Healthy Lifestyle Bloggers

Monday could've gone better for me...

The good part is simple, a one pound loss!

The bad, well, I went too hard in the pool, aggravated upper right arm and shoulder again. Had no idea until this morning when I could barely move it. Gack! New goal... go a little easier for a bit. I do not HAVE to do my water aerobics like I'm on speed! Though that will take some of the fun out of it!

But then there's the UGLY. Apparently, my body was just raving for calories and when I hit Safeway after my workout, ugh. OK, ONE treat would have been fine, and something I often do on Monday. But I bought THREE! One banana nut muffin, one small can of Wasabi fried peas (about 500 cals for the can) and one 77% dark chocolate bar (on sale).

Now, this might not have been quite so bad, except I consumed almost all of this in one sitting as soon as I got home. OK, I stopped with a third of the chocolate left. Ate it later that night though along with a fair few servings of almonds and dried cranberries. Hopefully it is out of my system.

I've also started some new workout DVDs, picked 'em up on eBay with a 10% off coupon. They are called 10 Minute Trainer from Beachbody.com. The idea is that each workout is only 10 minutes (not including a warm-up and cool down) and you can do one or more, depending on your time and in my case, how I feel. I think this will work better for me for a while, since it's so hard for me to be on my feet and doing resistance training for very long at all. The short workouts are tougher than they appear! I'm having to modify in quite a few places, but they get me sweating and according to my heart rate monitor, burning pretty good calories!

Past week's eating, passable, not perfect. But I got more exercise in.

It's been a while since I've done girth measurements and I don't know why. Partly because for a while there I was backsliding and I just "didn't wanna know". Bad attitude on my part. Knowing and accountability are better.

One of my goals is to take measurements monthly... I've been failing badly. Now I want to get with the program and JUST DO IT! It's only feedback.

The previous measurements were taken March 2nd, 2008.

I'm a little out of practice measuring, so I'm not sure if some of the increases are true or just that I measured in a slightly different spot. Shoulder, chest, navel and hip measurements are always tricky for me to do.

I don't FEEL like I've gained 3.54 inches!

Today's weight: 225.4 pounds

This week's forgotten weigh-in post synopsis:

I was at 227.0 on July 28th. A slight gain of .4 pounds for the week.

And I KNOW it is my weak point. So why, oh why did I make bread yesterday? Was I craving it? Nope. Rarely eat it these days, miss it a little, get it sometimes at restaurants and don't really think about it much.

But I wanted to try making whole wheat bread from scratch with my Vita-Mix Super 5200. So out of sheer curiosity, I made bread, straight from hard red winter wheat berries.

Vita-Mix suggests that you freeze your wheat berries, since the grinding process generates heat. I measured out the required amount of frozen wheat berries into the dry blade container with some sea salt.

Next step was proofing the yeast. Think warm water, yeast and honey. At the end of the recipe, Vita-Mix suggested using cold water if you were grinding your wheat flour from berries. Oops. Too late.

Then, the grinding. This took a minute. The dry container worked perfectly, as advertised.

I added my yeast mixture, plus olive oil and a little lemon juice to the fresh flour, just as it sat in the container. I ran the machine for ONE SECOND on HIGH to mix!

Kneading involved setting the machine on high and quickly turning it on and off five times in succession. That helped mix it the rest of the way as well. You take off the lid, push the dough to the center with a spatula, put the lid back on and repeat this cycle four more times. At that point, the recipe suggested to do it yet a sixth time to help get the dough up in a ball on the blades for easier removal.

Well... dough removal was MOSTLY easy, but there was a fair amount of dough left stuck under the blades. They don't mention that bit. I dug that out with a spatula and my fingers (Carefully with the fingers!) and added it to my dough ball. I then kneaded it a little by hand on a lightly floured cutting board, shaped it and put it into a greased 8" x 4" bread pan. Let rise 20 minutes, popped it into the pre-heated oven to bake at 350F for 35 minutes. Took longer to type this post than to make the bread!

It was a smallish loaf. Tasted great! No big air holes, very consistent crumb. I ate a heel with a little butter. Yum!

