Down to it

I can't get the pictures to post anywhere but at the top of the post.

This morning was my first session with the trainer at the gym for strength training. Our fitness center is here at work and it is the best thing about my job- other than being paid. We have full time trainers available for personal sessions almost any time. This time of year they run the annual New You program. They had over 300 people sign up for the weight loss sessions, about 150 for the strength training sessions and some for the flexibility sessions as well. So, trainers are busy right now but things slow down for them later in the year. My trainer is a kick-ass triathlete who often places in her 20-25 year old age group. I can go and sit at the machine circuit but I really wanted to go through with her which exercises are going to be the most bang for my buck. I'm planning on doing 30-45 minutes twice a week and then a quick cardio session. I've got about 60-90 minutes of workout time each day. It's not a lot for fitting in strength and cardio on the same days, but it will have to do. After my pathetic pretest last week I know I've got my work cut out for me. This morning was a good start even if I do hate squats and lunges, they need to be done.

I have been quite remiss in not mentioning that Superman turned three earlier this month. Two went out with quite a bang- sent to bed early the night before his birthday for misbehaving. So far three is agreeing with him, we're enjoying a respite from the whining that had become a little too frequent in the house. He was hoping that as soon as he turned three he would go to school so he was a bit disappointed that he's still got to wait until after the summer. Hot Wheels also thinks that he will go to kindergarten the day after he turns five- despite our repeated explanations to the contrary. It's tough having a birthday right after the holidays, (although you can get some good sale stuff!) there's just an overload of presents, parties and excitement. This past weekend officially ended the holiday and birthday season with the last family party taking place at our house. Fun was had by all.

Yesterday afternoon was so much fun when I got home from work. The kids asked for some music on and they danced and we practiced yoga poses for almost an hour. Hot Wheels does a great tree pose and he was really into it. I found a cheap Jumperoo for Cutie and brought it home on Monday. I thought it would take her a few days to get the hang of jumping- wrong. It was all of 10 seconds before she bounced a bit and cracked herself up. When she really gets going in there it's quite a sight to see. She's thrilled with it thus far and the boys think she's a riot in there bouncing and laughing. It was an almost perfect afternoon.

Not why I love my husband

It's the end of the honeymoon. The weight loss honeymoon, that is. On January 1st I weighed in at (yikes) 175 pounds. Sunday morning I weighed in at 166.5. Eight and a half pounds would normally make me ecstatic- especially if it hadn't started from 175, but oh well. Then, dear husband gets on the scale. His weight loss was 7 pounds. I gloated for a moment that I had lost more and then I thought about it. Those 12 days consisted of me tracking every bite that I took and working out with more consistently hard workouts than I had done in over a year. I was really working for those eight and a half pounds. What did my dear husband do to lose seven pounds? He informed me that he ate less junk food. That's it! Not even NO junk food, just less. Okay, I have my Dove dark chocolate heart every day, but it's just one, 40 calories worth of delicious dark chocolate heaven. I swear all he has to do is decide to lose weight and it just falls off. I'm thinking I'll be lucky if I keep up even one pound weight loss a week after this. I knew the first ten pounds or so shouldn't be too tough, I had already lost and gained those since Cutie's arrival. But now we're getting to the tough stuff. That would leave me 31.5 to go, I'll settle for 20 if possible. Or maybe I'm destined to remain an Athena and shed the 16.5 left that would leave me in that category. I would imagine I could be a fit 150, especially since I meet with the trainer tomorrow morning to start my strength training program. A nice cut 150 could look good on me.

Not a great start to this week. Something was bugging all three kids Sunday night and after 2am I think I was only able to grab a few catnaps between jumping out of bed to attend to someone. I dragged myself to the gym yesterday, tripped twice on the treadmill and decided I'd be safer on the elliptical trainer where I didn't have to pick up my feet. As is always the case for me, I was alright yesterday but dead on my feet this morning, so it was another elliptical trainer morning. Still 50 minutes, it's all I had in me. Better than nothing anyway. Tomorrow's strength training, Thursday I'll try to get another run in, maybe 2 miles no stops, that would be good.

I'm already looking forward to my lunch today. I do enjoy Lean Cuisines and that's my daily work lunch. Last week I took the boys grocery shopping with me which means I've got to pick my Lean Cuisines quickly or they get restless. I accidentally grabbed buternut squash ravioli with vegetable and walnuts in white sauce. I usually hate white sauce. I gave it a try the other day and I love it. I bought three more yesterday and ate one for dinner. Yum.

If you're on the weight loss wagon as well, I highly recommend www.sparkpeople.com. They've got decent calorie and activity trackers and they make graphs and stuff. Great free site with lots of resources and people.

Friday numbers

9:05- my pace for one mile this morning on the treadmill. I was quite excited to be able to get through the whole mile at that pace and then I had Boot Camp circuit training class for 45 minutes.

1485*- the number of calories I need to sustain a weight of 165 pounds. Based on this calculation that I'd never really gone through before:

1. Convert your weight in pounds to kilograms by dividing your pounds by 2.2. Someone who weighs 140 pounds weighs 63.6 kilograms. Weight in pounds x 2.2 = ____ weight in kilograms.

2. Multiply your weight in kilograms by 9.99. Your weight in kilograms x 9.99 = _____.
Convert your height in inches to centimeters by multiplying your inches times 2.54. (Someone who is 5'10" — or 70 inches — is 177.8 centimeters tall.) Your height in inches x 2.54 = _____ height in centimeters.

3. Multiply your height in centimeters by 6.25. Your height in centimeters x 6.25 = _____.
Multiply your age in years by 4.92. Years of age x 4.92 = _____.

4. Add the numbers from Steps 2 and 4, and subtract the number from Step 5. Add 5 if you're a man, and subtract 161 if you're a woman. Total = _____.

1348*- The number of calories I would consume a day to maintain a weight of 135, if I ever got there.
* I am aware that those numbers are based on a relatively inactive person. If I'm working out 350 calories a day, that should, theoretically, give me an extra 350 calories I can consume.

1508- Average number of calories I have eaten per day since starting my tracking again last Wednesday. I do love Sparkpeople, but there are still enough items not listed that I pick equivalent items so it's possible that number is off, but it's quite close and if anything I've been trying to err on the high side.

3677- Number of calories I have burned off at the gym since last Wednesday. It's amazing how much easier it is to eat a pound than burn off a pound! That's an average of 525 per workout, and that's a killer hour to start my day.

300- Calories burned per day nursing (some information says 500, I believe the lower number). It's amazing to me that three times now I've been solely responsible for sustaining a small person's life for multiple months. Cutie will start foods in about six more weeks, although she's already shown interest in what we're eating. Yeay for healthy babies, and yeay for my body cooperating and letting me do what I can for them.

5- Numbers of weeks until the Penguin Plunge, where I will don my bathing suit, in February, for a lovely dip in Long Island Sound.

That's about it for me this week. It's been a decent one, despite having to work full days now. Life goes on, quickly, I just try to keep up.

Hitting "It"

Think she's hungry? Cutie was thrilled to recently join us at the dinner table in her own booster, rather than hanging out in the swing on the floor. Since she'll still be nursing for another month and a half or so, she doesn't get food at the table, but manages to amuse herself. And, as you can see, sometimes she snacks.

I've managed to lose 4 pounds since our family challenge weigh-in on January 1st, this morning I was 165.5. That's pretty amazing for me in 10 days and it's my lowest post-pregnancy weight so far. For me the key to losing weight is mostly mental. I don't know anything now that I didn't know for the past few months. I always knew what I needed to be doing, harder exercise and tracking my food conscientiously, it just takes me getting to a point where the benefit of feeling better outweighs my happiness with the complacent lifestyle I fall into from time to time. I was actually holding a delicious looking piece of cake yesterday at a retirement party here at work and I passed it down to someone else without a second thought because those calories, while tasty, were not worth it to me right then. Would I be able to do it all the time? No, I know that. But a couple weeks ago my mindset was "what the heck, one more junk food won't make a difference" and now I've gotten past that. How does that happen? I don't know. I think that's why diets fail, though, people try to gut it out with the diet and exercise when their mind is not really there yet and they're just setting themselves up for failure, I think. I had to get really sick of where I was, not just telling people I wasn't happy with my weight, really feeling it myself, and that got me back on track. As bonus for me, in the past 10 days I've had more energy, great workouts, and slept well, too. I sometimes think about how I thought I could diet in the past. I really think that at one point in my life I believed that if no one saw me eat something, it didn't have calories. I remember going out with friends and being so hungry while they were eating, but I would eat until I got home and then I'd go nuts with it. Crazy, but in my mind it was what would work. I'm sure my weight loss will slow down. I doubt I'll ever be the 135 pounds that one on-line program recommends for my 5'7" medium frame body. I'll do what I can, work hard, and go for the best results I can. And I'm enjoying myself along the way.

Stuff

This morning at the gym I took my pre-test for strength training. I'll share the embarrassing results only because I know that they will improve with time: 11 push-ups (the girly on-my-knees kind), and 4 pull-ups on the gravitron with 80 pounds of assistance. So I could only pull up 87 pounds by myself, 4 times. I almost got a 5th, but didn't.

However, later on the elliptical trainer, I was passed a note that made my day. One of the regular gym-goers is a guy that cracks me up on the treadmill. He sings, dances a little, really gets into it. Yesterday I was on the treadmill and he took the one next to me and I mentioned that he gets extra credit for choreography. We talked for a minute or two, he mentioned he was listening to his teenager's music on the headphones and was learning a lot about him. Well, he handed me a paper towel on his way out of the gym and prompted me to open it. He had written "Keep at it, you look great". Political correctness in the workplace be damned, that made my day!

I recently made a wardrobe change, switching from my "mommy jeans" to a more fitted look with a straight leg. I bought two pairs of the more fitted jeans and despite my fears that coworkers and strangers would try to gouge their eyes out at the sight of me in fitted clothing, I've actually been complimented on the look. I've also got a few shirts that are not two sizes too big and they have also been well received. I am aware that other people don't think about me nearly as much as I think they do, and I'm not at work- or anywhere else for that matter- to impress anyone with how I look, but maybe I will make more of an effort to dress nicer. Or maybe not.

I tried round two of bridesmaid dresses this past weekend and there were a few that actually looked decent. It was a pleasant surprise. My sister's choosing a dark red color, could be very dramatic. They're strapless, though, I'll be working on those push-ups and pull-ups for sure.

Yesterday we watched American Gladiators because we had taped it on Sunday night. Hot Wheels was so excited about it we all waited to watch it together. I was very disappointed that it's become much more flashy reality-show like. The announcer drove me nuts with the "witty" commentary in the play by play. After watching the show we went to the playground and Hot Wheels asked me to go for a run with him to train for Gladiators. We did two runs of two laps around the tennis courts, probably nearly half a mile. Then Hot Wheels, Superman and Super Dad all ran through the playground playing "Eliminator" the obstacle course like event at the end. They ran up hills, crawled through tunnes, over obstacles and down slides. Hot Wheels is very excited about being on the show, except the part with the water obstacle under fire- he's not too thrilled about that idea. Some TV is good after all.

This morning Cutie and Superman go to the doctor for their 4-month and 3-year old appointments. Time's just flying by. New pictures soon.

Why cars are amazing

Today I hit a small milestone and spent more time running than walking in my workout. Run time: 21 minutes, walk time: 19 minutes. I didn't say I spent a lot more time running, just more. The newer treadmills in the gym have a cool feature on the bottom of the display where there are three buttons programmed to 2, 4 and 6 mph. This is convenient for intervals because I alternate between 4 mph walking and 6 mph running. I started thinking about the difference between 4 and 6 mph. In my car that's a barely noticeable difference. On my treadmill that's a huge difference. I would burn 324 calories at 4 mph for an hour, but 812 at 6 mph, and the cooldown went to 3 mph, that's 260 calories per hour- not all that much less than 4 mph. I ran 1.7 miles consecutively and then did some intervals to get to 2.1 miles run, 1.4 miles walked. A good start to the week! (until I got to the locker room and realized I left my sweatshirt at home, so I have to wear a t-shirt and jacket all day at work, thank goodness I had the t-shirt)

Our fitness center here at work has an annual N.E.W. You, Nutrition, Education and Wellness program. You can sign up for the weight loss, strength training or flexibility track. I signed up for weight loss at first but switched to strength. I know what I need to do to lose weight, I just have to do it. But I really want some help in setting up a strength program and making progress there. That will help weight loss, anyway. I've got that chin-up bar out in the backyard and my goal is to be able to do 2 unassisted pullups by the summer. That may sound really wimpy, but I've never been able to do a pullup, so it's a big goal for me. I have my pushup and pullup pretest one morning this week, probably tomorrow morning. I'll be lucky to do 10 pushups, on my knees of course, and I have no idea what I can do on the assisted pullup machine. But, you've got start somewhere, I should be able to make decent progress from this starting point.

We taped American Gladiators last night, it's Hot Wheels' favorite show. We're going to have a picnic in the family room and watch it when I get home. Hot Wheels has mentioned on multiple occasions that he wants to be on the show when he grows up. Quite a lofty goal for a 4-year old.

Reviewing and looking ahead

Thankfully, the Bloglines problem resolved so I've found all my "friends" again.

The start of a new year. Looking back at 2007 I can easily say that the year ended as the happiest time of my life. I'm not in nearly the shape I would like, but at least I know I can get there and I'm finally ready to make the effort. There were some large annoyances, like getting passed over for the promotion list- (bringing me to 8 years at the same level), and the work situation had some major downs. But things are looking up in my new job and I'm hoping the promotion will be coming next year- a mere 10 years after starting. For all my griping about work, I have a flexible job that affords us the ability to have a parent home with our kids, even if it's not me I've got it pretty good. It's not the job of my dreams, but it's good enough. A good effort in 2008 will hopefully earn me that promotion next year.

Family. What can I say that I haven't said before? Probably nothing, but I really am so blessed. A wonderful, hard-working, fun, (and attractive) husband and three healthy, adorable (while age-appropriately challenging) children, my sister getting married in July to a great guy, my parents are in good health and are a huge part of my kids' lives. It just can't be better than this.

I've got awesome friends, we've got our new house, the house I intend to live in for the rest of my life if possible. Life is good, no, great!

So, what's up for 2008? Husband and I started a weight loss challenge this morning. The one of us that loses a higher percentage of weight by July 1st wins $100 gift card to anywhere we choose. I'm planning on a 5k in April and a sprint tri in August, other events are TBD as time and finances allow. I will have to put on a bathing suit next month, though. I'm Penguin Plunging for Special Olympics at a local beach. A group of us from work will be dressed as ballerina queens with tutus and tiaras, I'm looking forward to it, even if I will still be a bit overweight for bathing suit wear.

Time to enjoy the rest of this family day before returning to work tomorrow. Happy New Year to all!

Bloglines?!?!

My Bloglines subscriber list has been deleted, now I can't find my old favorites. I've got Siren in the bookmarks from my old days pre-Bloglines, but almost everyone else is gone. Any suggestions?

And, on a happy note, I hope that everyone enjoyed a wonderful Christmas (if that's what you celebrate). Ours was fabulous and when I've got some time I'll update and add pictures. Cutie was Baby Jesus in our Christmas story family service on Christmas Eve. With myself as Mary, SuperDad as Joseph and the boys both making their appearances as angels, it was a family memory I will treasure forever.

Happy New Year to all and best wishes for a great 2008!

Fun with sleet

Here's our Christmas card picture this year.

I only made it to the gym three mornings this week, but I spent over an hour shoveling a lot of heavy sleet in our driveway one evening, so I'm giving myself credit for four workouts. A good week overall. And the good news this morning from the scale was: 167.5. I got off and got back on just to make sure it was correct. Usually when I get off and back on it's because I want it to show a lower number, so that was a pleasant surprise. I've decided to make Sunday weigh-in day for a very stupid reason. Saturday is most likely to be a poor dietary day for me. When I used to weigh in on Saturdays if it was a good week I was tempted to cheat a little. However, weighing myself on Sunday gives me a little extra discipline on Saturday. I'm not as tempted on Sundays because it's practically back to the work week when I'm pretty well-disciplined.

I ran into a friend from my old department at work on Friday. I hadn't seen him since I left that department back in July. We talked for about five minutes and he remarked that I seem happier than he had seen me for a couple years. I thought about it for a minute and realized just how much better my current work situation is. I no longer get the sick-to-my-stomach feeling about 7pm Sunday that sort of lingers through the week until I drive out of the parking lot on Friday. I don't spend 90% of my day obsessed with how much I hate being there. I've got work to do, I work with nice people and on Friday afternoon I leave feeling as though I accomplished something worthwhile. My fondest wish would still be to stay home with the kids, but since that's not ever going to be an option, it's nice to feel that I've got a job I don't hate.


We had a blast outside yesterday. A storm on Thursday had left the yard a sheet of ice. Our yard has a long gentle slope backyard. It wouldn't be enough to sled normally, but when it's a sheet of ice, it's a decent sledding hill. It was fun. In the morning we went over to my parents' house because they have a good sledding hill in the backyard. It was a riot watching the kids try to walk around on the snow, they were slipping all over the place. My dad even took a trip down the hill on a sled. They're just about the best grandparents ever, we're so lucky.

First Friday success

I work next to the break room from hell. At least if you're trying to clean up your diet, anyway. There is a constant supply of junk foods thanks to the local warehouse store. All of them are fifty cents, even king size peanut butter cups and Snickers- two of my favorites. With the junk food proceeds, in addition to monthly resupply of the junk foods, the first Friday of every month is junk food bonanza with donuts, pastries and muffins. I have yet to buy a peanut butter cup or Snickers, although one day I did eat the orange crackers with peanut butter because I had missed breakfast. One of my biggest weaknesses is breakfast junk food. I love muffins and pastries, donuts are hit or miss with me. Yesterday I was able to completely ignore all junk foods, score one for me.

The unfortunate part is that I was so bummed about returning to work that before I returned I managed to eat myself to a four pound weight GAIN. Since returning, I've managed to lose 2 pounds, only 30 more to go before the wedding.

Thursday morning I ran a whole mile at 10-minute pace, walked a bit and then another half mile. I felt pretty good although my heart rate is still much higher than it used to be. Second week in a row I've gotten in 4 decent workouts and I'm feeling pretty good.