken breast strips. Theoretically that would be a good choice, and it is a good choice nutritionally, but they are like shoe leather. I asked a waitress about it (you know, the one who knows us because we used to go there so often?), and she said that they get made early and then they’re microwaved when folks order them. YUCK! They also have a grilled chicken sandwich that is a little easier to stomach because the texturally challenged chicken is masked by the bread and stuff, but there is SO MUCH bread. There are grilled chicken salads which are pre-made (so they’re not fabulously fresh), and they’re covered in cheese. And then there are buffalitos, which are basically chicken soft tacos.

I’ve found that the buffalitos are my best choice … it comes with chips – if I sub the chips with celery sticks and get all the sauces on the side so I can control how much I get, I estimate it to be 10-11 points. The texturally challenged grilled chicken is chopped into chunks so you don’t notice the texture as much. If I get a beer, I’m still eating more points than I usually eat in one sitting, but thank goodness we don’t do this every day or even every week, so it works out fine with a few flex points.

You know what’s funny? Now that I have been doing this eating well thing for a while, I don’t really miss the greasy regular wings. It doesn’t bother me to see folks eating them, and I enjoy being there with my friends. Plus, I get that yummy spicy sauce in my buffalitos. What does bother me is that there are so few good healthy choices there. I try to be grateful that there are some choices, but is it too much to ask that there be a variety of good tasting healthy options?

I didn’t have much of a point with this post. I just wanted to get all that off my chest.

By the way, I know switching restaurants would be an option. I did ask the group, and we did try. But because of the location and the fact that the place is run more like a bar than a restaurant (so folks who are getting off work at different times can show up at different times), BWW is the one that has worked out best for the group. Being with my friends is valuable to me and I enjoy the atmosphere, so I plan ahead, use some flex points, and it all works out. (But again, why so few good healthy choices in that place? Grrrrr!)

Oh, and also? BWW’s not providing nutritional information … it pisses me off. I’m not going to boycott them because I would be shooting myself in the foot socially. But it pisses me off.

Couch to 5k Week 1 is ...

2008-02-06T17:45:00.000-06:00

... DONE!

YAY!

On to Week 2. I'm hitting it either Friday or Saturday, and I need to get a good strength training session in before Sunday, too.

I feel really good about this C25k program. Although today I realized that the 5k I had in mind would require me to go through the program without repeating any weeks, so that might not work out. I'm trying not to let that get me down.

Let's focus on this ... I finished week 1. Hooray!

Multiple quandaries

2008-02-06T10:32:00.000-06:00

Today is going to be week 1 day 3 for me on the couch to 5k plan. Oh, before continuing, I want to welcome Blubba to the couch to 5k support group, er, I mean the group of people doing the couch to 5k. Welcome! That makes jb, Ashley, Blubba and me. Woo hoo!

Anyway, today is my day to run. And that would be just fine, except that I’m ALREADY running. I woke up this morning with an insane urge to pee, and I had to run to the bathroom. That isn’t unusual given the water intake I (try to) have. But this morning, it was worse. I think I’m coming down with a bladder infection. Ack! I’ve been running to and from the bathroom repeatedly this morning. Like, even more repeatedly than normal, even.

So I still have every intention of doing my run, but I’m a little challenged as to how to do it if I can’t go very long without peeing. I can’t exactly squat on a corner or lift a leg on a fire hydrant like a dog.

Oh, and dogs … that leads me to my next quandary. Did I mention that we had a party this past Saturday? Did I mention that I drank my weight in mimosas? (Hmm, you’d think all that vitamin C would be fighting this bladder infection. But I digress.)

So this past Saturday I’m all getting my drink on, and I start talking to my next door neighbor about how I’ve started the couch to 5k program. He has a dog, you see, and while he’s at work all day the dog is at home alone. I figure if I’m out running around the neighborhood before neighbor gets home, I might as well grab the dog and bring him along. We discuss this, and he’s open to the option, but then we start discussing how he is no dog whisperer; the dog may not be so good on the leash. We have a short dog whisperer conversation, blah blah blah, party continues.

Fast forward a couple hours. By this time my mimosas contain almost no orange juice. The last couple people, including the neighbor, are leaving. I’m trying to convince neighbor to take goodies with him, since he’s having a super bowl party on Sunday, but he resists. So what do I do? I “tssst” him repeatedly. Like the dog whisperer. Apparently I sense that calm assertive energy and a good handful of “tssst’s” will make the neighbor calm submissive, and he’ll take the goodies?

What the hell?

Alcohol is a strange, strange chemical.

So the dilemma … should I go talk to the neighbor about borrowing his dog? Maybe I should just try to let both of us forget the whole thing. Was I acting as crazy as I think I was? *sigh* Damn that demon alcohol. I guess I should be grateful … it could have been worse, right?

Right?

Oh well, that dilemma can wait. I’ll deal with facing the neighbor later. Maybe I can get over the embarrassment by this coming weekend. The more pressing issue is the issue of running with my sad broken bladder. I guess I could just run around the block over and over. That way I can stop in to the house to pee as needed.

I’ll keep you posted. I’m sure you want all the details on my running AND on my urinary tract. Oh, and of course on my new assertive/submissive relationship with my neighbor.

Where am I? (Volume 2)

2008-02-05T08:14:00.000-06:00

It's Tuesday! Know what that means? It means that twenty-four states are holding caucuses or primary elections. But that's not what this post is about ... Tuesday also means I do a "where am I in my weight loss journey" stats check for the Healthy You Challenge.

Weight loss since last Tuesday: 0.4 lbs
After this past weekend, I'm shocked to see any kind of loss. Since I expected a gain, this wee little loss is a happy surprise. Hey, I'll take it! All the little losses add up over time, right?

Weight loss since fall 2007 (most recent leg of weight loss journey): 13 lbs
I gave myself a 10 lb badge last week, so 2 more lbs until my 15 lb badge.

Total weight lost (entire weight loss journey): 27.6 lbs
I gave myself a 25 lb badge last week, so 2.4 more lbs until my 30 lb badge.

Slowly but surely I'm taking this weight off. I have 2.4 lbs until a couple big milestones ... I'm not going to try to take that much off in one week, but I'm going to set a mini-goal to lose 2.4 lbs by the Tuesday after next. Losing 1.2 lbs/week seems completely possible, but it also seems like I'm going to have to focus.

As far as other goals go, I'm doing a little better when it comes to exercise. I'm not awarding myself an exercise badge, though. This past week I didn't meet my minimum 3x/week cardio 2x/week strength training goal. But yesterday was the start of a new week, and I have confidence that I'll acheive that goal this week. Now that I'm doing the couch to 5k program, I'm a lot more motivated.

