Best of Intentions

Well, I meant to go to a class this morning at the Y, but I couldn't get to sleep last night. My left foot hurts most nights--I have neuropathy on the top of my foot because the nerves were severed in the surgery to repair my leg. The top of my foot is numb, so it's this weird combination of numbness and pain. Thankfully, it no longer bothers me much during the day, but there it is every night when I go to bed. Nothing can touch my foot at night, so I have to make a little tent out of the sheets and blankets. Most nights I can fall asleep pretty fast, but every once in awhile I have a night like last night. I kept checking the clock--11, 12, 1. By that point, I changed the alarm and slept in. I need to workout tomorrow morning, so here's hoping for a good night's sleep tonight.

Help, I Need Somebody

I am getting discouraged because I am not losing weight. I started thinking today about giving up because it's so discouraging to get on the scale every day and gain and lose the same couple of pounds, even though I've been sticking to my points, and not eating sweets or drinking alcohol. I know, though, that giving up means gaining weight, so that's what's keeping me in the game.

I haven't been able to workout as often as I want because of my travel schedule. I know that it would make a big difference if I was working out 4-5 times a week. I went to my sister Barb's exercise studio 3 times when I was in Minnesota. It's a very cool place--it looks like a spa and the women who led the classes were in great shape and very inspiring. We took a Nia class, which is a dance class, and 2 classes that involved using hand weights to do very high numbers of reps of exercises for the whole body to music. For example, we did 4-5 sets of 16 reps of chest presses without a break, and the whole hour was like that. I was a little disdainful about using light weights until I discovered how many reps we were doing. Every muscle in my body burned at one point or another during the workout.

That made me realize that I could be doing classes at the Y in addition to spinning, and that when Liz and I are done with our 6 months at Fitness Together, we can get that hard of a workout in a class with a great instructor. We're going to start tomorrow morning.

So I'm recommitting, but please, please, please oh god of weight loss, let me get passed this place that I'm stuck! Seeing results really helps with staying motivated.

Help is on the Way

I decided that in addition to committing to you, dear reader, that I won't drink alcohol or eat sugar until my birthday, I needed a live person to commit to, too. So when I went in for my workout at Fitness Together today, I made the commitment to Mark. He said he would put it in my record, so my traines will check in with me about it whenever I come in. That feels great. Liz made the commitment, too, and is going to tell her trainer tomorrow. Having both of us have the same goal really helps. By the way, you should see Liz--she's slimming up fast and looks great!

I had a great upper body workout today. I did 5 sets of pushups, bench presses, and dips, all of which focus on the pecs and triceps. I can feel a pleasant stiffness developing already this evening. I've been having some pain in my mid-back so I ended with some exercises that focused on that area.

I got an email from Barb today inviting me to join her at her gym on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, so that will be great for the weekend.

Goin' Down, Down, Down

Well, my willpower seems to have disappeared this weekend. Drinking beer and wine, eating french fires, hamburgers and dessert. Not the kind of diet that brings me to me goal. So I need to make a new commitment. I'm committing to you, loyal reader, that I will not drink alcohol, eat sugar, or go above my calorie limit from this moment until my birthday on June 14th. I will also track my food everyday.

My first challenge will be going to Minnesota this Thursday. Fortunately, my sister Barb really likes to workout, so I'm going to go with her 2-3 times. But mainly, I won't have a lot of control over my meals, so I'll have to make good choices from what's available and watch portion sizes. I'm counting on you to hold me accountable.

I had another fabulous Tabada workout on Friday that I'm still sore from. It involves doing an exercise for 20 seconds, resting for 10 seconds and repeating for a total of 6 times, which means 3 minutes. It doesn't sound like much, but believe me, by the 5th and 6th repetitions, I was very happy I wasn't doing it 7 times. I did squats, push-ups, shoulder lifts, dips, hamstring curls (done with my feet on a Swiss ball, raise my hips up, and roll the ball toward me--really isolates the hamstrings), and I'm forgetting an exercise ot tow, all followed up by following the same pattern on an exercise bike--pedal as fast as I can for 20 seconds, rest for 10, 6 times.

You can do a Tabada pattern with any exercise--try it the next time you work out--it'll help you break through to the next level.

St. Urho's Day

While everyone else in Massachusetts is celebrating St. Patty's Day today, I'm into my second day of celebrating St. Urho's Day. I may have gone over my calories for the first time today. I was at the vet picking up Charlie, who was doing his best to support our vet and his family's cruise in the Carribean this week, when in walked Diana. We hadn't seen each other for weeks between their vacation in Hawaii and Liz being in NYC and me in LA. So given the day, the only appropriate thing to do was to head to a bar.

We went to the Toasted Owl--what a great name. I ordered a wedge salad with bacon and blue cheese dressing. It seemed like the best option, but boy, it came back with a LOT of bacon and blue cheese. It's hard to know how to calculate the calories for that (plus a couple of beers), so I decided to err on the high side, which put me 200 calories over my limit. I don't know if that's accurate, because I am hungry.

I guess the best thing to do is to have a great work out tomorrow--I am looking forward to it. It is a challenging weekend. I'm going to a friend's house for dinner tomorrow--I know she'll be serving lots of great food and wine. Saturday night we're going out with Bob and Diana and they are taking us on an adventure to show their gratitude for us taking Alexandra for a week. And Sunday we're having one of the people who went to Nicaragua and his girlfriend over for dinner. At least I have control over the menu for that. I need to take lots of spinning classes in the next 3 days!

Life's Little Ups and Downs

As I suspected, I gained weight over the weekend--2.8 pounds according to my WII. I knew I couldn't have really gained that much weight. I also know from when I was in Weight Watchers that when you do gain weight, it's much easier to lose it immediately than it is if you let it hang around for a while.

So I made sure I went back to tracking my calories yesterday. I didn't try to starve myself--just stay under the 1950 calories I'm limited to. Hey, 1950, that's the year I was born. That should bring me some kind of luck.

Sure enough, I was down 2.2 pounds today. Hopefully, I'll be back to where I started tomorrow.

I had a fun workout today. I got to use the ladder today. It's like a rope ladder on the floor and I did various step routines in and out of the squares of the ladder. It reminded me of football players running through tires in pre-season training camp, or soldiers running through obstacle courses made of rope in basic training. Really fun. I was surprised at how much it used my core muscles. Also, since I broke my leg, I feel very stuck to the ground--like I have extra gravity holding me down. It feels like doing exercises with the ladder will make me lighter on my feet.

So Tired. . .

Between losing an hour to daylight savings time and jet lag, I am so exhausted I'm barely standing. I actually fell asleep at my desk at work today. Good thing I'm the boss. So what to do when I'm so tired. I don't do caffiene, so coffee is out. I've tried drinking a bit of coffee when I'm tired and I stay up most of the night, so that's out. I went to investigate the company chocolate supply, but alas (and happily), it was empty. Lisa who works for me had an energy bar with a bit of dark chocolate in it, and it did the trick without me overdoing it on either chocolate or calories.

It was another difficult day for eaten and exercising. I was so tired when the alarm went off at 6:30, that I reset it and went back to sleep. No exercise We had next to no food in the house because Liz was gone this weekend, too, so I didn't have my normal breakfast, lunch, and snacks. I went shopping for some things after work and Liz went out and completed the shopping after dinner, so we're set for the week.

We're having the same situation the week after next. I'm going to Minnesota and Liz is heading for San Francisco, so I hope we learned something from this weekend and prepare better. Liz has been working out at Fitness Together, too. She's getting excited about her workouts, which in turn, gets me reinspired.