Plowing on with the iron man

I am NOT an early morning exerciser---or at least not an early riser. Ideally, I'd have the schedule I had on vacation in Cancun--wake when ready, take a swim or a kayak ride, and then breakfast....ahhh. Today, I got up a little earlier than I like, biked for 7 miles and went to work. After work I'll walk for three miles then back home to bike for 4 more miles. I think my weight has stabalized---where it's stabalized I hate to think, but it is nice to let go of some of the worry. I've decided that lack of weight reporting also makes for a really boring blog. (That, plus I'm usually too busy to rewrite--so you poor readers get random stream of consciousness). Sorry about that. It's frustrating for me too not to have concrete things to report. The best I can say is that I'm still wearing my same clothes and I'm not going out of my way to be a huge pig. Thank goodness for the iron man. I think it's saved me some serious poundage.

Fat and the iron man

Whoa---still seriously groaning from all the thanksgiving leftovers. Astonished at the idea that I "should" eat this stuff. Seriously? WHY on earth should I eat pounds of butter and sugar and white flour? Because it will go to waste? I honestly don't think so. I really think it's as simple as "it's the holidays and it's what I'm "supposed" to do. Now I'm not talking about trying to eat less or eating diet versions of the good stuff. I'm only talking about not eating stuff that isn't even appealing because I'm already so full! All I can say is that I'm working on it.

The other thing I'm working on is finishing the Iron-Man. EEEP!! 3 miles a day run and still 33 miles bike by Friday. My legs are still a bit wonky, so I compromised yesterday by a brisk walk to the library. Thanks to my new phone I know that walk was 4.79 miles. A bit more than I bargained for--and in the dark to boot. Walking in the dark is foolish--so I'm making yet another compromise and counting my walk to and from work--which I really don't like doing, because the whole point of the lazy man is to do more than I normally would. Oh well. I'm considering this as an exercise in letting go of perfectionism. And I HAVE done a more exercising than I would have otherwise, so its all good. :)

Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all! I had a good day with my family and a WHOLE lot of food. Yesterday was fun because I consciously spent the day thinking of as many things as I could to be grateful for. It was a fun day and I am so greatly, richly blessed it's embarrasing.

Today I learned that I don't like to eat more than I like to eat. I ate to fullness--as I usually do, and then I ate more because it was Thanksgiving and there were 12 pies! When we came home I had some turkey sandwiches, again because it was Thanksgiving and I had just a slight amount of room to stuff something more in. It actually wasn't fun to eat them. I think this might be an important discovery.

bad run

Learning, learning and feeling thin today! Last night I made a new recipe of chinese buns--very good adn I only wanted one. I also had a big cabbage salad--one of my favorites. I didn't want all of that either, but I ate it anyway because it was such a low calorie thing. But afterward I was thinking---if I didn't want it, and I ate it, it was still TOO much. Besides, isn't the idea to get used to smaller portions anyway?

This morning I was all excited about cooking things for thanksgiving, and even though my stomach was rumbling, I didn't feel like eating, so I didn't really--I nibbled oyster crackers, and sampled the cheese ball. Eventually, I did eat a banana because I figured I ought to have something healthy before trying to run 3 miles. It was a good thought, but not enough. That was the worst three miles! It was a beautiful day, so I drove up to Beuss pond with the idea of running around the pond. I stretched adn everything. First glitch was that runkeeper somehow turned off after 22 seconds and it took me awhile to figure it out. Then Catherine called so I walked a bit while talking to her. I figure that covered at least one mile--so the idea was then to run 2 more and call it good. Phew! NO gaa in my tank. It was super hard. I eventually just started, running one song and walking the next. My average was something like 18 minutes per mile! I'm guessing that the lack of food and water must have had an impact here. Tomorrow, if the weather's nice, I want to try again--only this time after a bowl of oatmeal or something. If I can detect a connection, it will be really good for me. It's so difficult for me to sense that food whether good or bad is affecting me in any immediate way at all. After all, I feel fine and have perfectly good energy for cooking. Just not for running apparently.

small jeans

I was a little worried today--I didn't want to wear my big baggy jeans to work. But, phew! I know I've gained weight, but the lazy man is doing some good and the size 14 jeans and the button up shirt still fit. I finished the swimming part yesterday, so today I will bike, and hopefully the weather will be good enough that I can run a 5 K the next 4 days in a row.

