Search

foodfoodbodybody

eat, move, think, feel

Open Search
Category

exercise

Fake It Till You Make It

Trainer DJ and the mad ropes

I’ve been all kinds of wiped out/off track/tired/disoriented since coming back from camp last week. I’ve been majorly “off my game” so to speak.

But I’ve been trying really hard not to let my inner Stuff get in the way of my outer Behavior. So even though I haven’t particularly been EMBRACING the idea of fitness or eating really well, I’ve been trying to do it Anyway. The “fake it till you make it” approach. And I think it may be working just a bit.

On Monday evening I went to the cemetery for trainer workout. I was sooo soo soooooooo not feeling it. But I felt like if I waited till I felt like it, I could end up not working out for weeks or more. So I went, and told myself I would go at whatever pace I felt like. It would be okay to be The Last One (my customary position during all of elementary, middle and high school phys. ed.).

I started out last. We were doing a 3.5 mile circuit up and down hills, at very fast racewalking pace. When I got there, I needed to go to bathroom BAD. But the cemetery public restroom, in the main building, was closed. Wahhh! Trainer told me there was a port a potty about halfway up the first hill. So I stopped there. The rest of the group kept going. Which put me at a good 2-3 minutes behind the whole crowd. Greeeeeeeeat. I gamely attemped to at least keep them in SIGHT.

I finally caught up with the last person right before the highest point. Then I figured it was my time to make up time. When we began the downhill stretch, I started slowly jogging. Surprise: it didn’t kill me. I told myself I’d keep jogging until I no longer felt like it. Surprise: I ended up passing everyone eventually, even the trainer, and ended up back at the starting point FIRST. Well, whaddya know.

I was glad I’d gone. I didn’t feel like any great endorphined ball of energy when I left, but  I was glad I’d gone.

Yesterday I just worked all day. I didn’t work out at all.

Today, I went to my semi-private session at the gym. Trainer DJ was excited because he’d gotten some brand spanking new Ropes of Doom. All I wanted to do was lie on the floor and roll on the foam roller, but he wasn’t gonna have any of that. Me and my buddy ended up doing a ton of lungey things, then 25 Burpees (UGH!), more lunges with 10-lb weights (bicep curls into straight up in the air presses, while lunging/walking), then 50 raised leg butt lifts, then crooked pushups, then… he took the brand new Ropes out of the box. Shiny white! But not as long. But HARD! TOUGH! INflexible. Yow. They were truly killer. We ended up doing a totally kick-ass workout, in spite of my lack of oomph. Again, I did not leave feeling energized, but I was very happy I’d gone.

I feel like I’m beginning to get a bit of groove back. I ate vegetables for dinner tonight. I feel like I’m on my way back.

8

The Battle Between Me and Me


Fighting over a fish

Originally uploaded by clintnosleep

Last night I went to see the movie “Inception.” One of the ideas in the film was about planting a seed in someone’s unconscious so that it grows and takes over. This morning I felt like such a seed had somehow gotten planted in my mind. The seed was, “Your health and fitness have gotten in the way of your writing life.” Which may or may not be true. Maybe I’ve just made certain choices this past year.

But this morning I felt like an all-out war was going on inside my head. It literally took my breath away, the incredible degree of anger and venom between the various parts of me.

So as you all know, I run this annual camp every summer during which time I put everything else in my life aside. It’s just all consuming. But I have especially had to put aside my writing life, which most of the past 15 years has been very very important to me. Last year, after camp, I did not “go back” to my writing because the writing had been laid aside so I could focus on my health.

This year, though, the writing has been pressing its face to the glass, wondering, When is it MY TURN? I ran into one of my best writing friends this week and we made a mutual commitment to write 20 pages a week. I was so excited. Here, finally! So this morning I got up. The whole day stretched in front of me. I wanted to write. But I also wanted to go for a long walk. And I felt like whichever one cam first would sort of dictate the rest of the day. If I put the walk off, it might never happen. If I put the writing off, I’d get distracted. Which one was going to get those clean, prime morning hours?

