Adjusted Reality

So, to recap, here was January’s fitness plan:

-Day 1 and 3: 30 mins interval run, 15 minutes on Cybil, full body strength.

-Day 2: 60 minute run, yoga session

-Day 4: 60 minute DDR session, yoga session

The food plan was just to cut back on calories and track all my food – I didn’t have anything specific in mind yet.  I just knew that nightly jelly bean sessions and mowing from the popcorn tin mindlessly needed to be put to a halt.

How am I doing?

Exercise:

Haven’t missed a day yet.  That’s a lot easier to do when it’s only 4 days per week!  However, I haven’t really stuck with my exact plan well.  One week I just couldn’t be buggered to leave the house and did 2 days of serious DDR’ing instead.  Not knowing how my legs would take the outside running, I didn’t know if I was just going to have to start with a mile and work my way up slowly or what.  I guess I earned my right to run because while my legs talk back to me a bit more after a jaunt around the neighborhood, I’m not having any ankle, knee, or heel trouble.

My plan has been looking more like this (though it’s varied a bit each week):

-Day 1 : Intervals, cybil, and full body weights

-Day 2: Long run and yoga

-Day 3: Outside Run (about 3-4 miles), either DDR or cybil, and full body weights

-Day 4: DDR and yoga

So far, it still feels challenging, but not too challenging.  I’ve increased a lot of my weights and reps, but haven’t made much more in the way of progress.  However, that’s fine – this month is about maintaining my fitness level while lowering my intake, so as long as I’m completing my workouts without falling over dead at the end of them, I’m a-ok.

Eating:

I started with a vague idea of just reducing calories.  After a week, I settled into a specific plan of 1300-ish on the weekdays and under 2000 on the weekends.  The reality has been 130o calories 4 days per week, about 1500 calories 2 days per week, and just under 2000 one day.   It works out to approximately 1450 calories per day, which should net me about 1.5 lbs loss per week, that is, if my body worked like a math formula.  While I can’t say I am completely comfortable with every 1300 calorie day, it’s more than adequate to keep me functioning for the time being.

The one thing I’d like to improve is that it’s hard for me to get all the servings of fruit/veggies some days.  It’s a constant fight.  Now that I’ve rekindled my love for fruit, I could eat it all day, and I love the natural sugar buzz.  There is no better snack than frozen veggies with some garlic, seasoning, and a little spray butter, or snow peas and lite sesame ginger dressing, like I’m eating now.  However, they still have calories, and sometimes, if I am craving something unhealthy and have already eaten enough – it’s better for me to do something else besides eat to take my mind off my id trying to sabotage my waistline.

Weight loss:

Well, the first week was stellar.  I was literally bopping around feeling groovy, wondering when the other shoe would drop.  Well, drop it did, I’ve actually GAINED 2 lbs since 2 weeks ago while still being a good girl.  While it’s a little concerning, I’m not too worried – this is actually quite reminiscent of the cycle I was on most of last year.  As long as I drop the 2 extra lbs plus a little bit within the next week or so, I’m actually on pace for where I want to be by the end of the month (158).  At the very least, I’ve lost 2.6 lbs this month.***  That’s nothing to sneeze at, unless you have allergies, like me, in which case, you sneeze at anything and everything.

The rest of the month:

I wish to continue to eat how I have been calorie-wise.  Anything less, and I think I’d be a little more uncomfortable than I’m willing to be.  I can always strive to be better by converting not-so-great choices (like Saturday’s enchilada and taco plate which was a whopping 900 calories) to better ones (I could have probably eaten like 8 of our homemade fish tacos instead), but the quantity is fine.  If I can’t lose weight on this intake – I am done here.

My schedule is looking to be interesting, so with that and the fact that I’m slightly underfueled (and I’ve been fighting some wicked allergies), my goal is just to complete my 4 workouts per week.  If I do exactly what I had planned – bonus.  If I have to change it up because of the weather, work, or not wanting to blow snot over everyone on the treadmills next to me, then so be it.

I know weight is something I cannot control (I can influence my body to lose weight by doing the right things, but I cannot make it actually drop the weight unless it wants to) – but I really want to see 158.0 or under by February 1st.***  It’s been since August that I’ve actually had a significant drop in weight, and I’ve really been doing my best!

I also don’t have a plan yet for next month…I guess I’ll have to do some thinking!

