dianaschnuth

After a conversation I had today, I decided that I needed to take some, shall we say, more revealing “before” pictures.

So, after my workout, and after dinner, I changed into my highly stylish beige bra and bikinis, and traipsed downstairs for a new set of “before” pics.

Looking at these pictures? Makes me want to go work out again. Today. Right now. Until I can’t move.

You know how, in Sociology or in Ethnic Studies or the multicultural class of your choice, they talked about push factors and pull factors? Generally this refers to reasons why people immigrated to America, but it applies to nearly any decision in life. Either you move from A to B because B has so many good things going for it (pull factors), or you move from A to B because A just sucks donkey balls, and anything would be better than A (push factors).

These “before” pictures have become a mighty push factor. Mightier than the pull factor of any post-drumcorps, size 14, tan and svelte Diana photo.

The good news is that I had a good first full day of the new plan. Barring one leftover burger with provolone cheese for lunch, I followed the plan fairly closely, although I do have some room for improvement.

Got up when my alarm went off (for once), ate breakfast at 7:30am (OMG WTF BBQ Me? Eat breakfast?!), and was quite sated until lunch, which was at 11:30am. Snackie-time was my 3:30pm break, and dinner was 6:30pm — ABC Evening News time. Did tonight’s workout while dinner was cooking (lunges were with my body weight only, BTW, and I did 50 jumping jacks before beginning the dumbbell routine). I plan to do some yoga with Chaz later on tonight, before a nice relaxing bath and a reasonably early bedtime (well, 11:00 is reasonably early for me).

According to my handy-dandy Diet Organizer, my calorie ratio for today was 31% from carbs, 34% from protein, and 35% from fat. We’re shooting for 40:30:30, so I have some tweaking to do. (The burger was the likely culprit, methinks.)

Now, don’t worry: this isn’t going to become a daily diet journal. I just wanted to share this first relatively successful day with all of you. Expect some weekly diet updates if I do well, or utter and abject silence on the subject otherwise. ^_^

I haven’t made a New Year’s Resolution to lose weight in years. That’s mainly because the fact that I want to lose weight is a given. Has been since I was in Junior High. These days, I resolve to focus on something in another part of my life — say, this year’s resolution of finishing what I start — and just assume that, yes, I want to continue to lose weight.

This is my “before” entry (no pictures — I’ll leave that to your imagination), in which I discuss my stats and my plans. If you’re still interested, read on.
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It’s a slow morning at work, so I figured now would be a good time to catch up on some blogging.

So, Aaron decided to go on Induction this week, and to step up his daily exercise. While I haven’t exactly been on Induction myself (thanks to the McDonald’s and Barry Bagels breakfast runs my co-workers have been making this week), I have been working on stepping up my own exercise. I’ve continued walking during my lunch breaks, despite the freezing temps, and I did some leg exercises with dumbbells on Tuesday night. I’m still sore from those.

Wednesday when I came home from work, I was FULL of energy. It was bizarre. I had offset my meal schedule by having a late breakfast and a later lunch, so I wasn’t hungry at all; I’m sure that was also a major factor in my energy spike. Usually I come home and forage for food as soon as Aaron goes to work. Instead, I got Mom’s birthday present wrapped and did some other randomness before sitting down to work on some genealogy for a few hours. I ended up not jogging on the trampoline like I’d planned, but that’s no big deal, since I’d walked for 45 minutes in the freezing cold over my lunch break. I think that was probably sufficient.

Tonight, though, I’m planning to do either some jogging on the trampoline (assuming my sore legs and butt can take it), or maybe my Pilates For Dummies DVD. That’s good stuff, too.

I’m just sick of that extra 20 pounds — well, 30 pounds now. I want it gone.

Update, 9pm: Is it wrong that the Tae Bo Instructional Workout (i.e. the one that shows you how to do the moves, but doesn’t take you through an entire session of tae bo) still makes me tired and almost sweaty? Next on the agenda: Locate the Tae Bo Basic Workout for cheap or free. Maybe Goodwill or Savers will turn up something.

I don’t particularly feel like writing right now, but I figured I’d give everyone a rundown of Thanksgiving and the long weekend.

OK, first off: Aaron and I were maybe 15 minutes down the turnpike, heading toward Cleveland, when I started swearing vehemently. Aaron didn’t miss a beat: “Pie,” he said.

I’d left it in the fridge.

We didn’t go back to get it, although we ended up making good enough time (and dinner ended up being late enough) that we totally could have doubled back and gotten the pie. Ah, well — more for us.

Thanksgiving wasn’t as weird as it could have been. We spent a lot of time chatting with Pete’s kids, who range from 12 (I think?) to 21. Joe, the youngest, finally hit the beginning of his growth spurt and voice change, so that was unexpected and kind of weird to witness. Grammie’s getting a little forgetful in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s, and Aunt Elaine is going into a nursing home this week due to her own Alzheimer’s-related issues. Things had the potential to be awkward, but really weren’t.

As far as Atkins cheating goes, oh yeah. I cheated, and I didn’t regret it. (Very much.) In the category of not-Atkins-friendly foods, I ate stuffing and sweet potatoes and a little pie, among other things. Oh, and the acorn squash with brown sugar and honey and whatever else couldn’t have been too good for me, either. But there was also ham and turkey and green bean casserole and fruit salad and mashed potatoes and gravy (although I opted to pass on the potatoes).

This week, Aaron’s starting back up on Induction again. He’s changed jobs at work, from a labor-intensive job to a fairly sedentary one, and he’s not happy with the weight he’s gained. So, I’m doing Induction with him. I, too, have gained back most of what I lost in our early October two-week Induction, unfortunately. I’m hoping that some of that is just pre-PMS water weight, but I can’t count on that.

I’m going to make a concerted effort to exercise daily, also. Since it’s getting colder (and rainy / snowy), I’m not going to be able to have my lunchtime walk in the park, so I’ll have to plan some evening indoor activity. Yoga, pilates, tae bo (maybe… Billy Blanks kicks my ass, as a general rule), trampolining / rebounding, or just working out with my free weights. Today was a gorgeous day for November (60°F in Ohio!), so I went ahead and walked. Tomorrow may be 40° and not rainy, so I may walk tomorrow, too. After that, though… *thumbs down*

In other unrelated news, I’ve loaded up my Brownie Bullet camera and am planning to shoot a test roll this week. It looks like it’ll cost me around fifteen bucks to get it developed, though, which kind of sucks.

In even more unrelated news, my old RCC cohort Jeff Hawley included me in his mass e-mail update today! I haven’t talked to him for maybe three or four years. Turns out he’s finished writing a film script, is engaged to a Japanese girl, and did graduate work in England (although I’d already heard that last bit through the grapevine). I e-mailed him back and shared my much less interesting life events with him.

I’m not unhappy with my life, though. I turned out a lot more normal than I could have — and, when I say “normal,” I mean it as a completely good thing.