Tag Archives: fat

Fitspiration

1 Dec

You don’t get it by

Fitspiration from Nike

Fitspiration from Nike

Staring

You don’t get it by

Wishing

You don’t get it by

Drooling

You don’t get it by

Hoping

You don’t get it

Easy

You get it by

Getting off your ass

Working for it

Every second

Of every day

For the rest of your life

-Nike

I didn’t have a chance to play around much with that second app I am going to review for you guys an gals so I thought I’d do a fitspiration post today instead.  🙂

Fitspiration, what an odd trend, I wonder if it is something that was always there and I just didn’t notice or if it really is a rather new phenomenon (which is how it seems to me). I read an article talking about the negative effects some of the fitspiration images can have, how they are showing unrealistic expectations for how fit us average folk can really get and how if you look at a lot of the women in the fitspiration images they are still being sexualized and not just shown for their fitness levels. I guess there might be a point to all that but I figure I am able to distinguish between something I might be able to accomplish and something that is unattainable and even if I wish I could reach the unattainable level I am well aware I will not be going around my whole life being photoshopped sooooooo no real damage done if I look at the unattainable images and use them to motivate me, shrug.

I decided after I had typed out the fitspiration message I would also add the poster so you could see the image paired with the message, I think that is a fairly attainable goal for most women, or at least something close to that…at least, I hope it is cause something kinda like that is where I hope I am heading!

 

 

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Apps for Weight Loss Part 1

30 Nov

On the advice of a friend I installed two new apps on my phone, both are geared towards helping you lead a healthier lifestyle, one is for your eating plan the other is for your fitness. I thought I’d review the apps, give some deets on them and what not but in the effort to not make yet another horrendously looooong blog post I am giving each app it’s own post.

App numero uno!

Lose It!

-disclaimer, the app title uses the exclamation mark, that is not me trying to make it sound more exciting lol 😉

This app is free and is very user friendly. I had it before when I was still using my blackberry phone but I didn’t have it on my blackberry because that phone was a piece of crap and couldn’t handle, well…anything 😛 So I had it on my iPod touch, it worked ok on the touch, it is one of those apps that once it is installed you are good to go, can use it anywhere, you don’t need a data plan or to be hooked in to wifi to use it so that was nice. As far as I can tell (I’ve only really played around with this new version a bit here and there) it is still the same, you install and are good to go. 🙂

This version has some new things that I already love but before I start explaining those let me give you a quick run down of what the app does.

This is a food tracker, so goodbye little notebook that I used to take everywhere and write my food and drinks in to, now it can be conveniently written down in my phone which, being the person that I am, is never far from my grasp lol.

When you first set up the app you tell it how much you weigh now, what your goal weight is, your height, your gender and your age, it then asks you how quickly you want to lose the weight and gives you options to choose from (if I remember correctly the options are 1lb a week, 1.5lbs a week, and 2lbs a week…hmm, I think I am missing an option, I’m sure there were four to choose from…I know it topped out at 2lbs a week so it does try to make sure you lose the weight at a healthy rate). It then very nicely calculates how many calories you can eat per day so you achieve your goal 🙂 Oh! and it tells you when  you will reach your goal by if you follow the amount of calories it says to eat.

The main screen shows the current day, how many calories you are allowed, how many you ate, how many you burned and your net calories for the day. There is also a bar graph that goes from 0 to 2500 and it has a line marking how many calories you are allowed, as you add food to the tracker the bar lights up to show you how close you are to your caloric limit.

The next screen is your Log screen, it shows in detail the food and exercise you have logged for the day, you can toggle back to look at previous days. Along the top of that screen it shows your allowed amount of calories per day, how many calories you ate, how many calories you burned and your net total. It also has a box that tells you if you are over or under your calories for the day…if you are over that box is bright red so you can’t miss it…no matter how hard you try 😛 When you input the food you put it in as breakfast, lunch, dinner or a snack so when you read your food log it shows the food separated by what meal you ate it in. You can select any of the foods on the list to bring up a detailed nutritional information screen, that screen also lets you adjust the quantity of food, so say you put down that you ate two pieces of bread but you actually only ate one, you can go fix it. 🙂 This is also where you enter your exercises for that day, you can select from a database of exercises (the list is quite extensive) or you can enter your own exercise. For all that the list of exercises is long and varied it still doesn’t have dragon boating, sigh, maybe one day…

After that is the Motivate screen, this one will require you to be hooked in to wifi or have a data plan. This is new (to me anyways, maybe it has been around a while) and I like the idea of it even though I haven’t used it that much yet. There are Challenges that you can sign up for which, depending on the type of person you are, could really help to motivate you. I signed up for one, it is a Holiday Workout Challenge, it was made by an American so it says there are 33 days from Thanksgiving till Christmas and the challenge is to keep active as much as you can in that time frame despite all the extra festivities you will be attending. You can invite friends to join the same challenges as you, you can see how well other people are doing (currently the leader in this challenge has logged 32 workouts – don’t freak out! She is logging “real” exercises  as well as things like housework and shopping) and you can even earn badges, ooOOOooh! Ok, so I’m making fun of it a bit *rolls eyes* they are virtual badges, I mean come on, are you gonna show your friends your phone screen and be all “look, I earned another badge that in the real world means absolutely nothing!” lol I’m thinking no!

