Today I'm 234.5? Unreasonable! Pshhh. I was too good yesterday. Chalk it up to random circumstance, just one of those things, possibly muscle growth blah blah. I will say that 4 hours after my interval workout on the elliptical, I was walking out of the grocery store and felt *vigor* in my hamstrings absolutely powering me back to my car. That's the vigor I've been looking for.
So anyway. :-P to the scale today. Up for Pilates now. I have a whole day again in which to do nothing but be a very good girl.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
My exercise plan for January
First, let me get this out of the way. I am hungry.
I see I should have had lunch by now, and I have to run out and get a red bell pepper for lunch. I must have decided it was too expensive, when I was at the grocery store, but now I can't imagine eating this broccoli stir fry without the brilliant and delicious red peppers.
Moving on.
I delineated the goals of my exercise plan this morning. My exercise goals at the mo are not to burn the most calories. If they were, I would get on the elliptical for 45 minutes. Instead my goals have more to do with getting my body back into good FUNCTION.
(1) I want to firm up my abs, obliques, back muscles and various core muscles.
(2) I want to wake up my entire body, all different kinds of muscles, moving in all different kinds of ways. Increasing flexibility and strength and tone and grace and functionality and mind-body connection.
(3) I want to improve my general muscular vigor. I'm sluggish now. I want to improve my readiness to move vigorously.
As for #3, that is why I have made the Body-For-Life 20-minute interval cardio workout a priority.
As for #1 & #2, that's why I'm focusing on Pilates. Also I did some yoga yesterday and although it was pathetic comparatively, I was reminded of how excellent it can be when I can do it well - how strong, flexible, graceful, and warm I feel after a yoga workout - and how proud to be able to succeed at some of those difficult poses. In addition to Pilates and yoga, bellydancing and just dancing in general would be good for these goals.
So that's what I'm doing for now, and I will re-evaluate later, probably in February when I'm not so slammed as I will be when the month changes over. (I will almost certainly fail to get the exercise in during that time anyway!)
I see I should have had lunch by now, and I have to run out and get a red bell pepper for lunch. I must have decided it was too expensive, when I was at the grocery store, but now I can't imagine eating this broccoli stir fry without the brilliant and delicious red peppers.
Moving on.
I delineated the goals of my exercise plan this morning. My exercise goals at the mo are not to burn the most calories. If they were, I would get on the elliptical for 45 minutes. Instead my goals have more to do with getting my body back into good FUNCTION.
(1) I want to firm up my abs, obliques, back muscles and various core muscles.
(2) I want to wake up my entire body, all different kinds of muscles, moving in all different kinds of ways. Increasing flexibility and strength and tone and grace and functionality and mind-body connection.
(3) I want to improve my general muscular vigor. I'm sluggish now. I want to improve my readiness to move vigorously.
As for #3, that is why I have made the Body-For-Life 20-minute interval cardio workout a priority.
As for #1 & #2, that's why I'm focusing on Pilates. Also I did some yoga yesterday and although it was pathetic comparatively, I was reminded of how excellent it can be when I can do it well - how strong, flexible, graceful, and warm I feel after a yoga workout - and how proud to be able to succeed at some of those difficult poses. In addition to Pilates and yoga, bellydancing and just dancing in general would be good for these goals.
So that's what I'm doing for now, and I will re-evaluate later, probably in February when I'm not so slammed as I will be when the month changes over. (I will almost certainly fail to get the exercise in during that time anyway!)
fat bellydance
234 again today. Well, I can't just keep losing a pound a day as nice as that sounds. Even then it would take me 2 months to reach my goal. I'm looking at probably over a year. I just can't wait to get back down to size 16 and lose a little bit more.
I watched The Secret of the Grain. There was this beautiful young actress in it, and at the end of the movie she very unexpectedly came in and did a long belly dance. It was surprising to me because she had quite a large belly. I am not opposed to poochy bellies on women but I kept thinking hers was unattractive. The camera was, of course, often focused on it. Still, despite my open-mindedness about the size of beauty, I know that most young American men would not be used to seeing a fat-bellied bellydancer and would have all kinds of insults to throw about it on the internet. (The movie was not made in America, it was a French-language film about Arab immigrants in France.)