Trouble is, an hour later the existence of that loaf of bread (by now cooled, sliced, bagged and in the freezer) was FESTERING IN MY BRAIN! Sometimes, I manage to bake bread, freeze it and stay away from it until I want a slice to go with soup or something. Not this time! One taste was not enough.

I know I should've eaten a proper meal so I wouldn't have been hungry. Instead, I got a slice out from the freezer and ate it, warmed from the microwave. And it was good! Unfortunately, that slice was followed by another. And still another, until finally, the whole small loaf was GONE! URP!

All I can say is that I ate no further the rest of the evening. Now you know why I don't keep bread around!

Next time, I'll try and take pictures. I have more wheat berries and I think my husband will want to see this Vita-Mix trick. Here's hoping I learn some more control by then!

Well, if you've been by, you've seen that I lost 1.4 pounds for the week. The change was getting my exercise in and really watching the calories. And drinking my water. It feels good.

Unfortunately, I felt so good Friday that, after water aerobics, I started my usual quarter mile swim. For once, my shoulder wasn't bothering me. Nor my knee. I was in a rhythm, so I kept swimming until I'd done a half mile. Tired after, but otherwise fine. Then I walked, slowly to cool down for a quarter mile. The swim shouldn't have been a problem, but it was.

I was EXTREMELY sore Saturday. In fact, today, Tuesday, is the first day I haven't felt sore. And though my legs were normal sore, my shoulder felt aggravated sore, not muscle sore. That's not so good. So, Saturday I rested. Sunday I managed a little Nordic Track as fasted cardio. Monday I skipped water aerobics. Oh, I wasn't so sore leg wise that I couldn't have gone, but I was worried about making my shoulder worse. It was cooler outside and I decided to do a bit of housework and yard work instead.

Today, natch, my feet were hurting. But the yard remains.

I made the decision this past week that I need help. I simply can't prune the trees that need pruning, take out assorted shrubs that are taking over, dig for edging, etc... etc... etc... myself. Oh, if I didn't have the foot and shoulder and arm and knee issues I do, I could do a lot of this and would. Shortly after we moved here, I managed to take out an entire dead tree by myself!

But right now, I can't cope. The yard got bad last year when my feet were bad off and it is only worse now. I called a landscape company. They are going to do some of the badly needed pruning and cleanup. Then they will install some things like a retaining wall where a wooden one is breaking down and some edging so we can keep the grass out of areas we don't want it. There's one little catch. $$$$

So today was cool again and overcast, so I thought maybe I could help keep costs down if I started working on some of the cleanup myself, at least with weeds and stuff. My feet are starting to feel painful. Turns out digging isn't only bad on my feet, but makes my cranky knee hurt too. I found that out after discovering some new, noxious looking, THORNY VINE.

I'm going to get my frozen water bottle and ice. Don't know about dinner... maybe pizza. THREE HOURS of yard work should've burnt a few calories.

I did better with my eating and exercise goals, but hardly perfect.

I figured I'd better post a short and quickie... otherwise it totally won't get done and we'll be on next week's before I know it!

The basics... Monday 7/7 I was at 230.6, last Monday I was at 228.0. Loss of 2.6 pounds! OK, almost certainly water weight. After this week though, I think I'll have dispensed with extra water and will be losing fat again.

Here's the scoop... after backsliding, I find myself in a tight position. I have the goal of being at or under 200 pounds by January 1st, 2009. Roughly 24 weeks left. And given that I now weigh, as of today, just over 227 pounds, that means I must lose over a pound a week to get there.

That means I've tightened calories up a bit further. Mondays I try to eat around maintenance calories so my body doesn't freak too much over calorie restriction. But then Wednesday and Friday (or any other day that I am doing serious exercise), I'm going for 2000 calories. Days of less exercise, 1600 calories. It's actually not all that tough to stick to when all is well and no stress. Where it's tougher is when I feel stressed or tired. Last night I was tempted to eat a bit more, while watching a bit of the Tour de France bicycle race, but then I thought about my goal and stopped at my allotted calories.

If I find my feet will let me do more, I'll bump the calories to account for it. But for now, this seems to be working. Today I stand at 227.2 pounds.

Now that I am back to good PN style eating, I sure notice the difference in how I feel and energy levels. Doesn't mean I don't crash after a hard workout, but I recover better from that.

