Exercise 0 - Activity Infinite

My kingdom for an infinity sign because, let me tell you, the past couple of days have been a corker. Rest? What rest? Hah! There were no actual "yes, see, this is Amanda, exercising!" periods during either day, but rather endless movement, of the tiring and boring variety. None of it was as intense in the moment as one of my workouts tends to be, but considering my natural state is best described as "bonded to the couch", I have a feeling I ultimately burned more than I would have if I'd just done my workouts and then planted myself in front of the computer.

This weekend featured The Great De-Fleaing of the house, which has to occur at least once per quarter thanks to the four-legged members of our household. We have been invaded by these horrible, pesticide-resistant fleas, and the best we can do is just stay slightly ahead of the nasty little bastards. We spray the yard, we spray the house, we vacuum, we use the flea meds on the dog and cats, and it's just an endless, brutal cycle. I even had pest control come out once because I was terrified we were infested (my skin crawls just thinking about it), and after the bug guy stopped laughing he told Choreboy there was no way we were infested, that he didn't see even one flea while he was there, and that we just needed to keep doing what we were doing.

So we do. And god, it's making me insane. Moving furniture, vacuuming, spraying underneath, removing all cushions, vacuuming those, spraying, coating all the damned carpet in the house and every nook and cranny, all while keeping the cats isolated in the Elder's bedroom which had been treated the previous day -- and let me tell you, those felines do not appreciate what we do for them -- arrrgh!!!

Oh well. True infestation would make me battier. But I'm thinking not by much.

In addition to the flea control festivities, yesterday was St. Patrick's Day which some folks use as an excuse to consume mass quantities of beer, and which I use as an excuse to consume mass quantities of carbohydrates and delicious, fatty, processed meat. In other words, soda bread, beer cheese bread, and corned beef brisket.

I don't bake much anymore, because I am a complete carb fiend if left unfettered access to baked goods so I really have to keep it under control. I used to just feed whatever I'd made to Choreboy but then he labeled my cookbook "Amanda's 'Let's Make The Husband Fatter' Book" so I had to, uhm, take a teensy hint? :) But it was time, and I'd been wanting to make both breads. They turned out wonderfully. This is the soda bread:


I read further about soda bread after I'd put this into the oven, and it turns out that this isn't historically accurate as it includes both raisins and sugar. In this form, it's more properly known as cake, which makes sense to me! But it was good. The carraway seeds in it add just the right touch.

And the beer cheese bread rocked my world. The Gum Zombie and I both share an unholy fixation with Alton Brown's Good Eats (RIP to the show, dagnabbit), and this is one of his recipes:


I made it with a pale Irish ale and Kerrygold Dubliner cheese. It was amazing.

And yes, this splurge remains in the weekend and won't be carried forward into the work week. The remains of both loaves are wrapped up and awaiting transport to the office in the morning, because although I've been able to hold myself to a slice of each per day I am reaching the end of my willpower. Thankfully, my coworkers are not afflicted with my need to count every calorie and will consume these with great speed and barely-restrained glee.

I love the fact that I work with 90% males. It makes life so much easier, especially when it comes to disposing of excess baked goods.

Now I've just got to pry myself out of bed at 5:00 AM tomorrow. It's time. Have a good one, folks.

Gearing Up

6:50PM, 40 minutes, 11.2 miles

It'll do. And I'm out -- I've planned tomorrow's grocery shopping trip and am just finishing off the menu (so determining if I have to add MORE to the list).

Happy weekend and early St. Patrick's day, y'all!

Momentum Rocks!

6:55, 40 minutes circuits with Tabatas (and the Tabatas were at the increased resistance too)

My arms are still shaking. Not sure what my legs are doing because I'm not trying to do anything with them outside of recline. But I know I did well on my upper body at least, and with the increased resistance on my bike I like to think it gives me a bit more of a leg workout as well as increasing cardio effort.

I went to my appointment with Dr. Awesome yesterday, and she is, well, awesome. We spent a portion of the appointment ripping our hair out over the FCAT, and the rest running over why I'm so tired. Just from a look-see-listen type check, I'm fine. Revoltingly so, even, considering my raging hayfever. My most recent bloodwork was great, but since it's been some time so we're going to run it again, and also check my D-levels and my B12. If there's nothing there to explain my exhaustion, I think we're chalking it up to that marvelous thing called "life".

