gotta love those endorphins

Thanks to the "$20.10" fitness pass that gets you into ALL the municipal facilities plus the Y and whatever else for a month, I actually went to a gym tonight (Esquimalt Rec Centre) and OMG was it ever good. Treadmill! Rowing erg! Stationary bike! IPod! All good. Oh gym, how I missed thee... yes, I was seriously Pissed Off at VI Fitness at the end there, but I do so love going to the gym even if I honestly believe that it shouldn't be necessary to be healthy.

So, I had a really good first day back on the wagon. I didn't eat very much, I had a good brisk walk this morning, "swam" with Rowan this afternoon, and had a real workout this evening. Oh and I did my pushups this morning too.

Um, maybe tomorrow isn't going to feel so good. Hello, ibuprofen, I've missed you too...

I'm pretty sure it's not ACTUALLY dead so I'll keep flogging it.

I was never able to quite get back on the wagon after Christmas. And now I feel like absolute shite, which is generally enough to kick me back on. Seriously, I am not feeling well. Most of the time I want to just whine a lot - it's not FAAAIIIIR. Millions of other people can eat crap virtually all the time and they survive apparently fine. I eat a bit too much sugar and flour consistently and don't get much exercise beyond chasing Rowan on her Skuut bike, and I feel bloated and gross and I start getting heart palpitations. (I did some reading and they're most likely harmless, since there is no associated pain, dizziness or shortness of breath.)

Well, it sucks to be me doesn't it? So today I'm back on the wagon. And I've come to the conclusion that I probably need to do some portion control in order to actually lose weight.

For what it's worth, I'm only cranky about this because I'm PMSing. It's not the ideal time to restrict my food intake, but if I can make it through the next couple days, I'll be fine.

Happy, uh, Chinese New Year....

Well it looks like I missed the western New Year with the blog so we'll start back in at the Chinese New Year (which is technically on Tuesday, if you're keeping track.)

The last month was not so good, health-and-fitness-wise. Snow, travel, family gatherings, holiday celebrations, colds, food poisoning... the good thing was that I didn't quit exercising altogether - I went to the fitness centre once while we were in Whitehorse - but generally, yeah. Not good.

So, back on the wagon. Yesterday I did a strength test for pushups - 22, which is not all that bad - and so I'll start back on the pushups program tomorrow at week 3, column 2. This morning I did a run, setting myself back to week 4 of the couch to 5K program but I think I'll go for the beginning of week 5 next run because that was pretty easy.

On the food side of things, I succumbed to the lure of the christmas goodies and while I'm not mad at myself for doing it, it is REALLY hard getting off the starches again. The last couple of days haven't been too bad but I really need to have about a week of NO starches or sugars before I feel comfortable with it again. The food poisoning last week certainly didn't help - although it only lasted a day I wasn't able to face much except toast for another day or so afterwards.

As for New Year's resolutions, the only one that really concerns this blog is that I'm going to run the Times Colonist 10K. Yikes! I have barely 3 months to get myself up to running 10K. Right now, I could run 5K, with some difficulty. So I need to get myself first comfortable with 5K, then work up to 10K pretty fast. It will definitely be challenging!

To that end, I really need to start waking up earlier and going running in the morning. Not every day, but it's light early enough now that if I run Tuesdays and Fridays during the day and once on the weekend, if I can add one weekday morning run in, I think I'll be good for a while. Closer to the race I'll be needing to run every day, but I think this will suffice until mid-March.

hittin' the treadmill

After the only exercise I got today was hauling Rowan up the toboggan hill (aka Beacon Hill) five or six times, I decided that since I was all clever and made coq au vin for dinner, which just sat in the oven for 3 hours, I could go to Crystal Pool with Stirling and Rowan for Rowan's swimming lesson, and do half an hour on the treadmill and then not feel bad about missing my run. I no longer feel like a wussie for not running outside, it's about -10C and there's more than 10 cm of snow on the ground, and people here do really half-assed jobs of shoveling their sidewalks so they're actually worse than if they didn't bother.

