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Aquafit Tuesdays

7 Oct

Normally Tuesday and Thursday evenings I am in a dragon boat, training. I’m so used to that schedule that when training season ends and I have those evenings free I feel a little lost…what am I supposed to do now? Usually, for a month or so I just have fun doing whatever, either staying in or going out, doesn’t matter what I do I feel like I am in the wrong spot, like I’m cheating on the team lol

Training has been done for quite a while now and I’m trying to find something to replace it, I’m much more likely to not skip a workout if it is planned and I’m expected to be there. Gotta love accountability! 😛

A teammate suggested I join her at aquafit class on Tuesday evenings. Normally I would have begged off, uh, bathing suit? No thank you! But ever since my cliff jumping and subsequent swimming in the ocean I have been wanting to get back in the water. I had so much fun swimming in the ocean that I spent the rest of the summer wanting to repeat the experience. Every body of water I saw while on the rest of my vacation elicited the question “can we swim in that?” and the answer was always “no!”…makes you think about just how horrible humans are to the planet that there are so many different water sources and none of them are safe to swim in, what’s with that?

When I got back from vacation I thought I’d hit up the pool near me but it was under construction and wouldn’t be usable for a couple months, sucky timing that. I have been waiting for the pool to re-open when KR texted me about going to aquafit with her at a different community centre and I figured, yes, go for it! Forget about the whole people-seeing-me-in-a-swimsuit-thing and go, swim, enjoy!

This has been my third Tuesday in a row going to aquafit and I’m really liking it. I always thought of aquafit as something old ladies did lol but this class is an intermediate to advance and has a wide variety of ages, oh, and there are guys there also, not cute guys, old guys, but whatev.

The class is an hour long with 40-45 minutes of cardio, the rest uses these dumbbell foam things to do resistance work in the water. It works the muscles surprisingly well! 🙂

the foam dumbbells

the foam dumbbells

This evening I messed up on the time and was an hour early, oops! Last week I purposefully went early to use the fitness room in the community centre, I hopped on a treadmill and went for a run before meeting my friend for the aquafit class. Apparently my brain is easily confused because when I was getting ready this evening I was remembering being there for 7pm but thought that was for the class, not for the run then the class *rolls eyes* I didn’t take my running clothes because I wasn’t planning on running before the class, and I didn’t realize my error until I was in the hot tub waiting for what I thought were the last ten minutes before class started. I wasn’t about to go get dried off and try to find something to occupy myself for a little under an hour just so I could come back and get dressed in a wet swimsuit lol So I sat in the hot tub for an hour, oh the hardships! lol I actually spent most of that time sitting with my legs dangling in the hot tub, but close enough lol 😛

I know some people scoff at working out in the water, everyone knows it is easier on the joints but somehow working out in the water, in a lot of people’s minds, equates to a less effective workout. Perhaps because you can’t see the sweat? Here are some facts about water workouts that may surprise you…

– Working out in water means your muscles are forced to work harder, burning more fat and toning them up faster than land-based exercises. This is because they are fighting the water every time they move.

– Jogging on dry land will only burn up approximately six calories per minute. But aqua jogging can burn over 11 calories a minute, giving you a better workout.

– The extra pressure of the water on your legs also pushes more blood back up into the top half of your body. This makes your heart work harder, raising your heartbeat and burning even more calories during your water workout.

– Aqua-exercises also have a cooling effect on the body. Because you are working out in the water, your body is not sweating as much to cool the muscles down. This means there is less chance of you becoming dehydrated during your workout.

– People with lower back problems can benefit from aqua-exercises as the water supports them, taking pressure off the spine.

So there ya have it! Don’t mock those of use that work out in the water, we’re getting in shape faster than you are! 😉 lol

I bought a ten visit pass and plan to go to aquafit every Tuesday, most Tuesdays I will go for a run first, might as well utilize as many of the community centre’s resources as I can. 😉

Now to find something to do the rest of my evenings…

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Best Foodie Website Ever!

4 Oct

Today was a Subway kind of day. Actually, I didn’t want food, all I wanted was the fountain diet coke but I figured that the pop alone didn’t qualify as lunch sooooo I got a sub also.

Because I forgot to take a picture of the sub before I ate it...

Because I forgot to take a picture of the sub before I ate it…all I have is a picture of the logo lol

I went with my standard option, a 6 inch turkey sub on 9-grain wheat bread, with white cheese, toasted, loaded with veggies and topped with mustard and light mayo. It may seem boring but I really like it – and not in a it’s-a-healthy-choice-so-I’ll-eat-it kind of like it but I legit like it. 🙂 I  love that you can have avocado, I thought it was supposed to be a limited time offer but it’s been around for ages and doesn’t seem to be getting phased out, maybe it’s so popular they realized they should keep it? shrug. I dunno, I’m just happy it’s a choice.

My sub is more veggie than meat lol I get spinach, avocado, tomato, cucumber, green pepper, red onion, black olives and banana peppers. Mmm! Don’t you love how many different colours veggies come in? My sub always look so purdy 😉 lol

I still remember by heart how many Weight Watcher’s points my sub is but now I’m counting calories and those I do not have memorized. I checked out the Subway website this evening to find the calories and discovered they updated it quite a bit since I last took a look and holy cow, amazing website!!