New episode of Swamp People is on tonight. I am totally obsessed. Yes, I'm aware this is sad beyond belief. Now ask me if I care :P

Later!

On the Upswing

6:35PM, 40 minutes, 11.3 miles

I increased mileage in addition to upping the resistance on the stationary bike, so I'm pretty tickled with that. I'm also a soggy, sweaty mess, but an accomplished mess. I'll take it.

One thing I really like about the bicycle as opposed to my beloved/hated treadmill is that I'm more independent when it comes to increasing the intensity of my workouts. I can go faster just by pedaling faster, no buttons to push, and I go as much faster as I want without being limited by the machine's speed. I enjoy that -- the flexibility is awesome.

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In other news, my car is back from the shop and it's running nicely so far. The big test will doubtless be this weekend, because the Elder (again) needs new shoes, so we'll be out shopping and the like, and it's during those multi-start/stop scenarios that the ignition wouldn't catch.

Also, I'm really tickled because, in spite of mortgaging the boys' college educations for the repairs I had done, I also splurged a little and had the car detailed including having all the upholstery cleaned and the carpets shampooed. It's a 13-year-old car (2000 model -- is that thirteen in car years, or twelve?), and I'm its third owner so it was about time, especially since I've been driving it with two messy children inside it. But the children are older and less sloppy now, plus they kind of like having a nice looking car, so I might have a snowball's chance of keeping it looking at least semi-presentable.

Oh, and the presentation from HELL is finally done. FedEx came and picked that sucker up late-afternoon, and you've never seen a more happy group of people than those of us who were working on it.

Anyway, it's about time for Survivor so I'm going to have to head that way. I don't know why I bother -- every week I post the same thing for my Facebook status: The stupid, it burns!!!

Those poor dumb kids. And Troyzan? The heck?

Have a good one, y'all.

Still Going Strong

6:30 PM, 40 minutes 11.2 miles

Not bad, especially for a somewhat "off" evening.

“There are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily..."
-Neil Gaiman

I do my best to be kind. Not because I'm some sort of saint. I'm not. I get into moods where I'm a hairsbreadth from exploding and it's all I can do to keep myself in line. But I do it because I knew, intimately, people who crossed that line daily. It's a hellish way to live, and it's a hellish thing to live with.

And I will not, by all I hold holy, be that kind of person.

I'll be glad when Choreboy gets home. It's been A Day. But there are good things, and he's one of the best.

Be good to each other, people.

Still Not Loving Mondays

6:30 PM, 45 minutes, circuits with Tabata intervals

I'm exercising in the evenings this week not just because I'm homework-free, but also due to the fact that the wretched "Spring Ahead" messes with my system for a month or better, so I know I need at least this week to adjust before I start waking up, effectively, at 4:00 AM.

Outside of that, I got nothing*. I'm moody thanks to hormones (the endometrial ablation does NOT in any way remove PMS from the equation), and I'm crabby because my stupid car is refusing to catch when I start it (it turns over quite happily though!) and I'm worried it's going to leave me stranded. Therefore, I get to use vacation time to take it in to the dealership in the morning. They will then charge me hundreds of dollars to tell me that they're not sure quite what's wrong, but they tweaked something they think might work, and please just call them and bring it in again (along with a blank check, iff'n you please) if that doesn't work!

Beauty.

*Note: this too shall pass. It's all good. I'm just wreck-ish tonight.

Title? Nah...

2:45 PM, 45-ish minutes or thereabouts, circuits with Tabata intervals

Kill me now. I upped my weights because I wasn't worn out enough after my last time with my weights, and now I want to puke.

On the plus side, no doubt I pushed it today. I killed it on Tabatas, chanting "Do you want it? Do you want it?" over and over in my head during the high speed parts, and gasping and gulping during the rest periods.

No clue what "it" was, but as long as it works I'll take it as a mantra.

Tomorrow's my rest day, then Monday it's circuits again. Body fat dropped 3/10ths of a percent in 3 weeks, via my circumference measuring, so we'll just see how it is in another few weeks.

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Dinner tonight is Mahi Mahi steaks with wilted spinach and oven roasted tomatoes. Pretty! Tasty too. I had almost no meat all last week, barring one Chipotle run and the can of sardines I ate last night, and I'm feeling it. Time to play carnivore again.

Have a good one, y'all!

