Sick; and tired

Man, I don’t feel like doing anything when I have a cold. I’m such a baby.

This week is Sukkot, so to celebrate a bunch of friends and I have taken up residence in someone’s back yard. It’s great fun - except for the having a cold part. I abstained from sleeping in the 40 degree weather last night in favor of a warm bed, but I don’t know if it really helped. I feel worse today.

And you can forget about working out. I know light exercise would help my little immune system, but this thing is new and totally knocking me on my hind quarters. Tomorrow is the weekend, and sweet sleep. I just have to make it through today.

 

Friday Night Lite

I really have no excuse for not blogging until now, except for doing nothing new. I am, remarkably, down 8 lbs since I started this endeavor. Small, slow progress – that’s what I like. My pants are much more comfortable lately. I also like that.

 

Talk it out

I had a really good conversation with a friend of mine yesterday about this little life change of mine. The thing of it was, it’s a conversation I’ve never had – how sad! To be 26 and never really talked to anyone about wanting to live a healthy life, and the steps I’m learning in order to achieve that.

And that’s the point, I think. At least for me. This is a life change. I’m not just trying to drop some weight, or fit into a dress, or look good naked. These things would be great, don’t get me wrong; but what I would like is for those things to be secondary to lowering my cholesterol, being able to run a mile, and having my hips not hurt when I walk for longer than an hour.

It’s an on-going process. I have to be aware of the fact that, no matter what, I am going to screw this up pretty much every day, even as I do other parts of it well. The hope is that the trend of acing it versus screwing it up will go towards the light, rather than the dark. Today, at a very nice restaurant with delicious, amazing food before me, I had 1egg roll, 1 piece of bread, 1 fillet of seared tilapia, a few bites of risotto, some sugar snap peas, and about a quarter-cup of sorbet. Was this a “health food” meal? Uh…no. Not even close. Risotto by itself is pretty much off anyone’s list of good-for-yous, right off the bat. BUT. The difference between that list, and what would’ve gone down my trap in the same situation 2 months ago? Awesome. I will get the hang of this, I will enjoy food, and I will be healthy! Dangit! This is my war cry.

Speaking of awesome, if anyone happens over here, please wander here and help out some school kids. You might win a prize. You will change someone’s life. You will also get a delightful Thank You in the mail that will touch your heart. It is, as the site says, awesome.

 

And Wednesday was Friday.

This week, man, this week. Lots of work going on, some home work going on, NOT a lot of working out going on, and I still lose a pound. Let’s just say I’m really looking forward to the weekend.

If you want to add some delicious to your chicken or tuna salad, use Balsamic vinegar instead of salt. It’s pretty much heaven.

 

Turning the Page again

This weekend I officially entered my 26th year. Yay me! I was also out of town, and celebrating, so the healthy choices? and exercise? were a bit on the scant side. Or…you know, nonexistent. I’m not dissuaded, though. I still have a goal and I still have the ability to achieve it, so I’m still truckin’.

I’ve been doing some light research on interesting ways to prepare common vegetables that I enjoy, like broccoli and carrots. I could eat steamed broccoli all day – yes, I really do like it – but it makes me feel so alive and interesting to make something in a new way. I’m easy to please, clearly. Carrots, which I enjoy raw, are a little more difficult. I don’t really enjoy cooked carrots, because the ones I’ve had develop this strange bitterness when cooked that is not pleasant to eat. Now that the weather is changing toward fall, though, I want to stock up my vegetable-preparedness so that I don’t fall victim to the usual comfort foods – potatoes, beef, cheese. Well, at least not fall victim to them every day.

Now that the weather is more reasonable, too, I may get outside and start walking again. Something about the idea of running is appealing, but the practice of it does not have that same appeal – either way, my dogs will be happy for more frequent outings. There is a tree here that turns a beautiful shade of red in the fall, and I think it might be my favorite color of the whole season.

So anyway, here’s to a more productive week, and year.

 

The thing about dieting

Is that it never works, unless you’re willing to make the commitment forever, basically. So for me, it’s never really been a consideration – any fad diet is just flat out not going to work, because there’s no way I’m not eating carbs / fat / sweets ever again.
I have always felt a little under prepared to make really good choices, though. That is why I was thrilled to death with this book – The Portion Teller. It pretty much lays out exactly how utterly ridiculous and over-the-top the average single-serving whatever is, in America, and then gives some really practical advice about what to eat. I’m totally on-board. I actually have felt great over the last week, due in large part to tweaking just how much I’m eating of what.

I had my best friend do the 30-Day Shred with me last night. She’s in much better shape than I am, but is also trying to work off a few extra pounds. She agreed that she felt used up and spit out after that 20 minutes of death, but it’s totally worth it.
I’ve also joined Sparkpeople – username same as the blog, if anyone finds me here and wants to see me over there, too. Not that I do anything over there but hoard information, but still. It’s something.

 

What a great week

I’ve had a really good week, healthy-getting-wise. I’ve done somethingevery day (except my rest day), I’ve been eating much better and smaller portions, and I feel great. There have been some really invaluable websites that I’ve been reading that are jam-packed with helpful advice and people, such as sparkpeople.com and the comments on this thread  are a wonderful read with even more helpful books/people/websites/ideas for just about anyone.

The mornings have been nice and cool lately, which has only served to make me WISH I’d get my butt out of bed and take my dog for a walk. I only think of this when I’m leaving for work – d’oh! I really have no reason to not get up, beyond my deep and abiding love of sleeping.

Now if only I could go swimming, I would love it. As it is, I’ll just continue to let Jillian Michaels kill me for several days out of the week. She’s really good at it.

 

Here we go again.

I signed up over at jillianmichaels.com – I like her philosophy, I like her workouts, and there are lots and lots (and lots, and lots) of recipes available. Also, daily workouts in circuits. Me likey. Today is day one – I have to go to the grocery store and get things like low-fat cottage cheese, and hoison sauce. I don’t even know what that is. I think it’s something Asian.

I’m going to start my stats over, too, since I haven’t really done much in the way of exercise until this week, so my previous month shows no progress – well, unless you count not getting any worse, but still. I like the ring of starting over. Mulligan? Anyway, for whatever reason I just started busting out a workout every day this week since Sunday. OK, that’s only three, but that’s about 100% more quality movement than I’ve been doing.

My shoulders are still killing me from the 30-Day shred. I did a yoga abs thing yesterday to give my little chicken wings a break, but they still hurt.

It turns out that I really like sleeping in, especially when I’m staying up late watching the ‘lympics. So instead of beating myself up about it, I just…have been exercising after work. It’s like an epiphany, except for the part where it’s pretty much the oldest idea in the book.

 

Jillian Michaels

Is making me literally kick myself in the ass. And I kind of like it. You should try it! It’s been two days and I can’t lift my arms over my head without doing deep breathing exercises at the same time.

 

A day late, a dollar short, etc

Boy, I may need to rethink some things about this whole plan – I mean, Wednesdays have been crap to update since I started, for one thing. Also, I haven’t really been doing much exercise-wise, let alone my illustrious “six days a week” plan. Maybe I should half that. Or something. I may also start my 3 months over, with a more structured plan. Part of my problem is lack of space to do anything in my house, coupled with the August heat…I dunno. I’ll figure something out.

I have at least been eating much better, and also eating out WAY less – probably an average of twice a week, but only that high because I’ve been on vacation and also moving offices. Most of the time I just go home for lunch. I also have more money, though – yay! I’ve really noticed my bank balance being higher at the end of each pay period. Eating out = eating your own money, people. It’s not worth it.