The next page is the Goals page, this is the page that shows you your start weight, your goal weight, your daily calorie budget (just can’t get away from that!) and gives you an option to modify your program. There is also a snazzy chart that shows where you started weight wise and as you lose weight the line will go lower on the chart till it gets to your goal weight, the dates are along the bottom and the weights are listed at the side. I remember this chart from last time I used this app and I loved it! I am fairly visual with most things and seeing the line going down down down on the chart made me feel so good about the progress I was making. 🙂 Go line graphs!

There is of course a More page where you can change  various settings for the app, read summary reports an stuff like that. What I like about the More page is you can create custom foods (so, say you drink a protein shake everyday and you make it the same way every time, add it in there and when you are putting in the food log that you drank the protein shake you don’t need to put each and every individual ingredient, you just put in the shake that you saved to memory, easy peasy!) You can also add recipes, pick which nutritional info is entered and tracked, see a list of all the foods you’ve entered in to the app previously, update the list of foods in the app, all that kind of stuff.

Something I absolutely looooove is the new ways to enter a food in to the tracker. you can search the database for the food you ate, you can take from the list of foods you have entered previously, you can take from your recipes or your previous meals, you can search brand name foods ooooooor, the best part, you can scan the freakin barcode!! Oh yah! I think this is sweeeeet and the best addition to the app that I have discovered so far! I tried it by scanning the bottle of wine I was drinking and it was brilliant! It seemed even more brilliant then it is at the time due to just how much of that wine I had consumed teehee. 😉

One last thing, when you are on the main screen you can change it so you can see how you are doing that week (a basic over/under for each day and by how much) or you can look at a macro-nutrient breakdown of the current day and the week so far. So, if you are trying to be low carb or high protein or whatever, this will help you to follow that. It’s pretty amazing how quickly some of the things add up, like carbs, there are so many carbs in veggies that if you are going low carb you can totally go over your carb intake for the day just by eating a quarter cup extra of veggies that day, crazeeeee!

So this is my explanation of the app, long enough for you? lol Hey, I tried to make it short, sorta…there’s just so much info in this app! I would highly recommend this app if you are tracking your food and/or exercise, it is easy to use, it’s on your phone which odds are is with you all the time, there are lots of different options for how to enter different foods, every screen shows you the important info so you don’t have to toggle from one screen to another all the time. All in all, it is great…long as you use it! If you install it and then just let it sit there, well, don’t go complaining you aren’t losing weight cause oddly enough, it only works if you work, go figure! 😉

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You Know It’s A Bad Day When…

11 Oct

You start thinking about your comfort food. I’m pretty sure everyone has a comfort food, that food you automatically reach for when life becomes too much and you want to bang your head against a wall…I almost grabbed mine today, the only thing stopping me was that I had a large breakfast/lunch with a friend and was still full so that even though I emotionally wanted to grab my comfort food when out grocery shopping I was still so actively  digesting I knew I wouldn’t eat it tonight and no way am I gonna keep it in the apartment to taunt me tomorrow! I may be highly stressed but I haven’t completely lost my mind…yet…

What has me stressed?  Mostly it is the fact that I have been apartment hunting like mad for weeks and weeks, still have no viable leads on a place and have to be out of this one by the end of the month…fuck.  People keep saying things like: “don’t worry you’ll find somewhere” and “it’s not like you’re going to be homeless, it’ll be fine” and other non-helpful variations. I get it, not like any of them can magically make an apartment appear that is in my price range, a decent commute to work and will accept the cat but platitudes do not make me feel better, they make me feel worse because now I feel like I can’t express how stressed/worried/close to full out panic attack I am because everyone keeps minimizing the situation and I can’t very well have a spaz attack about something that everyone else is brushing aside, that would just make me crazy, or weak, or unable to handle life, sigh.

I knew I was stressed about the apartment hunting but didn’t realize just how much until this evening. I went to look at a place, a suite within a house, that was my perfect price tag and a decent commute to work, I had super high hopes…which is a bad thing cause the more you hope the harder the fall when life kicks you in the ass. I got there, the guy seemed nice, took me to the suite and oh my god a hoarder lives there so really hard to see anything cause it’s literally stuffed to the ceiling in some sections. I commiserate though cause when you’re partially packed up and waiting to move no matter what you do your place starts to look insane. Here were the results of my tour: there’s no living room, there are no closets in the entire suite, there is no laundry, there is no storage, there is one window blocked off by bars and they won’t take cats…so, a waste of my time, awesome. *rolls eyes*

I left there a tad upset but by the time I got to the grocery store I was super upset, as in heading towards depressed and going to do something stupid zone. I did my grocery shopping on auto pilot (the benefit of eating pretty much the same thing everyday is grocery shopping doesn’t require a lot of thought anymore), purposefully avoided my comfort food and went back to my apartment where I proceeded to drink strawberry daiquiris and watch a sad movie that makes me a bit teary on the best of days but this evening had me practically bawling. It wasn’t the movie so much as I was already super upset and needed an outlet and the movie provided me an excuse to have a bit of a meltdown…aided of course by the alcohol…And sure I know some people would have gone to the gym and worked it off or just shrugged it off and started yet another apartment search or just plain forgotten about it and hey, I’m happy for those people, but I needed some wallowing time. I was too down to be able to push myself to go to the gym, I have no energy to pack, all I was able to manage was to avoid a food fest which may not seem all that impressive to some people but right now I’m taking my victories where I can…even if they are pathetic victories.

I feel like at this rate I am going to be putting my stuff in to storage and living out of my suv, which will piss the cat off to no end and not really impress me all that much either.

