The Fanci Fun Time Blog

Well, that was fast

2010-10-28T12:27:00.003-05:00

Tracking food and exercise is still too difficult for me. I found a bunch of old, unhealthy thoughts creeping back. I don't want to go back there, so I'm going to give it another rest.

I've still been eating healthy and exercising. Yesterday afternoon, I went for a loooong walk with Mr. Bojangles and his new friend, a black lab named Stella (as well as Stella's owner, my friend Stacy). Up and down the hills, wrangling dogs and disentangling from leashes. I'm loving the new push to incorporate more activity into my life. Also, I haven't had any cokes, diet or otherwise, in a couple of weeks now I think, so maybe I'll keep that up. It's been a long time that I've wanted to break that habit, and the cheap sparkling water at Kroger is a great alternative.

Last night my friend Asa came over for low key hang out. Jay made quinoa and heated up some black beans. I steamed some kale. I was ravenous and had two big helpings, then had a leftover cinnamon roll, and finally quelled the beast with a small bowl of grape nuts with molasses. No guilt: if I'm hungry, I eat. It's interesting to note, though, that the grape nuts and molasses did what the cinammon roll couldn't. They were both sweet and carby, but the fiber and whole grains plus the unrefined sugar and minerals satiated me in a way that the processed, hydrogenated, refined carb treat couldn't.

My body is telling me things all the time. I'm glad I've begun listening.

Sixteen tons, and what do ya get?

2010-10-26T13:05:00.007-05:00

A few months ago, I decided to stop dieting. I was sick of hating my body and always feeling like a failure. I did some research into Healthy At Every Size and Overcoming Overeating, and decided to implement some strategies. I've spent a few months appreciating my body, being grateful for everything I have, and learning to love myself a lot more than I ever thought possible. I threw out every piece of clothing that didn't fit and make me look gorgeous and, with the help of my mom, got a great new wardrobe for the size I am right now.

I've also spent the last few months eating whatever I want, whenever I want, and working on eliminating that cycle of guilt/shame/restriction/rebellion. I slowly started to focus on cravings, on the source of those cravings, and on eating more intentionally. I focused on how food made me feel. I focused on sleep and healthy movement.

In the course of this whole reawakening, I've learned some things. I feel healthiest when I eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables. Dairy makes me groggy. Animal fat can make me feel nauseated. Beer gives me the toots. Refined sugar makes me crave more and more refined sugar.

The other day, when I stepped on the scale for the first time in months, I had to spend some time talking to myself. Weighing used to be a daily activity that could make or ruin my morning. I told myself that I thought I was probably about 260 lbs. I told myself that, if I was more than, that, I would not feel ashamed or unhappy. I also told myself that, if I was less than that, I would not feel pleased or proud. It's a number. It's just a number.

I stepped on the scale and waited for it to settle on a number. 259.8 lbs. I smiled, but this time it was because I was proud to know my body so well. Proud that I was so in touch with myself.

The reason I'm back on this blog is because I'm ready to contribute again, from a new and healthier perspective. I'm back on Sparkpeople to track my eating and my work outs, and bring more precision to those observations I'm making. I've gained some weight, and I might not lose it, but this is about taking care of myself and being healthy. I've never loved my body more than I do right now, and I will love it if it gets heavier and I will love it if it gets lighter.

My pants, nooooo

2010-10-03T21:27:00.005-05:00

All the hard work I put in over the last year (and abandoned this summer before all the health crap) has been undone by my eating habits since my surgery.

"Oh, I have holes in my abdomen, now I can eat whatever I want! My body has a new way to process the fat I eat, that must mean I can eat however much I want! Everything made of chicken is probably good for me, right? Yeah! La la la!"

[buzzer]

I was down to 184 at my most recent slimmest, down from a high point of 202 in the summer of 2009. Yay me for that progress. Unfortunately, I'm back up to about 192-194, depending on the time of day I weigh myself.

And besides feeling out of shape and worrying about what this weight is doing to the durability of my remaining internal organs, I can no longer wear the size 14 jeans that I bought this spring for my newly smaller self. I didn't notice as much when I was trapped in dresses for several weeks, but now that I'm wearing waistbands again, I can only wear the size 16s, and not all of those, either. Anything that digs into my abdomen is uncomfortable, though not dangerous to the incision above my navel anymore. It disheartens me to think that it was only 3 to 4 months ago that I bought some of those clothes, and already I'm on the north side of the next size up. And it's going to take so much work to get back to where I want to be - back in those damn size 14 pants.

I'd gotten out of the habit of stepping on the scale shortly after my surgery, when I was concentrating on getting better and exploring all the fast food I'd been missing out on for the last 8 years as a vegetarian. When I recently hopped back on to weigh the dogs (who have both lost several pounds this summer on orders from the vet), I was not pleased, and I stopped weighing myself for a week. Sadly, ignoring the scale and continuing to eat as if there were no consequences did not bring the result I pretended it would: surely, the number would be lower. Not higher. Alas.

My main problems are, in no particular order: cheese, fast food, going to the gas station during the work day for snacks, not eating vegetables, processed meat, full sugar sodas, almost never cooking.

My dinners used to consist of Quorn or soy crumbles in quinoa and mixed vegetables, or a Boca patty eaten on Oroweat sandwich thin, or similar. I'd also bake vegetables. Now, I pick up fast food for my boyfriend and me to eat, or I have a deli-sliced chicken sandwich with Cheetos. I follow it up with full-sugar sodas, snack crackers, dry sugary cereal, cookies, whatever snacks are in the house.

My boyfriend makes wonderful, wonderful food. If I would eat reasonable amounts of it, I'd be absolutely fine. But I don't. He makes a chicken pasta bake that is divine. But it's got a lot of cheese and has pepperoni in it, and every time we've had it, I've eaten large squares and gone back for seconds; I am loathe to think about the calories in each Eve-sized serving. He made a roast in a crock pot last week. It was so good, but it was really fatty. And yeah, I absolutely ate the hell out of it.

Eating because of boredom at work is a problem. It's hard to keep focused on work some days, and it's so easy to tell myself I should help myself to two of the donuts I brought for the office or five of the Laffy Taffys sitting in the candy dish. I also neglect to either bring a satisfying lunch or eat breakfast (though sometimes I stop en route to work for a fried chicken patty on a biscuit from McDonald's or similar), then wind up going to the gas station and buying a low calorie drink... and a candy bar or cookies. Not good for me, and not good for my bank account if I'm spending $5-8 every trip most days of the week.

Tracking my food on Livestrong.com helps me think about what I'm putting into my body, and if I think about the nutritional content of what I'm eating, I'll try to eat healthier. I've found that being mindful is the only thing that keeps me in check. I've begun to question why I made such bad food choices so often. It's an issue that I'm going to explore and try to deal with more effectively. My life is going to be controlled by my health problems as I get older if I don't do something about my weight while I'm relatively young and able to bounce fully back from something as serious as surgery in a period of just 6 weeks.

Sure, exercise helps me lose weight, but I won't pretend that walking 2 miles every other day is going to cut it, because it sure as hell hasn't been a miracle cure in the past, and I've relied on "I'll burn off the calories from this sugary snack during my workout" for far too long. Eating less food and eating higher quality food are most likely going to be my best tools for losing weight and improving my health outlook.

Pushing on

2010-09-13T12:21:00.004-05:00

My last post here was over two months ago. In the meantime, I've recovered from that particular attack of plantar fasciitis, but my lifestyle has undergone two major changes: I am no longer a vegetarian, and I had laparoscopic surgery in the first days of August to remove my gallbladder.

I went to the hospital in late July after suffering back and abdominal pain that lasted 5 hours instead of going away after 3 hours, like it used to do. I was in the hospital for several more hours before I got pain medication, got a diagnosis of gallstones, and was sent home with muscle relaxers to stop the gallbladder from getting upset. I was also put on a very low-fat diet, and I stayed on it for a week. Then, I had a 14-hour gallstone attack that ended in emergency surgery and kept me in the hospital for 3 days.

During the week that separated my hospital stays, one of the few ways I knew I could get the calories I needed without fat was to get more protein, but there aren't many low-fat sources of protein that are also vegetarian, and I was getting really sick of eating a can of refried fat-free beans every day. Additionally, I'd started to crave chicken, and I've always said that I would leave myself open to the possibility of going back to being a carnivore.

That being said, eating meat was weird in the first days and weeks. I've gotten mentally better about just eating it, though I still pick out overly fatty pieces of chicken from bowls of soup and spit out chewy bits into napkins as discreetly as possible. My boyfriend is pleased at the change, as it's the first time since we started dating in 2003 that we've made the same dinner foods together and both eaten the same things, and he's been happily grilling things for me, making me soup, experimenting with stroganoff recipes. He's never pushed me to do anything I didn't really want to do and has been very much there for me no matter what steps I've taken. He's also pledged to help me have a better mental attitude toward food.

My surgery recovery has gone well, though I had some speed bumps along the way to healing. These setbacks mostly involving lifting things that were too heavy, which would set me back a few days. It's now mid-September, and I just recently started wearing pants again (I have been in dresses for a month and a half, buying 3 more and starting to sew a fourth in order to have some variety); waistbands pressing against my abdomen don't feel as much like torture, though it's still not as comfortable as it was before. I've got shiny scars forming above my navel and across the right side of my stomach like a constellation, and they are less tender, less angry, with each passing week.

One of the reasons my pants were so tight, unfortunately, is that my weight fluctuated wildly post-surgery with the water my body retained as I healed, and then I lost muscle and put on fat as I stayed inactive for so long. While the number on the scale is close to what it was two or three months ago, I can definitely tell my body has put on more fat and I've lost much of my muscle definition.

After taking my body out for a test drive while on vacation recently (an hour walking around downtown Austin, some very light swimming), I feel able-bodied again. While I'm not ready to jump back on the elliptical or go back to The New Rules of Lifting for Women just yet, I'll happily put on my sneakers and start walking, now that high temperatures at night are in the low 90s and 80s in these last days of the Texas summer.

Starting to walk again, and soon, is absolutely necessary, as I signed up to do the Koman 5k for the Cure next month here in Dallas. One of my good friends is a breast cancer survivor. Participating is one way I can show solidarity with her, with the added benefit of being able to raise funds for things like cancer research and mammograms. And it's a heck of a motivator to finally get back into my beloved Nike shorts.

In order to do this walk without hurting myself, I plan to start walking one mile every other day and ramp up the distance to the full 3.1 miles by mid-October. Stretching before and after, as well as foot strengthening exercises, will hopefully keep plantar fasciitis at bay.

Becoming active again will help me keep my moods in check. The surgery was a crazy time, but I have to admit to feeling emotionally great afterward because I'd taken care of a long-term medical problem (though it had forced my hand), and everyone I cared about and who cared about me was wishing me well and helping me out. As time goes by, the high ends, and you go back to normality. I've noticed that I've been a little down over the last couple of weeks, maybe because of the seasonal change, and I want to check that before it gets worse.

My diet isn't quite under control. I went kind of crazy with the chicken noodle soup right after the surgery, and I went from having grilled chicken and grilled vegetables all the time to rediscovering Chik-Fil-A and Wendy's. But I still try to watch ingredients and nutrition labels when I buy food, as that habit is thankfully hard to break. My main dietary problems right now are sodas and fast food/restaurant food. Ugh, so many heavy cream sauces. I've striven to make good dietary choices while dining out, but it is sometimes difficult.

When I get all the elements working, as time passes, as I continue to heal, I can slip back into my smaller-sized jeans again and continue working to make myself healthier in every way.

Swoosh trademark

2010-07-12T13:56:00.006-05:00

I can't tell you how badly I wanted to volunteer to do something to help after Hurricane Katrina hit. A lot of the refugees came to Dallas (and I gained a couple of good friends due to that exodus), and volunteers were needed for a lot of things. But despite my intentions and fervent wish to be helpful and ample amount of free time, all I did was donate money. At the time, I blamed it on the shock of being newly single (though there was a reconciliation just around the corner), living by myself, being incredibly lonely and unhappy. But how much of that was allowing myself to be stunned by my circumstances, and how much was me not taking charge of my life?

I've been something of an anxious coward for years. It takes so much effort for me to make scary phone calls (from making healthcare appointments to ordering pizza to calling an old friend, and I wish I was kidding), and more than once, I've driven to an event, driven around to see what I could from the car, and then left feeling foolish, fearing being seen as foolish for trying to participate, being in the wrong place, showing up alone, doing it wrong. I feel like my intentions are written across my forehead and are a source of ridicule to the world. It's kept me from participating in a lot of things, made me back out of commitments, made me afraid to make promises and plans in the first place.

Being too afraid to participate in things is something I've been working on. And I'll admit, part of the reason I'm working on it is because I fear how other people judge me for my cowardice and my willingness to quit. But another part is me being more comfortable with myself, thinking much less about how I'll be judged, because what do the opinions of strangers really count for in most areas of one's life? And why do I think I'll be judged negatively? Outside internet comment boards, the world is generally eager to approve of other people's efforts.

Maggie let me know yesterday that she was proud of me for attending one of the counter-protests against the Westboro Baptist Church in Dallas this past weekend. And I admitted to her that I squelched my urge to flee, driving up and down the streets around the protest looking for both a parking spot and the courage to get out of the car. She said that the Eve she knew a year ago wouldn't have gone at all, and she's right. The Eve of last Friday went, had a good time, and didn't need someone else to come with to make sure she flaunted her space invaders/Futurama sign. I'm sure I would have required company to make me go through with my intentions of showing up a year ago.

I really feel like the support that Maggie's given me, the support I've gotten on this blog, and working out some of my issues with myself by writing blog entries for Fanci Fun Time have been instrumental in helping me be and act a little less afraid of doing things. At any rate, I've started to see more clearly through my own excuses. That's not to say being able to order pizza online instead of calling hasn't been a great improvement to my life, but instead of just whining to myself that doing something would be hard or scary, I ask myself what is stopping me, telling myself it's not that scary, other people do it all the time, etc. That's another thing: the world generally doesn't know your insecurities, and it doesn't judge you for having them unless they cause you to screw up in a major way that affects other people and society at large.

My life might not be the best, but it's the one I'm responsible for making for myself, and I can't be a woman who goes to protests, advocates for animals, writes that damn book already, gets her broken-down body parts examined and fixed (hello plantar fasciitis doctor's visit!), has a successful relationship and great job, has a stable financial situation, and takes awesome trips if I expect someone else to push me out the door or into a desk chair or out of the airlock (wait, what?) to make these things happen.

I am Eve, and I can do things. Not everything. Just many things. And many things I didn't think I could do before.

Half-hour mile

2010-07-05T20:24:00.003-05:00

Here I sit stretching my toes back toward my knees while I sit at my computer after my first post-injury workout. Bleh. Never before has a workout felt so non-productive.

I haven't been doing much of anything workout-related, as my complete dearth of posts on this blog attests, for the last two months. I've been taking things extra slow and easy since I was diagnosed last weekend with plantar fasciitis.

As you can imagine, doing a thing after lots of not doing anything was surprisingly invigorating. Invigorating? Surprising. Surprising to my muscles. They are surprised. And feeling a bit wonky.

I walked a whopping 0.95 mile in a little over a half hour. Go team sloth. Like the little sloths you see clinging to trees and eating ants at the speed of a sarlaac pit. I was afraid of going much faster for fear of pulling a vital tendon and having to learn to walk on my hands or some other overreactionary thing.

I did get to see 5 fire trucks, an ambulance, and a fire department SUV approach the Burger King close to my house, so that was exciting for me and gave me a reason to amble a bit more quickly home to tell my boyfriend of the splendors of the out of doors.

Back to stretching, and perhaps some non-vigorous television with said boyfriend.

Plato flatulencia? A phrase that means my feet hurt.

2010-06-27T23:14:00.003-05:00

I got my pilates on yesterday morning, including bridge work that put weight on my arched feet. It was the first time in weeks I'd done a full-on pilates workout and maybe the fourth time I'd worked out in the last month. My body was ill prepared for me jumping back into things, I guess! Last night, I felt this sharp pain in my left foot. It was just like the sharp pain I'd felt in my right foot two years before (and still intermittently feel). "Aw crap. Is this a stress fracture?"

My normal M.O. would be to ignore it and wait for it to get better as I limp around my house, my work, the grocery, etc. But I actually dragged myself to a primary care facility this morning, where my foot got x-rayed and I wished that I'd gotten a pedicure when I saw the backs of my heels and the sad state of my nail polish. I sucked it up and sought help for it because I am tired of being broken and not fixing myself, and if I want to take care of myself in the long term, including continuing to work out so I can lose weight, enjoy sports, and be healthier, I have to start being serious about it.

The primary care place had state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment.

Anyway, doc says I have plantar fasciitis, which I promise to learn how to spell by the end of tomorrow. Whassat? Uh. There's some kind of inflammation, and I likely just surprised the tissue in my foot with all this exciting bearing of body weight in new and asinine ways, and now I'm hobbling around the house like a pirate with a short leg, taking steroid pills for the inflammation and ginger ale to keep those down.

The doc suggested I roll a tennis ball with my foot to help stretch it out. My nurse said he has the same condition and gave me tips on exercises he does in the morning. The internet tells me there are varying treatments, and it may be that none are effective, or I could be over this in 6 weeks, or a year. While I'm glad to know what's wrong (and to think that maybe the same problem affects my right foot), the long term nature of the cure is a bit daunting. Not to mention being told to no longer do that exercise in pilates. I'm kind of running out of options for working out here. I can't walk on this for a while, and I don't think weightlifting is a good idea, either. It's back to resting and maybe easing into the elliptical in a few weeks, and lots of stretching.

This isn't terrible, just a bit discouraging. The only real downside is that I was attempting to get back into my exercise habit, and this is going to delay it. I guess I just need to focus on my eating habits for now for weight loss.

On the bright side, I'm going to try the same exercises with my right foot and see if it gets better along with my left.

A link for y'all

2010-06-14T20:06:00.001-05:00

Gorgeous boudoir and pin up photography, with girls of all shapes and sizes.

This is definitely something I will consider as a special reward for hitting my goal weight of 178 or below.

It's Summer Let's Go Camping Yay!

2010-06-13T19:19:00.004-05:00

That headline is pretty much what my brain has been shouting for the last few weeks. Camping is awesome for many reasons. It's cheap, it's fun, it takes place in nature, and even if the campground gets wifi and cell phone reception, you can pretend it does not and ignore all that shit.

Camping is also awesome because you are constantly met with opportunities to exercise that feel nothing like exercise. I like swimming, especially, and even though I swim slowly I can swim long distances and my form is pretty good. I also like hiking but it's way too hot right now. When I get a campground with a decent rental marina, I like pedal boats and canoes and kayaks, as well.

All that said, I'm not one to sacrifice comfort. A few basic things make camping more enjoyable.

The first is a reliable tent. Jay and I bought the Columbia Cougar Flats II, and we really love it. One person can set it up, but it's best with two, and it fits into a little rolly bag. We did a lot of research and decided we wanted a large tent to accommodate us, our dog, and as many friends as dared show up. When you get any tent, you need to seal the seams. You can get a really basic tent and seal the seams really well and it will hold up even in pretty substantial rain. My friend Austin, who came camping with us this weekend, had a really interesting set up with a hammock inside a mosquito net, with a rain fly. A shelter means that you won't have a soggy camping trip.*

The next thing I like to have for car camping is an inflatable bed or a cot. The inflatable beds are cheap and really comfortable, but you should bring a fluffy blanket of some sort because they don't breathe and if it's hot that can get gross and sticky. I prefer them for the aforementioned comfort, and also because they roll up into a small bag. When you have a tiny hatchback and a huge dog, packing space is at a premium even if you're not backpacking.

Finally, even though most campsites have picnic tables, a camping chair is almost indispensable for comfort. Plus, you can pick it up and take it to the lakeside, up a hill to a place with a great view, or just to the other side of the fire when the effing smoke keeps blowing in your face.

Other considerations include non-offensive bug spray and something to keep the bugs out of your area; sunblock; first aid kit with cortisone and antibacterial ointment (plus plenty of advil if your idea of camping involves a lot of vodka); a fan or small heater; mp3 player and speakers; and an ice chest full of healthy foods. Stay tuned for more on that last bit in part 2: Camping Fun Healthy Foods Yay!

*Not in any way making light of the sad news from an Arkansas campground last week.

Mini Challenge Wrap Up and New Challenge

2010-06-01T14:37:00.008-05:00

I have lovely tote bags to distribute to all the fanci fun peeps. While I think only Bob actually managed to work out EVERY SINGLE DAY, fanci challenges are not about perfection. Fanci is a state of being, and we are all fanci. The challenges are about aspiring to push yourself harder, and challenging yourself. I know that sounds like hippie bullshit, but it's the truth, and I'm the one distributing tote bags, so shut it.

This new challenge is a little bit harder, and a little more hardcore. It's about being an athlete. I'm doing this triathlon in August, God willing and the creek don't rise. The major setback would be if I don't figure out how to ride my bike without training wheels, in which case I'll do all the same distances here in town and time myself, then promptly sign up for another event that doesn't include cycling. Either way, it's happening.

The fanci fun challenge for summer 2010 is this: find an athletic event in your community, sign up, and compete. It can be as simple as a 5k charity walk. It can be as challenging as a half marathon or an iron distance triathlon or beyond. If necessary, it can be a challenge where you join an online community and track your own progress, with a certain goal in mind. I'd rather it be a real, live, in person event. The fattest, nastiest WoW nerd you know could get up and walk a mile without dying. So can you.

Since Sarah already knows the prize, I will go ahead and reveal that it's a wrist band. Because everybody needs a wrist band these days. Post or email and let me know when y'all pick your poison.

UPDATE: Some links to help a fanci out.

Running calender for North Texas

Some 5k and 1 mile run/walk events in the DFW area

American Triathlon Calendar (this includes other multisport events)

Arkansas running calendar

Home is where the crap is

2010-06-01T10:27:00.004-05:00

While this topic may not seem related to fitness and health, I assure you, it is. Having an organized home means having a kitchen you can use, having a peaceful place to get plenty of rest, having a place to store your fitness equipment (and find it easily), and making more time to get to the gym and engage in other self-care rituals.

My grandmother died earlier this year. Even while I was grieving, I knew immediately that I wanted to have some of her things. Not in a greedy way, but because I wanted to feel her presence in my house. Last weekend, I took a truck and a few friends on a road trip and came back with a couch, a love seat, several chairs, end tables, a sewing machine that doubles as a dressing table, and my first real formal dining table and chairs. Fortunately, much of the furniture I had already, what little of it there was, was place holder furniture -- things I can easily pass along to friends or, depending on the condition, set out at the curb for someone to find and rehome.

Having so much new (to me), beautiful furniture has really given me the motivation to continue the process I began when I moved in of finding space for things and developing routines to care for the space. Jay and I have already made a lot of progress to that end: we bought a new microwave that fits on the kitchen shelf and found a friend who wants the old one, thus clearing off a ton of counter space. We bought a nice shower curtain to cover said shelf so that our storage isn't staring us in the face all the time. We also made some decisions, like moving the TV into the newly furnished living room and buying a sturdy cabinet to house the auxiliary electronics. We decided to repurpose half the hallway as a large storage closet for musical instruments and my bike. We bought a really nice coat stand for the front door that Jay refinished. Our best progress has been looking at the way we live and making the house work with it, rather than the other way around.

Still, our two constant issues are dishes and clothes, and we're still working on a functional system for these things. It's a process. Today, I found this article, which I thought was really enlightening, especially the second point. I say this all the time: housework is BORING, especially routine housework like dishes and laundry, cleaning the bathrooms, and swiffering. One time projects, like putting together the TV cabinet, are at least somewhat exciting. Contrariwise, I can't deny that I love coming home to a clean house. Jay knows one way to make my day is to spend 5 minutes making the bed before I come home. The pay off for doing the boring tasks should be enough to motivate me.

So far, it hasn't been. A big part of this is how bad I've let it get. It seems like even when we spend a weekend doing laundry, there's always more. I can't remember the last time that I felt like ALL the dishes and clothes were clean and in their appropriate places. I'd even settle for having a few dirty dishes in the dishwasher and some dirty clothes in our nice, big hamper that we bought.

So, in honor of triathlon training and spring time and all that is holy, I'm declaring this week organization week at the Smith Abbott household. Jay is doing dishes today, and I've made a task list (using the handy feature on my gmail page):

Clear off dining table
Straighten living room
Put back panel on bench
Store DVD player
Make bed
Install hall closet curtain
Store bike (on hooks)
Move desks, filing cabinet out to porch
Gather clean laundry on dining table
Sort laundry
Fold and hang
Put away laundry

As you can see, I'm saving the laundry for the end, and I've broken it up into small steps. The step I didn't include, that will happen during sorting, is the Great Purge. We both have a lot of clothes to get rid of. Additionally, I need to buy a curtain rod at some point before hanging the curtain.

