Right on track!




And you know... I actually weighed less yesterday... weighed 159. However, I refuse to cheat, and I am going to post the numbers as I see them on the scale... because even if I am weighing a little more because of water (which I suspect I am because I ate a lot of salty stuff yesterday), how my body deals with salt and water and stuff like that is something I need to keep tabs on, too.

Feeling pretty good today. :)

Couch to 5k - week 1, complete!

Been adhering, mostly, to my planned eating...

And I weigh in tomorrow. I have high hopes. WOOT!

OK, went to the gym last night and had a pain-free run (although I admit it was difficult because I was feeling very fatigued for most of the day yesterday).

I'm not going to overreact just yet - but I am going to consult with the doctors, anyway. And I'm certainly not going to just stop exercising. I'll have plenty of time to lay down and be still when I am dead.

And, really, apart from being tired again (this time due to a late bedtime and being at the office by 7:30), I feel like a million bucks. It's really amazing what a difference just losing a few pounds makes... even just five pounds makes me feel noticably better. That, in and of itself, is great motivation. Honestly... feeling great is the best part about a healthy lifestyle. Losing weight and getting into smaller clothes and all that stuff is great, but feeling really and truly at the peak of health is the best. I feel like I'm "on my game."

So my week is a little crazy. I'm figuring on getting to the gym on Saturday morning, but I need to find one day between now and then to get there, and today's not going to be the one - and neither is Friday because I need at least one rest day between runs. It's going to have to either be Wednesday or Thursday, and it's going to have to be in the morning because I have a meeting with Nancy after work on Wednesday and a political fundraiser AND choir practice on Thursday. Why is this time of year so nuts??

I am going to commit to Thursday morning. There.

xposted to shakingthetree :

Okay... so if you've been following along, you know that I keep getting pain when I run. I'll go so long for so many weeks, then I'll get pain in my right tibia.

I got to wondering... could my bizarre but my otherwise heretofore nonproblematic birthmark be part of the problem?

In my research, I read about Casey Martin. He's a golfer; he has the port wine stain birthmark on his right leg, just like me. He has the associated Klippel-Trenaunay Syndrome... which I am suspected of having.

Read the article in the link. Go ahead.

I'm making an appointment with a specialist based on the recommendation that I get screened for Klippel-Trenaunay Syndrome, which will help me understand more... but this kind of frightens me a bit.

Could my constant problems be because I have the problems Mr. Martin has - to a lesser degree, certainly, but still..?

Am I putting myself at bigger risk than I thought by trying to run?

Will my circulation in my leg deteriorate? Do I face... possible amputation?

I need to get to a doctor and get some answers.

Today's weigh-in...

161.5.

Not great... but not bad! I actually thought it was going to be much, much worse than that... as two weeks ago, I jumped on the scale and weighed 165. Holy crap, Batman.

As I see it, this is really pretty good, considering that I looked/felt my best when I weighed 140 - 145ish. That's when my infamous before/after picture was taken; that's when I felt like I'd really "landed." When I began to dip into the 130s, people actually told me I looked too skinny... so maybe 140 will be my ultimate goal. It'd be foolish of me to set a ridiculous goal of 115 pounds and try to be a skinny model... because skinny models do not have bodacious boobies and curves that could stop traffic. When I am at my ideal weight, I have both. (Yes, I'm tooting my own horn. Go ahead and get angry, but then you should get over it, because it's true.)

I also feel good about today's weigh-in because it means that since I officially hit my goal in 2007, I have only gained sixteen pounds since then. In the past, I would have gained MUCH more than that - which means that some of the skills I learned in The Beck Diet Solution have stuck for good. I do think I will revisit the book, though, and do some refreshing. Couldn't hurt. I even thought about starting the whole program over again, with whole new response cards and everything. I might do it.

So I'm going to re-set a goal of 145 and see what happens... if I lose a pound a week - a conservative yet very reasonable expectation - I could reach my goal by the end of March... just in time for lovely springy weather, cute spring clothing, and with a buffer of time to lose a tiny bit more if I want to be super-svelte for swimsuit season.