Yesterday, I blasted into water aerobics for a really good interval style workout. Actually, the instructor wasn't doing any such thing... I just did that on my own by taking a particular move up a notch then going back down to recover, then up again. I swam too, but I was pretty wiped after the class and my knee was bothering me. I also water walked.

But all day, I was craving fruit. I normally eat 2-3 servings a day... yesterday, I ate fruit with EVERY meal! Oddly, my carbs were still in reasonable check even with all the fruit and veggies I ate and I did not bloat further like I might have thought. Instead, my weight was down.

It may have been a water issue. I was drinking plenty, but pool exercise just seems to suck the water right out of me. I drank water and green tea, close to a gallon and a half of liquids yesterday! It doesn't help that it's hot here. Maybe the cravings were just my body telling me it needed even more fluids as fruit does tend to have a lot of water content.

Sometimes a craving is a bad thing... but not always!

I literally dropped from 231.2 to 227.4 pounds overnight. Water, I know... that kind of large loss is never fat. But once I put the water losses behind me this week, further losses should be goo.

I've got to run pack my gym bag and get off to class, but I'll get back here eventually and find some time to post and catch up! Monday's weigh-in was a definite loss of over 2 pounds... but then I goofed up and didn't realize that a TV dinner I bought was TWO servings, not one. And I ate a muffin. And last night had a bowl of potato soup and bread with salad when we ate out. I did leave the lump of sour cream they put on top sitting lonely and unloved in the bottom of my bowl though.

Calories have been staying roughly OK though, in spite of all that, so I think my recent upswing on my weight graph is just water again.

Spent a little time bike shopping yesterday... well, actually, getting a second opinion on the fit of my new bike. Unfortunately, that opinion concurs with the first, in that it is a size too large frame for me. I did get to sit on and pedal a smaller bike though! More later on that when I get a chance!

It's funny how, when you start thinking about goals again how habits that were so easily dumped for a few weeks are also fairly easily resumed. Sometimes, like the Nike commercial, you "Just do it."

Yesterday was a good day for both eating and exercise.

Two days of decent eating and suddenly, instead of feeling sluggish and slow, I had ENERGY for yesterday's water aerobics. VRROOOOM! Naturally, my instructor decided to take us through a LOT of leg exercises as well as arm exercises. I was SORE this morning. And I felt tempted to ah, postpone small session of fasted cardio exercise until tomorrow. And then I thought about being under 200 pounds again next year and did it.

After doing my Nordic Track, I fixed a lovely egg white omelet, with two cups of assorted veggies inside.

Then I de-fuzzed the living room. This involves piling all the cat toys that normally reside there elsewhere until the vacuuming is done. We've got a "Crinkle Cave", two different style "Crinkle Tunnels" a "Play Cube", a "Play Center", a "Mystery Triangle" and a cat bed we call a "Kerfloppen".

One thing sure, if it comes to "They win who die with the most toys.", my cats are on top of the heap. This is only the tip of their massive collection. And boy, do they get concerned every time I pick the toys up!

Well, last night came the realization that, if I want to meet my goal of getting under 200 pounds by January, I've got to get cracking! There's really no room for messing up or slacking off anymore. So I'm taking it a day at a time and trying to get back on track with both eating and exercise.

One of my recent strategies is less computer time. I was posting on several forums, but now am sticking to just a couple and less of those. One, less computer time means less aggravation of the chronic tendinitis in my forearms and two, it gives me more time to work on projects, chores and exercise. Oh, that doesn't mean I won't be reading blogs and commenting and stuff like that, but I'll probably be doing less of it.

Yesterday, I got in a good 90 minutes of exercise, kept the calories on target and got my water in. Unfortunately, my knee was bothering me pretty badly in water aerobics and after, and I realized that when I mess up on the eating, I also sometimes forget important supplements that help my joints out, like fish oils and glucosamine chondroitin. Oops! Well, I got those in yesterday and have had my first dose today as well.

Today, the knee is still bothering me. I thought about NOT doing my little bit of fasted cardio on the Nordic Track this morning, then I thought about my goals and got up and did it anyway. 15 minutes was perfectly do-able, even with my knee not entirely happy. I'll try and add a bit more later.