One of the biggest changes we're contemplating is getting rid of the dog's crate. Since he's a Great Dane, his crate takes up half of whatever room it's in. Last week, we started spreading out one of his blankets on the bed and putting him in the bedroom. It's working really well, so the crate might be on its way. Which raises another issue. We recently switched the bedroom and the other room (it's a two bedroom house). Since the main closet and my dressing area are in the back of the house, it might not make sense to have the bedroom at the front of the house. Something to ponder.

I'm open to ideas about what to do with that second bedroom. The only feature that's not negotiable is the futon, since it has to function as a guest room. The love seat is something I'd rather keep, but it's not entirely necessary. I worry that without a purpose, the room will become a place to shove crap, which is the opposite of what I want. Any ideas?

All images stolen from this site, which has tons of cute pictures and ideas.

Drop Dead Diva

2010-05-31T07:48:00.006-05:00

The first season of the Lifetime Network (aka Vaginavision) show Drop Dead Diva hit Hulu this week. This is significant because Hulu and Netflix are my main sources of TV, since Jay and I decided a few months ago to ditch cable and build a TV computer. As a side note, this is a brilliant idea.

I was reluctant to try the show. I've seen a few other shows and movies that try to tackle a weight issue, and they all fall really flat. This one had one thing in common with those right off the bat: the fat girl is legit gorgeous. I was also worried it would fall into the trap of pushing a message that all fat girls are smart and good-hearted and all skinny girls are shallow and evil. Thin-shaming, I've called it before.

And while it does seem a little too trite when it tackles the weight issue, the good news is that most of the time, it doesn't really try. The plot of the show, a nice but vapid model (Deb) dies and comes back as a fat lawyer (Jane) with the lawyer's intellect and the model's memories, seems like it would immediately be full of unanswered questions. Some of them the writers tie up neatly in the first few episodes. For instance, why doesn't she just lose the weight? (Her body still has the same cravings and metabolism, plus a busy life as a working attorney, so effortlessly getting in shape is not an option.) Or, how does she explain the memory loss? (Amnesia due to the injury by which Jane briefly died.)

But, surprisingly, most of the show avoids the nuts and bolts of the switch and deals with the relationships between the characters, independent of the size issue. There's the mean rival lawyer at the firm, Deb's best friend who is privy to the body switch, and Deb's former boyfriend who works at the law firm with Jane. There's also Margaret Cho as Jane's assistant, and lots of fun guest stars including Tim Gunn in a dream sequence. While the size issue serves as a backdrop for the action, with Jane representing size discrimination clients and suing diet pill companies for inadequate labeling, it's rarely the center of the action.

The show also has a procedural quality, like a lot of lawyer shows, where the firm deals with a couple of cases from start to finish in each show. These make for fun subplots and let a viewer understand the action in the show even if she's missed a few episodes. These courtroom scenes are clever, and the best comparison I can draw so far is to the movie Legally Blonde. In court, the attorney with the lawyer brain and the model soul often combines hard legal knowledge with charming, relatable stories.

The most unrealistic aspect so far is that almost no men are attracted to Jane. Despite her glowing skin, huge boobs, and constant state of being totally put together in a cute skirt suit, the only guy to pay her any attention so far is a goofy-looking bailiff. While I think it would be equally unrealistic for Deb's hot former boyfriend to fall immediately into her arms, I think it's a stretch that this is a woman who would be lacking in male attention. But maybe in LA, I can buy it.

The show also has a lot of cringe humor, as Jane gets into embarrassing situations. She ends up handling them with grace, however, and using her charm and her wits to get out. It's not a constant barrage of awkward moments, the way some shows are.

As I said yesterday, the show does leave me with a really positive feeling about my own body. Maybe it's just the fact of seeing a fat girl looking so cute. I mean, check out her birthday dress below.

Um, yes please.

In sum, I'm not praising this as the best new thing. It's not even consistently high quality writing or acting. But as a diversion, it's definitely fun. More importantly, it strikes a good balance and it addresses a touchy issue without being offensive.

The T Word

2010-05-30T18:30:00.003-05:00

I've decided to start training for another triathlon. This time it's the Chicago Supersprint, which is the one I contemplated initially anyway.

Using the same training schedule as last time, that would mean I have to begin training on Thursday. Three days from now. Oy.

Still, the more I think about it, the more I think this will be a good thing. I've been feeling beautiful and sexy lately, thanks in part to my boyfriend's unexpected response (ahem) to us both getting over this illness, as well as the Lifetime show Drop Dead Diva, which I'll review in another post. I need something more than the self-loathing that normally fuels my fitness efforts. Athleticism is a goal of mine that sets apart from any aesthetic aspirations.

We'll see.

Eve posts fitness, food, and science sites she reads

2010-05-29T21:05:00.004-05:00

Every modern fitness blogger knows that part of the fun of doing a new workout routine, getting new exercise clothes, and working toward a greater goal is telling the internet all about it in a post that takes at least twice as long as the event in question. Before I was a Fanci Fun girl, I kept a fitness journal off and on for several years. I love participating in fitness and health communities, and I love what awesome resources you turn up from recommendations.

I finally deleted This Is Why You're Fat from my RSS. The food looked both repulsive and somehow delicious. Enough with the awful temptations! However, I added This Is Why You're Thin! on the suggestion of this Fanci place.

A few days back, a friend shared an article from Eat This, Not That, which is a subsite of Men's Health. It's a daily article dump that provides easily digestible breakdowns of the differences between similar dishes among restaurants, has a love affair with ranking foods and beverages in the format Number Blankiest Blank, and highlights comparatively healthier alternatives to dishes at chain restaurants and in your grocery store. It seems mostly geared toward casual users, but its constant turnover of articles and suggestions for variations on how to use ingredients or reviews of new products can help healthy eaters out of a food rut. It's a handy resource you could probably access from your internet-ready smartphone as you sit with your work buddies at Applebee's. Or at least, that seems to be the crowd toward which it's geared.

Several years ago, I used to post regularly on a general interest forum that has a geeky skew. I wasn't a great fit, and I stopped participating there. Since then, I've been casting about for new forums - not exactly to get as involved as I was in the other, but just because it's nice to be in a community with people who hold similar interests. Looking for other fitness enthusiasts, I was on the Self forums (mostly full of newbies and people who couldn't spell) for some time during my first stab at the Self Challenge and lurked on Runners World back during my brief flirtation with the Couch to 5K program five years ago. And now, I'm a lurker at JP Fitness. They run a subforum specifically for people doing the New Rules of Lifting for Women (a book I looked up and eventually bought due to high praise from the commenter community at the Gawker Media site Jezebel), and the other subforums are definitely worth reading. Great resource for dietary advice and reviews, recommendations for injured athletes, great inspiration with photos and videos of weightlifters of all experience levels, the posters are civil and helpful, and the moderation seems great, which is important for keeping a community running smoothly. I just haven't had anything to say that I felt warranted posting there yet.

Another favorite is Science Daily. Science tends to cheer me up, and these science PR folks certainly know how to grab your eye with pithy headlines about the latest studies, with dire warnings, bleak negations of previous hope, and best of all, guardedly-worded maybes about the end of diseases and conditions, the key to the solving of so many problems. The future is coming! Of course, the future's been coming for a long time, as you can see from the archives when you look for articles related to the article you've just read. The other day, when I was searching for a link to a story I read about studies that promise new non-addictive pain reliever based on research done on hot peppers, I found several other articles that said just about the same thing (along with related studies about capsaicin, metabolism, and weight loss). Science Daily is basically a repository for press releases about studies recently published, and some of those studies may be redundant, may contradict other studies, or may be examined in a new way for that particular release. Overall, I feel better informed glancing over the quite healthy RSS feed several times a day, plucking out promising-sounding stories from the 45 new items that have shown up in 8 hours' time. Huzzah for the progressive march of human knowledge as it pertains to being alive and all that rot.

I used to read Scientific American, but one of its regular pop psychology contributors irks me endlessly, and the crap shoot of "Will this contain a video, or will it hopefully be something I can just read?" was a frustrating roulette of information denied due to inability to update Flash and other video-displaying programs, not to mention it's against company policy to watch internet videos. No matter. I try to keep my RSS fairly simple and do regular pruning.

Feel free to share some of your favorite, blog-pertinent links.

Sick people, check in! Lots going on in this update.

2010-05-28T22:41:00.011-05:00

I know at least two, maybe three, maybe all, of us Fanci people have been sick in the last few weeks. I got very mildly sick in comparison to everyone else's death pneumonia, but it was enough to park my butt at home for three days. Hope everyone is feeling better soon and taking care of themselves.

I did not take care of myself. The first day, I did laundry and housework, as well as followed my little sick girl dog around the house to make sure she kept all her food and pills down. I made myself sicker and spent most of Tuesday in a headachy, fevery haze. I also ate a lot of junk food over those several days. Ice cream, baked Cheetos, sweetened cranberries, quesadillas with generous helpings of sour cream and cheese, not to mention flour tortillas cooked on a hot skillet. Not everything I ate was bad, but I made poor choices. Forget deciding between temptation and virtue. I just flat-out didn't care.

Truth be told, I was hungry when I was sick. Or at least I thought I was. I may have just been a little dehydrated, which I tend to be more often than not, and as we all know, being thirsty often tells your brain that you want food. I tend to not drink much liquid after I get home from work until just before bed, when I have a cup of nighttime tea and most of a 16-ounce glass of water. At work, I drink Diet Coke, despite the days I decide I'm going to start drinking more water and clean out my eternally dirty personal glassware.

Sunday, I'm going to have to start tracking my food again. Or tomorrow. What's wrong with Saturday? Nothing. I chafe against tracking, but I have to do it. I'm out of control, and I'm the only person who can pull my habits back onto the straight and narrow.

Fine, I'm coming back. Mom. Err, Lance.

Of course, when I wasn't eating right and wasn't feeling well, you may imagine that I was not exercising, either. I haven't worked out in at least a week, not since last Saturday when I took the boy dog for a walk. I get dispensation for 4 days - one for operating on 3 hours of sleep and 3 for being sick - but I've just been lazy otherwise. But that's easily started again.

I'm almost to the end of stage one of The New Rules of Lifting for Women. I was looking at the next batch of exercises and am worried that I won't be able to do one of them. I tried it out with the barbell and failed even with an un-weighted bar. It's a variation on an overhead shoulder press, and my shoulder is just not up for those shenanigans. It's discouraging. I don't want to give up weights. I'll modify the workout and figure something out until my shoulder heals. Yes, I need to have it looked at. Yes, I have insurance. But I don't know where to start. And right now, and for the next several months, I can't really afford copays and deductibles; I don't even have the credit to float it.

The vet bills from the last several weeks are close to $500. My mind was racing at 3am on Sunday morning as my boyfriend and I sat in those incredibly uncomfortable wooden chairs in the waiting room of the vet emergency clinic. I was worried my girl dog Bones was going to die, and I was also worrying how I was going to pay for surgery if she had a bowel obstruction, as I feared at the time. The dog is fine, but the financial anxiety remained for the rest of this week and isn't completely allayed, though I have tamped it down with a more reasonable, pragmatic attitude and positive action.

I'm so incredibly deeply in debt right now for different things, from personal loans I took out to consolidate debt and wound up using to help out my family, to car repairs, to home improvement purchases, to electronics. I sat down later Sunday and went over my budget, and I developed a strategy and got to know the bigger picture in regards to my personal debt a lot better while I was out sick. I've got a plan for my debt payoff and have been implementing it in stages. Steps include setting up debt cancellation plans in case of life-changing events, ranking bills in payoff importance by balance and APR, and reducing most payments to just over the minimum so I can throw the full force of my available funds at paying off one debt at a time. Additionally, my boyfriend is not only emotionally supportive, he has pledged and provided financial assistance. So I have a solution fleshed out. In less than a year, I should be in substantially better financial shape, and that will help me to be less worried and anxious about my future. And that means I can't use "But I'm poor!" as an excuse to avoid seeing doctors and specialists about me shoulder. So I'm working on it.

Since we're talking about injuries and dogs and exercise, I'll say a few words about my dogs. My Spock is a fat beagle now. We've given him too many high-calorie treats and not given him enough exercise. Part of it is that he has allergies and is frequently wheezy. However, the beagles are newly on the allergy medicine hydroxyzine, and it helps him be a lot less drippy and breathe a lot better. So I feel less mean taking Spock for a longish walk. I've been reluctant to walk him, though, as I can only walk one dog with my good arm if I have any hope of having a pain-free shoulder situation, and leaving with one dog means the other whimpers and is incredibly, vocally upset the entire time we are out. With Bones, that means a lot of howling and barking. Sorry, boyfriend and Bones, but Spock needs to get his cardio on, and mommy needs to not want to amputate that arm.

"Yay, I love bread! What, geese? Goslings? Who cares! There's bread!!!"
(You have to say it in the Eeyore voice for full effect.)

We went for three 30-minute walks, and he had to stop halfway to pant really hard halfway through each one. Part of it is that it's starting to get to be face-meltingly hot at long last. Part of it is that pollen is really aggressive this year, it's the Happening in progress, and a lot of people I know with allergies are especially miserable this spring. I can't imagine it's easy for a little guy being compelled to walk by this person next to him, up hills through the grass, next to the busy road full of cars. So we sit there by the side of the road, him panting his little heart out, me feeling bad that he's so exhausted and that I've let this happen to him, but also feeling happy that we're out doing something about his weight.

He's getting less food, fewer treats, and lighter treats, though I have to admit, the first few days girl dog Bones was home and feeling poorly, Spock felt extremely neglected, and I tried to make up for that attention gap with treats. Now that things are back to normal, I'm hoping to get his weight down to a reasonable poundage with these measures. I'll take him out walking later at night until it's intolerable outside at any hour, which should happen in DFW in about three weeks. I don't know what we'll do to get him to be more active then. Maybe I'll teach him some new tricks. We worked on high-five the other day. He's always pleased to learn something new and get treats, and this time, he exhibited behavior that is sometimes called the "zoomies" and ran happily around the house for a good 5 minutes. He was so happy and playful. I need some new tricks to teach this dog!

The Urge

2010-05-20T20:55:00.009-05:00

I cooked a margherita pizza for dinner this evening. I cut it into 4 pieces, then ate 3 of them fairly quickly while sitting at my computer on the other side of the house. The dogs wanted to go outside, so I went back to the kitchen to let them out.

"Maybe I'll have that last piece of pizza," I said to myself as I walked down the hallway toward the back door. As soon as I thought it, it was an irresistible urge.

I wasn't all that hungry. I'd had a decent lunch (my homemade veggie soup from a few weeks ago) and snacks throughout the day. I'd just had those other pieces. I couldn't even tell if I was full, and that's a lot of pizza to eat just because you want it and not because you need it.

Telling myself to leave that last piece on the baking tray, and staying away from it, was the hardest thing I've done in weeks.

At the moment, I opted instead for an 8-ounce glass of light cranberry-pomegranate juice, a half cup of dried cranberries, and a 16-ounce glass of water. (Don't be too proud of me yet; read on.) The last piece of pizza is currently sitting in the fridge waiting for me to tuck it into tomorrow's lunch.

I didn't earn this badge, but the alternative I chose wasn't much better.
(Also, behold, the staying power of advertising slogans.)

I've come to realize more and more lately that I do use food as a reward and an excuse, more than I ever admitted to myself. And not just sweets, either. My budget is a little out of control lately, and part of it is because I buy food that I don't end up eating (the bananas I've thrown out, the half-empty containers of cottage cheese, half an eggplant, so much fruit). I stopped really planning my lunchtime meals about a month ago, and I started going out for lunch once or twice a week, sometimes more often. I have no idea how I lunched over the last month except by dint of trips to Subway. I fell back into my habit of buying sodas and gum at the gas station every morning instead of in bulk at the grocery. And I will eat any damn fool thing around the house or that I buy on a whim, whether it is good for me or not, because I'm bored, or it's available, and I allot it to the things I will eat. It's ok to indulge occasionally, but like this recent satire on The Onion points out, it's easy to make indulgence a habit.

A local friend who recently lost weight made the struggle to deny urges and redirect reward hit home when we were talking about our experiences. She said that in the past, she'd accomplish something, then reward herself with food that was bad for her, and she caught herself thinking that she deserved to eat. "No, I don't deserve food as a reward. I deserve a manicure or a vacation. Food is food." As much as I've heard that before, it really stuck with me and started me thinking about how powerful all the urges I have in my life can be - the urge to have that piece of pizza, to do a round of the house when I'm awakened at 4am, to bite or pick at my cuticles.

I'm still trying to understand it and trying to figure out a strategy for moderation, control, reprogramming. Part of my strategy in the past has been substituting good foods for the junk food that sometimes accumulates in our house, and part of it has been ignoring the junk food. Those ideas don't always work. There have been cookies and chips sitting in the house since my boyfriend and I threw a small party over the weekend; there was most of a veggie plate and some hummus left over, too, but I polished those off earlier in the week as snacks and lunch components, and now I've moved on to the junk. I denied myself that last quarter of the pizza, but not long before I wrote this post, I ate a large, soft chocolate chip cookie without more than a shrug. Was I just delaying that reward and giving myself a food that had even less nutritional value as a consequence?

Another good way I can control my junk food intake is by food logging, but lately, I rebel and stop entering my data pretty soon after I start - sometimes after entering just one breakfast food.

We had our Fanci Exercise Intervention. I think I need a Fanci Food Facepunch: new habits, new reinforcements for good behavior. They say the best facepunch is the one you give to yourself. So, can anyone give strategies, insight, non-generalized tips? I feel like I have at least some of the tools (knowledge of what I need to do to be healthy, habit of buying healthy food and exercising, resources for the knowledge I don't have, a support system for my mental and emotional health) that I need to fight the good fight, but that maybe I'm missing something. Or maybe I've underestimated the strength of the urge to have that last piece of pizza, to read the internet all night instead of taking the dog for a walk, to passively and actively fight against my own health. There are days when it's harder to tell it no. But if you're lucky, you can realize what you're doing, dust yourself off, and rally your troops to your cause.

Maggie Likes to Drink

2010-05-20T10:01:00.005-05:00

And a lot of other people like to drink, as well. So I figured it might be time to write a little post about alcohol and healthy eating. Up front, let's go ahead and admit it: the healthiest choice is to avoid alcohol. Not only is it empty calories, the effects of alcohol on your metabolism are terrible. It slows down your fat burning system, dehydrates you, makes you crave horrible foods, and renders you worthless in the gym the next morning.

But come on, getting your drink on is fun.

Here are some guidelines that I use when I'm trying to loosen up without having to significantly loosen up my belt.

1. Keep your calories a little bit low.

If you're planning to go out and have a few drinks at night or after work, keep your calories at breakfast and lunch on the low side. Not dangerously low, but having one day where your healthy food intake is around 1000 calories isn't going to wreck your metabolism. This serves two purposes - it leaves more calories for booze, and it means you'll be buzzing a lot sooner without all that food in your system.

2. Choose drinks based on their calories AND alcohol to calorie ratio.

A lot of people see those commercials for very low calorie beer, with 50 or 60 calories, and think it's a great choice. The problem is, those beers tend to have low calories because they also have low alcohol, meaning you're going to end up drinking more of them unless you're someone very sensitive to placebo effects.

For beer, the best one I've found is Michelob Ultra Amber, which has about 114 calories per bottle and is 5% alcohol. It's got a nice, mild flavor and isn't terribly hoppy. Wine is also a good choice: most wines have about 100 calories in a glass, or 500 calories in a whole bottle. Just be sure to avoid sweet wines, like Riesling or other German varieties, as they have more sugar. If you like a nice fruity white, go with a Sauvignon Blanc or a Pinot Grigio instead.

Hard liquor is another good choice, but watch out for mixers with lots of calories. A standard American shot glass is 1.5 ounces, which means it's about 100 calories worth of vodka or gin. Mixing with diet coke, cherry coke zero, or diet tonic is always a good time. A flavored vodka usually adds about 10-20 calories per shot, so it can be worth it if it makes the drink a lot tastier.

3. Snack smart.

When I drink, I get an insatiable craving for chili cheese fries. If I'm not careful, I end up eating an entire order myself. There are ways to avoid the cravings you get for fatty carbs, however.

If you're drinking at someone's home, including your own, make sure you have some healthy snacks available. Popcorn is great, as are low calorie pretzels. A recent favorite of mine is this cheesy Puffcorn. This will help you resist the temptation to order a pizza, should your judgment slip a little bit.

If you're going out, try to contemplate the menu before you get to the restaurant or bar. See if you can find something that's not going to blow your diet. If you like, go ahead and order it before you start drinking, so it's right in front of you when you start feeling snackie.

4. Don't deny yourself the things you love.

Having a fanci fun time is not about punishing yourself and giving up the things that make you happy. If you adore margaritas, have one every now and then. Learn to make them at home with real lime juice instead of weird-tasting HFCS mix. Indulge your cravings and have a great time. The only hard and fast rule is to always love yourself, and that means being conscious and intentional. Even when you're tying one on.

The Spices of Life

2010-05-18T22:33:00.008-05:00

I've been hitting the baked and grilled vegetables pretty hard lately. Over the last few weeks, I've cut up and baked a zucchini and yellow squash for dinner, along with other veggies that make it home from the grocery with me that week - eggplant, onions, bell peppers, corn. In the past, I basted these suckers with olive oil and sprinkled on some sea salt and pepper to season. But lately, I've been spraying my slices of vegetables down with canola oil and seasoning them using a Cajun spice mix a friend fell in love with when she recently went on an extreme calorie restriction diet that didn't allow for much in the way of sweeteners or fat.
I bought a canister of Tony Chachere's Original Creole Seasoning at least 3 years ago, and it sat mostly unused in my pantry until my friend, who was putting it on everything during her diet, brought it back to my attention. I overdid the seasoning the first couple of times when I sprinkled it on my vegetables, but I've found a balance that is delicious without being also face-searingly hot.

Also making a regular appearance on my plate: turmeric. I bought a baggie of the stuff at Sprout's Farmers Market, stored it in an empty spice bottle I happened to have, and sprinkle some in my eggs, when I can be bothered to make eggs in the morning instead of opting for oatmeal or fruit or Kroger's low carb yogurt. I saute frozen cajun mirepoix mix, mix the egg or egg whites with some turmeric, then bring the whole thing together and put it on an Oroweat sandwich thin with a slice of cheese. Let melt in microwave as you tend to the dogs, and it's a great sandwich to accompany you on your maddening commute to work.

Less a spice and more a source of face contortion when I think about it too hard: I have been eating the Kroger Carbmaster yogurt for a couple of weeks now, as it's a pretty good low-sugar, protein-y goo without being as expensive as Greek yogurt. I read the ingredients list and found that it contains gelatin, which will forever bring this Penny Arcade comic to mind. It only bothers me for as long as it takes to mix up the settled yogurt in its container.

Another note on adding veggies

2010-05-18T21:22:00.003-05:00

I know I have been all about convenience foods lately. Today was the primary election here, and since I work in elections, I've been more than a little bit busy. Still, there's something to be said for knowing how to feed yourself when you have almost no time to prep and assemble a healthy meal.

I've been continuing with the frozen meal plus veggies strategy and I'm still loving it. One of the best so far was the beefy macaroni with peas. Serious comfort food.

Today I got off work at about 8 PM and found myself not at all hungry. I tend to shove any stress into my gastrointestinal tract, so this is hardly surprising. Jay and I went to a couple of restaurants to try and get my body to wake up and be interested in food, but it just wasn't happening.

He grabbed a frozen pizza at the store and we came home. I started poking around in the kitchen. I'd only had 600 or so calories so far and I knew I'd need to eat, but literally nothing sounded good. Then I stumbled upon some frozen veggies and remembered this post from Hungry Girl. Scroll down until the soup. Yeah. I happened to have that exact immunity veggies blend, and a box of organic butternut squash soup. With the help of the microwave, I had a huge helping of savory sweet Thanksgiving-in-a-bowl in very little time. The flavor balance was awesome, and soup is easy to eat even when you're not especially hungry. Plus, four cups of food for 320 calories is really nice.

As I was eating, I started thinking about other possible soup and veggie combinations. Corn lemongrass with shrimp and stir fry vegetables. Mushroom soup with chicken and stew vegetables. Broccoli soup with ... broccoli. And maybe some cheddar. Yum.

About those prizes

2010-05-13T09:36:00.004-05:00

Subtitled: the big reveal.

I promised the fanci fun members a prize for the stellar effort we're putting in right now to exercise every day. It didn't take long to come up with something magical, since I have been addicted to Vistaprint lately.

Behold.

That's right. It's a motherfreaking tote bag, bitches.

