Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Back on the night exercise track

So, I actually managed to do what I said I was going to do this week in terms of exercise. Yesterday I picked up my extra weight workout in the morning, and last night I went to spinning class after work. Now, the only problem was that I got the really bad spinning bike and the pedals did not work properly when I was standing up. Unfortunately it was a full class and it was the last bike available so I was not able to switch. So, I did a little more of the class sitting down than I would have liked, but I still managed to work up a good sweat. I feel so much better when I go to my night exercise classes that I need to make it a priority rather than coming up with reasons to not show up and just go home and crash. I am going to try and make it tonight as well and hopefully get a better bike in the class to make it worthwhile. Of course I say that now and something may come up over the course of the day to get in the way. I think part of my issue is that it is hard to park at the gym at night and it is ridiculously busy and crowded. I just need to learn to live with that fact and make sure that I go anyway because it makes such a difference for my mental state, and that makes a crowded parking lot a small price to pay.

Monday, January 30, 2006

Mostly Back on track

So, I have come to a couple of conclusions about yesterday, lack of food is bad and also I need to start drinking more water. I spent all of yesterday with a horrible headache which refused to go away, even after I took pain medication. This morning I did a relatively easy cardio workout and then I lifted weights to make up for yesterday when I skipped my weights workout. Tonight I am going to try to go to the gym afterwork because my co-worker is teaching the spinning class and I really need to make up for yesterday and the amount of food I have been eating. Today I attempting to get back to clean eating and being healthy but we will see how it goes over the course of the day.

Sunday, January 29, 2006

I really do know better

Last week ended up being pretty bad in terms of working out and eating. So, I tried to overcompensate on the weekend and did not eat all that much, especially on Sunday. I know better than to not eat a real dinner the night before my spin class, but I ended up only eating cereal and having a small smoothie for dinner. So, this morning, I only made it through 45 minutes of my spin class. Then I called it quits, went to the market and bought a protein bar. I feel much better now that I have eaten, but it means I totally destroyed my workout this morning. I will have to do weights tomorrow morning, make sure I pick up extra cardio at some point this week and generally reorganize my life a bit. On the plus side, I did not actually pass out during the class, and I think people will believe my excuse of having to get to work early. Nope, I refuse to share the real reason behind my early departure. It is a reminder that frustrating as not losing weight can be, the solution cannot involve skipping meals or taking shortcuts. I am working on remembering that this week.

Monday, January 23, 2006

Grr

I have no idea what I did to myself yesterday, but I am really sore today. I think it might have been the combination of spinning and then using the stairmaster for 20 minutes, plus a legs workout on weights. Okay, that was probably it, in any event, I am rather sore this morning. This is probably a good think because it means I actually managed to push my body pretty hard yesterday which is something that I have not achieved recently. My plan is to pick up a spinning class tonight at the gym, or at least a little bit of extra cardio. Not mind you that I am seeing a lot of difference on the scale at the moment. I admit, I never realized how hard it was going to be once I hit 150 lbs. I am pretty careful overall about food, with a few admitted glitches, and I work out all the time. Recently, most of my extra food has been fruit and I balance out the day with a lighter dinner most of the time. I figure most days that I eat between 1500 and 1800 calories and during the week I am usually logging around 2 hours of exercise each day. So, I could probably eat around 2,300 calories (give or take) and maintain my weight in the 150's relatively easily. However, to be eating less than that and not lose any weight is frustrating to me. I know that in about 6-9 months I will be moving back to the mainland U.S., at that point I will re-evaluate but for now I am going to stay with this plan. Still, somedays it is hard.

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Aiming for the track

This week, I am determined to get back on track with my evening exercise and eating. I am debating going to spinning tonight, but I probably won't because I don't have clean exercise clothes and I took a spinning class this morning. I am definately going tomorrow night and Thursday night to the gym. I had an excellent spin class this morning which was just what I needed to help with motivation. Food is not as perfect today as it could be, I had chinese food for lunch and far too much coffee today already. Tonight, I will try to balance that out with a smoothie and extra fruit for dinner. I am attempting to live a balanced life and right now I am definately having food issues (not that I don't always have food issues). I think my best bet is to balance out the food with extra exercise and mostly good eating.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Hell Week

The last couple of days have been hell on wheels. Bad work stuff, ridiculous amounts of work and a fair amount of slippage when it comes to exercise and my food. Today, I went to Coldstone Creamery for lunch with my coworker (which gives you an idea of how bad work has been) and got icecream. Actually, I got the smallest size and about 1/3 of it is in the freezer at work because it is too sweet for me to eat anymore. I have made it to the gym every morning but not at night, tonight I am supposed to go and take the hipboxing class that one of my other coworkers teaches. Tomorrow, I am taking the day off from work which I desparately need after this week. My plan is to go to the gym at 5 am for my spinning class and then head home and in all probability go back to bed before going to the mall and spring cleaning my apartment. I will probably not come into work this weekend, I might go check out the local motorcross with a friend but I probably will just take the three day weekend and not worry about work. I keep picking up extra really difficult cases somehow and I need a little bit of time off just to remain sane.

