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I (Heart) Biggest Loser

I know, I know, it’s junky reality tv, but it inspires me. It truly does. Last night was one of my favorite episodes.  So the first challenge involved running up and down a hill to get keys (one at a time) to fit into these two padlocks on the workout gym. People were desperate to keep their access to the gym. I was wondering what this was about but I think it might have had something to do with the machines- the elliptical, the treadmill, stairmaster, etc. The numbers on those machines can be very seductive, especially when they measure your progress, with speed, resistance and calories burned. It can be great to know you’ve just burned X number of calories.

I don’t feel all that attached to my gym. I do enough workouts in “alternative” settings that I know it all works, and sometimes it just feels so good to be outside.

So two teams of two got gym access and they immediately turned it into a … lounge? With comfy chairs, tea, water and fresh cut fruit. So they could lounge around instead of work out!

Meanwhile, the out-of-the-gym teams had these crazy workouts where they were lifting lawn furniture, leaping over barrels, running on the beach with enormous logs on their shoulders… it was insane and cool. They also had a really fun looking mud-wrestling fight after that. I really like this season’s people. They know how to have fun and they SUPPORT each other in a really heartwarming way.

My particular family was also VERY jazzed about last night’s show because the elimination challenge involved – erg machines! Ergometers! Or, if you must call them that (much to daughter’s exasperation): rowing machines. My two daughters have collectively pulled hundreds of thousands of kilometers on those very machines. They kick ass. So it was a personal thrill to see the Biggest Loser teams trying to erg their way to immunity. Wooo!

My favorite moment was when Bob (whom I do not particularly like) talked about Kristin, the young woman who weighs more than 300 lbs. She does EVERYthing. He said, “No matter what I ask of her, she always does it. She does not whine or complain. She puts her all in.” And she talked about weighing almost 400 lbs? before the show and how she had no idea”this girl who could do this” was living inside her. It brought tears to my eyes.

So I went to my trainer today and was determined to be Just. Like. Kristin.  She has SO much to overcome, and she is hanging in there, so steady. I have great admiration for her. And he was duly impressed. I basically said, I am never going to complain again. Even when he had me doing my personal nemesis, which is jumproping. I am just a spaz. I am very very bad at it. But I kept going, and got my 100 jumps in, and that was that. It was a great workout. I love working out on Wednesdays after watching Biggest Loser!

Now that I am finally HOME and settled and not traveling very much for a long time, I am hopeful I can really get into a routine. I also want to get together my in-person and online Beck Diet Solution support group. I am going to go through that book from front to back.

Let me know if you want to join in. (online)

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Just Because There’s A Scale I Don’t Have to Step On It

I’m in the nice hotel. Had a great workout on the elliptical this morning in their fitness center. They have a medical scale. I did NOT step on it, given the debacle of what happened last time. I’m going to wait until I get home, to my own scale.

I’m worried about my daughter. She had a little setback and I think is being very rough on herself, and when you feel that bad, things don’t tend to go well. I’m sending her love and compassion and hoping she can get through this time and be kind to herself. She has helped me so much and I just hope she can be as good to herself as she has been to me.

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Another Little Milestone

So after my learning experience at the party, I got back on the wagon yesterday and did pretty well, food-wise. So yay.

But today I did something that was very unusual for me: I did a workout, BY MYSELF, and exerted myself a LOT. Normally, I only do these very intense workouts when my trainer is cracking the whip at me, a la Jillian Michaels. When I’m on my own, I tend to just.. walk. Sure, I walk a long time- often up to 90 minutes, but I’m rarely heaving and panting and wanting to fall down and cry. I just don’t do that to myself.

But today I went to the cemetery where my trainer often takes me, and I took myself through a workout that until now I have only do with him. It was a beautiful day. The cemetery is an awesome place to work out because it’s stunningly gorgeous, it’s free, and there are infinite ways in which one can push oneself physically. His favorite routine is to put people through a circuit that involves these verrrrrrrrry long stairs, and these steep concrete ramps. Just like with the hill, I decided to do the ones I hate the most. I did five flights of stairs, running, and five long ramps, also running (not fast, just little joggy runs). It was HARD. It was damn hard. I had my iPod, though, and made myself keep up with my music. (favorites: Prince’s “When Doves Cry,” Ferron’s “It Won’t Take Long” and Pure Prairie League “Amy”) When I was done, I was panting hard, red as a beet and sweaty. Which is usually how I finish my workouts with him, but NEVER how I am alone.