Personally, I've been doing okay on the challenge. The weekend was a little decadent, but I did get in some puppy time and some housework. Since Monday, however, I have been the gym every day. Every. Day. It's really nice to get back into a routine, and find a schedule that's flexible enough to work for me. Ideally, I'd like to go to the gym every Monday through Friday, every week. I'm not sure if that's a reasonable goal, but let's see how long I can keep it up.

OH YEAHHHH! KOOL-AID-BOB IS HERE!

2010-05-12T22:04:00.009-05:00

You know, there's just something missing here. Sure, this place is fanci. Yes, it is fun. Time is kept here, and I suppose it is a blog. Let me put it this way. This place is filled to the brim with estrogen, and it's threatening to burst through the hastily prepared levees and destroy cities. Well, I'm the testosterone sandbags keeping this place safe, and I've kept quiet for way too long.

Well, that sure was an introduction. It's too bad I can't back it up worth a damn. Am I allowed to curse on here? IT'S TOO LATE TO STOP ME NOW. I've always sort of been a member of this group, I've just never really felt comfortable posting anything here, because of much of my own focus has been extremely simplistic. I follow a reliable, logic-driven, calorie-only method to exercise and losing weight, but much of that method is backed by the knowledge that's been passed on to me by Maggie. Sometimes I eat something I think is healthy and I say, "Hey, why did I gain weight from eating this?" and she sits me down and slowly explains to me how biology works and what happens when carbs and your body really love each other, they do some 'special hugging' and it goes away in water weight. To be fair, she explains it in much more scientific terms, but my brain translates it into herfderf helfy talk so that I can make sense of it.

In any case, I agreed to do this two-weeks-of-everyday-exercise proposal for a couple of reasons. First of all, I like prizes. Second of all, any outside stimulus I can use to make myself get more exercise I will seize as quickly as possible before it can scamper away. I always feel better when I get regular exercise, but I tend to forget that when it's so much easier to loaf around and play video games and eat delicious food. At the start of 2008, I decided I was too fat. I'm 5'9" and I weighed 245 pounds. I made a New Year's Resolution to get under 200 pounds by the end of the year. I stared off by switching to diet soft drinks. Then I used my BMR to get an approximate calorie range that I could fit into a single day's consumption that would keep me around the same weight. That range was something like 2000+ calories. I subtracted off around 200 calories, and put that as my daily limit. The key from that point was just educating myself on what the general calorie range of the things I liked to eat, and find a nice range of foods that fit my lifestyle, making sure I left time for occasional breaks in case I had a craving for something like pizza. And I made sure I hit that range over at least three meals a day, including breakfast. The weight dropped pretty fast, I kept dropping my daily calorie total as I lost weight, and I eventually started to work in regular exercise - mostly recumbent biking to save my injury-prone knees. I hit 199 pounds in August, celebrated, posted pictures, and then started eating whatever I wanted again.

Fast forward to a year and a half later, January of this year, and I had gained back half the weight (around 220), and was disappointed in myself. I started back on the diet, and got it back under 210, and I've been slowly wavering between 202 and 209 for the past month and a half due to inconsistent exercise, extra bad food celebrations, and other reasons that I won't go into because they'll just make me look more pathetic.

So I jumped at this two week everyday thing. We're six days in and there's only been one day that I didn't do some sort of hardcore exercise, and that day I spent an hour outside my house weedeating the jungle that I call my lawn. I'm hoping to go under 200 by the end of the two weeks, and will hopefully use that momentum to push me down to my ultimate goal right now, which is 175. This everyday thing is tough though, even in my heyday two years ago, I really only tried to keep it up every other day. But I WILL say that regular exercise makes me feel better about myself and healthier and more right than not doing it. And even if that is the only benefit to doing this, I think it would be worth the effort.

I can't promise I will post on here all the time. But this one time was fun at least. And Michaelangelo RULES. Don't let anyone tell you different. Cowabunga.

Pizza Time Yay!

2010-05-12T12:46:00.009-05:00

Subtitled: a product review.

Last night I tried a frozen pizza that Jay and I picked up last time we went to the hippie food store. It was an Ultra Thin Sprouted Grain Bruschetta Style Pizza from A.C. LaRocco. Here is the low down.

Pros:

1. Calories - This pizza is about 9", the size of a restaurant small pizza. It has only 340 calories in the whole thing.

2. Protein - 22g of protein for a vegetarian pizza is awesome.

3. Ingredients - Organic whole grains!

4. Taste - Good seasoning and toppings.

Cons:

1. Texture - The abundance of tomatoes on the pizza made it soggy in the middle.

2. Uniqueness - I think I could make something just as healthy if I bought some sprouted grain tortillas and threw my own toppings on.

That last point is the crux of it all. I could also avoid the sogginess by doing a little pretoasting, then loading on the toppings and baking some more. It would be just as easy, cheaper, and likely better. It's not that this was a bad pizza! The tomatoes were ripe and flavorful and the edges (the not soggy part) were really delicious and well seasoned. Overall, though, when I'm buying a frozen food, the convenience has to greatly outweigh the cost, and I don't think this measures up in that department.

The Problem with Frozen Meals

2010-05-11T12:29:00.005-05:00

I should have made the word "problem" plural, because there are a few problems with frozen meals. There are also some benfits: convenience and portion control. I really am liking the Lean Qzine Spa meals. They're around 300 calories with a reasonable amount of protein, whole grains, and -- apparently -- one serving of vegetables. But here is the problem I came to talk about: it's really not a lot of food.

My lunch didn't really look like this at all.

Today is Day 2 of my Veggies Plus experiment, that I just named and made up. I went to the grocery store yesterday at lunch to restock my work pantry, and I bought 5 frozen meals. I also bought some complementary frozen veggies, a serving of which I'm adding to the frozen meals.

It's actually been incredibly successful. It creates a more filling lunch and only adds about 30-60 calories, depending on the veggies. There has been ample sauce to cover them, and since normally there is a bunch of sauce left in the tray, this is a great way to make use of it (besides my usual method that employs my fingers). The main issue came yesterday when my peas tried to escape all over my desk: there's not a lot of room to stir. Still, overall I think this is a good way to get more veggies and turn a frozen meal into something healthier and more filling.

Fanci Fun Mini Challenge

2010-05-07T15:35:00.006-05:00

The fanci girls are their fanci friend Bob are currently undertaking a fanci fun mini challenge. We all needed a little kick in the pants, so for two weeks we're going to try to work out every day. We've been checking in with each other via email and it's going well so far.

What's that? Working out every day sounds horrible? Well, it does if you think of working out as an intense, grueling trip to the gym. Those are great and, I believe, a necessary part of a health and fitness lifestyle. Still, there are other things that contribute to fitness that aren't as taxing. For purposes of the challenge, a workout counts as any sustained, moderately strenuous activity that lasts longer than 20 minutes. So far we've done things like trips to the gym, walks with the dog, yoga, and gardening to get our workouts in.

Tomorrow I will be doing my workout by fighting Bebop and Rocksteady.

Michelangelo says, "DURRRR."

My brain says yes, but my heart says cookies

2010-05-04T15:17:00.006-05:00

I can tell I'm on the edge of saying "ehhhh whatever, screw this" to my exercise regimen.

My diet has been off course for weeks. I had ice cream for dinner last night, for instance. My exercise has almost stopped except for lifting weights, which I only did twice last week (one of those off nights was due to a surprise date night, very sweet on my boyfriend's behalf). The exercise came to a screeching halt after I hurt my ankle several weeks ago.

This is exactly how I stopped the Self challenge in the spring of 2006, and it's about the same time of year, too. My boyfriend and I went on a kind of bad road trip, and I didn't work out at all while I was there, though I packed my dumbbells in the laundry basket that held all my stuff. When we got home, I tried to get back into the swing of things, but my body felt so broken down after an hour-plus on the elliptical every other day and with the new strength training moves, and I was so tired of tracking my meals. I might have been all right had I just taken a week off completely, but when my left knee (the troublemaker in those days which I have successfully striven to protect this time around) started to really bother me (also, we lived on the third floor at the time, which didn't help my body's convalescence), I stopped holding myself accountable and stopped working out totally.

There are a few things that make me want to keep going now, this spring of 2010: the prospect of being healthier in the long term, the nice definition I'm currently sporting in my upper arms, and fear of squeezing myself out of the new size 14 pants and new bras I have bought over the last two months. I love myself no matter what size I am, but I don't want to lose these cute new clothes just yet.

Not a legitimate dinner choice - an opinion that my 8-year-old self rejects firmly.

I know I can alter my habits and just need to get back into them again, and that I need to do so for my health. I know how I am; I will be getting a wheelchair time machine and a beating stick in my 60s to effect some change if I don't take advantage of my youth and free time to work on my health on my own today. (That being said, I am going to run away if I ever see a crabby older woman bearing a resemblance to my mother, wielding a bully club, and glaring at me from a wheelchair with flames painted on the wheels, which will also be spinners, because I am going to be awesome until the day I die.)

So when the end of my work shift rolls around, I'm going to suit up for my workout and force myself into that gym. My ankle is just fine again, and I am not going to make it my excuse.

Footnote: I talked to my sister the other night about me losing motivation after coming so far. She recommended lap band surgery; after I rejected that out of hand as both too drastic for the weight I want to lose/level of health I want to maintain, not to mention unsustainable in the long term, she gave me weight loss tips that all started with anecdotes from her Army basic training. Not really what I was looking for, but I suppose it is the thought that counts.

Best. Popcorn. Ever.

2010-04-30T23:57:00.003-05:00

Now, I know there are a brazilian flavorings and toppings for popcorn, and you can do it how you like. Corry, cumin, smoked paprika, parmesan...I'm a plain salt and cracked pepper gal usually, but if I had parmesan more in the house, I'd put it on too. Caramel sauce, m and ms, butter or cheese sauce, if you're feeling really crazy, but let's not go there tonight. Tonight, I am celebrating the virtues of perfectly cooked, perfectly salted, stovetop popcorn.

Here's the link for the recipe for popcorn. Yes, it's a recipe for popcorn.

But it's the technique that's important. And, I recommend substituting my favorite mystery ingredient, chile oil, for half a tablespoon of the oil, or a tablespoon if you want. I want. It burned a little, but that's how I like it. If you don't like that tingly feeling, then half a tbsp is perfect without being overpowering. And since it's in the oil, it's very much in the background of flavor, as compared to a hot sauce, which not only usually adds a vinegar flavor but also can rest on the top of the flavor rather than really melding. Ah,the fine art of spicy food :)

Alternately, garlic oil or herb-infused oil (rosemary?) would also be good, according to the comments. And we all know comments on websites are reliable sources of information. But for once, I am inclined to agree.

Also, if you put the salt in the oil as it heats (it won't burn at stovetop temperature) then the flavor, heat AND saltiness are perfectly dispersed. And for the OCD popcorn eater, which I clearly am, knowing that every kernel is perfectly flavored from the get-go is really something to be pleased with yourself about.

Granted, we're talking about 800 calories of popcorn here (420 calories of popcorn and 360 calories of oil, if you consider that you consume all the oil, which you don't) but it makes enough to be a movie's worth of popcorn for two, maybe three if you are nibblers.

And if you use a nonstick pan, you can cut the oil. But I wouldn't.

Food as Fuel

2010-04-28T15:59:00.008-05:00

I've long been opposed to the concept of food as fuel, but it's been taking root with me lately.

My opposition stems from the concept of food as nothing more than fuel for your body lacking any kind of recognition of how central food is in our culture. It's central to many of my Jewish religious traditions, it's a way I come together with my friends, and it's a way we in the south console each other after a loss.

The concept of sitting alone in your room crying over a boy into your protein shake rather than heading out with your girlfriends for fancy salad and gelatto is something like sacrilege to me. Maybe the food in the two instances is the same in terms of nutrition, but the cultural and social value of the latter experience can't be dismissed. We use food to heal, to celebrate, and to inspire.

That said, those of us who have food issues (read: every female in America) are often left with a very unhealthy emotional relationship with food. The food itself becomes the friend or enemy. I was reading a great post by Gala Darling about body image and it included this:

Start to view food as fuel as opposed to some kind of enemy. Get educated about what you’re eating. Learn about additives & high-fructose corn syrup & find out what you are really putting into your body. More importantly, learn what it does to your body — from the physical to the psychological effects. Knowledge is power!

This takes a little bit of a different spin on it. It's not about "eat only boring things that are healthy because food shouldn't be about pleasure." There's more of a focus on how food makes you feel, which is a big part of that connection I was talking about.

I've done this today, focused on really healthy eating and how each food should be a measure of how much I love myself. Just as an exercise. Here's what I've had to eat:

Locally roasted coffee with soy milk and truvia
Half a whole wheat sandwich thin
One local free range egg
A drizzle of local honey
Half a pineapple
Two slices of whole wheat light bread
Sugar free blackberry jam
PB2 peanut butter
A bunch of roasted soybeans
Grapes
Carrot chips
Homemade hummus
Dr. Kracker pumpkin cracker
Turkey burger
Homemade sugar free ketchup
Slice of cheddar
Spinach, lettuce, and tomato
Whole wheat sandwich thin
Green jasmine tea

Not bad. And maybe an experiment worth continuing.

UPDATE: I totaled up the food at the end of the day. I wasn't tracking calories at all, like I said, just trying to only make good choices. 1345 calories and 93 grams of protein. Holy crap. I think I'll have a fudgesicle.

The Wedding Thing

2010-04-26T09:47:00.002-05:00

I'm getting married at some point in the future, and it's a fairly interesting topic, so I'm going to write about it. I'll probably write about it more once it's closer -- we're shooting for September 2011 -- but it brings up a lot of relevant issues for this blog.

The first is obviously wedding weight loss. I've been working on my health and fitness and such for a while now, so I'm obviously not one of those people who wants to get in shape all of sudden once there's a ring involved. Still, I can't help but think how nice it would be to walk down the proverbial aisle in some cute little anthropologie number and not feel like a Fatty McFatsalot.

I got married once before. It was a terrible, terrible idea, as much as I did love the person, and was driven by stress and a sense of resignation. My wedding day was one of my highest weights ever, at about 275 lbs. The marriage lasted less than 6 months.

I'm a healthier person now in so many ways, and Jay is such a positive, amazing influence on every day of my life. I want this wedding to be different in almost every possible way, and a big part of that is that I want how healthy I feel to be reflected in how healthy I look.

All that said, it's sort of creepy what a huge focus on weight there is on wedding websites. The website theknot has a set of "badges" one can put on one's profile, and about 2/3 of them are weight related. There's a handful for green brides, DIY brides, but the primary area of concern is clear. Another website, offbeatbride, is really body-positive and actually prohibits weight loss discussion on the forums. They feature a ton of gorgeous brides of all sizes, and address the issue head on in a great post that can be found here.

I don't think it's really something I need to worry about. I'm already on a path where my fitness is improving, slowly but surely, and it's not like I want the kind of dress I can't buy at the last minute. So no, I won't be losing weight "for my wedding," I'm losing weight for me. Being a hot bride is just a bonus.

Bra shopping revisited

2010-04-24T19:24:00.006-05:00

Back in November, I posted about shopping for clothes, including new bras. This weekend, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and buy new undergarments. It's not really something I look forward to, other than the fun of having something new - shopping for clothes is fun, not to mention cheaper, if you know where to look. Good bras in the size I wear can be found in department and specialty lingerie stores, but unless you find them on sale, they run $60 and up standard per bra. Bras are an investment.

Now, you say, "But Eve, you can order your bras using this wondrous thing called the Internet! Have you heard of it?" I've ordered online before, usually from figleaves.com, since they have such a great selection, good prices, and regular sales. However, the shipping takes ages, since there is lag between Texas and the UK in these pre-Star Trek transporter technology days. There is such variety in the fit among brands; size varies from brand to brand, not to mention between countries. There are conversion charts out there that make me wish I'd been a better student in algebra class. Or is that geometry? Or is this a new branch of string theory? Oh god. All things considered, it's about 95% certain I'll have to send a bra back and exchange it for a different size. Figleaves.com does have a generous return policy; I just don't have a great track record getting the right fit.

On the recommendation of another friend whose boobs won't fit into bras one finds at Target or Kohl's (I looked this week and tried on bras - still no love) or Victoria's Secret or even Lane Bryant, I've gone to Nordstrom to get my chest reupholstered for the last couple of years. The excellent job the employees do of giving me a proper fitting is what brings me back year after year. What makes this relationship less than perfect, for me, is the price, since I am chronically poor. I dropped $180 on two bras today. Weh, my wallet. I'm hoping I've just missed their lingerie sales and that they actually have them every so often.

I've had the same woman help me every time I've been to this Nordstrom's location, and she remembers me and the uber-plain Wacoal bra style that I've been wearing for the last few years. She got out the tape measure, then asked me if I'd lost some weight. "You lost a couple of inches... and a cup size," she said, leaving to find me an assortment of lingerie to try on. A grin split my face when I got another confirmation of my progress to date. Huzzah, I am that much closer to being able to buy $30 bras. "And now you get to try on the cute bras," she said cheerfully upon her return, bringing out some kind of stripper clown bra that looked ridiculous on the hangar but actually not that bad once I was wearing it. But it had balloons and ribbons and just. What. However, it wasn't matronly, boring, or built like a tank, and that is new and exciting.

She sized me down one band size for one of the bras I bought, and a full two sizes down (and a proportionate cup size up) for the other. This smaller size still fits everywhere comfortably and gives a lot more support on the sides.

We talked a bit about the importance of getting the right size bra during weight loss, especially for women with large breasts. Having a proper band size ensures that the weight of your breasts is supported by the band and not just by the straps, and considering my shoulder problems, this is important to get right. My old bras were old and stretched out, too. Overall, I was not getting the support I needed to be physically comfortable. "Come back every 15 pounds to get fitted," she admonished me as she rang me up. "You have a sport or a workout routine? How's your sports bra?" My current sports bra suits my purposes - weightlifting involves less movement than cardio - and has always been really tight on me, but it wouldn't hurt to replace that bra sometime this year, too. Just let me work some overtime first. And pay off a bill or two.

In the meantime, I'm looking online to buy the same brand/style/size bras I bought today so I can extend their usefulness and structural integrity. Maybe I'll track down that clown stripper bra, too. I have a hard time paying $60 for something so ridiculous-looking, but maybe I can get a deal on it.

A short epilogue: a guy said something equivalent to "Hey, baby" to me in the parking lot as I went grocery shopping shortly after my bra purchasing trip. I texted to my boyfriend: "New bra clearly a success. [What happened.] Brb dying of embarrassment." While I'm flattered to get attention as I lose weight (I get honked at when I am out on walks) and take it as validation of my efforts to improve myself, I'm also afraid of that attention. To be unpacked later.

I sometimes do this just to check my head

2010-04-22T10:01:00.007-05:00

I like to look up expensive designer things and find similar things at much lower prices. It's a fun game. I did it once with purses and asked people to guess which one was the more expensive in sets of two.

Today I did it with a few pairs of shoes.

The last one would involve a fun project for a crafty girl, not unlike this project here. I just can't get over it. I mean, do the expensive ones look nicer? Sure. Will they last longer? Sure. But the difference is marginal, especially compared to the price. Click on the photos and check out the file name to see the price of each pair of shoes.

Cardio Strikes Back

2010-04-21T08:08:00.007-05:00

I'm on week three of stage one of the New Rules of Lifting for Women, and I am feeling pretty strong. There is better definition in my arms and legs, and my thighs no longer burn after every workout. I'm a long way from looking like I've been lovingly carved out of marble, but I look like maybe I was lovingly sculpted out of Play-Doh by my 2-year-old nephew. Muscle soreness is diminishing after each workout, which is great news for my whimpering bottle of ibuprofen. And I'm at 186 pounds, which is only a 2-pound increase over my lowest weight over the last year.

I haven't been doing any cardio or any other exercise since the second day of this routine, when I attempted pilates and thought I was going to die for the rest of the week. It's just as well, since the weather has been unseasonably insane in Texas in April. It's been windy and chilly some days, beautiful and sunny, rainy - a really mixed bag of spring - over the last month, so I've been fine, for the most part, with staying indoors out of self-preservation.

The last three workouts, though, I've felt fine - more than fine - after the workout and the next day, and the day after that. To the point where I say to myself, "Self, we should work out more. Also, don't say so much of this aloud. The people around you are getting nervous." Yesterday afternoon, I took a 3 mph, 50-minute walk through the neighborhood. It was gorgeous weather. My only issue was that my foot twinged a little bit.

The mini-lake along my walk at about 6:50pm. Not pictured: cyclists, fishermen, non-pixelated details.

I got up at 4:30 am this morning to let the girl dog out, and my ankle hurt way more than it usually does. Happily, when she came back inside, the dog settled on my boyfriend for the rest of the night, leaving me able to stretch out, legs unfettered, on my back and not contend with 30 pounds of beagle pressing on my limbs, which happens all too frequently. They are cuddlers... glompers, really, and there's not much you can really do about keeping them off once you're asleep.

When I stumbled out of bed again at 7:20 this morning, my ankle didn't feel that much better, though it's improving as my wakefulness improves, and I kept it propped up on the desk for most of my pre-work internet time. I'm hoping that as the day goes on, it will feel better. This is the third morning in a row I wanted to call in but did not. "I don't feel like it," "I'm operating at about 73%," and having minor aches are not really good excuses. I wrapped my ankle, sucked it up, and came in to get my adulthood on.

I might skip weights tonight and give myself a rest day, especially since this rotation of the workout calls for lunges. Those lunges are mean whether I have anything that hurts or not. Optimistically, if not wisely, I hauled my gym bag up to the office with me just in case I feel strong enough to continue when 5:30 rolls around.

Simple Dinner

2010-04-20T09:03:00.003-05:00

This falls into a lot of the Earth Day Challenge categories. Raw foods, whole grains, eating at home! Jay and I had some strawberries that were about to go bad, and needed to use them fast. If you don't know, strawberries are a miracle food. They taste like candy but a whole pint only has about 100 calories, along with tons of fiber and vitamins. I wasn't in the mood for anything too sweet after my decadent weekend, so I started browsing the Food Network website for ideas. I was struck by the combination of strawberries, chicken, and balsamic vinegar, and decided to make these wraps.

Whole wheat tortillas, avocado, spinach, a little bit of broccoli slaw, and grilled chicken that was marinaded in balsamic vinegar (with some extra vinegar drizzled on at the end). These were amazing, and each one had about 250 calories. I threw the chicken in a skillet with some Pam and, while it was cooking, chopped the strawberries and avocado. The whole thing took less than 10 minutes. Yum.

An Earth Day Challenge

2010-04-19T11:17:00.008-05:00

Food, health, and the environment are inextricably related. Since Earth Day is coming up this week, it's a great time to issue an Earth Day Challenge to yourself, where you can try out a big change for the rest of the month of April, or however long you choose. Here are some options.

1. Go Vegetarian (or Vegan)!

A 2006 United Nations report found that the meat industry produces more greenhouse gases than all the SUVs, cars, trucks, planes, and ships in the world combined. Seriously.

2. Eat local!

While going vegetarian or vegan may be too much for some people to handle all at once, a huge impact can be made just by switching to locally produced foods. Right now in my fridge I have local ground elk and local buffalo summer sausage. They're incredibly delicious and since they were made from local, free-range, grass-fed animals, they significantly reduce the impact on the planet. Plus, summer is gearing up and this weekend was the first weekend of the certified local farmer's market, so there are tons of options to buy local eggs, cheese, fruits, and veggies, too!

3. Cut out refined sugar and flour!

Not only are refined carbs terrible for you, as I discussed in a science post earlier, but the refining process consumes a ton of energy unnecessarily. Switch to whole grains! Instead of refined sugar, try raw sugar, agave nectar, or an earth-friendly sugar substitute like stevia (I'm in love with Truvia right now). Better yet, curb your sweet cravings with fresh fruit.

4. Eat more raw food!

There is a lot of debate on the health benefits of raw diets, and while I don't think it's something I could ever subscribe to entirely, there's a lot to be said for chowing down on a salad or crudite now and then. Not only does cooking change the chemical composition of the food, depriving you of some nutrients, but firing up your stove or oven consumes energy.

5. Cook in more energy efficient ways!

For things you'd rather not eat raw, remember to use a microwave, crock pot, or toaster oven. You can even use a crock pot for baking! Running a crock pot for 7 hours costs about $.08, whereas running your oven for just an hour costs over $.20!

6. Eat at home!

Americans throw away enough food every year to feed 200 million people, and all that rotting food produces substantial quantities of methane-gas. Additionally, a quarter of all freshwater usage in the US goes to produce food that is never eaten. When you cook at home, you can control the ingredients, cooking methods, and the portions. While it sometimes takes more time, good planning, like prepping some ingredients in advance, can really go a long way. When you do eat out, ask about portion sizes and share a big meal with a buddy.