It's not too late to join me and Ashley and jb in the couch to 5k program. We're doing this together so that we can support and inspire each other. I'm only at the end of week 1, personally, and I think Ashley and jb are about where I am. I expect before too long we're going to end up on different weeks since it is a self-paced program, so if you start out now you're still very much running with the pack, so to speak.

Having a structured, specific goal of "I want to run a 5k by following this program" is definitely helping me focus, and it's given me a sense of purpose that I didn't have before in regards to exercise. In all honesty, I'm a little intimidated by the idea of running 5k. I don't see myself as a runner. But I've looked around and I see how many other people have done this program and met their goals, so I know I can do this. To everyone who did this before me, thanks for setting an example and giving me hope.

Anyway, last night I did week 1 day 2 of the program. But wait, there's more! Afterwards, I did an hour of strength and cardio intervals since Monday is the night I work out with a trainer along with my husband and a friend. That's 90 minutes of exercise, my friends! Yay!

I'm a little stiff today. Gee, I wonder why?

What a weekend!

2008-02-04T10:42:00.000-06:00

I had a completely unhealthy, exercise-free, eating challenged, drank-too-much weekend. It was wonderful.

Saturday morning/early afternoon my husband and I had a big Valentine's themed brunch party. I stayed up most of Friday night cooking, got up early Saturday morning to finish cooking, and put out one hell of a spread ... I made three kinds of quiche, egg and sausage casserole, hash browns, cookies, homemade coffee cake, homemade strawberry bundt cake, homemade cherry pie, toast, bacon, cheese and crackers, and we bought donut holes and sausage rolls, too. Champagne, mimosas, poinsettias, screwdrivers, bloody maries and coffee with Irish cream and Kahlua flowed freely.

I was so busy entertaining that I forgot to eat (it's true!), but somehow I didn't forget to drink, and I ended up passing out from exhaustion and intoxication at around 5 PM. I woke up at 2 AM with a hangover, but managed to get back to sleep, and when I woke up again at 8 AM I felt better.

Then on Sunday I ran errands and ate junk food all day ... why do McDonald's and Dr. Pepper and pizza all taste so good post-drinking?

The only thing wellness-related that I did all weekend was buy a new pair of running shoes. I'll be doing week 1 day 2 of the couch to 5k program this evening. I'm not letting a weekend of being off-plan derail me.

I have to confess ... I don't feel at all bad about my weekend of depravity and decadence. I feel like I should feel bad, but I don’t. In my married, suburban, 30-something existence, weekends like this don’t happen very often.

Couch to 5k invitation

2008-01-31T21:06:00.000-06:00

I don't have much time right now, but I wanted to throw an offer out there. I've been exchanging messages with jb, and we're going to do this Couch to 5k thing together.

Anyone else want to join the fun? The more the merrier! There's no time like the present! Strike while the iron is hot! Insert cliche here!

Seriously, if you're considering running, why not join us? We can share our experiences and compare notes. I've only done 1 day so far, so I'm just starting out, too.

If you're a beginner like me (who historically has only run when being chased, or maybe when someone dangles a carton of ice cream in front of me) it'll be perfect for you. It's a program that starts you out slow, with very little running and mostly walking. Then, over the course of weeks, you increase how much you run and decrease how much you walk. If you're having a hard time, you can repeat the weeks. The focus isn't on speed, it's on getting your body used to running so you can run 5k.

There's even a podcast that you can use to tell you when to run and when to walk, and it has good music, too. I used it for my week 1 day 1 run.

Someone else sent me this info, too ... I haven't read it yet. But I figured I should share it anyway.

Think about it! If I can do this, you can do this.

And a quick aside ... I'm probably not going to be on here much for the next few days, but I'll be back Monday for sure. I'm having a Valentine's champagne brunch party Saturday morning and I have to get ready. I haven't even been grocery shopping yet. Ack!

If I do find a spare moment, I figure I should spend it working out and not blogging. Crazy concept, right?

Officially off my arse - Couch to 5k

2008-01-30T18:04:00.000-06:00

I have to tell ya, my realization yesterday that I've lost over 100 pounds is haunting me. How crazy is that? All the yo-yoing up and down ... all the weight lost, then re-gained, then lost, then re-gained ... I knew I'd followed that pattern to some extent through the years, but when I saw that number it was shocking. SHOCKING. It shouldn't have been shocking, but it was.

Man, if you've done the yo-yo thing and you want a serious reality check, add up those numbers. Damn.

Just think, if I'd lost the weight and then kept it off through eating well and working out, I'd be slender and super-healthy right now. Or, on the other hand, what if I'd lost all that weight at once. I'd weigh 65 pounds or so. Yikes!

Then this morning, I read this post over at Athena's blog, and it drove the truth home.

I have been making the choice to yo-yo like that. Every time I lose the weight and then don't keep it off, I've made the choice to let that happen. Because sitting on my arse is a choice, and eating piles of pasta is a choice, and having that second piece of cake is a choice, and dealing with stress and sadness by eating is a choice, and not tracking my food intake is a choice.

I choose not to do that anymore, thank you very much.

Instead, after work today I chose to go out and run Week 1 Day 1 of the Couch to 5k plan. I've been thinking about starting for ages, and there's no better time than the present. I ran, and I enjoyed it, and Sunday I'm going to go get new shoes just like Ashley.

I choose to be that crazy person running down the street in the cold, not the crazy person who keeps losing weight and gaining it all back.

Where am I? (Volume 1)

2008-01-29T08:39:00.000-06:00

Now that I'm in the Healthy You Challenge, every Tuesday I'll be posting a "where am I in my weight loss journey" stats check.

Last week I posed the question "Should I report my pounds lost based on the heaviest weight I've ever been, or should I report it based on my recent weight loss, since this past fall?" Lots of folks said I should go with my heaviest weight ever. Even with all the encouragement to do it that way, I am waffling. (Mmmmm waffles...) The loss since this past fall is much more salient and meaningful to me. On the other hand, I do want to acknowledge that I've lost more than that in total, based on my heaviest weight.

So what's the verdict?

I'm doing it both ways! It's my blog, and if I want to track my weight loss two different ways and reward myself two different sets of badges, I'll do it. So there. I might just crown myself Miss America of This Blog next week. Because I can.

Wow. I'm a little drunk with power, eh?

Anyway, moving on, here are the stats! Drum roll please ...

Weight loss since last Tuesday: 1.4 lbs
Hey, that's better than I expected. Granted, last Monday and Tuesday I was all bloated and water-retainy from my trip out of town, but I'll take it. This makes me feel like the past week wasn't so bad after all.

Weight loss since fall 2007 (most recent leg of weight loss journey): 12.8 lbs
Which means I get a 10 lb badge!

Total weight lost (entire weight loss journey): 27.4 lbs
Which means I get a 25 lb badge!