So I did day 2, week 6 on the treadmill, which is 10 min run, 3 min walk, 10 min run. Except I forgot that you can adjust the incline on those puppies, which I should have done, because it was waaaay too easy, so I just kept running (upping the speed to entertain myself) until the staff started yelling that the pool was closed. (not at me, just generally. apparently there is no PA system there) After I got off the treadmill my breathing was back to normal instantly so I don't think I was working all that hard, although the heart rate monitor on it said 160 - briefly - just after I stopped. Then it dropped really rapidly down to 150, 140... I dunno if it was just making up its mind or reflecting my amazingly awesome cardio recovery. I am guessing the former.

Anyway, it was fun for a change. The snow is supposed to stick around for a few days so I may have to hunt down another treadmill on Tuesday and this time I will remember the incline, and maybe push myself a little more. Tuesday's run is a straight 25 minute jobbie - which reminds me, I have to discipline the iPod because it crapped out on me today. I am starting to understand why my neighbour was so eager to give it to me for free - apparently it needs a complete wipe and reinstall of everything. I don't even actually like running outside with it, it makes me feel vulnerable and I think some of the songs I have make me run too fast and I get tired before I'm done. Plus, there is enough to keep me entertained and distracted outside. But on a treadmill, the tunes are good.

Also, I think I am going to give this blog a bit of a hiatus until the new year, since I am heading into crazy-busy holiday time and I am not going to attempt any progressions on any of my exercises, just to do a few pushups occasionally and run when I can to avoid backsliding. I am sure I will cook up some sort of new year's resolutions and then the blog will be all about that. I'm sure you can hardly wait.

wussie

All right, I am officially now a soft southerner. Snowflakes started falling this afternoon and I totally bailed out of my run and walked the dog around the block. She wasn't complaining, mind you - she being a soft southern dog herself.

But I did at least ATTEMPT a run yesterday. It was right after dinner, and I doubled over with cramps 10 minutes in, but at least I tried.

meh.

I was down all of about half a pound this week. And my body fat % was back up to 37% (I think the scale WAS lying to me a little bit last week). I am tempted to stuff the scale into the closet and not weigh myself until after the holidays when I'm prepared to do a couple weeks of hard-core low-carb. I haven't eaten anything starchy or sugary, it's just going to be a slow process, I know that, and maybe weighing myself every week isn't the best thing. Although, it's not like it's going to de-motivate me, so we'll see.

And also in crappy news, my right foot is really sore. I fear it is due to my indulgent wearing of my nice boots - with a heel - to a party last night. I went for a long walk this morning but by the end of it my foot was pretty achy so I opted out of the run I'd planned and rode my bike around and to the craft fair instead. I did my pushups, too - and just barely managed the last set, but you know, that was 120 pushups, I think I can whine a little about the last bit.

Hopefully my foot will be better tomorrow and I will be able to go for a run. At least I feel healthy otherwise (knock on wood).

one hundred pushups

Today I did 100 pushups in the span of about 20 minutes. Yay! and Ow!

Also, I managed the 20-minute run at the end of the couch-to-5K week 5, and I didn't even feel like dying at the end! The last minute was hard, but I did it. Next week gets back to shorter stretches with walks in between, but the total running time goes up steadily over the next few weeks and by Christmas - I think - I should be really running a real 5K.

How in the world did people get fit before they had the internet telling them how many pushups to do and how long to run for???

stronger

I've felt crappy for the past couple of days - some sinus thing, I think - and I bailed on Marci for going to Esquimalt Rec centre yesterday. She went anyway, and it turned out that she's having similar sinus things so I felt like a bit of a tool for bailing.