I cooked up 4 oz. lean ground meat with a pile of onion, carrot, mushrooms, cabbage and zucchini for breakfast. Next... I want a cup of green tea. And our fuzzy girl cat Sister wants some play time. Funny how the cats are ALWAYS ready to play and get some exercise. I should be like that!

Will head bump for TOY...

For those who wonder why Luna gets all the camera love, well, Luna is just THERE, she is the aggressive one of the bunch and involves herself in everything. Sister and Tablet are a bit more shy.

We refer to Sister as "royalty with a price on her head". Sister is a bit paranoid about things like assassins, paparazzi and the like. She is very loving, playful and social with us... but heads straight for the basement at top speed should anyone else come into her house! Luna and Tablet like to aggravate Sister, they can make her snarl like a bobcat!

As regular readers know, back in late May, I won one of the Lipton Tea bikes being given away in various blog contests. The first step was to give my personal info to Liz at Everyday Goddess after being notified of my win. Liz immediately tendered that to the powers that be and shortly, she received an email from the contest representative:

Subject: RE: Can you confirm you received my info.?

Yes, thank you I did receive Cynthia's contact information. We will be sending her the bike soon.

Thanks,
 Tanya

Soon turned out to be June 27th, when a UPS Quantum View tracking email arrived in my inbox! My bike was coming to me all the way cross country from Connecticut.

This message was sent to you at the request of ZANES - TREK CYCLE to notify you that the package information below has been transmitted to UPS. The package(s) may not have actually been placed with UPS for shipment. To verify when and if the shipment is tendered to UPS and its actual transit status, click on the tracking link below or contact ZANES - TREK CYCLE directly.

Important Delivery Information

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scheduled Delivery: 07-July-2008

Monday FINALLY came. WOW! It was a BIG BOX! Luna immediately took possession. She is funny that way. In fact... she resisted being moved from the box. But I had to get into that box myself! Here come the pictures...

All boxes belong to Luna!

Given the size of it, I just started unpacking! I wasn't too convinced that I could move it out of the way of the front door easily otherwise. At around 35 pounds, it wasn't insurmountably heavy exactly, just AWKWARD!

Inside the bike box...

Once I removed Luna from the box and pried up all the staples holding it together, this is what I greeted my wondering eyes when I peered inside. Amazing. They fit the bike in there all right! I found a small box wedged in there somewhere and I thought I best open that first. A label on the outside of the big box said that the necessary tools for assembly were included and I had a hunch they might be in the little box.

Little box full of goodies

The little box contained an allen wrench, pedal wrench, owner's manual, pedals and the front wheel skewer. Plus the assembly check for $75 and several coupons for FREE 1.5L bottles of Lipton White Tea, any flavor.

There was also a sheet of directions for assembly. I did a quick read, decided I ought to get better acquainted with my bike and intrepidly forged ahead. It was either that, or figure out how to get that VERY BIG BOX down to the bike shop and admit to being a total bike assembly wuss.

Bike booty unpacked!

Hmmm... this didn't quite look like a bike yet, and it was up to me to fix that. A big surprise was the included Bell Radar bike helmet, I wasn't expecting that! Kudos to Zane's World Famous Cycles for tossing that in!

Anyway, I set to. I put the seat post into the frame and clamped it down. That was easy! Getting the handlebars on was a little more complicated, but once I puzzled through the dark illustrations, not so bad.

Then I got to mount the front wheel. It looked much more like a bike at this point! I hit a snag connecting the front brakes though. I just couldn't get the cable to seat in the bracket and was afraid to force it. That I left for the bike shop. Pedals went on easily and suddenly, I was done!

And here's the BIKE!

OK, I forgot and left a little packing material on the rear frame. I'll do a better photo later, when it returns from the bike shop with the front brakes connected. Chalk it down to excitement!

Three cheers for Lipton Tea and their bike giveaway!

OK... I'm not avoiding y'all... but the BIKE arrived yesterday!

Sitting at the computer writing a post vs. unpacking a BIG EXCITING BOX. Hmmm... the box won that battle handily. Can you blame me?