Monday, January 16, 2006

Rant

I am tempted to rant today, tempted because I just got stuck with a trial tomorrow on a case I just picked up last Friday. Sigh. I was planning on taking Friday off but that appears to be out of the question. Anyway, this is not really what I am feeling annoyed about, it is actually more diet related. I get admittedly annoyed when people tell me dietary information as if I have never heard it before in my life. One of my coworkers is now on a diet so we are bringing in lots of fruit and vegetables everyday rather than candy (why this only starts when a new person goes on a diet ignoring the fact that some of us always try to eat like this, I do not know). I mentioned that I could bring in some spiced nuts (really tasty) only to be informed that nuts were high in calories and therefore to be avoided. I know that nuts are high in calories, this is not news to me. However, I also know that nuts are really good for you in moderation, they have good fats and are something that should be included in your diet. I am not suggesting that one should go out and fall face first into a large platter of nuts but that doesn't mean they should be banned either. Anyway, it annoys me because I am very concious of calorie counts and the food that I put in my body. Besides, banning foods annoys me because it leads inevitably to binging on food because you feel deprived and then leads back to really strict restrictions on food. A very nasty cycle that I attempt to avoid in my daily life. Okay, rant over. On another note, I decided to set the background of my computer to a picture of me and my two closest friends from college. This led to the inevitablt discovery that I only have pictures of the three of us from when I weighed 240 lbs. I put it up anyways, hopefully it will be good motivation for me.

Sunday, January 15, 2006

The Joys of Spinning

It may possibly be a bad sign when you walk into the local coffee shop and hand them money and they automatically make the drink you want without any words being exchanged. Yep, I have pretty much been getting a large latte every day for quite a while now. However, I have just decided that I can afford the approximately 220 calories everyday if I am careful with everything else that I eat. I went to spinning class this morning and it kicked my rear which was a good thing. There were only 5 people in class and the instructor took that as an opportunity to really crank up the difficulty and resistence. I was basically a puddle of sweat at the end and then I staggered off to lift a few weights. I am rapidly becoming a spinning convert because it is a full body cardio workout which can be adjusted to your own level of difficulty. Also, it seems to be easier on my body than running which is a good thing, and more mentally challenging.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Exercising in spite of myself

Last night, as I was leaving work, I decided that I was not going to the gym. Normally I buy a bottle of water from the vending machine at work if I am going the gym in the evening but I didn't yesterday because I was not going to the gym. However, on the way home, I passed the parking lot for my gym and for some reason turned into the parking lot. I was silently arguing with myself the whole way up the stairs into the actual gym. I made a deal with myself that I would just workout for a little while and then I would go home. So, I lifted a few weights and then worked out on the eliptical machine for 35 minutes. I figure that next week I will try and take a class on Thursday night and a class on Tuesday nights since I don't end up at the gym most wednesday nights. As for today, I took my morning spinning class, lifted weights, and used an eliptical machine for about 20 minutes. Then I went out for lunch and ate ridiculous amounts of thai food. I think that may work against the fact I managed to hit 153 lbs this morning on the scale. I figure it will all balance out provided that I eat a light dinner and watch my food this weekend.

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

A little less talk and a little more action

Last night I was going to go to the gym, I swear. However, I ended up going out for a drink with one of my coworkers and having spinach dip for dinner. So, I ended up with a relatively high calorie count and no extra exercise. Sigh. On the plus side, when a couple of my coworkers went on a chocolate run, I managed to not eat any of it. So, maybe it all balances out on some cosmic scale of accountability somewhere. At least spinach is a vegetable. I am again going to try to get up the energy to go to the gym tonight and take an exercise class, we will see what happens by the end of the day. I am actually still doing pretty decently on my goals for January but I could improve and actual do what I say I am going to do rather than just saying it.

