Same Old Same Old...

Well, the posting has become pretty sporatic lately, eh? I guess part of it is I just don't know what to talk about. Gee, I worked out, I watched what I ate, I'm not losing weight (but I'm also not trying right now).

It's the same old stuff. Part of me knows that's good (an indication that it's a lifestyle), but it makes for a boring blog, no?

I could talk about all the annoying aches and pains (foot specific), but I don't feel like whining, and it's not really effecting my workouts. I have done a bit more on the stationary bike as that doesn't seem to bother it as much.

I guess I'm still looking for the "spark" to get me motivated to do the next weight loss phase. Matt thinks that doing it in stages is very smart. "Let your body adjust to this new weight, then it will be more responsive when you're ready to lose again". That's how he did it and that's pretty much how I've been doing it over the last several (6) years. It's a 10-20 lb loss, then I stay at that weight trying my best to maintain it before something motivates me to work that extra bit that I need to lose weight.

Quite frankly, losing weight is hard work. Maintaining has become habit. I don't mind the eating or the workouts that I'm required to maintain this weight, but I have to be so incredibly meticulous with my eating and I have to workout considerably harder to lose weight (the math on the 500 calorie/day just doesn't seem to work for me... it seems to take almost twice that for me to lose weight). It's so hard to work that hard to see minimal results. Losing weight is still one of the hardest things I've done (while gaining is a simple matter of not paying attention.

I've also cut Maya down to 3 times a week with the "interval" training. I can't do it two days in a row (gotta give the muscles recovery time), but I now find I'm looking forward to interval days now... instead of putting it off. It's a good system, but every once in a while I'll do a regular workout (usually 30-45 minutes of upper body concentration: as that's my favorite).

Well, speaking of such... off to put on my workout clothes and spend some time with Maya. She's always so glad to see me (especially for morning workouts!)

Fun With Maya

I've been using Yourself!Fitness since the beginning of October. Maya has been my "personal trainer" for so long that we've been looking for ways for me to stay interested. Well, okay she's not, as she's very happy doing the same type of workout everyday. A little warm up, a little cardio, then the day's focus. Yawn. That's gotten old after 6 months.

So I've been working a little less with her and doing some treadmill work and even did the stationary bike (which was harder than I remembered: if you haven't used a piece of equipment for a while, no matter that you're still working out, it's like starting fresh).

I still get a better, more complete workout with Maya so I thought what can I do to make it more interesting? How 'bout interval training?

I did 3 workouts with Maya back to back to back. All 15 minutes. I started with lower body (mistake... next time I'll finish with that, as each workout progressed, the step bench became more and more of a challenge... oh wait, that may be a good thing!), followed by a cardio and I finished it up with an upper body. It broke the workouts up nicely, as I had the warm up and cardio section before each target. I also liked the clock aspect. The time seemed to go faster. The other nice thing: even tho' I said 15 minutes for each, she never seems to do that, so in fact each workout was closer to 17 minutes giving me almost an hour workout.

The drawback? Well, the physical challenge came up between workouts. Oh well, I just punched in my old numbers and kept going. I do hope the next addition has some way to over ride the physical challenge. It's nice in the beginning to see it every 10th workout, but I'm not progressing that fast anymore and it comes up every other week. At this point, I should get them once a month rather than every 2 weeks.

I'm coming up on my annual in 2 months. I would love to be below 150 lbs... so I think the maintance period is slowly coming to an end. It's so hard to maintain the hard work and sacrifice I need to lose weight, but I've also showed in the last 2.5 months that I can maintain my weight very comfortably just by being aware of what (and how much) I'm eating and sticking to a comfortable workout regimine.

Today's Positive Comment
The sun is shining brightly, the days are getting longer and soon I can open the windows for some fresh air.

Don't Blame Me

I have to say I've about had it with Blogger. I've been trying to post for over 2 days now and it simply won't let me. I tried to leave comments on a friend's site, and it won't let me. I guess I'm going to have to move this blog back to my own domain, but I'm going to wait a bit until I have some blogging software (hint hint Matt: when you get done developing my photo album, can you write me a blogging program please?)

Anyway, I've been suffering from a nasty head cold this week. Actually, it's not that nasty, but I've got a lot of sinus pressure and I'm having problems breathing thru my nose.