You pull up a chart that has all their items listed, just like every other nutritional information chart you find on restaurant’s websites but! this one is different! You click on the item you ate and it takes you to a new page where it explains the nutritional information you are seeing is if your sub was on white or wheat bread and had no condiments. But c’mon, who doesn’t put some sort of condiment on there, right? So then you click on a button that says “Calculate Yours” and boom! you get this amazing page that has all the options listed, you can say exactly which vegetables you had, which cheese, which condiments and as you pick and choose what you had on your sub the nutritional information that is showing on the side of the page updates itself.

Seriously, best. nutritional. website. EVER!

Turns out my sub with all it’s modifications is 440 calories – good to know! )

As I was googling for a picture of the Subway logo I came across a Subway scandal! *shocked face* Turns out people have been measuring their subs and they are shorter than they are supposed to be, the footlong is coming in at 11″ which makes me wish I’d measured mine before eating it lol Next time! 😛

If you want to check out the Subway nutritional information page click here.

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Hunting For Information

3 Oct

I met a friend for coffee today which turned in to lunch at White Spot which turned in to my first meal that I can’t properly track because I didn’t cook it at home. Erg.

I knew this was bound to happen but why-oh-why did it have to happen so soon? *pout* I’m weird in that if I am tracking I want to be able to track perfectly for every single thing I eat, if something happens and I can’t track a meal then I feel “what is the point” and I usually quit. It’s stupid, I know. It’s just that if I’m doing something, I want to do it right, shrug.

So for the rest of the day I didn’t know what to do. Should I eat? Should I assume my meal was all my calories for the day and my punishment for eating something I shouldn’t have is that I don’t eat again today? What do I dooooooo?

Well, duh, I went online and went hunting for the nutritional information lol Gotta love the internet!

At first I couldn’t find what I needed, the salad is new and I wasn’t seeing it on any of the nutritional information charts that White Spot has online…granted I was searching while at work so I couldn’t fully dedicate my focus to my sleuthing lol When I got home I was all ready to admit defeat for tracking my food today but I decided to give it another go and boom! Found it! *happy dance* Actually, more like horrified gasp…

I am not so dumb that I don’t know that restaurant salads are not always healthy, that in fact, they can be hiding a huuuuuge amount of calories, fat etc and you might just be better off buying a chicken burger or sandwich or some other dish, that knowledge didn’t stop me from buying a salad though…and no, it wasn’t one of the salads marked as a healthy choice, it was a new salad that sounded tasty…I let my desire for something tasty dictate my food choice and I am now kicking myself for that. Kicking hard!

The salad that I ate (ate every single bite of I might add) is the Candied Salmon Spinach Salad. I know, I know, the word “candied” is a dead give away, sigh. I somehow thought the spinach and salmon in the salad would counteract the candied part and the dressing…obviously it did not.

Here, this is the salad description, how can a girl resist the sound of this salad?

Candied salmon, fresh strawberries, gingered pecans, red onion & Okanagan goat cheese on spinach dressed with our champagne vinaigrette. With garlic panini bread.

white-spot_candied-salmon-spinach-salad

And yeah, I ate the bread too…

After my second round of internet searching I learned that my lunch was 868 calories! Broken down that is 682 calories for the salad and 186 for the garlic bread.

Yes, I do know I could have saved calories by getting the dressing on the side but I didn’t so no point in lecturing me about it now. 😛

Here comes the second problem with food…when I was at work I had to decide if I should eat dinner or not. I decided I should, cause if I skip eating that’ll mess with my metabolism, right? Right. So, I ate dinner.

Dinner at work today was salmon (not candied!), with squash and other veggies on top of couscous. Soooo, healthy? I dunno, shrug. The salmon didn’t have a sauce or anything, so I’m leaning towards that part being healthy, and the veggies were probably ok too, but what about couscous?

After some hunting online I came up with approximate numbers for dinner, 88 calories for the couscous, 82 calories for the veggies and 354 calories for the salmon. The calories for the salmon pains me, pains! That’s a total count of 524 which puts me at a total of 1392 for the day.

I can’t decide how I feel about that number. *confused face*

My first two days tracking my calories I wanted to be under 1200 calories a day, the second day I went over a bit and ate 1263, but I thought that wasn’t sooooo bad. After lunch today I was all ready to be super pissed off at myself but I was talking to a friend at work who is a personal trainer and she said I should not be eating under 1200 calories a day, that is too few calories and I’ll put myself in to starvation mode. I’m still not sure exactly how many calories I should be eating, but if I am aiming for 1200 now, then 1392 isn’t so much over that I can’t recover from it, right?…Riiiiiight…ok, so maybe I am trying to make myself feel better and I could be way off, I dunno, sigh.

What sucks is that it is now almost midnight and I am hungry *pout* Looks like my two high calorie meals today didn’t keep me full, nor did all the drinks I had which no, I don’t mean alcoholic drinks but diet coke, water and tea.

