Adjusted Reality

I totally approve of today.  I woke up this morning at around 8am, got a full home weights session done, ran a 5k around the neighborhood, and all before popping into the studio for work.  After a quick session, I met Zliten for a yummy salad bar lunch (during which I treated myself to not only a slice of pizza but ice cream with caramel AND nuts) and now am back at work for a bit.  After work, there will be out to dinner somewhere (haven’t decided where yet, maybe vietnamese-not-pho, maybe somewhere else), some intriguing presents in brown bags waiting for me to open.

30 somehow doesn’t feel much different than 29.  Actually, I feel pretty much badass today and if I’m lucky, I’ve got 2/3 or more of my life left to go.  I have a wonderful fiance, a great house that we own (ok, the bank owns most of it, technically, but we’re working on it), a super awesome group of friends, and even though I bitch about it sometimes, a pretty damn decent job working on a title that is actually doing well in this horrible economy and able to bring in the bacon to keep us living pretty much the same quality of life we are used to while the start up thing…well, finishes starting up!

Oh yeah.  And I’m about 40 lbs lighter than I was when I turned 20.  And I’m 110 lbs lighter than I was when I turned 27.  Can’t forget that.  I looked at my silhoutte while running today and thought “If that’s how 30 looks, bring it on, world!”.  I then though, “If I could get my ass up and run every morning, maybe I’d make the world explode from the sheer power of my mind’s positive thinking”.  Oh well, it’s my birthday, I’ll make the world explode if I want to.

I was going to get all deep and introspective up in here, but I realized that I just feel pretty bad ass today and am going to go spread sunshine and rainbows all over the office.  Cheers everyone, and happy day! 🙂

So I’ve been thinking about this one for a while, and I think this is a good month to try it.

The most challenging thing about weight loss is always finding the sweet spot.  I have no problem taking a to-do checklist, and submitting myself to the process, and then when everything is done, I should have attained my goal.  Right?  Well, of course not.  I’ve had weeks where I ate pizza, sat on the couch, and lost weight.  I’ve had weeks where I busted my ass, ate really healthy, and gained weight.  It’s not a process that always makes sense.  In fact, it usually doesn’t make much sense.

However, the one thing that I can count on is finding the sweet spot – that magical spot where I’m eating just enough to stave off starvation and feel fueled enough to go on with my day, and exercising enough to feel good after workouts, and not exhausted.  When I find this ratio, I lose weight effortlessly.  I spent so many months being able to do this without really trying and then around 170 my body decided it didn’t want to cooperate.  It took a complete reswizzling of my plan and a couple months of frustration while I figured out what to do.  I’m still not 100% sure I’m doing the right thing but each month my weight seems to be declining, and I haven’t been miserable for the most part.

I figure it would be fun to give myself a little licesnse to see what is comfortable for me.  Do I want to work out more at the price of eating more?  Would I rather control my calories a little more and be able to spend more time relaxing?  This month, we will see.

At my minimum, I am going to be eating 1300 calories per day.  If I eat only 1300 calories per day – or 9100 per week (highly unlikely), I can do my minimum workout – weights, yoga, and 3 days of cardio (one DDR day, one long run, and one 5k run).  Each 100 calories I eat on top of that equals another 7  minutes of intense cardio (DDR, interval runs), or 14 minutes of mild cardio (walking, ice skating).  So, at my normal consumption now, I’m going to add approximately 77 minutes to my cardio per week (which adds another day + a little more on another day, which is normal).  If I go crazy on the wine, cake, or wine cake, I do not need to have any fear, regret, remorse, or guilt.  I just need to move my ass for a little longer.  If I don’t feel like moving my ass vigorously, we can just go take a nice long walk.

I will be offsetting everything by a week.  This week I will be doing my normal workouts, and keeping a tally of the amount of calories I take in.  Then starting NEXT Monday I will determine how much I need to be workouting.  Should be interesting – I’ll keep you posted on how this goes!  I am also scoping out races to run at the end of the month, so that might manipulate the program a little.  By the way, this will be my last post as a 20-something…tomorrow is my birthday and I officially become ancient!

Well, it was an interesting month, this February was.

Here was the plan:

Day 1: 15 minutes arc trainer, full body strength (at gym), 30 minute treadmill run

Day 2: 60 minute outside run, yoga

Day 3:  45 minutes DDR, full body strength (at home)

Day 4: 60 minute outside run, yoga

Did I follow it?  Of course not!  Not ONE WEEK.

The first week, I pretty much stuck to it, but skipped 30 minutes of running outside in favor of DDR and did the epic walk.  The second week, I got super sick and took most of the week off.  The third week, I pretty much ran test 5ks all week increasing my pace, culminating in a really awesome time I’m happy with on race day.  Then, last week, I was nursing shin splints from the race, so I laid off the running until the weekend, when I finally ran a full 10k distance on the treadmill and walked all over creation for my birthday pub crawl.  Nope, not as planned at all.

I think  I’m ok with that.  I’m really starting to realize that exercise (or at least the extent that I do it) is really not what’s driving my weight loss.  It’s the food that I need to really watch.  I’m not going to start skipping workouts and sitting on the couch or anything, but when things don’t go according to plan, I think I can take it in stride a little bit better than I did before.  A little better, at least.

I also discovered that I really do enjoy running outside and loved running the race.  I foresee at least 2 more this spring.  I’ve earned my running muscles and though my legs do talk to me a bit more the next day when I run outside, I don’t hurt myself doing it!  The idea of maybe doing a half marathon or a marathon someday doesn’t sound quite as ludicrious as it used to.