As it turned out, neither and both. I felt like a screaming, knock-down, hairpulling, knife-wielding fight was going on inside my head. I felt paralyzed and as if I couldn’t do either. Finally, I went off on my walk, but I was MAD about it. Believe me, this is not a good way to do exercise.

WM (Writing Me) was yelling at HM (Healthy Me). I can’t believe you’re getting away with it! Again!!!!!!!!!! All year I’ve stepped aside so YOU could get all the spare time. And you take up every freaking minute. If you’re not going for a walk, you’re writing on that stupid blog (and NO, that does NOT COUNT as “writing!”). Or you’re going to Weight Watchers. Or taking pictures of food. There’s never any time for meeeeeeeeeeeee any more!

(me. In shock. In between)

Now I’m mad at Healthy Me. I’m sobbing. I’m outraged. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I’ve freaking GIVEN UP for you?!?!? I’m feeling betrayed by myself. I’m feeling so angry. I’m feeling like I somehow got tricked into the illusion that This Is All There Is. While meanwhile, my books have been languishing, unwritten. All my computer will do is blog. My novel(s) are dead. My collection of short stories, dead. Nonfiction book: dead.

The realization of this just killed me. I sobbed and wailed and yelled at my husband (who was coming down off the trail and gave me a nice compliment). I tried to articulate for him what was going on and he said something to the effect (I am paraphrasing) that of course my health has to come first. Which made me fly even MORE into a frenzy. I took off up the hill, sobbing even more.

Long walk. Two hours. (in which I had to convince myself that I was doing this walk to THINK, not for the purposes of EXERCISE so that WM would not throw HM off a nearby cliff.)
It just so happens that when I was deep in my Writing Self, I didn’t give a crap about my health. Or exercise. My writing was everything. It took a lot of time, and attention, and energy.

So when my Healthy Self came along, Writing Self had to go on the back burner for a long time. And was fairly patient about it for a long time. But the time has apparently come for that patience to RUN OUT and Writing Self wants my time and energy and attention back. In a big way. Problem is, I now have a bunch of jobs, even though one is not as intense as it has been. I am still going to have to divvy it up.

And I’m just exhausted. I feel like I cannot parse out every single minute of my free time. I need time to do NOTHING, too. (aka the Nothing Self)

The walk was good. It calmed me down. It wore me out. During the walk, my older girl called me. It was so good to talk to her. I will be seeing her in a few weeks for my birthday, and I can’t wait. She understood the post-camp letdown, the exhaustion, the just being so tired you want to cry all the time.

I don’t know that it is an impossible thing, to have these two things that mean so very much to me. I can’t figure it out right now. But I think it was good to realize how important they both are.

17

It’s An “Energy Imbalance”


balance

Originally uploaded by hans s

Back in June, I went to a staff training for Weight Watchers; it’s part of a series on the science of weight loss. How awesome is this, I ask you? It was hard to get excited about a 12-hour work day especially on a Friday, but I was hoping to learn a lot and learn I did.

On one hand, it was simple and basic and nothing I hadn’t heard before, but on the other hand it felt totally illuminating. Or maybe confirming.

There was a lot of talk about metabolism. What IS “metabolism,” anyway? It seems like this mysterious and complicated mechanism that nobody seems to clearly understand. But as we learned, metabolism is actually a NUMBER. It’s the difference between the calories that one burns and that calories that one takes in. That’s it.

And if we are trying to lose weight, then we want the numbers IN to be fewer than the numbers OUT.

It was kind of stunningly simple. My mind was kind of whirling around like crazy, thinking of my own understanding of my own numbers in the past few months. I’ve been wearing this little gadget called a Philips DirectLife which measures the calories OUT every day. For the first few weeks, I was going gangbusters and burning 150-180% of my goal every day. I was knocking the socks off that thing.

Then I hurt my ankle. Again. Everything slowed wayyyyy down. I could see by the charts on the gadget that even when I tried to walk, I was averaging about 200 calories less per day (burned) than before. On top of that, at the same time, I started a new job that was kind of mentally exhausting. I was going out for coffee 1-2x a day more than previously. And you know, I put cream in my coffee. So there’s 100-200 calories more IN per day. Even if everything else stayed the same.

