Tuesday, January 6, 2009

the importance of phrasing

week: +0.5
total: -72

I'm reading Tom Venuto's Feed the Muscle, Burn the Fat. The first chapter is all about motivation and goal-setting. The biggest lesson I took from that is that by changing my language, I can change my attitude, and also influence my outcomes for the better. Instead of phrasing things as "I need to..." or even from the positive "I will...," it actually tricks the mind into believing it if you say, as though from the point of view of the finished future, "I am..." or "I do...." And it doesn't have to be just about weight loss, this works for everything. "I do floss my teeth every night before bed." (I'm still working on 100% compliance on that, but I'm up to 5 nights in a row so far.)

By my motivators over there on the right, I'm still in weight-category limbo -- not firmly "overweight" anymore, but not comfortably in "normal" yet either. I've set a new goal, to be ready for Florida at spring break. Ready or not, I'll have to go.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

some good, some bad, some ugly

week: -0
total: -68

the good: gym on Sunday, tang soo do on Monday, mediocre (at best) gym on Tuesday

the bad: no working out between last Tuesday and Sunday

the ugly: the big payment we shelled out today for materials to fix the roof and interiors of our house (the remnants of Hurricane Gustav). But that's also a good.

I indulged and slept in this morning, which put me behind schedule all day. I was forced to have an abbreviated gym session. When I got to the locker room, I was horrified to realize that I had forgotten to pack a towel (no more towel service at the gym, as it costs more money than it brings in). Then I had to rush to my GP's office for my GP (general physical): clean bill of health though, assuming everything goes smoothly at my ladydoctor appt after the new year.

Ohyeah, we got promoted to fourth gup last night too -- at the next testing, we will be going for the red belt.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

week 100

week: +0.5
total: -69

One hundred weeks have gone by since I started my get healthy adventure. I'm on the high side of normal for my height now, according to most online calculators. I'm supposed to meet with my doctor soon for a yearly checkup, I may ask him if the clinic has a BMI testing facility.

all the changes I've made to my life in 100 weeks, if you had told me I'd be getting up early to go to the gym, I'd have laughed in your face.

It's an evolution that has enhanced my life, that's for certain. I'm not winded when climbing the stairs to my office, my knee doesn't usually give me problems anymore.

I still have the problem of being lured in by easy meals -- I'm not such a good cook, and I'm still a slave to taste. Still fighting against that.

In a couple weeks, will be the 2-year anniversary of this journey. I will have to work hard to get to the middle range of normal, because my body seems to feel that where I am now is good enough.

When I started this, I was wearing size 24 jeans. Now my pants are in the 8-12 range (darn you clothing industry and your non-standardized pants sizes!). I never measured my body at its largest -- I just didn't want to know the worst of it. But the jeans numbers are telling enough.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

exercise medley

week: -2.5
total: -69

I am not deliberately making posts only when I lose weight. Rather, this fall I have become a morning exerciser, at least on Tuesday/Thursday, which greatly inhibits my Tuesday weight-loss-saga posts. So, I endeavor to improve in this as in other areas of my life.

Sunday I made a new PR in pullups: 17 with 85 pounds offset (which means I'm lifting a fraction of my own weight, I know). So this morning, I knocked it down to offset 70 pounds and I was able to do about 7 reps (working from memory here, my notebook is in the gym bag still), which is a PR too for that weight level.

I tried a new machine called an Adaptive Motion Trainer. I felt like I was training to walk in a mechanical body armor suit. The machine allows the exerciser to use whatever stride is most comfortable, from vertical stair-climbing, to long horizontal cross-country skiing (I am guessing on that last part). Anyway, my ten-minute interval session plus five-minute cool-down about killed my thighs. My knees were really aching after too, but they were aching before, so I'm not sure how much to blame the AMT. In fact, I was supposed to do sprints on the track for intervals, but after my knees started screaming while climbing the stairs to the indoor track, I changed my mind and went looking for something low-impact. The AMT is quite low-impact, at least on the lowest setting, and I felt like I was springing on a trampoline or in the moonwalk bubble from my childhood. I won't use the AMT every time (because I never use the same interval type twice in a row), but I suppose I will put it into the mix.

Tang Soo Do testing is in four and a half weeks. I think I'll be ready, but I have to prepare myself for my breaks better than I did last time around (e dan ahp cha gi and tollyo chung dan kong kyuk).

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

September ends

week: -2.5
total: -68

In the last week I did:
Tang Soo Do twice (Wed/Sat) (with hubby)
gym twice (Tues/Thurs)
cross-campus sprint walk between my MTWR classes, took the stairs several times, etc.

super busy last week: got up early and headed to the gym, completely forgetting that I should post something here. I'm almost ready for the gym today already, but I do have a few free minutes.

