Saturday, January 29, 2011

Day 29 - Waist Loss

My favorite jeans fit.  Finally.  I've been wearing them occasionally, despite their being too tight and cutting off my circulation when sitting, but today I tried them on after a week of not wearing them and discovered that they now fit (just barely) in the waist.  Yay!  I didn't stick to my diet two or three days this week, so I was not optimistic that inches had been lost.  But they have, and that's a good thing.

My current mini goal is for my favorite jeans to fit loosely by March 1.  Loosely means almost too big everywhere but the waist, which will fit perfectly and accomodate a belt.  Loosely means I can wash and dry them on hot without having to remember to pull them from the dryer after 15 minutes and hang dry them the rest of the way to prevent further shrinkage.  Loosely means they fit great when I put them on.  No stretching of the seat or the waist needed.  No muffin top.

I created a spreadsheet to track my exercise.  I track it on here, but I want to be able to see my total hours for each month at a quick glance.  For some reason, I am finding logging my exercise times very motivating.  It's as if exercising helps compensate for all the uncertainty in my life.  I am in control of that one thing.  And at the end of the day, if I've eaten M&Ms at the office or too many chips at the Mexican restaurant with friends, at least I have exercised.  At least I have done one thing right. 

My grandmother had one of these.  My brother and I would roll on the floor in fits of laughter when she used it.  She was a large woman, and her vibrating belly fat was a sight to behold.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Day 24 - Cinched

My belt is too tight.  I lost my belt for almost a year and found it yesterday while cleaning up the craft/fitness room.  Today, while feeling a little smug about the fact that my cute corduroys are loosening up at the waist (they fit low), I put on my belt, thinking it would help my pants from slipping to far down my hips.  Oh my lord.  That belt was tight.  I am appalled.

I won't try the belt on again until March 1.

Here's what I ate today.

Breakfast - small serving of leftover spanish rice w/ beef and veggies, cheddar cheese, milk in tea (approx 400 cals)
Lunch - 1 bratworst, coleslaw with vegenaisse, olive oil, and balsamic, sour dough bread, granola bar (600 cals)
Snack - 3 tangerines, string cheese, bread and butter (300 cals)
Dinner - 4 oz turkey breast, quinoa, green beans, mushrooms in pan sauce (450 cals)
Total calories:  1750

My calories may have been a little high, but I was hungry at every meal and I burned approximately 1000 calories exercising for 1.5 hours.  I was particularly hungry for lunch and my afternoon snack.  I wanted to resist bread but didn't.  Oh well.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Day 23 - Exercise Good, Eating Not So Much

Over the past 23 days, I have put in 25 hours of exercise, not including house cleaning.  I have taken 4 rest days.  I'm still pretty tired at the end of each day, but I'm finding it much easier to get going.  I've noticed that I'm working out with more intensity as time progresses. 

My eating, on the other hand, could use some improvement.  I do well about 5 days a week, but the other two not so much.  Last week I struggled with simple carbs.  I ate peanut M&Ms in the office, went out for Mexican food with a friend one night and gorged on chips, and stopped for a fast food burger and fries on my way home Thursday night, followed up with leftover pizza at 9pm.  Ugh. 

I have not been writing down my daily food intake.  I know I should, but it's one more thing I'd have to make time for, and I don't have much extra time these days, especially given my exercise schedule. 

I found my 100 Days of Weight Loss book and am going to go through the exercises again.  When I used this book a year ago, I lost 40lbs.  I've gained 25 back, but nothing I can do about that except lose it again. 

Felt the old woe is me emotions creeping up this week after a particularly exhausting day of exercise and dieting.  I miss the days before hypothyroidism when a week of hard work resulted in 3 or 4 lbs lost.  I am lucky now to lose 1 or 2.  But I refuse to let this get to me.  Giving up on my health and weight loss goals for the long haul will only hurt me in the end.  

Monday, January 17, 2011

Day 17 - Sweet Tooth

I can't stop eating sweets.  I'm not eating a lot of sweets, which is a good thing, but I am eating something sweet nearly everyday.  I sort of thought I'd be over the cravings by day 17.  As much as I hate the idea, I'm thinking I should start writing down what I eat.  Nothing like full awareness to keep me accountable. 