***So, I thought I’d be all slick and get some posts done early.  Saturday, I weighed in at 160.4 and was feeling all grumpers about it.  Today, I actually met my January goal and am at exactly 158.0!  So, while I love the encouragement, I am no longer even .01% bummed about my progress, so no need to tell me it will all be ok. =)  This should also be a good guide on how weight can fluctuate.  I actually weighed in one day at 162.8 one day in the thick of TOM (time of month) time last week.

This posts pictures brought to you by www.fukung.com, which you should never go to or it will eat your free time (not setting it as a link, I will not be responsible for that much wasted productivity in the world).  The theme is internet ettiquite, just because it’s much easier to understand than wedding ettiquite.

This week got super crazy!  Weekends are usually bloggy breaks, but I figured I’d give a random thoughts update just for fun, and you don’t all think I’ve abandoned ship.

1.  Cedar sucks!  Anyone that lives in Austin knows well how evil these trees are – their pollen aggrivates the most stalwart of systems (I am not typically affected by allergies…at all).  We have been laid out on the couch doped up on benadryl since last night.  I think I’ve gone through at least a box of kleenex in 24 hours.  Thank goodness we don’t cheap out on kleenex or my face might have rubbed off by now.  For perspective…apparently anything in 4 digits is pretty bad (particles per inch or whatever the measurement is) – we had 28 THOUSAND.  As in, 28 times bad.  I finally am able to breathe again and I might actually get some sleep tonight instead of a series of naps broken up by misery.  Yes, I”m whining.  ‘Dis my blog, I can do it here!

2.  That being said – I missed my outside run I was supposed to do today.  Probably a good thing, because the weather decided it wanted to pretend to be winter and didn’t get above the low 40’s all day, and that alone might have not stopped me.  I’m hoping I feel better tomorrow so I can make up the workout, or at least do some DDR and yoga if the outside world is too pollen-y or freeze-y.

3.  I made yelp elite today!  I’ve plugged the site a few times, but seriously, check it out.  I just love it because it’s real people just spouting off about places they go.  No one is paying anyone for good reviews, and it’s obvious when people are trying to stack the ratings (a whole bunch of reviews from people who have only reviewed that place, giving it really high ratings).  Anyhooo, in recognition of the reviews I write and will continue to write, I get a spiffy tee-shirt and invites to exclusive parties, which are usually free food/booze, which in this economy, I’m all about!

4.  I’ve really been enjoying the work I’m doing this week with sound recording.   It makes me wish I knew more about it.  I’m just producing it which means that I’m a second pair of ears, I make sure it sounds good, deal with contracts and schedules, and basically my ass is the one on the line if things don’t go well.  I’m in for about 2 months of it, and I can already tell that I’m going to miss this particular project when it’s done.

5. We’ve spent most of the day today, when we weren’t watching Hercules, playing Fable (yes, the original x-box one).  We’re trying to be a goody two shoes through the whole thing this time (apparently it’s a pretty short game) and then next time be super evil.  It’s a little clunky to play, but the concept is cool and the story has been pretty amusing.

Bonus:  The pictures in this post are me proudly prancing around in the first miniskirt I’ve worn in about 10 years – 30s be damned.  I’m much happier about how the red-shirt picture looks, I feel like I look super skinnier, and it was only a week after the first one.  Oddly enough, I was going out to the same place, and that’s the only 2 times I’ve been there.  Maybe this is my Copa miniskirt?

Have a great rest of your weekend, campers!

So, as happens on occasion, a comment on a blog turns into something I want to expand on.  Charlotte talked about maintenance, and her great fluctuations.  Before I started the great de-porkification in 2007, I was exactly the same way.  I’d forget about veggies and remember more french fries and gain weight ’til I got the point of being unhappy with myself, then employ some ridiculous plan like the crackers and stress diet, or super caffiene pill diet to try to become what I was before.  The difference is I never quite got to my low weight, so it was just this dippy little rollercoaster that would keep going down then up up up, then down a little then up up up, until I found myself at 265 lbs and was ready to finally go down down down.  So I find myself now almost at the start of the ride again, hoping to get off for the final time, for good.  I like rollercoasters but sometimes, enough is enough and you start to feel queasy at the thought of getting on another one.

So here is the challenge – I’m now at a weight that though the BMI scale says is still 10 lbs overweight, I definitely feel healthy.  I no longer feel as if my weight is holding me back from doing any normal athletic activity.  I look into the mirror most mornings and thing, “gee, don’t I look good”.  I would not be embarrassed at all to run into any exes or people I knew from high school or whatnot.  I can go into any store, pick up clothing, and it will fit.  Sure, I might look ridiculous in super low rise jeans or a halter top, but size-wise, I’m set.