The bike, she is beautiful! Only the frame is clearly too large for me. I have not yet been successful getting on the bike. Well, I can, but only with the aid of my couch and only with the seat in the very lowest position, which probably would not be the ideal position for my legs to pedal in.

I have to take it to the bike shop anyway, as though I was able to successfully assemble most of the stuff that needed assembly with the included tools, I have not been able to connect the front brakes, a sort of essential item. So maybe they can teach me how to get on. More later... I took pix while I was unpacking.

Monday's weigh-in sucked. 230.6 pounds.

Exercise... well, I did two sessions on the Nordic Track Sunday, each lasting about fifteen minutes.

Yesterday, given I needed to stick around to receive the bike, I missed water aerobics. But I did get up early AM and skiied 20 minutes on the Nordic Track. All other exercise involved bike assembly and attempts to get on. So at least I'm starting to get back in a bit of an exercise groove. My feet hurt this morning, so I will have to ice tonight.

I had a smoothie this morning and am going to eat a Jack in the Box salad hubby brought me last night. Then it's bike shop errand time!

Well, I had a nearly perfect day last Wednesday, but then slipped right back into old habits. This sure isn't getting me anywhere! At least I managed to weigh myself on Thursday and Friday... forgot to Saturday and then did do it today. I dread doing it tomorrow, but I know that I have to face it.

I woke early today... and started thinking that I *should* get back to exercising more, thinking yeah, I'll do that Monday. And then my common sense kicked in and I installed the needed new batteries in the Nordic Track computer and put on my shoes and my heart rate monitor, turned on the music and did 15 minutes. I told myself I only had to do 10 minutes but once going, I felt I could do 15 minutes.

I did feel my left ankle badly at first, then it settled down and things were fine. I could feel my feet a bit, so I didn't push it after fifteen minutes. I just want to get the habit back first. Otherwise, I'm just going to hurt and get discouraged. Which I think is often a trend I have, I push too hard, feel crappy and then back off of exercise entirely.

Anyway, according to the heart rate monitor, I burned a hundred calories.

The new bike should, if UPS tracking is correct, arrive tomorrow. I'm hoping it will get here early, otherwise, I may have to miss water aerobics to be here to receive it. It's not something I want sitting in full view on the porch! Anyway, the plan is to hope that I can make class and be ready for that. And if not, do at least something for exercise tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I've been thinking of places I can learn to ride and I think I have a couple ideas. And I also registered on BikeForums.net the other day for help and advice and inspiration. They actually have a whole forum for people who are of larger size, called Clydesdales/Athenas.

Hope everyone had a good 4th of July... I was quiet here, hubby was working and evening shift at that. We did watch some TV fireworks together when he got home.

Well, I'm afraid I continued my backward slide last week, painful as that is to admit. I got busy preparing for a trip out of town and just didn't have time or inclination to eat properly. No exercise to speak of either, other than a little yard work. I'd meant to post that I was busy, but was so busy I never got to do it.

No logging, no real weighing and that's always a bad sign. When I don't weigh, that's when things will run out of control, there's something about seeing the number every day that helps remind me of what I'm doing and what my goals are. Not seeing it lets me hide my head in the sand.

Well, my head is out of the sand.

I've gained 4.2 pounds since my last official weigh-in.

229.2 pounds. Ugh.

It's time to get seriously back to my good habits. The old habits of skipping meals, snacking too much, not exercising and overeating obviously get me the old results. Which I don't want. For one thing, while preparing for the trip, I was up and down the basement stairs more than usual and my bad right knee was really getting painful. I can see a possible need for knee surgery in the future... and I sure don't want to be this heavy while doing that and the subsequent recovery!

So I'm going to try and make today a better day.

There is some good news though... I came home to a UPS Ship notification email for the bike I won! It should be arriving early next week.

Seriously. I have just been all over the place. Hubby brought home chocolate from his Seattle trip... EATEN. Snacks... partook. Pizza... yep, done that too. Mexican food last night at the new place in town... which turned out to be, somewhat unfortunately, VERY GOOD! I'm not sure it's a good thing to know there is a *good* affordable restaurant around, sigh... we'll have to be careful.

And logging... ah, haven't done any of that.