So I made a point of hauling out the pilates dvd in the afternoon and I did it, and felt better, then I did my pushups - Week 5! - and struggled through the first couple of sets then my muscles adjusted, or something, and I knocked off 27 in my last set - for a total of 93 pushups within the span of about an hour. Maybe an hour and a half... Rowan woke up after my first set and then I forgot I was doing pushups for a while, but then I did the last bits fairly close together. I am getting close to the point where I can DO 100 pushups in a certain time frame - probably half an hour is doable, maybe even 15 minutes, and I can foresee a time when the full 100 pushups in one set is not unachievable. The plan was also to do a bunch of squats but that just didn't happen.

Today is turning out to be a very difficult child day so I think by about 4:30 I will be more than ready to toss her next door and go for a run. My next scheduled run is 20 minutes non-stop, which worries me a little bit but I think I can do it.

well THAT explains it

If my very fancy scale is not lying to me, I've dropped 4% body fat since the end of October - down to 35%!!! I kind of think it's telling the truth, because my clothes are fitting me in a way I would expect if I were 5 lbs lighter than I actually am. So YAY PUSHUPS!!! And misc other weights I've been doing... but it's mostly been the pushups.

progress is progress

Down another pound this week. I missed Tuesday's workout but ran and did pushups Friday. Today I ran halfway across the park to get to coffee on time, but I ran the downhill part so that doesn't really count and I will go out for a proper run this afternoon. I'm going to do my pushups in a bit and I think I'll do just plain squats with the laundry detergent as well. I don't feel like going up to Sue's for a workout and she's got bugs now too anyway.

The belt I normally wear has probably 2 inches more of a "tail" on it now than it used to. :-D

Ooo, and because I seem to have been abandoned by the rest of the family today, and the chores are mostly done, I think I will haul out my pilates DVD too. And I can still spend a good amount of time knitting. It's better than a spa day.

Well no, not really. But it's cheaper than a spa day!

should I try to exercise if I already feel like crap?

Yesterday I was supposed to do a run and pushups. Unfortunately, the dog had a seizure in the middle of the night, necessitating half an hour of cleanup and the child sleeping crammed into a single bed with me for the remainder of the night.

So I wasn't feeling great the next morning. Plus the viruses decided to come back and make my nose stuffy, although I had no other cold symptoms. Physically, I probably could have managed a run, but I wouldn't have enjoyed it. Plus the dog needed a day of couch-time, so I didn't have a need to get her out too.

I pretty much sat on my butt all day, and I'm ok with that. I missed a run, oh well. I did my pushups today - I'm on week 4 now! - and my nose is completely clear and I feel much better. I feel a bit like the last two weeks have been a write-off, but I think there's a greater danger in too much self-castigation than in a bit of justified slacking. I'll squeeze a run in on Friday, somehow, and I'm looking forward to it.

Also, I have discovered that squat-overhead press exercises with the laundry detergent container are pretty great quick full-body workouts, if done in sets of 12.

exercise is good, but viruses work too

I'm down another pound and a half this week, after skipping my Tuesday workouts and only managing a run on Friday - no pushups or weights. I could almost feel my body bashing the viruses into submission, so maybe that had something to do with it. I was worried it was muscle atrophy but I did my pushups this morning - I redid the last day of week 3 instead of moving on to week 4, but it was ridiculously easy and I knocked off 20 in my last set, so I don't think my muscles suffered any from the almost-week of rest.

So I think I'm just going to keep going as I am until after Christmas, then in January do a couple weeks of super-low-carb. We're heading into the holiday-party season now, and while I don't have a problem avoiding the cookies and whatnot, denying myself the joys of carrots and apples seems just mean. And probably unnecessary.

Today I'm going to do my run then head up to Sue's for a weights workout. I'm following the beginner weight routines on stumptuous.com, which is a fantastically awesome site that everyone should check out.

is it wrong that it's harder to resist my own cooking?

Today is my little girl's birthday - she is 3! Growing so fast... sniff. And now able to make certain birthday requests. Like strawberry cupcakes.

Hoo boy - this was WAY harder than hallowe'en. Hallowe'en is just crap junk, that I find it easy to say no to for a couple of reasons. But my own baking? Uuuurrrghhhh...