***Update: dinner was awesome -- my first time cooking mahi, but it was excellent. Plus I got all nerdy and used Choreboy's thermal laser gun thingie (infrared/ no-contact thermometer, per Himself) to verify the temperature of my cast iron skillet before I plopped the fish on. Beauty.

Hah!

6:10 PM, 40 minutes, 11 miles -- yes!!!

I finally broke the 10 mile barrier, hooray! Okay, I know, a whopping tenth of a mile... but still, I was watching for it. Very cool.

The kids are on Spring Break next week which means I can exercise at night full-on because I won't have any homework to contend with. However, even though I have more time in the evening without the homework obligation, I've also been reminded (because I kept beating my alarm into submission this week, thus necessitating the "PM" exercise-fest) that forty minutes out of my evening constitutes a pretty freaking big chunk.

So... we'll see. Actually, I pretty much know I'm just going to sleep in next week. I may not have it off from work but I might as well enjoy an hour extra in bed.

One thing the evening exercise is showing me is that any time I do my weights and circuits runs I end up nearly gnawing the leg off of my desk at work. Today it hit around 2:00 this afternoon. Even though I'd had a good lunch, my standard breakfast (I'm up to 1/2 cup of egg whites in addition to my whole egg), and my morning snack I was about to tear the drywall off the 2x4s. As soon as I got home I cranked open a can of sardines and wolfed those suckers down. It helped some, but now that I'm done with my cardio I'm ready for my lentils. More than ready, to be honest.

Better go feed myself. Have a great weekend, everyone :)

Sweatin' With the Oldie

6:15 PM, 40 minutes, circuit training with Tabata intervals

I think I'm back in the groove. Whew. I'm noticing my mileage creeping up on the days I'm riding my bike, which tells me that the Tabatas are doing their job. Also, I'm recovering more quickly.

The sweating like a beast bit I could do without, but oh well.

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Speaking of sweating, the biggest pain in all this is my hair. As I've gone greyer blonder my hair has become coarser. My stylist says (and I've noticed) that I have the hair texture of someone with really curly hair... but with less curl. And it's inconsistent too, with some very curly patches interspersed with other more wavy areas.

I have to either blow it out straight and then flat iron it, or I let it air-dry and then put it on the hot rollers (why yes, yes I am a child of the eighties -- hey, I live in the South and we still do big hair down here). But what both these styling methods have in common is they hate humidity. Regardless of whether I go curly or straight, as soon as the sweating starts my roots scrunch, and it moves on down the line. If it's humid outside, which in my part of the country is a given, I'm pretty much hosed.

The only thing I've found that works is this "3 Days Straight" stuff from Frizz Ease. It's excellent, and can even beat perspiration in conjunction with Florida humidity. But again with the styling time taking for-freaking-ever. And then, because I exercise, I have a choice of frying my hair daily, or running around feeling like I want to rip my scalp from my head. Chopping it off is not an option. I tried that last spring and without sufficient gravity to weight it down (along with boatloads of product and mondo styling time to boot) I look like I've been having inappropriate relations with a light socket.

Oh well. It could be worse. Although when I'm trying to scrape my hair into some semblance of respectability in the mornings I'm sometimes at a loss for how.

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On the brighter side of things, Gum Zombie's chipped tooth wasn't an immediate financial hit. He's too young for a permanent crown on his front tooth, so they smoothed it down and put a dental bond thingie on it. It's not strong like a cap, but it'll do until he gets through the whole little-kid-braces-gee-we-might-want-to-whiten-these-etc. thing. After insurance it was only 20 bucks. The crown is coming someday, but for now we're set.

Friday's on its way, y'all... have a good one!

*Watching the Pouring Rain*

6:20 PM, 40 minutes, 10.9 miles, solid-state cardio with Tabata intervals

No, it's not literally raining. It's just a dental deluge here. The Gum Zombie has not inherited my teeth. I have a whopping 3 fillings. Period. Two of them were within the past year -- the first wasn't until I was 19. The Elder, blessedly, is following in my footsteps thus far.

The sweet little nine-year-old Gum Zombie, though, has four fillings, one current crown, and thanks to chipping his top right front tooth at school today (permanent, natch) he's going to have yet another crown!

Adding to the bliss, he didn't even share what he'd done with his teacher *headdesk*

If all that weren't enough, Emily the Cat has to go in for her teeth, and I just got word that Bob the Cat might want to investigate his oral hygiene as well.

