Summary du Week: Vampire Dogs & Good Genes

The week was a mixture of good, bad, and surprising. I didn't get most of the exercising in that I had planned for, but on the other hand I did get some and I also got a surprising compliment.

Plus, the awful project has wrapped up, so with any luck at all I will be able to get important things done.

Methinks I tend to overestimate how much I can get done in a day. I overestimate my energy reserve and I don't budget enough for the unexpected. I refuse to get discouraged by any discrepancies between my To Do and my To Done lists. This is a learning process. I'm only going to get graded on the final exam. None of the preliminary midterms count, except for how much I learn from them to improve my performance.

One important lesson I need to keep reminding myself of is that you need to Expect the Unexpected. Douglas Adams complained that this phrase was a)glib and b) a contradiction in terms. But it isn't, really. You need to take into account the fact that things aren't always going to go as planned, and factor in some time in your schedule for the unexpected.

No matter how well prepared you are, you always have to budget for something to come out of nowhere ... like a flying vampire dog going for your ear.



more funny fail pictures at FAIL Blog

[Note: the non-photoshopped -- but less dramatic -- version of this photo can be found here.]

Thursday:
Pro: ate my vegetables
Con: two cans of V-8 are vegetables?
Summary: no exercise, but the end of the overtime is in sight

Friday:
Pro: finished the project-from-hell
Con: too tired to do anything useful
Summary: not a positive day, except for one thing*

Saturday:
Pro: got 2 out of the 3 on the To Do list done; skipped the 3rd to tread for 20 minutes
Con: just once I'd like to get everything on the To Do list done. Maybe should shorten list.
Summary: more good than bad

Sunday:
Pro: gardening is good exercise, especially if you bend from the waist to do the weeding. Also squeezed in 20 minutes on the treadmill.
Con: very tiring
Summary: More good than bad. Good way to end the week.

___________________________________________
*The incident on Friday? I had to go to a party, so I picked up a bottle of champagne.
The cashier looked at the bottle, looked at me, and said It.
Woman: "I'd like to see some ID please."
Me: "You're kidding."
Woman: "No." (She was perfectly serious.)
Me: "Oh, I get it. You have to card everyone, right?"
Woman: "No." (She was starting to look a little suspicious.)
Me: "You really want to see my ID?"
Woman: "Yes!"
Me: "I love you!"

I think at this point she was ready to back away and call for the manager, but I couldn't help it. When you've just passed the birthday that marks you as being half-way to 90, it's incredible that someone would think that you could pass for 21. I think it's heredity -- until a few years ago, my mother was often thought to be about 20 years younger than she actually was.

Thank you, Mom.

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.

English Major: you do the math

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. ~Albert Einstein, Sidelights on Relativity

I'm not sure how to add all this up, but here are the facts:
#1 - The scale hasn't budged.
#2 - Clothes that used to seem a bit tight now seem a bit loose.
It would help if I could add to this equation # 3- The measurements, but I've sorta kinda misplaced the measuring tape. (Not that it's lost, as such. It's differently located.)

I can't see any difference, but it's promising.

Progress: strange, but true

My body is strange.

It's something to be put into the category of Things Mary Will Never Understand, like quantum physics or the B. triangle. Just damn weird.

A few days ago, when I was whining about my inability to lose weight, the brilliant Heather suggested Sparkpeople.com. I'd used that website last year when I was obsessively tracking my every calorie. Lately I've been concentrating on eating at least 5 servings of vegetables and avoiding Bad stuff while exercising daily. I figured I didn't need to count the actual number so long as it was all Good.

Wrong, Mary.

Tracking my actual calories turned up the fact that I was not eating enough. All those vegetables and high-fiber foods were filling, but the total added up to about 1000 calories a day. No wonder my poor body was stubbornly clinging to every pound it could; it thought I was starving it.

Anyway, this week I've adopted a strategy that seems nonsensical. Exercised less and ate more Bad food, i.e. food that was high calorie, with saturated fat. Twice this week I've actually driven to work rather than cycling in. And I've lost 4 pounds.

I'm not complaining, mind you. But it still seems strange to do bad and see good results. It's getting too awkward to try to calculate total gains/losses. (Last week I ended with a net gain of 1 pound, this week I lost 4.) Instead, I've added a weight-loss tracker to the side of the blog. Let the computer do that math-stuff for me, so I can concentrate on eating and lounging and all that kinda stuff.






Photo courtesy of Flickr

The Upset Point

This morning my scale told me I lost 3 pounds. I told it to shut up.

I mean, it's not as if it hasn't told me the same thing before. It said I lost 3 pounds last week, and that I had gained the 3 pounds back, then lost and gained the same damn 3 pounds again -- all in one week. That's a total of 2 losses, 2 gains, all of the same 3 pounds. And I'm beginning to think it is the same 3 pounds. I suspect my body is having fun at my expense. Good to know it has a sense of humor.