Tonight I make bread and pie crust and tomorrow I cook for Thanksgiving. I love this day of thankfulness. And this year I really am thankful for blessings other than the huge pig out. The food is nice, but the death grip is slowly slowly slowly loosening.

family

Family is the best diet that I know. I had no appetite until 3:00 this afternoon. Nice, now I can save my lunch for tomorrow. I consider this progress. I didn't want lunch, didn't need lunch--but the thing that's an improvement is that it didn't feel weird not to have lunch. I ate my snack instead around 3.

Big exercise

A Saturday to myself--sort of. Feeling somewhat oppressed with family. Neither Lisa or Catherine particuarly happy with me just now. Oh well. What can I do except stick to my guns with Catherine and try and do better with other family stuff. ANYWAY--I only mention it because mood is such a huge part of the eating problem. I'm glad to report that this weeks upsets didn't dramatically change my eating for the worse--it didn't improve it any, but I'm glad I'm not one who goes off into major binges when things go badly.

I go off and binge when occasions present themselves instead. :) Which is frequent. Last night we saw the last of the Twilight Movies. I'm not a huge fan, but I think the series is fun. On these occasions we have serious movie food. But last night might mark a real reduction in future movie food. That was one of the worst sandwiches I've ever had. Unfortunatley the fried potato things they do were still terrific, as was the shake and the popcorn. For not being very hungry at the time, I still put away plenty.

This morning though I wasn't hungry at all so I didn't eat even though I did have some big exercise planned for the lazy man. It was a beautiful fall day, so a ran a 5K first thing. I'm so slow, but you know what? It was still a little under Disney marathon required time (16 min mile--I'm not kidding when I say I'm slow). This 5 K route is a really good one for practice because it has quite a bit of uphill both steep and gentle. I downloaded "Run Keeper" on my phone and love it. Not only does it track while I'm running, but sends me emails about my workout and any personal records I may have broken, and I broke a bunch today! Great fun. Tonight I downloaded more songs to keep me company. After the 5K, I had a snack, and then about an hour later went to the gym and swam 21 laps for the iron man. For me, this is huge exercise. I like that mentally I didn't tie it to some kind of weird repentance for my movie night. I'm simply trying to reach an exercise goal.

I'm glad for the swimming part of the iron-man this time. I detested swimming in high school, because I was so poor at it, and always under pressure to go faster than I really could go. I didn't like swimming for the last iron-man because it was so hard on my eyes. This time has been better. My co-worker said she's rediscovered swimming and found it soothing. Mostly, I find it boring, but with my new good googles, I'm actually enjoying it a little. It IS soothing. Nobody's working me out. There's no peer pressure or inferiority--I just go at the pace that's comfortable for me. I can tell my body really likes the movements and lack of impact. I don't know if I'd ever become a regular swimmer, but I think it's moved into the "possible" category. I might throw it in now and again for variety in the future, and if I'm having knee troubles, it will occur to me now to at least consider swimming.

Real change?

I don't think I'm making any real changes at all. Every day includes many good decisions and also many poor ones. Ergo--I stay about 40-50 lbs overweight. There are enough good decisions and habits to allow me to buy clothes off the rack and ride on airplanes, but just not enough change to allow any real CHANGE. It's frustrating and I don't know what to do. Diets just make me angry and don't produce lasting change, and IE simply isn't a strong enough program to cause me to really DO anything differently.

