Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Progress: two steps forward, one step sideways


It's the end of the month, so I thought I should publish a progress report, some way to keep track of where I've been and where I'm going. A really cool organized person would put a chart up here to visually indicate progress. But we're dealing with me.




Status: Good and bad, mixed report.

In the last five weeks (since I started keeping track again):
Weight lost: 11.5 pounds (gotta include that 1/2 a pound!)
Weight to lose: 79.5 pounds (yes, I'd settle for losing 69, or even 60)

Note: Taking myself off the thyroid medication has caused me to lose ten pounds in the last month. Which sounds great, but leaves me where I was before I started taking the damn stuff. So really this is the start of my weight loss program. Still, feels good to say I've lost ten pounds in a month.
    Changes made:
  • To help the knee, I switched to commuting on my road bike, a light-as-a-feather Bianchi Eros, so I skim up the hills now. Alas, the ... um... well, the downside is that my nether regions were used to the other bike's seat and... well... parts of me are bearing weight that were never intended to do so. Gotta get that commuter bike fixed soon.
  • Been good about cycling, bringing food from home and mostly eating it, even started doing the occasional Pilates and low-intensity aerobics videos. (Nothing that would jar the knee.) Pat on the back there.
  • The knee seems to be happier with the change in bike and also since I've started wearing flats at work. (Getting up while wearing high heels apparently was not the knee's idea of a good plan. Who knee knew?)
    Changes still need to make:
  • Need to make walking at lunchtime a habit. For that matter, simply taking a lunchtime break (rather than eating at my desk) would be a healthy move.
  • Want to throw in 20 minutes or so of aerobic exercise first thing in the morning. Since I'm going without thyroid medication, and I don't want to go back to drinking coffee for energy, exercise is the best way to keep my metabolism working. If I work out twice in the morning, once at noon, and once in the evening, I should have enough energy to make it through the day. (She said hopefully.)
  • Need to start weightlifting a couple of times a week. I might hold off on that for another month while I concentrate on the morning aerobic videos and lunch walking. If I try too much at once, I get overwhelmed, drop everything, and go in a corner to whimper.
Overall, progress has been made, and The Mary is happy.
How 'bout you?

5 comments:

Katharine O'Moore-Klopf said...

And The Mary should be happy! Good job!

The Merry said...

Thanks Katharine! It is helpful to post up here publicly what I intend to do next. Keeping a New Year's resolution list in my desk drawer doesn't do any good. Posting it for anyone in the world to see might help keep me at it.

Crabby McSlacker said...

Wow, double aerobics, I'm impressed!

And I complain mightily about weight training, but I've been doing it for about fifteen years now. (I use the heaviest weights possible, but do only one set per exercise, 2-3 times a week and that usually means two). I can honestly say that despite all my bitching, it seems to make a big difference in my metabolism and I just Feel Better when I'm good about it).

And on a totally different topic, photos: (a discussion continued from my blog, sorry other readers)

There's a free stock photo site where i get a lot of stuff, though they love to try to steer you to their paid images. You still have to check the licensing agreements but usually you can just use them without attribution or linking, which is nice. (It's at http://www.sxc.hu/). I also sometimes stumble upon sites that have particular images I like that I ask permission to use. Every now and then I've been bad and used something that I couldn't find an email address to ask about that looked like it could possibly be public domain anyway, but then I've linked back and figured I'd take it down right away if they objected. But that's really rare.

Anonymous said...

Hi - I just stumbled onto your site from Fat Girl on a Bike and was reading that you took yourself off of your thyroid meds. Did you write an earlier post about this that you can point me to? Or if not, are you willing to talk about it, because I'm really interested.

Cheers!

The Merry said...

Hi Trudi,

That's a good point. I didn't want to bore people with the details, but if ever anyone else finds themself in a similar situation, it might be helpful to read someone else's experience.