Anyway, I've done a moderate amount of internet research on fat bellydancers and have found a lot more positive than negative (probably because the videos are labeled "fat bellydancer" or "BBW bellydancer"). I saw one where the woman was labelled BBW but I would say she was just pretty chubby - the videotaper really liked her belly, he kept zooming in on her belly even though there were multiple dancers.
All this bellydance video has me aware that for some reason for me my swishing my hips back and forth has become very rigid and inflexible, which I consider odd for me - I used to feel so hippy like a water person, I liked being a water person, but now I feel more and more like an Earth person. Plus the control they have over that section of their body, whereas for me this is a section of my body I largely overlook. I am sure regular study with bellydance would behoove me. I have the DVD when I wanted to try it before but as I think I told you - it was HARD.
Anyway. Another day down. Closing in on a week down, should get ahead of the game and plan my next week's meals. Today's workout is the 20 minutes BFL system on the elliptical. Also to at least decide how to incorporate strength training into my plan. Yesterday I did yoga which was great despite all the falling back I've done - lost energy trying to hold dog pose, lost thigh strength trying to hold a lunge. I definitely love that yoga vid - when I do it well, when I am done with it, I feel so fit, strong, flexible, and in connection with my body.
Monday, January 17, 2011
January 17, 2011 - 234
Down another pound today. This is good news to me, it means I'm 5 down from my start a few days ago and inspired to go it another day. I want to start a fresh new ticker since all the ones I have are sort of out of date anyway.
Exercise yesterday was the Pilates. Stuck to the diet, more or less - made some substitutions at lunch off-handedly - without consulting a substitutions list - how well does raisin bread substitute for 1/3 cup of rice? Some leftover canned pineapple for the honeydew melon. And then later an unscheduled orange, and skipped (forgot because was too sleepy) the simple salad with my dinner. So - more or less.
Also went out with my family after a concert. I was hungry but waiting for my dinner which was at home. I allowed myself a glass of wine, socially, which actually made me a very little bit tipsy for 10 seconds on such an empty stomach I guess.
My brother and I are going to encourage each other to keep exercising. I don't know if the gym closes or has a half day for MLK Day - but since MLK day was actually Saturday maybe that's not even relevant. I'm thinking of doing yoga anyway. Should do it now. I am feeling so hungry this morning!
By the way, I was thinking of going to the beach or something this week, but then realized that adhering to the meal plan sort of precludes that. I could try to go and "be a good girl" but if I leave the decisions about when and what to eat to my inspiration - I'm undependable. I don't know when I've had enough, I feel freer to treat myself when I'm on a trip. That's going to always be a burden for me to have to deal with probably. I like food, I like all different kinds of food, and my system can handle it.
Ok - yoga.
Exercise yesterday was the Pilates. Stuck to the diet, more or less - made some substitutions at lunch off-handedly - without consulting a substitutions list - how well does raisin bread substitute for 1/3 cup of rice? Some leftover canned pineapple for the honeydew melon. And then later an unscheduled orange, and skipped (forgot because was too sleepy) the simple salad with my dinner. So - more or less.
Also went out with my family after a concert. I was hungry but waiting for my dinner which was at home. I allowed myself a glass of wine, socially, which actually made me a very little bit tipsy for 10 seconds on such an empty stomach I guess.
My brother and I are going to encourage each other to keep exercising. I don't know if the gym closes or has a half day for MLK Day - but since MLK day was actually Saturday maybe that's not even relevant. I'm thinking of doing yoga anyway. Should do it now. I am feeling so hungry this morning!
By the way, I was thinking of going to the beach or something this week, but then realized that adhering to the meal plan sort of precludes that. I could try to go and "be a good girl" but if I leave the decisions about when and what to eat to my inspiration - I'm undependable. I don't know when I've had enough, I feel freer to treat myself when I'm on a trip. That's going to always be a burden for me to have to deal with probably. I like food, I like all different kinds of food, and my system can handle it.
Ok - yoga.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Sunday, Jan 16, 2011 - 235 pounds
Ok good, some weight has come off already.
WARNING - the rest of this blog entry is some rambling.