7. Produce food at home!

Gardening, canning, and composting are all great ways to save money, eat healthier, and reduce your carbon footprint.

I'm going to try to eat more raw foods, and to cook more efficiently. Jay and I just got a microwave, and I'm excited about the energy it will save and the convenience of heating up leftovers, but maybe I can expand my thinking and find other ways to make use of it. My big challenge will be to stop eating out for the remainder of the month. I am looking forward to kicking this challenge in the (organic, locally grown) nuts. How about you?

The Quest for Protein

2010-04-14T10:49:00.004-05:00

The New Rules of Lifting for Women includes formulae for figuring out how many calories you should eat per day and, naturally, includes admonitions to increase your protein intake while you're lifting. I'm aiming for 1,900 calories per non-lifting day and about 2,100-2,200 on lifting days, and 85-100g of protein daily. So far, I've worked on both food goals with limited success, but I'm improving. I'm attempting to raise my calorie intake by incorporating more protein.

I tried increasing my dairy intake over the last week, and that's been all right. Thank goodness I'm not lactose intolerant. I was never a big milk drinker, but I've helped to polish off two cartons in the last two weeks. I buy string cheese if I feel compelled to get a snack at the gas station.

Egg intake has also increased. I used to have a scrambled egg on an English muffin with cheese pretty regularly. I'm making that regularly again, and now, I sauté some Kroger cajun mirepoix mix, throw in the scrambled egg and some turmeric, put it on Oroweat sandwich thins with a slice of Borden American cheese, and let it sit in the microwave (to protect it from the cat, who thinks anything out on the counter is something I've decided to share with him) as I finish getting ready to let the cheese melt and the temperature become more uniform.

Overall, though, I find it easy to get 60% or more of my daily calories from carbs and hang out in the 60-75g range, even with my stash of different nut varieties at my desk and on the counter at home. So this morning I unearthed a can of Genisoy soy protein powder from my cubicle and mixed it with some raisin, apple, and walnut oatmeal and a pack of cranberries. I didn't get all the protein mixed in with the oatmeal very well, so toward the bottom of the cup, I got more wet clumps of protein powder than I really wanted to deal with. But between the powder and the oatmeal, I added 25 grams of protein to my daily total, which is not a bad thing at all.

When I can track down tempeh again (it is sold by exactly one of the grocery stores I visit regularly and was sold out the last time I made it to that particular store), I'll start using it more often. For now, I think returning to protein powder - and making sure it's mixed better with other food in the future - will be the easiest way to reach my goal.

A little less conversation

2010-04-10T07:34:00.004-05:00

And a little more inspiration?

A couple of videos for the weekend.

The first one is Sarah Bertram, who is currently in the top 20 in the world for women weightlifters. In this video, she lifts over 200 pounds several times. She doesn't just lift it, she lifts it over her head. It's incredibly impressive, and she's also just super cute in a way that you don't expect when you hear the phrase world champion female weightlifter. The soundtrack got disabled so just play some Eye of the Tiger while you watch it.

The next is an old Nike commercial. I showed this to Eve a while back when she was feeling really defeated about her injuries. It always helps me when I'm trying to make excuses.

More stuff about weights

2010-04-09T08:44:00.004-05:00

I started my weight routine back up last night. I do an all-dumbbell, slightly modified version of the stripped 5x5 routine. Last night I did B day, since I like to bench press.

The reason I use dumbbells even though my gym has barbells is two-fold. For one thing, I don't like asking someone to spot and I'm rarely there with a buddy. For another, I have a really strong tendency to lead with my right side when I'm using a barbell.

I did shoulder press last night, too, even though it's on A day, because I wanted to see where I was with it. I ended up with these sets.

Squat
1x5x25
1x5x30
2x5x35
1x5x40

Bench
1x5x10
1x5x12
1x5x15
1x5x20
1x5x25

2x2 assisted pull ups (max assist)

Shoulder Press
1x5x12
1x5x15
3x5x20

The numbers are for each dumbbell. I'm really happy with those squat numbers. I've never really pushed myself on squats but I've been thinking a lot lately about wanting a great ass, and there's really only one way to get it. That said, when I started to walk back downstairs, my quads were like "OH HELL NO." I grimaced and pushed onward, and I'm feeling okay this morning, but I know tomorrow will be hell. I'm not going back until Monday, and there won't be any squats then. I'm swapping out deadlifts for flies. I need to work on my anterior deltoids and I want to keep most of the lifts focused on upper body since I do a lot with my legs when I'm swimming, biking, and running. I can't afford to have them sore all the time. A lot of triathletes have even suggested that I forgo weights completely, and even more have said to limit it to only upper body, but I want to squat, yo.

This chart is a generally a good starting point to figure out your one rep maximum, or 1RM. On squats I'm apparently way beyond where I should be based on the untrained standards. On bench, I'm probably a little bit below, but some of that I can attribute to using dumbbells, which are harder than a barbell. I'm also probably a little bit beyond the standard for my press, weirdly. I might take one day and just try 1RM.

Eve has posted a lot about strength training and the benefits it has lately. She's right on. It increases your metabolism and burns fat in a way that cardio could never hope to, and if you want to get thin without looking like an empty sack of skin, it's absolutely essential. It's also important to note that it's a TOTAL MYTH that girls who lift weights look like those huge beefy bodybuilder women. Those women you're thinking of take steroids. A woman's body doesn't bulk up that way, and a quick glance at some pictures of female olympic lifters will prove this. Some of them are tiny, fit girls lifting ridiculous weights.

Melanie Roach, looking all beefy and shit.

I have a strong preference for compound lifts and free weights. You'll notice I only do three different lifts each time I go to the gym. That's because the lifts I do are those that work lots of different muscle groups, and give me more bang for my buck. I'm not doing bicep curls because my biceps are working when I do presses and rows and bench and everything else.

The benefits of free weights are something I can't emphasize enough. Try getting on a bench press machine and seeing how much you can press, then try to press the same weight with a barbell or dumbbells. You will fail miserably. The reason is that free weights use stabilizer muscles. All those little muscles are working to hold the weight in place, in addition to pressing it up and letting it down. When you lift weights on a machine, you totally neglect those muscles and end up with big number but an inability to actually use them. If you're only used to working out on machines and you try to use your body in the real world, hauling dirt or pushing a car or loading boxes or whatever, your little atrophied stabilizer muscles are going to keep you from being as strong as you thought you were, and they're going to be utterly destroyed the next day and make you cry like a school girl.

Backslide

2010-04-08T11:10:00.004-05:00

I know it's the week before my period and I'm probably retaining water or whatever, and my new pants still fit fine, but I was still irritated when I stepped on the scale sometime last night and saw that I'd moved back up to 190. I didn't weigh myself first thing in the morning; this was after eating and such. But really, how much does my lowest possible weight at the moment matter if, at some point during the day, that's how much volume I take up? I can't think that lifting weights for two days has made that much of a dent in my muscle mass.

I can tell myself I'm eating healthier all I want and cite the baked squash and raw apples and low-fat cheese, I'm clearly not doing it right. So today, I'm re-joining the world of people who log their meals. And doing it with a bang, as I had a cinnamon donut when I got to the office this morning. My coworker said apologetically as she set the box of baked goods on the desk of the empty cube next to mine, "Eve, I'm here to ruin your diet!" But there's only one person ruining my diet right now, and that's me.

In accordance with the weightlifting plan, I'm upping my daily caloric intake to 1,900. I'm trying, as always, to get more protein.

There's not a foolproof way to do it, and it may fail, but I'm going to try to cut out as much high fructose corn syrup out of my life as possible. Oroweat bread products don't use it, which is awesome, since that's my favorite bread company.

The new weightlifting plan has knocked me out for the last several nights, and I haven't woken up and stayed awake due to anxiety (stayed awake due to a cat sitting on my head and kneading my shoulder with his pointy claws, yes, I have done that). Been way too tired. It's a good tired.

I've noticed a change for the positive in my emotional health. Usually, when I believed that someone was mad at me or angry with the world, I would be absolutely tied to that feeling of guilt and be sick with misery over it. No matter what the problem was, I inflated it to world-shattering, life-altering seriousness, and it often ended in tears and apologies. Now, I feel less bad about it and acknowledge that I can't control or influence the feelings other people have toward me to make them always positive, and I don't let it completely ruin my day. It's something I'm having to work through, but it seems like progress.

I am going to buy a new exercise shirt for weightlifting. I have two shirts in my gym bag, and one of them has short sleeves that are still way too long when I'm in that always-hot gym lifting weights, plus the fabric is pulled in the front due to being ripped by dog claws at some point.

I believe the shirt was damaged in the taking of this photo. Also isn't he ADORABLE.

So I just wear my one sleeveless shirt most of the time, and that means constant laundering, else a smelly gym bag / closet (where my gym bag lives sometimes) / car (where my gym bag lives most of the time). I took a quick look at shirts at Target on my way to work, but I wasn't happy with their selection, so I'll try either Kohl's or Sports Authority sometime this week.

Back to El Gymno

2010-04-08T09:29:00.003-05:00

I went back to the gym last night after a super long hiatus. My friend Greg wanted me to take him and show him around and maybe be gym buddies, which is awesome since my last gym buddy DESERTED ME. Sarah, that one is for you.

So I went and I showed him around and did thirty minutes on the elliptical and worked up a good sweat, thanks to Ke$ha. I'm going again after work to lift some weights, and hopefully I can parlay this into a regular workout routine.

Three girls, one fear

2010-04-07T09:58:00.004-05:00

"There are only two emotions: love and fear. And fear is just the absence of love, so there is only love." -Fanci Sarah, probably quoting someone but I don't care.

Here's the run down.

Mine is a crippling fear of missing out on things. The funny thing is, when I shared this with both Eve and Sarah, they projected their own similar fears onto mine, and neither were the same as what I was experiencing. Sarah guessed that it might be an avoidance behavior, keeping my time fully booked so I don't have to deal with a task at home, or a feeling maybe. Eve guessed it was a fear of loneliness, a fear of being excluded from a fun event. Mine, I realized, is a fear of meaninglessness.

When I realize I am acting based on fear, rather than preference or desire (love), I try to figure out what I'm really afraid of. When I remember that fear is the absence of love, I ask myself what love I'm missing that's making me so fearful. I'm a natural introvert, and sometimes I need to stay home and take a break. I need to unwind, watch TV, get absorbed in video games, and cuddle with my Jaybird. Counterbalancing that, I love people, and I'm very social. And I live in a community where there is at least one something awesome going on every single night, and sometimes more than one something awesome. I often book two or three events in a night and try to make it to all three. I then often find myself sitting at home when I'd really rather be out just because I can't choose between the fantastic options available.

A typical night at my favorite bar, White Water Tavern.

Talking to Sarah, I narrowed it down to one thing. I have a fear that my life isn't rich enough. It's a fear of meaninglessness and emptiness. I want to pack in more and more experiences and connections and music and art and love because I am afraid of not having enough of it already. I'm missing a love and appreciation for what I already have in my life. That's the love I'm missing. Here are my two steps to get it back.

1. Meditate on all the amazing things I have. Best dog ever, loving (and superhot) boyfriend, fulfilling job, gorgeous living space, perfect neighborhood, supportive faith community, friends who love me unconditionally, and an amazing mother. My life is enough. Even if I die today and never see another art exhibit or poetry reading or picnic or party or music show, my life will have been complete.

2. Love myself enough to prioritize self care. It's a thing unto itself, and time that I devote to recharging isn't "empty" time, it's time well spent. I don't have this evening free, I have a full schedule of caring for my own well-being.

I realize this isn't health and fitness related per se, but it's wellness related so there you go.

Ow.

2010-04-07T07:53:00.002-05:00

Yep, yesterday kind of sucked, especially last night before bed. Today sucks a lot, too. Having my healthy, balanced breakfast of a cup of coffee and three ibuprofen. All my muscles are so, so angry.

Blog Change

2010-04-06T09:01:00.001-05:00

I changed the theme on the blog. I like this one for now but who knows, I may change it again. The old one was old and I wanted something less dark. I welcome thoughts from the other fanci fun girls and I point you to this site.

Update and Sleeping Things and Such

2010-04-06T08:20:00.003-05:00

I am getting laid again. Hallelujah. Situation resolved.

I've been looking at my daily routine a lot lately. I've been sluggish since daylight bullshit time set in, and I'm trying to get on a more regular schedule during the week. I'd like to read more and get up a little earlier.

Yesterday was a really good day health-wise. I had half an English muffin with an egg and some deli ham and some low fat cheddar for breakfast, a homemade open face fast food replica. For lunch, Jay cooked fish over a fire in the back yard and made a big spinach salad, and brought it to me in a huge picnic basket. We laid out on a bamboo mat in front of the capitol and had picnic fun. It was only later that I found out my office mates were watching us out the window and making fun. Cute.

After I got home and changed into jeans, we walked the dog. Not really a work out, but we walked about a mile. We walked by the garden, in which we're toying with the idea of having a commitment ceremony next fall, in 2011. Jay suggested we could just have the ceremony on top of the compost pile, and I vetoed, reminding him that I'm still a girl and if we're doing this it has to be a little bit fanci. On the way home we spent some time hanging out on our neighbor's porch, just visiting about all kinds of things.

We went to The House for dinner and split the hummus appetizer, which is the best thing ever. I had a bunch of hummus and taziki and chili garlic sauce and about two big strips of grilled foccacia. Then I had the Cobb salad, which is also the best thing ever. Mixed greens tossed in sherry vinaigrette, topped with chicken breast and bacon and avocado and egg and tomato and red onion and bleu cheese. I also had a bite of Jay's burger and a sweet potato fry. When we first got there the only table available on the patio was a 6-person table, and we sat there but said we'd move if they needed the space. About five minutes later, they needed the space, but there were two girls at another big table and I realized I'd met on of them, so we ended up sitting with them and having a really good time, and we got to stay on the patio in he beautiful weather.

Not my Cobb salad, but I needed a good photo.

We got home about 8:15 and chilled out for a while, watched the new Human Target, and went to bed around 10. I set my alarm for 6, hoping to shift my circadian rhythms just a little bit, but woke up at 7 and realized the clock time was somehow set for PM instead of AM. Foiled.

Part of me wants to try again tonight, but the other part of me wants to go to White Water Tavern. I suppose I could go and come home about 11 and still get 7 hours of sleep, but I'd really rather get 8.

I don't think I've talked about this here before, but I have a crippling fear of missing out on fun. It's one of the reasons I stay so busy, and sometimes book two or three events in a night. I feel like if I miss one of them, I'm going to hear the next day about how it was the best thing ever and how could I have missed it and life will never be the same. It's stupid when I put it in writing, and it's even stupider when I let it paralyze me because there's so many things going on that I can't choose. Maybe I should stay home not only for the sleep but in an exercise of "I don't have to be there." Thoughts?

Pain incoming.

2010-04-05T22:35:00.003-05:00

Today was my first workout with the New Rules of Lifting regimen. It was so much fun. "I can lift this! I can pull this! Only 15 reps?" I will increase the weight next time and probably won't be having as much fun next time around. Heh. In the meantime, I found the workout to be meaningful, the radio was on and playing a lot of fun, forgettable pop that made me want to dance between sets. Overall, it was awesome. I bounced out of the gym and drove off in a great mood.

When I got home, I had a grab bag dinner: handfuls of assorted nuts from containers in the pantry, a bowl of noodle soup, a cup of milk, string cheese, and dried cranberries. I took a shower. And then, I felt as though someone had shut off some switches in my personal reactor, a la Obi Wan Kenobi inside the Death Star. Complete with the "bwoooooooo" sound effect.

I have been limply sitting in this chair for the last several hours at my computer, trying not to fall asleep until bedtime proper. I took some pain reliever for my head. I have a feeling I will be clinging to my bottle tomorrow morning and for the next two days as my body and all its muscles say, "Oh, doing squats, I see? Yeah, well, I don't like that and here's why." A litany of pain will be chanted by each muscle fiber in my back and thighs and biceps on the morrow. I will sleep well tonight.

I think I'm going to like this workout plan, if I can stick to it.

I just joined the forums.jpfitness.com community that is associated with the book. Just the latest fitness forum I'm latching onto, I suppose. But if I'm doing their workout, I'll join in their discussions and see where that gets me.

Some of the arm movements in my innocent little pilates workout are more shoulder-hurty than anything I attempted to do today (none of today's exercises included pushing over my head, so that helps). Weh.

Body Issues Again! Love, Maggie

2010-03-31T09:27:00.002-05:00

The first night Jay and I went out, we came home and had sex about four times before morning. That was pretty much the pace of our relationship for a while. At some point, I had to tell him to stop waking me up in the middle of the night when I had to work the next day.

I obviously would love to just love my body and require no external validation. That said, the best antidote I've found to the body hate is when the most beautiful boy I've ever met wants to fuck me all the damn time.

A few days before Christmas, we adopted Mr. Bojangles, our Great Dane.

At some point it became clear that this was a game changer for Jay. He didn't like having sex in front of the dog, and he didn't like it if the dog made any noise even if we were in another room. Even if the dog was outside.

The frequency of us having sex dropped to once a week or less, and I started to feel fat and ugly all the time. This all came to a head last night when I mentioned I was having a "fat day," which is something I tend to do casually, and suddenly burst into tears.

We've tried a few things. We moved the dog's crate into another room (or actually switched all the furniture except the crate so that it would be less of a big change for him). We also sometimes give him a bone, but it lacks spontaneity. We've talked about leaving him at the dog spa overnight, but that would still require some planning and it seems like a cop out.

From everything I know about dog training, which is very very little, we need to just desensitize him to the separation. We need to ignore him when he cries and let him figure out that we're not abandoning him and it's all going to be fine. Jay seems totally unwilling to do this. He can't just let the dog whine. Even last night, when we agreed to let the dog whine, he changed his mind and went back in there with the dog.

I gained about three pounds last week and five pounds this week. I am absolutely certain that my lack of interest in taking care of myself is directly related to feeling unfuckable all the time. I don't really know what to do at this point and it's depressing me to write about it, so there you go.

One month limit on this, though. If it's not fixed by May 1, I'm getting rid of the dog.

Evaluating a new plan

2010-03-30T11:29:00.004-05:00

I picked up The New Rules of Lifting for Women over the weekend, after reading several recommendations and a lot of good reviews on Amazon.com. I'm about 60 pages into it. So far, the gist of it is that women don't have the testosterone necessary to get really bulky muscles, and lifting weights burns calories as well as gives you a nice caloric afterburn and etc. etc. That sounds good. The workouts come later in the book. I'm waiting until I read those to do strength training again, and I've been caught up in playing video games with my boyfriend in lieu of working out for a couple of weeks (unfortunately, I'm also fighting nighttime anxiety again, so this plan needs to be modified). Also working on exercises to help my shoulder heal and plan to buy another book that was recommended on the recommendations for New Rules.

Anyway, I was doing math before bed last night according to the formulae in the book to find out what my current resting metabolic rate is, i.e. how many calories I'd burn in a day of just hanging out in bed based on my age and on the crudest of measurements of my BMI. The book is really down on what it sees as severe calorie cutting - eating between 1,200 and 1,400 calories per day. It argues that when you're expending calories through increased exercise and decreasing your calorie intake, your metabolism slows down. And even though you're cutting out X number of calories per diet to help you lose Y pounds per week, the math doesn't really add up for many dieters, and maybe it's because that method doesn't work. This is the thesis of the book.

I haven't tested this out at all, so I don't quite know what to make of it. It's important to have a critical eye, but there comes a point when I have to acknowledge that I don't know as much about nutrition as a lot of people in the fitness and food industry do, and it might do me well to take a leap of faith and try something new.

This book advocates eating more calories and adding in a weightlifting routine. I'll wait till I get to the end of the book and assess my own ability to lift weights to see if I want to start on a program that would have me eating a lot more calories.

As it is, my current goal per day is 1,500. I am not sure precisely how well I'm hitting that number these days since I've stopped tracking my food. But for the most part, I've gotten to a point where I stop eating when I'm full and stick to a mix of healthy foods/snacks and low-calorie junk. I could be doing better, but I don't think I'm doing all that poorly. According to the calculations I've made based on the formulas in the book, at 185 pounds (where I've been hanging out for a while), my daily caloric needs are 2,100 per day. I hit that on days I have a lot of pizza and cake and stuff. I think it would be difficult for me to get that many eating good foods and not junk, but that's mostly because I haven't tried and haven't fully explored the world of protein powders.

I'm trying to think how my body would respond to so many more calories taken in per day. Am I starving myself now, and is this why my weight loss is so slow? Would there be a period of metabolic adjustment if I started eating 2,100 calories (though I'm allowed to cut a maximum of 300 calories from that if I'm hell-bent on losing weight)? Basically, would I size myself out of my new pants? Would the weightlifting routine then eliminate the fat to the point that I would be able to wear them comfortably again soon, or should I hang onto my size 16 jeans?

Honestly, considering that I'm probably hitting 1,600-2,000 already by having cookies with my strawberries and mini Moon Pies with my fist-fulls of almonds and walnuts, it's not going to be that big a leap, I don't think. And if I do it the right way, with a lot more protein in my diet, using whey protein powders, adopting shakes, incorporating milk, getting more cottage cheese (sorry, unopened bin in the fridge), buying whole grain buns instead of the Oroweat Sandwich thins (which I love dearly), I should find it beneficial.

The only impediments, really, to me exploring this new world are my injuries and how putting so much pressure on not-fully-healed muscles, bones, and joints would work out for me. My guess is: badly. I don't think there will be many ways to modify such heavy lifting for so broken a person.

Great book, but I'm not sure if it is the right plan for me so far. But its diet modification information may be the kick in the pants I need to stop sampling my boyfriend's cookies and start cooking with tempeh again.

Find your fun exercise

2010-03-24T23:38:00.007-05:00

A good friend of mine was lamenting over text tonight about how busy she is. She's taking some biology classes, has a full-time job that's going through a busy time right now, goes to a climbing gym, attends circus school gymnastics, and is about to get registered for a trampoline gym. Spring has hit a lot of the U.S. by now, and she has wanted to blow off her studies in favor of doing more fun outdoor activities such as walking through the park. I tend to sympathize with her, maybe due to being a poor student without good study skills or inclination to give myself that kind of structure. If given the choice between a.) studying or working or doing some other activity that my brain refuses to engage in or b.) going for a walk or a swim, I am much, much more likely to do the physical activity.

How many people hate to work out, or at least hate to work out at the gym, because they don't like the activities they participate in while there? I know some folks have got to force themselves to go to the gym, put on their gear and go out for a run before work or school or what have you, or hope for bad weather to avoid participation in an outdoor sport. How many people would work out more often if they found something they were able to do and that they truly enjoyed? It's something that started percolating after I read Jezebel's take on a new study recommending women work out an hour a day every day (which was met with very mixed reactions by their vibrant commenter community) to maintain their weight.

I'd like to think that there's a fun, long-term-feasible physical activity out there for every person out there who has some degree of motor control. I know that working out is prescribed for weight loss and may be seen as a task, an unpleasant chore, rather than a joy. And I'll admit, there are days when I just don't feel like working out. But for the most part, when I don't work out, it's because I have other obligations, not because I necessarily dislike the activity that I'm doing. There's even something fun about doing my reps slower or getting through an entire set when I'm lifting weights. It's because I love counting, love following routine, and am crazy. I know this and embrace it.

Eve and a set of 8-lb. weights: not besties, but definitely friends.

This evening, after finishing a movie that my boyfriend fell asleep not long into, I was feeling antsy, and so I turned on the kickboxing video I found a couple of months ago and worked out. My other options included watching last week's Project Runway online or playing a port of FFVII, but turns out I just wanted to sweat. And although the kickboxing routine was certainly challenging, it was a lot of fun for me. I'm lucky to enjoy physical activity so much. I love to walk, I really like pilates, and I am almost always willing to give any exercise with a dance element a fair shake. I'm glad my aforementioned friend, a gymnast all through her childhood and teen years, has found a place to physically exert herself in a way that she evidently has loved from an early age (her parents are not the type to push her into an activity she didn't feel like doing). A college friend who was on the swim team joined another team several years into grad school, at least for a while. Many of my friends and acquaintances who were on cross country and track teams in high school and college still run and train for races. Some have practiced yoga (consistently, on and off, whatever worked for them) for years. We all may take a break from our activities or sports of choice, but we keep coming back to the things we love.

It's important to find an exercise you enjoy so you stick with it for as long as you are able. I can't imagine being stuck in a gym every other day or every few days for the rest of my life, working out on machines I hate. When I did the Self Challenge in 2006, by the middle of month three, I started chafing at how much time I felt I had to spend on that boring-ass elliptical; straining my knee and feeling generally run-down helped me to completely give up and undo all the progress I had made.

