Tag Archives: exercise

Release The Anger

25 Jul

Stress and anger not only help our bodies hold on to what weight they have they also help our bodies to gain weight – how mean is that?? My solution to this is to release the stress and anger from my body – I know, easier said then done right? lol

My life right now is fairly anger free and stress free, I mean, there is always some sort of stress (about having money to pay bills or thinking about my upcoming agent hunt etc) but that’s life right? There is always something to worry about but I think how you deal with the stress and anger is how to keep it from affecting your weight loss. Normally I deal with stress by not dealing with it, lol, I’m good at avoidance and if that doesn’t work I go driving late at night, might seem weird but that always helps me sort things out in my head. With anger I have to do something, usually what I want to do is punch a wall (or some other object, shrug), I want violence when I am angry. Now, since I don’t want a police record for vandalism or violence I instead go hiking or do some other kind of physical activity to help release the anger, it really does help!

However, I have a confused anger that has been building in me since Saturday and I don’t know how to get rid of it. It is leaving me lethargic and not wanting the violence or action I normally crave when I am angry. What I want is to hide away but I can’t do that, I do have a life ya know 😉

Here is why I am confused and angry all at once: last week I kicked my own ass like you wouldn’t believe! I hiked multiple times, I went to boxerfit twice, I dragon boated, I ate properly, yes I ate some exercise points but not all and because I exercised so much I didn’t have to use my flex points – so great right? I did everything I am supposed to! I ate right, I exercised like crazy, I followed all the rules…guess what happened on the scale on saturday (and sunday! – I did a second weigh in hoping I imagined what I saw on the display on saturday) I gained 3 pounds!!!! GAINED!!!!! The  string of swear words I want to type here is crazy long but in an effort to not offend anyone I will refrain from writing them…instead I will say them out loud…

How the fuck did I gain 3 pounds? I mean, if I cheated on my food throughout the week or didn’t exercise or some combo of the two well sure, then it’d make sense I gained but not when I follow the rules! I shudder to think what would have happened if I had cheated, how much more I would have gained, ugh.

I know people always say muscle weighs more then fat, which is a bald faced lie. Does one pound of bricks weigh more then one pound of feathers? No! They both weigh one pound! It’s just that one pound of muscle takes up less space then one pound of fat so you can have more muscle fitting in the same sized space as a smaller amount of fat.

Anyways, my friend KL told me today (after I bitched about gaining 3 pounds) that I have most likely built muscle and that’s why I went up on the scale – to this I replied: BullShit!!! I don’t have muscle, I am a weak bodied individual who has a lot of excess fat on her body. My body shouldn’t be building muscle yet, it should be shedding fat. My squishy parts are no less squishy, my not as squishy parts are no more toned then before so where exactly is this supposed muscle forming?

So that is why I am angry, cause of the three pounds gained right before my filming day (literally right before! I film tomorrow!) and I am confused cause I followed all the rules for weight loss and they sooooooo didn’t work!

I don’t know what to do now, do I keep pushing my exercise like the past week? I know I need to keep up with the healthy eating but I feel like I should be doing something else, something different since apparently what I have been doing is not working. sigh. I have been stuck at this plateau for months and now instead of staying the same I am going up – just frickin great. arg.

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Shortest Day Ever

21 Jul

Yesterday I was up and out of the house earlier then normal for me, I was out most of the day, then came home in time to chill for a bit before going to boxerfit class (where my ass was kicked!), then I was home again and up stupid late for no reason. By the time I got to bed I fell asleep crazy fast (a nice change from usual).

Well, today my alarm went off at 11am but I turned it off and rolled back over (yawn), the next time I woke up it was…3:30pm! Can you believe it? Even I think that is late! ack, I slept the whole day away…oops.

I got up right away, showered etc and decided I might just have enough time to eat and get to this evenings boxerfit class…I was feeling (and am still feeling) lots of muscle pain and the idea of going to exercise was making me grimace but what could I do? I gotta lose weight so I gotta exercise.

By the time I had eaten it was crunch time but I just couldn’t make myself move fast enough and I realized something, it was already after 5pm and I had only just eaten my first meal (which was 7 points), that meant there wasn’t much day left but lots of points left…hmm…and! if I went to boxerfit class I’d earn 7 exercise points (which I know I don’t have to eat but I usually eat a couple of them if my exercise was particularly intense cause I feel my body needs the extra energy) so how the heck was I gonna eat all those points when there was barely any day left??

This all culminated into the perfect reason to not go to boxerfit class lol. 😛 I actually really wanted to go, well sorta, but the points stuff combined with my muscle pain and feeling of total exhaustion made it easy for me to convince myself to not go. *rolls eyes* I swear, someone should pay me to come up with excuses for things, I do a great job! 😉

So here I am, it’s amost 9pm and I’ve eaten 14 points, only 6 points left to eat to reach my daily points and I am sure I will manage it lol.

