Fool's Paradise
So, clearly I’m an idiot.
For 37 weeks and 3 days, I’ve worked to crave healthy food and shun the nasties that made me fat. I wrenched my way through the chocolate needs, both real and PMS-induced, and I’ve endured hours of hunger pangs, so that every week, I could stand on the scale and see a loss.
I’ve succeeded. As of last Saturday, I was down 93.50 pounds, to a new low of 157.75. I have re-energized my resolve, and I have now tricked my brain into returning to Loss mode. As of this writing, I am no more than 15.25 pounds away from my goal.
I logged a full 2.0 pounds from last week, the biggest drop I’ve had since February. I did get my period on Thursday, which helped, but even so, I don’t really understand how this food program logged teeny losses for 5 weeks in a row, only to go Full Blown loss last week. It’s one of the million things I do not understand about weight loss, and my weight loss in particular. Whatever jump-started me, I now have found my brain, lodged between folds of the octopus, apparently, and have now turned it to the business at hand: getting these last pounds off. After 37 weeks and 3 days of struggle, I believe I have at last ‘run’ across the method that will work forevermore.
I’m exercising.
Yes, patrons, it’s a fact at last. On Thursday, I donned my workout clothes, stepped up on to Howard’s treadmill and stuffed the headset buds into my ears. Since I’m such a nutcase about everything, I have a tendency to start working out too hard, and then I get injured and then I have to quit. So I decided to do an easy walk and see how it went. I knew I couldn’t (wouldn’t!) go fast, and so I put the incline up to 7.0, figuring I could burn some extra calories by walking “up hill”.
I still had trouble with the MP3 player on my phone, and the right ear bud kept falling out, but I stayed on, knowing that if I could make it through the first workout, then the next one would be easier. Eventually I got a 2nd wind and then the music picked up, and by the end, I had bumped the treadmill speed from 2.5mph to 2.8. When the 20-minute mark hit, I was at 185 calories burned, and so I decided to keep going until I hit 200. Then of course at 200 calories, I was at 22:35 minutes, so I decided to keep going until I hit 25 minutes. At the 25 minute mark, I’d burned exactly 225 calories. My legs hurt, I was out of breath, and it was time for DS and Lynda to come home, so I stepped off. I was wobbly, but I felt good.
Then Saturday hit, and I’d dropped TWO POUNDS from the week before, and so I decided to work out again. DS was home, so I put his trampoline next to the treadmill, showed him how to drink water from my bottle, and turned on the machine. I started at 3.0 mph, figuring I wanted to burn as many (or more!) calories as I had on Thursday. He jumped and spun with me for a few minutes, and then he said, “Mommy, let’s go fast!” I ‘cranked’ it up to 4.0 mph, which requires me to run. DS responded with glee, running in place and jumping around until his face flushed. “Stop, Mommy, slow down!” he yelled. Grateful, I switched it back.
And so it went. For 20 minutes, I let DS be my ‘interval coach’, moving up to a run when he wanted and then slowing down when he asked. He was consistently at 1 minute intervals, which was fine with me. At the end of our workout, I’d logged 250 calories in 20 minutes. DS and I collapsed on the lounge chair in the basement for exactly 1 minute before he said, ‘hey, my turn!’ I put him on the treadmill, turned it to the lowest setting and switched the music on. Wow, the smiles! He grinned all the way around to the back of his head.
On Sunday, DS wanted to exercise again. We got interrupted by a potty break, but we did 30 minutes instead of 20, and I did much longer running intervals. I burned 400 calories, and my knee wasn’t even hurting. It’s a little sticky this morning, but I think I’m all right. The best part is, I feel great. I can already tell that I have more energy, and I’m sleeping better at night.
Not last night, mind you. Howard and I got DS a bunk bed as an early birthday present, and last night was the first time he slept in it. He opted for the top bunk, naturally, and the ladder isn’t as sturdy nor as safety-conscious as I’d like, so I slept all night with one ear tuned to a 4-year-old boy crashing to the floor from 7 feet up. As it happened, though, he did get out of bed around 4am, but he did it without waking me (lately he’s been ‘announcing’ his intent to get into bed, and I have to wake up and escort him over). He simply climbed down the Death-Defying Ladder, in total darkness, padded around to Howard’s side of the bed (also new) and climbed in. I didn’t even know he was in with us until I got up, and saw his angel face on my pillow. That’s how good I’m sleeping. A little too well, but luckily, I have Howard as backup.
So there it is. I have a new commitment to exercise, and I have a buddy to do it with me. It’s good for DS, too, who is a little weak in his core area (according to Little Friends). He’s also showing some interest and talent in his “Kickers” class (soccer), and so some aerobics with Mommy will surely help his endurance when he scrimmages with his other buddies. I don’t know if I’ll work out tonight-I had planned for a Tu/Th/Sa routine, but now I’m feeling so good and want to take advantage of my momentum, so I might go ahead and mount the treadmill again tonight.