The upshot of it was, I made Stirling test the cupcakes, taking only the tiniest nibble to reassure myself he wasn't just humouring me that they were good. But the icing... the icing got the better of me. It started with a tiny lick, just to make sure I had the sugar/creamcheese balance right. Then I had to make sure it was ok with the strawberry puree added in. Then it was some sort of crime to leave the bowl with ANY microbial icing remains, and Stirling was in the tub, so what was I supposed to do?

So I ate some icing. Not as much as I would have in the good old days (when I would have baked cinnamon buns this morning just to "use up" the leftovers) but some. And I am not surprised that I am way hungrier today than I have been for a while, but I have still remained in control and not eaten anything starchy or sugary, except some grapes that Stirling bought that I'm reluctant to give to Rowan because they're non-organic and probably loaded with pesticides. (So, yeah, I shouldn't eat them either.) But this is apparently what happens when one sends one's husband to the grocery store with no cash and the request for cupcake papers that cost all of $1.50 - he feels obligated to buy something else.

ANYWAY my jeans are fitting much better and my cold is going away, so I'm not going to get all freaked out about a little icing.

ack, stupid viruses

Well so much for my plans this week - the cold bugs caught up with me. I think I can get rid of them quickly though. They seem feeble. I expect that sitting on my ass today with multiple cups of tea, some good chicken broth with kimchee and a couple zinc lozenges (and a hot bath) ought to do them in. But I can't do a cold on super-low-carb because I NEED oranges, so I'm just going to postpone that. And my run that I was supposed to do today, that just doesn't seem like a good idea.

Mmmmm bath....

Oh, and I've discovered a great new way to not snack - knitting! (But my appetite has been crap for the last couple days anyway.)

Hrm.

So I've been starch-and-sugar-free for 3 weeks and I've lost all of 5 lbs. Well, I guess that's not bad. I missed my Friday workout because I was too busy being interviewed on TV and stuff, but I ran yesterday - week 4! 5 minute running stretches! - and I seem to recall managing my pushups on Friday too. I am going to do a garage workout today, I think - and ride my bike up there for extra fun.

I'm still amazed at how well the running is going. I can DO it! I have never, ever been a runner, and I am resorting to it out of desperation - but I am pleasantly surprised that it's not been horrible or uncomfortable or anything. I feel good at the end of a run, and while my legs do protest on the last leg, it's not unbearable.

But I would like to see a little more weight loss. Just cause. I'm going to do a 2-week super-low-carb stint just to kick-start the weight loss. It's not actually that hard, at this time of year... there are no tomatoes, no fruit except apples and pears, and the only carberific stuff around is yogurt, milk, carrots, rutabagas, beets... I can avoid those for a couple weeks. Lots of kale and cabbage and greenery!

A real workout

Today I did the first "real" workout I've done in a long time. I did my run (and messed up and ran an extra 3-minute block instead of a 90-sec one... oh well, it felt good!) and then I popped over to my friend Sue's garage where my weights now live. I had forgotten how absolutely crappy that weight set is, but oh well... it will have to suffice. They're heavy things I can lift, if not exactly comfortably.

I did my pushups there too - bumped down to column 1 of the hundredpushups program, but it doesn't matter, I'll get there in the end. I alternated sets of pushups with weights - squats, then deadlifts, then shoulder presses, bicep curls, and chest presses until I realized they were just backwards pushups and probably redundant by that point. And I did lots of nice stretching plus my back exercises, which I have been neglected. I felt all lovely and loose and floppy afterwards.

So... tomorrow is a rest day, then Thursday is a pushup day and Friday is the start of week 4 of the running program, which involves 5-minute blocks of running, yikes! I guess I can manage it.