So yeah, that is how my third day went, ordering ridiculously bad for me food and ending up being hungry at the end of the day. I want a cookie *pout* 😉

 

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The Smell of Stupid

2 Oct

You might not think that ‘stupid’ can have a smell, let me assure you, it can.

I was cooking dinner this evening and two things happened. The first is this semi-yummy meal…

Mmm, pasta, shrimp and veggies.

Mmm, pasta, shrimp and veggies.

It is Catelli Healthy Harvest pasta, no name mixed veggies, 9 frozen pre-cooked shrimp all mixed up with Classico Alfredo & Sun dried Tomato pasta sauce. I rate it a semi-yummy because I prefer a higher sauce-to-pasta ratio so to me it was a bit bland. I cooked 85 grams (1 cup) of pasta because the box said that is a serving, ummm, yeah, way too much! Next time I will half the amount I cook and that should be plenty, bonus is that I can keep the same amount of sauce (1/4 cup) and that should be a much better sauce-to-pasta ratio for me. 🙂

But really, the meal is not the most important thing that occurred during the cooking of dinner. This also happened…

How lovely, melted plastic!

How lovely, melted plastic!

Something you should know about my kitchen, I have almost no counter space. I don’t mean I have a normal sized counter and it is covered with stuff, I mean to the left of the sink I have a space wide enough to have two cups side-by-side (so, tiny space!) and to the right of the sink I have just enough space to hold a dish drainer…is that what it’s called? I mean the thing you put your just washed dishes in to so they can air dry. And that is it. That is all my counter space.

This means a lot of food prep happens on top of the stove because there is nowhere else to do it.

Soooo, this evening I have water in a pot coming to a boil on one front element, on a back element I have a pan heating up to eventually cook the shrimp in and on the other front element I have my kitchen scale, which I am using to measure out my veggies. The veggies are kept frozen so I kept having to pause in the pouring of them in to the bowl that is on top of the scale so I can hit the bag against the edge of the sink in an effort to break them apart.

Then…the smell starts. It doesn’t smell good. I couldn’t figure out what it was, none of my food should smell like that, but I don’t have any candles burning, nor is anything else in the apartment creating a smell, so what the heck is it?

Even though I don’t like the smell I can’t figure out what it is so I keep doing what I am doing, figuring whatever is causing the smell will stop eventually, or make itself known.

I take a look at the pan on the back burner and realize it isn’t warming up, which makes me take a look at the stove knobs which made me realize holy shit I’d turned on the front element and was cooking my kitchen scale! Ack!

I immediately pulled the scale off the burner and strings of melted plastic spread from the bottom of the scale to the element, like melted cheese on a pizza, but smellier.

Sigh.

I put the scale upside down on the edge of the sink, I couldn’t think of any better place it should be put to cool down lol and stared at it in horror. Horror! This oh-so-awesome scale was a gift from my brother yeeeeears ago! I’ve been using this scale at least 7 years…holy crap I feel old now…but that’s besides the point! This scale is awesome, and I cooked it! Who does that?!?! 😦

Not gonna lie, I started to get upset not only because I was stupid and cooked the scale but because now I was going to have to try to find money to buy a new scale asap so I can keep on with weighing out my food, sigh. Then I remembered I have a back-up scale, yay! Couple years or so ago my mom got given a scale from a friend and she passed it on to me, it is a Weight Watchers scale that can calculate the points of a food while it is on the scale, cool huh? I didn’t use it because I wasn’t following Weight Watchers at the time and if I did need to weigh something, well, I already had a scale, shrug. Me being me though I kept the WW scale, in the box, in perfect condition, in a rubbermaid container where it would be safe.

Point to me for keeping the scale! 🙂

I pulled the WW scale out of storage after I finished dinner and was so close to being relieved when I realized it didn’t have a battery and it takes a 9V battery, not exactly something I just randomly have lying around. I know, I’m so weird right? 😉 lol

But fear not! When I went to put my dishes in the sink I tested the scale. It had cooled off so I flipped it over and tried turning it on and holy crap it works! Wowza! 😀 I cooked the scale so much I can see clear through to it’s innards but that sucker still works! Talk about quality made! lol

Now all I have to do is figure out how to get the melted plastic that has become one with the burner off the burner…and ideas?

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The New Day One

1 Oct

I started my day with a measuring tape and my almost naked body, lovely image that! lol 😉 Ugh. I even attempted to weigh myself but my scale appears to be dead.

My scale is digital, before you step on it you are supposed to lightly tap the top of it with your foot so that it flashes three zeros then, once it shows a steady 0.0lbs you fully step on it to get weighed. Well, my scale seems to have forgotten it is supposed to start at 0.0lbs so every time I tapped the top and it reset itself it set to a weight, which I would have deducted from whatever number showed on the scale when I stepped on it but the number was different each time and frankly, it left me not trusting the scale. I took this as a sign I should stick with my measurements for tracking lol

Though, the measurements are confusing me also, sigh. I measured myself at the beginning of September so when I measured myself today I of course compared the numbers to those from Sept 1st and they had changed. All but one of the numbers had gone down (one of them stayed the same), which is awesome, but I don’t think realistic. No way I’ve gone down by at least an inch in every spot I measure, not in a month, especially a month where I haven’t been doing a good job of exercising.