WW says that I should be burning 4 “POINTS” of exercise per day. I checked, and the 30 mins of walking/running I did accounted for only 2 POINTS. So I either have to do that for a full hour EVERY SINGLE DAY, or I have to notch it up to High intensity and do it 30-40 mins for 4-5 times a week. Either way, it’s a lot. I should probably figure out how to work in aerobics classes or weight training or belly dancing or something other than the treadmill, because even with DS helping me, standing still and running on a belt is going to get old. Even I cannot commit to that kind of tedium for the rest of my life.
It’s getting warmer, and I’ve always, always wanted to be a runner, so I might invest in some good running shoes and take my workout to the streets. But then, I can’t do it with DS. Running with him on the trampoline is dangerous enough-he’s constantly jumping so I think he’ll land on the belt and break us both. If I took our gig outdoors, we'd be road pizza for sure. But I still like sharing this with him. We’ll see.
My accountant informed me that I’m to get a large refund back from the Feds this year (yay!). It’s my first real windfall ever, and I’ve been trying to figure out how exactly to spend (some of!) it, using it as a reward for breaking 160 and hitting my WW goal. I wanted to do something special, and not just blow it all on TJ Maxx temporary wardrobe items or groceries and the light bill. Then on Saturday it came to me. I’m going to invest in my home gym. I’ll get those fancy dial-a-dumbbell things and a good bench with a squat bar, and then I’ll add an elliptical machine to the mix. That downstairs room is just begging to be turned into Jock Central. If I work out during peak DS hours, I’ll have a friend along. I need to keep the weights away from him for obvious reasons, but I can do all my cardio and have a friend along for the ride.
So, yes, I’m an idiot. I’ve robbed myself of all this cardio-high for months. I could have been 37 weeks and 3 days into a fitness program. Just imagine how I’d look now if I had. The octopus would have turned into a sourpuss months ago, and my mary-jane "flappy" arms would be something that I used to have. But I’ve learned my lesson, I’ve fixed the problem, and now I’m so motivated that I can’t believe I’m still sitting here. Bring on the lung burn! Hard body, here I come.
A the G(otta run!)
For 37 weeks and 3 days, I’ve worked to crave healthy food and shun the nasties that made me fat. I wrenched my way through the chocolate needs, both real and PMS-induced, and I’ve endured hours of hunger pangs, so that every week, I could stand on the scale and see a loss.
I’ve succeeded. As of last Saturday, I was down 93.50 pounds, to a new low of 157.75. I have re-energized my resolve, and I have now tricked my brain into returning to Loss mode. As of this writing, I am no more than 15.25 pounds away from my goal.
I logged a full 2.0 pounds from last week, the biggest drop I’ve had since February. I did get my period on Thursday, which helped, but even so, I don’t really understand how this food program logged teeny losses for 5 weeks in a row, only to go Full Blown loss last week. It’s one of the million things I do not understand about weight loss, and my weight loss in particular. Whatever jump-started me, I now have found my brain, lodged between folds of the octopus, apparently, and have now turned it to the business at hand: getting these last pounds off. After 37 weeks and 3 days of struggle, I believe I have at last ‘run’ across the method that will work forevermore.
I’m exercising.
Yes, patrons, it’s a fact at last. On Thursday, I donned my workout clothes, stepped up on to Howard’s treadmill and stuffed the headset buds into my ears. Since I’m such a nutcase about everything, I have a tendency to start working out too hard, and then I get injured and then I have to quit. So I decided to do an easy walk and see how it went. I knew I couldn’t (wouldn’t!) go fast, and so I put the incline up to 7.0, figuring I could burn some extra calories by walking “up hill”.
I still had trouble with the MP3 player on my phone, and the right ear bud kept falling out, but I stayed on, knowing that if I could make it through the first workout, then the next one would be easier. Eventually I got a 2nd wind and then the music picked up, and by the end, I had bumped the treadmill speed from 2.5mph to 2.8. When the 20-minute mark hit, I was at 185 calories burned, and so I decided to keep going until I hit 200. Then of course at 200 calories, I was at 22:35 minutes, so I decided to keep going until I hit 25 minutes. At the 25 minute mark, I’d burned exactly 225 calories. My legs hurt, I was out of breath, and it was time for DS and Lynda to come home, so I stepped off. I was wobbly, but I felt good.