One would think that with a 10 lb badge and a 25 lb badge I could call this 35 lbs lost, but it doesn't work that way. Ahh well. Actually ... maybe I should count every pound lost, whether I re-gained it or not. Hmmm ... With all my yo-yoing through the years, this could be interesting.

1998 - lost approx. 20 lbs. This is my best guess, since I didn't weigh myself when I started losing weight.
2003 - I'd gained that 20 or so back, but then I lost it plus more - a total of 35 lbs lost.
2006 - I'd gained that 35 lbs back, but then lost it again. So that's 35 more lbs lost.
2008 - This is where I am now ... 12.8 lbs lost since last fall.

That's a grand total of 102.8 pounds! Jiminy Christmas!

I've never done that math before. Wow. I have GOT to stop this weight gain/loss/gain/loss cycle. Seriously. That's just crazy. I'm not awarding myself a badge for that foolishness.

Alright, guys. This is a good illustration of why I started this blog. I think being accountable to this community will help me, especially once I get to maintenance. I can do the losing weight thing on my own, but I clearly haven't been able to keep it off on my own. This time, I want this weight gone, and I want it gone for good.

I'm sure you all feel the same way. We can help each other along the way. Together we can do this. If we keep working on our own weight loss and maintenance, while at the same time supporting each other along the way, I am confident we can take our extra pounds off and keep them off.

I'm done with the yo-yo life. This time the weight will be gone for good.

Lost: Motivation. If found, please contact HappyBlogChick. Thank you.

2008-01-28T08:28:00.000-06:00

I'm having some motivation problems.

This past Tuesday I was all like "It is time! Let's do this thing! I'm going to work out and eat right and blah blah blah!" Yeah. Right. I only worked out one time last week. My eating was not back to out-of-control Christmastime feasting levels, but I made fewer healthy choices as compared to earlier this month and pre-Christmas. I didn't drink my water, eat my veggies, limit my alcohol consumption (mmmm boooooze), or seek out whole grains.

I mean, I assume that pizza I had last night wasn't whole grain. Let's call Domino's and ask.

I think the only thing I've done that I said I would do is reach out to more healthy minded bloggers and build a support system. Maybe I should celebrate that I did work on that goal ... or perhaps I should recognize that reaching out to folks online is both good for my fitness goals and a good excuse for goofing off. *sigh*

Bottom line? My motivation is lagging.

It's not completely gone, don't get me wrong. I'm actively trying to figure out ways to get my mind back where it needs to be. Looking at the big picture helps ... I've lost a bit over 10 lbs since fall, and a little over 25 lbs if you compare now to my heaviest weight ever. I haven't forgotten what I've accomplished. But the problem isn't that I don't think I can do this weight-loss thing. I know I can do it. I'm not discouraged; I'm just not motivated right now. So, looking at how well I've done only gets me so far.

Sometimes what motivates me is trying on my cute clothes that don't fit anymore. I have lots of cute clothes that don't fit. That approach didn't do it for me this weekend, though. Most of the cute clothes that don't fit are summer clothes - shorts, cute summery lightweight tops, summer dresses, etc. Since I can't wear them right now I don't need to lose weight right now, right? I do have jeans that don't fit, but that isn't working for me as a motivator. There just isn't enough difference between the jeans I'm in now paired with a bulky sweater vs. my skinny jeans with a bulky sweater.

The way I see it, I have two options at this point. I can maintain where I am for a while, or I can find the motivation and keep going. When I sit here and contemplate those two options, maintaining at this weight is not appealing at all. So there's my answer. I have to find that motivation.

I have to find that motivation.

I am going to find that motivation.

Happy Meal: Butternut Squash and Apple Soup

2008-01-25T09:06:00.000-06:00

It is cold and dreary and blah here. I'm thinking it's a day for a big warm bowl of soup.

I'm going to make this soup tonight or this weekend. It's a little work, which stinks because I'm feeling very lazy right now, but it'll be worth it. It is spicy and sweet and yummy and thick without being full of fat. It's Weight Watchers friendly, high in fiber, and just all around good. Mmmmmm soooooup ...

Butternut Squash and Apple Soup
Makes 14 cups at 3 pts/cup

2 Tbs unsalted butter
2 Tbs olive oil
4 cups chopped large yellow onions
2 Tbs mild curry powder
5 lbs butternut squash (2 large)
1 1/2 lbs sweet apples, such as McIntosh (4 apples)
2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp freshly
ground black pepper
2 cups apple juice or cider

Warm the butter and olive oil in a large stockpot over low heat. Add the onions and curry powder and cook, uncovered, for 15 to 20 minutes, until the onions are tender. Stir occasionally, scraping the bottom of the pot.

Peel the squash, cut in half, and remove the seeds. Cut the squash into chunks. Peel, quarter, and core the apples. Cut into chunks.

Add the squash, apples, salt, pepper, and 2 cups of water to the pot. Bring to a boil, then cover, reduce the heat to low, and cook for 30 to 40 minutes until the squash and apples are very soft. Puree it coarsely in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade or run it through a blender.

Pour the soup back into the pot. Add the apple juice and enough water to make the soup the consistency you like; it should be slightly sweet and quite thick. Check the salt and pepper and serve hot.

This recipe makes a LOT of soup, but it freezes well. I usually serve it with grilled/broiled chicken or a small steak along with a salad or steamed green veggie.

Do you guys have any favorite healthy recipes? I need to get back in the groove of cooking, and new recipes motivate me.

Free stuff = good stuff

2008-01-23T10:23:00.001-06:00

Please stand by for a moment while all my cheap shines through:

Check out Roni’s new contest! I can win a Nutrition Smart Scale from Eat Smart and so can you! Click here for details!

Yay! The potential for free stuff always makes me happy.

Now I have to go give blood for MaNiC MoMMy's contest. I tried last week but I was turned away. Iron schmiron I always say, but apparently the vampires don't agree. I'm being more diligent about taking my vitamins and eating big ol' steaks , so hopefully when I try again my blood will be worthy.

Have you given blood? If you can give, do give! And send MaNiC MoMMy a picture. And you'll win miiiiillions of dollars and be rich and famous. Or something like that.

(Warning - segue missing. Sorry.)

Did you notice? I'm back in the 130's? Wooo hooo!!!!

Making a plan & the Healthy You Challenge

2008-01-22T10:03:00.001-06:00

The scale has started drifting back down after my out-of-town gain. Come on little scale! Lower, lower!

Yesterday I had a good on-plan eating day, and last night I had a great workout at the gym with my trainer, husband and friend. (For those of you just tuning in, I go to a trainer with my husband and a friend of ours once a week.) Now I just have to keep on keeping on.

I'm still not 100% back in healthy living mode. Eating is going all right, but otherwise, I'm not where I want to be. We're three weeks post New Year's, and although I'm doing OK I'm not where I was pre-Christmas. It is time to get myself back in the mindset! Now!