I'm thinking on paper here---I like definite goals and charts and planning things out--I get excited about programs like the Lazy Man, but I get frustrated when programs cause me any real inconvenience or change I'm not ready for. I also get bored with things easily. I also like a sense of randomness. I wonder if I could think up a number of healthy behaviors--each designed to cover just one week--like veggie week--every day the focus would be to eat at least 5 veggies. I could even scary ones like "low fat week" "two exercise a day week." I wonder if there could be much variety there--off-hand the things I'm thinking of most are deprivation kind of things like--low cheese week, or no sugar week, or ....well!! Let me just start listing and see what I come up with!

1: Jillian week--one Jillian workout per day (6 days)

2: Low carb week

3: Double exercise week

4: Yoga week

5: spa and facial week

6: Veggie week---at least 5 servings per day.

7: Nothing processed week

8: Fancy cheese week

9: Fancy dessert week---the idea to make something I wouldn't normally--thus lessening the "specialness" of it.

10: High Protien week.

11: No distracted eating week--a tough one! No reading!

12: Smoothie week--I don't normally eat smoothies, maybe a good habit to start.

13: Nibble week--little meals all day long

14: Swim week

15: Stretch week

16: One dessert a day week (I usually have much more)

17: Healthy choice at a restaurant week

18: weight watchers week--it's good portion control practice

19: Snack week--make at least four new good snacks

20: Morning work out week

21: 1800 cal week

22: Diabetic week

23: Vegetarian week.

Touchy Touchy!

I've been in munchie mode all morning. I'm not in the least hungry. Doesn't matter. I want food! Why is this? I think maybe it's because I was toying with the idea of first serving up 1/2 of what I would normally eat and then going back for the rest of it if I wanted it. I really think that idea has flipped out my poor little brain. Somewhere I must be thinking--if I only serve up 1/2 I won't go back for the rest!

Well, isn't that what I want? Somehow I've simply got to practice smaller servings or I'll never accept that a smaller serving is ok. And I'm not saying just eat 1/2! Far from it! Eat 1/2 and then continue eating whatever I need so I'm not hungry anymore is what I'm saying. I want to catch those times when I'm genuinely done with food, but maybe am not recognizing that I'm done. I just want to put a pause in my behavior. That's not too scary is it? Apparently it is! Sheesh!!!!

Samples

I don't know why I didn't write on Friday--true it was a very bad health-day. The weather turned snowy so I didn't even walk to work and then we sat around eating pizza, watching movies and eating cookies. But I didn't not write because I felt guilty. I think I was just plain tired.

Anyway, yesterday ran away with me. It was a Christmas card perfect snowy Saturday--just right for going to a craft fair, which we did in the morning. Thanks to the iron-man I then went and swam 21 laps. LAST thing on earth I wanted to do--so kudos to ideas like the lazy man, it really helps. I did get some decent goggles this time. I might have worn them a bit too tight, but they really worked. My eyes feel fine. It made all the difference, and I was pleasantly surprised at how good the swim felt. Dave wanted to take the train to SLC in the evening and do some shopping at the Gateway, but I found out the Christmas Expo was going on at the expo center, so we made a last minute decision to see that instead. It was great fun! We took the train and the trax and started our Christmas shopping there. They really have some fabulous booths, including plenty of booths that offer free samples. We had LOTS of free samples. There were a few I passed up--like the bundt cake samples. Not that I don't like cake, I do, but for whatever reason I didn't really want it. Okay. that's good IE behavior, but I honestly don't know what to do about the other 30 or so samples that I honestly DID want but that were still far too much for me to be eating.

When we came out to go home it was a white out! It was fun and romantic to gasp our way to the train station. It took forever to get home, but it was ok because while we were waiting we were following Catherine as she ran the Disneyworld half marathon. She did great and finished! I was pretty worried, she hadn't trained, her hip has been bothering her, and after she finished running around theme parks with us, my sister came down and she ran around with her. This was a night marathon and she spent the day at Universal Studios going on rides and eating theme park food. Difficult to think of a worse way to prepare, but she pulled it off and I'm super proud of her.