Eat-y wise, besides this weekend (your own birthday celebrations have no calories, I declare), I seem to have been doing pretty well.  Not quite as well as January calorie-wise (I definitely ate a little more this month) but I seem to have done better at eating more fruits and veggies.  That’s something, right?  I also found that if I listen to my body, it adjusts my appetite for the level of activity I’m getting.  The week I was sick and not working out, I had to force myself to eat enough.  The next week, I was back to workouts, and hungry again.  If I was in maintenance mode, this month would be a huge success in learning how my body works.   Is it time for that yet?   I can’t wait…

Anywhoooo…  What did that translate to progress-wise?  It’s hard to tell.  I’ve been fluctuating wildly (I was 154 last week then up to 157 and down to 153 today), so I’ll let you know when my weight decides to stay put for a while!  It’s definitely lower than it was last month, so I’ll take it.  What”s up in March, the month of never ending birthdays and celebrations?  Stay tuned.

EDIT:  Oh yeah, the meditation challenge?  Yeah, I stink and tried it once and gave up.  Maybe someday…

I’m just painfully away from the internet, busy busy busy with work, and getting ready to celebrate my birthday this weekend in the midst of crazy.  But just in case you need something to get you through your day…

Happy weekending everyone.  I’ll try to post something while I’m still in my twenties…shudder…

Today, I found myself wanting to blog, and started a pretty heavy, introspective thinky post.  I realized promptly after starting it that I have neither the mental capacity nor the time or attention to devote to it today.  Still, I want to write something!  Anything!  I still feel the need, desire, and drive to share a little piece of my grey matter with the internet.  So, on the prompting of livejournal’s topic starter for the day, let me share with you my morning routine.   Definitely ONLY weekdays, weekends are much lazier and longer.

7:20 am – My alarm goes off.  Note that I don’t say that I GET UP, because I 100% of the time snooze at least once (five times).  I’m not sure WHY the alarm goes off at that particular time, but it has since I started trying to get up earlier so there it stays.

7:40am (on a good day) to 8:30am (on a lazy day) – I actually get myself out of bed and plod to the other side of the master suite to the bathroom.  During the winter, I crank on the heater on a timer so I don’t freeze to death (our bathroom gets COLD).  I then do things in this exact order – I use the bathroom, wash my hands, brush my teeth***, put in my contacts if it’s a contacts day, weigh myself, and put on deoderant.  This takes approximately 10 minutes.  Note that I shower at night – I swear I’m not just a dirty, stinky hippie.

7:50am (let’s pretend it’s a good day): I turn on the TV which defaults to the 24 hour local news channel.  We got said TV on a super going out of business closing sale for way cheap, but since it was a floor model, it came to us sans remote.  We’ve never been able to get a remote that worked for it and it’s on top of a tall dresser, so now the step ladder lives next to the tv/dresser and I am just short enough that I have to climb it to turn the TV on (since the on button is on TOP of the TV).  Then, I go back to the bedroom to my side of the bed, on the floor, where I’ve laid out my clothes the night before.  If it’s cold, I do this right in front of the portable heater plugged in on the dresser.

7:55 (still a good day): I am no longer pajamafied or nekkid, so it’s time to apply plumage and sparkle.  I apply my lipstick first so it will dry (it’s one of those all day lasting types so it takes 2 mins to fully set), then pick a necklace, bracelet, and earrings for the day.  Then, most days I decide to not fuss much with the hair and just run a brush through it – but if I do anything with it, this is the time.  By now, my lipstick has set and I put the gloss on and spray myself down with body spray.  I actually have over 10 different little bottles right now of different scents (I love the variety packs) so I rotate them each day.  Then I kiss and hug my Zliten and head out of the sanctuary into the world.  By then, I have gotten a 10 minute cycle of news including weather, traffic, and some local flavor stories.

8am – I go to the coat and shoe closet and grab either a sweater or coat (or both, depending on the weather), gloves and a scarf if it’s cold, and the shoes for the day.  I own approximately 40 pairs of shoes – and I wear at least 50% of them regularly during their appropriate season.  I love shoes!  I also have way more coats than a person needs – over a dozen of different colors and weights (and we rarely get below freezing).  I love coats!  Then, as long as the outfit passes the full length mirror test (yes, I have gone back to change occasionally), it’s on to the kitchen.

8:05am – If it’s a gym day after work, I give a quick check to make sure my gym back is packed (I always do it the night before).  If not, I grab my other bag.  I throw in an oatmeal packet for breakfast at work and a piece of fruit for a late afternoon snack, make sure my phone is in my purse, and I’m out the door by 8:10.  If I’m out the door at 8:10, I’m at work and have my cup o tea by 8:2o.

If you can’t tell, I’m all about minimizing the morning routine – I’d rather spend the extra time in bed and do everything I can the night before.  The fluctuations in time are because my job allows us to start anytime between 8-10am, and work 8 hours after we get in.  While some days I do default closer to 10am, it is much nicer to be into work in the morning earlier, when it’s quiet, and out closer to 5 so I can get my workout on and get home to eat dinner at a reasonable hour.  Running also puts me to sleep earlier so it just works out well most weeks.

Wow, over 800 words on what I do in the morning… guess I did really feel like writing something.  Wanna share?  What’s your morning routine?

***EDIT: OMG, I realized you all must think I’m a dirty, stink-breathed hippie anyway because I forgot to note that I actually BRUSH MY TEETH.  Of all the things to omit…