And suddenly it became glaringly obvious (in a way that just had not clicked before) that this was WHY I was unable to just shake off the last 5-10 pounds I was wanting to lose.

I mean I KNEW it, on some level, that walking was just not the same as running or banging out long sessions on the elliptical. But my little DirectLife was ticking away and showing me in very graphic terms exactly what was going on. Add the extra coffee and there you have it.

So now, my ankle is feeling better and I am able to do more again. AND I’ve been tracking my food carefully on my food blog. And… voila. Happy scale days again.

There was more good stuff in that metabolism lecture; about the different ways we burn calories, and metabolism as we age and metabolism in men vs women, but I’m going to save that for a later post.

5

Runner’s HIGH!


Roadwork girls

Originally uploaded by B℮n

I had the best run ever today. And I mean maybe the best run I’ve ever had in my life. I can’t remember another time when running has felt so absolutely effortless, pain-free (YES!) and joyful. I just set out intending to walk, but then Earth Wind & FIre “Fantasy” came on and that got me GOING. And instead of my usual little old-lady run, (very short strides, more like a fast shuffle) I just WENT with it, and I was like, FLYING, uphill! It felt so so so good. Then I walked a bit. Then another song came on and again I just pumped it out.

Partially it just felt great to do that. It was a cool, beautiful morning in the woods. Partially I was rehearsing for the Weight Watchers 5k walk I am going to be leading this Friday (SO excited about this!). I was thinking about telling the members about stride length and pace, and remembering all I’d learned from my racewalking coach with Team in Training.

But all of a sudden I thought, what if I just ran… like a gazelle? (OK, don’t laugh) Instead of like the little old lady I’d started to think of myself as being, since my ankle got injured again. And my body just took off. It took off and I was like, WOO HOOOOOOOOO look at this!

I was also trying to show my Phillips Directlife monitor a thing or two. According to it, I’m not running even when I think I’m running. So today I was like, “I’m RUNNING, dammit!” I wanted to know exactly what I need to do for the stupid thing to actually register as “you are running.” As it turns out, it takes this “running like a gazelle” thing as opposed to the little old lady shuffle. Figures.

Anyway, I feel a renewed happiness about running. I hope I can run like this again because it felt so awesome. But to just have experienced it this one time was amazing. Now I’m even more excited for the 10k Trail Run/Hike I signed up for in September. Who wants to join me? Brunch at my house afterward because it is just 3 blocks away!

(note: that is not me in the photograph, but it looks a lot like my woods and it is how I FELT)

12

Empty Nest Fitness & Food

A while back I joked (sort of) on Twitter that “If I lived alone I would work out all the time and eat broccoli for dinner every night.” I was sort of kidding.

But now I’m going to have an Empty Nest for THREE WEEKS and that means… well, tonight I had an evening workout, I had broccoli and cauliflower for dinner, and nobody cared!

Having a young family definitely impacts one’s ability to exercise and eat what one might eat on one’s own. Of course I have to remember that when I lived on my own, in my twenties, it often meant snarfing down boxes of Kraft mac and cheese (in those days 1 box = one serving) and cartons of Haagen Dasz. Living alone doesn’t guarantee healthy habits, I know that.

But my kid likes to have real meals and I do not blame her. She likes the way I cook, and she isn’t thrilled with YOYO (you’re on your own) dinners or dinners that Dad throws together when I’m out at Weight Watchers in the evenings. So I try to pull it together to cook a Real Meal a few times a week at least.

Mr. McBody is not overly attached to Real Meals. He acknowledges the effort I put in to them but he is just as happy with a can of black eyed peas or a vegi burger. He’s not picky. My mom is also pretty easy going.

So now, these days, it’s just us three. Every night can be a YOYO night if I want it to be!

