Monthly Archives: February 2012

Can’t Fake This: Weigh-in Wednesday

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I hope that today will be the last Weigh-in Wednesday (stealing from here, but I don’t know if it originated with Gretchen) without picture proof. I moved into my apartment at the beginning of this month, and while it has a lot of character and lovely wooden pocket doors, one thing it doesn’t have is a full length mirror. I’ve been standing on the edge of the bathtub in order to see my midsection before I leave the house. It must, and will, be remedied soon; and you’ll get to see yet another shot of someone holding a phone in front of a mirror. I promise not to make the duck face, though. What is with that face anyway?

Thoughts off the scale

I feel like I had a pretty good week this week with food. I even did a bit better on the weekend (I tracked Saturday, woo!). Working out was a bit less successful.  I missed a Friday dance night and I only worked out for 30 minutes instead of an hour on Sunday. I was missing my workout buddy and worried about her, and I considered it a small victory to get myself to the gym to run, I didn’t stay to lift weights. My heart was feeling heavy enough.

Weight goals

 Small goals: a pound a week, slow and steady.

Larger goal: 199, to be below 200 for the first time in my adult life.

Overall goal: Not sure about this yet, I really don’t like to look too far ahead because it all starts to feel overwhelming and nearly impossible. I know it’s not, so I’m going to hold off on a long-range goal.

Starting Weight

I’ll start with the weight at which I began this blog 227, and I’ll continue to use that as my starting weight, although I feel like I really started the mental change at 230 a few weeks before that.

Today’s Weight 225.2

That’s a 1.8 pound loss

Thoughts after the scale: Wow, I’m quite pleased with that number. I’m also eager to see what will be the result if I start doing more lifting, maybe even replacing a day of cardio with a day of  the 30 minute weight circuit. The article I cited a post or two ago says that while you burn more calories while you are actually doing cardio, you continue burning them for longer after lifting weights. That sounds nice.

Did you make progress toward your goals (whatever they might be) this week? 

Faking Fit with Food

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This blog is so new for me, I’m still trying to figure out exactly the kind of blogger I want to be. I’d like to post once a day, but I know that might not always be possible. I’d like to write posts ahead of time, but I’m a procrastinator. So we’ll see where that all goes. But one thing I know I’m not, at least not naturally, is a food blogger. The thought of trying to create a recipe gives me hives. The thought of taking a picture of every single step of a recipe I follow is surprisingly overwhelming. I don’t really go to any restaurants that are worth writing a real review about. I mean, hey, crazier things  have happened, and never say never and all that, but I can’t see those types of posts becoming regular features for me.

But I like eating, and I’ve got to eat something, right? And eating properly is definitely a part of finally Making Fit some day. So I guess I’ll have to address food quite frequently on this here blog.

So um…where to begin?

Day-to-Day? Now that I’m working out more, my relationship with food is beginning to change into a relationship with FUEL. What will I be doing today (and what did I do yesterday)? What will my body NEED to get through the day? What can I put in it to help? What should I avoid that will hinder? I’ve been asking myself these things more and more–while not avoiding the occasional indulgence.  Another (ironic?) side effect of working out as a part of trying to lose weight is I find myself much hungrier throughout the day. Especially the days after I do my Couch to 5K runs. I’ve learned (with help–Krissie calls it being Rungry)  that on those days I need to keep fueling myself with small healthy choices throughout the day. Or when it comes time for dinner, I completely go nuts and overeat. I track my choices (trying to do it for the whole day when I sit down in the morning), and try to leave the biggest chunk of my daily calories for dinner. I do that because dinner is the most variable as far as spontaneous changes (or burnt meal attempts) go, so I need to leave room if things don’t go as planned.

Shopping? I do that. Since it’s just me and the dog, I can usually get away without sitting down and doing a dinner plan with recipes and then shopping that way.  I make sure I have the pantry staples, I don’t really keep much meat around, and I keep my mind open for what looks interesting, fresh, or is on sale. But I would like to get better at having a plan of attack with recipes. What seems to happen, though, is I only really have time to cook about 1 full meal a week, I’ll have planned for 3 and things end up spoiling. The goal here, I think, is to eventually make Sunday the day when I make a few healthy recipes that can be frozen or refrigerated in single servings to use for lunches too.  I’ve got a couple busy weekends coming up, but after that, it’s go time!