On a weight loss note, I haven’t lost any in a while, in fact I think I gained some…sigh. I’ve been eating out more then I used to and to top it off everyone knows a stressed body gains weight fast and what I am? Super Stressed Girl! Just greeeeeat. So not only do I feel ugly and fat I’m worried I’m going to be an ugly and fat homeless person, with a cat…hmm…where’s that wall for me to bang my head on again?…

 

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Thwarted!

13 Sep

I have been trying to do this stupid hike for over a week now and it keeps not happening, eesh! You wouldn’t think it’d be that hard, not like the mountain is going anywhere, but life keeps getting in the way and I keep putting it off. I really want to hike it before the weather turns but each time I have to put it off for another day I worry I have missed my last shot, erg.

No, the hike I want to do is not a second attempt at the Grouse Grind, stupid freakin grind, ugh, it is the path near-ish the grind, it starts at the base of the same mountain, and ends up at the top somewhere near where the grind ends but it is a longer trail and apparently winds back on itself quite a bit making the path less steep and theoretically a tad easier to do. It’s supposed to take anywhere from 20 minutes to a half hour longer then whatever time you take on the grind, which is depressing when you consider my time lol but since it’s a longer trail you (well, I) could just pretend the longer time is strictly cause of the trail length and has nothing to do with my physical capabilities…or lack there of… 😉

I wanted to go on the hike last Sunday, took a change of clothes to work an everything so as soon as I was off I could skedaddle on over to the mountain but it was raining and I had to decide if I should hike the mountain and maybe get a bit wet or put it off, I decided I’d hike and started to drive there but while driving the rain got heavier and heavier and eventually I turned around. I may be mildly self destructive and like doing slightly dangerous things but even I know not to hike a mountain on a path that is not busy, that I’ve never been on, as it is getting darker and it is raining, when I don’t have rain gear with me or a hiking buddy. Calculated risks people! 😛 I went to the gym instead and of course when I left the gym it was sunny and dry outside so I’m thinking the rain didn’t last all that long and I might have been ok after all…ah well, next time.

I was going to go Tuesday, for the life of me I can’t remember what I did instead but something came up, no biggy cause I had Thursday that I could go so that was my plan for Thursday (today), hike that freakin trail, that was it, the one main thing on my list of stuff to do, not so bad right? Well, ha! I was up early and contemplating food (figured I’d eat before this hike, unlike last time…) when I got a phone call for an interview (aka, measurement taking/fitting) to be a fit model for a clothing store.  We made an appointment for noon which kaboshed my hike happening in the morning cause that gave me just enough time to get ready and find the place. After the fitting I figured ok, now I can eat (finally! it was about 1pm or so) and then go for the hike. Got to the apartment, was again contemplating food when I got a text from my agent that I had an audition at 7:50p that night. Well yah! After my lil happy dance I realized that (1) hike is not happening and (2) neither is my lunch…sigh.

I decided against the hike cause everyone knows not to do anything outside of your normal routine leading up to an audition, can’t take the risk of getting hurt cause you don’t know what you are doing…that and I worried what if I took a ridonkulous amount of time on the trail and made myself late for the audition? Not happening! So I took a nap instead, hey, don’t judge, I was tired 😛 and then I did some ab work etc and stuff around the apartment.

So there we have it, life and weather have thwarted my attempts to hike that trail! I’m still hopeful for next week, if the weather stays nice that is…

Oh, in case anyone is wondering, a fit model is exactly what it sounds like, it’s the model the designers use when making new clothes to make sure the outfit hangs the way it should on an actual person. I don’t know if I got the job though…on the one hand I am the perfect size for them in pants and shirts and they were really happy with that but apparently my spine is an inch too short (that’s one I haven’t heard before!) so it makes the jackets sit a little funny at the back…they are going to see a couple more people to check their measurements and have them do some fittings and they’ll let me know. It’s a very very part time thing, about 4 hours per day max 2 days per week, just enough to get me a little extra cash really.

As for the audition, it was for a commercial, I went in for one role and the casting director kinda merged the one I went in for and another one and had me audition for some weird hybrid lol. My agent thinks it’s a good thing, a sign they will consider me for both roles not just the one, I’m happy to think that way too. 🙂 The audition seemed to go ok, casting director was in a good mood despite it being late and me being the last person she was seeing. She liked my headshot, we joked around a bit, all good signs. Thing is, even if she thinks I’m awesome if I don’t have the right look I won’t get the part…ya know, if I don’t get the part, and I don’t get the fit model job that means twice in one day I will have been rejected for not looking right and/or being the wrong size…something I am going to desperately try not to dwell on…

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A Fresh Start

13 Aug

Alright so I haven’t been on here if for-evah! I know it, you know it, we all know it…so can we just forget about it and move onwards? Please? 😀

Where did I go? Nowhere exciting lol. I’ve still been here, doing the same ol same ol that is my life, I just haven’t been blogging about it because well, I couldn’t figure out what to blog about. It was easy when I was on Weight Watchers, I could talk about the points, what I ate, how I followed or didn’t follow the plan, it was easy to see if I was doing things right or if I was going off course. This new plan I switched to is harder to track, I mean sure I have an app that I use to track all my nutritional information (right down to the macro-nutrients, it’s quite scary actually…) but I wasn’t ever really sure if I was doing things right every day, so how could I type about it, not like it’s fair to ask you to help me figure it out, sigh.

