My Spark Blog

So, now that I'm tracking both my fitness & writing goals on sparkpeople.com it's much easier just to use the blog there to make entries throughout the day. I have blogged about 5 times in the last 3 days as a result. I'm pasting today's latest blog below, but if you want to see the rest, please visit my Spark Blog. If you do, you'll see a link that says "Subscribe to this blog" which you can do... but only if you first register for Spark People. Registering is free, only takes a minute, and you can set your options so they don't send you any newsletters or anything else but my blog. I have never received any spam as a result of signing up for Spark People. If you want to really stay up to date with what I'm doing, I suggest you take a minute to register & subscribe. Otherwise, I'll probably try to post on this blog about once a week or so.
That said, here is today's latest blog:

"Ugh."

I so seriously want to be asleep right now! Not because I'd normally be sleeping at this time, but because I went to bed half an hour late and got woken up 45 minutes early. The second I opened my eyes I felt a headache and as soon as I got out of bed my lower back informed me that it was either not happy with the position in which I slept, or the exercises I put it through yesterday, or both. Whatever the reason, it had decided to punish me by being extremely stiff and painful.

I do NOT want to be up, but since I have no choice in the matter, I think I'll try some stretches to try and make my back a little happier and maybe pop a couple tylenol for the headache.

On today's exercise schedule.... well stretching, like I said, and then some elliptical later this evening. I don't particularly like to use the machines, but when I do the elliptical is my favorite. I still don't have a IRL workout buddy (thought I did, but they never got back to me about a set date & time) so going for an early morning jog or hike was out - I just won't get up that early unless someone is meeting me. And today the only half interesting classes started about an hour ago and I just couldn't bring myself to "get up and go" this morning. So I'm going to pray for something interesting to be on the tv's at the gym for a change and try to bang out at least a level 8 intensity for at least 30 min tonight. I'm kinda dreading it cuz machines are SO boring for me now, but .... not much other choice and I do NOT want to skip a day when I am doing so well.

I love ZUMBA!

I actually got up early this morning just to go to Zumba!

Luke came in at 8:30 to ask when I wanted him to set my alarm for. I told him 8:30. He said "It is 8:30." I said "8:45". So he set it and went out to finish getting ready for work. Then 5 minutes later we got a wrong number (and I swear the guy sounded TOTALLY wasted!) which I answered since the phone was right next to my head. After I hung up I started to try to go back to sleep, but then from the foggy recesses of my mind surfaced the thought that today was Tuesday, which triggered the reminder that I would get to go to Zumba tonight. I started to drift off again when another thought surfaced: "Oh wait, they have 10am class. I wanted to go to that." And then something miraculous happened.

I got up.

I didn't lay there deliberating and vacillating like I do most mornings I have to get up "early" for something (even something that cannot be cancelled). I just...got up! And I was ....gasp....happy.

Okay, so you're probably thinking 8:40am is NOT early. Well, for me it is. Especially after the sleep deprived extended weekend I just endured. (For details visit my newest blog at http://justanotherdayinparadise.webs.com/)

So anyway, I totally enjoyed the class even though I had to rush so much to get there on time that I only managed to get down one bite of a PB sandwich and one gulp of milk before dashing out the door and leaving my breakfast on the counter. (Meanwhile the kids, of course, had full bellies.) Still, when I left, I felt totally motivated. I am determined to start living my life differently. I am going to stop avoiding the stuff I hate and JUST DO IT. Because I will be happier and everyone around me will be happier if I do. To that end, I am finally going to just freaking CHOOSE an exercise support group and stop vacillating about which one and worrying over whether the group will be a good fit. If it's not I'll just join a different one- it's not the end of the world.

Sometimes my own fear of failure and embarrassment really annoys the crap out of me.

So anyway. That is what I am doing.

Right now I'm focusing on a few small but firm decisions.

I am going to divide my day by hour long sections and if something takes more or less time, whatever. It will work itself out. No more microscheduling- I can't stick to it.

The things I am most focused on accomplishing are these:

1 hour devoted to exercise each day + 1 hour prep & travel time
1 hour devoted to working on my novel each day
2 hours devoted to Ethan's school time each day
and a minimum of 1 hour devoted to cleaning/picking up the house each day

The Complete Truth

Okay, here I am in May, almost June and I have yet to establish a regular exercise routine. Have I been busy? Yes. Could I have found the time to exercise anyway? Yes. I recently realized the truth is I just have a bad attitude about it. Deep down I felt like, well we're hoping I get pregnant again in the relatively near future, anyway, and then I'll gain back anything I've lost, so what's the point? Also, many things have seemed out of my control lately and I've been self medicating with food again. I've been eating when I want, what I want, and how much I want.

