Yeah, so, there was Easter and Easter candy, and then there was being on vacation and eating at tourist spots and being betrayed by my usually health-nut hostess who set out chips and salsa for us and made decadent desserts, and then there was an anniversary dinner with my husband which started with foie gras on hazelnut toast and did not get much healthier from there, so while official weigh-in isn't until tomorrow, I'm pretty sure I gained a solid 3 or 4 pounds over the last two weeks. I'm braced for it and trying to get back on the wagon.
It's a reminder that, however well I've done, the bad habits and attitudes that made me fat in the first place are still lurking just under the surface -- and that, like any proper monsters, feeding them makes them stronger. It's a lesson that I need to keep in mind
But that's not what this post is.
This post is because I really, really, really missed being able to go to the gym while I was on vacation. I was looking forward to it yesterday when I remembered I had a doctor's appointment that was likely to eat up my usual hour-ish of break time that I use for going to the gym. It was just a checkup, though, so I thought maybe if the doctor only took half an hour, I could squeeze the gym in anyway.
Alas, the doctor took over two hours, exceeding my break time rather excessively, and I did not get to the gym and having to burn an hour or so of vacation time while I was at it. I was a bit surly about it.
So I went today. And I dove in with all the enthusiasm of a starving man at an all-you-can-eat buffet, to make a really inappropriate simile. Sometimes I glance over the edge of my book at the countdown clock and groan at how slow it seems to be going, but today seemed to fly by. I usually sustain a speed of about 3.6 on the elliptical; today I kept it up around 4.0, according to the end-of-workout summary, and I hadn't even felt like I was pushing that hard. When I moved around to the weightlifting side of the room, the weights felt lighter, and I even bumped up my settings on a couple of them, and did an extra round of sit-ups, just because the ache felt good.
...
Forget being able to see my cheekbones again. Forget a figure in the mirror that I haven't seen since college, and the matching number on the scale, likewise. Forget a whole wardrobe full of new clothes, and my doctors and family and friends raving about how great I look.
This. This is what balances the monsters lurking under my skin and waiting for me to make a mistake. This is what makes me know I've actually changed over the last eighteen months or so, because two years ago I would never have even thought about saying, "Oh, thank god I'll be able to get to the gym today," much less, "Wow, that burn feels great! I think I'll do some more sit-ups!" Even a year ago, I figured I'd always hate exercising, just like I always have, and that it was just something I would suck up and endure because it was better than the alternative.
Change happens, even when you don't see it coming.
Showing posts with label exercise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label exercise. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Treading Water
Today's weigh-in is... 172.8. Exactly the same as it was last week. I'm trying not to be discouraged -- there are, after all, a bunch of potential factors at work.
For starters, in the "I'm not as healthy as I think I am" category, we went out to eat Sunday at a hibachi restaurant to celebrate a family birthday. I love hibachi, and I'm sure I over-ate. Since my 2-year-old wasn't interested in his soup or salad, I ate his in addition to mine, as an aid to filling up. And I ate a big bunch of his vegetables, too. I indulged in the steak and chicken combo, and ate every last bit of my steak -- but I left about half the chicken and probably more than half my rice on my plate. I thought I'd done pretty well, all told, but of course even the vegetables had been cooked with oil and butter, so maybe it was more than I thought.
And then in the realm of "willpower? what willpower?", I played Rock Band with some friends Monday night, and even though I'd brought some low-point snacks for myself, I caved and ate some chips, too. I don't think I went too overboard, but... overboard is overboard, I guess.
In the land of "not actually my fault", I've got a mild-but-persistent cold, which is probably dragging my metabolism down.
And in the world of "short-term loss for long-term gain" (or the reverse, as it may be) my change-up at the gym means that I've replaced about 15 minutes of cardio with 15 minutes or so of weight lifting, so I'm both losing 15 minutes' worth of steady calorie-burn and gaining muscle-weight. Which makes me wish I had a more recent set of measurements, so I can do those comparisons. I should try to remember to do those monthly, or thereabouts, I guess.
On the plus side, I've been getting a lot of compliments, lately, which is nice for my ego.
For starters, in the "I'm not as healthy as I think I am" category, we went out to eat Sunday at a hibachi restaurant to celebrate a family birthday. I love hibachi, and I'm sure I over-ate. Since my 2-year-old wasn't interested in his soup or salad, I ate his in addition to mine, as an aid to filling up. And I ate a big bunch of his vegetables, too. I indulged in the steak and chicken combo, and ate every last bit of my steak -- but I left about half the chicken and probably more than half my rice on my plate. I thought I'd done pretty well, all told, but of course even the vegetables had been cooked with oil and butter, so maybe it was more than I thought.