I give. Good grief. There go those last 2.5 hours of sick leave. It's a miracle I held on to them until March.

My son: he haz a talent.

Here Again!

6:27 PM, 40 minutes, 10.9 miles

Some days it just has to be evenings. I'm feeling slightly less "ick" than I was, but it's not improving like I'd like so I've made an appointment with my most-awesome GP (she's so great I still go to her even though they don't take stupid United Healthcare -- yes I would rather pay the cash rate to this woman than go to someone who takes my insurance and pay the co-pay) to go over why I feel so run-down. It could be thyroid, could be allergies, could be my particular allergy medicine, or it could just be that I'm exhausted because that's the way life is sometimes.

I don't know, so I'm taking it up a level.

One of the awesome things about exercising in the evening when Choreboy is working later (he pulled a 10:00 AM - 8:00 PM shift today) is that I can chair-dance on the recumbent bike as I'm riding to my heart's content without worrying someone will see me. Choreboy wouldn't care -- he's watched me dance my way across the kitchen when I'm plugged into my iPod and we've both giggled like lunatics, but there's something nice about just being able to let go and not care.

Today's song:



I had my playlist on shuffle and this one came on first. Kicked things into gear nicely :)

Okay, I'm off! Dinner is lentil soup and a side of sardines. Yeah, I know it's twisted, but it'll do.

In other news...

I am freaking STARVING. Par for the course when I change things up exercise-wise, but holy cow, this has been relentless. It's the end of the day and I don't think I've felt less than ravenous for more than 5 minutes at a stretch.

That is all. I'm off to chew on my knuckles or something.

Keeping that Momentum

5:00 AM, 40 minutes, circuit training with Tabata intervals

Yes, it's a repeat of Saturday's workout, but I'm increasing my resistance training so it's all good. Timing-wise it worked because poor Choreboy has Mondays off so at least the sound of my weights occasionally clanking about didn't make him go to work exhausted. Instead, he gets to be exhausted at home!

I'm thoughtful like that.

I start with supported squats (back against my exercise ball which is against the wall) carrying two 15-pound weights, either 15 or 20 reps... I can't remember how many I did because my brain has given up, but I know it was a multiple of five greater than ten and less than twenty-five. I do supported squats because my knees are really bad -- as in they make my orthopedist salivate -- and the right is especially awful due to some soft-tissue trauma it suffered when I very intelligently ran my mother's mini van into the rear end of a semi back in 1990. Genius, I'm telling you!

Anyway, after that it's 15 incline pushups using my treadmill for support, then 15 of these hamstring/ core things where I lay on my back on my yoga mat, feet up on my exercise ball, and I roll that sucker in to my body, then back out. Then I hold plank for a minute (I'm nearly there -- I just recently started doing planks since I realized I could hold a plank on my forearms instead of my hands because my wrists, also, are uncooperative); then biceps curls, 15 each (or there are a couple of variations on that I'm trying to cycle through); followed by 15 each of triceps extensions (again with some variation) and calf raises. Finally I hit the Tabata intervals on the exercise bike where for 20 seconds I'm pedaling as if Death himself is hot on my heels, then for 10 seconds I rest. Repeat until 4 minutes have passed or Death catches up.

Anyway, three times through that cycle and then I'm done. SparkPeople thinks I burn 299 calories doing this. Okay... maybe. But you couldn't prove it by me. Exhaustion doesn't equate to hundreds in additional caloric intake. Believe me, I've tried it.

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I'm tired again today and feeling kind of cruddy, but I think it's really the allergies this time. I've been sneezing thanks to a rather large cat who felt I should have to drag him back inside from the garage when he did not want to come in, thankyouverymuch, and the dander/pollen combo is doing a number on me. That and I didn't get to sleep last night until a little after 10:00, which put me at less than 7 hours of sleep.

Not enough caffeine in the northern hemisphere. Just saying.

Oh well, halfway there. Thank goodness. Happy(ish?) Monday!

I Got My Mojo Back!

If it's just a false wind, who cares? At least I had some get-up-and-go today, and it felt awesome!

We got up early today because... well, more or less just because. My alarm went off at 6:00 and I stumbled to the kitchen to caffeinate. Choreboy went to work, then I got up the kids because we were heading to a neighboring county's fair. We stopped at Bob Evans to eat breakfast, and I think I did pretty well. I ordered off their regular menu but ended up subbing everything except my two eggs. So in addition to two eggs I also had a link of turkey sausage which I'd subbed for pork sausage (got 2 links, gave one to The Eternally Starving Teenager), subbed a fruit bowl for the hash browns, and said "please no bread" to the biscuits. Came out to under 400 calories which isn't bad for that particular restaurant.