I've got my food all planned out today, and I'm well within my 1300 calorie allotment. Normally, dinner on Friday is my "freebie" - meaning I get to splurge on this one meal a week while keeping it under control all the other days - but since I have a show tonight, I'm going to stay at 1300 today and use tomorrow at breakfast for my splurge meal... and even then try to keep it reasonable.

I feel great, motivation is high, and although I know it's going to be hard (losing weight in the winter is super-difficult for me!!!), I have so many good resources at my fingertips to help me. Onward!!!

Okay, I need to do some shopping and get my calorie-counting in order.

Here's why...

Yesterday, after somewhat of a hiatus, I went back to the gym. It went well. I burned a total of 250 calories (per Calorieking.com's calculations). I completed Week 1, Day 1 of C25k. Good stuff.

My trouble is my calories. To lose weight in a healthy and reasonable way, through a combination of exercise and eating, I need to allow my body to have 1300 calories a day. For example, if I burn 300 calories in a workout on any given day, I need to consume 1600 in order to ensure that my body has 1300 (give or take). During the day yesterday, I had consumed nearly 700 calories during the day, leaving me a good 600 or so for dinner. When I got home last night, I nibbled on some Thanksgiving leftovers (cranberry sauce and some roast turkey), but was afraid to eat too much more than that so I didn't - brought my calorie total to 950. That's low... but not horrific... but I was afraid to eat too much else in my house for fear I'd push myself over the edge. I told myself to stop eating, and I went to bed.

The trouble is the burned calories, which I did not take into account... and since I burned 250 calories yesterday, that brings my total back down to 700 calories - which is not enough for a person to subsist on. It's starvation-level stuff. It's scary. And I did it without realizing it, because I wasn't prepared with food in the house that I could feel good about eating and got spooked.

So a goal for this week is to purchase some snacky things for myself that I can munch post-workout (probably something good-carby for post-running recovery) which will keep me from doing what I did last night... which was to go without.

Bah, hate myself for doing this. I should know better!!!!

Yeah, yeah, I know. I haven't been here in quite a while... but a lot has happened!

x-posted to shakingthetree :

Similarly inspired as lec210 was by last night's episode of The Biggest Loser, I'm going to start running again.

Actually, scratch that - I'm going to take better physical care of myself, and running's going to be a part of that. Seeing the folks on that show last night reminded me that I owe it to myself to make my health and well-being a priority... and it reminded me that I was once brave and determined enough to lose 60 lbs. (and I kept most of it off! go me!) I think, however, that during the course of this year, I've ignored that part of me because I was concentrating on so many other things - the denouement of my marriage, getting my house, nurturing a new relationship, getting better at my job, etc. Also, it doesn't help that my gym closed its downtown location, which was oh-so-convenient to me because it was literally less than a block from my office.

So - on Monday, I started reducing my calories once again (to a healthy 1300 per day - no more of that starvation bullshit - with my free-license Friday dinner), I've dusted off my old CalorieKing.com membership and started using the food diary in earnest, and today I go back to the gym despite its inconvenient location. When my membership expires, I feel certain I'll probably get a membership at the YMCA, which is only just down the road from my house and which will also enable me to work out at the downtown Y, as well. But as long as my current membership exists, I really ought to use it. My other thought on my membership expiration is possibly redirecting that money towards tap lessons... but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. I have a year to think about it. And I may want to start tap sooner than that, because I just love it and I want to be better at it, and it's really excellent exercise that doesn't feel like a chore.

I'm very eager to go back to the gym. I've missed regular physical activity, which I got plenty of during The Producers but have been sadly lacking since it closed. So I'm going to get back on the Couch to 5k wagon and get my rear in gear. This is good, too, during the holiday season... gives me a way to wage war against the fattening goodies, and gives me a jump start towards looking hot next spring.... and it'll keep me from being bored. Andrew's working at Harry & David during the holiday season for a little extra holiday cash, and so I don't see him many evenings... so I might as well do something good for myself instead of sitting around, right? Yes!

OK - work is piling up, so I must get to it. Perhaps a report later, post-gym. Perhaps not.

Whew, haven't posted here in a while.

But it just occurred to me - I bought the Wii Fit and the EA Active Sports game to go with it... and there's a 30-day challenge thing that I saw online in connection with EA Sports.