Weighing... well, I have done that some and it's been quite unpleasant. As you know I skipped the unpleasant Monday weigh-in, but I think, to stay accountable and get back on track, I'll have to post this Monday's truth. Don't expect it to be a happy truth.

Exercise... what exercise? I got caught up in the US Open golf thing last week while waiting on the phone repair, so I skipped water aerobics to watch the 19 hole playoff. Wednesday, I got up, downloaded email and got involved in a discussion and lost track of the time and missed again. Today, gym bag is loaded and I am going. Period.

Feet... well, I did something I'd been procrastinating on, cleaned up the bed half of the bedroom and installed the folding bookshelves we are going to use for bedside night stands. Mind you, I bought these back at CHRISTMAS TIME! I must say, it feels good to have them in place and all the cordage taken care of around hubby's stuff so all looks neat and tidy. I did find cat fluff stuck in the grooves of the fake wood paneling walls though. Can't believe I vacuumed the WALLS!

But... naturally, my feet were again toast after a day of housework. I suspect I've got myself to blame this time, not enough icing lately, and not good healthy eating. Healthy eating helps the fight against inflammation, bad eating does the opposite. I've had one PN shake this morning, will have another before exercise and I am back taking my fish oils.

What a slump. I can't believe I've just let things go like this. I feel stressed, there is much to be done around here, task that require being on my feet. Somehow, I've got to manage, even if it is a little bit at a time. But I have to manage the exercise, at least the water aerobics if not more. And I've got to get the eating back under control. Fast.

Well, sorry I haven't been around... our phone line went out Thursday. Called for repair immediately, set up appointment for Friday, sequestered the poor cats for hours and no one showed. Called... they said no repair order had been filed. Yeah, right.

Sigh. Set up another appointment and this time, got someone out Saturday. But for two days, no phone and therefore no internet since we are dial-up. Thank goodness for the Tracfone.

I felt rather stressed over it, since hubby was going out of town and the timing was bad. And I was stressed also because after my first session out hacking at bushes, my feet AND arms were pretty bad off. So no further gardening has gotten done and that too, is a stressor.

Anyway, I ended up waiting around for the phone guy for a long time Friday (had to miss water aerobics as my repair appointment window included that time) and got involved in watching the US Open Golf tournament. Riveting! Sitting with my feet up or on ice was good for them... but I got into an eating jag. Not a huge problem at first, because there wasn't anything junky in the house. But then, I got cravings for junk food and went and bought some. Chips, ice cream and a candy bar. All of which got eaten in a couple days. And I also overdid on dried fruits and nuts and cheese.
I was mostly back on track Sunday... but I'm not sure I want to weigh in and I may just skip it. I don't want to feel worse than I already do.

I got a lot of housework done today... but my feet are feeling it, even though much of it was actually done sitting... i.e. de-fuzzing all the assorted cat beds while I watched golf. That's a quite a job, actually, involving a lot of arm work to brush off the cat fuzz with my pet hair magnet and vacuum as needed. It's done for the present though.

OK... this Monday's weigh-in was better than last week's, but I can't say I was happy with going from 225.8 to only 225.0! I really have to do better if I'm going to meet my goal of getting under 200 pounds by the end of the year. I've got to get the exercise in and I've got to keep the eating reined in!

At least TODAY I am at a better weight of 223.2.

We ate dinner out Sunday, so that probably did affect things adversely, but still! I had been doing fairly well on the eating, most slips involved not getting veggies with a meal or something like that. I know I have not gotten enough exercise. That's been a sticky point, I just don't even feel like trying when my feet hurt, but I think I'm going to have to suck it up and get something done anyway.

I've also noticed that nights icing my feet on the couch are weak points. I'm trying to stave off the snack problem with veggies and a couple tablespoons of hummus, instead of eating cheese and/or peanut butter.

This week, so far, I've at least extended my pool workouts, and am hoping that will help. I've been good on the eating since Monday as well, no going over calories, no 10% meals, lots of liquids and today has also gone well.

I'm about to eat another meal, then go out and lop on a couple roses that I want to dig out. They are diseased looking, in a shady spot and just not doing well. They are also hard to get to to take care of, being somewhat under a tree. I figure I might as well dig while the ground is soft after the recent rains!