I’ve been working really hard since coming back from vacation in July to eat three meals a day instead of the one or one and a half I normally eat, and for the most part I’ve been trying really hard to eat in a healthy balanced way. I wasn’t tracking calories or anything, I was just trying to make better choices in general, so protein and veg and fruit with smaller than what I used to eat amounts of carbs. Nothing really impressive about that eating plan, and nothing that would create a large change, right? *confused face*

So why are the numbers down? For my arms I think it is because dragon boat training season is over, has been for a while now, and that means my arms are being worked a bit less, well, a lot less lol. Even though dragon boating is mostly core, back and shoulders, the arms do get worked, I figure the lack of practices has taken away some of my arm muscle, hence my arms getting a bit smaller. As for the rest of the numbers, I guess I messed up somewhere. I double and even triple measured myself today because I was so shocked the numbers were different from last month so I guess I messed up when I measured in September.

In case you’re wondering, the different areas that I measure are:

– mid upper arm

– just under the breast

– belly button

– lower than the belly button at the fattest part of my tummy

– hips

– fattest part of my thigh

– mid calf

I measure both the left and the right side, mostly because my left and right legs are different sizes due to an old injury, but it is something I recommend for everyone, after all, if your feet can be slightly different sizes who says your limbs can’t be?

There are a lot of measurement tracking pages you can find online, none of which I liked (of course lol) so I made my own but I don’t use it, instead I draw a stick figure and make marks on the stick figure labeling what I am measuring and what the measurements are. I don’t know why I prefer using the stick figure drawing with measurements marked on it but, shrug, I do. I’m visual like that I guess. I am going to start transferring the measurements to the tracking sheet I made though for quick reference.

I ended up not taking pictures of myself like I had planned. I have one full length mirror and that is in my bedroom, by the time I woke up there were construction guys working on the house next door so there was this constant parade of guys walking past my bedroom window. Now sure, you’re probably thinking, why didn’t I close the blinds? Well, they were as closed as they can be but thanks to a certain cat who has climbed through the blinds so often they have been permanently disfigured there is no such thing as having actual privacy in my room anymore, the blinds are always open at least a bit…just enough to make me uncomfie standing around in my underwear and bra, taking pics of myself, while guy after guy walk past my window. I know, I’m so high maintenance! lol So I’m thinking Saturday morning should be safe, I mean, construction guys won’t be working on a Saturday, right? It’s a bit annoying my measurements and my pictures won’t be done on the same day but 4 days difference won’t matter, nothing will have changed in that amount of time, shrug.

he looks innocent but he killed my blinds. Blind killer!

he looks innocent but he killed my blinds. Blind killer!

I managed to track every single thing I ate today, yay! I ended up eating 1140 calories, I’m not sure if that is good or bad since I haven’t done the calculations that will tell me how many calories I should be eating, oops! Also, I did nooooo exercise, nadda, niet, nine, NONE! Talk about a lazy day!

All in all, I think my New Day One went well, I didn’t cheat with my food even though I was sooooo tempted, I tracked everything I ate, I got my measurements done…*nods head* yup, a good new Day One. 🙂

2013-06-28 22.05.47

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Getting Back On Track

30 Sep

Lately I have sucked at many things, the main ones are writing on this blog consistently, writing on this blog about something other than my vacation, following any sort of eating/fitness plan and budgeting. Yeah ok, budgeting doesn’t seem to really fit in there but hey, it’s something I suck at so why not add it to the list? lol 😛

I’ve decided to stop being an unorganized annoying person who wants to see change but isn’t working towards it, and instead be someone who is actively working to achieve the change they want to see.

Man oh man will this suck! lol Well, at the beginning anyways, but hopefully soon (very soon, pleeeeease very soon!) it will all become second nature and it’ll not seem like so much work.

Officially I am starting tomorrow, I like starting things at the beginning of a month, that way when I look back at what I am tracking I can see a whole month’s worth of information instead of one week, or half a month or however long it has been. The chunk of time not working towards my goal, and therefore not tracked, looks like some gaping black hole to me when I am glancing at my accumulated information and it bugs me. Yeah yeah, I know, I’m weird, let’s move on shall we? 😉

Here is what I am starting, as of tomorrow, but technically did today to see how it went:

– I am tracking what I am eating. Every. Single. Bite.

– I am tracking my exercise

– I am tracking my spending. Every. Single. Penny. (even though we don’t have pennies anymore…am I the only one that misses pennies? sigh)

To this end I bought myself a cute three subject notebook…

hoooo! hoooo!

hoooo! hoooo!