So I think I'm going to do it!  And I'm going to chronicle the process here.

I start July 1!

Wish me luck!

Just checking in briefly to say that I went to the gym this morning and did Couch to 5k, Week One, Day Two.  Did pretty well.

Also did core exercises...

And - I've lost another pound.

Pounds lost thus far: 

4

Well, haven't posted HERE in a long time!!

Life has gotten the better of me over the past year or so... and I've managed to gain back about twenty of the sixty pounds that I'd lost.  Those of you who follow my personal journal know that it's been a horrific year.

I know I'm not alone.  A lot of people who deal with trauma tend to fold up while they heal from the inside out.  That's what I think I've been doing.  I stopped exercising altogether because I couldn't find joy in anything for a long time... which made working out actually feel painful instead of invigorating.  I stopped watching what I ate because I was too focused on figuring out the new problems which I was facing.  Over time, the weight slowly crept back on... and it was slow.  Considering that I lost sixty pounds in a year and gained twenty back in the following year, that's a slow gain.  A slow, insidious gain.  And even though I had Dr. Beck's good advice, which I still completely recommend and endorse as being the best weight loss program out there, I was not prepared for the deep issues I'd face during this very painful time in my life.  I simply ran out of ways to talk back to my sabotaging thoughts - or, I guess more appropriately, I stopped talking back to my sabotaging thoughts altogether.  I felt so defeated that I didn't have the emotional chutzpah to even fight them.  I'd need volumes of response cards - but even if I had them, I probably wouldn't have had the energy to take them out and look at them.  I simply rolled over and let the hurt wash over me.

However - I also know that the human spirit is resilient, if we allow it to be, and I am getting back up on my feet, dusting myself off, and putting my shoulder to the wheel.  I still feel the pangs of loss and grief and pain, but I'm slowly regaining control of my life and seeing sunny spots here and there.  It's been a slow process and it's ongoing.

I started by doing something that I knew would make me feel good - I signed up for belly dancing lessons.  I remember once seeing a belly dancer at a local Middle Eastern restaurant, and I admired the beautiful feminine energy of the dance - sensual, but not sexual.  Feminine and powerful.  And to get myself out of this funk, I needed ALL of that... sounds dumb, but I needed to feel like a vital, powerful woman again, get myself moving again and feeling beautiful and confident.  It seemed like the perfect answer.

And it was.  I adore belly dancing now and, after three months of lessons, I'm being moved to the advanced class because my teacher (who has been studying for 30 years with masters in Egypt and elsewhere) has told me I'm a natural.  So I guess all those traits about the dance that I admired - strong, beautiful, feminine energy - were residing in me all along.  I just needed a way to tap into it.  Oh - and did I mention that it's a great workout?!

I've also started getting back to the gym... slowly.  I went yesterday for the first time in several weeks and, for the first time, it felt good to me again.  I started Couch to 5k again - from the very beginning, Week One, Day One - and had no pain from my prior injuries.  I did upper-body strength training, and I rewarded myself at the end of it all by a long session in the sauna.  Showered up and came home... and for the first time in many months, I felt the way I was supposed to feel: relaxed, content, renewed.  I had been missing that.

Obviously, I need to shed the 20 that I gained, so I've started keeping track of my food again with CalorieKing.com.  I have some unique challenges as I lose weight this time, and I am going to have to try to devise a way to get around them, using Dr. Beck's book as the backbone and framework for the struggles I know I will face.  I also could stand to re-learn some of the good habits that I've let slide.  These include:

1)  Eating while standing up - or, as I call it, "fridge-grazing.

2)  Eating too quickly.  I have water to help me out with this, and my plan is to sip between bites.  Hello, bathroom...

