Job options: pirate or zombie

Go and find Jesus when your patience and strength give out and you feel alone and helpless. He is waiting for you in the chapel. Say to him, "Jesus, you know exactly what is going on. You are all I have and you know all. Come to my help." And then go and don't worry about how you are going to manage. That you have told God about it is enough. He has a good memory.
- Blessed Jeanne Jugan

[stolen synergistically leveraged from the Happy Catholic blog.]


Okay, so I know there's good and bad in every situation.

Good: My right leg works fine. My right arm doesn't hurt. My right eye doesn't have a burst blood vessel.
Bad: I also have a left side, to which the above statements do not apply.

On the bright side, I don't have any job interviews lined up for today. Just as well. I mean, with the eye looking the way it does I could ace a job interview if they were looking for a zombie. Or I could put on an eye patch and borrow a parrot, if they were looking for a pirate.

I'm going to post my daily goals up here. It is too easy to lapse into a couch potato coma otherwise.

To Dos for Today

• More vegetables & fruit. Dr. Weil suggests more vitamin C will help strengthen the blood vessels in the eye. - FAIL. Didn't plan ahead and pack veggies. Found myself in a place with no vegetables in sight, only hot dogs. Does pickle relish count as a vegetable? Yeah, that's what I thought.
  
• Some exercise. I've got a Pilates DVD; maybe I can do the parts that involve core muscles rather than arms or legs. It's worth a try. - DONE. Well, close enough. Walked 1-1/2 miles. The knee is complaining, but it's still done.
  
• Finish the damned résumé. I am stuck on one paragraph. It doesn't have to be perfect. It does have to be spelled correctly and have the appropriate catch words with dynamic verbs that sparkle and glitter and dazzle and... okay, I'll revise that sentence: Not Perfect Is Okay. - DONE. It's certainly not perfect, but I got words down on the page. Tomorrow, the rewrite.
  

The Battlestar Galactica Workout

So, confession time.
No, not like St. Augustine.

I don't spend money on gym memberships or things like that, but even my freestyle exercising can cost money. Especially when I run out of motivation.

When the inner slug waxes wroth and kicks my motivation down the street and into the neighbor's recyclable bin, I tend to bring out the heavy guns re: exercise motivation. In other words, I go shopping.

As a Luddite, my inclination is to ignore anything new. That includes the "hot" TV shows... at least until they've had time to cool off. But after years of denial, I finally watched the TV series Battlestar Galactica. I needed something to watch while I did the elliptical, so I downloaded the first season and watched them while I pedaled.

If you've never seen the show, it's got a lot of conflict and tension. That is a great way to make the time pass while you're exercising. Anyone have any other tense TV shows or movies that help with the workout?


Exercise du jour: 2 miles around Nike. Hopefully at a nice, brisk pace. Maybe I should try to watch a TV show on my iPod while jogging around the trail. Or maybe not. I can just see the headlines. (News at 10: woman injures herself while jogging. "We told her to use a treadmill," friends say.)

Done! Weird -- awful run, hated it. Still faster than the other day. Except that for some reason my knee is bugging me.

Page from Augustine of Hippo's Confessions courtesy of Tomisti.
Cylon courtesy of Fernando Estel.

Wimp out day

I can't do it.

The bicycle stays in the garage today.
The running shoes are in the closet.
I'm driving the evilSUV to work.

No star.

Photo courtesy of :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/your_wht_knight/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

If I tell you, then I'm going to have to do it. Right?

Grey day, grey rain.
Autumn crocus, and the leaves are starting to fall.
I think nature's trying to tell me something.

Feel like I should be storing away food for the winter, like those pesky squirrels. I'll devote the morning to Useful Tasks Around The House, but this afternoon I am damn well going to exercise. Don't know what I'm going to do yet, but Something.

Update du 8:21 pm: Took a walk in the woods, new woods that I've never experienced before. Not as aerobic as a jog, but alas her ladyship isn't up to jogging any more. At one point in the walk we came to a wide open grassy area, totally deserted, and I let her loose so she could run. Ten years ago, she would have seen the wide open greenery as an opportunity to run as hard as she could, just for the sheer joy of her physical strength and the chance to use it. Today, she romped alongside me for a few yards and then found an excuse to collapse, grinning at me. Oh well. At least she's still enjoying life. Not bad for a 12-1/2 year old German Shepherd.

Daylight savings saves daylight /and/ lives

Fact du jour: When we 'fall back' as a result of Daylight Savings Time, the number of heart attacks go down. (Like I needed another excuse to sleep in?)