Now the question is, tomorrow, do I go to a make up Dragon Boating training session or do I go to BoxerFit class? I get a better workout with the boxerfit class but I want to have the best rowing form I possibly can since there is a race coming up for my dragon boating team. Tomorrow isn’t the only chance I will have to attend a make up session for the boating which is making me lean towards the boxerfit class instead, it may be painful but I leave there covered in sweat and knowing I really earned my exercise points, and, it’s an all over body workout whereas dragon boating is more the upper back and core muscles…not so much the legs or arms and I gotta work the whole body not just sections of it…well look at that, I seem to have talked myself in to the higher intensity boxerfit class instead of the easier and more fun dragon boating, who’d of thought that would happen? 😛

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How To Tell…

20 Jul

…You had a kick ass workout

(1) every article of clothing you were wearing while exercising is soaked through with your icky sweat

(2) driving home is way difficult and you feel you are almost impaired in some way because you have trouble focusing and you possibly even take a slightly weird route home just to avoid bending your arms to manage the turns cause of muscle pain

(3) while driving home you sit uber straight to avoid your sweat soaked clothes touching the seat

(4) walking up the path to your front door makes you whimper silently in your head

(5) you can’t touch anything in your apartment because you don’t want to get sweat on anything

(6) getting your sports bra off is a form of torture cause it’s so wet it’s become glued to  your skin

(7) the water spray hitting you when you get in the shower makes you whimper out loud

(8) the stretching action required to get dressed makes you grimace

(9) the act of sitting on the couch makes you groan out loud

(10) realizing you sat before getting anything to eat or drink brings tears to your eyes

Voila! That is how to tell if your workout was a major ass kicker or just a regular ho-hum workout. 😀

I would like to point out that my workout tonight was a major ass kicker. 😀 Yah! I went to boxerfit class and there were way more people there then normal, so many in fact that only the first 20 people who signed in were allowed to stay cause if there were anymore then that the room would be too full, lucky I was the 20th name on the sign in sheet. 🙂 Because there were so many of us we couldn’t do the boxing part of the work out cause there wasn’t enough equipment for everyone, sadness, instead he took us through an hour of interval training, so basically it was an hour of intense cardio combined with muscle toning work. omg, the pain! the Paaaaain! aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh! 😛

I did 60 push ups, something I heartily suck at and I lost track of how many squats I did *rolls eyes* we of course did a whole whack of other moves but those two stick out a lot in my mind right now. lol.

I’m glad I got myself to class cause I went out for lunch with KL today and ate a crepe that was filled with chicken, swiss cheese, egg and mayo…oh and KL and I shared some fries. Then I went to hang with some of the old work buddies and while I was there a Dairy Queen ice cream cake was delivered and they insisted I have a slice so I also had a slice of cake, Mmm! It was a tiny piece tho! Honest!

After all that food I figured I was done with eating for the day cause oh man, the calories! eek! I can’t even begin to calculate the points cause well, I have no nutritional info lol. Hmm, I might be able to get an approx points value for the cake, I’ll hafta check. 😛 But yeah, way high in points so I was cutting myself off…then I ended up going to boxerfit heh. By the time I got back from boxerfit and was showered I was hungry and felt I earned some points, some carbs and some protein at least! lol.

I’m not really sure if I ate too many points today and I can’t really afford to over eat on my points cause I keep eating bad for me stuff this week, sigh. Least I am managing to get some form of exercise everyday to (hopefully!) counteract the food…*scared face* Guess we’ll find out on weigh in day *face of dread* 😉

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My Harry Potter Post

19 Jul

I have seen a bunch of posts all over the place about Harry Potter, how devestated people are that it is over, end of an era, end of their childhood – things like that. Now normally I would be the first to laugh at things like that except…I kinda get it.

I didn’t grow up with Harry Potter, those three lovable kids have always been younger then me, but I did watch every movie and became crazily impatient between the watching of one and the airing of the next. I remember when one of the movies was coming out, I was writing a paper for a class at university and a friend called saying she got us tickets to the midnight showing opening night and to get my butt to her place so we could go get in line. Well, hello, writing a paper! That was the fastest paper I have ever written, lol, I had it done by 10pm so I could get to her place, pick her up and get to the theatre in time to get a decent seat, then when I got home I had to proof read it and make sure it was perfect so I could hand it in first thing the next morning. I think I spent a total of 4 hours writing a 12 page paper – ah, the things we do for Harry Potter lol. 😛

I am the only person I know who loved HP and watched every movie at midnight showings (except for the first movie of course) but hadn’t read the books. After I saw the first movie I fell in love with it and wanted to read the books but I heard a lot of people who loved the books were kinda upset with the movie, they were saying it wasn’t as good…well, I didn’t want to not fully enjoy all the movies so I decided the day after watching the first HP movie that I would watch all the movies and then read the books.

Do you know how hard it has been not reading the books?? Even harder was managing to not overhear someone yacking everytime a new book was released and learning what was going to happen before the movie for that book had come out. *rolls eyes* I knew someone was going to die but had no idea who it was and it was extremely difficult keeping that ignorance since everyone in the world seemed hell bent on ruining it for me and letting it slip what happens to who. But manage it I did and I got to the final movie with absolutely no idea what was going to happen to any of the characters, phew!

Course, the whole time all I kept saying was “as long as (insert name here) doesn’t die I will be fine, they can kill anyone else but not that person!”…well, yeah, sigh, that person, that character that I loved from the very beginning…died. Waaaaaaaaaaaaa! I was so upset when they died, still am to tell the truth.