It. Is. Time.

I'm a little bit of an anal-retentive OCD type, so the best thing for me to do is make a list of ways to get back in the groove. If I make a specific list of things to focus on over the next few weeks, I bet I can make it happen.

Get My Ass Back in Gear List

Force myself to work out even when I don't feel like it. I have my sights set on going to either a cardio/strength/stretch class or a beginners yoga class tonight. I have to get back to my pre-Christmas workout level. I was doing cardio 3-4x per week and strength training 2-3x per week. That is completely doable.

Stock the fridge. I can't eat right if I don't have healthy options around, and right now the cupboard is bare. After the gym, I'm off to the store.

Continue to build a support system. You guys are the greatest. Every time I look at this blog and the comments it lifts me up and keep me going. Thanks for being out there. And the more the merrier, I figure. So, I decided to join the Healthy You Challenge. It seems like a great way to connect with even more folks who are working towards health and fitness goals. Hello, Healthy You Challenge folks! Welcome!

Here's the official "look, I'm in the challenge" button. I'm not posting any specific weight loss or non-scale victory buttons yet. I'm curious to get your opinion. Should I set my weight loss starting weight at around 152, where I started eating right and getting fit again last fall? Or should I set my starting weight around 167, where I was when I first lost weight back in 2003?

Re-gaining weight makes things complicated. I need to be sure to avoid that this time.

Anyway, what do you think? Do I go with 152 or 167? Hmmm ...

... Aaaaand then back to the 140's

2008-01-21T13:46:00.001-06:00

I'm back from my trip out of town. So much for the 130's! Ah well, I expected a gain. Some of this 140-ness is water weight, and the rest I'll work off before much time passes. It's definitely not all water weight. I made some not-so-smart choices this past weekend in terms of eating. But it sure tasted good!

On a completely unrelated note, after taking a business-related trip this past weekend and working a big chunk of the weekend before that, I'M TIRED.

I need to plan a vacation soon. One that involves lots of relaxation in a bathing suit. That'll be motivation!

My husband and I are considering a couple options. Anyone ever been to the Big Island of Hawaii?

I'm in the 130's! Yaaaaaaaaaay!

2008-01-17T09:14:00.000-06:00

I had such a crazy-busy day yesterday that I didn't get to share the news. The news is ...

I'm in the 130's! Yaaaaaaaaaay!
I'm in the 130's!
Yaaaaaay!

I'm in the 130's! I'm in the 130's! I'm in the 130's! I'm in the 130's! I'm in the 130's! I'm in the 130's! I'm in the 130's! I'm in the 130's! I'm in the 130's! Yaaaay!

I'm in the 130's!

I'm in the 130's! Now you go, sir!

I'm in the 130's! Yaaaaay! Yaaaaaaaay! Yaaaaay!

Right. I'm sure you all think I've lost it, and that is probably true. In the way of explanation, let me offer this:

... because for some reason my reaction to seeing my long-awaited number on the scale reminded me of that skit. Don't ask. I can't explain it.

Anyway, this will be my last post this week. I'm going out of town for work late this afternoon. I expect I may be back in the 140's when I return, what with eating out for every meal and air travel and all, but I'm prepared for that. I'm bringing workout clothes, and I'll do my darnedest to make the best food choices I can. Whatever I gain I'll take off again in a snap when I return, so why stress, right?

I will miss all of you! Good luck, be strong, stay the course!

A letter to the scale

2008-01-15T08:22:00.001-06:00

Dear scale -

Why, why are you toying with me so? Haven't I been good to you over the years? I change your batteries, I visit you daily ... we're close. You and my husband are the only two who regularly see me nude.

What have I done to deserve this persecution?

I know. I know that a week ago the numbers were higher, and I should be happy with the information you give me today. Looking at the 142.0 number vs. the 140.6 number should satisfy me. But I'm not satisfied. I'm just not, and that's that.

At heart, I even know that you're only the messenger. I won't kill the messenger. Although I'm tempted to throw you out the window, I'm not going to do it. Windows are expensive. Er, um, *cough* ... I mean you're too valuable to me, and I know that what you're telling me isn't your fault.

But I have a problem. Late this week, I have to travel for work. I'll have to find a way to be healthy while I eat out, and I'll need to find a time and place to get some exercise when I'm away from home and away from my gym. I'll be away from my online blogger support system. Upon my return I'll be dealing with all the repercussions of those things while at the same time retaining water from the air travel.

What's the bottom line? On Monday when I visit you, I'm not going to like what you have to tell me.

So here's the deal. Could you please give me some good news this week? Something, say, in the 130's? Next week might not be so pleasant, so how about we make this week a week to remember?

It's a small request. Think about it.

With all my love,
Happy

(Thanks to Amy for the air travel water retention link above.)

Stop toying with me.

2008-01-14T08:30:00.000-06:00

The scale is messing with my head. Look at that weight over there in the sidebar! Look at it. 140.0 lbs again. I'm so close to the 130's I can taste it!

I know that once I hit 139.x I'll jump up into the 140's a few times (with the daily weighings the scale goes up and down), but I'd so like to see that 13x.x number. I know I'm getting close to my goal, but seeing a 13x.x number would make me feel even closer.

Although, I was looking at my old weight info from when I was at goal, and I realized that even though in theory my goal is 135, I liked the way my clothes fit when I was at 132-133. I'll see how I feel when I get to 135; I may have a little further to go than I thought.

Even so, I'm getting there.

Come on, 130's!

P.S. Did you notice? I added a sidebar full of links to other blogs. If you've commented in the past you should be on it, and I also added links to some other blogs and sites I've enjoyed. If I missed you, let me know.

I may pare down this list later, but for now the more the merrier. Oh, and feel free to link to me off your site, too. I've really enjoyed connecting with everyone. I've been floored by how supportive the blogger community has been to me and to each other. It has truly made me feel like I'm not in it alone. You guys are amazing.

It just might work!

2008-01-13T08:31:00.000-06:00

I had to share.

From: Husband
Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 3:59 PM
To: Female Friend, Male Friend, Wife (me)
Subject: Calorie Calculator

According to this, I need about 2,500 calories per day. Woo-hoo!

From: Female Friend
Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 4:08 PM
To: Husband, Male Friend, Me
Subject: RE: Calorie Calculator

Yer calorie counter SUX! Females don’t even get the option to eat 2500 calories a day!

If I started exercising a little bit, I could work my way up to 1900 per day. Uhm yah… I think I’m in trouble. :-)

From: Male Friend
Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 4:13 PM
To: Husband, Female Friend, Me
Subject: RE: Calorie Calculator

If I knock off 20 years, increase my height by at least a foot, and consider myself “very active,” I can have 3,450 calories a day.

Pass me a brownie!

Who are you, and what did you do with my husband?