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

No Excuses

The problem with working near the gym is that even when you procrastinate and head to your class really late, you still show up exactly on time. So, yesterday even though I did not leave my office until 5:30 pm, I was still on time to my spin class at 5:45 pm. So, I had no excuse for not taking the class. It was a good workout although my hair tie broke and I looked like a headbanger from the early 1980's, masses of hair everywhere. My plan is to also go to the gym tonight but we will see what happens between now and then. In any event, I have now made up for the fact that I missed the gym on Monday morning. I think part of my problem in the afternoons is that my gym gets really crowded with people and it is hard to find parking and free machines. I much prefer the morning when it is quiet and not a lot of people, however just going in the morning is not working for me anymore. Also, I really like the evening spinning class instructor and I am actually better at spinning when I am awake and functioning. So, for now I will keep trying to go in the evening and my gym bag is always packed with an extra set of workout clothes to limit my ability to skip class. In fact, I am accumulating more workout clothes than regular clothes because of the amount of time I am spending at the gym. If I make it three nights this week, I will actually end up spending a total of 8 hours at the gym (an entire workday). Now that is just frightening.

Monday, January 09, 2006

Changes

Um, yeah. You may notice that I have changed the title of this blog, it seemed like time. After around two years, 300+ posts, and 88 pounds it just seemed like time. As of today, I am weighing in at 153.5 lbs down from my recorded high of 242 lbs. So, whatever else I am, I am not fat anymore, a little bit overweight yes, fat not really. Entering the new year it seemed like time for the change. This year is all about focusing on fitness and fueling my body correctly, about viewing my life as it really is, and recoginzing where I am in that life, and giving myself credit for what I have accomplished. I am going to stop struggling with the weight and focus more on being fit than being skinny. So, changing the title of the blog is part of that, the journey hasn't changed, just where I am on the road. A former fat girl and a lifelong fit woman, I think I like it.

Losing my street cred

I'm begining to lose my credibility as a fat person. I mention this because I have been pondering it for awhile now, well okay, ever since last week. I was talking to a new coworker about joining JAG (the military lawyers) which she had always wanted to do, personally I have never really had a desire to be a military lawyer except when I was really unemployed, I would just be bad at it. Anyway, I said something to the effect of, "Well, I never would have met the height and weight requirements anyway" in reference to the fact you have to be physically fit to be in the military. She looked at me, rather stunned, and said "Oh, c'mon, you skinny little thing, you would have been fine." It was at this point, I was forced to point out that I had been 242 lbs in 2004 and not anywhere near the height and weight requirements of the U.S. Military. More and more I find myself doing this, justifying an understanding of what it means to struggle with food, to be overweight, to be on the otherside of the great American divide. If the average American woman is a size 14 or above, well I am not exactly average anymore, I wear size 10p clothing, actually own a pair of size 8p pants that fit (but that is a fluke), and am small boned in addition. I am little and more and more I look little. Mentally, I do not feel little, but more and more I become a skinny person. I ended up at Pizza hut yesterday for lunch with my coworkers (don't ask how) and the difference in what we ate without thinking about it was mindboggling. One person had 5 slices of pizza and a salad, the other a huge plate of pasta, both ate a slice of the desert pizza. I had 2.5 slices of pizza and 2 breadsticks, which qualifies as a bad meal for me and probably 600 calories. I didn't snack the rest of the day and when I got home I barely made it through a small bowl of whole wheat pasta and vegetables. It just didn't occur to me to eat more than that, I couldn't physically eat more than that in one day. I have a few food vices left (fancy coffee drinks being the major one), but the bad days are getting farther and farther apart. I balance out the vices with exercise, and yes I was back at the gym this morning and I am going back after work tonight. So, when I say I understand what it means to struggle with food, when I comiserate, people stare at me like I am insane, because they just can't see the extra weight or what it takes to keep it off. You can tell the story, but you can't ever convince people it is 100% true. Maybe in the long run that is okay, because in the long run, I don't want to be remembered as the fat girl, I just want to be remembered as myself.

Sunday, January 08, 2006

Bad weekend

I would love to be able to tell you what I weigh after this first solid week back on clean eating and extra exercise, but I can't do that accurately. On Sunday I got food poisoning and spent about 24 hours unable to hold down any food at all, or water for that matter. Yes, I know that is entirely TMI. I skipped the gym as a result this morning, it did not seem like a good idea to go when all I had eaten was one bowl of cereal in over 24 hours. Therefore, this morning the scale told me that I weight 152 lbs, which I know is a result of lack of food and dehydration, especially since on Saturday I was at around 154.5 lbs. I am still slightly dizzy today and not very hungry but I am working on getting back to normal. I am going to make up skipping the gym by going in the evening this week once I have gotten some actually food into my system. Tonight I have to catch up on everything I did not get done yesterday (like laundry) and try to get to bed early so that I will be 100 percent tomorrow.