Then Saturday hit, and I’d dropped TWO POUNDS from the week before, and so I decided to work out again. DS was home, so I put his trampoline next to the treadmill, showed him how to drink water from my bottle, and turned on the machine. I started at 3.0 mph, figuring I wanted to burn as many (or more!) calories as I had on Thursday. He jumped and spun with me for a few minutes, and then he said, “Mommy, let’s go fast!” I ‘cranked’ it up to 4.0 mph, which requires me to run. DS responded with glee, running in place and jumping around until his face flushed. “Stop, Mommy, slow down!” he yelled. Grateful, I switched it back.
And so it went. For 20 minutes, I let DS be my ‘interval coach’, moving up to a run when he wanted and then slowing down when he asked. He was consistently at 1 minute intervals, which was fine with me. At the end of our workout, I’d logged 250 calories in 20 minutes. DS and I collapsed on the lounge chair in the basement for exactly 1 minute before he said, ‘hey, my turn!’ I put him on the treadmill, turned it to the lowest setting and switched the music on. Wow, the smiles! He grinned all the way around to the back of his head.
On Sunday, DS wanted to exercise again. We got interrupted by a potty break, but we did 30 minutes instead of 20, and I did much longer running intervals. I burned 400 calories, and my knee wasn’t even hurting. It’s a little sticky this morning, but I think I’m all right. The best part is, I feel great. I can already tell that I have more energy, and I’m sleeping better at night.
Not last night, mind you. Howard and I got DS a bunk bed as an early birthday present, and last night was the first time he slept in it. He opted for the top bunk, naturally, and the ladder isn’t as sturdy nor as safety-conscious as I’d like, so I slept all night with one ear tuned to a 4-year-old boy crashing to the floor from 7 feet up. As it happened, though, he did get out of bed around 4am, but he did it without waking me (lately he’s been ‘announcing’ his intent to get into bed, and I have to wake up and escort him over). He simply climbed down the Death-Defying Ladder, in total darkness, padded around to Howard’s side of the bed (also new) and climbed in. I didn’t even know he was in with us until I got up, and saw his angel face on my pillow. That’s how good I’m sleeping. A little too well, but luckily, I have Howard as backup.
So there it is. I have a new commitment to exercise, and I have a buddy to do it with me. It’s good for DS, too, who is a little weak in his core area (according to Little Friends). He’s also showing some interest and talent in his “Kickers” class (soccer), and so some aerobics with Mommy will surely help his endurance when he scrimmages with his other buddies. I don’t know if I’ll work out tonight-I had planned for a Tu/Th/Sa routine, but now I’m feeling so good and want to take advantage of my momentum, so I might go ahead and mount the treadmill again tonight.
WW says that I should be burning 4 “POINTS” of exercise per day. I checked, and the 30 mins of walking/running I did accounted for only 2 POINTS. So I either have to do that for a full hour EVERY SINGLE DAY, or I have to notch it up to High intensity and do it 30-40 mins for 4-5 times a week. Either way, it’s a lot. I should probably figure out how to work in aerobics classes or weight training or belly dancing or something other than the treadmill, because even with DS helping me, standing still and running on a belt is going to get old. Even I cannot commit to that kind of tedium for the rest of my life.
It’s getting warmer, and I’ve always, always wanted to be a runner, so I might invest in some good running shoes and take my workout to the streets. But then, I can’t do it with DS. Running with him on the trampoline is dangerous enough-he’s constantly jumping so I think he’ll land on the belt and break us both. If I took our gig outdoors, we'd be road pizza for sure. But I still like sharing this with him. We’ll see.
My accountant informed me that I’m to get a large refund back from the Feds this year (yay!). It’s my first real windfall ever, and I’ve been trying to figure out how exactly to spend (some of!) it, using it as a reward for breaking 160 and hitting my WW goal. I wanted to do something special, and not just blow it all on TJ Maxx temporary wardrobe items or groceries and the light bill. Then on Saturday it came to me. I’m going to invest in my home gym. I’ll get those fancy dial-a-dumbbell things and a good bench with a squat bar, and then I’ll add an elliptical machine to the mix. That downstairs room is just begging to be turned into Jock Central. If I work out during peak DS hours, I’ll have a friend along. I need to keep the weights away from him for obvious reasons, but I can do all my cardio and have a friend along for the ride.
So, yes, I’m an idiot. I’ve robbed myself of all this cardio-high for months. I could have been 37 weeks and 3 days into a fitness program. Just imagine how I’d look now if I had. The octopus would have turned into a sourpuss months ago, and my mary-jane "flappy" arms would be something that I used to have. But I’ve learned my lesson, I’ve fixed the problem, and now I’m so motivated that I can’t believe I’m still sitting here. Bring on the lung burn! Hard body, here I come.
A the G(otta run!)
posted by Former Fat Girl Gone Skinny | 12:27 PM
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