Well, add to the confusion of the new eating plan and my increase in Dragon Boat practices (three times a week, wOOt!) and my laziness (like we didn’t all know that was a factor?? lol) blogging dropped by the wayside…is that the proper expression? I’m never really sure…Oh, and don’t forget my having a life, I do have one of those you know, and it does take time out of my blogging, facebooking, emailing, twittering, msn-ing, google-ing, youtubing when it amps up…hey, something has to give, there isn’t enough time in the day for everything! lol

I managed to get a job, finally! It pretty much rocks, I really like it…not as much as oh say, getting paid to act!!! but it’s a good company, good hours, good people just in general good place so I’m content for now…not that I’m giving up on you Hollywood! I’m still coming for you!…somehow…

An awesome perk to this job is that I get fed there, for a measly $2 I get to eat what the kitchen makes that day and oh my gawd do they make amazing things! Doesn’t matter if it’s lunch or dinner you get a starter (soup or salad), the main course and then dessert, all for $2!! I’ve never eaten so well! The other night I had leg of lamb for dinner, with Mediterranean veggies and roast potato wedges, oh the salad was a Greek salad and there was a strawberry tart for dessert, YUM! Everyday is like this, which is awesome cause well, hello? Foooood! but what sucks is it is gourmet level restaurant quality food (you are thinking that isn’t a sucky thing but for someone trying to lose weight it is!), cause think about it, when trying to lose weight do you eat out 4 times a week? Nope, you don’t! Unless you’re kinda crazy or have a wicked weird lifestyle but let’s not go there k? 😉 And why don’t you eat out 4 times a week? Oh, maybe perhaps because you have no say in how the food is cooked, what ingredients are used…things like that…and you start to GAIN weight! Yeah, you read that right, GAIN weight! Even with all my dragon boat training and gym going I started getting rounder, sigh, and well, that just can’t be allowed to happen!

I took myself off the meal plan today, no more gourmet meals for moi! Nuh-uh! I am going to go back on my low carb, high protein, high healthy fat eating plan and begging mercy from my metabolism. I am going to amp up my exercise routine and hope to hell I can reverse the damage and start going down in sizes again. I’d say down in numbers on the scale but my scale is wonky so I’m going by clothes sizes right now, and how the clothes I currently own are fitting. Jeans are such a good indicator of how your weight is doing aren’t they? Unforgiving bastards that they are…er, I mean, helpful wonderful pants that I could never do without *grumble*

I’m going to go back to basics with my blog, I started using it way back when to hold me accountable because I knew starting Weight Watchers was going to be hard and if I didn’t have other people to be accountable too I’d find it too easy to cheat. I got over that and realized cheating on what I eat or my exercise was cheating myself so I stopped needing this blog to hold me accountable and used it just because I liked to blog. But now, I am going to use it to hold myself accountable. My food will be boring, you’re going to feel pity for my taste buds, and I know on work days when I am smelling all that amazing food, and watching the others eat it and listen to them commenting on it I am going to be sooooo tempted to cheat, but that is where this blog will come in to play (again! lol) If I cheat I have to tell you, and I don’t want to have to admit that I failed, wasn’t strong enough to resist temptation, couldn’t do it. All of you reading this are what is going to help make me strong while I build up my willpower. I can’t believe I let myself slack so much, not when I put in all that hard work. I’ve gotta get back to the grind and this is my first step towards doing that!

On a side note, I know I’ve been away a while but what’s with all these ads at the top of my wordpress screen?? Can I get rid of those, they are super annoying, grr.

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I Stole This…

4 Jun

Alright, so yesterday (Saturday) was the 500m Race Regatta, for those not in the know that is for Dragon Boating. 🙂 I had planned todays blog to be about yesterdays racing and all that happened but it is late (around 2am Monday morning) and I wanna try to get some sleep tonight (I have a cold and breathing is currently quite the challenge so sleep is not a guaranteed restful type of activity right now, sigh) so instead of my Dragon Boating post I am leaving you with a stolen list from http://www.stumbleupon.com  I will not completely endorse this website yet as all I have read is this one article and I followed a link to get there but I like the list and thought you might too.