I didn't think this would effect my workouts (I assumed I mouth breathed for workouts)... but I was so very wrong. I took Saturday off (my normal day off), but I also took Sunday and Monday off due to the cold. Thought I was feeling better on Tuesday and had to cut my workout short. The cold was much more of a problem than I expected. So I took Wednesday off too... now I'm starting to actually miss working out and feeling that I need to get back on schedule.

I was able to workout yesterday. Still not pleasant, but it did feel good to move and feel like I got a good workout.

I also have new motivation to lose the next 20 lbs. My current knitting project is going to be too small for me (I read part of the directions incorrectly, and I'm about 6" smaller circumfrance than I wanted). I've spent a lot of time on this sweater, and I looooove it, so I think if I work hard over the summer, it's going to fit me next fall.

My knitting is actually one of the major drawbacks in the size reduction. I have some beautiful finished sweaters that I can't wear any longer since I dropped 60 lbs. I have projects started that aren't going to fit me either. It's a price I'm more than willing to pay for a healthier lifestyle... and the great thing about knitting: it's only yarn, and projects can be ripped out and restarted!

Well, let's see if this gets posted, then I'm off to do a workout (I think it's an upper body workout today... may shoot for a 45 minutes workout for that... I'm making a sleeveless top for summer)

Supersize Me

Supersize Me finally arrived from Blockbuster Online (well, that was a while ago... as I said, I'm a bit behind my postings) and it was definitely an interesting watch.

I think we all knew that eating a high fat, high simple carb diet (let's not forget all that sodium too) is bad for us, but I don't think anyone expected it to effect the body so quickly (including the doctors that were involved) or how hard. Within 30 days, Morgan's health was at serious risk...

Now, obviously, the average person doesn't eat at McDonald's (or any fast food resturant) every meal every day, but I think the movie showed how bad the average American diet is. (1 in 4 Americans eat at a fast food resturant every day). It also showed how the resturants are making these foods worse for us than they have to be (Chicken McNuggets have extra chicken fat injected into them... for moistness and extra flavor). There also was a lot of emphasis on the marketing (especially towards children). It was actually fairly scary.

I have to say one of the main changes that Matt and I made when we started a more healthy lifestyle was the removal of eating out on a regular basis. For me it's a control issue. First, I don't have the control over how the food is made or with what (if I were to make chicken nuggets at home, I would not inject them with extra chicken fat), plus I also give myself "free reign" with ordering.

Altho' the focus of the documentary was on McDonald's, this is true of every resturant. Most resturants give nutrional data, but they can be hard to find while in the resturants (most are available online... and thanks to this: I'll never order a large mochaccino from Starbucks). Saying that, I went to Houlihan's for lunch with a friend and while trying to update my food log, I looked up their resturant and this is what they say about the nutritional content of their menu:

Nutritional and Recipe Information-
Our restaurant’s chefs prepare menu items each day from scratch. Each restaurant receives produce from local growers, insuring the freshest ingredients. Whether you order our famous Baked Potato Soup or the newest entrée, Mustard Crusted Salmon, you can be assured that it has been made with the freshest ingredients available. We are not able to list nutritional information, as there may be slight variances in the recipes because of item availability.
Houlihan’s Restaurants employs top chefs to produce the recipes used at our restaurants. The Chefs are constantly updating and revising these recipes. We view these recipes as confidential and do not share them.
Thank you for understanding.

This is the biggest crap I've ever heard. No matter what the spin is on this, this is a copout. Quite frankly, if you are afraid to tell, then I'm afraid to eat it. I take full responsibility for my food decisions, but I need to have the proper information available for me to make my choices.

I also found the "addiction" aspect of eating these high fat, high calorie foods to hit home for me. It's so true. As someone that had to ween herself off of soda and candybars, there's definitely the same issue with food as with any type of addiction. The fact that Morgan's liver showed the same type of damage as an alcoholic really makes it even more obvious that food has the same impact on us as any kind of addiction.

I think the thing that I've noticed more than anything since I've adjusted my eating habits it the way we Americans feel the "right" to eat whatever whenever we want. There's such a sense of glutony and "I deserve this". We defend our eating habits as if it's our American right to overindulge. We are defensive about it, even tho' we know that we shouldn't eat this way.

An interesting movie, to be sure. As someone who already had changed a lot of my attitudes about food, I'm not sure it opened my eyes, but it definitely validated some of my decisions about my lifestyle.