Progress

While a couple of the main contributors to this blog are globetrotting I'll post an update.

So after weeks of eating the same thing day after day I've finally seen a solid drop in weight. I hate scales so I don't know how much but all of clothes are fitting much looser, including the pants I bought after losing weight last year that then got too tight. Argh.

I've been sticking with a regular routine of plain yogurt, a fruit smoothie or oatmeal and fruit for breakfast. I recently eliminated my mid-morning snack and decided to go straight to lunch so I could plan to have dinner at a normalish hour. I think that's really helped with the weight loss. So for lunch I do a salad with a lot of fresh stuff I buy from the farmers market then I have a yogurt or fruit or almonds for a mid-afternoon snack. Then dinner and that has consistently been the chicken tacos I make. So good.

Exercise has been sporadic. I haven't been into a regular routine but I've been staying very active. So maybe that's helping. But my intention is to use this boost to drop some of those stubborn extra pounds.

Another Congressional recess is coming up and I hope to maybe establish a routine and carry it through July to the LONG August recess.

It was the pies

I hit a new (possibly) high this morning. I am sure it was the pies from Saturday - or possibly I was retaining water. I drank a lot yesterday, but mostly because I kept feeling like I was bloated and I was wanting to flush it out. Aparently it didn't work.

Well - I didn't get very far on this last week... I will post it now, and start over a new one this week.

Bummer!

I was down FOUR POUNDS from my previous Tuesday weight on Friday morning. Last night I had crab soup and satines for dinner and KNEW the salt would make me fat this morning. Sure enough - I was back to the exact same weight as last Tuesday this morning. Oh Well. My ankles are also puffy, but only a little bit. I think one or two bottles of water will take care of it. Sigh.

Other than that I am in the same boat as Emily - minus the sickness. I actually WAS having queasiness all last week (beginning on Wednesday) which resulted in me eating considerably less sugar than usual, because it seemed as though it was sugar making me queasy.

I bought high fiber Kashi cookies at Wegmans last week. They are pretty good - but are full of sawdust and woodchips. Because of that I am never inclined to eat more than one at a time. They are also sweetened with honey and brown rice syrup - which, while tasty, is almost too sweet and so, again, I am less inclined to eat too much.

I only did one walk and one yoga session. I thought about doing water ballet on Sunday - but didn't. I am so darn lazy! I also failed to create my menus and to contact Rebecca for a nutritional review. So, I guess I should be GLAD that I didn't gain a ton of weight.

I guess same goals for next week... Sigh.

All systems dysfunctional

So my attempt to track my eating lasted about a day or two.  On Tuesday night I got queasy, and then it got progressively worse over the next two days.  Since then I've been in a holding pattern of occasional queasiness -- if I don't keep something in my stomach I feel sick, but if I eat more than a little I feel sick.  It seems to be lessening each day though, and today I'm almost normal.  So I may be able to try watching my diet again next week.  In the meantime, though, I'm forced to do what all the diet advisors say -- I'm eating when I'm hungry, and only to appetite!  Unfortunately, my appetite has been leaning heavily to starches and protein, because fruits, veggies, and dairy haven't really agreed with me.  Ugh.

Meanwhile the rest of my systems are out of whack, too.  According to my temperature charts I haven't ovulated in two straight cycles and this one appears to be ending at 17 days.  I am so confused.  I'm getting plenty of sleep -- the nausea saw to that last week, so I got caught up, and now I'm getting 8 hours each night -- but no exercise, for the same reason.  I've barely left the apartment!  I hope next week's report will be a little better.

200 squats

Have you all noticed the proliferation of those plans designed to get you to do a ridiculous number of one type of exercise in a day? 300 sit ups, 100 push ups. That kind of thing. I ran into one this weekend designed to get you to 200 squats a day. And figuring any increase in strength in my lower body is probably a good thing, I decided to try the initial test. That test told me I was in excellent shape and should start with week three of the plan (I stopped at 55 squats. I wasn't really feeling it, but excellent for my age is only more than 31 squats, so there was no point in continuing). But good golly, I may not have felt it then but I was sure feeling it the next day! Specifically my inner thighs--that muscle that is so hard to target and really isn't used much for anything outside of childbirth. And squats, as it turns out. Which isn't much different than childbirth, I suppose, except it doesn't take as long and you don't get a baby out of it. All good things.

