My Path to Outer Skinniness

I think I give up on running. I think I don't give up on walking however. And I don't give up on doing other things. Things like dragon boating and using the elliptical. I stupidly managed to convince Paul to have a day trip that we couldn't afford. It was a nice trip, but probably a bad idea in hindsight. We did this before paying any other bills or buying groceries - mostly because we wouldn't have been able to go if we'd done either of these things first. Very mature right? Well, now our kitchen stock is down to bare. Luckily I should get paid over the next few days so we're not reduced to ramen noodles and condiments. This brief experience has reminded me how fortunate I am to have the work that I do have for one and to be grateful for my husband and how hard he works for me. It has also made me realize how lucky I am to be able to buy food the way that I do. I actually really enjoy grocery shopping. It's a relaxing for me to pick through the produ...

As promised, here is the update about the chiropractor. Monday I had to do a nerve scan (it's far less invasive than it sounds) on my back to see the progress that I've made throughout these last two months of treatments. He used some weird looking instruments and rolled them like a paint roller up my spine. The point of the scan is to track and see how much nerve function is being blocked from tension in the spine. Paul had this done when he went in for his initial consultation. It will be a long while before he'll be able to go in for treatments. His scan was pretty average. He had some areas along his spine that were more strained than others, but it was pretty manageable. You can see from the picture. White is normal, blue is slightly strained, greens a bit worse and red is pretty bad. Black is hypertension. You can see that Paul has some pretty bad tense spots along his spine, but in the right scan you can see that his nerve function is pretty normal. The bottom sc...

I have made arrangements to try out dragon boating on Friday. I'm a bit scared of how badly this will beat me up. But I'm trying to talk myself into going anyway. One of my voice students is on a high school team and told me about it. She said I could easily join in on an existing adult team for their practice if I wanted to try it. I always liked doing the row machine at the gym, so we'll see how this works out. I'm scared and excited at the same time, and I think this may be a way to boost my exercise with something new. In other news, the veggie diet is on a decline. We started out our month ahead of our finances and as soon as we started to feel comfortable enough to spend without making sure we could afford it, our extra money magically disappeared from our bank account. This has left me unable to make my much enjoyed small trips to the grocery store. I usually have a stroll around the new seasons two or three times a week to pick up a few oranges and maybe an av...

This morning Paul and I got up and went for a 30 minute walk together. Normally I feel like walking is a cheaper version of the running I could be doing, but I've changed my mind. My chiropractor was telling me that whatever exercises I do he wants to monitor how my body reacts but, he said that if I was walking 3 times a week for half an hour and was breaking a sweat each time I was doing what I needed to get healthy. I don't know why I feel so luke-warm about walking, but I need to be consistently doing something  on a regular basis regardless of how high or low impact it is. So on days when I really don't feel like running, I'm going to walk. I'm going to walk until my body cries out in protest! The last couple of days I've been cleaning out our filing.  In the midst of my cleaning I found my old tracker from the first time I did weight watchers. It was kind of encouraging and discouraging at the same time. It was discouraging because I was down to 163 poun...

I wanted to write today about adventures in clothes shopping. I am having a recital for my students (Monday April 5th at 7pm at the Sherman Clay Pianos in the Pearl fyi :) and I decided I should get a dress for this event. In all honesty, I could probably just wear something I already own. But what's the fun in that? This is why I became a singer. To buy pretty things to wear when I sing. Well, and because it's what I love to do. At any rate, I went to Target to try to find something suitable. I wanted something that was classy but not matronly, trendy but not too young, and something I could wear with heels and a sweater or with my boots and a jean jacket. So I tried on practically every dress that they have. And they have many dresses out for spring right now. Apparently the trend is floral patterns cut into a party dress kind of shape (which flatters me pretty well actually) and the length is just above the knee. The problem is that I liked the length in the front, but not...

The last couple of days I've noticed that my eating habits have really changed. Like, really changed.  I made an attempt to try to include more foods with protein such as soy and peanut butter in my diet this week. The result was that my meat cravings were nil. I've also had to practically force myself to eat a whole meal because I don't feel hungry by the time meal times have rolled around. What I have been doing is eating snack types of items every couple of hours. Here's about what my eating schedule was yesterday: 10am half a pb*&j sandwich on daves killer bread & nonfat latte 11am lowfat greek yogurt* noon half a frozen veggie curry entree* (practically had to force myself to eat this as I wasn't really hungry) 1pm the other half 3pm a packet of mixed nuts*: pumpkin seeds and dried cranberries 5pm green naked fruit juice (again, not hungry enough for dinner, but felt like I should probably have something of nutritious value) 10pm meat free nach...

I've been subbing every day since Tuesday this week and my whole exercise regimen is about shot. I haven't gone running or used the elliptical. I think the steam has almost seeped out of my drive to keep up my running. I did finally go Monday, but it was the most half-assed attempt yet. I forgot my inhaler, my hands were freezing, I didn't have a pocket or an armband for my ipod, and I really just didn't want to go. This is the mental debate I'm having about my exercise: Pro - I like how I look in my clothes right now, even if most of my limited pants don't fit anymore. Pro - I haven't "felt" fat in a long time. I still want to get down in size, but I don't self-loathe. Con - I haven't lost a single pound. Con - I come up with every excuse I can think of not to go run which is a sign that I really don't enjoy it. Pro - Even if I'm not seeing changes, I feel better in general. I feel like I have energy and a sense of well b...

Seize the day. Or so I planned. The problem is that I get up and instead of getting dressed and getting my butt out the door, I start coming up with things I can do instead. I've lost my zeal for running. I was so excited to get the green light to start again too! It's been four days since my last attempt at week 2. Part of the gap is due to the incredible amount of stuff I've been having to do. I've been going non-stop since Thursday with rehearsals, voice students, subbing, festivals, birthdays, and all the driving time in between (not to mention the fast food). It felt like when I was in school again. This is not a good thing. Normally I would have been looking forward to this morning because it's the first in several days that I've had time to go run. It's cool and crisp and sunny outside. It's begging me to don the running shoes and listen to the voice of Robert Ullrey tell me that I'm doing great and I'm halfway through my running interva...

Got this article in my facebook feed today. Thought it was really good. I enjoyed reading it after a run this morning and a lunch of peanut butter and celery, carrots with hummus, and brown rice with green beans and peas. I eat food in pairs. The problem is that I ate a really great healthy lunch, and then I polished off half a tub of coconut ice cream. There are worse things I suppose. My run wasn't half bad. I ran three intervals. The route I went today had no sidewalks so it was a bit tricky bouncing around to keep my footing. I think I hate the insoles I bought. My feet started aching as soon as I did the warm-up walk. I'm going to go back to the regular ones on my next run and see if there's any improvement. I had shooting pain in my tailbone and could  barely make it home it hurt so bad. Luckily I had an appointment with my chiropractor right after so he was able to see the effects of my running right away and remedy them. He encouraged me to keep running and he...