And I am sick of myself.

I finally reached the "Enough!" moment yesterday. I was watching a show about losing weight and I just decided I was tired of being so over weight and I was tired of being so glutenous with my food and feeling like crap as a result. I know I can change these things and that's what I'm going to do.

So, the fire, at long last has finally been lit under my butt. However, I know myself well enough to know that without something fanning it, it will quickly fade and go out. So.... I'm looking for a support system. The first thing I've found that should help is a class at my gym that I absolutely love! It's called Zumba and it's like combining all my favorite home exercise videos with the extra fun of other real people. On top of that, the style of the class is such that if I'm totally beat one day, I can still show up and just do a half-crap job. No one will say a thing and I'll be happy just to have done *something* that day.

As great as the class is, it only meets once a week and eventually I'm going to need to more. Also, I know me, and if I'm going to be successful, I'll need more personal support. Therefore, I have placed an ad on craigslist looking for someone to meet me at my gym 1-3 times a week. I'm not sure if this will work out or not, but I figured it couldn't hurt. I am also looking at the different online exercise message boards and online "teams" to see which will work best for me and might help keep me motivated. Last time I was successful it had a lot to do with a great online support group, so I'm really hoping that will be the case this time, too.

I'm also toying with the idea of doing an online photo diary of my success....not yet sure if I'm brave enough. We'll see.



Just in general lately I've been feeling overwhelmed by the list of things I want to accomplish every day. I've been resorting to my worst defense mechanism. I'm a lot like an ostrich. When I sense imminent danger (a.k.a. failure), I stick my head in the "sand" and pretend I can't see it (a.k.a. don't even try). This of course does nothing but make things worse. Rationally I know this, but even after all these years, I still find myself resorting to this behavior now and then. Good thing I've got a great husband who calls me on it and encourages me to get my head out of the sand and just take one step at a time.

A journey on hold

First, our family got sick. Nothing major. Just colds that took turns moving from one family member to another. Of course I didn't go to the gym when I was sick, but then I couldn't go when the boys were sick because they wouldn't be accepted at Child Watch & because I wouldn't feel right dropping them off with strangers when they were so miserable. But eventually they got better.

Since then it has been one thing after another that has so completely monopolized my time that I have yet to return to exercising.

I have also fallen way off the track with my food choices and portion control.

I think, however, that I tried to take on too much too soon. I started about 5 major commitments around the same time and realized that it was just too much to keep up with. I am therefore going to take a step back and try to do things one at a time. As I have successfully integrated one new commitment into my life, then I will move on to the next.

With this in mind, I hope to return to exercise soon, but do not plan to immediately begin tracking my food again. I will wait until I have been successfully exercising for about a month. Then I will try integrating food tracking once more. It may take longer this way, but I feel more assured of success.

Poor Choices

Well, this time around it looks like I am just too busy trying to accomplish too many things to post as regularly as I would like to. However, I am going to make it my goal to post at least once a week from now on. That said...

Last weekend I weighed myself to see how my first week of the new diet & exercise had effected my weight and.... I LOST 5 lbs IN THE FIRST WEEK! Woohoo! The first week went very well. I stuck to my diet, felt my stomach shrink so that I didn't feel hungry after a few days, and got in all the cardio & strength exercise prescribed by SparkPeople. :-D

However....

This past week has not gone nearly as well. I started off pretty good, sticking to my diet pretty good & even impressing myself with my exercise accomplishments on Monday. But then... my oldest child suddenly realized he hadn't truly lived up to the legendary "terrible twos" and decided he could make up for it with the "terrible threes". At least that's the only explanation I can think of. He has been a total terror for the majority of this week and has really pushed my stress level to the brink and beyond.

So, being an emotional eater... I then caved and in 3 days I ate a very large slice of cheese pizza from Costco, 3/4 slice of totally fattening Carrot Cake, 14-16oz of full blown Coke, 1/2 a whole beef hot dog (it didn't sit well), and I ate far larger portions of the healthy stuff than I should have.

In addition the stress, I also caught a cold that has given me an insatiable appetite while keeping anything from being truly satisfying. Thus rendering me unable to exercise & too tired/ambivalent to think clearly enough to even measure my portions let alone write them down or enter them on SparkPeople.