3)  Feeling badly about throwing away food.  This was brought to my attention recently at a family gathering for my stepbrothers' birthday.  As my dad was preparing food, he was cutting a cantaloupe for a fruit tray.  He'd scooped out the pulpy part with the seeds and began cutting up the fruit into squares, cutting off the rinds.  After he'd done all that, he started eating the green part off the rinds... and when he was done with that, he started EATING THE PULP AND THE SEEDS!!  I said, "Dad, what the heck are you doing?!  You're not supposed to eat that!"  And he said, with pride in his voice, "but it's wasteful to throw it away."  I replied, "No it's not - it's waste - and that has got to taste gross!  It looks like snot!"  And Dad replied, "If it's edible, I eat it."  And then, after eating the pulp and the seeds, proceeded to eat a full meal PLUS everyone's leftovers ("can't let it go to waste").  And he wonders why he is overweight because, as he says, "I don't understand... I exercise, I lift weights" - which is true, but if he eats like that, he can't burn all those extra calories through the limited amount of exercise he does.  Anyway, Dad always taught us not to waste food, too... and although he has gotten extreme (or I just never noticed it before), seeing it in action when HE scarfed down all that food really hit it home for me.  Yikes.

So my point in all this is that I'm trying again, with a sort of renewed energy.  As I've told people time and time again, it's something that you've got to really want - and I want it.  I'm tired of being tired.  I'm tired of the lack of energy and tired of feeling "squishy."  I miss my old self, and although she'll be changed emotionally, I want her back and I want to help her get better, stronger, happier.

“You see, you don't get old from age, you get old from inactivity, from not believing in something.”
-Jack LaLanne

Well, it was bound to happen sometime...

I had a phenomenally CRAPPY run today.  Seriously, it was awful.  Everything about it felt just terrible... and I began to overheat and get dizzy only 20 minutes into it.  I came back from my run feeling absolutely defeated and terrible.  I peeled off my clothes and wrung out my sports bra over the bathtub.  From the amount of liquid that came out of it, one might have guessed that I went for a swim rather than a run.  I could not stop obsessing over the fact that I signed up for a race in August and that I'm never, ever, ever going to be able to run it.  I chalked up the bad run to performance anxiety - maybe.

The sun was not out and so it felt cool enough outside, but what I neglected to check was the humidity.  In meteorological terms, we're currently at 90% humidity with a 73-degree dewpoint.  In layman's terms, it was like running in someone's armpit this morning.  PLUS - it's an Ozone Action Day - which means that asthmatics such as myself will have a difficult time anyway.

So - I am going to stop beating myself up today about my crappy run.  I did the best I could under the circumstances.  I did not perform poorly; I do not have performance anxiety.  Mother Nature threw humidity at me this morning, and I merely wasn't ready for it.

Anyway... it may have been a bad run, but I looked darn cute doing it!  I bought a couple of new singlets and running shorts over the weekend, and I love them!  It's so much nicer to run with actual running gear.  I can't imagine how much worse I would have felt on my run today if not for the tech fabrics.

Meh - I'll try, try again on Wednesday!  Onward!!

<tr><td colspan="2">

</td></tr><tr><td>

Faithful Friends 5k
www.faithfulfriends.us
Brandywine Creek State Park
8/10/2008
Registration Opens @ 08:00am
Race Starts @ 09:00am

Awards: Medals for top male and female overall, plus top 3 in each of five age groups.
Amenities: T-shirts and refreshments for runners. T-shirts limited to the first 150 entrants.
Registration: Complete and mail the registration form below.
Free Kids Fun Run: Fun run will start prior to the main event.
Directions: Brandywine Creek State Park, Hawk Watch Pavilion, 41 Adams Dam Rd, Wilmington, DE.
Customized directions available at http://www.destateparks.com/bcsp/bcspmapblast.htm
Parking: “Hawk Watch” parking lot, accessible via the main park entrance off Adams Dam road.
Brandywine Park parking fee: $3 in-state vehicles, $6 out-of-state (payable on race day)
Course: Scenic trail in this beautiful state park. Course map (trail marked in orange) available at http://www.destateparks.com/bcsp/Brandywine%20Creek%20State%20Park%20map.pdf Questions: Call Faithful Friends at 302.373.1528

*********

And guess who is registered to run...!

Can I get a WOOT??!

</td></tr>

Someone had left me a comment here on my diet blog recently asking me where I was - sorry!  I haven't had much time to update either of my journals (a bit of personal upheaval in my life - I won't get into it here, don't worry!) and so for that I am sorry.  When I do get time to sit down, I usually go for my personal journal first.