Our stay at the fair lasted a whopping two hours. It was miserably hot so after seeing the exhibition halls, eating a chocolate covered strawberry, staring at several dozen cows and pigs, and riding on The Dreaded Spin-and-Barf (among other rides for the boys -- that one was my only), we decided to call it a day.

Got home, rested a bit, and then I bit the bullet and did some circuit training with Tabata intervals mixed in. I think I'll pay for it tomorrow, but I needed the resistance and I also desperately needed to actively exercise and break the slump I've had. So I did.

Now I'm beat, but it's a different "beat". I'm hoping this feeling holds.

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Also, I'd like to say thank you to all of you regarding the response to my "Numbers" post. I honestly can't remember being that upset by a stupid statistic. I know that when I was in full-on weight loss mode I'd get peevish when the scale would refuse to budge -- shoot, see my sidebar for some commentary, even -- but I also knew that it was just one of those things and I didn't really stress over it. There's only so much food restriction I'm willing to do, and there's only so much exercise I can do in a day, so if my body was done losing weight with what I was reasonably able to throw at it, so be it, yanno? I can adapt my expectations. But the body fat percentage number being so far out of line with my expectations (and my own knowledge of my body)... that was painful. It threw me for such a loop.

And I agree with all of you that there was an accuracy error. I am somewhat angry that the BOD POD is put out there as the "gold standard" of body composition testing. Something else I found out in my research is that the clinical model of the BOD POD is a different animal from the mass-market version. The clinical model measures air volume in the lungs whereas the mass-market version simply uses an estimated control number. That plus the rather wide variations there can be in operator expertise and the clothing factor (because even "close fitting" is subjective) leaves a much greater margin of error when using the mass market version than the corporation would like for us to believe.

This fall I hope to join a gym -- the Elder is aging out of childcare, so I'll have a bit more flexibility for spending -- and I'll do a caliper-style body composition analysis there. Until that time I'll keep up with my workouts, make sure I'm not shorting myself on resistance (anyone with good resistance stuff for lower body that takes into account knees from HELL, for home workouts just holler at me!), and entertain myself with the Naval formula circumference measurements.

It'll do :)

Edited to add: y'all, I've changed my commenting settings to disallow anonymous comments. I don't think this really affects anyone who comments regularly, but I figured I'd give you a heads up. Ever since I turned off my "captcha" words (because I can barely read them on others' blogs), I'm being hit multiple times a day by anonymous posters leaving loverly links in my comments. Which I guess isn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it bugs when I think I have a real comment and instead I find it was left by a computerized asshat.

Meh...

I don't know what's going on but I'm flat-out exhausted. I've been heading to bed this week before 9:30, at times by 8:30 every night, and let's just say that Amanda's Early Morning Exercise-Fest hasn't been happening. Which sucks. That ends tonight -- I'm getting on the bike when I get home from work. If I survive it, I figure I can survive it at 5 AM also.

You know, if it weren't a total impossibility (husband is fixed, I'm ablated and not ovulating in any event) I'd swear I was pregnant. I'm whiny, grousy, flat-out beat... it's insane. I'm telling myself it's allergies at this point, because at least that's something where I can just barrel through. If that doesn't work I'll be heading in to the doctor because this is just ridiculous. I'd like to avoid that, though, because again I have only two-point-five sick leave hours left for the freaking year.

I can use some of my vacation days for sick days and probably will (thanks, offspring!), but I'd really like to avoid having them all disappear down that particular drain.

Good news is that even though I'm an inert pile of mush, I haven't lost it with my food. Dinner has been my big favorite Slow Cooker Provencal Chicken with Beans, lunch has been a 1 oz whole wheat pita with 1 TBSP peanut butter, 1 round of Babybel Light, 2% Greek yogurt, and one cup of blackberries. Breakfast is 1 egg and 1/4 cup of egg whites with 1 TBSP of Parmesan/ Romano blend shredded cheese and 1 cup of some sort of berries (strawberries today). Mid-morning I eat my banana, and mid-afternoon I'm currently on a nasty evil Fiber One 90-calorie brownie kick. No, I don't know why. It's crap. But it's only 90 calories of crap so I'm going with it. I think I'm going to check out some options for brownie recipes that still have decent fiber but have ingredients I can pronounce. I'm not sure if I can do black bean brownies, but I've considered it. It's just trippy, mind-wise.

