My Path to Outer Skinniness

Okay, I've been avoiding this post all day which tells me I'm being naughty. I need to be walking. I only get to be pregnant right now and it will be over in 6 months and I will say "I wish I had walked when I was pregnant because I would be in better shape now" So I have decided to issue another challenge. It's the walk every day for a 20 minute minimum challenge! I feel like I'm starting to lose some of my muscle tone from dragon boating. I really miss dragon boating. I wish it could be and indoor and outdoor sport so that I wouldn't be putting myself at risk for pneumonia. I suppose the ligament strain probably isn't great either. But I still miss it. And I miss my team! If you're reading this team, I miss you and I miss paddling with you and  I miss drinking beer with you! I've been reading about how you eat affects your baby. Basically you should eat stuff so your baby isn't allergic to it (nuts, dairy, gluten), you should eat less...

Well, I guess it will take a couple more days to really gauge how the experiment in non-tracking went. Paul and I went camping this last weekend and I decided it would just be easiest to pack good food options and not eat all day. This was easier said than done. I didn't realize how much of camping is just sitting around and eating. I kept trying to keep a mental tally of what I'd consumed so that I would kill my progress. It was hard! I weighed myself today when we got back and thankfully I'm not up any, but it will be awhile before I'll probably see the real results of my experiment. I have high hopes though. I had a few things that probably worked in my favor while we were there. First, instead of s'mores I took a box of 100-calorie pack twinkies. Roasted twinkie bites are super delicious! And low calorie! I did eat ONE s'more. I feel like this is an accomplishment. Paul probably ate about 6. Second, I hiked roughly 6 miles yesterday. I went on a hike by...

Good news #1: Yesterday was a good day. It was the first day of week 3 of the calorie counting challenge. I made it! I'm down 6 pounds in two weeks. Now I just have to keep it up. Good news #2: The second success was a good dragon boat practice. All of the issues I had before are becoming more solvable. I got wax for my paddle. I found out I have a renewal on my inhaler prescription so I can go get that, I got to paddle in the front of the boat which I really loved so I was really able pushed myself. Good news #3: I remembered that we had a very belated wedding gift from my parents friends Ken and Leslie Conachan. They gave us a gift card to Target. So I asked the husband if I could use it for a better bathroom scale and he said sure, so I got a fancy new scale. The thing I was most worried about was that it was going to say that I weigh more than I thought. Luckily our previous scale wasn't as bad as I thought and I am right where I thought I was. The other cool thing ...

Well, I was feeling so great about my progress and then my house of cards collapsed ever so slowly. I had the girl at the nail salon ask me if I was pregnant. NO. JUST FAT. THANKS FOR ASKING. This morning at dragon boat practice I kind of lost it. My back hurt because I can't afford to get it adjusted at the chiropractor, I couldn't breathe because my inhaler's almost empty because we can't afford for me to go to the doctor to refill the prescription. The boat was off balance so I had to lean to bury my blade which exacerbated the first two problems more. I also didn't have any wax for my paddle so I had to grip it harder which made me more tense and hurt my wrists. The last insult to injury is that I got seated in the back of the boat where the gunnel curves a bit and the seats are closer together and more narrow. The best part is that our coach filmed us today. I've been really trying to push myself so that I don't get cut from races anymore. I show ...

I'm sitting here trying to figure out the calories in the food on the happy hour menu at McCormicks because we have plans to go there in a couple hours. I'm kind of debating if it might not be a terrible idea to just scratch this meal from my records and eat what I want. I'm not missing food really. I'm not craving ribs and cheeseburgers. But I kind of don't want to burn out on tracking all of this stuff (and it is starting to get a bit old) and I feel like I deserve a reward that I don't have to put on my spreadsheet. One of the meals at McCormicks. Doesn't it look healthy and delicious?! On the other hand I know I'm going to be worried about it. I've been doing so great at keeping this up and writing down everything I eat with as much accuracy as I can muster. I've also done really good at staying in my limits. It's hard to get enough protein every day without going too crazy on the fat. I just don't want to mess up a good thing. ...

Well, I have reason to celebrate - I think. I really need to get a better scale. Mine is a dial kind so it's really hard to tell if it's accurate or not. Anyway, I weighed myself this morning and then again when I got home from work just to be sure, but it looks like I'm down about 4 pounds. I'm thrilled! I went to pick up my wedding ring from the jeweler today after I got off work but it wasn't there yet. So I wandered around the mall while I was waiting. I stopped into my favorite store of all time, The Limited, and tried on a couple things just because it was nice to have their clothes fit nicely. I have longer to go so I didn't buy anything, but they have some super cute pink and purple stuff right now! I also ate a chocolate truffle from Godiva which ended up being far less terrible than I expected when I finally got home to count up my calories so far. I am really looking forward to having another week of success. I'm anticipating there being more o...