Giveaway du jour: Today, I'm going for a toughie. I'm going to give away at least one book. (Trust me, this is like asking me to choose which of my children to throw out. But not all the books on the shelf are family; I can weed out a changeling or two if I steel myself to the task.)
Easier than I thought. Once I actually looked, it was easy to see that I would never open that old manual on Fireworks again. One less book on the shelf.

Exercise du jour: bell, ball and balance (balance ball and kettlebell)

Today was a day-long train wreck, work work and work. Barely squeezed in quickie with arm exercises.

Living in the shadow of 'almost'

I spend my time almost ready to do something: lose weight, organize the house, start inviting people over, get back into long-distance cycling.

It's amazing how long I've been able to swallow the wishful-thinking pills. I always think if I just do a little-bit-more, then I can really start living.

It's easy to forget that living is what I'm doing right now. The only difference is that this is not the way I want to live.

So I've started inviting people over. Boxes? Oh, those are decorating choices. Yes, leaving boxes scattered around your living room is the latest look. Everyone does it, didn't you know? Martha's going to mention it in her magazine any month now.

Of course, since my futon/couch let me down – literally – I’m not so keen on inviting people over until I get a Proper Couch. Or sofa. Or davenport. Whatever. I'm working on that this weekend.

Wait a minute, you say. Isn't this supposed to be an exercise & weight loss blog? Yes, actually, it is. I created this blog because accountability is one of the most important ways to lose weight successfully. However, since I can't separate exercise & weight loss from the rest of my life, I've decided to tweak this blog.

Henceforth, I will either
a) post stats about working out and eating those damn green leafy things
or
b) post the reason excuse why I failed to meet the goal for the day.

Even if this turns out to be a Thomas Edison sort of blog*, I can learn from my failures. Or celebrate my successes. Methinks posting progress or regress will help.

*I have not failed 10,000 times. I have found 10,000 ways that did not work.

Going dark...

Aghast, I said "A week without internet access?"
"Well, ten days or so," said the Verizon rep cheerfully. "We'll let you know in a couple of days exactly when we can re-schedule the installation."

I can stand that... can't I? I have my doubts. It's not that I'm addicted... exactly... sniff

No, no! Cheerful Mary time! I'm going to get so much done without any computer distractions. I'll compose haiku and compost vegetables and completely organize my new house. Maybe I'll solve Global Warming while I'm at it. Worth a try.

Okay, enough with the cheerfulness already.
Sniff I'm going out for awhile. I may be some time...

If you click on this photo to enlarge it, you can see a faint meteor in the lower central area of the sky. Or you can go to flickr, where there's a note pointing out the meteor.

Me vs. the Universe

Last night about 9 o’clock, when it was pitch dark outside, and I was about halfway through loading up the U-Haul, and it had just started to snow, it occurred to me that sometimes I tend to overemphasize the self-reliant bit.

I mean, people did offer to help me move. And there were more people who would have helped if I’d asked. But I was fixated on the idea of trying to have an Organized move. I had 10 days in which to move, and I wanted to move stuff over, organize it, then go back for more stuff. Every time I’ve moved it has been a rush to box stuff up and schlep it over in as short a time as possible. Then everyone drives off and I’m left with dishearteningly, overwhelmingly, discouragingly huge piles of boxes, boxes, and yet more boxes. There’s only a limited amount of amusement you can derive from trying to guess where the toothbrush is, or the toaster, or what’s behind box #3.

Of course, the reality is that I needed to rent a truck to move the box-springs over, and of course I ended up getting stuck with a much larger truck than I wanted. I ended up doing an everything-in-a-box move anyway, simply because I didn’t want things to rattle around when I moved. But it's not all the rental agency's fault. The truth is, I have way too much stuff. Moving would not be such a trauma if I traveled light as a way of life.


So I’m making a New Year’s resolution. (I can still do that, right?)

By the end of the year I’m going to get rid of half of the possessions that I now possess.

The good news about the move (besides the fact that once I get the fence fixed, I’ll get my dog back) is that I can go back to bicycling to work. It was getting so dark in the afternoon that I didn’t want to ride home. Now I can bike in and take the Max (lightrail) back. It’s nine miles to work from my new house, and it’s almost a straight run in – long stretches where I don’t have to slow down for cross streets. Once you get into a rhythm on the bicycle, it’s easy enough to continue; you can rack up some good mileage and get a good workout without too much hassle.