Yesterday I ate a small scoop of Trader Joe's pomegranate blueberry sherbet.  About 150 calories worth.  Then while I was watching TV, I ate some natural licorice sweetened with molasses for another 130 calories.  I suppose in the grand scheme of things 280 calories worth of sugary food is not too bad, but if I had skipped both and had an apple instead, I'd be ahead by 200 calories.  That's a lot. 

Nevertheless, I am losing weight.  I don't know exactly how much, as I am not quite ready to face the scale, but my clothes are a tiny bit looser and I feel much more comfortable in my workout pants, which is an indication that body fat is on the move.  I'm guessing I've lost at least 4 lbs, which would keep me on target for 2 lbs a week.   More would be great, but I'm good with 2 if that means I don't get obsessive and all-or-nothing crazy with my weight loss program. 

Still exercising nearly every day.  I have a touch of sciatica in my right leg that's been giving me fits.  It usually works itself out within a week, so I'm hoping things will improve if I cut back on the walking.  Swimming is best, but I'm fine on the elliptical as well. 

Spent 20 minutes on the nordic ski machine last night.  Haven't been on in at least a year.  Yikes.  I really work up a sweat on that thing.  It irritated my sciatica a little bit but not too bad.  Nothing like walking.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Day 14 - Put Down the Chips

Chips are one of my trigger foods.  I love them.  I love the salty crunch.  I'm not a fan of oil and vinegar potato chips and am able to eat only a reasonable portion of corn chips, unless guacamole is available, but give me a bag of Hawaiian style BBQ potato chips or Nacho Cheese Doritos, and it will be gone in 2 or 3 days.  Never inclined toward big binges, I have not eaten an entire bag in one sitting. 

I brought my own meals to work again this week, which worked out well.  In the two days up, I stuck with my healthy eating plan with the exception of a biscotti on Wednesday.  But more importantly, I did not give into the temptation of chips.  Buffalo blue cheese and spicy Thai gourmet potato chips.  Alright I admit I did eat 3 or 4 of the buffalo blue, but I ate only one of the spicy Thai.  That's a total of 5 chips that were available in the lunch room for 2 days.  Five chips!  Who am I?

Today marks the end of my second week.  I began this journey with only one real goal:  exercise 6 days a week.  I decided to take the rest as it came, rather than becoming obsessed by unrealistic goals, as I usually do, and then eventually abandoning all efforts.  So far this approach appears to be working.  When I have a scone with my morning coffee or a 100 calorie fudgcicle for dessert, I do not berate myself for eating simple carbs.  Instead I focus on staying on track the rest of the day and the day after that.  I am finding that each day I do a little better with my diet.  I do better because I want to do better not because I am guilting myself into it.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Day 10 - Clutter

My house is cluttered.  A lot of it is surface clutter that cleans up in about an hour.  But there is other unseen clutter hidden in closets, drawers, and the garage.  Some of this clutter can be thrown away or donated but much of it is useful.  The real problem is organization.  Not one of my strong suits. 

This weekend I decided to inact a new resolution.  Every week I will work on organizing one element of my house.  It doesn't all have to get done in that one week, but I must commit to that single area before moving on to another.  So here's my list of places to tackle inside the house.  The garage is a whole other animal:

1.  Master closet (clothes but there is room on high shelves for storing other things)
2.  Craft/exercise room and closet (the trouble with this room is that the closet is not organized and so I have no place to put stuff that is on the table)
3.  Guest room closet (full of Christmas stuff that could be better organized, but not too bad)
4.  Entertainment room closet (needs organizing to make better use of space - not a big job)
5.  Hall cabinets (could knock this off in an hour or two)
6.  Dresser in hallway (paper filing)

I would love to be organized.  I fantasize about it.  When my house is clean and tidy, I feel relaxed and infinitely more creative and optimistic. 

I planned to clean up surface clutter yesterday so that I can give the house a good cleaning, but I did not.  Instead I lollygagged the day away, reading and watching an old movie.  I did go for an hour walk and made some baked pasta to last me through the week.  But organize I did not. 