Toward the end of that particular stint of fitness, I struggled to make it interesting. I tried the Couch to 5K program, which I failed at miserably. Back in the gym, I listened to comedy albums on my mp3 player to pass the time, but there's only so many times you can listen to the Hot Pocket routine, grit your teeth when the not-quite-an-hour-long routine starts over again, decide to switch up machines to give yourself a mental break and find yourself staring at the clock after 2 minutes already, thinking how interminable 30 minutes really is. This does not work.

Maybe doing exercises you don't like is all right in the short term and in the beginning, if you're doing PX90 or boot camp or some other extreme workout regimen, or if you want to get started on losing weight and can't quite bring yourself to go to rumba classes without some muscle tone in your calves. But I don't see someone sticking to it in the long term, which is the only way to look at making over your body. I'm all about the sustainable, long-term health goals - slow weight loss that results from shaping my normal eating habits, being mindful of the ingredients I buy, gauging my hunger, and paring back calories; enjoyable, interesting, occasionally challenging, and varied exercise routines that promote my strength, flexibility, and cardiovascular health, and that also allow me to work around my injuries and my body's limitations.

I've been on my diet and exercise plan for 7 months as of last week. True, I took a great deal of weeks "off" and undid some of my hard work through poor food choices and by not going working out regularly. I'm on the upswing out of such a valley at the moment. I haven't tracked my calories for a couple of weeks, though I think I have been making a lot of good food choices. I recently recommitted to working out regularly. Not much ground has been lost in my fight to get in better shape. In fact, tonight, I bought two new pair of pants in a comfortably-fitting size 14 because I am tired of schlepping around in too-big pants and shirts (and none of the shirts I tried on at Kohl's were built to accommodate my boobs - shirts that fit over them were tents, shirts that fit the rest of me looked harassed and upset at my bust - so I am considering splurging on myself this spring and getting at least one top from Bravissimo, which makes tops and dresses in both dress sizes and cup sizes). I am happy with my results so far and proud of myself for keeping at this commitment to health for so long, and I really couldn't have done it without the support of my Fanci friends and my boyfriend and a non-frustrating food log site such as Livestrong. Access to a variety of physical activities that I enjoy keeps me moving and gives me options no matter the weather outdoors.

I am not looking forward to be driven back into the gym by the heat this summer, but I'm hoping that I can explore and buy videos from Exercise TV, load them onto my iPod, and work out to them either at home or at the gym. I'll do what I can to avoid getting back on the elliptical any more than I must, and I'll do it with what I hope is a smile on my face.

Getting back on the horse: not so bad actually

2010-03-22T08:12:00.006-05:00

After another food-filled holiday (my office did it big with a St. Patty's Day potato bar, fruit and veggie plate, and then several plates of cookies, several cakes, 5 bags of chips, cheese and ranch dips, on and on and on), piggybacking on several weeks' worth of non-discipline, I stepped on the scale Thursday morning in the harsh light of the bathroom to see the damage and didn't like it one bit.

My boyfriend has managed to clear the house of junk food (by eating it - thanks, bunny!), and I picked up more fruit and a bin of mixed nuts at the grocery last night. Kroger has helpfully created an end cap of plastic containers with several variations of trail mix, granola, and dried veggie chips. My favorite is the uncomplicated, unsalted cashew, almond, walnut, and raisin mix. I started on them this week and am not really sure how I did without them before. They stopped the hell out of my snacky urges last night. After a dinner of sushi and a Tofurky sandwich (Kroger has sliced Tofurky brand deli cuts for an insanely reasonable price), I killed half a container of strawberries and wanted more. To be honest, I didn't eat all that much this weekend - had McDonald's for breakfast on Saturday, Tofurky sandwich Saturday night with some string cheese and a tiny Moon Pie that is 130 calories and only 11 grams of sugar, and I had a Whataburger salad with cheese and perhaps a quarter of the dressing packet on Sunday. So no wonder I wanted to eat everything. I think a handful of almonds was the best option. I don't really like walnuts, but they're good for me, and if I pair them with a raisin or cashew, all the better.

I am not walking in this, if I can help it.

Working out is getting back on track as of yesterday, because I say it is. The weather was beautiful all last week, right up to Saturday, and I took several long walks through the neighborhood. Then, bizarrely, it snowed in Dallas on Saturday evening after a day of cold, wind, and rain. Wait, is this still late March? The snow melted yesterday, but it was cold, and it's cold this morning. So I haven't been walking in a few days. I've not been working out with pilates, either. Needing a workout and knowing that I probably needed more than the promise to myself of picking up my weights as my boyfriend and I played video games, I opted to go to the gym after I put in some overtime yesterday afternoon. Just being down there makes me feel more disciplined.

I felt a little less inclined to work out, though, when I scanned my card, walked in, and saw a man and two children already in the gym room, a case of colored pencils and a coloring book on the floor. I was not annoyed to find the space used thus, however. The gym is the most comfortable, out-of-the-way place in the building if you're going to be looking after children, and the kids kicked the ball around a little bit and colored and otherwise kept to themselves. They didn't get on any of the machines, and they weren't in the way of my workout. The dad and I, both short, puzzled for a minute about how to reach the buttons on the wall-mounted flat panel TV nestled next to the ceiling to change the channel so that the satellite signal could be picked up. I'm not sure how someone reached up there in the first place, and we eventually gave up; he went back to his magazine and keeping his kids under control, and I cranked some Lady Gaga and lifted weights.

My bad shoulder has been feeling a little stiff, but all right, after a couple of weeks of not using dumbbells. I probably opened a can of worms by working out with it. But I'm hoping to make it stronger and regain my movement by using it. It's been persistently borked long enough that I do need to get it looked at. It's kind of daunting, though, because I think that it might need operating on, and then what kind of bras am I going to be able to wear, and should I start planning on getting a reduction surgery, and can I afford any of this when I'm rocking so much debt for vets and car repair and home improvement. This is the only body I'm getting, though, and at least I do have health insurance. It's just a lot of scary conversations, scary doctor's visits, etc. that I think I can avoid by ignoring recurring pain and loss of functionality that does affect my quality of life in a negative way.

Overdue thoughts!

2010-03-17T07:47:00.003-05:00

I haven't updated for a bit, but I have a few things to talk about!

First of all, it is spring in north Texas, and I am loving it. I've ditched the gym for now and get my exercise by going for long walks, sometimes with one of the dogs. I look forward to it in a way I have never looked forward to going to a gym. Spring fever is in full effect, and as I pass by the blooming pear trees and note the buds on the maple in my front yard and see all the new growth on the rose bushes I pruned back last month, I am made happy. Being in the outdoors is so renewing for me.

I had some really strong fruit cravings over the weekend, so on a short shopping trip, I bought bananas, apples, and some mixed berries, and by the end of the weekend, I had just a couple of apples left. Strawberries are coming into season, so I picked some up on my shopping trip the other day, too. The warm weather and the berry binge inspired me to pick up a blackberry bush and a raspberry bush at Lowe's last night, and I'll be planting them this evening. I still have to do some research on how to take care of them, but that's what the internet is for, and what better way to learn than by doing. I don't expect a crop this year or anything, but I can't wait to watch it grow into something that will someday produce fruit.

My boyfriend and I love the comedian Eddie Izzard, and we were intrigued when we saw he'd done a series of specials that were airing on the BBC called Eddie Izzard: Marathon Man. (Narrated by David Tennant! Squee!) Last year, at age 47, he did marathon-length runs for the charity Sport Relief all over the UK, 43 of them in 51 days. He was not an experienced runner and trained for perhaps a month before he started. By the end of the first episode, after about 10 runs, he is exhausted and battling blisters and feeling sore everywhere. But it's great to see him get energized by interacting with crowds of people in different towns, and it's so sweet to see people come out to meet him, join him briefly, and cheer him on. He's followed by an ice cream truck that solicits donations for his charity and gives out free ice cream. There is something of the dry BBC documentary style about this that makes it a little slow at times, but the intersection of my interests in Izzard and physical challenge/fitness makes it pretty fascinating.

Some of my friends are now on the hCG diet, and while it has worked for at least one of them (two are starting the severe calorie restrictions today), it makes me a little afraid for them. There are good explanations to be found if you do any kind of search (here's a nice primer), and some of the first suggestions that Google made when I did my search to learn more about it were "hCG dangers" and "hCG side effects." It consists of loading up on fatty foods, then going on a severely restricted diet of 500 calories a day and no starches, sugars, or oil allowed, plus you have to be careful of the cosmetics and lotions you use, as your body will soak up the oils from those like a sponge, according to one of the women who is doing the diet. Supposedly, your body will get its nutritional requirements from your own fat storages. It sounds insane and sounds like it would really mess up your metabolism. I'm wary enough of messing with my hormones with just a regular ol' birth control pill. This shit is bananas. The woman who started on it about a month ago has lost 30 pounds; I just hope that, for her sake, it is mostly fat she's lost, though if you're on such a calorie restricted diet, do you even have the energy to exercise so that you may maintain your muscle mass? Power to them if it works, and you can't really stop someone from doing what they want to do, but I just hope that it works out all right for them and that they knew the side effects of what they were getting into (for starters, the hCG hormone has also been used as a fertility drug). I'm sticking to my slow method, as it's proven and sustainable.

And finally, I ran across an interesting, ass-kicking article linked to me by a friend on LJ who's starting her own workout routine and was recently discouraged after a bad experience with a personal trainer who belittled her instead of modifying exercise moves for her injured knee. She said this article was awesomely motivating, and I agree. Read it and share your thoughts?

I need a pep talk

2010-03-15T08:52:00.001-05:00

I am feeling kind of all or nothing lately, and having trouble with moderation. I need a pep talk and a good trip to the grocery store. Halp?

Bad Blogger Award

2010-03-11T23:16:00.002-06:00

...goes to me, Maggie. You two both do a great job of keeping all of us updated on your progress, and me, I tend to use it more as an update board. So, updates:

1. I went two months without going to the grocery store.* *"going to the grocery store" denotes picking up more than $20 worth of groceries, including toiletries, household items etc.
I had reorganized my pantry and listed the frozen food on the front of the freezer (Lesson learned: don't buy so many frozen vegetables. Yes, they are cheap, but freezer burn is gross), and realized how much food I have. Surely, I thought, I should eat some of this shit that I bought. I just don't like it quite as much as other things, so it sits in here longer, but you bought it, eat it! (Forgive the shifting to first person. I trust you to follow me.)

So I did. I was determined to go as long as possible without doing a restock, only buying a few ingredients as needed to supplement the food stock, and I lasted from the beginning of January to the end of February. Frugal, healthy, noms (because even the food that isn't in the front line of deliciousness still tastes pretty good in this hizzy.) Win.

2. I weigh 215 pounds, and I have for several days now. This has allowed me to go shopping in my closet. I'm kind of flabbergasted by this weight loss, as I had been at a 235 plateau. Then I hit 230, and then I just kept going. I am considering a number of factors in this plateau ending:

-The pantry fast: When I was eating food not because I was craving it or because it was one of my favorites, I thought of it in more practical terms. And didn't overeat much at all. As a result, I got used to only filling up a ways and then stopping and reconsidering if I wanted seconds. I rarely did. Even though it was good food, I was considering it in a more utilitarian way. And, it stretched the food a while longer. But it helped keep the calorie count down.
-My So-Called Life: I've been way too busy, and thinking way too much. It's been good, but it's been keeping me occupied with other things than being bored and eating. I told someone the other day I turned thirty a few months late.
-Closing Time: I have of late had a few unfortunate nights of overdrinking and irresponsibility, and that is putting it kindly in one or two cases. Maggie is a marvelous and kind friend, and has taken as much care of me as I'd let her. She pointed out that I have lost almost 20% of my body weight. Later, I realized I was also for the first time taking my wellbutrin really regularly. Since that point a couple of weeks ago, I've had a drink or two, but I've cut out about 95% of my drinking. That's a lot of calories, in addition to other good things. I think this was the straw that broke the plateau's back.

So, 215, back in the clothes I wore three years ago, and feeling fanci.

Mini Goals for March

2010-03-10T06:32:00.003-06:00

Here are my mini goals for the remainder of March.

Eat more clean, healthy food and eat out less.
Drink less alcohol and no beer.
Get more exercise.
Get better sleep and a better sleep schedule.

The strategies are the following.

Under 1300 calories a day, except one day each weekend, either Saturday or Sunday, which will be cheat days. Diet consisting of lean meats, whole grains, low fat dairy, healthy oils, fruits and veggies and legumes. This calorie goal is on the very low end of the healthy spectrum for me, but I want to stay low until I get used to it again and see what kind of progress I make. I generally tell people to never go below their HB adjusted BMR minus 1000 calories. For me this is about 2200, so 1300 is not too risky.
Alcohol is a tricky one. I think limiting it to weekends for now is a good plan.
Something active every day. Monday it was a short walk with the dog, which is probably what it will be most days. Tuesday it was setting up the training room, which involves lifting heavy boxes and passing out like a million materials. It wasn't strenuous, but it took some time and got my heart rate up. I'm also going to start trying and reviewing online workout videos, because Eve and Sarah have both talked about using them and I think it would be fun. I'll try to do one new one every week. I still have a gym membership and I want to get back soon, but I'm not pressuring myself about it.
Asleep by 11, awake by 6:30. Even on weekends, for now.

As for a weight goal, I'm at about 228 and I have 3 weeks left. I can lose 2 lbs a week, I think, with these strategies, but I'll play it conservative and say 5 lbs. by the end of the month. So that would put me at 223. Honestly, in my secret heart of hearts (Mr. Bob Coleman could give you a thesis on the origins of this phrase), I would love to be under 220, and next month I would love to see 214 again which would put me back into the "overweight" BMI range.

I am putting triathlon training on hold for now. The combination of the ice we had last month and my personal crises means my heart just isn't in it right now. I might just go to the gym the morning I had planned to do a triathlon and do the distances there in the pool and on the stationary bike and treadmill. It would be a fun challenge and a good benchmark to use at events in the future.

O HURRO THERE

2010-03-08T15:13:00.004-06:00

It has been a while, and the other fanci sisters know that my life has been kind of crazy lately. I'm still hovering in the upper 220's, and all is not lost. This week is about getting back on track.

Mad props to Eve for the fridge list. I do that too and it totally helps when you're like "hey we don't have any food let's order pizza" because the list is like "wtf are you talking about, there is plenty of food here, fattard."

I went to the grocery store on Friday morning and bought a ton of healthy snacks and meal elements. Lots of lean proteins, fruit, salad, and 100 calorie packs of salty things that I love.

I don't really have a specific topic in mind, but I have a few loosely related anecdotes about body image, so I'll pretend it's a theme and share those.

I have a close friend whose physical preference leans toward the Orient. This friend finds Asian people really aesthetically beautiful, and tends to date them more than other races. I learned this morning that his partner was having a lot of insecurity about his own weight, and had assumed (incorrectly) that my friend no longer found him attractive because he'd put on a few pounds. It was interesting because I thought immediately that Asian people who date those who prefer Asian looks might make this assumption, that part of the desirable look is the slender body type.

I think body type preference is interesting. I love Jay's body, and I don't think it will change because of how active he is, but I still can't imagine a Jay that I didn't adore. It's common to hear about couples where one of them "lets him or herself go" and the other is no longer interested in them physically, though. Is it actually a common occurrence, or just something that gets remarked upon a lot?

Speaking of my gorgeous boyfriend, he recently changed jobs, from a working class downtown pizza place to a trendy gastropub. The good news is that he's making 4-5 times a week what he used to make. If you'd asked whether that would make a difference in the budget, I'd have said yes, but I couldn't have imagined how much of a difference. Several hundred extra dollars a week is a HUGE difference. That is a good thing.

The other thing, which is maybe not so good, is how much attention he is getting over his looks. This place, as I said, is pretty trendy and staffed entirely by young, tall, beautiful people. It makes sense for a business to hire that way because I'm sure it's good for the bottom line and for tips. And I have absolutely zero question on Jay's faithfulness. It's just awkward to think that other people are looking at him and thinking about how nice he is to look at. But I suppose people look at me that way, too, and it's never been an issue.

My grandmother died last weekend, and toward the end of her life she lost some weight, as people tend to do. She always had a slim body type, a lot like Jay's, where she would eat sweets and snacks but stayed active and just never gained any weight. A friend at the funeral said that she ran into my grandmother at "Walmarts" and said how nice she looked, as always -- Maw was certainly always dolled up with loud jewelry or a flashy scarf -- but that she responded with some embarrassment over how thin she was. The friend said, "Olive, don't you know people pay good money to be that thin?"

It was an interesting exchange. Lots to think about, there.

She was amazing, and here is a link to her obituary, should anyone care to read it. My mom stopped short of saying that my grandmother's parents were bootleggers and ran a speakeasy, but I think it's pretty apparent.

Finally, I found this old picture of me.

I was about one and a half in this picture. I look older, I think, because I got long and tall before most babies do. We lived out in the country, I loved running around naked outside. I was a little wilderness child. It never even crossed my mind that my body would not be good enough for someone. It was enough that it was good enough to get me from one side of the property to the other and carry all the flowers and twigs I wanted along the way.

Ugh, it hurts

2010-03-01T23:13:00.005-06:00

My shoulder has been bothering me all day. It's a symptom of not having worked out for days and not having lifted weights for a week.

I've hurt all over for a few days, actually. The weather has been cold and damp and miserable, and my foot has ached with the storms. My ankle started to hurt the day after I sprinted a block after my dog. Sweet, innocent Spocky, my fanci beagle buddy, went outside with me on Saturday to the mailbox 20 feet away, then used his leashless freedom to sprint down the street and go to a house at the corner. Luckily for me, Spock stopped to investigate the yard (marked extensively by the chihuahua that lives there) thoroughly, and I was able to catch him and carry his 35-pound ass home. Jerk. Both foot and ankle were giving me hell when I first got up, and my shoulder started shortly after I got to work and only settled down a bit as I sat here at my computer this evening, lifting a very light dumbbell with my left arm as I watched tv shows with my boyfriend on his computer.

While half asleep and still recovering from an ill-advised run-in with tequila, I broke the dvd/media player in the bedroom by accident. Thus, I can't do any working out to my pilates video in that room until it is either repaired or replaced. I've been generally anxious and depressed and unable to work out outside during my vacation, and then that happened, and I spent most of Sunday sulking about that and generally being an emotional black hole at what I perceive as my own limitless personal failings. Ugh. I am so discouraged at this moment. Also, I lost no weight this month. I believe I'll be all right as soon as I get back in the gym. This is not an emotional and workout-free bender I feel like going on again anytime soon.

A couple of days into my vacation, after sampling my boyfriend's stash of Zingers and Fritos, I made a list of the healthier alternative foods in the fridge and foods that could go with them.

I want to say it was a magic cure for my unhealthy snacking, but I confess that I did still have a couple of cans of Dr. Pepper and some barbecue chips with queso the evening I made the list. I've been a lot better over the last couple of days, though. Partial win.

I need some positive thoughts and encouragement this week, if any could be spared for me.

Trying out videos

2010-02-25T14:35:00.004-06:00

I'm taking an at-home vacation ("staycation" is a word that can physically injure people when they read it, but like "blog," it's a portmanteau I've come to accept). Despite my occasional claims of boredom, it's so nice to be doing nothing. It would be nicer if it wasn't so February outside when I get a little antsy and want a non-pilates workout, but have no access to the gym. One of my favorite ways to center and relax myself is to take a nice, long walk. I am a nature girl; I love being outside in the wind, looking at the ever-changing scenery. But there are limits to how much I let nature discomfort me, and when there's a sharp, cold wind on an overcast day with the temperatures hovering somewhere in the 40s, my whole body says, "No thanks" and parks me in front of the TV with a game controller in my hand.

To combat this, I've got dumbbells of various weights, and I have some workout videos on hand. I own a couple of well-loved pilates DVDs, one of which I used last night. But what can I do about cardio?

I meant to check out some videos on my boyfriend's Netflix account. But when I asked him about doing that, he let me know he'd turned it off last month, since we hardly ever used it. Truly, I wasn't that disappointed, as I am awesome and resourceful. Netflix is not the only video option lurking deep in the tubes of the internet. The simplest of searches brought up Exercise TV, where users can buy full-length videos, watch short previews, rate workouts, and even stream free videos.

Two nights ago, I pulled up a 20-minute kickboxing/pilates fusion workout from trainer Natalie Yco. It was fun and was very high-energy, but I had to modify a lot of positions to not put as much pressure on my tender knee and foot. My form wasn't very good, as there was no mirror in the computer room where I could check it, and I was afraid, as always, that I'd hurt myself by stepping funny or putting too much weight on a joint or bone that wasn't strong enough to withstand the force I was exerting. I modified the jumping jacks so that I kicked one leg out to the side and kept the other on the floor, and all push-up maneuvers would have gotten me looks of pity in a gym. I'll tell you, though, it raised my heart rate and made my muscles work; I felt a little sore when I did my pilates workout last night. I'll try that kickboxing fusion workout again, though I would love to shop around and find a more low-impact workout on the site that I didn't have to modify as much.

Previewing a few of the other videos warned me away from a kickboxing-only video, unless I am feeling crazy energetic, and from zumba dance videos, as they involve more squatting than I think my body can stand right now. There's lots more to explore, and I anticipate finding a cadre of videos to rotate into my schedule so that working out holds my interest and doesn't become a dreaded chore. Riding the elliptical for longer than 20 minutes is tortuously boring, so I only use that machine on a circuit training day or if I can also use the sole treadmill at the work gym. It would be awesome to become familiar with the moves, then put the video on my iPod and take it the gym to correct my form in the full-length mirrors lining two of the walls as I box.

For now, I'm trying out only the free videos in the comfort of my home. I may end up buying a video or two to load onto my iPod. That will prompt me to watch them regularly. I forget about free resources I have, but I remember to use the videos that I own. If you're like me, you occasionally dive into your bookmarks folder and find untold treasures you've forgotten about; as I organized a folder marked Health that includes all things diet, fitness, injury, etc., I came across a few YouTube videos that I bookmarked before I moved into my current house in late 2007. Most of those videos were on strength training. At the moment, I am on the lookout for cardio workouts that won't kill me and I can use when I can't go to the gym/refuse to go out in weather extremes. If you've got suggestions, let me know. I'm a damn fool and will try anything once.

Another milestone

2010-02-24T23:50:00.002-06:00

So this past weekend, I cleaned my room. Now, perhaps this doesn't sound exactly Herculean, but then perhaps you have also never heard of the Augean stables. (Short version: they were slightly more cluttered than my room.)

So part of this meant finally putting away the piles of (clean!) clothes (and towels and sheets) lying in various states of wrinkledness on my dressing chair and in various hampers and piles, organizing the jewelry, putting the shoes on the shoe rack, etc. The piles of clothes have been multiplying, Gremlin-like, over the past few weeks, so this took a while, considering how many I had to dewrinkle. I will freely admit to having become a bit of a fashion whore. What can I say? I like to look put together. And I love a good pair of heels. It's part of my swagger, to use Maggie's term. People can recognize me walking up behind them. So perhaps it is also literally part of my swagger.

As Shunryo Suzuki says (Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind) we say inner world and we say outer world, but really there is just one world. So I am often chagrined to think about what the state of my personal space says about the inner world of me. Every so often, I wage war against the encroaching stuffness of life. And it always brings greater rewards than simply being able to get dressed more easily in the morning. This time, for example, I found several notes I'd written to myself over the years and tucked away. Self-care is veri fanci. Write a note to yourself right now ladies, and tuck it away. Tell yourself something you can't tell anyone else. And put it away somewhere you'll find it in a few weeks, months... years?

This cleaning spree and great clothes putting-away led to looking through my closet. I have blogged on here about my "reward dress" which I will only be able wear once I get very, very close to my target weight. Like, maybe within ten pounds. BUT, in cleaning out my closet, I found this sweet little brown knit shirtwaist type dress with a super hot deep V-neck I've been too fat to wear for years.

Two and a half years. The last time I wore this dress was the annual congregational meeting where I was elected president-elect of my church. This was June 2007. Eve, you may not know what a church lady I am, but Maggie can confirm this was a very significant event in my adult life. I am perhaps a bigger church lady than I am a Trekkie.

So tonight I tried it on, on a whim. You can see where this is going. And while it's perhaps not quite a perfect enough fit to wear in public, it did look damn good. I was completely shocked at how good it looked. Maybe better than it did two and a half years ago. And this was with ZERO foundation garments. So it appears I have now, officially, lost my church president weight. Can I get an AMEN?

One day soon I will have the balls to wear it out in public. Maggie, is it a date?