I remember back when my eldest was about a year old. Her godmother, my good friend, came and lived with us for a few months. She’d get up and go running in the hills whenever she felt like it.  I used to watch her go off and feel such longing for the freedom she had. Of course, she probably would’ve been happy to watch her godchild while *I* went running but I had no such desire. I remember taking one or both kids to the daycare place at the gym. After a while it just seemed like too much hassle, all of it. Activity came to become painful and unpleasant, so much so that I dreaded going to the playground because it made me so exhausted. Even to get up and push my kid on a swing. That makes me so sad now. I mean I did it – I logged in a thousand hours in playgrounds – but it felt like running a marathon every time.

So I totally understand when moms with young kids just throw in the towel. And I am completely awestruck and boggled by healthy moms like MizFit who do not see parenthood as an excuse to become a couch potato (as I did for many, many, many MANY years) – in fact who sees it as an imperative to be as active and joyful as possible. (um, can I have a do-over please?)

These days, nobody needs a ride home. Nobody needs to have their favorite chicken pot pie for dinner. I’m gonna work late, I’m gonna work out, and I’m gonna give her a big hug when she finally gets back.

3

Anatomy of a Wedding Weekend

I knew this weekend would be challenging, but I was not exactly sure how. In looking back on this past few days, I look at the ups and downs, the many small choices and challenges I faced, and what I learned from it.

I went into the weekend feeling I had not much wiggle room to spare. I wanted to come out of it maintaining where I was at before I went in. I’m not going to weigh myself until tomorrow or maybe even the next day.

Friday morning: Got up in the dark to get to the airport. Had coffee. Got to airport and headed straight to Starbucks for my new favorite breakfast, Perfect Oatmeal. It was perfect. Good way to start the day. Got onto plane #1. Slept. I am grateful that not only am I “able” to sleep on planes; in fact, a plane seat hits me like a tranquilizer gun and I immediately pass out into a deep, drooling coma the instant I feel the wheels lift off. I think this has something to do with a period when I was deathly afraid of flying and I literally learned to hypnotize myself into sleep so that I would not freak out. I don’t freak out so much anymore, but I think it’s because I’m passed out.

Layover: Las Vegas airport. We only had 10 minutes before boarding the next flight and I ran around frantically trying to find something suitable for carry-on lunch. Seemed there was nothing but Burger King and chocolates. Finally found a place that sold sandwiches. Whole wheat baguette turkey sandwich. 470 calories. With nothing on it! Blech! But I was desperate. Grabbed it. Ate half of it on plane. It was awful but I was very hungry. Had a packet of Ritz cracker cheese sandwiches courtesy of Southwest, which immediately transported me to my children’s unfortunately unhealthy childhoods, where they and I consumed mass quantities of those things. I am addicted to them.

Arrived at destination.  Went to hotel gym and spent 45 minutes on elliptical! I was so sweaty and proud of myself, especially after having spent all day in vegetative state on airplanes. Went to awesome hotel restaurant and had a wonderful dinner of 2 deviled eggs, a spinach salad from heaven, and a little bowl of polenta and spinach. That would have been quite fine. It would have been perfect if the evening had ended there, but alas, it did not.

Went to post-rehearsal-pre-wedding reception thingie hosted by groom’s parents. LOVELY home, all catered event. At first all I saw was wine and some platters of strawberries, brownies and cannolis. I was full from dinner and not tempted. I took a teeny nibble from my mother’s brownie & cannoli; both were way too sweet and thought, good, I am home free! Big basket of potato chips. Not tempted. THEN they brought out the gourmet cheese tray thing. I faltered a little. Then I got into a conversation with some relatives who asked some very kind but probing questions about the state of my Writing; something I am NOT feeling good or confident or happy about these days, and the cheese dam just broke.  Gorgonzola and Muenster and Brie and baguette slices and some salami rounds and it all just VANISHED into my mouth. I lost my mind. I lost it completely. I actually could not quite believe it, but there it was. Kablooey!

The next morning I woke up with a cheese hangover and….. a severely throbbing ankle. Apparently it had not been super charmed by my killing the elliptical like that, brace or not. I was very sad. I decided not to return to the gym but instead went to  a street arts festival with my sister in law. I walked around for several hours, but at a relatively slow pace. Better than nothing, right? Still, my ankle was throbbing even more after that. I took a very brief trip to the gym and tried to find something that did not make it hurt. I did not find anything. I was sad.