I came home and the scale showed me a happy number. 🙂

And: can I say that I’m excited because the Biggest Loser is on TV tonight. I predict that the Browns will go home.

2

Choices

Basically, that’s the bottom line, isn’t it? Making choices every minute of the day. Paper or plastic, pasta or pickles…

I have some tough choices coming up this weekend.  I decided to organize that Hill challenge on Sunday, and then I was going to go to meet an longtime online friend, who is here from across the country. Some other friends organized a brunch for her at this fancy seafood place. I thought this fancy place was 15 minutes from my house, and I scheduled accordingly, but as it turns out, they ALSO have a restaurant an hour away.

It’s at the one an hour away.

So. I could

1) cancel the Hill challenge. (NO WAY!!!!!!!)

2) I could go late to the brunch.

3) I could send my regrets and not go to the brunch and try to figure out a different way to meet up with said friend.

What do you think I should do? I am going to do the right thing. I am doing #3. At first it seemed easy and all worked out. But I am also hosting another social event that same night, and do I need two entire social temptations in one day? No I do not. I am NOT going to skip or cut short the hill thing.

But I imagined myself rushing down to this restaurant, being all stressed out, feeling awkward because I am arriving so late, and thus… wanting to EAT TOO MUCH or the wrong thing. No thanks.

It’s not worth it, is it? When I really think about it, the choice is so obvious and easy and clear. And now, think of all the calories and money and gas and time I will save by not going.

I’m sad to not see this friend but I hope it will work out together to see her another time.

I can’t tell you, that 8x out of 10 I would have done option #2 (OR, heaven forbid, #1) and that, dear friends, is how I got to be overweight and medically compromised.

2

Two Selves, Fighting

I just got back from a long, gimpy walk in the woods. One leg is super tight and sore from doing a lot of very steep stair and hill workout this week. The other side has some sort of pulled groin muscle. So I was moving pretty slowly. But I was glad I went. It gave me a lot of time to contemplate things. I thought of about twenty blog posts while I was out there.

I’ve been down this road many a time, where I swear to focus and eat right and exercise and the whole thing. And once I make that decision, usually from sort of numerical wake-up call (the scale, or blood tests, or blood pressure, all of which have given me BAD numbers) I am generally pretty ON it. But then I drift away from that eventually, and I am back in the land of “I don’t want to think about it” until something forces me to.

I really do believe there is something to that whole “Ignorance is bliss” thing. Part of me really violently resists the idea of being AWARE, and of having to pay attention to this stuff. In fact it makes me want to have a freaking TANTRUM. I want to just live my life, and eat whatever I feel like, and don’t tell me what to do!!!I almost ripped my radio out of my car because I get so enraged listening to that frickin Allison Janney and her Kaiser “Thrive” commercials. They sounded so smarmy and finger-wagging. “Put down the ice cream, and have some nice broccoli! Get off the couch, and go for a walk!” Even if I agreed with stuff she was saying, even if I WANTED to go for a walk, listening to someone tell me I HAD to just got me into this very defiant, pissed off mood. 

I know that when I’m in the whole “paying attention” mode I tend to look back on my “not paying attention” self with a lot of disgust, disdain and shame. There’s like zero compassion there. And when I’m in my “la la la la I’m not paying attention” mode, I tend to look at my other mode as rigid, restrictive, punishing, anal and neurotic. There’s just no winning and there’s no seeing eye to eye. It’s a little bit like the Middle East; the chances for peace seem very fragile.

I know that I am about to enter a phase of paying attention. (which is funny because when I set up this blog, I was going to be coming at it from the OTHER perspective) I hope that I will be able to do it without totally hating that self that I’ve been for the past year or so.

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