I'm not really upset. Maybe a bit exasperated. I've been reading up on what the human body does when you ask it to lose weight. The concept of Set Point has been covered in everything from physiology text books to fad diets. My body has clearly decided its set point is right at my current weight.

The only point where I disagree with the majority of what I've read out there is when I come across the opinion that a Set Point is something that is immutable, laid down from the dawn of time, engraved in stone and you're damned to be at that weight for all of your life so get used to it already. Sheesh. I think not.

Covert Bailey lists five mechanisms that your body uses to control your set point, and how exercise can be used to lower each one. (Fit or Fat) This makes sense to me. My set point wasn't this weight when I was 20. Why shouldn't it be something I could change again? But this time, change it in the direction I want. (Though I must say, I don't agree with Covert Bailey's comment that "couch potato Mary needs only a moderate amount of exercise to see a big improvement." It takes about two hours of exercise a day for me to see signs of change on the scale or the measuring tape.)

Interestingly, some psychologists think that your individual level of happiness has a set point too. Not sure how happy I feel about that. I suppose it's good to know that winning the lottery won't make me any happier. But I'd like the chance to find out, all the same.

Progress: more or less... but not all that much less...

Status: some loss, not enough.

I weigh myself daily and then average out the week’s totals to get an idea of how much I’ve lost (or gained) each week. Since my weight fluctuates so wildly within the week, only weighing once a week would be a lot more discouraging. In the last 4 days I’ve gained and lost the same 3 pounds twice. (Or maybe it was a different 3 pounds, I can’t be sure.) But if I picked the wrong day for the weigh-in, I’d have been really depressed this week. Even averaging, it’s still depressing, but I can see a good and bad side.

Grumpy Mary: “Crap! I’m only losing 1.3 pounds a week! It used to be 2 pounds a week!”

Chipper Mary: “Well, that’s still better than gaining weight each week.”

Grumpy Mary: “I don’t care! I’m losing momentum! Losing enthusiasm! I want the scale to show how hard I’ve been working!”

Chipper Mary: “You just said last week that losing inches was encouraging. In the past 2 weeks you’ve lost an inch off your waist and your hips. Your clothes fit better and your energy level is up. Isn’t that encouraging?”

Grumpy Mary: “Stop being so damn cheerful. The scale is not going down! Argh!”

There’s more, but you get the idea.

I also chart and average my daily exercise. It’s interesting how easy it is to mislead yourself. Looking back over the past 7 weeks, I’d have sworn I was exercising 2 hours a day every day. It’s more like 1 hour a day. I’ve been slacking off on the weekends (except, of course, for this weekend), and that’s probably been one reason my progress has slowed. “They” say you should exercise an hour a day for maintenance. I want to see what happens if I increase the average to 90 minutes a day, or even 2 hours. If I force myself to take a lunch break and walk every day, this is actually quite a reachable goal.

For this week:

• I’m going to measure everything I can reach: calves, thighs (gulp), hips, waist, bust, upper arms. If the weight isn’t going off, maybe the muscles are increasing? Not that I want bulging muscles, but it would be good to get an idea of what’s going on.
• I’m absolutely-I-really-mean-it going to walk at lunch Every Day.
• Keep focusing on eating vegetables and healthy stuff. Another reason for the slowdown might be traced back to an unfortunate episode known as the Chinese Food Encounter. (I was hungry, hurried, and weak. I confess. It was Beef Broccoli rather than Orange Chicken, but still, enough sugar and fat to choke a diabetic horse.)

Progress: doing things by halves, with Snoopy

A blog post wherein our heroine evinces the giddy delirium oft experienced by those who first taste a faint whiff of success.
(Obligatory disclaimer: some metaphors were harmed in the making of this blog. People allergic to puns should not proceed with the reading of this post. Studies have shown that reading posts this silly can lead to dangerously low levels of common sense and practicality.)

I don’t usually like to do things by halves; indeed I had half a mind not to post this entry. But sometimes you just half to do things.*



Looking at my record of my daily weigh-ins for the week, I noticed that I gained 3.5 pounds and lost 4. In other words, I’ve lost ½ pound this week. Yay me, what a thrill, oh boy.



Then I did my weekly Taking of the Measurements and discovered I’d also lost a ½ inch around my waist and a ½ inch around my hips. WOO HOO!!!! (Bells, whistles, applause from the crowd, confetti descending from the heavens as our heroine does the Snoopy dance.)

This may seem like a trivial change, but to me it's the first real tangible sign that my body is changing. Numbers on a scale are just that: numbers. This is different, this is shape-changing. And not just losing weight, but losing it where I need to lose it.

To celebrate, I’m going to go read Half of Me and Half Fast. In addition to writing positive and funny blogs, they also don’t write half-assed posts like this one. (But who cares? Cue the Snoopy dance music again, boys!)

By the way, does anyone know how many calories are expended by doing the Snoopy dance?

*Wasn't kidding about the bad puns.

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?