Would like to get in 9 hours of exercise again this week, but that might be unrealistic.  I travel Tuesday and Wednesday and am not likely to fit in much, if any, exercise.  Will need to exercise for 30 minutes tomorrow morning before I go.  Wednesday will likely be a rest day. 

Friday, January 7, 2011

Day 7 - Progress Report

My goal this week was to exercise 6 days.  I met my goal.  My total exercise time this week was just shy of 9 hours.  Not bad. 

Next week my goal is to incorporate strength training into my schedule 2 days out of the week for 30 minutes or more.  My diet goal is to eat sugar no more than twice during the week.

I haven't noticed my clothes fitting looser, but do have more energy.  A month ago I was thinking about how often I used to work out and couldn't fathom mustering up the energy to workout 12 or more hours a week.  Now I can.  In just 7 days, exercise has become something I look forward to again rather than an absolute chore. 

On the downside, I fell off the diet wagon a bit Wednesday.  There was some See's peanut brittle in the office, and I ate it.  Not a whole lot, but I should have avoided it altogether.  And then in the spirit of eating whatever I wanted, I ate too many chips before dinner when I met a friend at a Mexican restaurant.

Work is not pleasant for me right now.  The actual work is fine, it's just that there's not enough of it.  Week after week, I am promised that there will be more to do and then in reality there isn't.  I was up in the office three days this week, and barely had enough to keep me busy.  There's also some conflict amiss that I need to deal and am not sure how.  I think this frustration and uncertainty is leading me to eat while I'm in the office....or afterwards over Mexican food with friends.  Ugh.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Day 5 - Basketball

I am bored with exercise.  For the past 10 years, I have been doing the same thing over and over.  I play tennis,  work out on the elliptical machine, walk, strength train.   At one point, I bought a mountain bike and used it every weekend, but then I got a dog and stopped riding my bike because I couldn’t justify exercising without her.  Well enough of that.
One of my goals for this year is to change things up.  Get back on my bicycle.  Try something new or at least “new to me.” 
Last night “new” was basketball. 
I was hanging out with my niece and nephews while my brother and his wife went to the movies.  His kids are 12 year old triplets.   It was dark and already pretty cold when I got there, but I was determined to get some exercise, and not via the Wi.  Always up for an adventure, the kids borrowed a basketball from a neighbor (their ball was flat and we broke the needle trying to air it up) and walked to a nearby park with a barely illuminated basketball court.  I warned them that I hadn’t played basketball in about 20 years, which is not an exaggeration. 
When did I get so out of shape?  I mean, I exercise.  I am active.  I guess there really is something to be said for muscle memory because 45 minutes on the basketball court worked me over.  All that running back and forth between hoops.  I can spend 45 minutes on the elliptical and it feels like a walk in the park.  But I was huffing and puffing last night…for real. 
I feel good today.  My legs are tired, but that’s a good sign. 
What will I do next?

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Day 4 - Fast Food Angst

I am not much of a fast food eater.  Occasionally I will drive through In-N-Out when I'm traveling, but that's about it.  That is until about six months ago when I stopped at MacDonald's on my way to work one morning because the coffee line at Starbucks was too long.  While there, I thought I'd try a sausage Mcmuffin (no egg) and a hashbrown.  You know.  For nastagia's sake.  I hadn't had a McMuffin or hashbrown since I was a kid.  They were, in a word, good.  Salty, cheesy, crispy good. 

And so I fell into a very bad habit of eating breakfast at MacDonald's nearly once a week.  I commute 3 hours from home almost every week and return a day or two later to spend the rest of the time working out of my home office.  Stopping at MacDonald's for a quick breakfast on my way gave me a little break from the monotony of driving and filled my belly.  But eeegads.  At what cost? 

My little meal was costing me 520 calories and 31 grams of fat.  At home, I usually eat a breakfast of stovetop oatmeal or fruit and toast, for a whopping 250 calories, which includes the milk in my coffee.  So once a week I was doubling my caloric intake at breakfast.  It's difficult to eat well when traveling, and if I don't plan ahead with healthy snacks and meals in my cooler, I wind up eating out the entire 2 or 3 days.  Looking back it is quite possible that my time in the office negated all my home efforts for eating well and keeping my calories low. 
And as if eating fast food wasn't bad enough already with all the fat, salt, and preservatives, researchers have now found another reason for us to avoid it all costs.  Apparantly fast food packages, like the little baggies hashbrowns and fries are served in, are coated in some sort of very evil chemical which prevents fat from leaking through the bag.  It is now known that this chemical leaks onto the food, which is then ingested into our bodies.  Not a good thing. 