Over the past oh two weeks I guess I have felt my upper waist bulging out into my arms. That's what made it feel all the more drastic. I can also tell you that, of late, my complexion has been for the dogs and I feel like my face is ugly when it smiles again. My Dad offered again yesterday to get the fat sucked out my belly and I responded negatively to manage his enthusiasm for it but I don't actually feel that negatively about it, really. Losing weight is one thing, but the ratio of fat in different places on my body is another and this belly is the bain of my existence.
Ok, my speech is very grim, I don't mean it to be all that grim.
Yesterday I tried to stay on plan, but I did guesstimate a breakfast, and I also found a ghirardelli raspberry chocolate square on my bed, and that was so wack that I knew it was a sign from Odin that I was supposed to eat it. After that I experienced many temptations throughout the day as I was out and about and not getting home. I went to the gym and did my 20-minute interval training on the elliptical and felt my muscles working in new and interesting ways so hopefully that will come out well. Then I went to grab some socks and underwear and an avocado since the one I bought the other day was unripe and it wasn't ready for me to eat for breakfast. I never had a problem before with avocados from the store being unripe, and so I don't know how long to wait for them to ripen. The avocados at Compare Foods were also all unripe. What's with the unripe avocados.
While at the shopping center I also spent money on a little spending binge. - At Infinity's End (our local pot-smokers, rock-n-roll t-shirts, dragons, piercings, posters shop) I got a green amber ring, which is something I've been wanting for a long long time, and a neat wall-hanging face, and a poster of the Tournee du Chat Noir which I thought might be fun to put up somewhere in this house, though it ought to be framed. So that was $60, and I wanted more but had to stop myself! Then over to Roses for the underwear and socks, but I also bought some satin sheets there - I've never had a satin sheet set and it might be nice and the trim on these was pretty so I just did it on impulse.
I mention the spending spree because maybe indulging there might have sated my indulgence cravings so I was able to hold out a little better as I stood in line at the store staring at the display of archway cookies while very hungry and thinking that the only reason I wasn't eating them was that they were $3 and not because it would kill my dieting efforts. I wasn't thinking about my belly or whether or not I fit into my jeans, but I did think to myself - "You're not eating this these days and besides, you have food waiting for you at home."
So anyway, I made it past many temptations yesterday.
Today, sticking to the plan again, and also doing Pilates again. Pilates is the base limit of what I need to do today, but if I decide to, and if Actually doing the Pilates right now before breakfast. Breakfast today is oat bran cooked with apples and walnuts (and protein powder and vanilla and cinnamon) YUM and I will have some coffee with soymilk YUM.
You know, my roommate's boyfriend has been on Atkins for a long time now. He's lost a lot of weight and it seems a pretty restrictive diet but he's stuck to it, mostly. Considering all the different eating styles we have in this house now, the fridge is really pretty packed.
Ok, enough procrastinating. I am starving, and I have to do Pilates and some other stuff today!
WARNING - the rest of this blog entry is some rambling.
Over the past oh two weeks I guess I have felt my upper waist bulging out into my arms. That's what made it feel all the more drastic. I can also tell you that, of late, my complexion has been for the dogs and I feel like my face is ugly when it smiles again. My Dad offered again yesterday to get the fat sucked out my belly and I responded negatively to manage his enthusiasm for it but I don't actually feel that negatively about it, really. Losing weight is one thing, but the ratio of fat in different places on my body is another and this belly is the bain of my existence.
Ok, my speech is very grim, I don't mean it to be all that grim.
Yesterday I tried to stay on plan, but I did guesstimate a breakfast, and I also found a ghirardelli raspberry chocolate square on my bed, and that was so wack that I knew it was a sign from Odin that I was supposed to eat it. After that I experienced many temptations throughout the day as I was out and about and not getting home. I went to the gym and did my 20-minute interval training on the elliptical and felt my muscles working in new and interesting ways so hopefully that will come out well. Then I went to grab some socks and underwear and an avocado since the one I bought the other day was unripe and it wasn't ready for me to eat for breakfast. I never had a problem before with avocados from the store being unripe, and so I don't know how long to wait for them to ripen. The avocados at Compare Foods were also all unripe. What's with the unripe avocados.