The problem is, I don’t feel like I’m done.  I feel like I’m on the big side of ok.  There are some mornings where I wake up, put clothes on, and I’m just like, ugh.  I definitely still have some belly I can lose, as well as that annoying chicken wing meat, and I’d like to see a little more jaw bone.  If I do decide to take up a serious athletic endeavour, I could definitely see wanting to shed some more weight for non-cosmetic reasons.

I’ve not had a history of any sort of eating disorders, beyond being young and stupid and thinking that I just wasn’t strong enough to be an anorexic.  I might have eaten less or more than I should have at times in my life, but I definitely don’t exhibit tendencies of major binge eating or restricting my food intake beyond what is generally sane and healthy.  I only throw up when I am extremely sick, I would never consider doing it for any other reasons.  When I eat too much, it’s because it’s tasty.  When I eat not enough (which is very rare), it’s usually due to forgetfulness, or a severe illness like the flu.  I did previously have a little bit of a tendency of saying, “man I had a hard day, I’m going to treat myself to a cheeseburger and a beer”, but I think that’s *fairly* normal, right?

I lay this out because I realize, at this embarkation point, I need to watch myself closely.  While I have no history of disorder, I definitely have the type of personality that could be pre-disposed to it.  If losing 10 lbs is good, then losing 50 more is better, right?  If working out 7 hours a week is good, working out 15 is better!  More, more, more, I want it all!  I have definitely made strides in being a more balanced person than I used to be, but as Ani Difranco says, “they say that alcoholics are always alcoholics even if they’re dry as my lips for years, even if they’re stranded on a small desert island with no place in 2000 miles to buy beer”.

So why can’t I just leave well enough alone and be happy?  Maybe if I had always been fat, I’d be just satisfied being not-fat.  However, I have this memory of looking extremely kickin’ when I was training in gymnastics.  Like, I still had curves, but nothing else but the boobs on my bod jiggled AT ALL.  I really and truly need to scan some of those pictures, but take my word for it.  I hear that blah de blah, I’m 29 not 16, and I realize that there may be some loose skin issues taking myself down to half of myself from 2 years ago…but there is nothing unhealthy about the weight I was at, and while I don’t expect to be 8% bodyfat again, aiming for that healthy weight of 125 is not ludicrious-sauce, right?  There is nothing wrong with a 5 foot 5 inch chicky-poo weighing 125, is there?

After the journey I’ve been on for the last 2 years, after all the work I put in to this, after all the mental and physical accomplishments I’ve made, don’t I deserve to see this through to an end where I am content on working on my fitness level only, and not worrying about the number being too high?  Can’t I, for once in my life, get to a point where the back of my head is quiet and not saying “I wish I could lose 10 lbs”?  I feel like there is this weight out there where all of a sudden, I’ll know it’s time to stop shedding.  That I will be fully, completely, and totally happy with my physical form for the first time in about 20 years.

I’m just afraid that will never happen.  I don’t want to be that person that is always trying to lose 5 lbs.  I don’t want to get too skinny, but I’m not sure what too skinny is.  I’ve never been there in my life.  It might actually be enlightening to have a frame of reference for that.  However, I’m envisioning 3 scenarios as end game for the losing phase of this journey:

1.  Best case: I reach a weight where in my mind it clicks that I am fully and completely happy here.  I wish to not lose any more weight.  I rewrite my bio and update my progress page one last time, and I stop whining about anything weight related for the rest of my life.

2.  Worst case: I get to a point where I have to either eat or exercise in a way that’s not comfortable to my lifestyle, I fight with it for months and make no progress, and just give up and decide that, to quote the cheesy phrase, things DO taste as good as thin feels and say eff it all.

3.  What will probably happen: I’ll reach a point where I am mostly happy with myself, decide I am done for a while, maintain there and work solely on fitness and replacing lumps and bumps with sexy, sexy muscle, and then re-evaluate whenever I find a reason to do so.

It must be navel-gazing Wednesday.  I know I have at least 10 more lbs to go, so it’s not an immediate decision to be made.  I do very much realize now that being at the perfect weight is not going to suddenly make my life perfect too, but I’m a project manager.  I like to check things off.  Seeing charts with 95% complete bugs the crap outta me.  I’m just wondering when it will be time to make that proverbial check mark on such a nebulous task.

Fish, rice, and veggies is typically a once a week staple in our house.  This is one of the newer versions we made, because, well, this kind of fish tastes great baked in the oven, whereas most versions tastes best on the BBQ, and when we made it, it was cold!

It is so freshly out of the oven, it’s still steaming in the picture.

As for the recipes, Zliten actually entered them on the spark site, so let me direct you there.  I think the only other thing, which may be a “duh” to most people – but make sure the fish is thawed.

The fish, which is delish…

The rice, which is very nice…

Add to the plate a good smattering of veggies, and you have a super great fantastic healthy meal – about 500 calories for a big slab of tilapia, a cup of rice, and the rest of the plate full of veggies.  Although as a pisces it almost seems cannibalistic to eat fish and enjoy it so much, I think I’ll get over it.

p.s.  Yes, it has white rice in the picture.  If you’re anti-white stuff, just sub brown rice.  I know some people tout brown rice as awesome for you and white rice horrible-terrible-no good, but I believe the only difference is the fiber count.  And it flips some people’s “eat everything carby in the house” switch, but I guess I don’t have that.  And I get quite enough fiber, thank you!  I dunno, I know in my heart of hearts it’s better for me, and I actually quite like it, but Zliten doesn’t – so we alternate.  And variety is the spice of life, so it’s good.

Besides being one of the best David Bowie songs ever, it’s what we did last night, said hallo to the spaceboy Richard Garriot.  We headed to the imax theatre downtown for a night of all things astronaut-y.  First, we watched a 3-d movie filmed shortly before he went up to the space station.

Wow.  Just wow.

I spent the whole movie feeling like I was 10 years old, alternating between my mouth being agape, and a shit-eating grin on my face.  Zliten is a space nut, we used to fall asleep watching the Nasa channel in San Diego, any space documentary, he’d just be glued to it.  Of course, I think space is cool as hell and I’d love if in my lifetime there was commercial flights to the moon.  But seeing it in 3-d (and wow, 3-d has gotten better since I was a kid) was just… awe inspiring.  Words just cannot describe how cool that was, so I’ll just stop babbling about it.

Then, Richard gave a presentation on his background, his involvement in the privatization of space travel, and his experience training for and going up to the space station.  I knew his father was a cosmonaut, I knew he invested in it, but I didn’t know he was one of the founders of the x prize, and I didn’t know how dedicated he had been to wanting to be an astronaut all his life.  I knew a lot about his video game history, but it was pretty cool to hear more about the space part of his life.  Ya know.  Someone I’ve met.  Someone Zliten has actually worked with.  Someone that I’ve done a dive off his second floor balcony jump spot into his pool at a party has also gone into space.  Somehow, the millions he’s made in video games didn’t really starstrike me the way this did.

I guess what I could take away from this is – if this guy had the dream of going into space, and found out that he couldn’t do it in the capacity that many could because of his eyesight, he just kept trying to create another way.  He could have just been accepting of his fate, but he wasn’t.  Someone closed a door, he just kept knocking on all the rest of them.  Sure, he came from a cosmonaut-artist-scientist family, but he’s obviously not just a trust fund kid.  He was making a company in his parents basement in college selling his video game in college when I was getting myself into debt drinking and partying.

I sometimes – not regret because I love where I’ve ended up – but wonder where I would have ended up if I would have taken some different roads.  I could have gotten into some really good schools with my grades and scores, but I couldn’t decide where to go so I just stayed in town and went to the state school in Reno.  I could have continued on with gymnastics and seen where it took me, same with diving – I was actually offered a small diving scholarship and spot on a college team which I turned down for various reasons.  I wonder what would have happened if I would have stayed on with SOE and in San Diego (just a little, that’s one decision I’m pretty sure I made correctly just for health reasons).  If only I had a “what if” machine…

However, it really hit home last night that a lot of doors I’ve always thought were closed to me at the ripe old age of 29 – well, they’re only because I think they are.  I’m probably not going to try to take up gymnastics again pushing 30, but nothing is stopping me heading to a pool and getting back on the diving board.  Maybe I could even be the one to start an adult diving league here in Austin.  Same with all the other fun/active things I used to do before I left college, became a sedentary blob, and packed on weight.

It’s a really good feeling to be going into my 30’s (my birthday is March 3rd by the way) lighter and fitter than at any other time in my life since I quit gymnastics.  I actually think I might be stronger in different areas, I surely have never been able to run 5+ miles before in my life.  As my resolutions definitely enforce, I just need to figure out what I’m going to tackle, and focus!

And hey, maybe one day I’ll go to space too.  I hear that you lose weight up there.  Bonus!