Clogged arteries and chemical poisoning  

To be honest, it didn't really occur to me how often I was eating breakfast at Micky D's until I cleaned out my car.  Embarrassed by the wrappers, I had been stuffing them under the seats before passengers could see them.  When I pulled those bags and wrappers out from under the seats this past weekend, the gravity of that caloric overload hit me.  What was I thinking?


So today I planned ahead.  I ate breakfast before I left home.  I did stop for a coffee.  Nothing fancy.  Just a coffee with milk.  Ate a half of sandwich for lunch and saved the rest for tomorrow.  Packed some homemade chili with veggies from home for dinner tonight and tomorrow.  Have scheduled a workout with my brother's kids for tonight and a walk with a friend tomorrow night.  Also brought snacks with me - trail mix, jerkey, freeze dried strawberries, and natural licorice sweetened with molasses to satisfy my sweet tooth and keep me from raiding the candy drawer in the lunch room. 

Abrupt subject change....I attended the cardio boxing class at the club last night.  My back is sore today, which I expected, but I feel GREAT.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Day 3 - Polar Bear Dip

I don't normally think of the gym as a place where I might find myself doubled over in laughter, but yesterday all that changed.  I had met a friend of mine, Debsie, and her two kids at the gym for a workout and swim.  The "gym" is actually a swim and tennis club that includes a small, albeit functional, workout room with various equipment and cardio machines.  The club recently stopped heating its big pool and is now heating only the covered pool, which is outside but protected from the elements by a pergola.  The pool is heated to 85 degrees plus and is quite comfortable, too much so in my opinion, as the warm water lulls me into swimming only slow motion laps.  But I digress.

So with our cardio workout and a few laps in the heated pool complete, the kids decide to go check out the jacuzzi, which happens to be next to the big unheated pool.  We ask them to dip their feet in the big pool to see how cold it is, and then we have the great idea that a polar bear dip might be fun.  Yes, fun.  The kids check it out and don't seem all that diswayed by the chilly water, so we get out of the warm pool, gather our belongings, and walk in the rain over to the big pool in our swimsuits.  It's a cold walk as the air seeps into our wet suits.  Debsie's teeth are chattering.

We agree to jump in all at the same time, but somehow that doesn't happen.  While I am moving to jump in at a location near the ladder, anticipating a quick exit, one of the kids jumps in.  He seems undaunted by the cold, swims into the shallows, exits, and then heads to the jacuzzi. 

Still not quite ready to take the plunge, the girl and I stand on the edge while Debsie makes a go for it.  We watch her, wondering if maybe it's just not that cold.  But when she bursts through the surface of the water, arms flaying, water splashing every which way in her frantic attempt to escape, we know with absolute certainty that the water is indeed cold.  We continue to watch as she first bobs left, thinking that she'll follow her son's path of exit, quickly changes her mind and instead tries to hoist herself up and over the edge of the pool, a feat she has not been able to accomplish for probably a decade but was optimistic that the surge of adrenaline induced by the frigid temps would be enough to spur her to success.  She was wrong. 

Now she's stuck in the water, still flaying her arms, still screaming, and her face is beet red.  Ear-to-ear and chin-to-hair line beet red.  I am laughing hard, doubled over, vaguely aware that I am in a swimsuit and hoping to God that no one else but us is around to see my bent over ass but unable to stop both the laughter and the bending.  Debsie's laughing too.  Splashing and red faced and laughing as she makes her way to the ladder.  Finally she emerges and is off to the jacuzzi. 

Now it's just the two of us left.  Debsie's nine year old daughter and me. 

We jump in and come up screaming.  As I am fighting my way through the ice cold water to the ladder, it occurs to me to hold back and let the little one exit first.  But I am to cold to stop.  I reach the ladder a split second before her and hesitate for just a moment, long enough for her to rest a foot on the bottom step.  But she doesn't, and not one to waste such an opportunity, I glom on, pull myself out, then quickly turn around and offer her a hand, but she opts for the ladder rails instead, already three quarters of the way out of the pool. 