2008-01-12T15:17:00.000-06:00

I have no time no time no time to post, but I'm doing it anyway.

I have to work this weekend, which is a rare and horrible thing. I want to get back to it ASAP so I can finish work if at all possible. It would be good to be able to enjoy my Saturday night and my Sunday. I'm taking a break to share an interesting development in my world.

My husband is a wonderful man who I adore. His Achilles heel is fitness, though. Growing up he was always told he'd be skinny like his father, so he never learned anything about nutrition or exercise. He has a sweet tooth that takes up his whole mouth, and he was raised in the south where fried chicken and BBQ reigned supreme and being a smoker was the norm. Not surprisingly, he's slightly overweight and his cholesterol is high (although it's managed by meds). He quit smoking around 7 years ago when we were dating because he knew I wouldn't marry a smoker, but his eating and exercise ... ugh. They improved a little over the years we've been together, but until October when I talked him into going to the trainer with me he'd never really focused on nutrition or exercise.

Well ... things are changing! He's been talking about calories and exercise, both with me and with some of our friends. He's jumping on the scale, and he's enjoying the dropping numbers. I see him making better food choices. And he's going to the gym not just on Monday when we see the trainer, but at least one more day (if not two more days) of the week.

Woo hoo!

What prompted this post? This morning we talked about going to the gym together, after we both finish work* for the day. If this happens, it will mark the first time we'll have gone to the gym to work out together on a day that we weren't working out with our trainer.

Hooray!

I would love to work out with my husband on weekends. It would be so much easier to talk myself into getting to the gym over the weekend if we're going together.

My fingers are crossed that we do go, and that it is the first of many weekend gym trips. Yay!

In other news, work was so awful yesterday that when I finished up in the evening, I put on the Grey's Anatomy episode that I'd DVR'd and cried like a baby.**

I hope work gets better soon. It's casting a big shadow over what would otherwise be a very sunshiny and beautiful time, what with the husband's new interest in fitness and my weight loss and "meeting" all of you. I'm so grateful for the support you've provided - thanks, guys!

*Stupid work - both of us are supposed to be M-F people, and both of us are working today. In the words of Homer Simpson, work stinks!

** I would never, never, ever do this in sight or sound of anyone I work with. But on my couch after business hours, sometimes ya just gotta let it out.

Praying for momentum

2008-01-11T10:53:00.000-06:00

Do you ever have those days where it seems like an enormous effort to do what you know you should do?

Yesterday was like that for me. Not with eating; I did OK yesterday with eating. But exercise - oh man! I did not want to work out.

I start work early enough that I can leave work relatively early if I get everything done. I can make it to 4:45 PM aerobics classes if the job is done and I manage to run out the door as soon as my work day ends. They're great classes, too - most days they're both cardio and strength training with free weights and dumbbells. I enjoy those classes.

But getting everything done here at the office has been hard lately. It's busy, my things-to-do list is out of control, and it doesn't help that I'm spending so durned much time here in bloggerland. As a result, getting to those classes hasn't been possible lately.

That doesn't mean I can't work out, though. There's always the option of going for a walk/run, and I have a stationary bike and dumbbells and a balance ball and a medicine ball here at home. They're in my living room. Classy, eh? We move it all to the garage before company comes over, I promise. Anyway, you'd think with it right there in the living room staring at me I'd be able to fairly easily talk myself into getting on the bike.

Nope.

Yesterday I knew I should work out, but I did not want to do it. No sir, didn't wanna. This wouldn't have been such a problem except that I'd felt that way on Wednesday, too, so I skipped my workout Wednesday. I was due for a workout. Even so, I futzed around procrastinating for a couple hours, and eventually I started to get anxious, because there was this crazy battle going on in my head. I knew I should work out, I knew I'd regret not working out, I knew once I worked out I'd feel good about it, but no.

I. Did. Not. Want. To. Exercise.

What is up with that?

How is it that I can want something and not want it all at the same time? Because I do want the results. I do want to be healthy and slender and fit.

I finally got so mad at myself that I went and tried on my non-fitting too-small jeans. Then I went online and bought two sleeveless tops that I knew I needed great arms to wear.* Then I took off all my clothes and looked at my thighs in the mirror and finally ... FINALLY ... I got on my exercise bike and did 30 minutes of cardio. Ideally I would have liked to do more, but it was late by the time I finally did it. Plus, the motivation just wasn't there. Something is better than nothing.

This morning, part of me feels like I should look back on that whole thing as a victory. I finally did it, right? But the whole process was so unpleasant that I don't see it that way.

And the unpleasantness? That was all ME causing it! I did it to myself! How messed up is that? I'm having a hard time considering it a victory. I just feel beat down.

I think ... I hope ... that once I get back into the pattern of working out, this will get easier. Last year I started working out in early October, and I think it got easier from late October to early December. (I wish I had a blog back then to look back on to see if I'm right.) I hope I'm right. I hope that once I get the momentum going again this becomes easier.

This mental battle sucks, quite frankly. It is exhausting. I am weary.

On a brighter note, the scale is down today. Maybe when I'm not so tired I'll get more excited about that.

And on another bright note, it is Friday. Hooray for Friday.

I'm going to talk myself into getting motivated about exercise even if it kills me ... I've got to get that momentum going.

* These were total bargains. I love after-holiday sales, and it is killing me that I'm not taking advantage of the clearance clothes because my arse is bigger than it will be after I lose weight.

Addendum: A drawback

2008-01-10T13:52:00.000-06:00

One note regarding my sushi-related post below.

I'm up one pound today (vs. yesterday). I'm sure it's at least in part water weight from eating soy sauce with my sushi two days in a row. That miso soup probably didn't help either.

So be forewarned! If you're weighing in for The Biggest Loser tomorrow, today is NOT the time for sushi.

I'm just sayin'.

(And for anyone new to my blog, please read this post if you're curious about my daily weigh-ins.)

Drink the Kool-Aid

2008-01-10T07:29:00.000-06:00

I had these great plans to share some of my favorite points-friendly products with you today. That didn’t pan out - I want to take pictures of the products, but I’ve thrown away the packaging. Maybe another time with that post.

Instead, I’m going to share yesterday’s lunch with you.

Well, I’m not actually going to share my lunch per se; that would be awfully hard given that 1.) I already ate it, and 2.) although the Internet thing has done quite well, technology wizards have not yet created the Eaternet.

Back to the lunch. Yesterday I had a boring lunch … a Lean Cuisine frozen entrée. Not original, I know. And even worse, after I ate the Lean Cuisine, I realized that I had leftover sushi in the fridge! I’d forgotten to eat my leftover sushi from Tuesday night! What a shame. A shame verging on tragedy, in my world view.

I do love sushi.