I rented a locker at the gym, since I'm trying that morning workout thing, so I'd have a place to keep my shower shoes w/out lugging them back and forth (and forgetting them at home more often than not). BUT the locker rental is $90 -- while it costs $1 to rent a towel on a per need basis. Twice a week for 45 weeks to justify that expense -- and it's a service I don't really need in summer. Maybe I'll switch to semesterly after this year is up.

I haven't been sleeping well the last few nights. I'm reluctant to go to bed in the first place (why? no idea, not tired); once I'm there it takes longer than usual to drop off; then I wake up every so often in a blind panic (or from a bad dream, like Sunday night), and I'm crushed when I see that it is still dark out. I think I have to force myself to go to bed earlier, even if I don't feel tired, just to unwind and settle the brain.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

ready to return to normalcy

week: +1.5
total: -67.5

Another week of hectic weather and hence sporadic exercise. Tang Soo Do school opened again last Wednesday, but then we were feeling the effects of Ike, even this far away, and I didn't want to go out on Friday or Saturday. So. I did make it back to the gym this morning, and managed 8 assisted pullups (not a PR but exciting since it had been so long since my last attempt).

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

not quite normal

week: -3.5
total: -69

According to my milestones on the right column, I'm in the gray area between "overweight" (150) and "normal" (145). I don't necessarily like how I've achieved it here recently (see The Gustav Diet), but that plateau was pretty heinous, and I'm glad for breaking it.

Life is in turmoil here, and we have not practiced Tang Soo Do in over a week, nor have we been to the gym. We are planning to change that this afternoon and do something after work, and try to start getting back to normal, even as we keep waiting for the power to come back on.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

the Gustav Diet

week (as of Tuesday, 9/2): -3.5
total: -65.5

late on posting, because we had a bit of trouble with Gustav. You probably won't be surprised to read that I found myself on the Hurricane Anxiety Diet. I really didn't feel like eating, and when I did eat, because of the electricity situation, I could only get an energy bar, a can of beans, or a can of fruit. Consequently, I shattered my plateau -- the question now is whether my old weight will resume as my life returns to normal (which won't actually be for a long time).

Currently, I'm at a friend's house, so I don't actually have my spreadsheet of previous weigh-ins. I do have my little ticker at the bottom, so I'm extrapolating from that.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

tortoise v hare

I was just listening to an interview with Darin Steen (I'd put up a link, but the interviewer only makes it free for like 24hrs), who is a fitness and motivational coach in Chicago. One of the topics he touched on was the effectiveness of high-intensity intervals like sprints versus low-intensity steady-state jogging. Since we are in the midst of Olympics fever, he said something like: "Whose physique would you rather have, a sprinter's, or a marathoner's?" (Here are some pictures I found on the net to illustrate the point:)

<<<--SPRINTER




That marathon runner is slim and trim, but he's not solid like the sprinter. And I've always thought to myself: "When am I going to have to run 5k?" It's much more likely that I'll have to dash 100m -- to catch a child in the street or escape from an axe murderer. [Edited to add:] Or to dash across campus when I'm running late. [end addendum.] I've already been doing intervals based on my Abs Diet plan (I think it's in there), but it is always nice to vindication.


MARATHONER>>>

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

the end of summer

week: +1.5
total: -60.5

gym: Tuesday/Thursday
tang soo do: Wednesday

We went out of town for the weekend, leaving Friday afternoon, so I didn't take the time to hit the gym that day, opting instead to pack. We spent the whole day outside in the park Saturday though (excepting the lunch break, when the sky opened up a downpour on us). We had packed a cooler for the trip over, but then we forgot to get the Blue Ice things out of the hotel room freezer. Oh well, we had finished most of the cold stuff on Saturday anyway.

School resumes next Monday. In some ways, it should be easier to make it to the gym, since it's right there on campus. However, it also gets a lot easier to find excuses to skip: tired after teaching, too rushed to go before class, too crowded at the end of the day, yadda yadda yadda. I am seriously thinking of asking about a locker there though, which would ease up some of my rushed-ness.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

7 in 1 year

week: -2
total: -62

gym: Thursday, Sunday, today (Tuesday)= met goal!
tang soo do: last Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, missed Saturday's class for waking up late = 3/4 of goal

Almost exactly a year ago (I missed it by a few weeks here), I took my waist-to-hip ratio measurements for the first time. Since then, I have lost seven inches from both. I guess I have gained and lost weight proportionally for the most part. Nevertheless, I hadn't realized how much progress I'd made on that front, so, even though I haven't hit a WL record any time recently, I still have things to celebrate!

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

up early for me

week: -0
total: -60

Woke up this morning ... and I got myself a beer. No, wait, that was a different morning. This morning, I woke up at 7am and could not fall back asleep. So I decided to go ahead and get up and head to the gym; I figured that working out would maybe make me tired, and I could nap later. I just got home, so no nap just yet.