Enjoy! 😀

Fitness Facts
1) Carbohydrates, protein, fat, and alcohol have 4, 4, 9, and 7 calories per gram respectively.
2) It takes a 3500 calorie deficit to lose 1 pound.
3) Insulin and growth hormone have an inverse relationship.
4) The average person can store 500 grams of glycogen.
5) Only fat and protein are essential macronutrients – carbohydrates aren’t.
6) Muscle glycogen is about 3 parts water to 1 part glucose.
7) You burn more calories during the 23 hours you don’t exercise than the 1 hour you do.
8) You don’t need to do cardio to lose weight.
9) The fat burning zone does not burn more total fat calories – only a higher percentage of calories from fat.
10)You’re never too old to do squats.
11) Weight loss is not a physical challenge – it’s a mental one.
12) The scale cannot measure body fat percentage.
13) You can eat anything you want and still lose weight – but weight doesn’t always equal fat.
14) You can’t target fat loss – fat loss is systemic.
15) Muscle does not weigh more than fat – it’s just denser than it.
16) 0 grams of fat on a label doesn’t always mean there’s no fat in the food product.
17) Whole grain bread is still a processed food.
18) Eating healthy is not more expensive than a junk food diet.
19) You can’t calculate body fat percentage from height and weight alone – you need to physically measure it.
20) You can get glucose from both protein and glycerol – not just carbohydrates.
21) Just because a box says “whole grain” on it, it doesn’t make it healthy.
22) You should never attempt weight loss at the expense of your health.
23) Being vegetarian doesn’t just mean you don’t eat meat – it means you follow a plant-based diet.
24) Workout times and negative side effects are positively correlated.
25) Gym membership prices are negotiable.
26) Cooking your food can both lower some nutrient content, and make some more bioavailable.
27) There’s a high correlation between the fitness level of the people close to you, and your own physical fitness.
28) It’s harder to put on 10 pounds of muscle than it is to lose 10 pounds of fat.
29) Once an adult, fat cells can be created, but they cannot be lost – only shrunken.
30) Eating at night does not make you fat – overeating does.
31) You don’t need to do curls to get good biceps.
32) Being skinny does not automatically mean you have a low body fat.
33) The perimeter of the grocery store is where 90% of the healthy food is.
34) If bad food is in the house, you’ll be more likely to eat it.
35) Thyroid hormone output and exercise intensity are positively correlated.
36) Healthy levels of testosterone are good for both men and women.
37) You don’t need a gym membership to strength train.
38) Unless you weigh less than 100 pounds, it’s unlikely you need less than 1000 calories to lose weight.
39) Workout intensity is positively correlated with the degree of EPOC – the afterburn effect.
40) There are 3 types of skeletal muscle fibers – type I, type II-A, and type II-B.
41) 80% of people who begin an exercise program will quit.
42) The body has 3 energy systems – ATP-PC, anaerobic glycolysis, and aerobic.
43) Strength gains come from muscle hypertrophy and improved muscle fiber recruitment.
44) Dehydrating a muscle by 3% can cause a 10% loss of strength.
45) The thermic effect of food (TEF) is highest for protein.
46) Lactic acid is not the cause of delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS).
47) The more muscle mass you have, the more calories you burn at rest.
48) Direct abdominal exercises are not necessary to get good abs.
49) You can lose weight and still gain muscle; likewise, you can also gain weight while still losing fat.
50) Consistency and patience are key to long term successful weight loss.

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Can Knees Just Fall Off?

27 May

Holy crap my knees freakin huuuuuurt! I decided in honour of summer being officially here (in my head that is, I have no idea if the actual official first day of summer has already come and gone, I don’t really keep track of stuff like that lol) I would unlock my bike, drag it off the balcony, drive it to the bike store to get air in the tires and then go ride the seawall, wOOt! I have never ridden the seawall, I have lived here since September 2007 and I have never ridden the seawall, disgusting! and uh, yeah, I have had my bike here that entire time…*sheepish face*…although, in my defence, I have walked the entire seawall, I feel that should be taken in to account when I am being judged…just sayin…

This summer is about being more active, getting out there, exercising but also having fun, finding ways to be social while getting fit…basically an extension of last summer lol 😛 So out came the bike! Let me just say, I looooove my bike. It took me months to pick, I was not just gonna buy any ol thang, I wanted a sweet ride…which, admittedly, when I started the shopping experience was mostly about the colour lol *rolls eyes* I know, how like a girl right? 😉 In the end though I didn’t pick it based on colour, although the colour didn’t hurt (it’s blue, silver and black), I picked it based on what was a good fit for me, my activity level, what I was planning to use it for, ya know, all that important stuff, shrug.

My poor bike has been so neglected for so long though, lol, I haven’t ridden it in I don’t know how many years, eek! All that money spent and I barely use it, lame. I was considering selling it this year so I could buy a paddle for dragon boating instead of using the paddles at the club buuuuut I figured at least give biking a shot before selling her…yes, my bike is a her, deal with it. 😉 lol oh, and no, she doesn’t have a name, I’m not a complete freak, eesh.

Well, it was soooo much fun today! Such a great experience! I biked to the seabus and while waiting for the seabus started talking with another girl who had her bike with her, we were talking about biking trails, helmet vs non helmet wearing, all kinds of biking talk, who knew having a bike with you made you someone people were more willing to talk to? Weird. Well, we were getting along quite well so we decided to ride the seawall together. Normally I hate exercising with other people (unless it’s in a class, like my boxing, or training with the boating team) so part of me was a bit ‘aw man, now I won’t be able to listen to my music while biking, sigh’ but part of me was all ‘hey, someone to bike with, less chance of me getting on the wrong path now’ lol. I warned her that this was my first time biking in years and there was a good chance at some point I’d be exhausted and need to stop or at least slow down or possibly walk the bike for a bit, she was all cool with that and said she’d only been biking a short time too so she might have the same trouble as she hadn’t done the seawall yet – talk about a great match! What are the odds of that? 🙂

I am proud to say we didn’t have to stop at all! There are parts of the path you have to dismount and walk the bikes so we were off them then cause we had to be, and during one of those walking sections she needed to check her phone cause she was waiting for a call so we ended up pausing for a minute or so and well, ok, the view was amazing so once we paused to take pics…crap, ok, fine, we stopped a couple times I guess, damn! But we weren’t stopping due to exhaustion or being unable to go on, we stopped uber briefly twice and really, I don’t feel those pauses negatively impacted our results, so there! 😛 lol

While biking I have a tendency to just go, I stand on the pedals a decent amount to help absorb shock when going over bumps or curbs etc, it’s just reflex, it’s how I always used to bike. I think I’m gonna hafta be more careful with that from now on cause I am now regretting that, sigh. My knees! I feel so old complaining about them but seriously man, they hurt soooo badly! I’ve been going up and downstairs doing laundry and each time I have to get up from the chair, and then go on the stairs, and then sit again I want to cry. I have arthritis in my left knee from the injury I had all those years ago so I’m used to that one acting up and I sorta expected it would protest while I was biking but it didn’t so I went hard the entire time, didn’t really pamper my knees at all…guess the knees need pampering while biking, although how the heck I do that I have no idea!