10 steps to a Happy Inner Slug

Top 10 reasons I haven't blogged in a week:

1. Working 12 hour days
2. Sleeping 4 hour nights
3. Spending much of the intervening hours trying to switch the ratio of #1 and #2.
4. Aliens. They're always a good reason.
5. Trying to cross every i and dot every t in the Getting-a-House process. (Yes, I know the phrase is usually the other way around. I was being symbolic, or ironic, or trying to indicate the use of subtext; one of those things.)
6. Learning that sometimes people who sell houses Aren't Always Honest.
7. Working on not getting emotionally involved in the G-a-H process, but nevertheless spending hours each night staring at the ceiling grinding my teeth (see #2).
8. Taking life Waaaay more seriously than I should.
9. Christmas presents? Oh wait, wasn't I supposed to buy things and ship them to people?
10. Trying to think up better reasons than these for not Getting On With The Program, and working on avoiding feeling self-loathing, self-disgust or self-avoidance (that last is a tricky one) for giving in to the Inner Slug.

The good thing about posting a list like this? It's motivation for me to get off my ever-expanding backside and go out there and move. Now.

A post with three damnits

This is a nagging post.
Self-nagging, since all the sane kind sensible people out there are sensibly tucked up in their warm beds refusing to get up yet.

I am trying to psyche myself into running. I should be out there already, damnit, but instead I'm sitting here in a warm room typing, so I have to justify it somehow.

Oh it the hell with. Go i now. And I'm posting this for all the world to see.
Yes, I know all the world is probably tucked up in bed snug and cosy, but that's not the point, damnit.

p.s. Here's my star, damnit!

When whoopee becomes ennui... ka-ching!

Exercise-wise, things have been looking bleak the last few days. No pep in my step, no spring and no zing, my bop has gone pop.In other words, I am not having any fun. I can't stay motivated. Things look dire. In a situation like this, I can only think of one thing to do.

Yes, it's time to go shopping.

I've been putting off going the iPod route because I was trying to save my spare change for the Buy Mary a House piggy bank. But if music can't cure my ennui, nothing will.

Isn't that Good Enough?

The unexamined life is not worth living. -Socrates

I've been analyzing what I'm doing wrong with my general lose-weight, take-over-the-world plan. I think the fundamental mistake I tend to make is to follow the "Good Enough" philosophy.

I mean, I went jogging yesterday. That's good enough to cause me to lose weight, yes? I don't have to worry about watching my caloric intake or drinking enough water. I exercised.

Or my other favorite way to practice this philosophy: on a good day, I make a point of eating at least 5 servings of those green leafy things. And hey, if I eat right I don't have to worry about exercising as well, do I? No sense overdoing things.

NO MARY, YOU HAVE TO DO BOTH.

Sheesh.

Also, since I started the running program, I've been slacking way off on the other forms of exercise. I'm only running 3x a week. I've still been operating on this unexamined assumption that running is going to help me lose weight all on its own.Because the experts all said that I need to recover from running on alternate days, I somehow got the idea that I should not exercise at all on non-running days. Nice try. Still need to do other forms of exercise on the alternate days.

Sigh.

I really do know better. The trouble is that I can't concentrate on every aspect of the weight loss plan at one time. I think I've identified the major key points that I need to focus on:

1 - Taking the time once a week to buy and prepare enough vegetable-based meals for the week. I know myself well enough that I won't even try to cook every day. It's not going to happen. But I can roast/saute/stir-fry enough vegetables to last me from Sunday to Friday. If the food's there, I'm much more likely to eat it than if I have to get up and prepare it, or think about it, or anything tiresome like that.

2 - Making exercise the first thing I do. 90% of the time, that will take care of the need to move my body every day. In case something unexpected derails this schedule, I've still got lunch or dinnertime to fit the exercise session into the day. If I wait until after dinner, momentum is completely lost, motivation has drained away, and I'm doomed to couch potato-hood.

Looking at both of these, the focus seems to be on taking conscious charge of how I spend my time. Drifting and daydreaming are fine -- after I take care of these two priorities.

Couldn't resist using the picture of Alexander Godunov. When in doubt, go for the pun.

Better than a mood ring

I can clearly tell the difference between the tone when I’ve written the post before I worked out versus after the workout. For one thing, the “after” blogs are much more smug in tone. (Is afterjog similar to afterglow? Sounds more like some kind of cheap aftershave.) The “before” posts, on the other hand, always seem much less confident.