So I decided to give this plan a try. I'm only on day two today. I did 140 squats on Monday and 150 today. By the last set my legs feel pretty trashed, but I can walk it out pretty easily, then get a day to recover before doing it again. I'll probably regret this since I was just complaining about my scary cycling thighs, but it's giving me something to do that feels like I'm accomplishing something without having to really think about it!

The Daily Plate...

is apparently now owned by a construction company, if the colors on their website are any indication!  I went to Daily Plate and the site said we're supposed to be using the LiveStrong site now and that new logins are no longer permitted as of April 1 (fortunately I still have my old login kicking around in a cookie).  I just hate all the yellow and black -- it doesn't feel like a gender-neutral site, to be sure.  Ugh.  It looks like you can work with either or both, for now, but I'm not sure how much longer!

Jumping on the bandwagon

So I see everyone else posted so I may has well join in the fun ... it has been a busy few weeks at work and last week, when Congress was out of session, I was just too tired. Blah blah

For awhile I was just plain stagnant. I hadn't been getting in enough exercise but I was eating consistently well. I decided recently to cut out my morning snack so I'm eating lunch at a normal time thus not eating dinner at 10 p.m. I'm not sure if that is what has helped but I've noticed a recent difference.

But I've also picked up my exercise a bit. I've been trying to bike on the weekends. What's funny is I always bike for just plain exercise ... I'll go from mile marker 10 to 20 and return, knowing I've done 20 miles. But lately I've been trying to bike for pure transport. I've gone to the farmers market and to meet friends for lunch.

My food has been good. I've been buying all my greens from the farmers market along with some other seasonal veggies. I planted seven pots on my deck -- two jalapeno plants and the rest a variety of tomatoes. They are growing like crazy and I can't wait for some of my own veggies.

I've also been going to an organic butcher for my meat (chicken) but I'd like to find someplace similar that's slightly cheaper. There are a growing number of options. I like that.

A friend of mine is switching to a vegan diet and making me give my eating even greater scrutiny. I don't eat much cheese but I do like a goat cheese on my salad and I rarely buy milk. I do LOVE yogurt though so I'm hopeless for veganism. But I do continue to refine my diet. If I can buy from the farmers market without breaking the bank I'll do it.

A perfect example of how difficult it can be to get your hands on good food was evidenced tonight in my local Giant. I never go in there unless I need batteries or something. But I was out of my fave organic salad dressing and just stopped in to see what they had. NOTHING. Event he wildly expensive organic stuff was loaded with sodium, sugar and high fructose corn syrup. In fact, several "healthy brands" listed HFCS first on their list of ingredients. Shocking.

I did buy some cool beans (ha) from Rancho Gordo in Cali. They are heirloom beans and are just amazing. You haven't had a black bean until you've tried theirs.

Anyway, I'm trimming again and am so happy with my diet and shopping at the markets. It's a great time. Keep up the good work everyone!

It's been a couple of weeks

Since it didn't look like anyone was reading the blog, I didn't bother posting.

I've had one tough week and one easy week with training--two weeks ago I did four regular training days (two running, two swimming) then the 100 miles (only I did kilometers) of nowhere on Saturday. After a week with eight hours of exercise and 4500 calories burned, I went easy last week--one day swimming, one cycling, and one just plain old walking. I'm back to more normal this week, although with Encampment this weekend I won't be able to get in any cycling and will probably only manage four days of exercise. I can't wait for this year to end. I think that I shouldn't have taken on scouts AND triathlon in the same year. It's too much.

My weight has stayed pretty consistent. I was 141.6 this morning. In a way I'm kind of relieved that Brian lost his job--as long as it doesn't become a semi-permanent situation! But it means that once the craziness of the end of the year is over, I'll be able to manage more time training on weekends and in the evenings. I was dreading the summer when I don't have lunch breaks to get to the gym (since I tend to be running Claire home from camp) and Brian has to do his sleeping in two shifts, one in the morning and one in the evening, to work around Connor's school schedule. With no job to go to, Brian can sleep normally and not have to leave the house at 9 at night and will be home if I want to get in early morning workouts (not that that's likely--I hate exercising first thing in the morning. The only good thing about it is getting it out of the way!).

Tuesday Post

OK - so my lower weight was false yesterday - I was up by two pounds today.