I’m actually tempted to put a heating pad on my knees they hurt that much but I’m not sure if that will actually help…I know I am having trouble sleeping cause of the pain, hence my writing this post at 3:30am…and I’m kinda concerned cause I have plans tomorrow that involve a lot of hill walking and since just going down my hallway is painful and making me limp I’m not so sure how I’ll do on the hills, guess I’ll find out in the morning! lol

I know I am bitching, and yeah my knees do really hurt, but I think it was worth it. 🙂 I made a new friend (we swapped info and plan to go biking again), I got outdoor exercise (something I don’t get often since I hide from the sun a lot lol), I got to use my bike instead of neglecting it and I had fun. Really, what more could a person ask for from a Saturday? 😀

view of the seawall in one of the pedestrian only sections

 

pretty sunset

 

just one more awesome view from today

 

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The Next Level

12 May

You always hear talk about going to “the next level” like it’s this big amazing goal we should all have and if you don’t at some point reach it well, then you suck lol. There is so much pressure when you say you are losing weight, pressure to be perfect everyday, pressure to have an amazing story super fast that can wow people, pressure to make it to that next level…whatever that level might be.

To be honest, I didn’t think I had a next level, I have my level, the level of H. 😉 lol I didn’t see what was wrong with that. I’m not an athlete, I’m not training to compete in some huge iron man competition, I’m not trying to prove to others how strong I am or how skinny I can get (well, ok, except for my agent, I have to prove to her how skinny I can get since she’s ordered me to lose another 20lbs but that’s a whole different can of worms lol). I’m not trying to find some elusive next level, I like my level. *stomps foot*

The only problem with my level is that it wasn’t getting me anywhere, stupid level, grr! 😉 I didn’t know it but I wasn’t exercising effectively so the time I spent in the gym was not as productive as it could have been, in some ways it was even counter productive! Lame! Also, the food I was eating wasn’t giving me the needed fuel to accomplish what I wanted *rolls eyes* Oy!

Well, once I learned the eating plan and exercise plan I am now on I was taught more about levels, ah geez, it’s like you can’t get away from them. On this exercise plan you can’t just coast on one level, every week you are pushing to get better, by better I mean stronger, faster, more flexible. My endurance should be increasing, my muscle strength should be increasing, the types of weight work I do should be getting changed…let’s just say there are a lot of freakin levels to keep track of!

Even though I hate cardio I have been preferring my cardio days because at least on those days I for sure know what I am doing and am not so worried about fucking something up…by something I mean me! lol 😛  I know I’ve mentioned my cardio before but just as a recap here is what I do:

20 minutes of running on a treadmill, set the treadmill to an incline of 1 – 2 to stimulate being outside (I started at 1 and am now at 2), jog for 3 minutes (I start at a fast walk for 30 seconds, then go to a light jog for a minute then a slightly faster jog for the remainder of that 3 minutes), then you sprint like a crazy person for 30 seconds, then you jog for 1.5 minutes, then you sprint like a crazy person for 30 seconds, then you jog for 1.5 minutes…tell me you see the pattern here and I don’t have to keep writing those same two sentences over an over? You sprint a total of 8 times, after the 8th sprint you cool down, sooooooo back to a light jog and eventually down to a walk. Now, for pacing, my jogging started out at a speed of 4 (sorry, I’m blanking if the machine measures in miles or km…) and my sprints started out at 8, but! you don’t do all your sprints at just one speed, oh no no no no no, cause see, that would be not pushing to the next level! You do a couple sprints at 8, then do some at 8.5 then maybe your 8th sprint is a 9…something like that. Every cardio day you have to at least match the sprint speeds you did the last cardio day but what you are really supposed to do is get better, so maybe swap out an 8 for an 8.5 or an 8.5 for a 9, get the idea?

Now that you see where I started let me tell ya where I’ve been stuck at. And boy do I mean stuck! I now do my light jog at 5.5 or 6 and my sprints are divided into 4 sprints at a speed of 9 and 4 sprints at a speed of 9.5…and that is it. I’ve been there forever! Every time I have a cardio day I swear I am gonna increase one of those sprints, either do 5 at 9.5 or maybe swap out a 9.5 for a 10…10 is like an elusive goal for me. It’s so freakin close but juuuust far enough away I can’t do it yet, so annoying! Well, everytime I get on that treadmill and swear I am gonna up my sprints I just can’t do it, I don’t have the stamina, the endurance, the capability, the elusive whatever the hell it is you need to get you to that next level. I was barely making it through the sprints I was already at and I knew if I tried to go at a speed of 10 I’d fall off the treadmill, I also knew if I did 5 sprints at 9.5 I’d not make it through the last one and I personally think it’s better to make it through all the sprints then have to jump to the side rails before the end of the 30 second sprint time cause your legs can’t keep going or you’re gonna fall or ya know, just expire right there from sheer over exertion. lol

Now, having said all that, I actually made it to dun-dun-dun: The Next Level!!!! *ding!ding!ding!*