I had another spinach salad. (sooo good) Felt fortified for the wedding. Got dressed. Squeezed self into Spanx and then into dress. Went to wedding. Short and sweet, followed by reception. I resisted all appetizers, including another cheese plate (this cheese was not nearly as good as Friday’s). How did I do this? I constantly texted my WW BFF with the choices that lay before me. I sent some pictures. It was actually easy. If only I’d done that during Friday night’s cheese debacle! I gleefully reported how I passed up some deep fried raviolis in little dishes of marinara. Yay me! The wedding dinner itself proved quite easy: seared tuna and snow peas, which I’d pre-ordered. They came with wasabi mashed potatoes, which I did not eat, because that sounded like a horrid combination. Lucky me. Then the cake!! At first I wasn’t going to eat any. Then a little bit. Then I decided that the dinner had been so healthy I could go ahead and have a piece. It wasn’t a very small piece. Later, in the hotel, I looked it up: 16 points! Sixteen points for carrot cake! If only I’d know. Oh, the power of knowledge. Next time I will use my WW iPhone app and figure this out before I lift fork to mouth. If I’d known, I would have had like two bites. Which would’ve been fine.

People told me to DANCE at the wedding, but I really didn’t. This was the first wedding in which I was of the generation older than the wedding couples, and I felt weirdly old fogeyish, my ankle hurt, and my mother (even older than me) realllllly wanted to get out of the loud loud loud venue and go back to the hotel. So we left when the dancing began.

Oh well.

So, today: more drugged sleep-of-the-dead on the plane. More Ritz crackers. Another missed lunch. I was so happy to get home to beautiful unmuggy weather, I pledged to go out and walk. But I did not. I just…… didn’t.

Thus, the weekend got away from me, and I pulled it back, and it was a tug of war back and forth. I don’t know how to score it overall. An overall failure? Overall victory? No. I’d say it was a learning experience.

As we say at WW, it’s either a losing week or a learning week.

I learned:

  • prepare/bring lunch for plane ahead of time. Go to grocery, bring something from home, whatever. Make like a Girl Scout and be prepared.
  • When in a highly charged emotional situation, TRY to have a moment of consciousness and reach out: Twitter or text a friend who can keep you grounded and away from large quantities of cheese.
  • Look up calories/points values of items BEFORE eating so you can at least make an informed decision. I was assuming the carrot cake was about half what it was.
  • Get out and take a walk before catching up with Facebook and blogs, or you’ll never go.

So… I probably got a C- in the weight loss/maintenance arena, and maybe a B+ for learning. And, it was a lovely weekend, a beautiful wedding and great to see family for a brief little time.

EPILOGUE: I did not get a C-!!!!!! Just weighed myself (Monday morning) and my weight is…. UNCHANGED! to the ounce! from when I left. Which was my goal. It’s a new day! It’s a new week! YAY!!!!

8

On the Road with WW

My WW BFF and I have decided to hit the road and seek out other WW meetings to see what other leaders and members are up to. Today we got up at 5:30am to check out an early-morning meeting about 30 miles from us. It was a real experience!!

For one, I have not attended a WW meeting AS A MEMBER in probably 9 months. We staff people are supposed to attend regular meetings but you know, we get so buusyyy and… and… and…
but it’s true, it’s a completely different experience when you’re sitting in a chair than when you’re behind the counter. Completely.

This meeting we attended has a real “rock star” leader we have been very curious about. She has PACKED meeting rooms and has quite a reputation. I have to say that none of my meetings has ever been PACKED. So I wanted to learn her secret.

As it turns out, she was very charismatic. LOTS of energy. Lots of drama. She literally cried twice during the meeting. (apparently her members really appreciate this; I was sort of taken aback) She talked during 90% of the meeting. At extremely high volume. (OK, it felt like yelling to me)

It was really eye-opening. Clearly she has a MASSIVE following. Clearly it works for them/her. I had a lot to think about. There were some valuable things I learned at the meeting that I will take with me and incorporate. Other things, not so much.