Fast full

Ooops. I was caught off guard today. I was really hungry for lunch but still had to work at the desk for another hour. By the time I got to eat, I wasn't starving anymore, but my mind had grabbed that message. It didn't actually take all that much to fill me up but it caught me so by surprise that I ate it all anyway. Obviously will keep trying to do better and better.

The first snowy day that I've seen this year, that means indoor bike tonight I think.

I very normal day

I think these "normal" days are actually quite rare. It's a gorgeous autumn day and I wish I could spend every second outside. But a normal day for me means work--so alarm goes off at 6:45, today I had a bowl of cream of wheat with berries and 2 slices of bacon. At work on time for once because I knew I had to be on the desk right away. I taught 2 sections of the first year experience class then went to my own class--lunch at about 1:30. Lentil soup, two rolls, some cheese and a reeses cup, with an Agatha Christie mystery. Off work at 5. Will probably run 1 mile. Dinner will be leftover tacos, then harp lesson at 7. I just finished a big data project here, so I'm hoping to take some time to work on my excel class.

A real phone!

I am really loving not being on a diet or feeling as though I'm supposed to be on a diet. I'm supposed to eat right and exercise and that I can do. Today I feel empowered.

Phone-wise. I resisted the idea of cell phones as long as I could. I still don't like being connected all the time. But since I've EXTREMELY picky about who gets my cell number it hasn't been bad. Still, for the past 4 years that we've had phones, Dave and I have had the cheapest, clunkiest models available. It's been good enough. This time, we decided to for once get something nice and boy is it nice!! It's going to take me some time to learn the ropes, but I've already downloaded a runners app and some songs. I bought an armband with the phone so I could work out and listen to books and music. I'm so excited!!! Yesterday was my first trial run (literally), I've only downloaded three songs, but I got the runners app working AND listened to music while I was running. The app is great! It told me how far I'd gone and what my pace was. This is so freeing--I'm no longer stuck just running the route I know or running on the weber treadmill to know how far I've gone. I can just go anywhere! It was wonderful to listen to music too.

This is not to say that all is pie in the sky. I was thinking as I ran about the power of negative voices. I WAS going extremely slowly and it was difficult not to be discouraged about that. However, the areas around my house have a lot of uphill stuff--very gentle uphill, but it's hard for me just the same. Amazing how hard it is not to focus on being slow and fat and instead focus on the joy of being out there at all.

Slow healing

Still way busy and still tired from the big trip. I must have really worn myself completely out. I'm please that I haven't gone crazy and tried to super restrict my eating out of fear of vacation weight. I've had at least two incidences where I've surprised myself by being able to treat food normally, whereas before I wouldn't/couldn't have made these decisions. The first was last Saturday. I went to a volunteer training for the Make a Wish foundation--neatest place I ever saw! Lone Star Steak House donated food for our lunch, including rolls with cinnamon butter. It was the butter that got me. I went through the line and ate my lunch. I would have loved another roll, there was time for another roll and nobody would have cared but somehow I stopped. This wasn't will power, it was just a calmish recognition that I really had had enough and I didn't need it and it wasn't a special enough treat to get one. Same sort of thing yesterday. We went to the Verizon store to finally get new phones then went to the mall for dinner and to get covers for them. I wasn't very hungry, but they have a wonderful Greek place at the food court. I got my usual platter, but although I could have easily eaten it all, I kind of didn't want to. I knew I wasn't particuarly hungry. I went and got a take home container. Again, it wasn't diet or discipline here. It was more the same sort of feeling that I had at the Eddie Bauer store 5 minutes later. Cute winter coats for $179. Yes, they were cute. Yes, I would have liked one. Yes, the price wouldn't bankrupt us, but they WERE more expensive than I needed or wanted and I had no problem not buying one.

More on the benefits of having a real phone tomorrow.