Now I am reading the books (and totally loving them!) and getting to relive the adventure from the very beginning because of course, for all that the movies are matching the books (so far) it is still a different experience reading about what those three get up to then it is watching it. And also, my fave character is still alive at this point so I am getting to enjoy him all over again. 🙂

What does this have to do with weight loss? Um, nothing, shrug, I just felt like putting my two cents in about Harry Potter and his adventures. I am sad that the movies are over, they were something to look forward to, something to enjoy, and now there is one less thing in the world to look forward to, and that’s not cool. erg.

Ok, so back to things that are more relevant, I got my final piece of clothing needed for my outfits for my demo reel. Since I have 3 scenes I need 3 distinct outfits and each outfit has to match the character I am playing in that particular scene. I was missing a black collared shirt that I could wear under a fitted jacket – I am a cop in that scene and in the land of tv/movies that is what cops wear, shrug. Most of what I needed I was able to borrow from KL but I still needed this shirt, luckily I was able to find one in a second hand store so it only cost me $7.99 plus tax. 🙂

The best part was the store is in walking distance from my place so I walked for all my errands today, it’s not the same as my hiking in terms of exercise cause it’s more of a casual walk but I still count it as exercise since I broke a sweat (a more delicate sweat then when I am exercising tho lol) and I was being physically active. All in all I was walking for about an hour and this area is hilly so I was going up and down, it was nice. 🙂 I decided to take it a bit easy today since yesterday I hiked and went dragon boating and I am sooooo feeling it! Tomorrow I will be back to my normal exercising, but a more relaxed form of activity was nice for today. 🙂

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The Panoptican and You

30 Jun

The Panoptican Theory is my favourite sociology theory, and my favourite Sociologist taught me about the implications of the Panoptican Theory in his published work from 1975 Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison, oh, the sociologist is Michel Foucault. It wasn’t the book that introduced me to this theory, it was one of my many sociology profs at the University of Alberta – after learning what the class text book taught me I read Michel’s work to get a better understanding of it. In sociology I focused on crime, punishment and how these affect and are affected by society – mostly I focused on the criminal as I found that the most interesting. 😀

Before I go off on a tangent about something sociology related that you won’t care about let me tell you how I think the Panoptican Theory applies to dieters. 🙂

Oh, maybe I should give you a cliff’s notes version of the Panoptican Theory in case you haven’t heard of it, I’m thinking there’s a good chance you haven’t heard of it, unless you also studied sociology?

K, The Panoptican Theory: basically, it says that a person will self-regulate their behaviour if they are under 24/7 surverillance or at least think they are under 24/7 surveillance. Prisons were built based on this theory (not all of them obviously lol) but those prisons have a centrally located guard station that can see in to all the prisoner’s cells at all times, the guard station is designed so the prisoners can’t see the guards but the guards can always see the prisoners. By creating a scenario where the prisoner knows he may be monitored at all times he will adjust his behaviour accordingly.

This is a very basic understanding of the theory and doesn’t go in to the “whys” of it but it’s all you really need to know to be able to follow my new theory. 🙂

When people are dieting they either tell everyone or no one. I, when I started, told no one because I didn’t want people to know when I cheated (I was absolutely sure I was going to cheat) and I didn’t want people judging me when that happened. I eventually started telling specific people so I would have a support system of sorts and now everyone who knows me knows I am following weight watchers, lol. Quite possibly the worst kept secret ever! 😛

When I was around people who knew I was trying to lose weight I never cheated, I was able to resist all kinds of goodies and treats partly because I knew they would slow down my weight loss and partly because I was being watched. My confidants had become the guards and I was the prisoner – not that I felt imprisoned, or even really realized this at the time but I’m trying to make sure the correlation to the theory makes sense to everyone. 🙂

Last week my roomie was out of town, we almost never eat at the same time or even in front of each other, our timing just doesn’t work out that way. I have never consciously felt restricted about what or when I can eat by her being around somewhere in the apartment because we do not comment on each others foods. Same goes for exercise, she doesn’t have some little notebook somewhere keeping track of when I go for hikes or go to boxerfit or have a dragon boating session just like I don’t keep track of when/where/what kind of exercise she does.

But, when she was out of town last week I stopped exercising and started eating worse then normal. I ate out more then normal, I pigged out on things, ate flex points like they were going out of style…I even stood in the kitchen at one point while waiting for the kettle to boil and ate a spoonful of Nutella out of the jar – holy crap that was goooood! Would I have done that if I thought RN might come down the hallway at any moment and see me performing this insanely bad for me act? hmmm, to be honest, I might have but I wouldn’t have taken so long to indulge (I really drew out the moment) and no way would there of been as much Nutella on the spoon as there was that evening lol.

I came to the realization when she returned from her trip that she unknowingly acts as my Food Guard. I don’t fear punishment from her if I eat poorly, unlike the prisoners who worried they’d be punished by the guards if they did something they weren’t supposed to while in their cells but it seems that doesn’t matter, shrug. Just by knowing she may walk in the door or come down the hall I have more control over my food cravings and am more inclined to go exercise because I don’t want her to think (1) she’s living with a lazy butt who never gets off the couch (2) all I ever eat is junk food and (3) I can’t stick to a healthy living plan if my life depended on it.

Upon further thought I am sure that she wouldn’t think any of the above, and there are plenty of days when she’s not around when I leave for my exercising or when I get back so she has no idea I even did exercise but again, doesn’t seem to matter.

This made me think, do people who live in a household larger then mine, that is full of people (probably relatives) who probably would comment if they cheated on their food plan or stopped exercising have lower rates of cheating? Do they manage to exercise more often then those who will have no recriminations from anyone if they just don’t go? Or do they still cheat as much but are more subtle about it? Perhaps when making dinner they slip themselves snacks when no one else is in the kitchen, or maybe they sneak in some junk food once the kids and spouse are in bed? That archetypal image used in movies and tv where someone is in their nightclothes stuffing themselves with left over cake while standing in front of the fridge must come from somewhere, right?

So maybe all people are eventually going to cheat on their food plan, or maybe certain personalities are more prone to cheating, maybe our society created the situation? There are so many reasons for why people cheat on their diet (healthy eating plan, whatever!) and so many reasons why we don’t cheat.

Apparently I cheat less when my roomie is around, not in the apartment necessarily, but in the city at least so I know that there is a chance I may be caught gorging on cookies – just the possibilty I will be seen stops the behaviour, it’s not a permanent cure (as I discovered when she was gone, lol) but a situational cure…sorta like how the Panoptican style prison is a situational form of punishment and doesn’t work once the prisoner is released and realizes they are not under constant scrutiny.

Who would have ever thought Foucault would be relevant not only in an academic sense but also in a everyday kinda way…I knew there was a reason he was my fave! 😀

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What Happened There?

27 Jun

So I don’t know what happened but the entry I wrote on Saturday didn’t get posted, it stayed as Draft even though I clicked the Publish button. hmmm. Don’t know why that happened but nothing I can really do about it now – except for Publish it now, which I have done. shrug. 😛

Today was the first week back to Dragon Boating, well, technically the first week of the new training sessions was last week but I was in AB and KL was working so we both resumed our training this week. It was so much fun but way harder then our first chunk of training. This team is a lot more serious, it’s still fun but it’s not a “fun league” it’s a team that wants to win at the next festival which means lots of hard work has to get done. We focused mostly on technique tonight and a bit on timing. What I noticed was the most different was in our old team’s training we’d paddle for a short distance while the coach watched us then she’d stop and talk for a bit about technique, timing, tips, stuff like that – there was more resting and we paddled for shorter distances. Which kinda set us up for harshness at the festival since we weren’t used to paddling the full 500km but oh well.

So tonight, we’d paddle and the coach would yell tips to us instead of stopping and talking to us and as a result we’d paddle for way longer distances – which I know is good cause we need to get used to the distance and build our muscles but man oh man was it harder then what I was used to. lol. I am pretty certain I will be feeling the exertion of today tomorrow! 😀  <— how sick is it that I smile big at the thought that tomorrow I will feel muscle pain?? lol.

KL and I went out for sushi after boating to play catch up since first I was out of town and then she was out of town and it’s weird for us to go 2 weeks without seeing each other. I didn’t really bother with trying to pick uber healthy stuff, I just wanted to enjoy myself but I don’t think I did too too badly. 🙂 Before I went out I had my regular Special K and two pieces of toast, I didn’t get to have my fruit cause I ran out, oops. lol.

The sushi, let’s see, I got this eggplant appetizer that I thought didn’t sound too unhealthy, well, when it came out it turned out it was battered and fried so any health benefits from the eggplant or mushrooms that were in it were gone, lol. It was tasty but not so tasty I will order it again so that’s good. Oh, an even better part of it is that it was a small portion and KL had a piece so I didn’t really eat all that much of it – I think there were 6 little bite sized pieces total and I only ate 5. I had one cube of fried tofu (that was KL’s appie) so tofu = good, fried = bad…lol. I had a salmon maki roll, there were 6 pieces, man I love salmon!

My big bad was my specialty roll, I can’t even remember what was in it, lol, I know it had a mayo sauce drizzled around it and I am guilty of dipping my rolls in it. 😛 There was shrimp tempura and some other kind of seafood in the roll and it was topped with shredded seaweed, oh, there was cucumber in there, and I think avocado too…the shrimp tempura part is the worst part of it I think, I mean, hello? Deep fried? Bad! But sooooo tasty lol. Then, just to make it worse, we split an ice cream sundae which when we ordered it I envisioned a classic sunday in those long dishes, well, Japanese restaurants don’t do that lol. This was in a martini glass, the bottom had corn flakes in it, then three small scoops of ice cream, one on top of the other in the middle, surrounded by fresh strawberries and blueberries, a small amount of whipping cream and 3 cream puffs, oh, and the whole thing was topped off with a chocolate cookie. 🙂

The amount of ice cream used total for the sundae was maybe half a cup and one scoop I didn’t like the flavour at all so really, I ate about 1 small scoop total of the ice cream, I had 1 whole strawberry and I managed to snag about 4 blueberries, I will confess to eating the corn flakes, well those I could nab before KL ate them. lol. Oh, and I got half the cookie and 1 cream puff. *eyebrow wiggle* Only crazy people don’t eat cream puffs! 😉 So really, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been…bless restaurants that have small portions, they are a rarity but I love em. 😀

So sure, what I ate was more points then what I should have eaten, even with exercising today but it was tasty and it was nice getting to catch up with KL.

I was lazy all but one day over the past week, I am hoping starting this week with dragon boating will be the boot in the ass I need to get back to my daily exercising. I can’t believe I got so lazy about it! Ack! Weather permitting I will hike everyday this week, honest! Also, I will do my bestest to get to 2 boxerfit classes or more this week, I seem to have bad luck when it comes to getting to that class so I am aiming for only 2 classes this week in the hopes I will be able to manage that. lol.

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Magic Machines? I Wish!

10 May

Who out there has seen the commercial for the Ab Circle Pro? I guess the better question would be, has anybody out there not seen the ad for the Ab Circle Pro? In case you just came out from under a rock I will describe it for you, it is a ridiculous looking machine that you kneel on and then using your core muscles you move your legs around and miraculously you look like…(psst, look at the pic below…)

sooooo I'll look like that if I buy this?

 
I don’t know if I want to look like her…her shoulders seem freakishly wide for her body, and I’m pretty sure she must live off of protein powder and maybe raw eggs cause nobody who eats actual food looks like that…not to mention the wrinkles she’ll be botoxing outta her face in 5 years from all the tanning she does…

But ya know, forget all that and well, I guess I wouldn’t mind looking like that…It’s not the body type I am striving for, I want toned sure but not that toned, I guess more slim/toned like um…hmm, I’m trying to think of a famous person to use as an example but am drawing a blank since they all seem to be stick thin not slim/toned…maybe when I finally get an agent I’ll start a new niche with my body type? lol.

I don’t know why I am fixating on this particular machine this evening, maybe because I have seen the ad for it multiple times since I have sat down? Yeah, that’s probably it. lol. There are so many machines that swear you’ll look exactly the way you want to look if only you use it – deep down we all know they are a load of crap but still, they can be tempting. I don’t want that machine, I make fun of it everytime I see the stupid ad, but! (and that’s where we all get caught isn’t it?) what if I am being close minded and it really would work? What if I am one tv purchase away from the body I want? Oh the horror! Good thing I don’t have a credit card…who knows how many stupid exercise machines I’d have, lol.

They probably work well for people who are not at all active, after all, going from almost no activity to any activity will increase your weight loss – keeping in mind food choices of course – I knew a girl, very large girl, all she started doing was water aerobics and she lost something like 10lbs in 2 weeks…I was uber jealous! Green green green, sigh. But then I realized she had quite a lot more to lose then I and she went from doing no exercise to doing water aerobics and I was already active in varying ways so my body was used to movement…I guess I should look at it as I was in better shape then her and that is why when I would join a new activity I didn’t have large weight losses…but really, I just wanted to be able to join water aerobics and lose 10lbs lol.

We are a society of quick fixes and instant gratification and these machines we can buy over the phone and online feed in to that. They feed in to the idea there is some super-fast-3-minute-a-day-miracle way to lose the weight when really the best way to lose the weight and keep it off is to eat healthy (that means the food choices and the portion sizes!) and be active. It sucks I know! But do you want your own version of that body in that picture up there or do you want to stay how you are? Not that I am implying you don’t look great! I just know that I look at that picture, then I look down at my gut and I know that if I got to choose between the two I’d pick her body…future botox be damned!

Today I ate:

1 apple = 1 point

1 pear = 1 point

1 banana = 1 point

1 Activia yogurt = 2 points

1/2 cup brown rice = 2 points

chicken = 1 point

1 light babybell = 1 point

1 Thinsations Ritz crackers = 2 points

2 pcs bodywise bread = 1 point

1 turkey burger patty = 3 points

1 cheese slice = 1 point

mustard and ketchup = 0 points

mixed veggies = 0 points

1 Thinsations yogurt covered pretzels = 2 points

20 mini bretons = 2 points

Total points eaten = 20!

Yah! I ate my points and only my points! Thank goodness!

I was worried I’d be over today cause I had this thing to go to after work so I had the babybell and ritz for a snack and I thought that would mess up my points for my dinner but apparently not. 🙂 Sweet huh?

I still feel hungry, which sucks, but I’ll be going to bed soon so I won’t be awake and aware of the hunger. lol.

Oh, and you’ll note I am back to eating fruit again! I fell off that bandwagon when we had a bit of cooler temps and in the mornings I was wanting oatmeal not fresh fruit but today I felt like fruit and ya know, I felt so much better after having ate the fruit then I do after eating cereal or oatmeal. Not that I feel poorly after eating cereal or oatmeal, don’t get me wrong, I love both those things, but after eating the fruit I felt lighter, full but not heavy…does that make sense?

Plus, the 3 pieces of fruit at work and the huuuuuge veggie portion I had at dinner, I’d say I got 5 fruit n veggie portions easy – I just may manage the Canadian Food Guide quantities one day if I keep this up! lol. 🙂

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Back To Basics

20 Mar

Alrighty, so if you read my more recent posts you know that last week sucked a big hairy toe and I am uber glad it is over and done with. Well, turns out last week wasn’t quite done with me and wanted one more chance to kick my ass. sigh.

