Category Archives: health & fitness

A narrative of my journeys with diet, exercise, and various healthcare professionals

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Self Control

It’s nights like this that prove to me exactly why I’ve been in a plateau for the past three months. This evening, I chose to indulge in an evening of TV, which is extremely rare for me. Unfortunately, my evening of television turned into an evening of I Can’t Stop Eating.

The same thing happens on Friday nights: I sit down to enjoy myself, in whatever solitary pursuit I find myself on a Friday night, and I end up falling face first into a bowl of noodly goodness. Followed by a diet fudge bar, followed by another snack, followed by a frozen meal, followed by me no longer tracking my Points.

On weekends, I assume that I’m OK if Aaron’s OK; he tracks more religiously than I do, especially on weekends. Sometimes I forget that he has many more Points than I do, since he’s male, and has a more active job. Even though he takes his last meal of the day after I’m already in bed, I should still probably say no to that last fudge bar of the day, or be more careful of what I order at Starbucks.

I also can’t remember the last time I exerted myself to the point of sweating. The gym membership we were going to buy ended up bring too long of a commitment, and I never got around to activating my free 30-day membership at Bally’s. Really, though — if I’m not going to exercise at home, what makes me think I’m going to make a special trip to Bally’s in the snow and cold, even if it is less than ten minutes away?

Point being, I need to get back in the game and start giving a shit again. I was so excited when I was consistently losing. Ever since the holidays, I’ve stalled; and the more momentum I lose, the less motivated I am to ramp things up again.

It’s easy to see what needs to be done. The challenge is in actually doing it.

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Being Sick Sucks.

I’ve taken the past two days off of work, thanks to being sick to my stomach and generally achy. Could I have done my job feeling like this? Yes, probably, if I had to… but I wouldn’t have been happy about it. This is what sick days are for, after all: recouping, recovering, and not getting everyone else in the office sick. And, although I was sad to miss the annual IS Christmas Luncheon, it’s probably better off that I didn’t go touching the serving utensils and infecting the person behind me with my touch o’ the flu.

I’m feeling better than I was this morning, and about the same as I was this time yesterday. That means that, by the time my friend Dan shows up in about an hour, I should be OK to go to dinner and coffee with him before he crashes on our sofabed for the night.

Hopefully I won’t get him sick. Crossing my fingers.

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Purge

Diet BooksAaron and I have spent the past couple of weekends purging our lives of various media that we no longer need. First, he went through his videogames and got rid of some stuff he wasn’t going to play anymore. Then, we weeded out our CD collection, ripping some of them to iTunes before trading them in to Allied Records with the games. After that, we went through the records and laserdiscs, offloading 150 LPs and 40 laserdiscs.

Today, we went through books. As avid book-lovers, we tend to collect cheap books that sound interesting. Sometimes we get a good deal; other times, we pick up books that we can never actually bring ourselves to read. We finally bid farewell to a few of the latter this evening, along with some books that aren’t relevant to us anymore… like these diet books.

I had picked up some of these early on in college; The Hilton Head Metabolism Diet, along with The 200 Calorie Solution, actually helped me lose 10 pounds one summer. The Setpoint Diet and Farewell to Fatigue were some other early purchases, and I do recall that they had some helpful (if typical) ideas. Of course, Atkins’ New Diet Revolution helped me lose 50 pounds (and keep 80% of it off). The rest of the books were in the review queue for my now-defunct Low Carb Lifestyle Podcast. I read The Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet and found it to be something I wouldn’t feel comfortable following. (I hesitate to use the word “hogwash,” as I am not an M.D. like Drs. Heller.) I never got around to reading The T-Factor Diet or Protein Power, although I do remember scanning Sugar Busters and trading e-mails with an avid follower of that diet. It seemed fairly reasonable, as low-carb diets go.

Now that I’m having moderate (if plateauing) success on Weight Watchers, though, I feel quite comfortable giving these books to the thrift. Maybe they’ll be what someone else needs to get themselves on the road to good health.

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Thanksgiving Battle Plan

I don’t know his name, but he pushes a trash can around downtown, picking up litter. He’s employed by the Downtown Toledo Improvement District, identifiable by his bright blue-and-yellow attire. He’s very polite and friendly, as are most of the Clean & Safe Team members, and always nods and says hello when he sees me.