One section is for my food, one is for my exercise and one is for money spent. I know a lot of people use smaller notebooks to track things, ones that will be easier to carry around but I tend to lose them in my purse, or forget about them, and I thought why not use a larger book, one that can hold everything, is cute (so I like looking at it), and has pages that are large enough the stuff I write down won’t be cramped or written in super small print so it fits?

Today, with the food tracking, all I did was write down what I ate, I didn’t include calories or convert it in to Weight Watchers points, I just wanted to start the habit of writing down what I eat.

I’m not actually sure what kind of meal plan I am going to follow, which is probably pretty stupid considering I am starting tomorrow but there are so many different ways to go about this and I’m not sure anymore which is the best way to go, sigh.

I could follow Weight Watchers again, but I plan on working on building muscle and that means tracking by following numbers on a scale won’t work out too well. I could follow the version of Paleo I was on before, it worked really well, but it is very strict, there is no wiggle room and I honestly don’t know if I can follow that again. I could follow a basic calorie counting plan, figure out how many calories I should be having a day and make sure that is how many I eat.

Without thinking I’ve already come up with three different ways I could go with this, and that is without research, this is just from what I know already…think how much more confusing it could get if I start doing more research? There are meal plans that take in to account your blood type, your body shape, plans that take away all sugar, all carbs, all meat…too many options!! Arg!

I am leaning towards counting my calories, I haven’t done that before, well, not successfully lol but maybe this time I’ll be better at it…couldn’t be much worse I suppose. 😉

The last couple times I have tried to get back on track I find a new app for my phone and try that route but this time I am going old school. I did well when on Weight Watchers and I tracked by writing everything in a notebook, not using the app. While normally I am all about utilizing technology, sometimes I think it doesn’t work as well as the low tech ways. With all the different apps I have used I have had issues, either they are American based so the foods and restaurants etc that are loaded in to them don’t match the foods and restaurants I have access too, they only track you by weight, they are rigid in their definition of meal names, they think that just because it is past midnight it’s a new day even though I didn’t get up till noon and am not going to bed until 3am, they don’t have the exercises in their database that I do…things like that…In the end I find the limitations of the apps so annoying I stop using them.

When using a notebook sure there is a bit more work, I have to look online to find the information (calories, WW points etc) or *gasp* read the nutritional information on the food package but that’s ok, am I so important I can’t find time for that? Pfft, no. Well ok, some days it might be harder than others but I’m sure I can manage it, right?

As for exercising, I will still use apps for tracking if only so I can get accurate distances, calories burned and time of day I exercised. I don’t track all my exercises, when I lift weights for example, but I think it’s more important to be tracking the cardio. Hmm, that sounds wrong, I track weights in the sense I keep a record of how much weight I lifted and how many reps, I just don’t use an app for that.

For keeping track of my success (note the optimism? 😉 ) I will be measuring myself in oh-so-many places lol I will also take pictures of myself (front view, side view, back view), I will repeat this on the first of every month. I’m toying with also weighing myself but I find that the number on the scale can have really negative effects on me and I just don’t know if I want to go there…I’ll see how brave I am tomorrow and if I think it’ll be a wise choice to step on to the scale.

BMI Scale Measuring Tape

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30-ish

13 Jun

Alrighty so today was THE day, the day I was stepping on…dun-dun-dunnn…the scale! (insert scream here!)

It was NOT a pleasant experience at all! 😦

Everything started off ok, I got the new battery in, chose a flat non-carpeted spot to place it (as per the sticker on the bottom), stood on it once to get it calibrated (still following what the sticker said). According to the sticker you step on, wait till it flashes a number, ignore the number, step off, wait till the screen goes blank then step back on because only after all that is the scale actually able to properly weigh you.

I gotta say, after all that, the number that showed up on that stupid silly little digital screen made me so upset I couldn’t decide if I should hit something, cry, pout, break the scale, crawl back in to bed and hide or immediately sell my car so I could find a doctor and get liposuction.

Of course I did none of those things,  I hopped in the shower with that horrible horrible number repeating itself in my head and gazed blindly at the wall of the shower wondering what the hell happened. How had I let that happen?? Talk about epic fail.

I had thought I’d gained 10-15 pounds from the last time I weighed myself, which, in case you are wondering was hmm, two years or so ago? I stopped weighing myself when I started building more muscle and the scale number stopped giving me proper feedback on my progress. Um yeah, no, according to the scale I have gone up 30 pounds. THIRTY POUNDS!!!

fat cat 2

I just don’t get it, I mean yeah I have gone up a pant size, but usually a pant size is 10 pounds, and my top half hasn’t changed size in years, where are these thirty pounds? Where?!?!

Why didn’t any of my friends give me a heads up I was headed back in to porker land? Aren’t friends supposed to tell you things like this? 😦

pig

I’m so mad about that number!

