Category Archives: health & fitness

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

weight loss 4 Comments

Diet & Fitness Update, Week #17

This week was definitely an improvement, although I’m still not doing everything I need to do. Despite my continued slackitude, I’m back down to 207, which is only half a pound more than my sick-week weight. My Omron Body Fat Analyzer arrives today from Amazon, so I’ll do an official stats-gathering tomorrow: new weight, measurements, photos, and body fat analysis. *gulp*

According to some online guesstimators, I may be somewhere between 35% and 40% body fat. I’d like to get that down to 30% for a start. Granted, that’s not ideal, but it’s better than I was even in high school. (Yes, I did have my body fat measured with calipers when I was 17, and it came out to 33%, as I recall. Sarge and I did a week or two of morning jogging to get my body fat down to 30%, so I could join up with the Army Band. Thankfully, that didn’t work out, though, for other reasons. Mainly because I came to my senses.)

I did my PUSH workout on Monday, then did some gardening on Thursday. You might scoff at my using gardening as exercise, and it surely wasn’t aerobic, but I did do some shoveling and worked my arms and legs and glutes. I sure felt it for the next couple of days. As always, I also kept with my daily 30-45 minute lunchtime walks, and kicked up the intensity there.

Food was pretty consistent: Breakfast was either a whole-grain English muffin with natural crunchy peanut butter or ¾ cup oatmeal with Splenda Brown Sugar Blend. Morning snackie was either low-sugar yogurt or an apple or strawberries. Lunch was brown rice or reduced-carb pasta or lettuce salad. Afternoon snackie was selected from the same foods as the morning snackie, mainly for convenience’s sake, and dinner was usually a meat and a carb — chicken breast and frozen broccoli, or chicken salad on a wheat tortilla, or unbreaded chicken fingers with reduced-carb pasta.

I would also like to mention that I didn’t go hog-wild this weekend after my weigh-in. Saturday I had some ground sirloin with salad and vegetable beef soup and veggies for lunch, then had the Orange Chicken Bowl at Applebee’s for dinner. Not entirely good, but not nearly as bad as I could have been. Sunday, though, we did go to the Dragon Buffet, just because it was Mother’s Day and they had LOBSTER on the buffet. I didn’t stuff myself too bad, though, really. Dinner on Sunday was curry chicken (with a curry cream sauce, evil me) and frozen broccoli, with a homemade chocolate cream cheese souffle for dessert.

The discovery of the week was this: Although I feel like I crave carbs in the evening (and OMG have I been craving carbs), if I make sure to include a good portion of protein in my evening meal, I tend to stave off the hunger and cravings better. So, if I can just chill out and make myself some chicken, or even turkey burgers, instead of whipping up something fast and meatless, I’m less likely to make myself cinnamon tortilla snackies at 8pm.

My goal this week is to eat more protein, and to do my PUSH workout three times. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Yes, I need to get my podcast done, because it’s horribly overdue (as usual), but taking care of me is more important.

Update, 6:30pm: My Omron Body Fat Analyzer arrived this evening, and a preliminary pre-dinner reading shows me at just over 35% body fat. This is no surprise, and is actually better than some online guesstimators had been telling me. We’ll get a “real” reading tomorrow morning.

weight loss 2 Comments

Diet & Fitness Update, Week #16

Gotta get back into the swing of things.

I took my little break from exercise while I was sick, and never got back into it. Also, Aaron and I have been gorging ourselves on the weekends, and I know that our 2½ mile Saturday walks at Wildwood Metropark haven’t been offsetting our binges nearly as much as we wish they would. I haven’t gone back to eating completely shitty during the week, but I also haven’t been eating enough protein, especially in the evenings.

That said, I have purposely not weighed myself this week. No point.

Don’t take this to mean I’m giving up. Far from it. In fact, I’m approaching my fitness plan with renewed gusto this week, despite having a bunch of stuff I need to do. Finish up my podcast, update the Lakeshoremen site… but I’m setting priorities. First, I have to work out. That always makes me feel better and more energized. Then I can do the other things I “need” to do.

I am fucking sick and tired of being all frumpy and shit. I am doing something about it. I’ve gained back the weight I lost while I was sick, and I’m not going back up where I was, dammit. I need to change something about *me* if I’m going to make this thing happen. Cardio has to happen. Protein has to happen. Early rising has to happen. I need to act like I’m already fit, and then it will happen.

(Oh, and I apologize to anyone who recently found my blog who wasn’t expecting me to drop an f-bomb. I do that every now and then.)

Natty Jo, in response to your questions: I’ve actually only been on the PUSH program for two months — and thanks to my being sick and then slacking, I’m only on Workout #1 of DVD #2. So, I guess you could call this my fifth week on PUSH. I’m sticking with Bob Harper myself, although I am curious about the new trainer they have on the list. This particular workout is finally getting to where I need to be, fitness-wise, although I’m having my next DVD focus more on my legs. Yay for arms and abs, though! w00t!