Sushi … there are very few low points/low cal meals in which you can enjoy a salad (dressing on the side, please), soup, a veggie-tastic appetizer, and a variety of entrées. Variety comes into play since you can have a little nori maki and a little nigiri sushi, and/or different types of fish … mmm mmm mmm. Good stuff. On top of that, you might have leftovers.

Regarding the leftovers, I’m not a complete lunatic. I’m not talking about eating days old raw fish. I do eat the raw fish varieties of sushi (mmmmm diphyllobothrium), but those aren’t the ones that come home with me. There are plenty of cooked or veggie sushi options … California rolls, cucumber rolls, unagi (eel), some places have seared tuna, anything with shrimp, etc. etc. And even with the cooked sushi I make sure I’m eating any leftovers the very next day.

Thus the shame-verging-on-tragedy. If I was to enjoy the leftover sushi, I needed to enjoy it yesterday. And I’d already used my points for my lunch, and I planned to eat dinner with my husband.

In the past during some of my less Weight Watchery moments I might have just scarfed down the leftovers on impulse, then regretted it and beat myself up about it. Instead, I waited until I was hungry for an afternoon snack, I looked at the points I’d already used, I looked at how many points the sushi would be, I estimated how many points I’d be using the rest of the day for other food, and I contemplated my upcoming weekend to decide if I needed to save all or just some of my flex-points.

I worked the numbers. I considered my priorities.

And I ate the sushi.

AND IT WAS GOOD.

I essentially ate two lunches, and I didn’t feel guilty, and I didn’t go off plan, and it didn’t throw off my day or my week or my game or anything.

I’m not a Weight Watchers sales person, and I feel like some sort of brainwashed cult member saying this in a public forum, but yesterday made me very grateful for Weight Watchers. They did a good job of giving me some flexibility and helping me make a choice without regret. There are a few things about the program I don’t like (we’ll talk about that some other time), but they do provide some good tools and guidance.

So, the moral of this story is … sushi rocks.

No, wait, that’s not the moral. The moral of this story is drink the Kool-Aid, trust me, drink the Kool-Aid ...

Nononono, that's not it either.

Whatever, forget the whole moral thing. We can be immoral instead. Basically, I wanted to share this with you because it felt so good to indulge, but also be in control. It is a nice change after my out of control indulgences over the holidays.

Watch out. She's just a little irrational right now.

2008-01-09T11:05:00.000-06:00

This morning has not been smooth sailing for me. In the grand scheme of things, there's nothing terribly wrong, but I'm cranky anyway.

I weigh in at very close to the same time every day. Every day I watch the clock, and I aim to hop on the scale every morning between 8 AM and 9 AM. This time is technically after my office hours begin, but it works OK for me because I work from home. I don't like to weigh in earlier because I like to be fully awake and rational before I jump on the scale. In all honesty, I can't handle seeing those numbers until after my first cup of coffee. Plus, if I go into our bathroom and weigh in any earlier, I wake up my husband whose work schedule runs later than mine.

Well, some jackass scheduled me for an 8 AM meeting this morning which lasted an hour. I had another meeting that started at 9 AM and lasted an hour. And now, I have some man here in the house working on a minor plumbing issue, so I don't want to take off all my clothes to jump on the scale.* This all means I haven't weighed myself today. Which means I don't know where I stand from a weight perspective, and I am hoping for a drop based on how I've done over the last few days, and now I won't know for sure until tomorrow because I don't trust the numbers if I don't weigh in at the same time, and IT IS MAKING ME CRANKY.

Sorry for yelling.

To top all of that off, there is a remarkable amount of jackassery at work at the moment. I have people who I emailed a month ago and who didn't reply until yesterday pressing me to quickly finish work that I could have done a month ago if they'd just replied to my damned email. Now their delay in responding is my problem, and I don't have the power to tell them to BITE IT like I'd really enjoy doing. Plus, other projects are also urgent, and still other projects are being poorly managed, which is out of my control but will come back and haunt me later.

I am feeling cranky this morning. My employers would not appreciate me blogging on company time, but I need a break or my head might explode.

The irony is that even though I'm feeling cranky and I'm writing about it on a weight loss blog, I don't think** I'm doing poorly when it comes to the whole weight loss thing. On Monday I ate well and went to the gym and had a great workout, yesterday I ate well and tried to recover from my great workout, and I have every intention of eating well and working out today. I'm trying to focus a little more on the good health guidelines, I've forgiven myself for the Christmas/New Years eating-everything-in-sight fiasco ... all in all, things are good in Weight Watchers-land. Well, except that I haven't weighed in (grrrrrrr....).

I am thankful that this cranky state of mind is not usually a trigger for me to overeat. Some emotional situations do challenge me ... OK, many emotional situations challenge me. This one could become a challenge if it continues too long, which is why I need to pull myself out of this pissy mood.

My hope is that if I eat on plan, prioritize my work with buy-in from higher ups (higher-ups in my department aren't irrational in most cases, thank goodness, it's other departments I have to worry about), get some exercise to work off some of this tension, and maybe go drink a shit-ton of beer ... oh no, wait, scratch that last one. I'm kidding about the beer.

But seriously, I'm hoping that if I can take some positive steps now I can prevent overeating problems later. I'm an emotional eater, and I've realized that recognizing and managing my emotions is the best way to handle this sort of thing. With emotional eating (at least for me), the problem isn't exactly the eating. The eating is a way of trying to deal with the emotions. When I overeat in emotional and/or stressful situations, it's because I haven't found, or at least haven't used, effective alternatives to cope with my emotions.

So, if you guys have any suggestions on how to ~~stifle my desire to strangle some coworkers~~ effectively cope with frustrating situations, I'm game for hearing them. I don't mean specifically with this specific job situation (this one I've got a handle on - prioritization and re-setting expectations should work fine once it's done, it's just an unpleasant process), but with frustrations and stresses throughout life in general.

How well do you cope with stress? What works for you?

* Yes, OK, this means I take off all my clothes during business hours. Daily. Sue me - I work from home. It takes less than two minutes, and no one sees this behavior (well, except my husband who is getting ready for work, but he just enjoys the view). It's not like I'm standing there buck naked*** in the middle of a bunch of cubicles.

** But I don't know, do I? Damned meeting schedulers and plumbers and grumble grumble grumble grumble ...

*** I'm pretty sure I'm officially a geek, since I felt the need to look up the term "buck naked" because I was interested in where the saying originated.

Quick note

2008-01-08T09:47:00.000-06:00

I did indeed make it to the gym last night.

I'll post something about that, or fitness, or Weight Watchers, or SOMETHING on-topic soon. In the meantime, I'll (hopefully) entertain you with the post below.

If I offend you, I apologize. But I was amused.

2008-01-08T09:24:00.000-06:00

This post is very off-topic when it comes to fitness, but when something makes me laugh my self control for topic editing goes out the window and I have to share.