While at the shopping center I also spent money on a little spending binge. - At Infinity's End (our local pot-smokers, rock-n-roll t-shirts, dragons, piercings, posters shop) I got a green amber ring, which is something I've been wanting for a long long time, and a neat wall-hanging face, and a poster of the Tournee du Chat Noir which I thought might be fun to put up somewhere in this house, though it ought to be framed. So that was $60, and I wanted more but had to stop myself! Then over to Roses for the underwear and socks, but I also bought some satin sheets there - I've never had a satin sheet set and it might be nice and the trim on these was pretty so I just did it on impulse.
I mention the spending spree because maybe indulging there might have sated my indulgence cravings so I was able to hold out a little better as I stood in line at the store staring at the display of archway cookies while very hungry and thinking that the only reason I wasn't eating them was that they were $3 and not because it would kill my dieting efforts. I wasn't thinking about my belly or whether or not I fit into my jeans, but I did think to myself - "You're not eating this these days and besides, you have food waiting for you at home."
So anyway, I made it past many temptations yesterday.
Today, sticking to the plan again, and also doing Pilates again. Pilates is the base limit of what I need to do today, but if I decide to, and if Actually doing the Pilates right now before breakfast. Breakfast today is oat bran cooked with apples and walnuts (and protein powder and vanilla and cinnamon) YUM and I will have some coffee with soymilk YUM.
You know, my roommate's boyfriend has been on Atkins for a long time now. He's lost a lot of weight and it seems a pretty restrictive diet but he's stuck to it, mostly. Considering all the different eating styles we have in this house now, the fridge is really pretty packed.
Ok, enough procrastinating. I am starving, and I have to do Pilates and some other stuff today!
Saturday, January 15, 2011
January 15, 2011 - 238 pounds
Since my last post, I had a big illness relapse, or a new illness on top of the old one, and my erstwhile efforts to be moderate have slacked off into the worst of sweets ingestion. Breakfasts are fine, I have wonderful healthy soul-satiating breakfasts, but by the end of the day, junk food has overinvolved itself in my day.
So I gained again and at this point I feel I no longer have any connection with how much is the right amount to eat. So I'm - sigh - back on the ediets meal plan for now. I was 239 yesterday when I started, I am 238 today. I have discovered that there are Cadbury creme eggs out there already. *sigh* I had two yesterday and that is going to tide me over. When I do get enough weight lost, and feel like I'm sure I'm in control again, I will go to a program of having one day off the meal plan. That doesn't mean I can have a bingey free-for-all - it just means I can go to a restaurant with friends or something, and maybe have a Cadbury creme egg.
Today's diet-related goals are simply to stay on-plan and to do a 20-minute interval training session to (over time) boost my energy, stamina, and quick-twitch muscle fibers. I did Pilates on Thursday and am definitely feeling it in my abs - which is just another sign that I'm out of shape because usually I don't really feel much.
So I gained again and at this point I feel I no longer have any connection with how much is the right amount to eat. So I'm - sigh - back on the ediets meal plan for now. I was 239 yesterday when I started, I am 238 today. I have discovered that there are Cadbury creme eggs out there already. *sigh* I had two yesterday and that is going to tide me over. When I do get enough weight lost, and feel like I'm sure I'm in control again, I will go to a program of having one day off the meal plan. That doesn't mean I can have a bingey free-for-all - it just means I can go to a restaurant with friends or something, and maybe have a Cadbury creme egg.
Today's diet-related goals are simply to stay on-plan and to do a 20-minute interval training session to (over time) boost my energy, stamina, and quick-twitch muscle fibers. I did Pilates on Thursday and am definitely feeling it in my abs - which is just another sign that I'm out of shape because usually I don't really feel much.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Dec 29, 236 pounds
Been a while.
I have gained. More than I wanted to allow myself to gain.
Some people may be offended that I don't chastise myself more harshly, but I'm just not like that. Still, I did want to lose weight, and I don't want to be one of the 97% who gains it all back. :-D
I guess the answer to how I gained so much so fast is this - I have been sluggish, unmoving, probably more depressed than usual, sick, the holidays happened and I've been indulging in the edible treats. Christmas dinner and all manner of sweets and everything.