Sleep - I need more sleep. I got good sleep over the weekend, and so I think that came into play yesterday. Last night I went to bed early(ish) but then I woke up at 5:30 and knew if I went back to sleep I would NOT be able to get up at 6:15, so I got up then. I don't feel particularly tired (or not more than usual) but my weight was up. My eating yesterday wasn't great - kind of fatty... We had Let's Dish cheddar sliders for dinner and I had the Wegman's European Baguette sandwich for lunch (procuito, fresh mozz, and tomatos on a white baguette - SO yummy!). I had a banana and a small handful of trail mix for snacks and then a half cup of ice cream for dinner. Lots of fat! Moderate sugar, and minimal fiber. Hummmmmmm.

No exercise. I got home from work at about 7:30 and then Katie and I did a little bit of cleaning.

I need to go back to my old attitude

I don't have a scale here, so for the next three months I will have no idea what I actually weigh.  But I do know that I was gaining weight at the end of our time in Tromsø, and right now my clothes don't fit as well as they did last year by a long shot.  And my appetite is up after all the overeating of last week -- so I need to get back to reasonable-sized meals and a regular diet.  It doesn't help that the grocery stores have been closed for two and a half days; today I will FINALLY get some new food in the house (I did manage to scare up fruit and milk yesterady, at least).

Even if I can't keep track of my actual weight, I can keep track of my calories and pay more attention to exercise.  And I can measure my success by how I'm feeling (blobby right now -- not a lot of energy and no enthusiasm for exercise) and how my clothes fit.  So I'm going to get back to using Daily Plate, and I'll keep posting here at least weekly!

New Attitude

OK - I haven't posted since 4/07/09. Which means I probably haven't even LOOKED at the blog more than once or twice since then. ME! I was such the blog junkie for so long I can't believe I neglected it for over a month. OK - so the last two (almost three) weeks I was in Norway - but still!

So - I was really feeling re-energized towards eating healthy again this weekend. We were pretty bad in Norway - although, I have to say I have had times where I was much worse. We DID manage to stretch our stomachs out nicely and so we could accommodate all of the extra food we were eating. The added bonus for me was that we were eating regularly - and so (until the 24 hour return trip) I was feeling hungry at meal times like normal people do. That is always a good sign for me. Then this weekend I blew it all by eating just two meals (that I can think of) and either nothing for the rest of the time or trail mix. Sigh. I then wrapped up the weekend by eating ice cream!! And I wonder why I am fat. At least I only ate about 1/2 a cup of ice cream.

Thus the desire (if not actual action) to have a renewed approach to eating. I went to the grocery store last night and bought bananas and prunes. Then they announced that the store was closing so I had to stop. I was busily looking for European cookies. They have so much more fiber than our American cookies. I didn't find any. I will have to check at Wegman's.

Tonight - or maybe tomorrow - I want to plan out my meals for the next two weeks. I need a plan to stick to. I want to regulate my calories. I want to shoot for 1800 and see how I do. I am ready to lose weight.

I didn't GAIN weight while I was away (in fact I was about a pound down from where I was before I left) but that just isn't good enough anymore. I want to drop the 25 pounds I have gained since we started this blog - and then I want to work on losing the weight that I had in the first place.

I need to work on my exercise. I want to work on something aerobic. I was appalled at how out of breath I was getting during the walks in Norway. Granted Norway is VERY hilly - and I was (am) sick, but I don't know if I would have been any better had I NOT been sick or we were walking on flat land. The one time I had to run to not miss the boat I thought I would fall down dead. AND THAT WAS ON A FLAT SURFACE!

So - My short term goals are:
1. Read the blog, and start posting again.
2. Plan my meals watching calories and trying to increase fiber and decrease sugar.
3. Start doing some aerobic exercise in addition to my yoga.
4. Call Rebecca and make an appointment.

Scary cycling thighs

My weight today was 143.2. Not great, but I can live with that.

What I'm not liking is I had to buy a pair of size 12 pants tonight. I was at Eddie Bauer trying on jeans. I always wear a 10 from EB (always being relative--always in the past three years, though), but I had the foresight to try on the jeans instead of just buying them. Length good, waist and hips good, thighs--not good. Really tight to the point of bunching up and visibly straining. And I've noticed this with my "skinny jeans" too--they still fit but every time I put them on, they are tighter around the thighs. All I can figure is it's all the cycling (and running and swimming, but mostly the cycling) I'm doing that's building up these enormous scary thigh muscles. It's nice that there's no jiggle in the area at all, but I hate it that all this exercise is making me go UP a size!