Meal 1 = Dover sole and assorted vegetables, pan-fried with minimal spritz of olive oil.

Meal 2 = PN Blueberry Madness smoothie

Workout = 90 minutes followed by a serving of protein powder in water

Grocery Shopping

Meal 3 = PN Apricot Yogurt smoothie with spinach

Hit my gallon of water after this point... I swear, I must sweat out tons in the pool! I admit, I was pumping it today... not only worked hard in water aerobics class, but swam a bit harder after.

Meal 4 = Ground bison and assorted veggies and hemp seed.

You can see where I was pretty spotty with exercise and 10% meals.

MUST DO BETTER! I've got to focus!

I'm not feeling up to tons of posting right now... getting my feet flared up meant I did a lot of sitting at the computer the past couple weeks, with the result that my chronic tendinitis in my arms is a bit flared as well! Particularly my right arm. Ugh. Pain makes it lots less fun to be typing and posting.

I did try a new workout DVD today... Power 90 by Tony Horton. (Bought off eBay to save a few $$.) It arrived right at the point I had my workout gear on... so instead of getting on the Nordic Track for some semi-fasted morning cardio, I put the DVD in the player instead. I did the Sweat 1-2 cardio workout. Well, the power yoga portion didn't go so well, I obviously need to learn those moves separately before trying to put it all together! That's OK... I have a couple new yoga DVDs to try out, so those might help me.

But the rest or the workout was simple enough, though tiring. I had to substitute non-impact moves like marching in place and side- stepping for some of the high impact moves done in the video. Very do-able, no problem. And I was able to keep pace with the DVD quite well. Moves were simple, no fancy choreography. Knee raises (w/arms), running in place, jumping jacks, fast feet, boxing, kicks, stuff like that.

Oddly... it's not my heart that was worked hard, just the muscles for doing the moves. My heart rate stayed around 58-65%... nothing much for me. What they call fat burning zone. But that's exactly what I want for semi-fasted cardio, so it worked out well. The workout was a half hour and that also is a good length for me at present.

Unfortunately... I'm not sure my feet are ready yet for being on them so much. They were hurting after. Of course, they also do that after a pool workout, just not quite as much. I may have to put the DVDs off for a bit, do more pool work and such. At any rate, I ate after and then sat down to ice my feet. I'm going to try and ice twice a day and see if that helps. Maybe even start soaking my feet in a bucket of ice water. Something has gotta get them calmed down before I go nuts! I watched the Sculpt 1-2 portion of the DVD while icing. Looks do-able... sorta. I'm guessing I am going to have some trouble with the pushups and dips.

I think, once my feet are calmer, these will be good DVDs for me.

I really, really wish the weather would improve... it's raining again. I wanted to be gardening today. Sigh.

It's not been a stellar week. AGAIN.

I think I've been kind of depressed and well, SULKY about my feet. Which tends to make me stray on eating. I'm back to exercise TODAY. I kept putting it off, but well, no more excuses. The excess skin of my toe blister has come off, it's time to do something. I don't know that I can be as vigorous in water aerobics as usual, I've still got arch and heel pain going when I get on my feet, but I should be able to do SOMETHING. And that's got to be better than nothing!

Yesterday, I went out to get potting mix... also bought candy bars (multiple) and CHEETOS! It's been a bad eating weekend, but yesterday was the WORST. No regular meals, not much water drinking... instead, diet soda drinking and junk food. And pizza. Nothing much truly healthy except maybe the veggies on the pizza. OTOH... I did get some yard work done. Then fell asleep later on the sofa after icing my feet.

I can do better. I WILL do better!

I do NOT want to see 225.8 pounds on my scale again!

I know most of this is water weight... but some may be fat. If I want to be at or under 200 pounds come December 31... I can't slack off now! That's the long and short of it. Whatever it takes.

So, breakfast happened, as it should, BEFORE I turned on the computer. I've been slacking on that... and I need to buckle down and start my days right.

Meal 1 = Lean ground beef, onion, carrots, asparagus, mushrooms, baby bok choy. 1 TBSP green curry sauce.

I must admit... I usually don't leave it this late to write my weigh-in post! Procrastination at work? Not really... I actually was dedicating some time to getting some actual house work and other tasks done. You probably noticed that I did not wait to change my ticker or pounds to go button!