I recently posted my New Year's Resolutions to facebook and one of them was certainly to get down to 180 using moderation (restrictive meal plan if necessary but I do still resist that for the time being) and exercise, which I'm glad to say I've done now a few days in a row. Elliptical and weight training day before yesterday, yoga (only the first 17 minutes) yesterday, and today the 30-day Shred. Things went well on the elliptical trainer, but I did not feel any results from the weights the next day and might need a personal trainer or a program. I also tried to run just for 2 minutes, but on the very first step there was heel pain. Yoga was fairly pathetic - not bad but I didn't have a lot of time and wasn't feeling the stamina and only did the first bit - the warm-up sun salutation basically.
The 30-day shred - PATHETIC! Ok, first of all, I did this once last week and it was the same day I was starting my period and I couldn't even get through but that was mostly because of my period but here is more. It just wasn't that long ago that the 30-Day Shred wasn't that hard, that I was doing 13 pushups on my initial effort, and the cardio wasn't a significant problem. Last week I only did 6 pushups my first go. Today it was up to 7. The other thing is, I can feel my flab bouncing around, jerking down every time I land on a jumping jack, and I can barely allow myself to do the jumping jacks with arms because I'm holding my belly and boobs (wearing 2 jog bras) and just feeling my back flab bounce. This was not the case last time I did this routine, which was only like in September or so.
So next time I really will have to make sure to wear a very sturdy leotard or something to keep my flabby parts from bouncing so painfully. What is her name on the 30-Day Shred? She says "I have 400-pound people who can do jumping jacks, SO CAN YOU!" and I'm just wondering how the 400-pound people manage that bouncy flab!
So, the brunt of it is that there's a great big spike on my sparkpeople weight graph showing that I've gained nearly 15 pounds since a month ago! That's really pretty bad. I weighed 238 yesterday (after breakfast) - this morning it's 236. I definitely have the potential to show some great improvement since I'm at such a low right now, but it really will take intense consistency over the long haul to reach my goal. I think I should blog daily to remind myself, maybe even start a new blog and get a fresh start.
I have gained. More than I wanted to allow myself to gain.
Some people may be offended that I don't chastise myself more harshly, but I'm just not like that. Still, I did want to lose weight, and I don't want to be one of the 97% who gains it all back. :-D
I guess the answer to how I gained so much so fast is this - I have been sluggish, unmoving, probably more depressed than usual, sick, the holidays happened and I've been indulging in the edible treats. Christmas dinner and all manner of sweets and everything.
I recently posted my New Year's Resolutions to facebook and one of them was certainly to get down to 180 using moderation (restrictive meal plan if necessary but I do still resist that for the time being) and exercise, which I'm glad to say I've done now a few days in a row. Elliptical and weight training day before yesterday, yoga (only the first 17 minutes) yesterday, and today the 30-day Shred. Things went well on the elliptical trainer, but I did not feel any results from the weights the next day and might need a personal trainer or a program. I also tried to run just for 2 minutes, but on the very first step there was heel pain. Yoga was fairly pathetic - not bad but I didn't have a lot of time and wasn't feeling the stamina and only did the first bit - the warm-up sun salutation basically.
The 30-day shred - PATHETIC! Ok, first of all, I did this once last week and it was the same day I was starting my period and I couldn't even get through but that was mostly because of my period but here is more. It just wasn't that long ago that the 30-Day Shred wasn't that hard, that I was doing 13 pushups on my initial effort, and the cardio wasn't a significant problem. Last week I only did 6 pushups my first go. Today it was up to 7. The other thing is, I can feel my flab bouncing around, jerking down every time I land on a jumping jack, and I can barely allow myself to do the jumping jacks with arms because I'm holding my belly and boobs (wearing 2 jog bras) and just feeling my back flab bounce. This was not the case last time I did this routine, which was only like in September or so.
So next time I really will have to make sure to wear a very sturdy leotard or something to keep my flabby parts from bouncing so painfully. What is her name on the 30-Day Shred? She says "I have 400-pound people who can do jumping jacks, SO CAN YOU!" and I'm just wondering how the 400-pound people manage that bouncy flab!
So, the brunt of it is that there's a great big spike on my sparkpeople weight graph showing that I've gained nearly 15 pounds since a month ago! That's really pretty bad. I weighed 238 yesterday (after breakfast) - this morning it's 236. I definitely have the potential to show some great improvement since I'm at such a low right now, but it really will take intense consistency over the long haul to reach my goal. I think I should blog daily to remind myself, maybe even start a new blog and get a fresh start.
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