I think it may be the cold - inside! - but I have been STARVING all day. I brought a healthy lunch with me - thai noodles with shrimp and veggies, a yogurt and... there was something else, I don't remember what. Oh - and orange, but it turned out to be bad so I threw it away. Anyway - I ate the noodles at 12:30 and the yogurt at 2pm. Then I had popcorn around 3:30, and just now a package of plain oatmeal. AND I AM STILL HUNGRY! It must be the cold because I can't get warm either.
So, I have been reading all of the online inspirational stories like this one. I find them very depressing because in so many of them they say "I cut out fast food and dramatically reduced my fried food intake. I stopped eating processed food and learned correct portion size." Blah, blah, blah! I want to be a non-inspirational story. "I stopped eating fast food eight years ago and I never ate fried foods because they make me sick. I developed reflux so badly that even a teaspoon of sugar in coffee brings it on. Portion size is easy, just buy smaller plates and containers, like I did 12 years ago. All of this and I gained a whopping 80 pounds!" I know, I know... For most people learning to eat effectively IS the key. AND - most of the people say that they started running.
There has GOT to be a solution for me!! I am going to find it! I dreamed last night that I was wearing the Body Media arm band again. I stopped after the cruise because I was getting such a a bad rash from it. Maybe I will wear it just during the days and see how I do. I also am SO tempted to try another structured diet. It has been years since i have done one. I may do a fat flush or something just to kick start me again...
3 comments:
Amy, I think you should screw the diet goals and plans and switch to fitness goals. Why NOT sign up for a 5k? Or aim to bike the NCR trail this summer, or even hike it in increasing-length segments? Who cares if you're thin or fat or whatever so long as you can DO things? I really think you would feel better in every way if you just kept moving.
Honestly, a 5k might be a great place to start. It's an easy goal to meet and they happen all the time. Pick one a month from now and swear just to walk through it. Pick one in another month and walk-jog it. Keep going with that, and stick in an occasional 10k.
Just my 2 cents. I'll go back to my own non-exercise life now...
Yeah... I know that is what I need to do, however, I find it much easier to have dicipline NOT to do something than to DO something. Additionally, I am not wildly motivated by goals. Never have been, probably never will be. So setting a "goal" to do a 5k a month would end up with me being annoyed that I have to get up and go out and deal with crowds, strangers, and parking and once a month or so and not end up walking anymore than I already do. 5ks are only just over three miles and I can walk that easily. I have DONE 5ks and don't find them particularly motivating or challegning. And, Emily, you may not know this, but I can't ride a bike 8-) BUT if I were to spend money on something with wheels a spinning wheel would get much more use! I can, and should walk the NCR trail - but I am not sure how to set that as a goal. Especially since fitness goals last exactly five seconds in my world. The only one that I did suceed at was my yoga - and that wasn't a GOAL, that was just something I wanted to do and ended up really liking.
I think we all agreed a year or two ago that you COULD ride a bike, you just don't realize it -- last time you tried you felt wobbly, but that's the way it feels at first, and you're not actually that far from really riding. Buy yourself a POS bike just to learn on. (It will cost much less than a spinning wheel.) Give it a name you hate, like Mary did, and conquer your enemy ;-) or make it a friend and feel like you owe it something. Make Sarah take you to the basketball court and run into walls for a few hours, and you'll be there in no time. Really. I know you don't believe it, but if you tried you honestly, truly, could learn to ride. That's why I included that goal. It was a more interesting idea than just 5k's.
On the day of a 5k, yes, I'm generally annoyed that I have to get up early, but it's surprisingly fun once you're there. And "crowds" is a joke around here -- if you get 100 people it's a pretty good turnout, and that's far fewer strangers than you'd run into in church on any given weekend. So you need to be looking for little local things rather than the Baltimore Running Festival. They have door prizes and silly stuff afterwards, too! And finishing ISN'T much of a goal, I agree, but if you do one it may motivate you to do more running in the next one, or to do it in less time -- THAT is the goal, not just finishing. You can pick a 10k if you want a more interesting goal, or a 10-miler, but those both tend to be bigger events and there are a lot more people who take them seriously hanging around -- I always feel kind of out of place at them. (There's a 5k/10 mile event in Blacksburg at the end of February -- you could always come visit! It starts, literally, right in front of our house, which is always entertaining.)
One thing I DO like about the races is that by 9 or 10 am I've accomplished something and I can be guilt-free for the rest of the day. So that's something to chew on.
And even if goals aren't all that motivating, they do make you DO them -- so you can't put off the exercise that day. So they're worth having for the nagging effect.
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