Like most folks, I have my blog set up so that I get an email when comments are posted. Last night I checked email, and I saw that a couple people commented. One of the comment emails I got last night said:

“Your pussy scares me.”

Sweet jay-zus! Who is posting these things on my blog? I’m no prude, but I about had a heart attack. What had I said or done to elicit that kind of comment? What do they have against my weight loss journey?

I look at the email more closely.

Um, yeah. That wasn’t a comment on my blog. When I’d visited another blog a few days ago, I commented and selected the option to be emailed when additional comments are made. That was a comment on this blog* .

Ahhhhh! That makes so much more sense, really.

So this morning I just want to say thanks for the comments … and thanks for not commenting about my pussy. Pussy comments freak me out.

*Don’t be scared to click through – it it isn’t porn. It's just an entertaining blog I’ve followed through the years. Check out some of her other posts too.

I don't like Mondays

2008-01-07T14:42:00.000-06:00

Can I just say …

I don’t like Mondays!

These people at my job seem to expect me to work today. What’s up with that?

I’m kidding. I like my job, but I’m feeling a little slammed at the moment. The post-holiday wave of work didn’t hit me last week, but it sure knocked me on my arse this morning.

Monday. *sigh* It’s my first five day workweek in many weeks.

I’m trying very hard not to pout about work. Today, even in all its Monday-ness, isn’t all bad. Today begins my first seven day week of being full-on dedicated to eating well and working out in 2008.

From a Weight Watchers standpoint, my new week of points begins today. Ahhh, the joy of all my flexpoints right there ready for me! And the opportunity to earn activity points, too! Halleluiah for new weeks and fresh starts. The mishaps and slip-ups of the weeks prior are behind us. And I don’t know about you, but I had some rather large mishaps and slipups over the past couple weeks.

There is something else for me to be joyous about, too. Today is my first day back to the gym in weeks. Seriously. I know after the last few posts you probably doubt me about making it to the gym and working out. But you see, I've been holding out. I have a secret weapon. Monday nights are my nights to go to meet my husband and a friend of ours, and we workout together. After we do 20-30 minutes of warm-up and cardio together, then guess what? We meet with a trainer for 60 minutes of ass-kicking … er… I mean strength and interval training.

Before October, I wasn’t on board with the trainer thing. I had a really hard time with the cost (have I mentioned my cheap tendencies?). Plus, I honestly felt like I didn’t need it. I figured workouts on my own and in aerobics/group fitness classes would benefit me just as much. But I was wrong.

You heard me. Wrong. I was wrong.

I originally decided to get a trainer because my husband kept talking about working out, and it never ever happened. Plus, I was exercising, but only intermittently. Really, though, I was more worried about him than me – he’s never been in a regular workout routine, and he doesn’t know much about health and fitness. I’ve been in workout mode on and off and I have half a clue about eating well, but I can only help so much (and there’s only so much he wants to hear from me, in all honesty). As time passes, I get more and more worried about his health.

So, we decided we’d give it a shot with a trainer. To offset the cost, we chose to do the training together and invited a friend to join us. We’ve been working out with our trainer once a week since mid-October (except for the weeks of Christmas and New Years. Our trainer had the audacity to go on vacation. How dare she?).

Working with a trainer has been better than I imagined. Meeting with her once a week really keeps me focused. I’m accountable to her, my husband, and my friend, so it’s really hard to slack completely during the rest of the week. Plus, I’m stronger than I’ve ever been before.

Want me to move all your furniture? Why, I’d be happy to!

Anyway, today I’m back to the gym and back to consistently tracking my food and their points values. Know what that means? I will be able to fit back into my jeans before too long.

Hooray for today!

Oh, lunch is over – back to work.

Did I mention, I don’t like Mondays? (And for those of you familiar with the song, no, I’m not going on a shooting spree … I won’t even go on an eating binge.)

A quickie (update, that is)

2008-01-06T10:19:00.000-06:00

Nope, no gym or workout yesterday, either. The weight numbers I've logged over the last day or two aren't telling the whole story - I've been eating well the last few days but not moving my bod, and so the weight is dropping but my body fat percentage isn't. Not that body fat percent changes that quickly, but it's still something to ponder. Maybe I'll need to add a body fat percentage tracker to the blog, too.

My scale is a Tanita BC-534 with all kinds of bells and whistles. It gives me weight, % body fat, % body water, bone mass, and "metabolism age" (whatever that is). I bought it when I reached goal last time in hopes that I could maintain by weighing and tracking. That worked for a while, but apparently weighing and tracking but also eating everything in sight doesn't really keep me slender. Who knew?

OK, I also stopped getting on the scale eventually. That didn't help either.

Anyway, the scale's body fat measurement isn't perfect, but it seems to line up fairly well with the gym numbers, and I figure it's fine for measuring trend.

Hmmm ... yeah, I should add that table, or add to the current table. Keep an eye out over the next week for body fat info.

Speaking of the tracking tables, I need to give a shout-out to Amy for giving me the idea of adding a scrolling table to track my weight. I wasn't quite sure how to record all the daily weigh-in numbers without it eventually becoming crazy-long. Thanks to Amy, problem solved!

Free! A little pathetic, but free!

2008-01-05T12:00:00.001-06:00

I haven't talked about it yet, but I have a gym membership at a local gym. I got the membership in October when I re-started my "weight loss journey" (as they say in Weight-Watchers-land). You haven't heard about the gym because, um, I haven't been to the gym. Well, I haven't been since December 21st, anyway. Last night, I went back to the gym.

At our gym, they had this super-cool motivational contest where you weigh-in October 29-November 2nd, and then you weigh-out January 1st-4th. If you maintained or lost weight through the holidays you won a free gym bag. A gym bag! For free! Sweet! I'm all about free, so I participated. It was good motivation, because, yeah, did I mention I'd get something for free? And I was trying to lose weight anyway, so ... sweet! Free gym bag!

Yesterday I'd decided to blow off working out, and I had no intention of going to the gym, but last night I remembered it was my last day to weigh-out for the contest. So around 9:30 PM I put on workout clothes and headed to the gym for the first time in two weeks.

Don't get all excited about my wonderful workout, though. The workout is nothing to get worked up about. You see, I put on workout clothes, and I went to the gym, but I didn't actually work out.

How sad is that?

The good news is that I did win my free gym bag. I'd lost about 7.5 lbs according to their scale. Woo hoo! Free gym bag! Actually, the gym bag was kind of a piece of crap. But so what - free!

But how pathetic is it that I managed to put on workout clothes, get my ass out of my house, get over to the gym, and then not work out? Ugh. Last night it seemed like a fine plan - I needed to wear the same clothes pre/post, it was late and I was hungry. Last night it all made sense. Now, the next morning, it seems a little nuts to me.

Ahhh, well, whataryagonnado?