My husband had this cold first and if his experience is anything to go by, I am still just on the front end of this cold. :-( Never the less, I am determined to stop eating the junky comfort foods and start trying to measure at least half of my portions and write them down. If I can't exercise I can't afford to eat crappy or else I'll just gain back whatever I've lost.

That said, I did weigh myself this morning and.... I actually managed to still LOSE another 2lbs this week! I would have been satisfied with not having gained anything after the crappy choices I've been making. Losing 2lbs? I WILL TAKE IT! YEAH!

Now, back to my sick bed... but with a glass of juice instead of the bag of veggie chips keeping me company yesterday (90% of which is now gone anyway). I'd take water but this cold makes it taste awful.

Listen to the Experts

Since my youngest is sick and has decided to keep me up late, I figured I'd get a little research in so my lost sleep would count for something. (He refuses to be put down & I can't let him cry or he'll keep up the rest of the house.) So I went ahead and researched the number of calories I should be eating each day. After checking with 3 or 4 different sites and calculating at least as many formulas, I then compared those results to what SparkPeople had already suggested for me on their site. Wondering how they came up with their numbers, I read their article explaining this and was impressed enough to just chuck my numbers in the trash. Seems those people actually know what they're doing (go figure ;-D ). So I'll just be using their recommended calorie range after all............ so much for doing something productive with my time. LOL Now if only there were a formula for convincing a sick child to go back to sleep!

Starting Measurements

Okay so the measurements are in and here's where I'm starting from:

Today's wait at about 5pm = 204lbs.

Waist 43"
Hips 45.5"
Neck 13.5"
Thigh 28.5"
Calf 16.5"
Wrist 6.75"


Now, using those measurements and a handy little online calculator I discovered that I have approximately 28.4% body fat. Which means I am carrying around about 57.9lbs of fat. According to the website the calculator was on, this calculation should be accurate within 2% meaning my possible range is 26.4% - 30.4%. However, according to yet another calculator claiming to use formulas developed by the U.S. Navy & the YMCA, my body fat percentage is 42.32% or 41.65% respectively. So what should I believe? Well...I guess I believe that since I can't get an accurate water displacement measurement... I won't be worrying too much about that body fat percentage and focusing on the other more reliable numbers.


I've also chosen a new calorie counting website: www.sparkpeople.com And I've set up accounts for me and my husband there. I'm excited that we'll be doing this together this time. I think it will really help to keep the motivation going. I've already entered today's food entries and I did better than I thought for a first day (just 8 calories over), but not nearly as well as I should (need to make healthier choices). In addition to which, I need to evaluate whether the website's recommended calorie and other nutritional goals are ones I want to stick with or if I need to adjust them. For now, though, I'm heading in the right direction.

Here We Go....Again!

Okay, this is it. Commitment time. New year. New start. Time to make goals, take steps, and get moving.

So, here I am announcing my new goals for this year:

• Weigh 165lbs by my birthday (July 12) - this year!
• Lower my BMI to under 25.
• Lose enough inches off my waist that I measure no more than a 35" circumference.
• Lower my Body Fat Percentage to 20% or lower.

• Be able to walk 1 mile in under 13min 30sec. (endurance)
• Be able to run a mile in under 12min. (endurance)
• Be able to drag 200lbs of dead weight for 50 feet. (strength)
• Be able to do 34 women's push-ups in under 1 minute. (strength)
• Be able to carry 55lbs for 1 mile. (strength & endurance)
• Be able to stand on one foot for 20 seconds on each side with eyes closed & hands overhead. (balance)
• Hop on one foot for 20 feet without losing balance - on each leg. (balance & strength)
  
• Increase overall flexibility.

My hope is to accomplish all of this by the end of 2009. Time will tell if this is realistic or not. However I look at this as simply a "to-do" list and each item will be crossed off as I come to it, without any worry over getting it done within a certain time frame. The exception to this is the first part of the list concerning specific health issues. Those I am aiming to achieve by my birthday. When I told my husband this, he promised me a "big reward" if I am successful. :0)

Well, now we know where I am going, but where am I starting from?

Well, my current weight is 203lbs. (203.5 if you want to get nit-picky)
My BMI 29.1 (just .9 shy of obese!).
My waist... to be measured tomorrow.
My Body Fat Percentage... to be determined soon.

I will also be posting my nutritional and exercise goals here soon.

At the moment, it is very late (or early depending on how you look at it) and I have sleeping to do if I want to accomplish anything tomorrow.