My food week starts on Saturdays so I weigh myself on Saturdays so that I know how my weight changed during the previous week – make sense? Well, I weighed myself yesterday (saturday) and almost fell off the scale…I had gained 3 pounds! Gained??!?!!?! Fuck! After a moment of pure shock and sadness and freak out-ness I had the hope that maybe it showed a gain of 3 pounds cause I was freakishly bloated…maybe I really only gained like 1-2 pounds but blotation was making it worse…hey, hope springs eternal right?

So after a day of shopping with KL – where I refused to try clothes on cause I felt so bad about the weight gain, and eating not healthy food cause of being out all day I decided what I needed was a reboot.

I got up today and weighed myself again – sadly, the 3 pounds gained is real, double fuck! Then I went for a hike. *rolls eyes* Nothing like getting fatter to motivate you to get some exercise. lol.

I hiked 3.8 km on a strenuous level path around a golf course; this is the hiking path I was using last summer on a fairly regular basis. When winter finally showed up and I had to stop using the hiking path there was a part of me (a huuuuuge part!) that was happy I had a legit reason for no longer going out and exercising after work. I can’t afford a gym or anything and hey, if I can’t go out exercising cause of the weather…well, I can’t be blamed for the seasons changing. 😛

I guess since spring is practically here I don’t have a legit excuse – oops, I meant to say reason, a legit reason for not exercising. *big dramatic sigh* I’m not looking forward to the next chapter in my weight loss journey – I don’t want to start hiking again, I am lazy and I like being lazy! Also, when I got home I could still smell the out of doors, ugh, I don’t like the out of doors – I like being inside, away from nature. My clothes had picked up the smell of trees and leafs and grass an stuff – ick.

Maybe my punishment for getting fat is having to go out in nature to exercise…?

So today I started what is sure to be the painful path back to losing my weight instead of gaining it back – cause really, having to re-lose weight I had just lost, totally sucks! I thought about food groups, I planned ahead for what I was going to be eating, I refused to let myself snack when I wasn’t hungry, I was really careful about writing down what I ate, I didn’t fudge on my points and I exercised. Seems simple, and really – it is. I don’t know why I stopped being so diligent about all of this but I did, sigh. No wonder I gained 3 pounds, shrug.

This coming Friday I am going to a birthday dinner so my goal for this week is to not use any flex points until Friday and weather permitting I will hike twice this week. Those both seem reachable goals to me and I made sure to buy lots of healthy stuff when I went grocery shopping – I have even come up with some dinner ideas to try out this week that will include large veggie portions and lean meats – see? Planning ahead!

I wonder if I will be able to lose that 3 pounds as quickly as I gained it? Guess we’ll find out in a week! 🙂

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Soooooooo Close!

31 Oct

We all know there are a variety of things out there that can hamper our weight loss journeys. Whether it is stress, temptations, weak will power, holidays…whatever, there are a lot of things that can get in our way. Some things we can control, like not over eating during the holidays, some things we can’t control as much, like having to deal with a sudden and stressful situation. That is what I had happen last week, I found out tuesday night that lay offs were happening at work and since then I had major stress. Stress I would get laid off, stress because one of my good friends got laid off, basically I had stress. lol.

I am not good at dealing with stress. Sure, with certain types of stressful situations I am fine but uber stressful? Nope, not my thing. In general, I have a very stress free existence. I don’t mean that I don’t have things in my life that cause stress, I just mean I don’t allow those things to stress me out. I just dismiss things, what’s that expressions…as a duck sheds water…that is how I am with stress. shrug. It rolls off my back – it’s a good way of being, I think, but it also means that when something out of my control pops up that is uber stressful my body freaks. sigh.

The freaking of this past week caused my body to have stomach pain, headaches, bad sleep and a host of other physical symptoms. Through all this I was most worried that the stress would cause me to not lose weight – as of last weekends weigh in day I was 0.8 pounds away from reaching 15 pounds lost and I really wanted to reach that 15 pounds! I wanted to reach it cause, hello? 15 pounds is awesome! and also cause it meant I had reached my first goal and would be allowed to purchase a full length mirror and go through my closet trying on all my clothes to see what fit and what was too large and basically having a fun clothes day. I have been slowly finding clothes in my closet that I can fit in to that 15 pounds ago I was too fat for, I am way excited to find even more of them but decided to make an event of it – hence the waiting till I reached 15 pounds lost. 🙂

Well, I was sorta right and sorta wrong about the stress causing me weigh in day problems. See, weigh in day is every Saturday at 2pm, this became the day and time cause (1) I wanted it on a weekend and (2) the first couple weeks I slept in way late and that was the time I was finally up and about so I have kept it that way ever since. The problem with having weigh in time so late in the day is that if I have anything to do on the saturday that causes me to get up earlier it screws up my weigh in. Anyone who weighs in weekly knows that stepping on that scale around the same time each week is vital.

So friday night I was out with a friend and we ended up eating dinner later then normal, that might have been ok except I also had to get up earlier then normal on the saturday cause I have a nannying job and no way would I get there in time if I wasn’t already up, dressed and fed by 2pm. When I stepped on that scale saturday I was nervous and felt I had every right to be, especially when the number popped up and I had gained 0.2 pounds, yup, you read that right, I gained. sigh. I wasn’t upset about it, which is kinda surprising, but I knew there was a good chance the scale would be mean that morning because of (1) all the stress, (2) later dinner friday and (3) early weigh in time saturday…it was a recipe for a bad number. lol.