Last week, we crossed paths during my lunch walk, and we stopped to talk for a moment. He told me I was looking good (in a sincere, non-creepy sort of way) and that he almost hadn’t recognized me. When, in the course of our conversation, I told him I’d lost 20 pounds, he asked me what I was doing. So I told him: Weight Watchers. I don’t expect that he’ll *really* look into it like he said he would, but maybe I helped to plant the seed for him, like so many people did for me.

I’m 1.2 pounds away from my 10% goal — that is, having lost 10% of my initial body weight when I joined WW. Things have been moving slowly in the weight-loss arena lately, but mainly still moving in the right direction. I’ve been so close to my 10% for so long, it seems.

And I’ll be damned if I let Thanksgiving pull me farther away from it.

Even so — and I don’t plan to admit this to my Leader on Tuesday — I don’t plan to track Points tomorrow. I’m going to eat breakfast before we head out to Cleveland, and encourage Aaron to do the same. I’m going to try to get up early enough to do a little exercise in the morning (my normal pushup training, plus some calisthenics — we’ll see how that pans out). I’m going to bring a bottle of water with me in the car for the two-hour trip. I’m only going to eat things that really appeal to me (passing on the mashed potatoes, but definitely going for the sweet potatoes and the stuffing). And I’m going to stop BEFORE I’m full. But I’m not planning to actually write anything down, either during the meal or after I get home.

The offset for this unthinkable day of debauchery is the assumption that I will have used up all 35 of my weekly Flex Points in that one day, thus precipitating a more strict weekend than I usually have. I plan to bring my journal with me wherever we go out to eat for the rest of the weekend, and stick to my daily allowance. (I usually use up the majority of my Flex Points on the weekends.)

I’m hoping that the carrot-on-a-stick in the form of my 10% Goal will help me not pig out like a fiend tomorrow, and help me stay the course this weekend. This is the lowest weight I’ve been since… shit. Since drum corps, in early college, over ten years ago. I’m feeling good, better than I have in years (if not quite as good as I used to after three straight months of intense drum corps action). In my early thirties, feeling almost as physically fit as I did in my early twenties — I’m not going to screw this up. No fucking way.

One day like this could easily set me back a week or two on my weight loss. And I’m not going to let it. I’m too close to my goal.

Well, my FIRST goal, anyway…

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The Gift of Fitness. My Own.

I first learned about one hundred push ups back in October, via the LJ of this fantastic artist from whom I bought cute mousie awesomeness at PAC.

Like almost every fitness venture I think about starting, I thought about starting this for weeks. I mentioned it to Aaron. I looked over the program. I forgot about it, then I remembered about it. Then, recently, Aaron asked me about it and showed some interest in trying it himself. So, I decided that I would go for it.

The idea is to complete an initial pushup test, to see how many you can do in one go, then jump into the six-week program at the place that’s right for you. The site gives several different modification options, including knee pushups (a.k.a. “girlie” pushups, although the website is kind enough not to call them that), knuckle pushups, and even wall pushups. I chose to do my initial test, and my six weeks (or more) of training, by doing girlie pushups on my knuckles.

I did four.

I was never good at pushups, not even in drum corps — I know for a fact that my form was poor and my range of motion was shallow, and even then I could only manage about ten, as I recall. I wouldn’t have survived long in low brass — a 25-pound horn and me just wouldn’t have gotten along.

At any rate, it doesn’t surprise me that I only managed four girlie pushups with good form. The “on the knuckles” thing actually relieved some stress in my wrists, which was nice. (Later that day, Aaron bought a pair of swivelly pushup handles, which are even nicer.)

Tomorrow I do four small sets of pushups as my first official pushup workout, then I’ll be doing four more small sets of pushups before heading off to Thanksgiving on Thursday, and four more sets on Saturday. Slowly but surely.

I enjoy the feeling of empowerment this gives me, with such a minimal time commitment. Plus, knowing that Aaron and I are both doing the program (with him doing more manly pushups than me, of course) will probably make me more likely to stick with it.

One hundred pushups, here I come!