I knew a girl in college who always went for a long run right before an important exam. She’d show up in her grubby sweaty clothes, without even taking a shower first (this was apparently very important; she was superstitious about it) and take the exam still slightly out of breath. I don’t remember if she really did all that much better at the exams than I did, but she clearly thought it made a difference. I just remember that I always made sure that I kept a few seats away from her on exam day.

Was there supposed to be a point to that story? I think I meant it to illustrate how exercising can add to your self-confidence. I'm too lazy to actually check, but I imagine studies will prove that people who exercise are -- on average -- more confident than people who don't. (Well, that's one explanation for the Governator.)

I think it's helpful to note here how I feel before and after I exercise. That way I can look at the before/after word pictures the next time I'm trying to persuade myself to get out there and exercise.

Happy/Sad photo courtesy of flickr.

The power of guilt

The power of guilt is amazing.

Yesterday I dithered about cycling in to work until it was too late, and I had to drive. (The inner slug was quite pleased with itself.) Today I overslept and missed out on a chance to run in the a.m. So things were looking quite desperate. I had to run at night. In the rain. With a headache threatening to turn Nasty.

One of the edicts of exercise is that some exercise is better than none. I did 20 minutes jog/walk (2 repetitions 2/2, then 1/1 the rest of the session). In the rain. And the dark. Somewhere in the background a scratchy violin begins playing a mournful tune five miles uphill through the snow...

The headache isn't any better, but it isn't any worse either. And I got me a gold star to post on the blog. Could be worse.

Rain photo courtesy of flickr.

Inner Slug: 1 Mary: 0

Interesting how looking at an exercise session from the Before side, it always seems much longer and more onerous than it really is.

When looking at an exercise session in hindsight, I always wonder “Why was I putting this off? It wasn’t that hard.”

Worrisome how I have to keep repeating the same lessons in Life. I already know this, damn it. The hardest part about riding my bicycle to work is Getting On The Bike. Once I’m going, it’s much easier.

So why am I sitting here procrastinating about cycling to work? Again?

A promissory quote

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstance. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them. - George Bernard Shaw

In other words, I will run tomorrow. I was thrown off by the wind storm -- I object to running, in the dark and in a high wind, on a jogging trail that has 60-foot trees and always ends up littered with trip-happy branches.Tomorrow, if it's stormy, I will damn well do the pre-dawn run in the apartment complex's gym. There. I've put it in writing.

Sign up here for the Fitness Protection program!

I thought it was a joke. Silly Mary.

When I first read about this on 15 minute lunch, I didn't take it seriously. But Back in skinny jeans pointed me to an article in the NY Times that gave more information. (They've done scientific tests. Well then.)

It still sounds like some kind of elaborate leg-pull. As one of the scientists said, "It is almost too good to be true."


The idea is one that my inner slug devoutly subscribes to: it should be possible to get thin-and-fit without having to do anything. If this burns fat and builds bone density, that's good enough, right? Maybe it'll work my heart and lungs too, without my having to bother.

Yeah, right. I'm off to aerobics now.

Running all the way from slug to smug

I got up this a.m. and did something different. After I did my usual low-impact cardio workout with my "personal trainer" Raina, I went outside and jogged in the daytime.

It was a beautiful, below-freezing morning outside: crisp, clear, and windless. The leaves were showing off all their pretty colors, and the sun was shining in a cloudless blue sky. And I loathed it.

I am not a cheerful runner, I've discovered. My inner slug is constantly saying things like, I don' wanna do this. Wah. This is BOR-ing. My goal is to tune out the slug while learning to listen to my knees and tendons.

I jog/walked for 36 minutes, alternating 1 and 2 minute intervals. At first I had the whole park to myself, which was good. When you're huffing, puffing, and red-faced, it's nice not to have an audience. But I think I'll have to break down and get an iPod or something like that. Marie's suggestion of a podcast geared toward newbies sounds like something that will cost still more money it might do the trick. Might help to drown out the inner slug.

After about 30 minutes, the sun had warmed things up enough so that other people started to come out and enjoy the day. I looked at them with the smug tolerance of a woman who'd begun her workout when it was still freezing. Apparently braving the cold brings with it a feeling of superiority.

I feel good now that I've stopped jogging. I do think I deserve a gold star for getting out there in the cold and doing the work.

Fall photo courtesy of flickr.