My last cardio day which was Wednesday I was soooo not in the mood to be dealing with any aspect of life, let alone the working out part of it. I didn’t want to be there, I couldn’t bring myself to care, I was tired and had eaten very poorly the day before so I felt icky, I was full of excuses and reasons to not go…and yet, somehow I found myself in the gym on the treadmill…I’m still not really sure how I managed to get my butt there but right now I don’t care, I’m just glad I went. 🙂

I wasn’t even planning to attempt bettering my sprints, frankly, I was prepared to be impressed if I managed my run at all lol. Well, somewhere during the third sprint I thought “meh, fuck it, might as well try doing 5 at 9.5 instead of the normal 4 at 9.5” and that is what I did. My fourth sprint was at 9.5 and so were all the rest after that. I upped my sprints! wOOt! 😀 *happy dance* While I was doing it I was a mixture of “am I actually doing this??” and “meh, I don’t care, just get it done so you can go back home and get away from people”

I think what got me over that line to My Next Level was not caring, the apathy, the complete lack of fear regarding my possible failure to succeed. Normally I am so focused when running and my brain is calculating everything my body is doing and feeling to try to figure out if I can push to the next level of sprints that I don’t just let go and try. I don’t trust my body to be able to perform at the next level, I don’t trust it to not fail. I’ve had my knee collapse under me due to over training and it took a year to be able to walk without a cane or crutches or some sort of aid, it took even longer to be able to take stairs and jog and then run, hell, I still limp sometimes from that stupid injury. I am terrified to go back to that spot, to be so injured I can’t walk, to be that helpless again. Combine that fear with the more normal fear of just not accomplishing what I decide to attempt and without my even realizing it I had crippled my ability to get to My Next Level.

Fear…it is such a little word for such a strong, over powering emotion. I hate that I let fear have any control over my exercising and yet, it does, it has a strong crushing grasp on my exercising because anytime I do something that strains my knee and could cause me to reinjure myself I take a half step back mentally and try to find a way to minimize the risk, but maybe the risk doesn’t always need to be minimized. Maybe my knee is already stronger then I give it credit for? Hell, it was only last summer I started being able to jog again and look at me now? I run freakin sprints! I may not have kicked fear in the teeth and made it get out of my way, but I think getting to my next level of sprints has at least helped me nudge it to the side a bit… 🙂

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The Long Walk

11 Apr

I walk. Not for exercise, although that is a nice side benny, I walk cause I am trying to save on gas usage in my suv (don’t ya love the irony of a mid-sized suv owner trying to be environmentally friendly? 😛 ), and cause I think having the ability to walk should never be taken for granted. In my old neighbourhood it wasn’t practical, or all that possible, to walk when doing errands cause everything was so far away but here, this neighbourhood, it’s like it was designed so people who live in the neighbourhood could get all their stuff done without ever having to go outside of walking distance. How great is that?

There are times when I have to drive to get my errands done, usually cause I will be carrying something really heavy or I have a massively short time limit to get everything done in but meh, once every now and then (and only when it’s for a legit reason) doesn’t seem soooo bad. Then I have days like today, where I end up driving cause of sheer laziness coupled with poor time management and well, more laziness lol. Hey, don’t judge, everyone has stupidly lazy days! I just happen to have the balls to admit it online…in my fairly anonymous blog…lol 😛

After I got home and was actually thinking about it I realized how dumb I am sometimes lol. I have walked in the rain, in the snow, when the ground is so slippery I was sure I was doomed to getting at least a sprained ankle, when the wind is so strong it actually pushes you back a bit, when it’s really late at night and the crazies/annoying drunk people are out an about…I’ve walked this neighbourhood while doing errands in every type of weather imaginable…well, except for nice weather, I moved here beginning of November so I’ve only experienced winter so far lol. But today, on a lovely spring day where it was warm with a mild breeze and I had the time and physical ability to walk to Safeway, did I walk? Nope. I drove. That whole entire 3 minute drive which is maybe a 10 minute walk? I’ve never actually timed it…that little walk seemed too long today for me to bother with. How lame is that? *rolls eyes*

After the gym and shower and protein shake I made the horrible mistake of sitting down, epic fail right there people! One should never sit down “just for a minute” after just getting outta the shower after being at the gym. Your body is all nice and loose and limber, you’re cozy from the shower, you’re feeling good about your exercising and that maybe you deserve a little rest…this is a recipes for disaster! Disaaaaaster! 

I, instead of getting presentable and going to Safeway, sat down, on a comfy chair, within reach of my laptop…do you see where this is going? I ended up going online and doing all kinds of stuff and then all of a sudden *bam!* it’s hours an hours later, I haven’t had dinner and I still need to go grocery shopping before coming home and doing laundry…isn’t my life just oh so exciting? *rolls eyes*

I almost broke one of the cardinal rules for people trying to follow a strict eating plan and went to Safeway without having had my dinner, oh geez, but never fear, least I didn’t wimp out on that lol. I made a quick dinner and then off I went…in my suv. Why the suv? The weather was still great, still nice and warm, I bet it would have been a lovely walk, buuuuut, I convinced myself the bags would be too heavy to carry all the way back (ya know, those whole freakin 7 blocks, oy!) and that I didn’t want to take too much time because I did still have all that laundry to do…I think I might of even had a third equally lame excuse in my head at the time which has since fled the confines of my brain, pretty much proving what a pathetic “reason” it was lol 😛

In the end, my grocery bags actually were heavy (yogurt was on sale so I got 2, and it was also my almond milk and meat purchasing trip) so it would have sucked to carry the bags back to the apartment, but not like I haven’t carried heavier ones, in worse weather, that same distance before…sigh.