Today marks 1 week! I feel good that I'm going strong. I've never been able to track my progress this successfully. It's good stuff. Today I packed extra food in my lunch so that my lunch would be a bigger meal than my dinner. Strangely, I wasn't as hungry today and I ended up not eating the extra 200 calories I brought with me. It's amazing how much easier it is for me to tell if I'm actually hungry when I haven't really had any refined sugar or high fructose corn syrup. For anyone who doesn't know, hfcs is a sweetener substitute often used in foods instead of sugar. The reason it sucks is that it doesn't satisfy our craving for sweetness naturally and you end up eating more than would normally satisfy you. Normally when you consume food, hormones release and tell your brain that your stomach is full (before you feel like you need a wheelbarrow to carry your stomach around in). Hfcs blocks this hormone so that you can't tell when you're ful...

So far so good. The last two days have been a bit of a challenge, but nothing that I couldn't handle with some determination. I actually have managed to work pizza, onion rings, and beer into my meals! The trick is portion control and anticipation. I knew that we'd be eating out last night so I ate basically just vegetables until then and looked up what I could eat ahead of time so that I wasn't going too far overboard. Today I paddled and I figured that with a two hour practice (that I felt by the end!) I needed some serious recovery food so I allowed myself to eat eggs and potatoes with a piece of toast afterwards. I talked to my coach about possibly doing some one-on-one paddling so I can get better with the technique and feel more confident on the water. He had corrected me on something today that I didn't even realize what he meant for a good amount of time and I would rather fix those kinds of things without slowing the whole boat down while he explains it to me...

Woo! Well, I half expected this day to suck. The reason being that I went to a barbeque. I decided to try to eat beforehand so that all I would do was graze. Taco bell's fresco menu rocks! The calories are right on the drive-thru menu so you can order accordingly. I got a crunchy fresco taco for 150 calories and a fresco chicken soft taco for 135 calories which both were filling enough that I wasn't really hungry by the time I got to Greshem. Best part is that it's CHEAP! I decided to get a case of low calorie beer (MGD 64). It wasn't as terrible as I'd expected it to be but went right through me so I had to pee every ten minutes. That part sucked. But it was nice to be able to drink socially. I managed to get away with small bites of a couple of foods people had brought and I ate mostly melon which is surprisingly very low calorie. All-in-all I actually managed to eat fewer calories yesterday than the day before! I think what I find cool about doing this is that...

Hello world. It's been awhile since I've posted anything and I noticed my little blogger icon just now and thought I should probably update. So, I have pretty much epic failed my 30 day challenge. I think I went the entirety of last week without a lick of real exercise (other than one day of dragon boating) I could throw in the towel and assume that I set the bar too high. But I don't think I did. I think I just stopped trying very hard. And the thing is that since I publicly announced my challenge and was doing so well at it up until then, I thought about it every day even though I didn't always push myself to do anything. And that's better than not thinking about it at all. So I am going to start another challenge on the first of June. Anyone else in? Today I made up for lost calories burned. This morning I went to the two hour dragon boat practice and paddled through the entire practice (including 20 minutes of straight paddling with varying intensity level...

While we were in Los Angeles this last weekend we went to visit Paul's cousin Emily (Hi Emily!), her husband Nick, and their daughter Kate. She had asked me how the exercise was going and I told her that it was hard but I needed to stick it out. We ended up talking about all of the things we've started but quit somewhere along the way. And I started thinking about what it would be like if I'd just stuck to weight watchers or an exercise routine or any of the things I've started that would have had me looking and feeling better by now. There's a book by Malcolm Gladwell called "Outliers". Gladwell talks about a study by Anders Ericsson that shows most people that have mastered a skill have had to spend 10,000 in their life up to that point practicing and working on that skill. I've always considered this relevant to my career but I've never really related it to my weight loss goals. But now I am. If I want to not only improve and succeed at takin...

Okay, so I had a bit of a lapse and I wanted to say thank you to everyone that responded. I was having a weak moment and was feeling very discouraged with my efforts. So thank you again for all being so supportive and responsive. Here's the update on the challenge. I kind of started it early, so today makes day 5 of my 7/30 day challenge, but to keep everyone on the same page we'll make May 1st the first day. I'm sort of going easy on the eating restrictions right now. I've continued with the gluten free for the most part. I did give myself a day on Thursday for having done it for a whole week without any slip-ups. Honestly I haven't noticed any difference in my digestion or my energy with change. I'm going to give it another week or two in order to be sure that it will make no difference in my health. As far as the exercise goes, I went to the free session of Bikram's Yoga yesterday and they let me sign up for the introductory rate again. So I get a...

Wow. The response for the 30 day challenge was overwhelming. Perhaps more people would be willing to try 7 days? Come on people! Get off your derrières and get moving!

Okay people. This is what I want to do. I want to challenge you and myself to 30 days of exercise. No days off. No taking a break. 30 days. You can do whatever exercises you want at any intensity you like. I realize part of my lack of improvement in my physique is that I keep doing elements of my improved lifestyle irregularly. In other words, yes I walk...once or twice a week. Sure I work out on the elliptical ... when I remember to and I feel like it. So! I'm going to challenge myself to stick to an exercise schedule that I can do EVERY DAY and I want you to do it with me. I think this way we can have lots of exercise buddies without actually having to coordinate schedules or meeting places with anyone. If anyone's had an exercise buddy you know how easy it can be to get off track because one or the other backed out at some point. Well, if someone misses a day in this challenge, it's not going to give you the excuse to miss one too! 4 weeks people! Let's do thi...