Is this Tuesday?

I'm getting so discombobulated with all the preparations for the move.  I think I weighed myself this morning but it was a million years ago -- it's been around 149.2 for the past several days, though, so we can call it that.  Ugh.  I bet I've lost weight today -- no, I take that back.  Even though I've been on my feet a lot, we had pizza for dinner and cream cheese on cracker bread for lunch.  And several brownies apiece.  So -- not such healthy eating today.  I think I'd better hope there's no scale in Oslo!

Again, I forgot to post on Tuesday!

I was 142.6 yesterday. I'm really feeling like these numbers mean next to nothing now--I'm at the point where I'm judging my level of fitness by my heart rate. The problem with exercising more, I'm finding, is that after a while it starts to be pretty ineffective as exercise. Back in January and February, walking Davey got my heart rate up to the low-moderate range. Now it doesn't even count as "light" exercise because walking just barely gets my heart rate up. Swimming, which used to get my heart rate up to "why aren't you dead?" now only hits the moderate zone. I know this means I should push myself harder, but it's kind of nice to go swimming without feeling like I'm in imminent danger of drowning. Running is still hard exercise, but my average heart rate is still about 10 - 12 bpm lower than it was before.

I keep having to tell myself that this is a GOOD thing. It's the whole point of aerobic exercise, right? But it doesn't burn as many calories.

147.2

Yes, that's the worst it has been since I got to Norway, at least for a weigh-in day.  For the past two days it was at 148.6 but I knew it was bloat since my rings wouldn't go on.  I have NO idea why I'm retaining water at this point in the month, but there it is.  Unfortunately, not all of the weight I've put on is water.  Our outing to Sommarøy this weekend involved me eating quite a lot of good food (and a fair amount of only so-so food, but it was food I didn't have to cook!) and drinking far too much alcohol.  And then I ate out again on Mother's Day, which involved more too much food and alcohol.  So I've really gained weight.

I went to the storage room to see if there was a bicycle I could ride here -- I would love to circle the island one time before we leave -- but I don't think that's going to work out.  One bike is clearly Harald's; the seat is set up much too high for me and it will require a screwdriver to get it set lower, and even if I can get it adjusted I fear the frame is too long for me, and even if I could ride it, the pedals are the clip-on-shoes kind, which I don't have.  The other bike here is missing its seat.  I found the seat, but even with WD-40 (or the European equivalent) I couldn't get it back into its socket.  And the tires seem a bit aged -- the rubber feels wrong.  I'm not sure where I could rent or borrow a bike or how much it would cost, but that might be an option.  When we get to Oslo I'm going to try to find bikes for all of us.

I almost forgot!

I was just shutting down my browser when I realized I hadn't done my usual Tuesday post.  I was 145.4 today -- my weight once again rose to the occasion.  Bleah.  I was in the 143s when I got the scale fixed last week.  The weather is so nice I have no excuses anymore!

Ack! It's Tuesday!

Almost let this one get by me.

I've been just plain lazy the past week. I only exercised three days/four times last week (one day was two sessions since I biked to work), and one of those days was walking the dog so it hardly counts. Naturally my weight is up this week--143.6. Bleah. But that's what I get for not paying any attention to what I eat and only exercising minimally.

On the other hand, my swim last week was good. I decided to just not pay attention to all the drills and intervals I normally do and skip the rests between sets and just swim. For the triathlon this summer I'll have to swim the equivalent of 22 laps, so I just counted off 22 laps and had no problem finishing them at all. It was still half breaststroke, and I wasn't trying to speed through any of it. I was going for straight endurance just to see if I could do the distance without pausing. I want to say my time was 27:40, but I can't remember precisely. And my heart rate was LOW--it didn't even count as hard exercise since I didn't get my heart rate past 160 for more than a few minutes. So overall a good workout.