We sit in the jacuzzi and laugh about Debsie's red face and frantic bug-like splashing.  I'm hoping all that laughing (and splashing) resulted in an additional calorie burn.

What sort of exercise is this?

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Day 2 - The Jolly Myth

Who came up with the notion that fat people are jolly?  Have you ever met a jolly fat person?  I have not.  Most fat people I know are disgruntled with their bodies, and this disappointment pervades their persona, to varying degrees.  They may be happy overall, but they are not jolly.  Some are far from it.  I have met angry fat people, mean fat people, funny self-deprecating fat people, sarcastic, chipper, cynical, sad, shy, disappointed, friendly and fearful fat people.  Never jolly.

That said, I'm not sure I've met a skinny or average weighted or only slightly overweight jolly person either.  Maybe the term jolly has lost something with age.  Maybe by association with Jolly Ole' St. Nick, it has become bigger than life, bigger than Webster's, bigger than fat even.

I am not jolly.  I am slightly cynical, optimistic about some things and deeply pessimistic about others, and I am restless to my very core.  But jolly I am most certainly not.

The thing is, I like me.  I like everything about me except for my fat.  I like my height, my laugh, my face, my breasts, my feet, my hands, my lips, my intellect.  I even like the less savory aspects of my personality like my impatience and my pessimism because everything contributes to the whole.  I am who I am.  But I do not like my fat, no sirree.

If I could lose this fat once and for all, I just might be jolly after all....at least for a day.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Day 1 - The Little Black Dress

A New Year's Resolution of weight loss is far from original.  I'd like to think of my decision to try this weight loss thing yet again less of a resolution and more of an adventure.  A process.  A journey.  I think about my weight every day.  I think about how fat I am every time I take a shower, get dressed, tie my shoes, go to the gym, eat.  When I imagine myself doing something I haven't yet done but want to do, such as snowboarding, wind surfing, or even walking the streets of Barcelona, I ask myself if I am too fat.  Often the answer is "yes."  Yes I am too fat to wind surf.  Yes I am too fat to snowboard.  Well probably not too fat to snowboard, but I have always had trouble getting off the lift without making a scene, and I would prefer not to subject myself to that mortification while 100 lbs overweight.

My greatest motivation for losing weight is my health.  Despite already being an active person and in relatively good health, apart from a severely underactive thyroid (Hashimoto's disease), I know that carrying around 100 extra pounds takes it toll on the body.

There are many reasons why I want to lose weight.  I will discuss these at length over the next 365 days, but for today, with New Year's Eve parties fresh in the mind's of readers, let me pontificate a bit about the little black dress.

I have never had a little black dress.  Oh sure, I have a couple of black dresses in my closet and have had others over the years, but none of them have ever been "little."  The closest I have come to "little" was a size 14.  The cutest one in my closet today is a Lane Bryant size 18/20.  It's a wee bit snug.

Now just so you know, I am a tall woman.  5'9.  I have strong shapely legs and a full bust.  I used to have an  hour glass shape, but my mid-section has spread, much to my great dismay.  Nevertheless, my weight is well-proportioned.  It's possible that by losing 100 lbs I might shrink down to a size 9/10, but an 11/12 is more likely.  I am a big girl, and 11/12 will look great on me.

Keeping size 12 in mind, I went online looking for a little black dress that I would be oh-so-happy to wear.  I like vintage styled clothing, so I flipped through the virtual pages of Anthropologie, a clothier that apparently carries nothing over a size 12.  I say apparently because they include a check box of size 14, but it is always shaded, indicating that that particular size is not available.  So I suspect finding anything at Anthropologie in a size 14 would be a fluke or an odd stroke of luck at best.  Normally I would shun a store that excludes woman of average size (14 is average for American women), but I love Anthropologies' flirty retro style.  And besides....this is hypothetical shopping.  I am not actually buying anything. 

So....here's my idea of the perfect little black dress.


Maybe I'll be able to fit into something like this in 365 days.  Maybe it will take more time.  We shall see.

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