I don't have much to say today; I just wanted to post something so you know that I haven't given up.
My diet is still out of whack, but I am making the best choices I can out of what I have available. For those of you who don't know me from my other blog (Straddling the Century Line), I don't drive so I don't do the grocery shopping. My husband, ABM, and the MIL bring the majority of the food into the house. I've almost gotten ABM on board as far as not bringing so much junk in the house, but the MIL is a harder nut to crack. She is retired and spends a good bit of time hitting the sales at different grocery stores. Unfortunately, a lot of what ends up on sale involves useless carbs. We have a TON of Noodle-Roni and other flavored pasta and rice mixes, as well as bags and bags of instant potato flakes. Combine that with my laziness and poor planning skills, and I end up having a carb-heavy dinner almost every night.
Exercise is going a bit better. I did 20 minutes on the treadmill yesterday. I used the interval suggestion from the book "Body for Life" and my legs were wobbly when I was done. Today, I did 35 minutes of my Ballet Strength routine. I didn't make it all the way through because my feet hurt. I made sure I put extra effort into the exercises I could do, though, so I still got a good workout.
OK, I'm off to find something for dinner. I want to leave you with an interesting quote I read today:
Fat is not believing in a future, which is why you want the minor pleasure now. -- author Fay Weldon
I gained weight this week. Nothing much more to say about that. Every time I gain weight I make excuses, and I am determined not to do that anymore. I'll just have to do better next week.
My left leg is sore. I'm tired. My eating was all over the map this week. I'm pretty sure tomorrow's weigh-in will show a gain. I don't like all this flab on my once-flat stomach. I'm starting to look like a middle-aged woman who has let herself go. This can't all be fixed in one month, no matter how hard I try.
I've mentioned before that I'm not a big fan of keeping a food log or journal. I won't write down any of the poor food choices I make, so the log is useless. However, I've discovered that keeping an exercise log is helpful to me.
Today I was feeling a bit down because I didn't get to walk on the treadmill this morning. I did do five minutes of stair climbing, however, so I signed into Extrapounds to log that. I discovered that I hadn't logged my 22-minute walk from yesterday. I was feeling bad because I thought that I hadn't exercised yesterday, but looking at the log jogged my memory.
This happens to me a lot. With food I tend to block out all the bad things I've eaten and I feel pretty good about myself in that area. With exercise, I do the opposite. I forget the little 10-minute walk here and the 15-minute walk there. Pretty soon I'm down on myself for not exercising enough and I quit altogether. Another bad habit that I have to break!
LynnAnne asked me in the comments if I was getting bored with treadmill walking. No, I like walking on the treadmill and I feel good about my session immediately after I get off. Then I start thinking about all the areas I need to tighten up and I'm afraid I won't be able to do that with walking alone. It just doesn't give me that "butt burn" that I associate with a hard workout. The stair climbing does give me that feeling, so I am working it in. Other than that, I need to remember that my back and knees won't let me do anything else until I lose more weight.
I've never been a serial dieter, but I have tried to jump on and off the exercise wagon more than a couple times since high school. My repeated lapses have given me a bit of insight into what thought patterns derail my progress. Right now I think I am falling into one of those patterns.
At first, I was excited about the treadmill. It is the one exercise I can do that doesn't hurt my back or my knees. However, it hasn't taken me long to start thinking about the other exercises I should be doing. For instance, my butt could use some work and I know that squats and lunges are great for that. Unfortunately, squats hurt my back and I can't even do one proper lunge without my knees giving out. In the past, this would be the time when I would get discouraged and just stop exercising altogether. It is the warped perfectionist in me -- why exercise if I can't do the perfect exercise? I've got to eradicate that attitude!
I gained a pound and a half this week. Don't give me the old "muscle weighs more than fat" saw; that's not going to make me feel better because I know I haven't been working out hard enough to be gaining muscle. The culprit is poor diet. I've been doing pretty well for breakfast and lunch, but I haven't made a solid plan for dinner. I just graze on whatever I find in the house. So this weekend I will try to find a few healthy recipes that are quick to prepare and use some of the food I already have. Wish me luck!
For those of you who have Extra Pounds accounts: do you use the activity log? I've been using it and I must say that it is a bit disheartening. It gives an estimate of how many calories you burned for the activity that you logged. On a good day, I burn 200 calories which is equivalent to a can of Slim-Fast. How am I going to lose any weight if all I'm doing is burning off my breakfast? I know it is more complicated than that, but that is what I think whenever I look at the "calories burned" column.
This cold won't go away and the coughing is wearing me out. I've been making myself exercise, but all I want to do is curl up in bed for a few days. I'm afraid I won't get back on the treadmill if I do that. Conventional wisdom suggests that it takes 28 days to for a habit and that may be true for a bad habit, but it has never been true for me with a good one.
Please remind me never to do this again. For some reason, I thought I wanted to climb stairs for my cardio today. I did five minutes this morning before work and I almost died. As if that weren't enough, I thought it would be a good idea to do five more minutes in the stairwell at work during my afternoon break and follow that up with ten minutes of straight walking. What an idiot I am! I normally don't sweat a lot; I just never have, even during exercise. After my 15-minute cardio session today, though, I was sweating like a pig. I don't know if it is my extra weight or all the water I've been drinking that is making the difference. I was also breathing so heavily that my throat hurt and I almost couldn't catch my breath. I got so hot I wanted to strip all my clothes off, which I obviously couldn't do at work :-). I need to save stair climbing for Saturday mornings at home!
This cold is kicking my butt! I woke up this morning and couldn't focus well enough to get dressed, so ABM told me to call in. He hates it when I skip work, so I must have looked pretty bad. I'm sitting in bed reading e-mail and coughing up phlegm. Yecch!
As for exercise, I've done pretty well this week. I did 30 minutes on the treadmill Monday. Yesterday, I did a 45 minute program called Ballet Strength. I recorded it from that show "All-Star Workouts". It's not aerobics, but I still worked up a sweat. The instructor, Jennifer Galardi, combines several different techniques. It starts off with some ballet moves. After that she uses weights, resistance bands, Pilates, and yoga moves. I got a great workout and my back didn't hurt once.
What do you guys think about working out while sick? I didn't want to work out yesterday but I forced myself. I don't want to work out today, but I feel like I should at least do 10 minutes on the treadmill. I'm afraid that if I don't work out today, I won't work out again until Monday.
After my itchy walk on Saturday, I did a little internet research to see if I could get some information on the problem. When I tried to find out what was causing the itching years ago, the few resources that even mentioned the problem suggested putting lotion or petroleum jelly on your legs. Since the itching isn't caused by friction, that didn't really help. Nowadays, there are so many medical websites and internet support groups that it didn't take long at all to find postings by other people with the same problem.
As far as I can tell, there are two main reasons why I might be itching. One involves an allergic reaction and red hives all over the body, which isn't part of my symptoms. The other reason is poor circulation. If you aren't accustomed to brisk walking or running, your legs will itch during each session until the circulation in your legs improves. This makes more sense since the intensity lessens as I become more fit. I'm just glad to know that I'm not the only one with this crazy symptom!
I decided to add a new wrinkle to my workouts this week. If I don't get up on time to work out in the morning, then I have to add 15 minutes to my workout in the evening. I was supposed to walk 15 minutes this morning, so I had to walk 30 minutes this evening. I hate giving up my free time in the evening, so hopefully this will push me to stay awake when I get my daughter up at 6a instead of crawling back into bed.
Anyway, I had NO itching when I walked today! I expected to be itching for at least another week or so. No itching makes me feel that I am getting a little closer to being fit.