Think about the urge before you act

2010-02-23T10:06:00.013-06:00

I left the house for work at almost the right time I'm supposed to leave in order to not be late. Go me! Along the way, I passed several McDonald's restaurants. And all I could hear in my head was, "You have enough time to stop. You haven't had breakfast. Go get yourself an Egg McMuffin! It's so convenient."

If I stopped, I knew I'd definitely be late. As it was, I took a slightly longer (timewise) route to work that winds through the inner suburbs toward downtown Dallas; it helped me avoid the probably-awful interstate traffic (which has been bad since the foot of snow that fell two weeks ago helped to gouge potholes along several high-traffic miles of the interstate), but sadly, it also took me in the path of multiple Mickey Dees. And when I get close to work, there's yet another golden arches-bearing building. It would be so easy to turn into that parking lot and enter the drive-thru line, especially when I've either got a few minutes to spare, or I'm already late and figure, "What's another five minutes?"

Why did I even want an Egg McMuffin in the first place? It's not the worst thing I could eat in the mornings, but it's certainly not the best. My poor, neglected box of oatmeal sits unused and unhappy in my cubicle drawer next to me when these cravings get the better of me. Let's compare the Egg McMuffin without meat nutritionally to a version I make at home using Oroweat Whole Wheat Muffins, low-fat cheese slices, and Eggbeaters.

McDonald's Egg McMuffin without meat.
Wow, 25% of my daily saturated fat? Sign me up!

Thusly named for Eggbeaters and a nickname I picked up at work.
Why? Uh, no reason! >_>

The main differences, besides price, are calories, fat, and cholesterol. I've been making my English muffin breakfast sandwich for months, so I've learned how to make it quickly, and it's probably quicker for me to make it than waiting in line behind several other suburbanites at McDonald's.

But the biggest difference between the two meals, to me, is the taste. My sandwiches always taste a bit buttery, even though I use a vegetable oil spray on my pan and add nothing to the ingredients except pepper and, sometimes, turmeric. The McDonald's sandwiches aren't nearly as good and contain more fat. I think back to all the times I've looked forward to having a McMuffin, then remember the disappointment when it wasn't nearly as flavorful as I had anticipated. If I'm going to be eating something that's almost 300 calories and has that much saturated fat, I want to remember what it tastes like with fondness, not regret.

Yeah, I passed up the Mcbreakfast and had leftovers from yesterday's half-eaten lunch: a black bean burger patty on Oroweat sandwich thins with a slice of low-fat cheese. It's not much more breakfast-like than cold pizza, but it has great protein, low saturated fat, and a satisfying, comparable amount of calories. And I didn't have to make myself any later for work to get it.

Shopping

2010-02-21T21:36:00.005-06:00

As promised, I cleaned out my closet this afternoon. Some clothes are being thrown out, while a more substantial bag is getting tossed into a donation bin. Good-bye, chocolate brown jacket that never really fit, ice pink sweater that makes me feel like it's picture day at school and I'm wearing a nice item of clothing bought for me by a distant relative for the first time. I don't have very many clothes to begin with, so getting rid of things now entails replacing at least some of them.

I'm donating a nice pair of brown slacks that are size 18 and fall off my ass on a regular basis. After I ran to the grocery, I took a trip across the street to Ross to look at their pants. Not a great selection, especially in the petites, but I did find some dark blue jeans that fit just great. Size 14. The last time I was in 14s was college. So that's fun.

I tried on a few shirts. I really loved half of one of them. It was perfect from the boobs up. I loved the sleeves, the fabric, the neckline. But then there was the stomach. I think I need to lose another 20 pounds to have looked all right in it. I have a policy taken partly from Trinny and Susannah and Tim Gunn - don't buy a piece of clothing unless it fits, it flatters, and you love it. I loved it, but it neither fit nor flattered.

Note: not my new pants. And shirt, I love you, but our love cannot be while my stomach looks like this.

I do have one "aspirational" shirt, despite this policy. My boyfriend bought me a TMNT long-sleeved tee that was on sale at Kohl's a few weeks ago for $4. I tried on the largest size, and it was the same story as above - the sticking point was the abdomen. Ever supportive and eager to complete my full-body TMNT outfit (consisting so far of a jacket, gloves, and hat), my boyfriend threw it in our bag and said, "Well, you keep going the way you're going, and you'll fit into it by next winter."

I was sick last week and went to a primary care clinic to get the jump on whatever bug was giving me the beginnings of a throat infection. As part of my my medical history, I noted my 16 official pounds of weight loss since August; my doctor seemed pretty excited about it for me. "You did it with just diet and exercise?" Apparently that's what works! And a friend I haven't seen for a few months marveled over the difference. Feels nice to have it noticed!

Things have been a bit quiet on the blog front, and I had a wagon falling-off last week that I have mostly pieced together on my food blog through shame and annoyance at my own failings, though I'm sure I forgot a few food items, like chips or a peanut butter cookie here and there. This week should be better, even though the weather is supposed to suck again on Tuesday and I'll be home for the rest of the week on a mini staycation starting Wednesday (which translates to no gym access and no working out outside if it's snowy or below 40 degrees). Plans for productivity: I'm getting an eye exam and possibly glasses on Friday, and I'm going to check out exercise videos on my boyfriend's Netflix account to see if there's a new routine I can incorporate to spice up my becoming-dull rotation of pilates, weights, cardio machines, and neighborhood meanderings.

Standing by

2010-02-13T23:04:00.003-06:00

This week was bad. So much overtime. I was feeling discouraged and lazy. So I did not record food or workouts until today, taking a vacation and rebelling against the incessant demands of Livestrong.com. Not that I worked out more than one day since last Sunday or ate much that was good for me, besides another killer salad from Jason's Deli. I don't think it counts as a workout that I walked up four flights of stairs on Wednesday and Thursday to help wake myself up enough to not fall asleep at my desk after two mornings of driving into work three hours early. I still feel those flights in my calves today.

The nice thing about taking that time off is, my neck and shoulder feel pretty good, and I think I've got some of my range of motion back; I was noticing that my arm didn't lose form as I lifted a weight overhead this evening.

One of the low-simmering fears I have when I work out is that I'll aggravate past injuries to the point where I just don't want to work out anymore. I worry about hurting my back on the elliptical or overextending it while doing pilates, or straining my ankle doing bridges, and every time I feel a twinge of pain or weakness in a place that has been hurt before, I wonder if it's time to take some time off to let myself heal. But since I've done very little for most of the week, most of my body feels ready to go. So it's time to get back to work on my weight loss and fitness. I shudder to weigh myself and see what the toll of so many cookies has been. Perhaps I'll just ignore the scale until next week and see where the chips fall. I'm going in to work on Sunday afternoon, and I'll hit the gym up after I put in a little more overtime toward the cause of paying off my car repair debt.

Twenty Pounds Down

2010-02-12T18:11:00.002-06:00

Hell. Yes.

Ow. Ok, I'm sorry, I'll do better from now on.

2010-02-10T09:35:00.004-06:00

I remember now why I try to keep my sodium low and make myself have a full glass of water before I go to bed. I haven't been taking care of myself lately and have been all about salty snack foods, and now, I've got pain in my back extending out from my kidneys up to my shoulders. This happens when I am dehydrated and full of salt, and there's little I can do but take pain reliever with a lot of water, sometimes take a bath, and maybe do some gentle pilates. Since I'm at work, and we're somewhat busy, my options are limited. The pain started about an hour and a half ago, but it's starting to ebb now that I've had several glasses of water and three ibuprofen. I'm sorry, body. I bought lemonade and cranberry juice at the gas station. I'll forego my salty 7-bean soup for lunch and go to Jason's Deli, make an all-veggie salad with very light cheese and no dressing, olives, crackers, or pasta.

Hibernation

2010-02-09T22:34:00.005-06:00

Dallas hasn't had the snow that has hit much of the eastern and more-northern-than-us U.S., but it's been rainy and cold and dumpy over the last week. I also feel rainy and dumpy, personally. I'm feeling discouraged. I knew part of my tax refund would go toward having my car's alignment and brakes checked, possibly repaired, but I didn't anticipate having to drop a total of $1,700 on struts, brakes, new tires, and labor for it all since last Monday.

I pledged my tax refund to paying off the bulk of that debt, which means not doing fun things with that money like going to museums during a mini-vacation I was taking at the end of the month and may cancel now; it means not spending that money on needful things like new bras or making sure I get more than two pieces of glass held together by a pipe cleaner when I get new glasses sometime this year. I would put that money toward these needful things, except I really didn't have it in the first place to spend on those things save for the tax refund, which was larger than I expected it to be, and now, that money is all going to my car, and I didn't even have the money up front to pay for my car, so I took out a line of credit with my auto repair place. I got the 90 days interest-free financing deal, so if I can pay it off before then, no interest and no straggling debt. I am so incredibly overextended on my credit, I cannot possibly take on another payment right now. I am juggling my bills the best I can, but my budget spreadsheet is starting to look unmanageable. There's only so long you can stare at a spreadsheet before it also stares into you.

I'm not in anxiety/panic mode - compared to how I felt two weeks ago when I was getting involved in transporting a disabled dog, I am practically in a place of functionality zen - but I feel defeated. I deduce that defeat is my eating trigger: since Saturday, I've eaten a steady diet of fatty foods (hello, spinach and artichoke dip), ice cream, full sugar sodas, multiple small bags of chips (even if they were baked, it doesn't matter if you have one for breakfast and two more throughout the day), donuts and cinnamon rolls. I will tell my Livestrong.com profile more about what I've been putting in my mouth when I have the heart to do it. And my period started a full week early. Basically, I feel like co-opting a Liz Lemon diet, crawling under the covers or beneath my bright blue Snuggie, maybe both, and having comfort foods delivered to my nightstand, perhaps by my handsome neighbor John Hamm.

The best things I've done for myself in the last few days have been:

Switching to a higher weight of dumbbell doing strength at the gym. I moved up from 6 pounds to 10 pounds. My shoulder is excited, as heavier weights seem to soothe it when it is grumpy.
Striding backwards on the elliptical machine for 5 minutes. I may raise the resistance on this maneuver to give my thighs a better workout.
Making 7-bean and barley soup using a mix from the dry goods bins at Sprouts. Threw the beans and barley into a crock pot with a bag of frozen mixed vegetables, 5 Edward and Sons bouillon cubes, three cloves of garlic (crushed and frozen in handy cubes), sage, thyme, savory, and parsley. The barley really makes the soup. I've had it at least one meal a day for several days.
Remembering to eat a piece of fruit every once in a while.

Something I knew: I get bored easily on the elliptical. It's just not a compelling workout any way you slice it. I yearn for the weather to warm up just enough where my new exercise pants and I can take a stroll around the neighborhood so I can have a change of pace. Something I learned: the only way I can trick myself into staying on the elliptical without endlessly fighting the urge to step off the machine and run away forever is by turning on Food Network on the gym TV. The last several visits I've had to the gym, I've watched Alton Brown work with cocoa and seen the Ace of Cakes do... well, things with cake. It doesn't make me hungry to look at the food, but there's just something about watching such decadence while exercising that completes the workout as an aesthetic experience. Is there some kind of reward center being triggered allowing me to exert myself without complaint if I watch people working with the fuel for exertion? Does fatty just want her non-complex carbohydrates? All I know is, I'm heading right for that network when I have control over the gym television from now until at least the spring.

I'm starting my day 2.5 hours earlier than normal the next two days to cover work projects that are normally covered by our about-to-be-snowed-in East Coast office. I will need all the overtime I can get to pay for my car, so I will only complain about being a bit sleepy. In the meantime, I am optimistically bringing my gym bag into the office with me in case I can talk myself into working out at the end of my shift.

Body Image Talk, again

2010-02-04T10:18:00.007-06:00

A friend showed me this image this morning and it seemed all wrong to me.

I mean, it's funny, but that's not at all how I rate guys. He asked me to come up with what my equation would be. I don't know if I've yet had this discussion on this blog, but it's time I come clean about something.

My name is Maggie and looks matter. A lot.

I think, especially as fat girls, we embrace this message that beauty is on the inside and that people who focus on looks are shallow. There is a lot of good, important stuff on the inside, but beauty ain't there. It's on the outside, and for me and a lot of other people it's a priority if we want to sustain sexual attraction to someone.

My equation came out looking something like this.

For this reason, I've always been okay with guys who aren't interested in me because they're not into fatties. Note: that's not the same as guys who will fuck me secretly but not date me. I'm talking about guys who are genuinely not attracted to me. That's totally fine. Don't be a dick about it, and we'll both move on, either to being friends or to being cordial.

That said, looks aren't universal. A lot of guys I think are omg so hot, my girlfriends find too skinny or too feminine. There was even a whole article in the New York Times about the new standard in male runway models that called it "an urchin, a wraith or an underfed runt." The photo features Artem Emelianov, who I think might be the hottest guy alive, and I guess I'm supposed to be grossed out by his body?

Similarly, while I know my body isn't ever going to grace the pages of a fashion magazine, there are plenty of guys who think I'm hot. Not guys who think I'm brilliant and funny and can see past my looks, but guys who come up to me without knowing me because they like the way I look. And just like I think looks matter in the person I'm dating, I want someone who's comparably physically attracted to me. Because I'm not the kind of girl anyone settles for, on any level.

In which Eve uploads photos of herself.

2010-02-02T21:04:00.009-06:00

While updating my weight and fitness goals on my Livestrong.com account (linked at the right somewhere) this evening, I decided to upload some pictures and see whether much difference could be discerned, as well as submit a visual record of my journey so far for a time when human civilizations have fallen and archaeologists of the future unearth the internet and go looking for its importance to early 21st century man. It is, of course, primarily for sharing photos of yourself with strangers and friends.

Here we find our heroine on vacation on a lake near San Antonio. It is August and sweltering, I am in a bathing suit that evoked Violet Beauregarde each time I saw myself in a mirror, and those bangin' sunglasses were lost in the fitting rooms of Kohl's scant weeks later (alas, they were $2 at Target and perfect). As of this photo, I'd been tracking my new diet and exercise plan online for about two weeks, and I weighed around 200 pounds.

The next photo is from mid-January 2010, when I was around 187 pounds. In this one, I'm not attempting to hide my stomach, as I did in the photo above. I had also had a few drinks and what I estimate to be a peck of Chex Mix.

There's a slight bit of difference around the face, I think. Yeah, this would be a lot more dramatic if my weight loss was going more quickly. C'est la vie.

At least I've worked on my arms a little bit. (This photo is also late January 2010.)

Blam! Welcome to the gun show... Daisy BB Gun edition. Heh. Yes, there is still a lot that needs to be defined here, and I do need to continue to lose fat and vary up my weights routine to accomplish this. The internet and my ever-growing folder of strength workouts torn from fitness magazines shall be my guide.

While the photos aren't dramatic (though they certainly are glamorous and awesome, right? Whatever, humor me), I am pleased that I'm fitting into all the pants I own but had grown too large to wear over the last two years, and as I type this up, I'm wearing pants that are size 12-14 Large. I hope that, in two months, I can be comfortably within that size range once again.

My next weight loss goal is 180 pounds by the end of February, and then down to 175 by the end of March to slip below a BMI of 30, putting me at what I hope will be the end of my medical obesity.

still fanci

2010-02-01T21:55:00.002-06:00

Hello,

My name's Sarah and it's been nine weeks since my last blog post. I warned you I was not a blogger, but I will try again.

Time for a reckoning.

I have been on this latest healthscapade, since May of 2009, when I first decided to start watching my calories and thinking about what I do to and with my body. Ever since then, I have more and less consistently tried to follow a few basic rules. Any more than that and it's just too complicated and I give it all up. Here are the highlights:

1) Be conscious of my calories: I try to stick to the 1500 calorie a day limit and never have more than around 500 calories in a setting. Barring occasions where I indulge, which isn't that often and I'm trying to make it less, I've done this the most consistently. I always know the calories of what I'm putting in my mouth if I can help it, or pick something I know won't max me out. This is the part I'm proudest of, because it's the one I've done with the most regularity, and the one that seems to be working best as I work on the fancification of my fun times.

2) Exercise. Hello, albatross. I've exercised, sometimes more and sometimes not at all. Sometimes like the majortiy of the time, but not the vast majority. But we are here to praise Sarah, not to blame her. She does enough of that to herself, and she knows where she falls short. She'll work on it. I have a plaque in my bathroom I see every morning: Dear god of second chances and new beginnings, here I am again.

3) Be fanci to yourself too. A couple of years ago, I decided to start listening to my self, or my heart, or my conscience or whatever you want to call the inner voice. I'm doing that more, and trusting it more. It doesn't make my clothes fit better, but it still feels fanci.

4) We say inner world and outer world, but actually there is just one world. I am working on becoming more aware of the effect my surroundings have on my psyche. I am getting more organized, letting go of clutter, and trying to enjoy the pleasure of living in my fanci little house. It's where I live, after all.

5) Cooking. This ties in to both #1 and my budget goals. I've been doing pretty good at eating at home, or at least not impulse buying crap food and learning to make do with what I have. Recent highlights have included a vegan clean the fridge pureed vegetable stew that was downright creamy thanks to the chili-oil sauteed onions and garlic that gave a nick subtle kick ; some awesome egg and squash veggie pad thai, a black bean chicken and corn tortilla soup with chipotle and adobo sauce; some turkey bacon quesadillas that I can still remember fondly, and a creamy spaghetti squash tart with carmelized onions and pecans. Sauteeing things in a blend that includes chili oil give a really nice low layer of heat that I am enjoying experimenting with. And now that I think of it, all of those recipes got a nice complexity thanks to that latest tchnique.

So here's the bottom line:
Not only am I in a better emotional/spiritual place than I was nine months ago, and sitting in a tidier domicile with a calmer mind, I have lost thirty pounds in the last nine months. That's less than a pound a week, which is less than what I was going for, but it's THIRTY POUNDS. This, taking into consideration my halfassedness regarding working out, this is awesomely good, even if I'm not as balls to the wall as I'd hoped to be. There's always room for improvement.

To illustrate this fact, I offer the following tale: My church has an annual holiday, IllUUminations, where one of the observations involves dressing in silver and purple and generally being veri fanci. This suits me well. And every year, I try on this one dress. It is purple. Purple velvet. Victoria's Secret, floor length, slit nice and high up both sides. It is unbearably soft and luxurious and hugs all the right everythings. I haven't worn it since college. Every year, it is bulgy and gross and depressing and hugs all the wrong everythings. This year, I was expecting the same, but (with the proper foundation garments), I ROCKED that hotness. And black pirate boots, natch. If I'd gotten out the garter belt and thigh highs, even I wouldn't have been able to keep my hands off myself.

fanci WIN.

I figure if I can do as well this next nine months on the goals I'm pleased with, and work a little harder on a couple I'm not, well then, that would be pretty damn awesome. And I'll be under 200 by my next birthday. I can live with that plan, even if I'm going to try and beat it. So say we all.

Weight Update and Goal Setting Time

2010-02-01T10:59:00.007-06:00

February 1, 2010: 232.4

That's a hell yes. It's nowhere near where I thought I would be by now, but it's progress and I love progress. December and January were slow months, with holidays and birthday and just general merriment. I only lost about 3 pounds in December. I think once I set the goal of doing the triathlon, I had a lot more motivation to take shit seriously.

The other thing I've noticed is that people respect the explanation that you're training for a triathlon a lot more readily than just dieting to lose weight. My office, which is all overweight women, actually made me a birthday lunch of a big salad bar with chicken and cheese and salad mix and various low fat dressings, and some clementines for dessert rather than a big cake or anything.

I'll add this to the links on the side, but I started a log on the Something Awful forums to track my progress and get more motivation and feedback. This forum was the one that first gave me the courage to start working on my body without condemning myself or buying into stereotypes. As a woman, you're constantly being told that you're too fat in various subversive ways, and we all struggle to ignore that message and love ourselves. However, that resistance to the unhealthy media influence bites us in the ass because, when we start thinking about making changes to become healthier, it feels like giving up and letting the assholes win. The focus of this forum is on losing weight in a healthy, sustainable way and becoming strong and fit rather than skinny. It's a great, supportive community and especially the triathletes have been a great inspiration to me. It's not something you can go into without doing your homework on the front end or you will get torn to shreds, but they're quick with advice and totally celebrate people who make positive changes in a healthy way.

New weight goals!

March 1, 2010: 223
April 1: 2010: 214
April 24, 2010 TRIATHLON DAY: 207

That's a goal of 9 lbs. a month, which is pretty reasonable and just a little more than what I accomplished in January. It's ambitious, but it would get me back out of the OBESE range well before my triathlon.

I also made a Stickk commitment to lose a pound a week. So far it's going really well except for one week where I had a gain because of getting over an illness (my previous weight had been anomalous due to having been sick, in other words). For every week I don't make my goal, $5 is given to Freedom to Marry, an awesome organization.* This way, even though it sucks if I don't make the goal, the money is going to a good cause!

I'm thinking of talking to Jay and seeing if he can get Tuesday off in May and April so we can do this Voluntary Simplicity course together. I saw this awesome article about a living space in an old Airstream trailer and just felt this intense longing for that kind of minimalism. I think this would also be really helpful in organizing time and budget, as well as the house and all our various and sundry possessions.

*The website gives you a choice of a general charity fund, or an anti-charity where you can choose a specific organization. The latter is intended for people to choose an organization with which they disagree, but I like to use it so that I can be more selective about where my money goes.

Training Update, Ice Storm, Fanci Fun Time Theme Music

2010-02-01T10:32:00.004-06:00

I ended up finally getting my own lane to swim in at 4 PM on Thursday. I did the full 1000 yards, 20 laps, .57 miles, etc. I stopped a few times for less than a minute, to catch my breath and adjust my goggles and whatnot. The bad part was that since I swimmeded so late in the day, my lifting that night was not very strong.

The coolest thing I did was an assisted pull up for the first time ever. When I got to the gym for lifting I asked the twink at the desk if they had an assisted pull up machine upstairs (where the weights are) and he said he had maybe only been upstairs once and had no idea. That was pretty cute. I grabbed a big bulky dude with a t-shirt indicating he worked there and asked him, and then got him to take me up and show me how to use it. I was incredibly bad at it and asked him if he thought I should do something else to build up to it, but he said the best thing to do is just keep doing as many as I can because there's nothing else that really uses the same movements. I did two sets of two each with the maximum assistance. That's a start.

On Friday, the city turned into an iceblock. I sat around all day doing nothing. I had dark chocolate and red wine for lunch. I was supposed to bike 45 minutes, and I could have done it on the trainer, but I just kept putting it off.

On Saturday I was supposed to run but the city was still icy, to the point that the gym was closed and I didn't think I could safely drive to my mom's to use the treadmill, and the streets were too icy to run outside. I decided to do my biking, though, and I actually did about 30 minutes of it. I tried to do it while watching TV but I just got bored. I think I need to use my mp3 player.

Sunday the roads cleared up a little bit and I finally went to my mom's and did my run. I found this podcast, which is awesome because it is coordinated with the running program I'm doing and uses music I like. So many of the ones out there use techno and I just ugh.

This morning I was supposed to go swim again, but I was sleepy. I'll do it tonight, then do my lifting in the morning.

I'm obviously having issues with consistency and scheduling. I'm doing all the workouts, but not in the best organized way. This is something I should work on this week.

Also, Sarah and I decided last night that TiK ToK by Ke$ha is the official Fanci Fun Time Theme Song. It's ridiculous. I'm sure Eve approves.

I don't eat when I'm stressed

2010-01-29T09:42:00.004-06:00

For some people, stress is a trigger for eating a lot. I'm the opposite. I eat when I'm bored, or I eat when I know I've got 200 calories to spend to get to my target caloric intake for the day; I don't eat when I'm stressed out. In fact, I lost at least 10 pounds when my boyfriend and I had a 2-month breakup several years ago; half a 6-inch Subway sandwich was too much food for me some days. And my digestive system tends to reject anything delivered to it. This has been a tough week for me, as I've been stressed out about a rescue dog that I'm transporting to the airport tomorrow morning. The coordination has been hectic, and giving a ride to an animal turned into getting money from the rescue organization to pay for the dog's ticket, and sorting out financial details and my home situation and worrying about what to do when I get to the airport at 5am Saturday. My anxiety was triggered on Wednesday night in particular, and though I've talked to friends and my boyfriend about things a few times to get perspective, get support, and resolve some issues, things aren't perfect in my world, by any stretch of the imagination.

To try to keep that anxiety under control, I've been getting in some exercise: I walked up a few flights of stairs yesterday after a cathartic phone call, and I lifted weights last night between phone calls from the contact person from a rescue in Houston. I've been alternately unable to work out or unable to make myself work out as much as I've wanted to this week. I'll take a break from working at some point today to do more stairs, and I might even take about 5 minutes on the treadmill during lunch.

