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Jan 17, 2011

Remember Me?

January 17, 2011 By

Hi. Oh, yeah, I did have a fitness blog here, didn’t I? Whoops.

OK, brutal honesty: December sucked. I didn’t exercise, I didn’t watch what I ate, and I certainly didn’t step on the scale. I ate with reckless abandon, enjoying all of the baked goods of the season gleefully. As the holidays got closer and free time was shorter, fast food became a staple as well.

And then it was the week after Christmas and I stepped on the scale. Ouch. I gained five pounds back.

So here we are, January, the month of fresh new starts, and I’m once again completely serious about losing weight. I’m using the Lose It app to track my eating, keeping myself under my calorie goal each day. I’m also relying on Healthy Choice meals once a day – they really help me feel full without the excessive calories. After a week of tracking, I think I’m getting good at remembering just how big an appropriate portion size is – turns out those pints of ice cream are not individual servings. And my stomach, while still grumbling a little at the changes, is adjusting to less food and shrinking to meet my current needs.

Exercise is a little tougher to control. I’m getting over a cold and still so very tired. My third-shift work hours don’t help this, either. I’m lucky to get 6 or 7 hours of sleep on a really good day, and when given the choice to exercise or get more sleep, I tend to choose sleep. But I’m trying to fit it in where I can. Last week I did an exercise DVD on Monday, and then went to the gym to run on Friday. Baby steps, right? Sadly, we still have a lot of snow and ice outside, so I don’t feel comfortable running outside yet. A treadmill at the house would be a wonderful thing to have, but I doubt we have any room for a treadmill at the moment.

After only a week or so of making active healthy choices, I’ve already been rewarded with a three pound weight loss. I know it won’t continue to go that fast, but it felt good to be a little bit closer to my lowest weight before I gave in to the season of gingerbread and buttercream frosting. As of my last weigh-in, I’m at 179.2 pounds.

Somehow I’m going to find the motivation to keep this momentum going. I want to be healthy. I want more energy. And I want to look stunning by summer. (Or hot by BlogHer, if you prefer.)

Filed Under: weigh-in Tagged With: , ,


Nov 2, 2010

November Is For New Starts

November 2, 2010 By

So…Halloween.

Yeah.

Have I mentioned I have a weakness for candy?

As I write this, a small stash of Halloween candy is calling to me from a desk drawer. It’s next to impossible for me to resist this stuff. And so I often take the attitude of “eat it all quickly so it’ll be gone,” which sometimes has the added benefit of making me so ill from eating so much candy that I don’t want to look at anything with sugar in it for a month.

Still, not a healthy relationship with food.

So it’s now a new month, and I’m trying to climb back out of the hole I dug for myself during the past month and a half. Stress and long hours at work meant that I didn’t get in any exercise during that time, and my nutrition was mostly of the fast food variety, aside from the Healthy Choice meals I ate at work. Thankfully, I didn’t gain any weight, but if I keep this pattern up much longer the weight will creep back on.

Turns out, a month and a half of no exercise can really kill your endurance. Yesterday I made the decision to get back into working out by doing a 30 minute session on the Wii game My Fitness Coach. I generally consider it an easy workout, for those days when I want to do something but not submit myself to the torture of Jillian.

This computer-generated video game trainer kicked my ass. I’m not kidding, I had a hard time keeping up, I occasionally had to stop for a breath, and I found myself struggling through some of the strength training exercises. Some of my best swear words – normally reserved for Jillian – were unleashed on this virtual trainer. Today I’m completely stiff and sore from the punishment.

How did I go from running a 5K to being a puddle of goo after a 30 minute Wii exercise game?

So this month, I’m back in the game and ready to make it hurt. I can’t guarantee that the candy will sit untouched, but you can bet I’m ready to work hard to counter the effects of that demonic sugary treat. My plan is to find some cold weather gear so I can keep running outdoors, do workout videos on other days, and try to watch my intake of junk food while drinking more water.

What about you? What are your goals/plans for November?

Filed Under: ow Tagged With: ,


Sep 24, 2010

Proven Ways To Lose Weight That I Wouldn’t Recommend

September 24, 2010 By

Stomach virus.

Enough said.

I’m now seeing my weight in the 170’s, but I don’t feel like celebrating at the moment.

Ugh, slinking off to rest some more. As you can imagine, any working out has been completely derailed this week. But I also haven’t eaten anything more than stale saltines for the past 30 hours.

I do not endorse this method of losing weight.

Filed Under: ow Tagged With:


Aug 14, 2010

Bump on a Log

August 14, 2010 By

So BlogHer is over. And it’s a million degrees outside.

And I haven’t run in a week.

I need to shake off this lack of energy and get back at it. Or find another 5K to sign up for to motivate myself to train again. Or both.

Must. get. back. on. track.

Filed Under: c25k Tagged With:


May 19, 2010

The Magic Number Appears To Be 187

May 19, 2010 By

So yet again I’ve let work take center stage and I’ve pushed my weight loss all the way off the stage to the role of director’s water boy. Last month I was working a 9-5 schedule as I went through training for my new job. I thought I did  pretty well with my lunches, packing most days, and eating healthy wraps when I did buy from the cafeteria.

However, I stepped on the scale at the beginning of May, and found myself at 192 lbs. again. Ouch. Not sure how that happened, but I know I don’t like it.

Then at the beginning of May I switched back to night shift and actually my eating habits took a turn for the worse. Trying to figure out when to eat overnight is hard, leaving you snacking all night long. And I don’t always snack on the good stuff, either. I also am far too tired to think of working out at this point. Maybe after I’ve given my body a chance to readjust to being a nightwalker I can start squeezing workouts into my schedule, but for now I just try to take the stairs instead of the elevator and call it good.

Amazingly, I stepped on the scale this week, and found my body has yet again settled back into its favorite weight of 187. I can’t explain how I lost the weight, but I’m not complaining, either.

The plan for the rest of May is to get myself fully adjusted back to a nocturnal schedule. I’m also making efforts to minimize the bad snacks I keep at my desk – more fruit cups, less bags of chips. And since giving up caffeine on night shift is a sure form of career suicide, I’ve instead tried to work a glass of water in-between each serving of coffee or tea.

And working out? Well, I want to do it again. I want to get back into shape for running a 5K. But we’ll see where I can squeeze it in to this already overstuffed schedule.

Filed Under: weigh-in Tagged With: