First off, man starting a blog about being healthy and weight loss right before the holidays was definitely a terrible idea. But I did this blog to be honest and hold myself more accountable for what I eat and how much I exercise. So here's to being honest...
So lately I feel slightly off the band wagon. Basically I made a commitment to myself to get to the gym at least 3-4 times a week. And if not to the gym at least doing some form of exercise. Even with friends from college visiting I have been managing to uphold this goal. My diet on the other hand has been a mess. With friends visiting I ended up eating pub food for lunch and pizza for dinner. Yuck. That mixed along with holiday parties has resulted in a bending of my diet and multiple cookies being eaten. I keep telling myself: "Come on, you're not Santa" but everytime I see a new holiday cookie, it takes every will-powered bone in my body to resist it. At least I have motivation in that I don't want to end up looking like Santa (No offense Santa, I am a huge fan).
But at least I feel I have kept my gym routine pretty regularly. I have been getting there at least 3 times a week but am still feeling like I need something to really change things up. There is one thing that I think would make a huge difference. Having a job that requires me to work late and unpredictable hours, it makes it hard to commit to consistent gym time in the evenings. Therefore, I present you with my latest battle: morning workouts.
Now anytime I actually manage to get myself to the gym in the morning, it always feels great. I have lots of energy by the time that I get to work, it's great to not have to worry about rushing to a gym class at the end of the day and great to have the evening free to run errands or visit friends. So you think that would motivate me to get out of bed in the morning and make more morning workouts happen. But this is not the case. My alarm goes off and I have every intention of making it to the gym, but with bad weather, daylight savings, and big comfy pajamas, it just gets harder and harder to crawl out of bed. I am hoping to find some sort of magical fix to my difficulties getting to the gym in the morning to really get a strong exercise routine going. Too bad there's no annoying rooster to aid in this endeavor. For now sleep is a more enticing in the morning than an AM workout. Me:0 Sleep: 1
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
I don't get the whole "running" thing...
So I feel back into it today after my weekend party lapse. Was feeling pretty unmotivated to go after having worked 10 hours Monday and another long day today, but I dragged my feet and got into the pool. Now here's another secret that I've had (well a pseudo secret as some of my close friends and family are aware of this). I secretly have had a dream of doing a triathlon. Nothing big or crazy like an Iron Man because the thought of running 26.2 miles after swimming and biking a ton is probably the most unappealing thing to me ever. Well actually, running in general just seems to be pretty unappealing especially a whopping 26.2 miles.
It seems that a lot of my friends and peers are on this "lets run obscene distances" phase of life where I now know so many people that run half marathons, whole marathons, 5k, 10K, etc etc. Miraculously somehow ( most likely due to the fact that at the time I was living with two runners) I signed up for and completed a 5k. I feel that the running aspect of doing a triathlon is what has put me off up until this point and it was my hopes that doing the 5K would get me on this running craze that so many of my friends experience. I just really never have, and am not sure that I ever will, like running.
It kinda sucks too as I love being outside and when it's nice out I'd much rather get exercise outside than hauling my ass to a gym. But for one reason or another I just get started on a run and half way through it I'm miserable and just want to stop. I'm hoping to find someway to overcome this as I feel that I can get the other aspects of a triathlon down pat. I love to swim. I love to bike. I can swim long distances (in fact I tried out swimming the distance for a sprint triathlon at the pool today (750m). I ended up swimming 800m and felt great afterwards and proceeded to swim a workout that consisted of an additional 1200m.
Maybe this week, since it feels like spring instead of almost Christmas, I will tempt a run in lieu of a gym workout to see how it feels. I have been talking too long about wanting to do a triathlon and maybe it's time I just stop talking about doing it, and actually do what I need to, exercise and diet wise, to feel confident enough that I could do one. Sigh, I just wish running was a bug that I could catch, but I'm not sure I'll ever love it as much as I love swimming. Maybe I could find a way to love it enough? Any suggestions out there in the running world?
It seems that a lot of my friends and peers are on this "lets run obscene distances" phase of life where I now know so many people that run half marathons, whole marathons, 5k, 10K, etc etc. Miraculously somehow ( most likely due to the fact that at the time I was living with two runners) I signed up for and completed a 5k. I feel that the running aspect of doing a triathlon is what has put me off up until this point and it was my hopes that doing the 5K would get me on this running craze that so many of my friends experience. I just really never have, and am not sure that I ever will, like running.
It kinda sucks too as I love being outside and when it's nice out I'd much rather get exercise outside than hauling my ass to a gym. But for one reason or another I just get started on a run and half way through it I'm miserable and just want to stop. I'm hoping to find someway to overcome this as I feel that I can get the other aspects of a triathlon down pat. I love to swim. I love to bike. I can swim long distances (in fact I tried out swimming the distance for a sprint triathlon at the pool today (750m). I ended up swimming 800m and felt great afterwards and proceeded to swim a workout that consisted of an additional 1200m.
Maybe this week, since it feels like spring instead of almost Christmas, I will tempt a run in lieu of a gym workout to see how it feels. I have been talking too long about wanting to do a triathlon and maybe it's time I just stop talking about doing it, and actually do what I need to, exercise and diet wise, to feel confident enough that I could do one. Sigh, I just wish running was a bug that I could catch, but I'm not sure I'll ever love it as much as I love swimming. Maybe I could find a way to love it enough? Any suggestions out there in the running world?
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Holy Oil
Days 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Wow well its been a while folks. Guess when I started this blog I thought it'd be super easy to put out posts every day, when in reality with my crazy work schedule and attempting to hold onto any shred of a social life that I can, it really is just not possible. So I might ditch this whole writing about this life change thing on a daily basis and attempt to make my posts more general and less specific and day to day.
So today I just wanna get down and dirty and talk about one thing that I am attempting to change when it comes to my eating habits... portion control. I consider myself a pretty healthy eater overall. I get my veggies, and fruits, eat enough protein, take my multivitamin. But when examining my weight gain and eating habits I had to take a hard look at myself and really be honest with what was causing my weight gain. Yea so I eat healthy, but there can always be too much of a good thing. So this past week I have made a strong effort to measure as much as I can: weigh my chicken and fish to make sure I am not eating too much, measure out the amount of sliced almonds I put on my salad, and be honest with how many dark chocolate covered cranberries I grab for that extra bit of sweet I crave after lunch.
The one thing that made me totally be disgusted with my past habits was measuring out the amount of olive oil that I use when cooking. I began measuring out a tablespoon and almost threw up when I realized that when I was pouring straight from the bottle thinking that I was pouring a tablespoon, it was in fact a lot more. Much, MUCH more. So now I am going to make a solid attempt to measure out my olive oil usage in an attempt to see the difference that it makes with weight loss, and my overall health. One thing that I have noticed. Last week I made it to the gym 5 out of the 7 days (the best that I have done in a long time) and was eating really healthy, making a strong effort to think about what I eat before just eating it. By the end of the week, I felt like I had more energy, felt healthier and lighter and better. And when I weighed myself at the end of the week I lost a pound. Too bad I had my work christmas party was on Saturday where I did nothing but eat terrible food and drink wine. But one thing I have noticed is that since then I have felt disgusting, and awful ever since. So here is the lesson that I want to leave you all with, even just one night of straying from a diet after following one so strictly for a week will leave you feeling guilty, bloated, and sick. Lesson learned: I need to start relearning appropriate portion controls (particularly with oil I cook with) and need to not stray from my diet despite any holiday parties that the month of december might bring. Here's to hoping my work out tomorrow will get me feeling better and back on track.
Wow well its been a while folks. Guess when I started this blog I thought it'd be super easy to put out posts every day, when in reality with my crazy work schedule and attempting to hold onto any shred of a social life that I can, it really is just not possible. So I might ditch this whole writing about this life change thing on a daily basis and attempt to make my posts more general and less specific and day to day.
So today I just wanna get down and dirty and talk about one thing that I am attempting to change when it comes to my eating habits... portion control. I consider myself a pretty healthy eater overall. I get my veggies, and fruits, eat enough protein, take my multivitamin. But when examining my weight gain and eating habits I had to take a hard look at myself and really be honest with what was causing my weight gain. Yea so I eat healthy, but there can always be too much of a good thing. So this past week I have made a strong effort to measure as much as I can: weigh my chicken and fish to make sure I am not eating too much, measure out the amount of sliced almonds I put on my salad, and be honest with how many dark chocolate covered cranberries I grab for that extra bit of sweet I crave after lunch.
The one thing that made me totally be disgusted with my past habits was measuring out the amount of olive oil that I use when cooking. I began measuring out a tablespoon and almost threw up when I realized that when I was pouring straight from the bottle thinking that I was pouring a tablespoon, it was in fact a lot more. Much, MUCH more. So now I am going to make a solid attempt to measure out my olive oil usage in an attempt to see the difference that it makes with weight loss, and my overall health. One thing that I have noticed. Last week I made it to the gym 5 out of the 7 days (the best that I have done in a long time) and was eating really healthy, making a strong effort to think about what I eat before just eating it. By the end of the week, I felt like I had more energy, felt healthier and lighter and better. And when I weighed myself at the end of the week I lost a pound. Too bad I had my work christmas party was on Saturday where I did nothing but eat terrible food and drink wine. But one thing I have noticed is that since then I have felt disgusting, and awful ever since. So here is the lesson that I want to leave you all with, even just one night of straying from a diet after following one so strictly for a week will leave you feeling guilty, bloated, and sick. Lesson learned: I need to start relearning appropriate portion controls (particularly with oil I cook with) and need to not stray from my diet despite any holiday parties that the month of december might bring. Here's to hoping my work out tomorrow will get me feeling better and back on track.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Shakin My A$$
Day Two:
Today was awful. Just a personally emotional day of awfulness. When I am going through something, I can act like the opposite of most fit people. I just want to put on some sweats, grab a box of tissues, crawl into bed and cry my eyes out and not face the world. So sitting at home on the verge of succumbing to my usual state of sulking, I thought of this blog and decided to do what I would usually not do.... hit the gym...
Feeling like if I just attempted to do a workout on my own that I would wimp out, I looked up the gym's class schedule and went with a zumba class. I have done this zumba class before and find it hilarious because there are always like 5 men in the class. Totally love that there are men out there who aren't afraid to be in a room full of women grinding, girating, and shaking their a$$. Then again maybe it's the room full of women and the hottie pottie that teaches the class that motivates them to go... who knows....
Here is my advice about zumba. Now I am not a dancer, lets face it, my dance moves consist of every white girl move under the planet (sprinkler anyone?) But you have to go to zumba class with the expectation that yea, you're probably not going to get every move down perfectly and yea, you probably will look like an idiot for the majority of class (unless you got some moves which I dont). If you go with that kind of an attitude then yes, you will hate zumba. But if you spend some time looking at the rest of class instead of the teacher, you will find the majority of the class at one point or another struggles to do the dance move correctly or has an expression of "WTF is she doing now?"on their faces. So I say give it a try. Go and look like an idiot as long as you can move your hips and can jump up and down you will be fine. The music is always great and motivating and you will be soaked in sweat by the end. I'm glad I went, despite being redfaced from crying, cause now I am no longer in a funk and ready to finish the rest of my night :)
Anyone else have Zumba fears they'd like to share?
Today was awful. Just a personally emotional day of awfulness. When I am going through something, I can act like the opposite of most fit people. I just want to put on some sweats, grab a box of tissues, crawl into bed and cry my eyes out and not face the world. So sitting at home on the verge of succumbing to my usual state of sulking, I thought of this blog and decided to do what I would usually not do.... hit the gym...
Feeling like if I just attempted to do a workout on my own that I would wimp out, I looked up the gym's class schedule and went with a zumba class. I have done this zumba class before and find it hilarious because there are always like 5 men in the class. Totally love that there are men out there who aren't afraid to be in a room full of women grinding, girating, and shaking their a$$. Then again maybe it's the room full of women and the hottie pottie that teaches the class that motivates them to go... who knows....
Here is my advice about zumba. Now I am not a dancer, lets face it, my dance moves consist of every white girl move under the planet (sprinkler anyone?) But you have to go to zumba class with the expectation that yea, you're probably not going to get every move down perfectly and yea, you probably will look like an idiot for the majority of class (unless you got some moves which I dont). If you go with that kind of an attitude then yes, you will hate zumba. But if you spend some time looking at the rest of class instead of the teacher, you will find the majority of the class at one point or another struggles to do the dance move correctly or has an expression of "WTF is she doing now?"on their faces. So I say give it a try. Go and look like an idiot as long as you can move your hips and can jump up and down you will be fine. The music is always great and motivating and you will be soaked in sweat by the end. I'm glad I went, despite being redfaced from crying, cause now I am no longer in a funk and ready to finish the rest of my night :)
Anyone else have Zumba fears they'd like to share?
Monday, November 28, 2011
Why now??
Hmmmm..... where to begin. I guess I should start with the reasons I am starting this blog. Weight has always been a battle for me. I remember crying to my mom about watching my friends eat what they want but still miraculously remain 5 pounds; while I could attempt to diet and exercise my ass off just to lose 5 pounds in a month. It took a long time for me to just accept my body for what it is: I will never be that girl that can eat what she wants and get away with it; I will always have to work hard to be healthy. So facing that means facing other harsh realities- that yes, I probably do overeat, and yes, I make WAY too many excuses to not get to the gym. So here I am, ready to stop making excuses and hold myself more accountable, put my vulnerabilities out there and see what happens. Here it goes....
I always considered myself somewhat of an athlete. Never the star or the best on the team but yes, an athlete. Being a swimmer on both the high school and club team meant that I was exercising, A LOT. Once I got to college and decided not to swim, I never really hopped onto the gym band wagon and began to gain that dreaded freshmen15, okay maybe it was more like 20 or 30 (this is about me being honest right?). It wasn't until my senior year after I gained even more weight from a semester of nothing but bread, cheese, and wine in Paris that I pulled myself together and started to seriously diet. Now if you know me, you know that once I really put my mind to something I am going to accomplish it. Somehow, amongst the consecutive nights of heavy drinking that entailed senior year, by the time that I graduated I was down 3 places on my belt loop. By the end of the summer I was almost 30 pounds lighter and 3 pant sizes smaller. It was a great feeling. And the best was not just seeing the numbers go down on the scale and on the tag in my clothing, but I just felt..... clearer. I could think more clearly, handle stress appropriately, felt more confident and level headed. Just overall a great, GREAT feeling.
I kept this up until my second semester of grad school. With juggling my second year internship, a full-time student coursework, and part time job I was overwhelmed, and needing to cut something out of my life. I ended up making the gym less of a priority and began to grab more convenient, unhealthy foods for meals. Once I started working it just became harder to figure out a consistent gym schedule. In college it was easy as class was the same time, for the same duration, on the same days every week. With work there's so much unknown and setting down a schedule just became difficult. But even here I feel like I am making excuses, really I just wasn't motivated enough.
But some harsh realities given to me by a close friend made me ready to make a commitment and start to take this more seriously. So join me as I share my joys, hardships, successes, and struggles down the road to be healthy, happy, and complete.
Here it goes...
Day One:
Today was good. Probably because in the back of my mind I had this idea of starting this blog to help me be held more accountable. Lets see how long this lasts....
One of my biggest struggles with eating is the free lunch at work. Now being in the non-profit realm of work, means that my salary is not that high. So any chance to save money is a bonus. When I learned that my new job meant free lunch, I thought GREAT! ... Less money to spend at the grocery store. However, I soon realized how goddamn hard it is to go for the seriously lacking salad bar, when the grilled cheese and pizza just looks so much better. So I have been hitting up the salad bar for the past 2 weeks. I am starting to get seriously sick of salad, especially since a "good" salad bar day consists where there are both tomatoes AND cucumbers available. But so far I am doing okay with this.
Even got to the gym today too. One of the things I have done to help me get motivated to go is to choose a gym that a) has a pool since I love swimming and b) has a parking lot so that I can go right before or after work. Just pack a gym bag in the morning and give myself no excuses to go home. My pool workout felt pretty good too. My old workouts consisted of swimming 4,000yards a practice. I made it a goal to do a solid 3,000 yards in an hour. (For all you none swimmers, 25yards is one lap at the pool I go to, I'll leave it to you to do the math ;) )
Here is a breakdown of the swim workout I gave myself:
Warm-up: 200y swim freestyle, 200 kick, 200 pull, 200 breast. (total 800 yards).
Workout:
5 X 100 freestyle on 1:30.
200 freestyle sprint
3 X 200 IM (butterfly, back, breast, free) rest 10 seconds
200 pull, odds breath every 3, evens breath every 5
20 X 25 on :25 seconds
200 kick odds sprint, evens pace
Cool- Down: 200 easy choice.
Total: 3200 yards. It felt pretty good. I did it in about an hour and 5 minutes followed by a long soak in the hot tub to ease my aching IT band but overall, I felt really good about this workout.
So here it is, leave your feedback, leave your suggestions. And join me as I move forward to "weight" no more live a healthier lifestyle (get it??) :)
I always considered myself somewhat of an athlete. Never the star or the best on the team but yes, an athlete. Being a swimmer on both the high school and club team meant that I was exercising, A LOT. Once I got to college and decided not to swim, I never really hopped onto the gym band wagon and began to gain that dreaded freshmen
I kept this up until my second semester of grad school. With juggling my second year internship, a full-time student coursework, and part time job I was overwhelmed, and needing to cut something out of my life. I ended up making the gym less of a priority and began to grab more convenient, unhealthy foods for meals. Once I started working it just became harder to figure out a consistent gym schedule. In college it was easy as class was the same time, for the same duration, on the same days every week. With work there's so much unknown and setting down a schedule just became difficult. But even here I feel like I am making excuses, really I just wasn't motivated enough.
But some harsh realities given to me by a close friend made me ready to make a commitment and start to take this more seriously. So join me as I share my joys, hardships, successes, and struggles down the road to be healthy, happy, and complete.
Here it goes...
Day One:
Today was good. Probably because in the back of my mind I had this idea of starting this blog to help me be held more accountable. Lets see how long this lasts....
One of my biggest struggles with eating is the free lunch at work. Now being in the non-profit realm of work, means that my salary is not that high. So any chance to save money is a bonus. When I learned that my new job meant free lunch, I thought GREAT! ... Less money to spend at the grocery store. However, I soon realized how goddamn hard it is to go for the seriously lacking salad bar, when the grilled cheese and pizza just looks so much better. So I have been hitting up the salad bar for the past 2 weeks. I am starting to get seriously sick of salad, especially since a "good" salad bar day consists where there are both tomatoes AND cucumbers available. But so far I am doing okay with this.
Even got to the gym today too. One of the things I have done to help me get motivated to go is to choose a gym that a) has a pool since I love swimming and b) has a parking lot so that I can go right before or after work. Just pack a gym bag in the morning and give myself no excuses to go home. My pool workout felt pretty good too. My old workouts consisted of swimming 4,000yards a practice. I made it a goal to do a solid 3,000 yards in an hour. (For all you none swimmers, 25yards is one lap at the pool I go to, I'll leave it to you to do the math ;) )
Here is a breakdown of the swim workout I gave myself:
Warm-up: 200y swim freestyle, 200 kick, 200 pull, 200 breast. (total 800 yards).
Workout:
5 X 100 freestyle on 1:30.
200 freestyle sprint
3 X 200 IM (butterfly, back, breast, free) rest 10 seconds
200 pull, odds breath every 3, evens breath every 5
20 X 25 on :25 seconds
200 kick odds sprint, evens pace
Cool- Down: 200 easy choice.
Total: 3200 yards. It felt pretty good. I did it in about an hour and 5 minutes followed by a long soak in the hot tub to ease my aching IT band but overall, I felt really good about this workout.
So here it is, leave your feedback, leave your suggestions. And join me as I move forward to "weight" no more live a healthier lifestyle (get it??) :)
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