This is my calorie count thus far this week. Can you guess when this first started? I have yet to input the sad, browning banana and the oatmeal I'm having for breakfast as I type, so Friday is empty.

In a silver lining that I should not take any pride in, I'm within a half pound of hitting my January weight loss goal. It does make me think I should consider lowering my calorie target from 1,640 per day to 1,500.

I have a lot of work to do to minimize the likelihood of anxiety triggers getting to me like this again. When I have time, after taking my dogs to the vet later Saturday and hanging out with friends Saturday night, I'm sitting down with a grief and anxiety journal I started at the suggestion of a friend to organize my thoughts and help process my reaction to the events of this week and all the interconnected tendrils from my personal history.

A lane of one's own

2010-01-28T08:26:00.001-06:00

I went to the gym at 6 this morning to do my swimming -- 1000 yards, which for those of you following along at home is over half a mile -- on my first official day of training. I really wanted to have my own lane, but when I got there half the pool had a class and there were only three lanes open, all of which were occupied. I hemmed for a bit, and then asked Miss Pam (my buddy at the front desk) when the best time would be to find an empty pool. She said 1 PM or so is usually pretty dead.

I should have done my lifting instead, but I wore jeans and a t-shirt over my swimsuit rather than anything that would have been suitable for working out. I decided to go ahead and come into work early, then take a long lunch to do my swim. We'll see how that goes.

I know it's silly, but I HATE sharing a lane. Not only does it make me weird and self-conscious about my swimming, I am in constant fear that I will kick someone. I'll update more this afternoon and let you know how it goes.

WTF Victoria's Secret

2010-01-27T09:31:00.003-06:00

I have an admission. I like Victoria's Secret. I like their bras and undies and I really like their sweaters and some of their clothes. I admit this is mostly because I like my boobs and their clothing and bras do a good job of making the best of what I've got.

But their workout wear is kind of a joke. Exhibit A is this email I got this morning with an ad for their yoga wear.

I'm curious. What is the yoga pose that first lady is demonstrating? Hooker pose? I haven't heard of that one. And the next lady? Oh, drunken hooker. Is that..? Oh, it's different. Okay.

A hiking adventure

2010-01-25T10:38:00.004-06:00

On Sunday, I was supposed to hike a 12.5 mile section of the Ouachita Trail. Here is what actually happened.

I got dropped off with about half the people so that Austin and John could go take the car to the other end of the trail. We hiked the wrong direction for about a quarter mile before they called and told us we'd gone the wrong way, and we hiked back. Then, I hiked the first 5 miles of the correct trail. Austin was very cool about it and kept pace with me, letting some other people go ahead. I felt kind of bad for being slow, but I think he was sincere when he said it was okay and he was enjoying it. At the 5 mile point, we crossed a forest road, and I was feeling pretty ragged. I had been getting slower over the last mile or so, and my joints were screaming at me. I'd tripped a few dozen times, and actually fallen down twice. I asked Austin how long until the next out. He said three miles. If he'd said one mile, I probably would have forged ahead, but I just wasn't sure I could commit to three miles without hurting myself, so I told him I'd walk down the forest road to the little rec area and chill there until they could pick me up. He offered to walk me there, but I told him to go have fun and catch up with the others (he runs this trail most of the time and I was going about 2 mph). So I hiked another half mile or so to the rec area, sat down, had some lunch, and chilled out for a while.

About this time, even though the weather was supposed to be 63 and sunny, it got horrible ass cold. My knees and ankles started to feel better, and it was freezing, so I found a map of the area posted somewhere (the rec area was closed for winter) and saw that there were a few little loop trails there. I hiked three of those, for about another 1.5 miles. One was a little interpretive trail, one went up to a nice mountain top overlooking the lake, and another went up to this wooden amphitheater. Anyway, when I got back from the third one, the car pulled up like an hour before I expected it. Apparently, another guy had started chaffing really bad and had to quit, so he and his dad took an out, hitchhiked back to the car, and came to pick me up. We went back up to the end of the trail, and I hiked another half mile up to meet the guys as they finished.

End of story: I hiked over 8 miles and I had a really, really good time. Yay!

And then I woke up this morning and, despite a sort of high calorie day with bad macros yesterday, I weighed 233.2! More yay!

Note: pictures aren't of the actual hike yesterday, but are of the same area and I found them on google.

Need direct brain-to-computer connection

2010-01-24T20:56:00.005-06:00

While it's cooling down rapidly again, the weather in the last week has been really nice. I took a walk midweek, two walks on Friday with the dogs (individually, my left shoulder isn't up for controlling one dog per arm) and a walk this evening. It was a bit chilly on each walk except the ones with the dogs, and part of this is because I'm tragically underdressed. I've got a hot pink zip-up hoodie that makes me look like I'm prepping for the breast cancer walk (incidentally, I would really love to do that this year if I can physically stand it), a triad of shirts for all weather conditions, and awesome shorts. But alas, there are no pants in my gym bag. And my legs are so cold to the touch when I come back from 45 minutes of braving those fierce suburban winds.

I just ordered a pair from Kohl's, and I went brave and ordered the size Large (fits 12-14). Since it's taking effort to keep my size 16 jeans covering my butt, I thought it was a good time to try a smaller size. And it's exercise pants, so if they aren't exactly flattering, the only person who's going to care is me, and as long as they keep me warm and cover the bits I want them to cover, it's all good.

While I was walking this afternoon, my frozen thumbs buried in my sleeves and jammed in my pockets as I listened to a moody Shakira album at low volume, I thought again about the reasons I'm getting fit. I was thinking back to The Biggest Loser and how Jillian and Bob pick at participants to get at the root reasons they don't take care of themselves, as well as their motivations for getting healthier. Some of the reasons behind my bad health habits would take a lot of thinking, writing, and self-examination. One of my reasons for getting healthier, though, is a lot clearer: seeing my future in the fate of my family members. There are diabetes and depression/anxiety on one side, then Alzheimer's, osteoarthritis, and belly fat on the other. I'd like to keep mentally alert and self-sufficient, be able to walk, reduce my likelihood of developing heart disease, not develop type-two diabetes, and reduce my cancer risk and be healthy for as long as I can stand existence on this earth. Like most humans, I am too attached to life such as it is to give up without a fight, if a fight will do any good; laying the foundation of good habits and shoring up my health now will help me toward my goal of being awesome until I'm done living.

I've experienced minimal loss in the last 15 years, but I've seen friends go through losing loved ones, I've seen loved ones and good friends suffer poor health. A good friend of mine told me she would be dead now if she hadn't changed her life, found the reason to fight her disease. As I said, it is still taking time to parse the non-biological reasons behind my overweightness and my avoidance of getting help for my injuries and anxiety (so where is my downloadable stream-of-consciousness already?). These are things I'll have to deal with to make sure I don't put my family, as it exists over the next 60ish years, through more grief, or put myself through more suffering, than I can possibly prevent.

The new issue of Self hit my mailbox on Saturday. As I've said in the past, I got into fitness several years ago because of the Self Challenge, which starts in March this year, so my subscription late last year was part of an effort to surround myself with resources to make my trek toward fitness more easily obtainable. The February issue was the first one that I thought really justified my resubscription - a few new awesome recipes, new workouts, and a couple of good stories, including one on being a stepmom and a profile of women several different sizes at different stages of health and fitness (from a recovering anorexic to a happy heavier woman wanting to cut her risk of developing diabetes). I felt it was the most like the magazine it had been four years ago with less emphasis on celebrity profile and fashion, more on self-care. Really, the strength workouts are mostly what I look at, so anything on top of that is a bonus for me.

Some really good advice

2010-01-22T15:01:00.002-06:00

Maggie: http://www.mynewpinkbutton.com/
Maggie: that is terrifying
Sarah: whhhhaaaatttt?????
Maggie: if you don't like the COLOR OF YOUR VAG
Maggie: you can apparently DYE IT
Sarah: that is apparently a BAD IDEA
Maggie: no shit
Sarah: OMG THERE ARE FOUR COLORS!
Sarah: you can...pick? glbtf?
Maggie: ugh
Sarah: i have a cheaper solution: low lighting.
Maggie: I have an even better solution
Maggie: LOVE YOUR BODY
Sarah: that too
Maggie: it's just unreal
Sarah: i mean, unless it's green, in which case you don't need to dye it, you need to go to a doctor.

I would have hummus for every meal if I could

2010-01-20T09:20:00.004-06:00

Last night was my second attempt at hummus. It turned out much more to my taste than the first recipe I tried, which included some cumin and cayenne pepper. I also blended half a can of the beans at a time instead of going whole hog, which worked out much better. I have a small capacity food processor, and a full can of garbanzo beans plus all other ingredients is a bit more than it can take, resulting in whole beans among the processed paste.

Since I started packing my wannabe-bento lunches to the office, I've gone out for lunch once or twice and had to buy a frozen lunch once when I was running late. This morning, I was running late (ok, I'm always running late) and cobbled together a hard boiled egg, Wasa crackers, a dollop of hummus, an avocado, a tomato, a wedge of Laughing Cow cheese, and I've got oranges and apples on my desk at work, as well as a container with two tablespoons of peanut butter in the work fridge. I am spoiled for choice today and happy with my options.

New walking shoes and warmer weather motivated me to take a walk the other night. It was good for my tetchy knee, which I'd provoked the day before by doing these squat side kick maneuvers from the January issue of Self magazine. My knee will probably be tender for the rest of the week, so a lot more walking and a lot fewer squats when doing dumbbell work are in order.

Another Ridiculous Goal

2010-01-15T09:50:00.006-06:00

So, as a way to prepare for the triathlon I'm doing in April, I decided to do the 5k run that takes place the day before the Little Rock Marathon, on March 6. This will require actually running, which I'm no good at yet. But, it's a fun run sort of thing, so if I feel like I need to walk part of it, I still can.

This is the training schedule I begin on January 28, in two weeks. It looks scary because it is scary. Weep with me.

Processageddon

2010-01-14T20:54:00.002-06:00

And so it begins.

Well, I mean, it will begin, tomorrow, with the making of hummus. I'd be playing with this right now, but I'm tired, and I have no garbanzo beans on hand tonight. After a busy day and shopping after work, I had a very haphazard supper of spaghetti and a cheese sandwich. I'll sort out the details and self-flagellate when I go to talk to my food log later tonight.

After working some overtime this evening, I went to Lowe's instead of working out to get the processor (only $30, yay) and so I could get tools to fix my pet snake's cage, since the kitten crashed through the mesh screen top of the cage this morning. (All the animals are fine.) I think the mesh may be unfixable, though, or never as good as it once was. The incident happened this morning as I was getting ready for work, and it threw a wrench into my lunch prep and plan to take a shower. I wound up picking up an Amy's frozen meal at Target on my way to the office, and I hope I didn't look or smell too grungy. Sigh. But at least now I've got my choppah. Not to mention a fancy-pants stainless steel water bottle, which was only five bucks at Lowe's, much cheaper than I've seen it elsewhere.

Is it ever going to happen? Plus, food chat.

2010-01-13T12:41:00.003-06:00

Sometimes I feel as though I'm on a never-ending treadmill of lowered calorie eating, not-often-enough or clearly-not-strenuous-enough exercise, and taking a break to rest an over-worked-out body part, and what's the end result? I do feel healthier and am less worried that my heart's going to explode or whatever, and I feel muscles gaining shape, and I can fit into all my pants again. I'm disappointed that my weight loss isn't happening faster.

I have to remind myself that not everything I put into my body is helping me toward my goal, so of course there will be slowdowns, and then there was the month of December, which I basically took off. I have to remember that I've gotten back down to my end-of-November weight just since the last week of December, when I kicked myself in the pants and started behaving like I'm serious about changing my lifestyle and body.

I have a personal goal of going from 190 at the beginning of January to 185 by the end of the month; I was 188.2 this morning. It may actually be feasible. That would be amazing for me. Also amazing: feeling like 188 is and should be my new, natural baseline. And not seeing 200 on that scale anymore, as I have so frequently for nearly a third of my life.

I found an 8-minute pilates video that's a lot more intense (I'm breathing hard and my heartrate is nearly that of what it'd be while doing light cardio) than the regular 45-minute pilates workout that's currently in my rotation. I thought about doing it in the mornings before work, but that does not really fit into my morning routine well. My solution is to try to convert the video to a format I can play on my phone, then work out with it in the gym at the office either after I use the cardio machines every other evening or on some morning/afternoon when I need a pick-me-up.

Packing my lunch has been good to me for the last week and a half, and there is only one frozen meal I've been tempted to bring to my routine again, but I do need to re-consult my list and buy new things when I next visit the grocery. I've been hitting Wasa crackers, hummus, Laughing Cow soft cheeses, apples, peanut butter, and Oroweat sandwich thins pretty hard. Tonight, I will cook pasta and red quinoa to use for the rest of the week.

I tried out tempeh recently, and it is... perfect. It's the right texture for me, you can make it whatever flavor you want, it's relatively inexpensive, and wow, the protein. I put it in stir fry twice last week. Oh, we are going to be friends.

I've come across a cooking show that is relevant to my interests: Gen's Guiltless Gourmet, which airs on ION Life. The host, Gen Anderson, uses and promotes the use of organic ingredients (even mixers for martinis), urges people to use organic meat, shows how to make vegetarian and vegan versions of main dishes, uses vegan substitutions in baking, and explains things such as the difference in cholesterol among types of crab and how tofu is made. I've only seen or heard about a couple of episodes of the show, but I've already pulled one recipe from her website, and a coworker of mine based her dinner last night on the meal made during her episode. And though I had to chuckle about a mention of holistic food coloring, I feel like I got told for being so judgy when Gen looked into the camera right after mentioning it to say that some people are allergic to traditional food colorings. I'm sorry, Gen! Just show me more recipes for faux beef stroganoff. I don't have cable and won't be watching her show that way, but I'll be seeing it via work (yay) and checking out the website from time to time for more recipes.

More!

2010-01-12T08:54:00.001-06:00

233.6 this morning.

I lost 17.6 lbs. on the Fanci Fun Tiem Plan and SO CAN YOU!

I might still make my goal of 30 lbs by the end of February. We'll see.

Success!

2010-01-11T11:05:00.003-06:00

I didn't end up working out this weekend. It was horrible cold and I got the stomach craps.* Shane, however, cooked amazing food and we ate reasonably healthy all weekend, or at least reasonable portions. Thus, I am happy to report, I weighed in this morning at 235.4, a total weight loss of over 4 lbs. since last week and almost 16 lbs. since I began the Fanci Fun program!

Holla.

Check my food diary for all the luscious details. Gnocchi, scotch egg, creamy tomato soup, roasted chicken and brussels sprouts. Cranberry mimosas. Nom.

* There was an article a couple of years ago about the Chicago marathon that had to be canceled in the middle of the race due to heat. It said several people were taken to the hospital with "stomach craps."

LOL Vacation LOL

2010-01-05T12:03:00.001-06:00

I forgot when I made the last post that I'm going to be in St. Louis this weekend. Friday will probably involve no workout. Saturday I am going to beg Shane to drive me to a gym. Sunday, again, no workout but maybe a walk since it'll be slightly warmer. SHANE TAKE ME TO A GYM DONT LET ME GET FAT WHILE IM IN ST LOUIS!

Two Out Of Three's Not Bad

2010-01-04T09:44:00.004-06:00

I didn't weigh myself until Friday, as planned, and came in at 239.8. Whatever. I'll take it. My other two weigh ins, including this morning, were 239.9 and 239.7, so it looked like I'm holding right below the 240's and I can kiss those fuckers goodbye forever.

I also didn't drink any alcohol, and still haven't. New Year's was awesome, and other things were consumed apart from booze, including Reuben Balls, recipe below with vegetarian and vegan modifications.

The part where I slipped up was working out. I haven't worked out since Wednesday. I did get my swim suit and goggles and cap. I think the plan for this week is like this:

Monday: Lift weights
Tuesday: Swimming
Wednesday: Treadmill
Thursday: Lift weights
Friday: Stationary bike
Saturday: Lift weights AM/ Swimming PM
Sunday: Try the real bike and see how it goes

Also, dog walks, obviously.

Okay, here are the Reuben Balls!

These were inspired by the deep fried Reuben balls currently on the front page of This Is Why You're Fat. Normally I am grossed out by that shit but I love Reubens and they looked really good, so I decided to try making some that I wouldn't hate myself for eating. These were the breakout hit of the balls-themed NYE party.

Ingredients
1/2 lb of deli sliced turkey (sub Smart Deli slices for veg)
1 package of Laughing Cow Swiss (8 wedges) (sub Tofutti cream cheese for vegan)
Half a can of sauerkraut
Wasa light rye crackers
Egg whites (sub egg replacer or ground flax seed and water for vegan)
Caraway seeds
Salt, Pepper, anything else you like
Olive oil spray or brush

Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 and spray a nonstick pan with a little olive oil (or brush it on, whatever). Dice up the turkey. Grind up a few of the rye crackers in a blender, food processor, or spice grinder. Mix turkey, cheese, and sauerkraut in a bowl. Add salt, pepper, and caraway to taste. I like a lot of caraway but it's a strong flavor so start with a teaspoon and see if you want more.

Form the mush into balls about 1" diameter, dip in egg whites, and roll in the rye crumbs. Place them on the cookie sheet and spray/brush with a little more olive oil. Bake for about 20 minutes at 375. Let them cool off a bit before serving.

Makes 15 balls. Each ball has about 48 cal, 1g fat, 6g carbs, 5g protein.

I made a thousand island dip with nonfat greek yogurt, ketchup, and some dill pickle relish that went great with these.

Pseudobento? Can it be bento if it's not all in one box?

2010-01-03T23:12:00.003-06:00

I venture boldly into the Bento Sea tomorrow on a rickety raft constructed of Rubbermaid bins and plastic bags.

As part of my long-term goal to eat fewer individual frozen dinners and have fewer processed foods, I'm trying to build meals at home to take with me to work. Thanks to the research I mentioned in this post and the list of food ideas in my purse, I built up a nice cache of lunchy products while on my various grocery visits over the last few days.

Tomorrow's lunch and snacks: roasted red pepper hummus, Wasa hearty crisp bread, a spicy trail mix with wasabi peas, a pear, tonight's leftovers (mirepoix plus a very small amount of boxed pasta and Quorn chik'n tenders in a bit of olive oil), Newman's Own Sockarooni marinara, and Barilla angel hair pasta (not pictured, as it was still boiling when I took this photo). It should round out to about 900 calories, about half my daily nutritional intake. I could shave off about 150 calories by having less of the spicy trail mix. I may even do that in the morning. But odds are my dinner will be something like a peanut butter sandwich and an apple, and if I work out, I should break even.

I am completely in love with the hearty Wasa crisp bread with hummus. It's crunchy, cool, and creamy, satisfying in texture and taste. I've had 4 servings of this over the last two days. Ours is a fiery romance that will either burn forever or flame out gloriously, leaving me unable to eat either food product for years to come but always talking about it with a far-off, wistful look.

Choices are getting a bit easier

2010-01-02T11:36:00.003-06:00

On New Year's Eve, I went over my daily caloric requirements just a little, thanks to the choice to have some cider. I wanted to raid the Christmas candy earlier that night, but I talked myself out of it. I also talked myself out of having chocolate while at work by substituting fruit. And last night, as the evening wore, I saw I had about 100 calories I hadn't spent yet, but I made myself go to bed without eating anything. I was going to eat only because I could, not because I was hungry. I had a full-sugar Coke yesterday morning, so obviously I'm still not perfect, but I bought some Diet Coke yesterday so I would be tempted for the lesser of those evils this morning.

Net weight and a ladder back up

2009-12-31T08:09:00.002-06:00

Since August of this year, I'm down 10.2 pounds. Unfortunately, from 11/30 to 12/31, I put on a pound and a half, I haven't worked out with any consistency, and yesterday was the first day in ages I've gone without a cookie, piece of chocolate, serving of chips, or any kind of junk food that wasn't a diet soda. But I got a whole basket load of fruit, somewhat healthier snacks, and soup beans from the grain bins at Sprout's last night, and my fridge is stocked with fairly healthy options, so I'm optimistic that I can and will be good in the immediate future.

Soupmaking, salt, and self-care. And cider, which also has a soft "s" sound.

2009-12-30T13:18:00.005-06:00

After a month or so of intention, I made this soup last night after buying several sets of ingredients for it multiple times over the last few weeks. The last time I got ingredients for it was before Christmas, so I don't know why I thought all my food would magically still be fresh. I didn't know mushrooms could decompose that way in a fridge, but there we are. I also had to de-bud the spuds.

Not having mushrooms and being low on my beloved mirepoix mix (and I had only the soi-disant cajun style mirepoix on hand - green peppers instead of carrots), I winged the recipe and hoped for the best. I dredged up a can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup from the depths of the pantry, opted out of the pureeing step, and used probably a lot more garlic than was necessary. Overall, it turned out tasting a little savory, a little sweet, and a bit saltier than I wanted, though it was delicious - 1/5 of the recipe contains about 60-some percent of one's daily sodium. Next time, I will cut down on the sodium by using fresh mushrooms instead of the condensed soup, incorporate more vegetables, and use the pre-minced garlic that's sitting in a jar in the fridge (and not spend 20 minutes peeling and cutting it myself).

I don't necessarily have issues with sodium intake, but I try to be cautious, though I realize this same measure of caution may be lacking in areas where it is truly needed. My blood pressure is a little on the low side of normal, according to the last health care visits I've had this year. Sodium is, at this point, an element of my diet that I'd like to keep tabs on just in case. My uncle has type-two diabetes, my sister developed gestational diabetes while at nearly my body weight, and most cancers feed off sugar, so developing good habits toward my sugar intake at this stage of my life is a long-term investment in myself and a bigger concern for me than sodium, for now.

When I took a long walk in the cold two days ago, I made a muscle in my shin feel a little sore. It's always most sore the second day, right? My shin twinged all the way from my car to my desk this morning. I will do pilates tonight and see how the leg feels tomorrow before I go jumping back on the treadmill or elliptical. My ankle was a little weak that night, too. Guess I should warm up a little better next time I take a 45-minute walk in 40-degree weather.

I'm going to try to eat very sensibly during the day tomorrow to prepare for my shut-in dogsitting New Year's Eve party. My boyfriend and some work pals are heading out of town, so I'm making sure our animals and a friend's Yorkie are fed and cared for until they all get back. I'm thinking it will be me, a 6-pack of hard cider, a stack of movies, and a pile of animals on the couch until some outrageously late hour, such as 12:43am.

PS. A couple of short term goals

2009-12-30T11:04:00.002-06:00

1. Complete my workout plan for the week, and add some extra walking and bike riding in there.
2. Don't weigh myself until Friday.
3. Don't drink alcohol for the rest of the week (will be longer but this is a short term goal).

Biking and Food Update

2009-12-30T09:14:00.003-06:00

Oh god 13.5 miles is a long, long way. I got on the stationary bike and picked one of the "bike course" programs. Usually I use one that has intervals and is under the "weight loss" category. This one looked a little more random in terms of intensity and since my neighborhood is a lot of small hills, I figured it would be fine. I set the resistance at 8 but about 5 minutes in I switched to 7.

I ended up averaging about 16 mph, which is a good start I think. When I'm at the gym, my speed tends to depend a lot on my playlist. I should probably think about setting up playlists like I used to rather than just putting my sansa clip on random. When I used to jog, I had specific lengths of playlists with songs arranged by beats per minute with a warm up and some intervals and a peak and everything. It's an aspiration, for sure.

I actually had to stop after 7 miles and get more water and adjust the foot straps. I didn't really notice when I got on but they were way too tight and I was pedaling with the balls of my feet. I didn't actually rest, just went to the water fountain, came back, adjusted the straps, and hopped back on. I finished up the rest of the distance, and it took just about 50 minutes for the whole thing, not counting the break. I'm surprised I don't have cramps today. I actually don't have any soreness, just a little stiffness, but I've had that since Thursday from the dance party.

I think I'm going to have two hours to complete the whole race. It took about 50 minutes to WALK the 2.5 miles, and then 50 minutes to bike at a not-leisurely-but-not-grueling pace. So, right now totally untrained, I'd have 20 minutes left to swim 400 yards. That's totally not possible. However, I think if I get the biking down to 45 minutes by increasing my speed just a little, and the running down to 30 minutes by going about 5 mph, 45 minutes might be more manageable. We'll know for sure on Saturday when I figure out how long 400 yards really is.

On the way home I stopped by Kroger and bought some salad shrimp and brown basmati rice, then went home and made a delicious cauliflower and rice curry. I didn't use any oil, only a splash of light coconut milk to give it some fat and creaminess, and the whole pot was like 436 calories and 56g of protein. I think the secret is to start with a broth and just add tons and tons of spices to that, along with any herbs and onions and peppers you might be using, then let it cook down so it gets a little bit of thickness and heft to it. I ate a HUGE bowl of it, like half the recipe, with a serving of that basmati, and was completely sated.