But it was valuable to go back in sit in those chairs. To remember what it feels like. To soak it in from THAT perspective. I’ll be doing more of this.

12

New Day

It’s really hard to believe how one can feel SO DOWN one day and then the next day, it’s all new and different. (one of the great things about life, right?) Yesterday was truly a huge low. But it caused me to really dig INTO that lowness, to feel it and try to understand it and to make some changes.

One thing that changed immediately is that I vowed (with the help of my spouse AND my friend) to go to bed earlier. I am such a night owl but staying up until 1am was just not feeling good. So last night I went to bed early. And it made it so much easier to get up early (6am WITHOUT the alarm clock!). Mr. McBody and I went for a beautiful sunrise walk/run in the park near our house. It was so nice.

The weight that I was so freaked out about has left me, making me think it was probably restaurant-induced water retention from sodium. So I’m back to where I’ve been basically all year. Whew.

And my blood glucose? Not so great right now. But I’m going to see my doc next week and we’ll get to the bottom of it. I don’t feel like I’m the world’s most epic fail, like I did yesterday. I’m just ready to deal with it.

5

A Hand Up

So my little downward spiral continued to have its way with me until I landed with a huge THUNK this morning and ended up sobbing my brains out in my car. I guess you could call that a pretty “rock bottom” point. I really felt unbelievably hopeless, helpless and also shocked that I had gotten into this state, so quickly.

This was set off in part by my taking my blood glucose this morning and finding it HIGHER than it has been since I was even diagnosed. This stunned me. Then I went to the lab to get my blood drawn for my appointment this week. I was mortified. Here my endocrinologist came to my SHOW last week, and I’ll all woo-hoo-look-at-me!! Poster Star Diabetic Patient!! OMG how BOGUS can I be?!?!?

I sent off a flurry of desperate texts to a friend who sent me a ton of support which I could only partially receive given the pit of self-loathing sludge I was drowning in. But I did hear a little bit of it and of course the one thing I heard was, “If this was me you would not be beating me up,” or something along those lines. It was so true.

I made my way to my trainer’s gym. He asked me how I was when I walked in the door. I burst into tears. We spent the entire session stretching out my incredibly tense and misaligned body. Which was necessary. He was also extremely kind to me. Which didn’t hurt either. After I finished there, I felt like I reallllllllly needed to sweat, so I went up to the gym and killed the AMT machine (elliptical-thingie) on level TWENTY (the highest) for 30 minutes. The sweat felt good, really good.

Briefly ran into my spouse. Who had read my blog post from yesterday and offered to 1) support me in going to bed earlier so I am not so freaking EXHAUSTED and 2) take a walk with me early in the morning.  Now that’s what I call spousal support.

Went to work. Brought my new ball which is going to function as my new chair. We’ll see how this goes. Allegedly sitting on a ball is a hundred times better than a chair, and burns a lot more calories. My DirectLife was not WILDLY impressed, but I do think the little green spikes were higher than my chair-sitting hours.

Went to Weight Watchers. I sort of slunk in there, feeling like, WHO THE HECK ARE YOU to be doing this, when you are so completely messed up?!? Well. I’ll tell ya.

A member came in. She had gained (less than me). She burst into tears. Then she told me about the VERY BIG THINGS she has been dealing with lately. I said to her, “If this was one of your dearest friends in this same situation, would you be beating them up and berating them?” (Hmm, sound familiar?) I gave her some Kleenex. I almost started crying myself. It was the biggest mirror ever. In fact, it turned me right around. When she left later on, I felt like she was going to go home and be nicer to herself.

After the meeting, I met with another good friend.  She asked me how I was doing. Amazingly, I did NOT start sobbing my face off. I told her. She listened. It was so good. She told me some stuff back. We pledged to support each other. Once again, honesty (especially in the hardest times) rules.

I am so very very fortunate for my friends and community. The church I (occasionally) go to has a prayer that says “we are weaving a tapestry of love we call community” and that is how I feel about the people who are surrounding me and holding me up on this journey.  Thank you.

6

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