I'm doing well!  Since joining Calorieking.com in late April, I've lost the eight or so pounds that I put on over the holidays - and I'm finding it more and more difficult to lose weight, which is signaling to me that maybe I'm approaching where my body wants to be.  I don't know... I'm going to keep eating healthfully and exercising regularly and see what happens, but I'm not going to knock myself out or anything.  My BMI is a healthy 22.9 (a far cry from the 32.3 of two years ago!!), my blood pressure's down, and I feel like a million bucks - so, really, who could ask for much more than that?  Not me!

Running is going well, apart from some little niggling pains here and there - which was, at first, very alarming to me.  The pain, however, is different from the stress fractures last fall in that rest and ice makes these pains vanish.  As long as I take it easy and remember to not train too hard and try to do too much too fast, I'll be in good shape.  For a chronic, competitive overachiever such as myself, it's hard to resist - especially on days like today, when the weather was good and I felt like I could go an extra half-mile or so on top of today's prescribed training.  No; my body is not ready, and no matter how much body and heart feel, brain must take over and set the limits.

I'll tell you what, though... you know what feels really good?  Being out there running... being on the home stretch and feeling the challenge to my body... and then really digging down, deep and hard, to will myself to take me to the end.  Sometimes, it isn't the legs that carry me to the finish - it's the spirit.  I think that's what I like the most about running; it's a challenge to the self.  Each time I run, I run my own run, facing no other challenge than the one I've issued to myself - and succeeding.

I may never wear a number on the front of my singlet - but for me, every run is a race... against me.

Happy to report two things:

1) I had a two-pound loss this week (hooray!) and

2) I was too tired to run last night but I dragged my butt outside and did it anyway, and I did well, too.

I'll be able to start Week 5 next week... which is nice.  I'm well on track, and I think that doing all my training outdoors has actually made me more fit as opposed to the treadmill, reason being that there are hills outside.  I mean, yeah, you can adjust the treadmill to create "hills," but I think a person's more apt to do the hills when they're forced to on the road rather than programming a treadmill.

I'm loving being back out.  I do my best thinking when I'm running.  I enjoy the solitude.

I met a new cat, a big black fellow with piercing green eyes.  I have named him Grackle.

Starting Week 3 today!  (Okay, so it's the middle of the ACTUAL week, but I've never been a person to stick to the actual orthodox way of doing things.  I've been running Week 2 for, like, two and a half weeks.  I think I'm ready to move on.

Weigh-in tomorrow...!

I started Week 2 this week... and I ran this far.  It was a struggle, I think because of all the pollen in the air (not fun for us asthmatic allergy-sufferers!) and because it was windy.  Honestly, it was like some weird phenomenon of nature; no matter what direction I was running in, it always seemed like I was AGAINST the wind!

It feels good to make progress.  I like the challenge of it!

I must admit here that I do have pain in my legs, both of them.  However - it's not the same kind of pain as the sfx's, so I'm thinking it's just a case of good old-fashioned shinsplints.  It's not that constant, throbbing ache; just feels like sore muscles, really!  I'll keep an eye on it, though.

Calorieking.com is turning out to be an immensely helpful tool - I believe that this, in conjunction with The Beck Diet Solution, will help me shed these last 15 or so pounds.

I did Week One on Tuesday and again this morning, and after running it just one more time on Saturday, I will progress to Week Two.  I'm excited!  It's nice to be back out on the roads... and being outside in the kind of clear spring air that only exists at 6:30 a.m. felt so cleansing.   Right now, running is both serving as a way for me to improve my body's function as well as a kind of therapy.  It's almost like meditation.

I've also added a powerful new resource to my "bag of tricks" in my fitness venture - Calorie King.  Access to their extensive calorie/nutrition database is completely free; for a reasonable $7 monthly membership fee, I am enjoying additional access to a full array of tools, including a food diary that all but eliminates the guesswork out of calorie-counting in addition to making sure I'm getting a proper balance of fats, proteins, carbohydrates and fiber.  I should have joined a LONG time ago, maybe even when I started the Beck book last spring!

Wow, that was last spring...

Anyway, I'm all jazzed up now and remotivated to lose the last 15 lbs or so to get to where I'd like to be.  I feel that now I have this extra tool in my pocket, I will succeed!

Weigh-in tomorrow...