I'm formally eating fish and seafood now, not just occasionally. Working out so much makes me crave healthy fats and proteins, even though I was technically getting enough before with a primarily vegetarian diet. I am in no way saying that a vegan or vegetarian diet is inappropriate for athletes or that it can't provide everything a person needs. What I'm saying is that right now, for me, adding some extra easy sources of fat and protein is what works best. I am still mindful of sustainable kinds of fish, fishing practices, and humane labor conditions. I haven't thrown in the ethical eating towel.

Week One Triathlon Pre-Training

2009-12-29T08:49:00.003-06:00

Monday: Walk 2.5 Miles
Tuesday: Stationary Bike 13.5 Miles
Wednesday: Jog 5mph on treadmill for as long as possible. Rest and do it again two more times.
Thursday: Weights at the gym
Friday: Walk 5k
Saturday: Swim 400y

Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday are all the distances I'll be going during the race in April, so I'm doing those to just get a feel for the distance, untimed. I know the running portion will be up a hill and back down, so I've found a similar course using Cantrell Hill. There are less busy areas but Cantrell has a wide bike lane that I can run in. Not sure when I'll get to that point, but I'm going to start thinking about it and getting mentally ready for it.

The walk last night was surprisingly manageable. I was a little breathless and sweaty when I got home, but I could have walked a while longer and I certainly wasn't exhausted.

I made an amazing soup last night with kale and butter beans and tofu shirataki noodles. I threw in a little leftover fajita chicken from last weekend's nachos, and added way too much red chili powder. Still, sooooo good. I was going to have it for lunch but I just arranged a sushi lunch with Bob instead. Yay!

A rough start

2009-12-28T10:31:00.011-06:00

The good news is that I haven't really gained any weight over the holiday weekend. Thanks in no small part to a dance party on Wednesday night that left me sore and covered in sweat, plus regular walks with Mr. Bojangles, the best dog ever, I'm still stuck around 240. That's the bad news. 233 on Friday isn't looking remotely possible. I'm going to work my ass off this week and shoot for 238 or so. Anything below last month's weigh in will be a victory for me.

And now presenting, Mr. Bojangles, official fanci fun time mascot.

My fanci partners in crime may be wondering why Mr. Bo is the mascot, and not Walter or Bones or Spock, their dogs. The answer is simple: DIBS. I called dibs.

I somehow let my friend Jett, who runs marathons and is training for an eventual ironman triathlon, convince me to do the Chicago Triathlon with him in August. After looking at the training schedule, I decided I may as well also do a couple of local triathlons, one at DeGray Lake in April and one at Greers Ferry Lake in October.

Training for April begins pretty much right now. The first thing I did was map out some courses in my neighborhood of various lengths. The first was a simple 2 mile course.

Then a 2.5 mile course, since that is the distance of the running portion of the April race.

Then, for future races which are usually around 5k, a route of that distance.

I'll be using these on nicer days to get a feel for the distances, mostly just walking Mr. Bo.

My biggest inhibition is swimming. Well, swimming and biking. Well, running too. All for different reasons. Biking I'm totally inept at. Like really. I fall over. A lot. Swimming I'm okay at, but I don't shave and I don't want to horrify other swimmers with my sasquatch appearance. Running I can do, but it's hell on my joints and I'm afraid of injury.

I have a lot of reasons why this is scary for me. I'm super excited, though.

In a couple of weeks, when I get ready to start training in earnest, I'll be using the 11 week beginner training course from tri-newbies. If you take a look, you'll notice that it's actually totally reasonable, and most of it is stuff you could do right now no matter what kind of shape you're in. Like the first day, it's a 15 minute run, but the first 9 minutes is all warm up and mostly walking.

Until then, I'll be using the bike at my gym more than the elliptical, which is good because I think I was getting too efficient at elliptical and not working as hard. I'll also buy a swimsuit (through this bitchin' deal on amazon, compare here) and start swimming a few laps to see how it feels.

Yay! Wish me luck.

5 favorite snacks

2009-12-19T18:55:00.003-06:00

After getting the latest issue of Self in the mail (the magazine whose annual SELF Challenge began my serious foray into fitness and weight loss 4 years ago), I began watching The Biggest Loser on Hulu. It's very overwrought and dramatic, of course, being a big-production reality tv show, but I do love weight loss shows. I love watching Celebrity Fit Club, which my office works on, with the exception of the drama that was Dustin Diamond. I don't tune in for the interpersonal ego-driven drama. I like the drama of the personal struggles, the weigh-ins, the support contestants and staff show, and the health tips that are sprinkled in there.

Anyway, while watching/listening to that, I also researched bento boxes and looked at websites that had photos of boxes and ingredient lists. I made a little chart to help me plan meals, now sitting in my purse, to help make grocery shopping for bento meals a little simpler for me. Checklists and planning save me from appearing as scatterbrained as I feel. I'm excited for my next shopping trip after I get back from Kentucky.

I've already got a couple of snacks that I keep on hand at home or at the office. When I don't have them, I raid my boyfriend's candy and soda, or run to the gas station to pick up a snack. I try to make good choices, opting for cheese or fruit or peanuts, but sometimes I get chips or a candy bar. Here are my favorite snacks.

1. Piece of fruit. This changes seasonally. During the late summer, I was in love with valencia oranges. I've gone through pears and a lot of different apple varieties this fall. I picked up a few apples and some bananas last time I grocery shopped. I'm not sure what will be the next seasonal fruit for my area of the country. I try to buy food grown in Texas and nearby states, or at least in the U.S.

2. Low-fat mozzarella cheese. One of my coworkers and I both bring a piece of cheese to work as a snack and tend to eat it an hour or two before lunch each day.

3. Blue Diamond Wasabi and Soy Sauce Almonds. Another coworker introduced me to these. I love the little kick of spice and the heartiness of the almonds.

4. Frito Lay Honey Roasted Peanuts. You can get these in a little 2/$100 sleeve at most gas stations, and if I'm going to be picking up food on the go, I will go for this to get a little salt, a little sweet, and protein. It's 230 calories, so it's almost as big as my lunch most days; if I get this, I'm going to be having a lighter dinner.

5. Lower sugar or Weight Control oatmeal. I have this for breakfast a lot of days, but there are evenings when I'll have a packet to round out my calories for the day.

Feel free to share some of your snack choices, as I'm looking to expand my selection. I like simplicity, but I'm not afraid to do the work of dividing out portions or chopping up fruits or vegetables before work. A little variety will keep me from being bored and heading for the plate of homemade cookies sitting in the office kitchen.

Edit: Upon reading the entirety of this issue of Self, I'm really sad for, discouraged by, and pissed off at a woman who wrote an article about losing 27 pounds. I'm not mad at her weight loss; she worked hard for it and earned it. The article is in a much different style than the rest of the magazine's glib, chirpy cheerleading: it is rife with self-hating and cliches, her verb use borders on the criminal, and the way she describes an encounter at the end of the diary with a woman who's put on weight and is painted as jealous of the author's weight loss is a bit shitty. I don't empathize with this woman at all; I want to get her out of my life as soon as possible. I'll be tearing out the pages that include exercises and throwing the rest of the magazine in the recycle bin asap.

Struggling with limits

2009-12-17T17:33:00.002-06:00

It's holiday party time, and my company had its party today, too. There was a lot of food. I mean, obscene amounts for the number of people who work for my company. I was hungry this morning, and this is why: I ate very light yesterday, finishing with a dinner of pb&j on oroweat bread and a cream cheese and strawberry jam sandwich. After a disappointing evening at the theater watching the live Rifftrax Christmas shorts, I baked for a couple of hours. I only sampled half a cookie of my own wares, curbing my appetite for more with cheese and the occasional dot of confectioner's sugar on my tongue. This morning, I skipped breakfast, as I went to have my teeth cleaned first thing in the morning, then rolled into work just in time to tote my vegan loaf generator-inspired dish and a plate of linzer cookies into the party room.

I visited the spread for a refill on food twice after my initial trip. I don't know that I can or will ever be able to fully catalog all the things I ate. A partial list: I had several helpings of my own VLG creation, two of my linzer cookies, and the rest is a blur of chips, queso, and peanut butter fudge. I only had two other cookies. Attempts to behave: I had probably an apple's worth of slices of apple and three cubes of hard cheddar. If I had to do it over again: I would have brought the cookies, yes, but also made a veggie plate with the carrots and celery that I had on hand to make my loaf, to satisfy my urge for crunchy food.

I don't think I can tell my food diary on Livestrong.com about what happened this afternoon and still look it in the eye. I've been behind on updating my food diary all the way for several days; I've been putting it off or busy and making excuses, and now I'm woefully behind and getting careless, eating any damn thing.

I already decided I'm not working out tonight at the gym.

The good news to come out of all this is, I do and will continue to feel bad about not working out regularly for two-plus weeks and irregularly tracking my food, and that will motivate me to shape up. I feel unhealthier after all this not-exercising. And my pants aren't as saggy on me the last couple of days as they have been for the last month. Y'all, I want my pants to actively fall off my butt. The way things are going, that's not going to happen.

There's a grocery trip in my near future. I will stock up on fruit or vegetables as snacks so I can keep myself from going so crazy with the indulgence in holiday sweets. They won't stop me from having a cookie now and then, but as I've learned, I eat so much healthier when I've got appealing options. I'm getting weary of apples, so I haven't planned out my uncooked produce snackyness. I'll see what's most in stock at Sprout's and what's seasonally available. Recommendations are welcome!

Speaking of Temptation

2009-12-17T10:51:00.002-06:00

Yeah, old habits rearing their ugly heads. Office Christmas party this morning and I had no idea that CHICKEN FUCKING SALAD could have 900 calories in a cup. I don't even think sugar had 900 calories in a cup.

Can't believe I'm sharing this on the internet, but whatever. I sometimes throw up when I feel really grossed out by something I've eaten. I don't stick my finger down my throat and I don't really do it on purpose. I just start obsessing over what I ate and keep getting more and more disgusted, and then I vomit. To be fair, my stress and emotions are really closely tied to my gastrointestinal health. I also vomit when I'm angry or really sad, and I get constipated when I'm stressed. This is an extension of that. I do not have an eating disorder. I'd like to make that perfectly clear.

Anyway, it hasn't happened in a while, but this morning I had a small plate at the party. I had 3 little smokies with bbq sauce, two small sausage balls, a bunch of veggies and spinach dip, one bagel chip, one tortilla chip with velveeta chili dip, and about 1/3 cup of chicken salad. Everything else I ate came in at about 250 calories. The chicken salad put me around 550. I'd already had a clif builder bar for breakfast (super tasty and vegan with 20g protein, btw) so I was over 800 calories with the rest of the day plus a night that I hope will involve vodka. Fuck that.

The chicken salad being the primary offender, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I could feel it in my stomach and it felt slimy and gross and gelatinous. I could imagine it curdling. It didn't take long before I was running for the bathroom.

It was the first time in a while. I usually work harder to control it. I distract myself, or just will myself to keep everything down. And I hate the thought of it and I know on a very rational level that it's unhealthy, and it's indicative of a totally fucked up relationship with food. But I can't help feeling better now that the chicken salad is gone.

Another Amazing Dinner and Planning for Temptation

2009-12-16T10:29:00.004-06:00

Last night's dinner was soulfoodtastic. Jay rubbed some salt, pepper, and blue corn meal on tilapia filets and fried it in just a tiny bit of olive oil. I got some orowheat sandwich thins (Eve has been rocking those for a while but I just spotted them for the first time at the grocery store) and toasted them. We spread them with vegenaise and threw on some spinach and sliced tomatoes and made amazing fish sandwiches. We also made baked sweet potato fries and turnip greens and omg. I have been craving fish lately, so this was especially awesome.

Weekends, as you may have noticed, are always my weakest link. I thought it was ahte lack of planning but I'm beginning to think I just lack all self-control when I get around refined carbs. I've successfully eliminated them from my house and my work, but the moment I show up to a party or a restaurant without many healthy options, I'm like OMNOMNOM SUGAR & BREAD.

I've even tried carrying around a few healthy snacks so that I have some alternative, but the bad food tastes so very very good. I will say I think I've done a little better on portion control. On Saturday I had one plate of chinese food, one egg roll, and one fake crab thing. On Sunday I had two slices of pizza and a few zucchini sticks, and there were even some left that I didn't touch. On Saturday, however, I had six cookies. And on Sunday I had 5 or 6 beers. Still, I guess I can count that as a small improvement? I need a better strategy. Oy.

Pay no attention to those numbers behind the curtain

2009-12-14T12:25:00.005-06:00

Just ignore my food log from this weekend. I promise to do better. Seriously. Next weekend will be a vacation weekend and I will craft it from the very fiber of win.

Jay and I got to meet the dog on Saturday. We both fell in love, of course. We walked up to the house and he was in the front yard. He looked at us, didn't even bark, and turned around to go investigate the perimeter of the yard and find a suitable spot to pee. That was a pretty good sign, as we have frequent guests and don't need a dog who's going to freak out every time a new person shows up.

Once we went inside and got him in his comfort zone, he almost immediately shuffled up to me and got into my lap. Danes have a cute way of getting into laps, where they put their hind legs and belly on you and keep their front feet on the floor. Adorable.

He spent some time wrestling with Jay and didn't show any aggression, another really good sign. By the time we left, we were both smitten. Ever since then, we wake up every morning missing him. Next Saturday can't come soon enough.

You will probably see a lot of "playing with kids" on my exercise log once the dog gets here, since they don't have an option for playing with 140 lb. dogs. There will also be lots of cute doggie pictures on facebook. Hell yes.

Vegan loaf that turned out like stuffing

2009-12-13T17:47:00.004-06:00

The recipe I chose needs fine-tuning before I'm 100% happy with it, but my Split Pea and Quinoa Mirepoix Loaf is a success. It's very stuffing-like due to the herbs I chose (thyme, sage, savory, rosemary). One of my next kitchen investments will be a food processor so that I can more easily cut the vegetables and seeds/nuts/legumes/whatever when I next make this recipe or another variation from the vegan loaf generator.

I paired it with mashed potatoes from Sprout's deli section - an excellent choice.

I'm not feeling well this afternoon, so I will not make the potato soup that I linked to in my last post. Maybe next weekend.

Experimentation weekend!

2009-12-12T11:03:00.002-06:00

I have trumpeted this many places, and I will do it again here: I used the elliptical machine last night, and it was pretty great. It feels like a major victory, given my history of dumbass injury.

When I was on my first serious fitness kick lo these 4 years ago, I used the elliptical all the time. But my knee problems kicked in; I stopped working out, got bad eating habits again, and put back on the weight I'd lost. I made several short attempts to go back to the gym over the last several years, most of them documented in all their brevity on my fitness LiveJournal blog, but I never went back to the elliptical. Though it was recommended to people who suffer knee problems, I thought it was not for me, given my past experience, and that I should stay away from it.

Last summer, shortly after I got both a home exercise bike and a bike that I rode with glee around my neighborhood, I broke my foot while getting out of bed in the middle of the night to let one of my dogs out. That put a damper on my exercise plans for what turned out to be almost a year. I hurt my ankle this spring, then kept re-hurting it during the summer. I decided that despite my problems, I needed to start working out again, so I joined a gym and swam there for about two months; I stopped going and canceled my membership because it was too expensive and too crowded, and the kicks I was doing hurt my ankle after all. And it's OK that I stopped going, since swimming would have sucked after I hurt my shoulder in August; I balanced all my weight on my left leg and left arm in a crab position, assing around while doing pilates, and gave myself an injury that I'm still dealing with now.

But injuries do get better, given time and with light exercise. My foot and ankle have gotten stronger since I started my workouts again in mid-August. It has only been within the last month that my lower body has felt strong enough to do some of the foot and ankle exercises and bridge work on my new favorite pilates DVD, Pilates Conditioning for Weight Loss. And when setting my fitness goals these past several months, I told myself that I would attempt the elliptical in January 2010. On a whim, I decided to try it out last night. I confess, only half of my motivation was that the elliptical in my gym is so much quieter than the treadmill, and I wanted to hear The Daily Show over the machines. I did 20 minutes, which isn't a lot, but it was a very good 20 minutes, and I'm in no pain today. It will gradually become a bigger part of my routine; don't want to push it too far too fast and hurt myself again.

My other experimentation for the weekend is making one of the variations from the Vegan Loaf Generator that Maggie linked to long ago. I'm calling mine Split Pea and Quinoa Mirepoix Loaf. If it is tolerable, I have plans for this recipe: it will make an appearance at the company Christmas party and again at the family Christmas celebrations I'll be attending when I roll into my hometown on the 24th, since none of these parties will involve a vegetarian main dish (hell, even the green beans will have ham in them - go team southern cooking). I'm kind of excited about my baking experiment. I went merrily from dry goods bin to dry goods bin at Sprouts yesterday searching for the recipe's ingredients. And speaking of that, I have seldom used said bins at Sprouts or Whole Foods before, but now that I see that I can get more quinoa for nearly $2 cheaper per pound than it comes boxed, I am converted. While I was there, I picked up most of the ingredients I lacked to make this soup from Poor Girl Eats Well. Hoping to add both these recipes, if they work out, to my regular rotation and expand my choices for dinner each night.

Oh, and a parenthetical: After several months, I finally found where my Sprouts location stashes their bags of Tofu Shirataki. That food was the whole reason I first shopped at Sprouts in the first place, and I haven't been able to find it for months. Ha.

Same body, same feelings?

2009-12-12T11:02:00.001-06:00

My little sister has, since I was 13, been the physically smaller of the two of us. For context, she joined in with my brothers during my first years of puberty to mock me for having a period and tell me I was fat until I locked myself in the bathroom and cried. Several years ago, she suggested I join the military (though get out on some technicality before I had to do anything) just so I could go through boot camp and lose weight. Now, don't get me wrong, I love my siblings, and I'm so over all the past negativity. I know that she's had to deal with societal pressures to lose weight just like I have, though maybe not in the same way that I have. I felt like maybe she could finally understand what I had been made to feel during a text conversation we had the other day.

I asked her what size clothes she wore so I could buy her clothes for Christmas presents. She replied with a pants size that I've been wearing for the last couple of years; this was also her pants size when she was pregnant with her son, who's about to turn two. She's had an extremely stressful several years that started with her in Iraq and have her now as a divorced mother dealing with a lot of personal drama and some physical drama. Maybe in response to what she's been going through, partly because she's just not able to be as physically active as she was in the past, her body is a different shape now than it's been for most of her life.

I hope she doesn't feel ugly or disgusting, the way I have felt about my body in the past (though not anymore). She is one of the pillars of my adult life and a beautiful, charismatic, generous, kick-ass person. And I will tell her this when I see her at Christmas. I don't know whether to tell her she should try pilates, which was designed to help injured people become more physically fit. I don't want to meddle or say something she might take the wrong way, and I know she's just as strong-willed as I am, and you can't get her to do anything she doesn't want to do. I just know how she might feel, and I want her to feel as good as I do these days when I'm done with my workout.

Edit: I started this post on Sunday, then finished it last night... and it showed up still posting on Sunday. I have yet to get the hang of the timestamp function, I suppose!

The Reason Sarah Wins

2009-12-08T17:36:00.007-06:00

Everything on the online calorie tracker we were using, every food we've entered ever, reset the number of servings to .80 at some point today between the time I entered breakfast and the time I entered lunch. I am mad as fuck right now.

UPDATE: They're fixing it and it should be restored by the end of the day.

ANOTHER UPDATE: If you click over to my food log, I think it also links to my blog, which I haven't used much. I updated it today with my weight lifting numbers. I'm going to try to keep that up, unless I find something that works better. When I went to the gym tonight I intended to do a body conditioning class that my trainer teaches. She wasn't there, and the cute gay guy at the desk said another trainer was doing a step class. I hemmed and explained that it was a weight lifting day for me, and then decided I'd just go upstairs and do some lifting.

It was the first time I felt comfortable up there with all the beefy dudes. I ignored them, and I'm pretty sure they ignored me. I decided before I went up that I was going to do squats, lateral raises, bench press, and bent over rows. I did 3 sets of 8 reps each, and found a good weight for most of them, where I was close to failure but not quite there. I could go heavier on the bench and squat, so I will next time. Overall, successful workout, and super fast.

The bug's still not fixed on the calorie tracker, but I entered my dinner anyway. Vietnamese spring rolls are like the easiest things ever. For one thing, people think they're impressive when you serve them with a good sauce, like a hoisin or peanut sauce. For another thing, you can use pretty much anything you've got, as long as you've got some kind of a leafy green vegetable to sort of give it some structure. I've done them with mango, strawberries, butternut squash (pictured), sweet potato, whatever. Just find a good combination of things that complement each other and think of a sauce and go for it.

Tonight I used spinach, cucumber, carrot, soba noodles, and baked tofu. I made the peanut sauce with a base of light coconut milk. I mixed in the PB2, soy sauce, and the usual spices: garlic powder, ginger, chili salt, etc. Then I decided to throw in some protein powder. I used the Genisoy because I wasn't quite over my unfortunate experience with the new kind. It made it a little bland but didn't ruin it. Today when I opened it up I decided it needed more nutty fatty taste. I added some toasted sesame oil and it was perfection. It ended up being less fat than if I'd used regular peanut butter in the first place, and I love the flavor of the sesame oil. I might go back to the regular recipe next time, but this one is totally serviceable.

A Handy Gauge of the Quality of My Diet

2009-12-07T20:20:00.005-06:00

A couple of weeks ago, at least four of these ingredients were alcohol and one was pizza. And a few were probably fried things. This is looking much better.

Weight and Protein Powder

2009-12-07T06:53:00.003-06:00

What's that just over the horizon?! I can see the 230's from here! Wheee!

240 exactly as of this morning, before work out and before poop. So I am just going to assume I'll be a svelte 125 tomorrow, right?

I tried a new protein powder this morning. It's Naturade Soy Free Veg Protein Booster. Yeah, not such a catchy name. And not such a catchy taste.

I made my smoothie with 1/3 cup of this powder, a cup of frozen mixed fruit, some splenda, and a cup of soy milk, with a little water added for consistency. It wasn't bad, but it had a faint bunshole flavor. I threw in some banana syrup and a few drops of imitation coconut flavor. This almost entirely masked the bunshole taste.

The 1/3 cup serving has 110 calories and 22g of protein, which is a few grams less than the Genisoy brand protein I usually use. It also isn't fortified with the slew of vitamins and nutrients that the Genisoy has. I liked that the list of ingredients was almost all grains and vegetables. I'm going to try it again in a savory recipe and see if it's any better, but I don't think I'll be using it in sweet recipes again.

Protein Packed Pasta

2009-12-04T15:53:00.009-06:00

I decided to do another recipe-centric post, since Eve said she likes them. This one last night was also pretty easy. I steamed some spinach in the rice cooker, while I boiled some water and threw in whole wheat fusili pasta. I am really liking the Ronzoni Healthy Harvest brand. I read a review that was really mean about it, but I think maybe they just don't know how to cook pasta? When I'm working with whole wheat I usually cook it hotter for less time. Anyway, I like it and think it tastes nothing like cardboard, but I'm also not addicted to refined carbs!

After the pasta was done we tossed it in about two teaspoons of olive oil and added roasted garlic that had been minced and smushed a little, and stirred that in. We had the roasted garlic in the fridge, but it's super easy to roast. Chop off the pointy side of a head of garlic so that you expose several cloves, drizzle it with olive oil, and stick it in a hot oven for like 30 minutes, until the top is a little bit caramelized and the inside is smushy.

After the garlic, we added tons of Italian spices (I use Penzey's Tuscan blend thanks to Shane), chili garlic salt, fresh ground pepper, some vegan parmesan cheese, and a scoop of soy protein powder. Since the parmesan cheese is expected to be a little powdery, the unflavored protein powder worked really well, and it soaked up the oil a little bit and stuck to the pasta. I couldn't taste it at all.

We served the pasta on a bed of the steamed spinach and topped it with roasted pumpkin seeds. Really good. Vegan, 428 calories, and 24g of protein.

I should also mention, I had a bad day yesterday so I finished the evening with a chocolate banana slushie made with ice, soy milk, chocolate soy protein powder, and DaVinci Sugar Free Banana Syrup. Also vegan, 123 calories, and 12 g of protein.

I've been wanting to try to sugar free flavor syrups for a while, and since I love chocolate banana things I started with this one. It was good, and not overwhelmingly sweet (I ended up adding splenda to the slushie). I'm going to try it in a few more things and maybe pick up another flavor sometime. I'm thinking coconut.