Anyway, that's where I've been this week. I wish my brain were less fuzzy.

Numbers

Color me kerflummoxed.

Outside of scale weight, I've been using the "Navy formula" -- a circumference-based method -- to determine my body fat percentage. And according to the Navy formula, I've been right around 27% for the past six months or so. It's not awesome, but it's within the range of healthy. It gives me room to try to improve my fitness level, certainly, but it's not a terrible number all things considered.

Out of rank curiosity (and apparently no small amount of masochism), I thought I'd go for a different type of body fat percentage analysis, so I booked an appointment to have my body composition tested in a "Bod Pod". The Bod Pod deals with air displacement rather than water displacement, but is considered to be fairly accurate.

Since my numbers have been consistent with the Navy formula, I figured I'd probably hit around what I'd been calculating. Nope. According to the Bod Pod, I'm at 33.6% body fat, which means I'm officially "skinny obese".

At least I am by that measurement.

After sleeping on it and fretting far more than I would have thought, I can't see how this is accurate because honestly there is nowhere on me for 46 pounds of fat to be lurking. My waist is right at 30 inches, well below the 35" threshold for abdominal measurements that indicate "skinny obesity". I exercise, including resistance training as well as cardio. I'm not one of those people who is just genetically gifted and never has to pay attention to food or activity level... so the results are really counter-intuitive to me and contrary to much of the reading I've done on the subject (most of which, admittedly, took place last night -- nothing inspires like hearing you're still out of shape, apparently).

After reading more about the Bod Pod I did see that the system operator is a factor in testing as well as is the clothing worn. It's possible the readings were artificially inflated because my ginormous hair (humidity is not my friend) refused to compress itself neatly in the "swim cap" which was really more of a flexible nylon cloth cap and ended up holding my hair more in the style of a shower cap than a tight swim cap, and the non-underwire sports bra I was wearing certainly wasn't as compressive as I'd have liked (no other option at that time). So it's possible if I go back with a real swim cap purchased on my own as opposed to the one supplied with the testing and work to find a sports bra without underwires that does a better job with compression (unfortunately very challenging due to my specific shape), that I will get a different result.

Or maybe not. I don't know. I did get a two-analysis package so I'll likely go back again in a few months, making the corrections I've mentioned. But since time will have passed, it will be difficult to determine what specifically will account for any improvement.

Skinny obese my happy ass...

I Am Officially the Mother of a Teenager

The child has always tried to bite off more than he can chew. Happy 13th birthday, Elder :)

In other news, 5:00 AM, 40 minutes, 10.7 miles WITH Tabata intervals, thankyouverymuch. And I'm having my body fat percentage tested on Sunday, which should be entertaining.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Coming to Terms

5:00 AM, 40 minutes, 10.5 miles

Well, at least I'm getting pretty good at hopping back on the old "wake up at 5" train. And this whole posting almost daily thing gives me some accountability which doesn't suck either.

Norma had a great post yesterday about exercise, and it's one I need to nail firmly into my brain (in fact, when I went back to grab that link I saw she's emailed me but I'm going to post this before reading the email, just for intellectual honesty's sake). She opened with an awesome quote from The Angry Trainer that I'm also going to hijack here:

"...there’s a fine line between exercising to improve your health and fitness and working out too much which then becomes detrimental. The simple truth is that exercise is a replacement for the natural activity we should be getting. But we’ve turned exercise into a way of changing how our bodies look when truthfully it should be about improving how we function." Alfonso Moretti, The Angry Trainer

Doh!! You know, I kind of knew this, but I didn't know it until I saw it put right out there put it together with what Norma was saying too.

I think I just had a "click" moment. I love those. Read her entry. Go now, do it. Then come back.

Now my big thing is I need to let go of my goal weight. For years and years, my goal weight has been 130. It's not the bottom of my healthy weight range (that's between 121 and 123, depending on the chart you read), it's not at the top (159), it's just a nice, lower-middle ground. Gives me some wiggle-room, so to speak. Plus, being able to say I've lost 70 pounds = awesome. Yes, there was definitely some ego tied up in there.