And then in the realm of "willpower? what willpower?", I played Rock Band with some friends Monday night, and even though I'd brought some low-point snacks for myself, I caved and ate some chips, too. I don't think I went too overboard, but... overboard is overboard, I guess.
In the land of "not actually my fault", I've got a mild-but-persistent cold, which is probably dragging my metabolism down.
And in the world of "short-term loss for long-term gain" (or the reverse, as it may be) my change-up at the gym means that I've replaced about 15 minutes of cardio with 15 minutes or so of weight lifting, so I'm both losing 15 minutes' worth of steady calorie-burn and gaining muscle-weight. Which makes me wish I had a more recent set of measurements, so I can do those comparisons. I should try to remember to do those monthly, or thereabouts, I guess.
On the plus side, I've been getting a lot of compliments, lately, which is nice for my ego.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Resuming
Today's weigh in: 190.0, which is down 2.6 from last week, for a grand total of 83 pounds lost. This despite my having not one but two fairly large pieces of cake this weekend (I did count those points, though!) and only going to the gym once during the week.
Obviously, the path to my success is to eat more cake and exercise less!
Nah, I don't really believe that. I suspect it has something to do with my tightening up control on the random grazing and the nighttime snacks. And possibly also to do with the fact that my scale is crap.
Though taking most of a week off from exercising might have turned out to be a good idea for other reasons: when I finally got back to the gym yesterday, I thought I'd try running the elliptical backwards a little bit, because it's a nice litmus test for my knee. Usually, I get all of about three revolutions done before I start getting a screaming, tearing sensation under my kneecap. Yesterday -- not even a twinge. So I did a whole 2 minutes backwards, which doesn't sound like much but trust me, if you'd felt the pain I was having, you'd want to be cautious about encountering it again, too. And the whole time, the worst I got out of it was a little twinge. Even more tellingly, it doesn't hurt today, either. So maybe a week of rest helped it finally finish healing? It's not a totally preposterous notion.
At any rate, I hope this means I'm over the little diet-slump (can't quite call it a plateau, but it sure was flatter than I like!) I've been on for the last few weeks.
Obviously, the path to my success is to eat more cake and exercise less!
Nah, I don't really believe that. I suspect it has something to do with my tightening up control on the random grazing and the nighttime snacks. And possibly also to do with the fact that my scale is crap.
Though taking most of a week off from exercising might have turned out to be a good idea for other reasons: when I finally got back to the gym yesterday, I thought I'd try running the elliptical backwards a little bit, because it's a nice litmus test for my knee. Usually, I get all of about three revolutions done before I start getting a screaming, tearing sensation under my kneecap. Yesterday -- not even a twinge. So I did a whole 2 minutes backwards, which doesn't sound like much but trust me, if you'd felt the pain I was having, you'd want to be cautious about encountering it again, too. And the whole time, the worst I got out of it was a little twinge. Even more tellingly, it doesn't hurt today, either. So maybe a week of rest helped it finally finish healing? It's not a totally preposterous notion.
At any rate, I hope this means I'm over the little diet-slump (can't quite call it a plateau, but it sure was flatter than I like!) I've been on for the last few weeks.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Baggy
The WW website is still fussing at me for losing weight too quickly, even though I only lost 1.4 pounds this week.
I've got exactly 6 pounds to go before I hit my first 10% goal, so I don't think I'm going to manage it by the end of the year, not with only 3 weigh-ins left and Christmas smack in the middle of it all.
Still, I'm getting pretty close, and that's something to be proud of, right? I need to think of a good reward for myself.
When I was at the gym Monday, my usual stationary bikes were in use, so I spent an entire thirty minutes on one of the elliptical machines. It probably wasn't all that good for my knee, but otherwise it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I'm thinking of making it a regular part of the rotation -- once a week or so, perhaps.
Or maybe, now that 30 minutes isn't kicking me in the head as hard as it was, I can tack on an extra 5-10 minutes. 20 minutes bike, 15 minutes elliptical? Something like that. I'll try a few different things and see what works for me.
I've got exactly 6 pounds to go before I hit my first 10% goal, so I don't think I'm going to manage it by the end of the year, not with only 3 weigh-ins left and Christmas smack in the middle of it all.
Still, I'm getting pretty close, and that's something to be proud of, right? I need to think of a good reward for myself.
When I was at the gym Monday, my usual stationary bikes were in use, so I spent an entire thirty minutes on one of the elliptical machines. It probably wasn't all that good for my knee, but otherwise it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I'm thinking of making it a regular part of the rotation -- once a week or so, perhaps.
Or maybe, now that 30 minutes isn't kicking me in the head as hard as it was, I can tack on an extra 5-10 minutes. 20 minutes bike, 15 minutes elliptical? Something like that. I'll try a few different things and see what works for me.
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