Food is still no problem, and I am finding myself far less hungry as time goes by. It's noon, and I'm not starving for lunch like I used to be on an oatmeal breakfast.

progress

I'm more than halfway through week 3 of the Couch to 5K running program and it's going really well. I am SO SO SO thankful for my orthotics - *all* my running foot pain is completely gone and I don't even think about my feet when I'm running. Today the last leg was kinda hurty but in a good way - it made me think "oh, hello leg muscles, welcome back and you have 2 more minutes of running to put up with, enjoy!"

I took my weight set over to my friend's garage and will start doing quick weight routines there - since there is a mat, and space - three times a week.

I am just heading into week 3 of the hundred pushups program. I've been here before and I know week 3 gets HARD but I will do it, I will I will I will.

And still - no problem laying off the starch & sugar. I feel really good and really energetic.

I don't think I've lost any more weight though... I'm pretty sure I will need to step up my activity level, or go super-low-carb for 2 weeks to kick-start some weight loss... we will see, right now I am just enjoying being active and feeling good.

me + starch = bad

Today at lunch I was in pantry-cleanout mode and decided to heat up an ancient can of Caribbean-style black beans for Rowan and me. They didn't have any sugar in them and I figured that they're high enough in fibre to cushion the starch from my brain.

Um, no. I DID throw in some leftover pork, and I ate mine with gobs of sour cream for extra fat (and, indeed, 1/2 a small bowl was enough to make me feel full). But 20 minutes later I found myself at the fridge with my hand reaching towards my crunchy turnip sticks. I was able to stop myself and realize that I was still full from lunch and had NO reason to eat them, but it was a bit scary - I didn't even think about it until the turnip sticks were in my hand. And yes, it was just turnip sticks, which are not about to make anyone fat - but I'm sure if there HAD been chips or something around, my little paws would have been heading for them.

Also, I feel kind of bleh this afternoon and couldn't even convince myself to ride Bikey over to Cook St. Village. That's really not cool.

So no more beans, for now... they were delicious, but fortunately Rowan really liked them (she actually ate nearly twice as much as me! but she hardly ate any breakfast) so she can have the rest for lunch tomorrow.

feeling good

It's been almost a week since my big mind-shift and I've had no problem avoiding sugars and starches. The only real challenge was a party last night where almost everything was sugary and/or starchy, but I'd had a good dinner and I didn't really want any of it. I did, however, find it difficult to socialize because everyone was clustered around the food and it *was* hard to keep looking at it.

So, Hallowe'en is over, and I didn't even come close to slipping up. Woo!

I feel really good, actually, more physically than mentally. I am still adjusting to the thoughts that this mode of eating is permanent. On one hand, I really believe that it's a much healthier way to eat - but I will miss bread, especially. Not only its taste, but its versatility and ease of use. I suppose I will get over it eventually, and maybe in 5 or 10 years I'll see if I CAN eat just little bits - but to be honest, I'm a little scared of that so I'll just cross that bridge when I come to it.

I've also been doing the hundredpushups.com program and the Couch to 5K running program. Both are going well, and it's a time investment I can manage. Running is SO much more comfortable with my new orthotics, I am kicking myself for not getting them sooner!

Overall I feel less bloated and yucky, and yesterday I weighed myself and I'm down to 161.5. My clothes are more comfortable already.

So - so far, so good!

so far so good

I made it through Survivor night without eating any cupcakes. Or really wanting to, even though they came from the good place, not the yucky vegan place. (Vegan cupcakes are a stupid idea. Vegans ought to be eating only the very freshest and best greenery, nuts and seeds, and vast vast amounts of them, to have any hope of even approaching decent health. Cupcakes are the LAST thing they need.)

Tomorrow will be a bigger challenge - Hallowe'en! Then another hallowe'en party on Saturday - but at least I've been requested to make paté for that. I was supposed to make pumpkin tarts for the party tomorrow but my pumpkin turned out to be not a pie pumpkin. I think it was either a mutant freak or mislabeled... but it was just not good, so I shall make mince tarts instead, seasonality be damned, and use up some of the lovely green-tomato mincemeat I have in the pantry.