I decided to not let it get to me, after all, what could I do about it? Sure, I was now a full freakin pound away from 15 pounds lost instead of 0.8 but sigh, you just gotta let these things go. However, I did decide to re-weigh myself on the sunday, just to see if the number changed…mostly cause I was curious if I had gained the 0.2 pounds because of the dinner, the early weigh in or the stress. I figured if it was the stress the number would still be about the same but if it was a combo of the other two factors maybe the number would be different. Well, woohoo! The number was different! *happy dance* I had lost 1 pound so now I am only 0.2 pounds away from that 15 pounds lost! I almost cheated and went and bought the mirror, I thought that I am soooo close and for sure I will lose that 0.2 this week so why not get it this weekend and have it all ready for use next weekend when going through the clothes in my closet? Right? Well, I decided not to. Cause I haven’t reached the 15 pounds so if I bought the mirror I would be cheating myself out of the celebration of buying it cause I had reached a goal. Does that make sense? Also, if I bought the mirror before I reached the 15 pounds then what happens with my next goal? K, sure, I haven’t actually set a second goal yet, lol, but say I set a goal so that when I lose 30 pounds I get to buy, I dunno, really rockin boots, well, if I pre-buy this goal then for the next goal it will be even easier to say “meh, I am only 5 pounds away from reaching the 30 pound mark, for sure I will reach it so I’ll go buy the boots now” – then not only am I cheating myself out of my prize again! I am cheating at an even earlier time…which you may say I won’t do but I probably would. By buying early now I am practically giving my future self permission to cheat. *rolls eyes* that may sound stupid but it’s how I work. Ya gotta set precedent ya know? …all those law classes at work I guess. lol.

So here I am, 0.2 pounds away from my 15 pounds lost mark and feeling uber happy about that. Even with all that stress last week I stuck to my points and did what I was supposed to and I guess it worked. Sure, I didn’t lose a lot but considering everything that was going on last week, I am happy I lost anything at all. Oh, and combine all that stress with me not exercising…not even once! Oy! Bad move me. lol. I am hopefully starting up a new exercise class tomorrow so I’ll let you know how that goes.

Today I ate:

3 pieces french toast = 7 points

3 tbls maple syrup = 2 points

3 tsp brown sugar = 1 point

2 pieces turkey bacon = 2 points

2 cups kettle corn = 1 1/4 point

1 Mr Noodle chicken flavour = 8 points

1 Quaker Crunch’ers = 2 points

That puts me at 23 1/4 points eaten for the day. Crap. I forgot to write down the turkey bacon in my tracking book and only now remembered it, so that messed up my points for today. I hate forgetting to put things down in my tracker cause that means when I am looking at getting a snack or something I think I have more points to play with then I do, grr.

I think I normally forget to write things down on the weekend cause I am more lax about things, ya know? I am not being controlled by the schedule at work or anything which makes it easier to just slack. Ah well, 1 1/4 points over isn’t gonna kill me, and ya know what? That french toast was sooooo worth it! Mmm! It’s the first time I have ever made french toast, I had to figure out what to do by memory and I am pleasantly surprised I figured it out. So yummy! 😀

Hopefully tomorrow the new work out class works out cause that’ll mean I have one guaranteed physical activity a week for I think it’s 6 weeks, then I can combine with that my 11 visit drop in pass for the local community centre, I can use the pass for the exercise room so I will try to pick one day a week I will for sure go and voila! back to two exercise days a week. 😀 Wish me luck!

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What’s One Step Down From A Miracle?

12 Oct

Whatever is one step down from a miracle is what I got today – I can’t believe what happened. For most of you it won’t seem like a big deal but to me, and people who know my “knee history” well, it’s practically a miracle.

Many many moons ago (aka a bunch of years) I hurt my knee, bad. I used to go to the gym everyday back then and I pushed myself hard – I took these pills (sigh, yeah I know!) that gave me a boost of energy, I thought this was a great plan cause it meant I could do like 2.5-3 hours of intense cardio every single frickin day and on top of that I would do weights, some sort of kickboxing class or a boot camp, and stretching. They were long crazy gym sessions that I loved! So, one day (the last day of summer before the new college year started) I went to the gym then came back home and saw some shelves I had been wanting put up in my bedroom were up – a friend of my parents is a handy guy kinda guy and he put them up for me. I, in a move I still regret sigh, went to climb on my bed so I could reach the shelves and put stuff on them and that’s when it happened. It’s almost embarassing how I did this…sigh, I stepped up with my right leg putting all my weight on my left – not a big deal, right? Well, wrong. My knee was weakened from my over exercising and it gave out (this next part gets icky so be warned!) – I didn’t just stumble, oh no. I went crashing down, hit my desk, chair, garbage can and a stack of books before landing on the hardwood floor *rolls eyes* and when I landed my left knee cap was behind my knee instead of in front where it belongs. Oh geez, I am getting creeped out just remembering it, ugh.