My photo from a trip to Hicks Orchard in Upstate New York

I am also blessed to live in an area with a lot of farms, farmer’s markets and roadside stands. I take full advantage of those in the summer time. I’m even considering shelling out ~$700 (gulp) to join a CSA this summer through fall. I’m looking for someone to go halfsies with me, really, because I’ll never be able to use all those veggies myself. We’ll see what happens. I can’t wait for fresh local vegetable weather!

The battle for less packaged and processed foods? That, my friends, is a whole ‘nother post.

What I’m obsessed with right now? Freeze-dried bananas from Trader Joe’s.

What’s your relationship with food right now? 


Making Fit Requires Inspiration

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Who doesn’t like being inspired? Sometimes I just run across something that inspires me, but often on this fitness quest of mine, I find the need to go searching for inspiration. The bloggers on my blog roll (at the bottom of this page) often offer inspiration, whether it be in the form of a new recipe to try, or sharing a way they’ve found to turn a struggle around. Sometimes, it’s inspiring  just to know that you aren’t alone in struggling. So thanks for sharing that with me through your blogs, and on twitter (@lophoenix–but I warn you I’m a random and prolific tweeter), and elsewhere online.

Another place I turn for inspiration is a one of the only sports I follow closely: Women’s Artistic Gymnastics. These young ladies are tough, with a capital “T.” You can’t fake their fitness level, and by the time they are on the international stage they’ve made incredible sacrifices and attained a level of mental toughness that I can only imagine. Sometimes I use them to push myself to go to the gym for my measly 30-60 minutes because I know they spend multiple hours a day there.  Or I use them for examples of having a goal and not stopping until it is achieved. There are a lot of great examples on YouTube.

or watch on youtube

or watch on youtube

(SOOOOOO excited for London 2012 Olympics by the way!)

Certain songs are also an inspiration to me. Anything from the lyrics to the right beat. When I run I usually have Pandora on my Black Eyed Peas station because I know that will give me a good variety of upbeat music. I love it when I’m at the last leg of one of the running intervals and I’m watching the clock sloooooowly tick down thinking I won’t make it, but then a song comes on that totally makes me want to go faster and run longer.

You know that we can’t do this all alone. What are your inspirations? 

Can you fake it on the weekend?

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So it’s finally the weekend. All week long I tracked my food, exercised, and stayed within 100 calories of my goal. I have a bad habit of treating the weekend like a free-for-all. I mean, planning is harder, opportunities arise, things happen.  I’m also not usually sitting in front of a computer all weekend like I am at work, so the bookmark for the tracking site that I use  isn’t staring me in the face.

I want to work on stopping this little bit of self-sabotage. I feel like I took a step in that direction by committing to an hour workout one day of the weekend. But my weekend eating habits really need to change.  I don’t have a plan yet, but I know I don’t want to completely lose the fun of a spontaneous night out, or a special weekend treat. That’s one of the ways I’ve messed up before, being entirely too strict. As Cassie says, “Everything in moderation, even moderation.”

One thing I’m going to try is having the kind of breakfast I have for work, like a Chobani, so I start out with some protein. I also need to get better at grocery shopping so I have things on hand that I WANT to eat. (I just moved into this apartment so grocery shopping has been at the bottom of the to-do list) I’d love hear anything that has worked for you!

How do you handle your eating on the weekends? 

Faking it: The Schedule

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Source http://www.flickr.com/photos/vm1757/

I had a gym membership at Planet Fitness for a year before I set foot in the door.  I really don’t know why.  It was easy to put it off for a few days after signing up, and then the longer it went the more of a feeling of panic I would get each time I thought about it. Almost like there was going to be someone standing at the door as I came in, who would point at me and yell “WHY WEREN’T YOU HERE BEFORE THIS, WHY WERE YOU PAYING FOR NOTHING, CLEARLY YOU NEED US!” So I didn’t go, and I didn’t call to cancel, I just….did. not.

In January, my best friend M agreed to sign up and be workout buddies with me. With that impetus, it began. Although, I was quite proud of myself a few weeks ago that I continued going while M was sick and couldn’t be there.

I always thought I wasn’t really a big fan of exercising for its own sake. Until just recently I would have said that I would rather play a game, or dance, or go on a hike–something that had a tangible immediate goal, something real–than go to a gym and jog on a treadmill. I still think that’s a great way to exercise, and I try to incorporate that as much as possible. But schedules are busy these days and having a set time to go to the gym for fitness just made sense. And now I actually find myself enjoying the process.

My schedule is as follows:

Monday 6am- gym for cardio (We’re currently doing the C25K program for most of these workouts, sometimes if we’re feeling the need for a change up, we’ll get on the recumbent stationary bike.)

Tuesday 7pm to 10pm Line Dancing! I’d say, at this point with all the dances I know, I’m getting in a good 60 minutes of straight up dancing during that time, with breaks in between.

Wednesday 6am we do the 30 minute circuit of weights that Planet Fitness provides. They make it very simple, Green Light you go, Red Light you stop.

Thursday 6am cardio

Friday 7pm Line Dancing Lessons which are sometimes tougher than Tuesday nights, especially if it’s a small class and Cowboy Gary won’t let us sit down!

Saturday/Sunday M and I change this up depending on what we have scheduled, but one day of the weekend we try to get in an hour workout, both cardio and the weight circuit.

I’m thinking I need to add in more weight training, especially after reading this article: http://aeryssports.com/workout-eat-repeat/fashion-cardio-vs-weight-training/.  I’ll see where to fit that in.

I took my first Zumba class last week on Presidents’ Day and loved it! Unfortunately it is at 6pm, making it nearly impossible to get to on a work day. I’m looking around to see if there is another class that fits better.

I’d also like to take a class to learn how to use Kettlebells, but I haven’t found any in our area that aren’t associated with a gym (I’m not switching gyms just yet).

Do you have a set or flexible schedule for working out? How does that affect your commitment level?

Currently Faking Fit

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My name is Lo and I’ve decided to join the ranks of those brave individuals who blog about their fitness journey. I’m also going to try to make this the only post in which I use the phrase “fitness journey.” Yet it is, without a doubt, an accurate, though overused, description of a large part of my life.

The basics about me: I’m 35 and I really don’t know how that happened.  I’m 227lbs right now–I can tell you how that happened. The highest I’ve been is 243lbs. The lowest I’ve been since adulthood is 209lbs. The low was achieved on Weight Watchers, but didn’t last long after I stopped counting points. In January 2012 I started working out at my local Planet Fitness 4 times a week. I’ve been line dancing on Tuesday nights and Friday nights for about a year now. This is really the first time I’ve ever worked hard at combining exercise and eating healthy.

I live in a cute little apartment in eastern PA with my dog, Kasey. I have trouble finding places to put on all my books. I’m horrible at math. My best friend is tall and skinny and is my workout buddy. I like Brussels Sprouts. I sleep on my stomach. I don’t have a TV. I tend to ramble…

My goals for this blog:

Honesty: I may not tell you everything, but what I tell you will be true.

Accountability: I would love to have regular readers of this blog who will wonder why I haven’t posted about working out for two days and ask about it. But also, I will write boring “stats” posts to have on record to keep myself accountable.

Opportunity: I’d like the opportunity to share this process with you. Because people who are fighting this fight, you know how hard it is, and maybe feeling I’m there with you will make it just a little bit easier. And people for whom this particular battle has never been a problem–oh how I envy you that–I’d like to give you the opportunity to draw parallels to your own particular fights, because I know everyone is fighting something in this world.

Long range, I would love to see this blog create opportunities for me in many different ways. I’d love to have the opportunity to meet people who get something out of this blog. I’d love to have adventures because I write this blog. I’d love to be given the opportunity to write elsewhere because of this blog. All that is way down the road.

But here, today, I’m taking the first step.