Friday, January 06, 2006

Saturday at the office

I feel better today, however I am at the office because I have tons of work which needs to be done. I cannot remember a weekend when I have not been working except the two weeks I was on vacation. Next week is the only week this month that I do not have at least one jury trial scheduled so I will spend all week trying to get ahead on my work. Honestly, I do not know what I would do if I didn't go to the gym to work out my stress everyday. I would probably go insane on some level. Tomorrow, I am going to go snorkling with a co-worker and maybe next weekend we will go diving. Today is all about running every single errand that I have and finishing up motions and jury instructions due on Monday. I am not working out today or tomorrow at the gym but hopefully I will be working out a lot there next week. I got the evening class schedule and I think I can take spinning tuesday and wednesday night and take hipboxing (which my friend teaches) on thursday night. Add in two morning spinning classes along with my regular cardio schedule and I will be a busy girl. Basically this is all an attempt to ramp up the intensity of what I am doing in terms of cardio and challenge myself. I was getting bored with just running and the eliptical machine and I do not want to get to the point of being so bored that I want to quit working out. So that is where I am and hopefully I will be able to make some real progress over the next few weeks.

Brief check in

So, lost my trial. Third loss in a row if anyone was counting. Sigh. I know my cases are hard, but this is demoralizing. I am still on track dietwise which is good and down about a pound and a half. I even made it to spinning class twice this week, once friday morning and once tuesday night. Next week I am aiming for three classes at night and two spinning classes in the morning. I am exhausted so I am headed home. More tomorrow.

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Day three

Day three (Insert ominous music here), I am already on my second cup of coffee for the day because I stayed up late last night. After work last night I went back to the gym and did a spinning class for an hour. The instructor pretty much killed all of us for an hour. Much to my surprise, I discovered while on vacation that I really like spinning classes. Not to mention the fact that it burns around 700 calories according to my instructor. I actually managed to stay on plan foodwise yesterday as well, but I probably did not eat enough dinner. I was so tired when I got home that I only ate a bowl of cereal for dinner. I am probably not going to make it back to the gym tonight because I have to prepare for closing statements in my trial . I am going to be really glad when I am out of trial for awhile. That will allow me to be less stressed and focus on the rest of my life for a little bit. I have to get back to work now.

Monday, January 02, 2006

Day 2 or thereabouts

Technically yesterday panned out to almost Day One of the new plan. I say almost Day One because I do not think drinking 4 relatively high calories coffee drinks can be considered a part of the plan. I burned around 600 calories just on those drinks alone which is a lot given that I only ate around 1,500 calories yesterday (by the way, can you tell Kat is keeping a food diary again). I was actually within my calorie range, thanks to the fact I had a salad for lunch, ratatouille for dinner and forgot my snack. I actually spent most of yesterday cooking the ratatouille and I have enough for lunch today. The brilliance of ratatouille is that because it is all vegetables, in this case, tomatoes, zuchinini, onion, and garlic, it does not have a lot of calories. I find it a difficult food only because I do not really love eggplant so it takes some convincing that I will like it. However, I really liked the ratatouille I had yesterday and it saved me from myself and the aformentioned coffee drinks. I have now thrown out the remaining supply of coffee drink stuff and I only have tea left in my house which has no calories. I am allowing myself a latte in the morning while I am in trial and that will stop when the trial ends in a day or so. I am feeling happy with myself today and I even have extra workout clothing packed for this afternoon. As promised, here are some of my measurements as of last night with gratitous commentary: Waist: 31 inches (although I can pull the measuring tape tight enough to get to 29.5 inches but I don't think that counts) Arm: 12 inches (measured at the very widest part, hello hanging excess skin) Hips: 39 inches (also known as the lower tummy area/Kat problem area) Thigh: 22 inches (I measured both of my huge thighs and I don't mean huge in a good way and each one at the widest part was around 22 inches) Bust: 35.5 inches (This one I know started at 44 inches so I think this is an improvement) Torso: 34 inches (Otherwise known as the area below chest and waist) Okay I have to get to work now.