A friend of mine, who is also a co-worker, was at work today and I spoke to her, I was in such a funk and I needed to vent to someone. Turns out she doesn’t even own a scale so as soon as I said I stepped on one she was asking me why I would do that lol Only the supremely fit wonder why the rest of us rely so much on the scale *rolls eyes* She is a personal trainer and couldn’t believe the number the scale gave me. She also said that:

(1) the scale can’t tell the difference between fat and muscle and since we’ve known each other (about a year) I’ve put on muscle

(2) unless it is one of the scales that tells you your body fat percentage, muscle and water retention the number doesn’t mean anything

(3) if I’m wearing the same, or close to the same clothing size as before then the change in number can’t all be fat gain

(4) never pay attention to a scale

During our convo another co-worker walked in and heard what we were talking about, she said she gained 40 pounds in a year so my weight gain is a totally possible thing to which my friend asked about her clothing sizes and she admitted she went up 4 clothing sizes in that one year…so she most likely gained fat (I’m not being mean, she is the one who said that!) where as I apparently gained some combo of fat and muscle…I just don’t get it, sigh. I mean, I get it in theory, but that doesn’t help me with how I’m feeling right now.

It especially doesn’t help that I have an audition tomorrow and have to be in a swimsuit. 😦

So I don’t know what to do…I was freaking out when still at home and getting ready for work and decided that things need to change asap. I made my healthy breakfast (dropped an egg on the floor while doing it, ugh, messy!), made a healthy dinner to take to work (which I accidentally left on the counter when I left for work so I had to throw it out when I got home, talk about a day for wasting food, sigh), decided I am no longer eating food from work unless it is legit healthy or I stupidly leave my healthy food at home *rolls eyes* and I took workout gear with me so when I was done at 9pm I changed at work and went for a run in the area I work. I find by the time I get home at 9:30pm it is too dark to run but if I run at 9pm it is still decently light outside hence the running where I work.

I was paranoid about how I looked when I left the house but while at work I went to the washroom and thought I looked good in the mirror…am I trying to subconsciously delude myself about how bad the situation has gotten? Are my eyes tricking me? Maybe the mirror is faulty?

When I was finished at work and changed in to my workout gear I could see all my problem spots but I was still confused about the change in number, no way I would have been able to wear the t-shirt I was wearing the last time I weighed this amount, it is too slim fitting, and I only bought these work out pants when I was a lower weight then I am now (about 15 pounds lighter than I am now) but they still fit and more importantly they still look good.

So what gives?

I’ve decided to let that number spur me in to motion, be my reason for moving more, eating better, being fitter. I hate that number and even though I have no idea how much of it is fat and how much of it is muscle, I don’t care, I still hate it and I want it to get smaller. I will make it smaller!

More workouts at the gym, more evening runs after work, more proper meals, more focus, more dedication, more pushing myself.

More!

never quit again

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The Battery Debacle

12 Jun

Alrighty so this past weekend I was supposed to buy a new battery for my stupid scale and then on Tuesday I was going to, *gulp* weigh myself for the first time in years…Years! I was not looking forward to this…

There was a slight delay, than a glitch, and well, it didn’t happen, oops?

I forgot to get the old battery out of the scale Sunday night so I could take it with me to work Monday and buy the battery Monday after work. Perhaps my subconscious at work? 😉 I figured oh well, so I’ll buy the battery Tuesday and weigh myself Wednesday, a delay of one day won’t kill me.

One day, ha! 😛

Tuesday I was out and about, helping a friend with some stuff, we did a quick stop at Superstore and I meandered over to the battery section only to find I wasn’t exactly sure which battery I needed. sigh. I still hadn’t taken the battery out of the scale but I remembered what it looked like from the last time I changed the battery and figured how hard could it be to find that same battery? Turns out I had a 50/5o chance of getting it right and I got it wrong. *rolls eyes* The battery is a round flat disc, but there were two batteries like that…who knew?

Look how similar they are!!

Look how similar they are!!

Wednesday I completely forgot about it, was busy hiking and in general just enjoying my day but I remembered Wednesday night and was determined to weigh myself Thursday morning. I put the new battery on my night side table where I couldn’t miss seeing it when I got up and went to sleep with the sure knowledge I would swap the battery out in the morning and somehow find the courage to step on the scale.

Um, well, nope, it took about 15 minutes or so just to get the cover open so I could get the old battery out and that is when I discovered I bought the wrong replacement battery. They look sooooo similar! I almost opened the package to give the one I bought a try anyways but decided against it, I figured better to go buy the proper one and return this one so I can get my money back. Hey, I’m cheap, don’t judge! 😉 lol

No way was I not going to eat before going out to do my errands and when I weigh myself I follow some simple but unalterable rules:

(1) use the toilet first

(2) ingest nothing beforehand

(3) be naked

(4) hop on the scale before hopping into the shower

(5) put my contacts in, they weigh less than my glasses

Which meant no weigh-in for me today, gee, I’m so upset about that…said no one ever! lol

I managed to finally buy the correct battery today, only took me three freakin days! So tomorrow, barring any kind of weird unforeseeable freak occurrence that will prevent me from getting on the scale (please-oh-please let something happen! *crosses fingers* 😉 ) I will be putting that brand new battery in to my evil evil scale and stepping back in to the world of weekly weigh-ins. I have no words to describe how I feel about this but this picture may help give you an idea…

fearI actually prefer weighing in on Tuesdays, or even Wednesdays, but if I don’t get my feet on that scale sooner rather than later I may never do it so Friday morning it is! I may switch to a Tuesday or Wednesday weigh-in next week though, we’ll see just how horrible Fridays weigh-in is and see if I can convince myself to get back on to the scale before the next Friday rolls around lol