I won't make it to the gym this weekend - they have very few group fitness classes over the weekends, so I might as well use my stationary bike and dumbbells at home - but I am SO getting my ass back to the gym on Monday. And this time, I'll actually work out there.

Today's daily weigh-in. What? Daily?

2008-01-04T08:31:00.000-06:00

Well, my daily weigh-in shows a downward movement. I'm sure some of that is water weight, but hopefully some of it is also a real change. I finally got my eating back on track yesterday - hooray! I didn't exercise, but the plan for today is eating well AND exercise. My body might explode from shock.

I know Weight Watchers recommends weekly weigh-ins, but I weigh-in daily. Years ago when I was working on losing 35 lbs, the weekly weigh-ins worked well for me. But at that point, I was all about LOSING. I didn't dedicate much brain-power to thoughts of maintaining. Now I've got my eye on maintaining, and from what I've read a big key to maintaining is daily weigh-ins. So even though I'm trying to lose weight now, I'm weighing in daily to prepare for maintaining the weight loss. I want to be in the daily weigh-in habit.

I'm not pulling this daily weigh-in idea out of my (larger than ideal) ass. Here are some articles on research which support the daily weigh-in game plan:

Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
Annals of Behavioral Medicine (heh heh heh, I said annals)
International Journal of Behavior, Nutrition and Physical Activity

I'm not saying everyone should jump on the scale daily. I'm not one of those preachy types who assumes what is good for me is good for the world. I am, however, a research-geek. It's true - I believe in well designed research, and the research suggests this is a good plan for most folks. Now, it isn't a good plan for people with eating disorders. And if you really honestly can't handle the daily weight fluctuations up and down, it probably isn't a good plan for you.

You may be able to learn to deal with the daily weight fluctuations, though. I had a little bit of a problem with the daily weight fluctuations at first, back in October when I started losing again. What helped me work through it was some positive self-talk and watching the trend. Even though my weight went up and down through a two week period, it always trended downwards, and I always saw a drop from the beginning to end of the period. Well, that's what I saw if I was following the Weight Watchers plan.

I also began to learn what behavior affected my daily weigh-in results ... after a long hard exercise session I might see an initial spike in weight the next day but then a nice big drop a day or two later. If I eat sushi or Chinese food or any other high-sodium treat I'll gain some water weight. If I travel by plane my weight goes up a bit (even if I eat well), but then it goes back down after a day or two (and what is up with that? Do you see that, too? Does anyone know what causes that? It is a mystery to me ... but that's the pattern I've seen). Learning those types of patterns and telling myself that if I'm working the Weight Watchers program the program works (it's true!) helped me get comfortable with the daily weigh-ins.

Anyway, if you're eating disorder-free, here's my suggestion. If you weigh-in weekly, you might consider weighing in daily. It may not work for you, but it might be worth at try. It appears to help folks maintain, and if it helps folks maintain, that's a good pattern to learn, right? Because I can tell you, losing the weight is great, but gaining it back sucks. Isn't losing it and keeping it off what it's really all about?

That's my plan this time around. Losing the weight and keeping it off.

Cleaning out the house

2008-01-03T08:12:00.000-06:00

Other than starting this blog, yesterday was a crappy day for fitness. I ate and ate, then I ate some more, then I had a little more to eat. Then I ate. Ugh.

During the week and a half around Christmas and New Years I ate whatever I wanted to eat, with no consideration of calories or fat or health. Our house filled with junk food that normally wouldn't be here. Yesterday morning my husband took some of the junk to work with him, but not all of it, and I went a little nuts eating my way through what was still here. Cookies and candy and leftover lasagna and more cookies and .... blech. The more I ate, the crappier I felt, but somehow that didn't stop me from eating.

It was a little crazy, really. What was that all about?

Finally around 8:15 PM I made myself get on my stationary bike and do 30 minutes of cardio. I didn't want to get on the bike, but I forced myself to do it. And since it's hard to ride the bike AND shove food in my face, that stopped the binge.

I didn't buy this junk food - my friends and relatives brought it into the house, and I haven't felt like I could remove it until now, post-holiday. I don't trust myself to have junk food in the house. Once I get into it, I can't get myself out of it. I open the bag or box or tin and fall right in. Junk food I haven't touched yet is somewhat safe, and I may never touch it. If I haven't tasted it, I have some level of control. But if I've tasted it, heaven help me. I know this about myself - I don't completely understand it, but I know it - so after the bike ride I threw away the rest of the leftover lasagna and put the rest of the junk food in a grocery bag for my husband to take to work today.

OK, in all honesty, I had one more homemade Christmas cookie, THEN I put the rest in a grocery bag to send to work with my husband.

I'm trying to look back at yesterday as something other than a complete failure. I started this blog, I did a little cardio, and I ultimately did the junk food clean-up. It was a start. Now I just need to keep on going.

The first blog post

2008-01-02T11:25:00.000-06:00

Well, well, well. Lookie here. Another fitness blog! Started just after the new year! What a novel idea; what an earth-shattering new approach. Happy 2008, it's fitness blog time!

Yeah, yeah, I know. It isn't an original plan, that whole "I'm going to start a blog to help motivate me in my fitness goals" thang. But for me this one is different. How? This one is mine. I've read other folks' blogs through the years, and now I'm starting my own. Why? Because I'm ready for a change.

Ha. Ready for a change - that sounds so dramatic. For me, the change would be to simply be consistent. The reality is that I've been physically healthy on and off my entire life. I'm not overweight at this point, although I'm close to the top of my healthy weight range, and I was overweight a couple months ago. Since the beginning of October I've lost a total of 8 or 9 lbs. Now, had Christmas and New Years not come along, I could have said I've lost 12 or so lbs, but ... yeah. Christmas and New Year celebrations did happen. Like almost everyone else in the world, I'm getting back into my wellness routine now that January 2nd is here. I want to continue the weight loss I started in the fall, I want to set and reach some fitness goals, and I want to live a healthy lifestyle. I hope this blog will help me connect with other folks who are trying to live a healthy life, too.

So ... here we go! What do you need to know about me? Let's start with the stats. I'm female, I'm 5'6" tall, and as of this morning I weigh 144.8 lbs. I'll fit back in my clothes again once I'm back around 135 lbs (although the exact poundage will depend on muscle mass, I imagine). Right now I have a closet full of cute clothes that make me look like a stuffed sausage. I'm ready to be back in those clothes, and I'm ready to feel good about myself again.

Heck, I'm ready to feel good in general. I started to feel the positive emotional and physical effects of eating well and working out in early December, but now I'm feeling sluggish and turtle-like again. Yuck.

I think that's enough of an intro. My first goal? To post here every so often. I'll write more as the days pass and I set goals, work out, and my weight changes.

Welcome! And please bear with me. I'm new at this.