Anyway, the verdict was 221.6. Confirming that last week's horrendous weigh-in was *mostly* a water gain. But not entirely water. So I have some work to do to get back to my previous low of 219.6.

Truthfully, my weight has been bouncing around quite a bit since Monday. I keep having sugar cravings and sadly, have given in to some of them. Though I drew a line at buying the tempting bag of high fructose corn syrup strawberry bon-bons at the store. Those stayed at the store! But I brought home and ate two Reese's Nutrageous candy bars and a large can of Wasabi fried peas and ate them all in an evening.

Even yesterday... after eating well all day, we went to a movie. Then had a late meal out. I had a salad... and with dressing on the side which I used in a fairly minimal fashion, i.e. fork dipping. Also had a bowl of soup... but the shame was in asking my husband to buy me a cookie on a stick. I love those! I did remember to order iced tea instead of a diet soda... I'm working to ditch the habit of automatically ordering diet soda at restaurants.

All I can say is thank goodness for goals! I have a goal to reach or be under 200 pounds by the end of the year and time is passing by. So I have to get back on the wagon NOW if I mean to reach it. That means better logging and more attention to preparing proper meals and back to exercise.

Yesterday I did some house cleaning... and I realize that I need to keep up on that better. It's so easy to procrastinate, because I have the perfect excuse... i.e. "My feet hurt." And they DO. Quite a bit last night after yesterday's efforts. But the housecleaning needs to get done too. I feel better when my house is clean. You know, I keep my kitchen clean, because it's essential for me to be able to go in there and fix a meal fast. And it feels good to have a clean kitchen. But that feeling gets diminished when the rest of the house is a constant hairball.

Well, today, I will do the living room. That's where I use my TRX trainer right now and also my fitness ball. I hate putting my equipment in there when the floors are fuzzy with cat fluff drifting about.

I just got tagged by Christine Braun over at Iowa Avenue to play a blog game by creating a six word or less memoir. Mine's the title of this post and also the title of my member log over on the Precision Nutrition forums. These five words are what I try to keep in mind as I go about my daily life.

Naturally, sometimes when I look at cat fuzz on the carpet and decide I need to vacuum, I ignore these words and trot off to the pool instead!

Still, one of my worst habits is procrastination and it is a habit I fight every day on various fronts. And I've sure done my share of "I'll start a diet tomorrow." or "I'll eat better tomorrow." or "I'm going to eat what I want this week and come Monday, I'll change my lifestyle for the better." or even "It's the holidays... I'll eat what I want and go on a diet after New Years."

It's easy to put off life change. Life change is work and the vast majority of people, including me, naturally veer away from extra work. Hence the proliferation of quick fix diets and the taking of pills and meds to correct the ills caused by overeating and under-exercising. Yet... life change is also easy when taken a step at a time, a moment at a time. And we only have NOW to make that step. The past is done... the future may or may not be there for us. You never know what life will throw you. We assume we will always have that tomorrow, but that's not guaranteed.

I may lapse on occasion, I may... as I did last night, buy a dark chocolate bar and a small can of Wasabi fried peas and eat that INSTEAD of a healthy meal. (I stayed under maintenance calories though!) But I will make change for the better at my very next opportunity.

The past is the past. If you skipped your exercise session, if you ate fast food, whatever it was, you can't go back and undo it. So the only thing to do is realize that the time you have to change is NOW! Even if you only make one healthy decision today... that's OK. It's a foundation to be built on. It's all about choices. I made a poor choice last night... but I am making a better choice now. Keep moving forward, folks!

Back to the game... you are IT!

BlubberBeGone

Radical 180

VP Health & Fitness

Kathy Calculates: Weight Loss

All About Habits

However, I'm also going to add that as far as *I* am concerned, participation is entirely voluntary, it's an invitation and may be refused or ignored. My friends know me as sudden death on chain letters and chain emails! Play if you want to... and if not, that's OK.

Rules of play:
Write your own six word or less memoir...
post it on your blog...
Link to the person who tagged you...
Tag 5 or more bloggers...
Leave a comment on the tagged bloggers site with an invitation to play.