All I can say is my poor parents, they were gonna go out that evening and instead they hear me falling to the floor and landing with a thud and then me swearing and screaming. lol. Looking back it is a bit funny, in a cringe worthy kind of way but at the time…oh so not funny! They had to call an ambulance and these paramedics showed up, I am sure everyone thought I was freaking out over nothing but hey, it’s their job to at least take a look right? So they cut up the side of my favourite lounging pants (I am still upset about this! the guy promised to cut on the seam and didn’t so the pants were ruined!) and the next thing I hear is my mom gasping when she sees my knee and the paramedic saying it is the worst dislocation he has ever seen, great just great. So now that the paramedic knows I am not faking I was hoping he’d put it back cause hello? Pain! but no, he comes at me with a frickin needle (I am phobic about needles, lol, I instinctivly tried to get away from the IV which meant I moved which meant I jarred my knee which meant I swore some more which meant he caught up to me with the needle, and guess what? the knee hurt so badly I barely noticed the needle!) and then they put this weird split stretcher on either side of me and kinda scooped me up in to it. Strange sensation that.

Off to the ER we went at the worlds sloooowest speed cause every bump jarred my knee, oy! Then came the “joy” of hanging out in the ER, I can’t remember why it took so long to get a doctor (there was probably an accident or something) but it seemed to take for frickin ever to get a doctor. When the idiot doctor finally comes to see me he’s all “what’s the big deal, why didn’t you just put the kneecap back?” oh gee, like I hadn’t thought of that?!?! Jackass! He then puts one hand on the front of my thigh, one behind my ankle and yup, you guess it, snapped it back – I am fairly certain I remember screaming. This is without the benefit of any kind of decent pain medication, I thought I’d throw that in there in case you are at this point thinking what a wimp I am. lol. I found out a month later at physio that it is normal procedure to drug a person in to la-la land before putting a dislocated knee back – I was apparently the “lucky” small percentage of people who got a doctor who decided to not do that, again, the jackass! grr

After all that I got the “joy” of wearing a foam cast thingy that went from hip to ankle for an entire month…you’d think it wouldn’t be so bad except that I had to treat it like a hard cast which means that sucker couldn’t come off! Man, sleeping with that thing was a royal pain in my…well, leg. lol. All in all, it took a good year for me to be able to walk normally, first I was on crutches, then I had a cane then a horrible limp and inability to go up or down stairs like a normal person then eventually I was able to walk almost like a normal person. You should have seen me the first time I was able to walk up stairs one leg after the other (the way normal people do stairs) I couldn’t get the dopey grin off my face. lol. Lame, I know.

Why did I bore you with all that? Here is where I explain. Today, while hiking my 3.8km path I…jogged. Me! That is my one-step-below-a-miracle miracle. 😀

I was never a person who liked to jog or run but at least I could if I so desired. Well, since the whole knee incident I have not jogged or run anywhere. I occaisionally walk super fast but that’s it. When I am hiking I go at a strong steady fast walk, never anything faster. Part of the reason is I am scared to blow my knee out again, my knee specialist said it was for sure going to happen again and I’d need surgery, joy, and part of the reason is I am fat and therefore don’t jog/run well at all, and hello? I don’t want my fat bouncing all over the place! That’s just unattractive! lol. But today while on the trail I thought why not at least try? There is a stretch at the end of the trail that is fairly flat and easy, I use it as a cool down period normally so today I jogged parts of it. I still can’t believe it…

I didn’t jog a lot, I have no endurance for jogging, but I did one jogging burst, walked a bit, then did another burst of jogging…the first burst, it was weird…I didn’t feel like I had to stop, I wasn’t gasping or feeling like I was gonna fall or anything, I just thought that I should have to stop at that point cause I am so out of shape so I stopped. lol. Weird huh? The second burst I actually felt like I had to stop but more cause my knees were hurting – I don’t think I have very good form while jogging and I have a lot of excess weight which is hard on the knees. But ya know what, who cares that it was only two short bursts of jogging? I sure don’t! I am psyched I was actually able to jog at all! This is ranking right up there with the first time I was able to get my thigh muscle to clench again and the first time I took a step without a cane and the first time I stepped up on a stair left leg first…I think you see where this is ranking. lol.

And wow, that was a long blurb, sorry! Let’s get the the grit of things…

Today I ate:

29 grams honey nut cheerios = 2 points

1/2 cup 1% milk = 1 point

1/2 cup diced peaches = 1 point

1 banana = 2 points

1 Activia yogurt = 2 points

1 cup tomato soup = 2 points

1 whole wheat bagel = 3 points

2 triangles light laughing cow cheese = 1 point

1/2 cup cottage cheese = 2 points

mixed cooked veggies = o points

2 slices pizza = 8 points

3 Lifestyle shortbread cookies = 3 points 

Exercise Points earned = 5 points

Total points eaten 27 which is my daily 22 points and my 5 exercise points, yah! 😀

I probably shouldn’t have eaten the pizza, and I actually didn’t want it, weirdness, but I wanted it out of the fridge and figured suck it up, eat both slices tonight when you have the exercise points and can fit the pizza in and then it’s done. So, shrug, that’s what I did. I don’t feel bad about eating the pizza but I am amused at myself that I would have preferred some salmon and a big serving of vegg. Oh how things change! lol 

Quick little note, my little jogging bursts are soooo making themselves known in my thigh muscles right now…Awesome! 😀

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