The Michaelangelo Makeover

On the other hand, for those of us who aren't incredibly talented Renaissance sculptors, maybe we do. Can you achieve your goals totally on your own, or do you sometimes need outside help to lose weight and make your body look something like your ideal?

What do you do when you need help achieving your goals?

Ever try something like:
• Posting a weight-loss blog so you can feel accountable to people for achieving your goals. (Even if you do find yourself in an endless same-3-pounds cycle. What, me bitter? Never...)
  
• Joining a gym? Does it help to have lots of other sweaty people around you?
• Finding a workout buddy? (And finding one who's going at your pace instead of a million -miles-faster than you are?)
  
• _________?
  

I'm wondering if I should be trying a Plan B at this point, or if I should just keep plugging with my current game plan and work on that Patience stuff.

On the other hand, it's Friday! Once I get through today, I've got a whole weekend to hike or bike or ... well... who knows what. But there will definitely be some fun and some exercise happening.

Happy Friday!

******Obligatory disclaimer du jour***********
(Yes, this probably needs to be said. My intention with the opening picture was not to disparage personal trainers. I've never used the services of one, but there are some informative and motivating blogs out there written by personal trainers. (Phit-N-Phat comes to mind.) I am sure they are good people. My opening was a cheap attempt to hook the reader's attention with humor.)
****End obligatory disclaimer du jour**************

Dying is easy. It's Exercise that's hard.

Ever hear the story of the famous actor* who was on his deathbed when someone said to him, "You're dying! It must be very hard for you to die."

"Hard?" murmured the famous actor. "No, dying is easy. It's comedy that's hard."


Well, my philosophy is that exercise is easy.

* Getting started exercising is hard.
* Finding time to exercise is tricky.
* Exercising when you're injured is hard (or downright stupid).
* Exercising in a gym when everyone around you is greyhound-thin and whippet-lithe is hard (and extremely discouraging).

But exercise? That's easy. Once you get going, that is. I do not understand why Brits wouldn't exercise even if their lives depended on it. (And I doubt this lethargy is limited to one country.)

Why should exercise be a drudgery instead of something fun? Is there no kind of exercise that appeals to you?

Okay, let me rephrase that. Any kind of appealing exercise that won't get your face slapped or cause a "laughable misunderstanding" with a bunch of unsympathetic bodyguards?

Didn't you enjoy exercise when you were a child? No, don't flash back to that nightmare of a PE class in 7th grade. I mean playing a game that involved running or climbing or ... well, or something. Exercise was fun sometimes, even if you weren't always good at it. Why don't people who "hate exercising" find something that they enjoy and then do it?

I think this is another of those things I'm not going to fathom.

****************************************************
Obligatory Disclaimer, which is kind of like the stewardess pointing out the emergency exits on the plane, i.e. you've heard it before but it still has to be said.
****************************************************

I mean, obviously you need to have a doctor look at you before you start exercising, and clearly you shouldn't push yourself beyond your limits, but you can do a little exercise, within your limits. Once you've create a habit, the body adjusts to the new demands made on it.

****************************************************
Okay, now on to the movie and the bag of mixed nuts.
****************************************************

Reading the above, I realized that it sounds like I'm an expert in exercise, which ain't the case. What I am is an expert in trying to get myself started exercising. Once I'm actually moving, I'm okay. But it's the initial exertion that I have trouble with.

Every morning I get on my bicycle and cycle off to work. Used to have the same argument with myself each morning, my inner slug presenting a number of Extremely Convincing reasons why I shouldn't ride in to work. I had several mornings weeks in a row when I drove the evilSUV in to work because I had simply spent too much time arguing with my inner slug. Finally, finally learned that the best way to actually get on the bike was to not think about it beforehand.

After cycling to work for several weeks, the body got into the habit of cycling instead of driving. I felt rather smug about that. Until the day that I had to drive to work instead of ride. The next morning I found myself facing the same arguments presented by the inner slug, and almost didn't make it into work.

Lessons learned:

• The inner slug is a slave to habit. It never said a word once I'd acclimatized myself to daily cycling. But when I broke the pattern, the slave was free to whine about exercising.
• Sometimes the only way to make yourself exercise is not to think about it. I hate to sound like a Nike commercial, but "Just Do It" can work.
  

Note: I have seen this opening quotation attributed to several different actors: Edmund Kean, Edwin Booth, Donald Woolfit, etc. This site gives several possible sources. (And does that guy in the picture up top have flabby biceps, or what?)


Picture of Ms. Jolie and "friend" courtesy of flickr.