And then except for walking the dog, that was it for last week--I hadn't exercised at all since last Wednesday (had to run out for supplies for scouts on Thursday and was in training on Friday. Saturday I spent recovering from Friday night's overnight, and on Sunday I went from the Sheep and Wool Festival to baseball with Connor to cooking dinner) until today when I went for a run for the first time in nearly two weeks. I don't know why I let myself do this. I *could* have found some time on Saturday to go for a run, but I didn't. And the more I put off working out, the less I want to work out. I had to drag myself to the gym today, whining to myself the whole way. And of course once I started I was fine. Big baby.

The scale is on the fritz

Seriously.  It's not just me not wanting to post my weight, though I wouldn't love doing so.  On Sunday I noticed that the battery symbol was on, so I flipped the scale over and checked the battery type (and of course it's not just AA or something simple that they have at the grocery store; I'm going to have to hunt for these).  The next morning Daniel and I both found a 4 pound weight gain -- and he had been running on Sunday and had barely eaten that day, so the gain seemed rather improbable.  A 4-pound jump would be improbable any day.  I don't know if it got re-calibrated after I checked the batteries or what, but I can't compare this week's weight to last.

Nevertheless, the new number has been scary so I've been watching my intake a little better.  I got out for a walk one night last week but haven't been out since; the weather hasn't been fully cooperative except on that one Sunday, but I didn't want to rush out when Daniel got back and I never got around to it otherwise.  I'm making excuses, I know.  I did at least walk all over town yesterday and to a pretty good extent today as well.  But no further than a 3-year-old can walk, so it's not that much.

I realized this week that when Alexander jogged a mile in the St. Mary's fun run (jogged the whole mile without breaking stride -- he just kept going) he was just three and a half -- younger than Cecilia by a good four months.  She whines if she has to walk two blocks.  So I'm making her do a whole lot more of her own walking right now.  She's slowly getting used to it.  But this takes away one component of my exercise:  I was building upper body strength and increasing cardio benefit by carrying her a lot, at least whenever I could find non-icy sidewalks!  When the weather clears I'm going to dig a bike out of the storage room here and see if it's rideable.  The kids around town are all on bikes now (there were about three days between skis and bikes) so I'm itching to go for a ride.  So is Mary!  I've promised we'll look for something to use in Oslo.

142.4

Down from last week, thank goodness. I was pretty vigilant with food for about half of the week (and not terrible the other half--I just didn't track calories obsessively), and I got in two days of running, two of swimming, the two hour bike ride and one walk with the dog, so a total of about 6 hours of exercise. This week will be a bit more difficult--Connor has dental surgery tomorrow so we have to be at the hospital at the crack of dawn, and on Friday night I've got training at work during the day and an overnight with the scouts that night. So it will be difficult to get any exercise tomorrow and essentially impossible on Friday. And usually after these overnights I don't have much energy to move at all the next day! We'll see how that goes. In the meantime I biked to work yesterday and will be swimming at lunch today.

Craziest charity ride idea ever

Last night I signed up for another charity ride. I'm not sure I can do the distance, but I had to sign up because it's such an insane idea. It's called the 100 Miles of Nowhere and is a fundraiser for the Livestrong Foundation. This fundraiser is the brainchild of a guy who writes a blog called fatcyclist (who is not fat anymore, thanks to the cycling part) and who is madly raising money for the Livestrong Foundation for cancer research, largely because his wife has terminal cancer.

He's a fabulous, funny writer and I love reading his blog (crazy stunts are pretty much par for the course with him) so when he posted this one, I decided to sign up even though I'm not entirely sure I can ride 100 miles. But the idea behind it is that on May 23, you get on your bike and you go nowhere for 100 miles. Ideally you should do this on rollers or a trainer at home, but you can also do a short outside course. You can also use an exercycle. And you can also cheat and only do 25 or 50 miles, because no one is counting. I'm not yet sure what I'm going to do--if I can find my old trainer in the basement I'll use that and just guess the distance, but I might resort to the exercycle in the gym at work (which would really be torture--those are uncomfortable and I'd have no control over what I watched on t.v.) or even to going in circles at the playground (I'd get dizzy, though, so maybe just 10 miles of that).

Every person who enters gets the ubiquitous charity ride t-shirt, plus a bunch of other free stuff (better than most it seems), but best of all you are absolutely guaranteed to win your age/gender/region/category group. Since this will be the only time in my life I can hope to actually WIN an event, I couldn't NOT sign up, right?

More info on the event here: http://www.fatcyclist.com/2009/04/23/register-now-for-the-100-miles-of-nowhere/