 

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A Dog’s Day

11 Jun

Today was so great! 🙂

I got to sleep until my body decided to wake itself up, I am a firm believer that everyone should do that because the body knows when it is rested enough, but sadly the way society works doesn’t really gel with that philosophy so instead I try to give myself one day a week where I do that. Today was that day. 🙂

Then I got to take my landlord’s dog for a hike. I would have gone hiking anyways but the company of Steff (the dog) was much enjoyed. We had to stick to an easier trail because Steff is 10 years old and has arthritis…course, I have arthritis and that doesn’t stop me from doing the harder trails but I’m kinda dumb that way lol 😉

Steff, she will confirm I am a dummy at times lol

Steff, she will confirm I am a dummy at times lol

We also ended up going a bit slower than either of us wanted because at one section of the trail we met some random lady who had two adorable dogs and the first words out of her mouth to me were “oh so you’ve heard about the bear?” to which I replied “huh?” Pretty intelligent response dontcha think? 😉

Turns out a lady had just passed her and warned her she saw a bear on the trail so all the people on the trail with dogs were warning other people with dogs so that leashes could be re-attached to collars. Apparently dog people have some sort of gossip club lol She assumed since Steff was on leash I had heard about the bear and was taking precautions. In actuality it was that I was worried if Steff saw something that got her really excited she might run off and not come back when I called cause I’m not her person. I told her this and somehow a conversation evolved and boom! hiking buddy. shrug. The dogs got along well and I couldn’t think of a polite way to leave her in the dust, unfortunately she was a slower hiker than Steff and I so we ended up slowing down to the woman’s pace. Steff wasn’t impressed with this, she kept going as far forward as she could then looking back at me as if to say “really? Really!!”

So we hiked to the end of that specific trail, it ends at this big open space that has multiple trail options so you can either keep going on a different trail or go back on the one you just finished. Before heading back we took the dogs to this water spot where the current isn’t as fast as in other areas so the dogs could jump in and enjoy themselves. I gotta tell ya, I was really wishing I was in shorts and could wade in there with them, the water was so clear and inviting looking. Instead I stayed on the rocks and Steff seeing I was being a silly human and staying dry oh-so-kindly came up to me and shook as hard as she could so I got sprayed with water – isn’t she just the most thoughtful dog ever? 😉

Cuteness

Cuteness

We went back on the same trail we used to get to the water because it is the easiest trail and I was worried about pushing her too hard and making her arthritis flare up. What can I say, she’s not my dog, I was worried! I can’t very well take her back to my landlord and say “here is your dog, sorry she’s limping and drenched from the river!” I’d be homeless in an instant lol

Part way back Steff all of a sudden stopped, stared right into the bushes next to us and started to bark. Creeeeepy! My response was to immediately shorten her leash so she had to stay near me and put myself between her and the bushes, cause apparently I am ok with a bear attacking me before her…she’s not even my dog! *rolls eyes* She did a really good job of staying close, not even trying to get ahead of me for quite a while, then when she decided the danger had passed she started trying to pull ahead, I figured I’d trust her instincts over mine so I lengthened the leash again.

After one last dip in the river we separated from the lady with the two dogs and jogged a good chunk of the rest of the trail. It felt really nice to be moving faster, which when I pause to think about that seems strange cause I’m lazy but oh well lol

She kept trying to eat the water, must be a dog thing!

She kept trying to eat the water, must be a dog thing!

In total we did 10.81km and it took us 2:14:22 which sounds ridiculously slow but that is because I didn’t pause the app when we stopped so Steff could go swimming and in total we stopped about 6 times. So combine going slower cause of that lady and stopping completely so Steff could swim and it totally messes with my average time to complete a hike but oh well, I had fun and I figure that should count for something, right?

After we got home Steff immediately curled up in her bed and had a nap, I went and moved furniture *rolls eyes*. A friend of mine moved recently and she had this shelving unit, the type with the cube spaces instead of traditional shelves, her new place is too small for it so I bought it off her for $40 and am replacing my dead dresser with it. I had it in the back of my suv and had to haul it in to my place, originally I thought I’d ask my landlord for help but he wasn’t home and I didn’t want to wait so I did it on my own. Lemme tell ya, this thing is not light! It is two cubes wide and four cubes tall and the wood is thick, talk about working the already tired muscles! It is currently sitting in my kitchen cause I still need to buy the cloth cubes to put my clothes in. The cat is loving it! He may be upset when it gets moved to the bedroom cause he seems to be under the impression I brought it home and put it in the kitchen as a new toy for him…so far he’s jumped on the top, hung out within the cube spaces and when running around hyper treated it like an obstacle to dive through. It’s hilarious!