But looking at the past several months, it's just not realistic. I may see 135 again, but I don't think I'll ever see 130, and I'm... getting okay with that. I wouldn't say I'm fine with it yet, but I'm getting there. I don't need to have lost seventy pounds to have been successful at losing weight. I'm at a healthy weight and have been at one for years. I've been working to find the right place, and I think I'm there food and exercise-wise.

I like what I eat. It's easy, it's mostly healthy (you will pry my Breyers out of my cold, dead, vanilla-scented fingers), and I don't spend the day gnawing my desk in frustration and starvation. As for the exercise, I can't say I'm in love with it yet, but I'm finding more to appreciate about it. Since moving to the mornings I get it done and out of the way. I start my days with a feeling of accomplishment, rather than going home wondering just how I'm going to fit everything in. That's a good thing. Plus I also have some rather obnoxious genetic predispositions to arthritis and so forth that, with care, I can structure my workouts to somewhat mitigate the impact of heredity.

So. Right now, I hereby declare that I'm done. I'm not "dieting" in the sense that I'm restricting my calories in order to lose weight. I'm not working out to the point of injury (remember those awesome bilateral stress fractures a couple of years back? Yeah, that was fun!), I've got cardio my body can function with and even with the limitations of my Stupid Knee I've got a decent resistance program going as well.

I'm also declaring my official weight as "139-ish". And that's... okay-ish.

For now, it'll do.

Grumblemuttercurse

I was so exhausted last night that I climbed into bed about 8:30. Now granted, I didn't fall asleep until a bit after 9:00 because the boys needed me to stay up to put them to bed, but still... it was early. My body hurt, my eyes were heavy, it was time.

So why-oh-why, please tell me, did I wake up at one-freaking-forty-five this morning? And then proceed to not fall back to sleep until about 2:55, just five minutes before Choreboy got home from closing shift? And then I stayed awake again until sometime after 4:00!

Topping off all this joy, I was having the mother of all night sweat sessions. That plus the mind racing, you know, where you're stressing about things you can't possibly fix a three o'clock in the damn morning, but you're too tired to tell your brain to just shut up already?

Good times, only not so much.

No, I didn't get up at 5:00 this morning, I was busy trying to catch a few more Zzzz's. My plan is to do my circuits this evening. I've talked to the boys and let them know my plan for the evening, and assuming no one's homework is too daunting I think it'll work out. Then Thursday morning I can scrape myself out of bed for some nice, meandering solid-state cardio.

On tap for this weekend: survive the Elder's 13th birthday, and buy myself a new bed. This one has had it.

I'd Like 26 Hours in a Day, Please

Monday, 5:00 AM, 40 minutes, 10.5 miles
Tuesday, 5:00 AM, 40 minutes, 10.3 miles (2 Tabata sets within solid state cardio)

I really do need another two hours per day. Minimum.

I'm up at 5, brush teeth, etc, get on workout gear, get the coffee pot going, take out the dog, head to the computer room, get on the bike for 40 minutes (by now it's 5:20-ish), off the bike, record time and mileage, into the shower, out, toss on basics (not work clothes, but not back to jammies), cook breakfast (currently 1 egg, 1/4 cup egg whites), throw treats at cats to keep them out from under me, eat, fold laundry (there is ALWAYS damned laundry), wake up boys, get on makeup, put on work clothes, do hair, make sure offspring are vertical, jewelry on, kiss husband, banana in the car, kids in the car, dog in the car, cat treats flung to keep cats inside, and we're off by about 7:03.

Drop off the Gum Zombie at his school, drop off the Elder at his before/ after school care center, drop the dog off at Doggy Daycare (i.e., my parents' house), eat bowl of fruit and suck down cup of coffee while hopefully not scalding the inside of my mouth, get to work by 8:00.

Work.

5:00 PM, leave work, pick up dog, pick up Elder, pick up Gum Zombie, arrive home anywhere between 5:40 and 6:00 PM, depending on traffic. Feed offspring, throw laundry into washer (always, always freaking laundry), get shower, blow out hair (this one doesn't always happen -- I have my limits), eat dinner, wash dishes if Choreboy's working late, help children with homework.

8:00 PM, collapse. If I'm lucky. Spend time with husband. Ditto. And somewhere between 9:00 and 10:00 PM? Bed.

Next day, start it all over again. It's not hell by any means (I know from hell), just tiring. Plus my schedule severely cuts into my reading time :P

Yes, I live for weekends.