So now, it’s 1:32am and I’m sitting here typing away, feeling a bit lazier then normal, all because I drove 7 blocks instead of walked it. If it wasn’t the time of night it is I’d go for a random walk just to make it up to myself but I am tryyyyyying to get back in to a normal sleep routine so I want to be in bed by 2am at the latest…guess I’ll hafta go for a walk tomorrow as well as have my cardio day at the gym to balance this all out. Ya know, I’m starting to think being lazy always comes back to bite ya in the ass! 😉

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I’ve Been Corrupted!

8 Apr

I feel like a computer program that has some bad code, or a box of crayons that’s missing a couple colours or even a Big Mac without the special sauce – something is not right!

If asked to describe myself I am naturally lazy and my stomach and digestive system can handle eating anything…seriously, anything! You know those people who are all “everytime I eat McDonald’s an hour after I eat I have to go running to the bathroom, or, I have the worst stomach ache, or, I feel so sick/bloated/gross etc” – you know what people I am talking about, the ones that eat something we all know isn’t good for you and their bodies make them feel like crap cause of what they ate but they still eat it? Right, ok, so, I’m not that person, never have been. McDonald’s? Bring it on! Taco Bell/Taco Time? No worries there! Any kind of chocolate/candy/sweet? Gimme more! It never makes me feel gross/sick/in desperate need of a bathroom and I never have any troubles digesting.

Well…apparently something has changed in my innards and I am not impressed. Grr to my changing innards! 😉 I went to a lovely Easter dinner last night at a friend’s family’s place. My friend’s Aunt made a tonne of totally delish food, Mmm! Now, my plan was to eat mostly protein (of whatever variety was made) and have itty bitty amounts of whatever sides happened to be there…I was gonna stick to my eating plan darnit! I would have stuck with that plan except the only protein was a cooked ham *gag* I don’t eat pork in most of it’s varieties and a cooked ham is most definitely one of the ways I won’t touch it, blech. So there went my eating protein for dinner plan lol. I ate only the sides and ended up eating these potatoes that were sliced then baked in the oven with some kind of cream sauce and lots of cheese (holy crap soooo good!), super soft butter buns that were heated up so you could put more butter on them (bread! I got to eat bread! *happy dance*), a spinach salad that was super yum and some mixed veggies. Soooo, my dinner was carbs, carbs, oh and more carbs covered by a home made vinagarette dressing lol. Then of course there was dessert. 😛 I made a Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble and the other dessert was a Kraft recipe that had philly cream cheese, cool whip, graham crackers and coconut, all layered and put in the fridge to set, holy crap it was tasty!

Anyways, my point about the food, I ate a lot of carbs in that meal, then had a bunch of sugar in the dessert, and don’t forget all the random chocolate that was floating around since it was an Easter dinner lol. Normally a meal like that wouldn’t have given me any problems, I’d eat, digest, it’d be all good. Well, um, it was not all good today…*pout* today I feel heavy, and gross, and like my stomach has a rock in it or something…I keep craving some unknown substance that will flush out the sugar and carbs I ate (even though I don’t actually believe in flushes). So I spent my day drinking water and tea and going back to my high protein high healthy fat eating plan. I think, after such a long time without eating high amounts of carbs and sugar my body is struggling to handle the amounts I put in it yesterday…Corruption! 

The second corruption I noticed the other day. You know those people who are all “I get so energized from going to the gym/working out, afterwards I feel like I can do just about anything blah blah blah” Those people! Argh! Those people annoy the fuck outta me! lol I go to the gym, I come home, I have a protein shake and a shower and I want a nap, an 8 hour nap! I’m not energized, I’m exhausted! Working out takes what little energy my body has and uses it all and then I am somehow expected to get through the rest of the day? How do people do that?!?!

Well, after the gym the other day (where I had a greeeat workout) I made my protein shake, drank it (duh) and was heading for the shower when I realized I was kinda dancing/bouncing…what the…?? Nothing too extreme or anything but definitely more then my normal walk…and I had a realization…I was…energized…Energized! How did that happen?? As soon as I realized it I came to a complete stop and tried to figure out exactly what and why I was feeling like that. What was I thinking about? Was I just really happy about whatever was floating through my brain and that had me dancing? (hey, don’t judge, that happens lol) Was I listening to music? Nope. Was I having a nervous system spasm and it wasn’t really dancing but some kind of muscle freakout? Didn’t appear to be…So, what was causing this energy and dancing? I’m still not completely sure what it was but I worry it was, *shuffles feet* feeling good about my workout and that feeling good combined with some sort of freak energy burst that came about also due to the workout…I think *clears throat* I became that person who got energized from working out…I’m not sure how I feel about this one…except…Corruption!

My very being has been corrupted by extended healthy eating habits and extended (and often) exercise habits to change my lazy-able-to-digest-any-kind-of-crap-I-put-in-to-it-body into a…into a what? I’m still not sure…into a body that likes to exercise? Prefers to have healthy food put in to it?

I’m gonna admit, it’s freakin me out a bit…you can’t spend a bunch of years as one way and then not freak out a bit when you realize you’re changing and becoming something else…what will I become? What colour crayons were taken out of the box that is me? Will I miss those colours? What if I need them back? Will I still be me? I mean, a Big Mac isn’t a Big Mac without the special sauce right? So whatever it is that is changing in me, will I still be me even though something is missing/changed?

Guess I’ll find out…

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