He couldn't decide if she should go to the top or stay where he was lol

He couldn’t decide if he should go to the top or stay where he was lol

2014-06-11 16.45.20

2014-06-11 16.45.31

Since those pictures were taken he has lounged on the top, chased his tail within one of the cube spaces and in general claimed the unit as his. At this rate I’ll never get it back! lol 😛

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Admitting The Truth

6 Jun

I didn’t think I was that person who lost weight, then gained it back. After all, I’m nowhere near the size I was at the beginning of my weight loss journey buuuut…I’m also not the smallest I have been on this journey.

I haven’t wanted to admit this to myself, let alone to anyone else, but it is time I faced the truth…I rebounded a bit. Does this mean I am now a yo-yo dieter? I dunno. Does it mean I am doomed to gain back all the weight I lost? I dunno. Does this mean I am destined to gain and lose and gain and lose for the rest of my life? I don’t know that either…sigh.

Seems there is a lot I don’t know.

I know that I have to get back on track, but I feel lost and not sure how to do that. I keep thinking I am not going to go back to Weight Watchers because I plateaued so badly on that program. Don’t get me wrong, I am super grateful for Weight Watchers, I lost 35 pounds with them, I learned about proper portion sizes with them, I learned I can happily swap out junk food for fresh fruit and enjoy healthy eating but I also feel there are limitations to that program and that I outgrew it. I don’t feel like going back to Weight Watchers is the right choice for me but that doesn’t mean that I know what the right choice for me is.

I also know I am not good at extreme programs. I can only maintain eating paleo, or the bodybeach program, or super restrictive low calorie eating plans for so long before I cave. Even if I like the food and am getting good portion sizes it is more about all the foods I am not allowed to eat. Knowing that on an extreme program having even one spoonful of peanut butter could be considered cheating messes with me. I need a bit of wiggle room, space so I don’t get all down on myself when I step outside of the food rules that I am following.

I need something realistic, and affordable!

My scale has been tucked away for over a year and I am scared to pull it back out, I am scared to see what the number will be when I step on it. I’d rather be back in boxing class getting hit during sparring than stand on that scale again. How pathetic is that?? I originally put it away because I was building muscle and the scale number was no longer an accurate way to measure my progress. It was sloooowly going up as I was getting more trim and it was messing with my head. For so long I relied solely on the number it gave me every week to know if I was doing well and to see it go up, even though I knew it was because of muscle gain, made me feel like a failure. I started gauging my success/failure by other means, how my clothes fit, what size I could now buy, every now and then I would check my size with a measuring tape. For a while these methods of tracking worked but then they didn’t work so well anymore and I was left with no solid way to hold myself accountable.

I’m thinking that is around the time I started to slowly go up in size. For a while it was easy to ignore, my clothes still fit, just maybe a bit tighter, I could still reach the same levels at the gym, even though I wasn’t at the gym as often, I was eating roughly the same amount calorie wise but the calories were coming from more processed foods than fresh healthy foods.  The pounds snuck up on me and now I have to face reality that I have gone up an entire size, so that’s what, ten pounds? That’s depressing. All that work I did to lose weight and I have gone and gained some of it back. What was I thinking?! 

What’s twisted is that even with the weight gain I am more active then before, just in different ways. Instead of going to the gym daily I will swap out gym visits for a hike, or a run or my dragon boat practice. I am still active just not in a regimented gym equipment kind of way, and I guess the activities I am doing now aren’t as good for weight loss or weight maintenance as following a gym program is. Kinda sucks cause I enjoy the hikes an such but if I have to choose between enjoying the activity and getting results from the activity I will choose results every time…well, except for dragon boating, I will always choose dragon boating lol.

I don’t want to be writing this, I don’t want to be that person that gained weight back. But ya know, I follow a lot of other blogs that deal with weight loss, healthy lifestyles etc and I’ve noticed over the years I don’t seem to be the only one this happens to. It seems a lot of people, before they reach their goal weight have a slip up and gain some of the weight back. Most take a while to admit it to themselves and the longer you take to admit it the more weight you have gained back. I know with me part of it was the way I was thinking about food, I started getting cocky, thinking I didn’t have to be as strict cause I’d lost so much, I could let down my guard a bit. Well, proved that idea wrong! I let down my guard and look what happened! 😛

Even though I’m feeling down because I am facing the truth about my weight gain I am glad I am facing this truth now rather than a couple more months down the road when I will have possibly gained back even more weight.

I don’t have a solution for this, I wish I was concluding this post with some great awesome plan that would get me back on track but I don’t have one…yet! For now I am going to aim to get a new battery for my scale (mine died) and I plan to stand on that scale Tuesday morning. I also have a 4 week eating plan that I am going to research a bit more, see if it is doable on my budget, and I am going to schedule exercise into my days instead of leaving it as an up-in-the-air thing that happens more sporadically then it should. Hopefully I can get myself back on track within 5 days or so and huh, look at that, I may not have a solution yet but it seems like I actually do have a bit of a plan, at least a plan in the making…I’ll cross my fingers it works!…Uh, anybody wanna step on that scale for me? 😉 lol

Must remember this

Must remember this

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