Stay tuned to see how I’m coming along. Next weekend will be the monthly weigh-and-measure (for real this time)!

health & fitness, randomness 2 Comments

Functionally Fit

When deciding how “in shape” you need to be, be it only slightly overweight or totally buff, there’s a term called “functionally fit.” That means that you’re in shape enough to do the things you need to do, and do the recreational activities you want to do. Say, for instance, you decided you wanted to go hiking and camping. Could you do it? How about skiing or snowboarding (besides not knowing how)? Or would it leave you in total pain the next day, or would you even be able to enjoy yourself while you were doing it?

Yesterday, Aaron and Mark and I helped Kris and Jamie move Kris’s stuff from his parents’ basement (where it had been in storage) to their new house in Maumee. Moving it out was mainly a matter of logistics, since he’d moved most everything up into the garage prior to yesterday’s move. We just had to pack the truck so that everything would fit. (Everything did, for the most part; he just needs to go back for his guitars.)

Moving it in, though, involved a steep 1960’s stairwell with no carpet and no banister, in addition to the front stairs up to the house. And I discovered something about myself that I’d been ignoring before: I go to great lengths to avoid cardio. Like going up and down stairs. Moving heavy stuff, sure, I’m all about it. I’ll unload the truck and move the heavy crap to the edge where someone can grab it and take it up to the upstairs bedroom. But actually carrying the stuff up there? Rather not. Because it makes me all out of breath, and my legs get all heavy and tired.

Lazy ass.

This morning when I awoke, my biceps were sore, my delts were sore, my lower back was sore (I lifted one Rubbermaid tote incorrectly, thinking it was a light one when it wasn’t), my ass was sore… I’m sure I’m forgetting something. So what did I do about it?

I grabbed the pruning shears and went outside to give the hedges a haircut.

Now my arms are sore *and* weak, but I’m OK with that. I’d rather keep moving. Today, Aaron and I are going to take a nice, long walk at Wildwood Metropark and test out Fries’s late grandfather’s camera before I offer to buy it.

So… functionally fit? Close, but not quite. At least I learned something about myself, though.

weight loss 1 Comment

Diet & Fitness Update, Week #15

Not much to report. I forgot to weigh myself before the weekend hit again, so today’s weigh-in was after a cheat day of Chinese for lunch and Mexican for dinner. I’m up to 209, but I’m going to weigh myself in another couple of days, after the extra calories have averaged themselves out.

I didn’t do my PUSH workouts this week. It was a challenge to try to get back into the groove after skipping my workouts from being sick, unfortunately. This week, I’m going to get back on that. I’m paying money for this program, after all. I have been continuing my daily walks, though. I’d feel like I missed out on a big part of my day if I didn’t walk during my lunch.

Not eating enough protein. I need to work on that, too. Been continuing to eat too many carbs too late in the day, just because it’s easier than cooking meat. I also have been skipping snackies during the day, because I’m finally doing work I enjoy and get caught up in. By the time I realize I didn’t eat my morning snack, it’s almost time for lunch.

So, I guess the overall gist of this week is that I’ve been coasting. I need to start getting back on this weight-loss thing hardcore. I’m tired of feeling unsexy and frumpy… although I *am* feeling much better than I was even a few months ago.

weight loss 4 Comments

Diet & Fitness Update, Week #14

Well, I forgot to weight myself before going ballistic on Chinese buffet and Outback for my birthday. When I weighed myself this morning, though, it showed that I’d gained two one and a half pounds since my last weigh-in. I’m OK with that; I’m guessing that everything will average itself back out in a couple of days.

I only managed to do one day of my PUSH workout this week, although I did enjoy the one time I did it. DVD #2 has me working with the resistance bands, finally, and I was definitely feeling it two days later. I feel like this is where I should have started to begin with, fitness-level-wise, but doing a month of more basic exercises to get me used to exercising was a good idea.

I’ve been continuing to eat whole wheat English muffins with natural PB (or sugar-free honey) for breakfast, although my snackies have been more sporadic. I get all into what I’m doing at work, and before I know it, it’s almost time for lunch. Oops. Oh, well. Lunch has been salad greens with canned chicken or turkey, sugar-free sweet relish, and salad dressing. OMG, I’d forgotten how much zing relish can add to stuff. Mmm. I’ve been being bad for dinner lately, though, and been making pasta salads — again, with the yummy relish and canned meats. I’ll turn my shit around for this coming week, though.

I’ve also been continuing my daily lunchtime walks, of course. Today I bought some special-for-work sneakers for walking, so I won’t wear out my nice work shoes (and so I can wear some of my cuter but more fragile shoes to work).

Oh, and I’m officially a “real” size 18 now, I think. I bought some new clothes at Lane Bryant today (thanks, Aaron, for the gift card!), and the size 20 dress pants I tried on were way bigger than I needed. I swapped them out for 18’s and didn’t try them on until I got home. They’re actually a little smaller than I’d like, but maybe I’m used to having some breathing room in my pants these days. At any rate, yay for smaller cute clothes.

(BTW, Sheryl? I feel SO LOST in Lane Bryant without you there to guide me to teh cuteness. Aaron’s a good sport, and wanders around behind me like I usually wander around behind you. Except I don’t know where I’m going, either.)

Still haven’t measured myself. I really need to do that. Blah.