No post last week, because I had been out of town, and there was not much to report. Suffered some bad headaches on vacation, and they followed me home, so I did not work out Tues night or Wed at all. Sucked it up and went to TSD class on Thurs. Flash flooding from heavy rains on Friday -- driving through that mess always leaves me shaken (and stirred) so we cut class again, but made it out on Saturday and Sunday. So three sessions of exercise, not ideal, but decent.

My mini-project at the gym is to work up to doing pull ups unassisted. There is a machine that offsets through counterbalance (I guess) part of my weight, so I only have to lift a portion of my real weight. When I started this project, I set it on 100, and could only do a few. Today, I did 10 (barely) on 85. I won't be doing unassisted pullups any time soon, but I can definitely see progress, which is good enough for me.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

beginning again

week: -0
total: -60.5

Quite a while ago I bookmarked a blog entry by Men's Health editor Craig Ballantyne. This weekend I set up a spreadsheet cataloging the various kinds of exercises that he described. This way I can randomly generate a list of exercises to perform, and I have a basic (non-scientific) method of tracking my numbers.

I did my first version of this workout on Sunday, and another today. I'm going to be unable to use the gym for the next seven days, but this plan has a lot of bodyweight exercises that I could use instead, so I'll see how working out at home goes.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

weekly acounting

week: +2.5
total: -60.5

Last week we were preparing for Tang Soo Do testing. We attended class twice I think, but opted out of Friday's class. I also didn't want to hit the gym, lest I push myself too hard and make myself sore (it has happened before). Testing went well for the most part, except it took me three tries to break my board, and even then I had to use the remedial boards. Master C said I could try that part again in a few weeks.

After the test, we went to a Nepalese-Indian buffet, where I ate entirely too much chicken tikka marsala (?) and chickpea curry.

Sunday we ordered pizza so we wouldn't have to run out and cook while trying to do our role playing games with friends.

Hit the gym today, and the grocery for some fresh fruit. Getting ready to go to class in a few minutes, unless I cannot drag my dear husband away from his new videogame (Civilization IV).

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

update

week: -4.5
total: -63

No Independence Day parties for us, so no excessive eating and drinking.

Testing for our next rank (for fifth gup, green belt) in Tang Soo Do on Saturday.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

weekly checkin

week: +1
total: -59

Tang Soo Do on Tuesday and Friday last week. Gym on Sunday. Not the best workout week, but certainly not shabby. Why is the weight still up (and up and up)? Too much snacking maybe -- a perennial problem for me. Monthly cycle is coming around (TMI!), that usually wreaks havoc on my systems. Cheated on Wednesday at Macaroni Grill, although I still ordered the chicken marsala which is recommended in Eat This Not That, AND took home half ... and we shared a tiramisu for dessert. So.

Got up early to go to the farmers' market. Probably spent way too much money, but so far the things I've tasted are outstanding. Blueberries taste much better fresh than the ones from the frozen section. Saturn (a.k.a. donut) peaches were new to me, but I love them now -- tiny, bite-sized, plenty juicy but not messy. Looking forward to getting into the blackberries.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

blaming the bad cereal

week: -1
total: -60

My weight loss has stalled, and I know exactly why. I've been snacking more. I bought "bad" cereal (chocolate biscoti -- it was a moment of weakness -- but it is so goooood). I've been taking the lazy way and stopping more for take-out. However, last week I was at the gym twice and did Tang Soo Do thrice, so that's something positive.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

ending the slack

week: +0.5
total since 01/07: -59

I've decided I have to get back into journaling at least once a week. I've been a total slacker on so many fronts, that now it is catching up with me. We were out of town for the weekend, and we got fed really well. We did plenty of walking and running around, but not nearly enough to burn off what I ate. I haven't really established that workout schedule that I posted last week (getting ready for this trip took a lot of time), but I'm packed for the gym now, and will be going that way in about an hour. I don't want to overdo it, because we are also scheduled to go to TSD tonight as well.

Anyway, I've been feeling like I'm going backwards on this weight loss thing for the last three or four weeks (!) and I have to get it under control. That starts today.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

filling the days of summer

Well, without Tales from the Scales, I don't feel much push to make a post. Shame on me.

I find myself slipping into old patterns -- patterns that helped me gain so much weight in the first place. I'm on summer break, and the last week melted away in listening to music and playing online games. We are also in danger of falling out of the training habit, and I absolutely do not want that. So, I need projects. Actually, I have projects, but I have not started them wholeheartedly. So, to remind myself, they are:

very short term:
larp armor

long term:
gym - Tues, Thurs, Sun
tang soo do - Tues, Wed, Fri, Sat (ideally)
Rosetta Stone Korean - daily

away from the computer:
catch up on reading an actual book!
catch up on movies saved to PVR
yard work

Oh yeah, I joined a book club on campus today, which meets once a week for 5-6 weeks. So that will hold me accountable for getting away from the computer -- to study! -- and out of the house, conveniently on gym day. :)