Point Eight

Wow, so I get all excited and blog a few days in a row and then fall back to my lazy ways. Except it’s not so much laziness as “holy crap I’m busy!” Work is a flurry of responsibility, and did I mention I started training this week?!!!

I try very hard to get my workouts done in the morning before work. I’m really – and I mean really – not a morning person, so this means making a very determined effort to get my butt in bed at a decent hour so I can get up. This leaves me very little time between the time I get home and get to bed. So not as much blog time.

Whew, glad we got that over with.

Rog always jokes I’d be great in the military because I definitely follow the rules, and if someone in authority tells me to do something, 9.9999 times out of 10 I’ll do it, no questions asked.

(Except for the questions part. It’s not that I’m stupid, a lot of times I’m not listening because of the voices in my head and need things repeated. Like Possum from Fantastic Mr. Fox. Am I listening? Even I don't know.)


I’m gonna love this whole coach thing. ::happysnoopydance::

Let’s see: Yoga is on the menu (yay!) as is swimming, running, biking and oh yeah, something totally new and foreign to me: core. I put on my Big Girl Panties and trekked over to the gym at lunch for my first-ever dedicated core session today. It went much better than I anticipated, so all’s good on that front. I even went to the manly man part of the gym voluntarily. Twice.

The Work Lunch Program continues to rock my world! I love the whole control of my food these days. I know exactly what I’m eating. Not to mention (again) the self-economy perks.

I seem to have ignited my metabolism (finally!). Well, that and cutting my calories per day from somewhere upwards of 2500 to 3000 back down to a reasonable and much more weight-loss friendly 1500ish. I make a point of getting a lot of good fats, so for the most part, it’s not nearly as difficult as I expected it to be.

So week #2 numbers:
159.8
27.8% BF

I seem to have a thing for point 8. Er, or maybe my scale does.

This is faboosh, cause don’t forget we had the American Thanksgiving tossed in this past weekend. I tried in vain to eat nothing in Ohio, but my SIL is a damn good cook, and what can I say? I’m human! It's not very often I get really good, home cooked food, so I ate!

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's Thanksgiving here in the States. Happy Thanksgiving!

We're off to Ohio for a fun-filled family vacation, er, sort of. The family truckster will be loaded (note future tense verbiage -- we're always the last ones there) up with wiggly puppies and off to brother's house we go.

My niece is 4.5 years old and a lot of fun these days. I promised her a sleepover the last time we were there, so visions of a camp out on the living room floor in a pink Barbie tent dance in my head. Hope the floor is comfy! :-)

I swam last night with my coach's master's swim program! It went SO well. I'm crazy excited.

Ever since the Olympian clinic, I've been doing the dry land exercise she taught us -- sans tools. I'm in sorry enough shape that just the physical act of doing the drill is good enough for now.

At one point, coach says, "do 4 100's and keep them as close in time as possible." Uhm, ok. Cool.

So I do the first set and blink. The entire second 100 I'm thinking in my head, "either I'm way the hell faster than normal or way the hell slower!" Bam! Second set confirmed it.

FASTER.

Much, much faster.

So coach points out that the clock is digital, and we have a kindergarten conversation about math and telling time. (I SUCK at anything mathish. I mean it. I suck ass.) I explain to her that I can't possibly be as fast as I'm swimming.

1st 100: 1:46 per 100 yd.
2nd 100: 1:49 per 100 yd.

My last 100 2 weeks ago (in 25M pool: 2:15)

Anyway, coach sends me off to swim the 3rd, "as fast as you can" and she times me: 1:38!!!

Holy shit this works! Happy Snoopy dance!

Granted meters are longer than yards, and of course from the comfort of the couch, surrounded by modern math marvels -- like my laptop -- you can bet your pennies that I did a conversion, mostly because I'm in disbelief. Even with the extra length discrepancy in the pool, I'm just way the hell faster than I've ever been.

Finally, because I'm on a roll: I've followed my self-imposed diet for an entire week! This is also HUGE! I normally last about 4 hours on any diet.

Drumroll...

I've lost 2.2 lbs. and 1.5% body fat.

160.8
31.3%

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. Enjoy your families! I know I'll enjoy mine. :-)

The Work Lunch Program

I’ve managed to bring – and cook AND eat my lunch at work for the past two days now. I know this is something most people do daily, but it’s traditionally been difficult for me to successfully string together all three steps. IF I have something to bring AND I remember to actually bring it, odds are I won’t make it to the cooking and eating part of the equation.

I’ve never been one to cook a lot of food at once, so leftovers are never an option. It’s also physically impossible for me to spend more than 15-20 mins. in a store before I flip out, thereby impacting the amount of food we have in the house on any given day.

For this creative-food challenged girl, that leaves me in a bit of a quandary. What to do, what to do? I oftentimes solve this dilemma by going out to eat with my coworkers. What’s not to love? It’s fun, the food is usually waaaayyyy better than anything I could whip up, and it gets me out of the office.

But it’s also expensive – dollars-wise and weight-wise.

When I decided for sure I wanted a coach, I knew I’d have to run it past Moose. Not that he tells me what to do (hardy har har!). But I knew there’d be some discussion, and one of my ammunition points was, “I spent $170 on lunches and drinks out with the girls last month.”

YOU DID WHAT?!?!?!

I know, shocking, right? I combed the online banking statement 3 times to make sure I was adding it all up correctly. Holy shit!

After he came to, he told me I need to “stop that nonsense now” – and he’s right, of course.

Lord only knows how many calories are in those daily fun fests, but judging by the size of my ass these days, it’s a lot. Since Moose and I practically weigh the same right now (and he’s a foot taller), he’s onto something. (He eats Lean Cuisines for lunch).

And thus began the Work Lunch Program. I crafted it two weeks ago, but this is the first week it’s in effect due to my globetrotting. So far, so good.

The plan:

• I bring those Healthy Choice Fresh Mixers for lunch. They’re as close to canned dog food as I can get –no can opener or refrigeration required! They’re also 300 calories and 7g of fat or less. It doesn’t get any simpler than this. Even I can add water to a fill line.
• I can also run into the store and grab like 9 or 10 of these babies and be out in less than 4 minutes if the cashier has her act together.
• I bring low-fat string cheese and a dime bag with 1 oz. of jerky in it. These are my bribes to keep me away from the convenience store at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. when everyone else goes on an M&M hunt.
• I’m using all of my spare change for the $ .65 cans of Diet Coke. I literally have an entire desk drawer brimming with spare change, so this can last for the next 8+ years. Maybe 7 if they raise the price.

I know the game will change next summer/fall when I’m in the height of Ironman training and eating everything within a 5-mile radius, but hopefully I can establish some good habits now that will carry me through.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some ziti sauce to wipe off my monitor.

I swam with an Olympian today, what did you do?

My first thought when I saw the flash of the gold medal was, 'damn I shoulda brought my camera, or at least my BlackBerry'. And then I held it and it was oh so heavy. And then...I put it on and it was as cool as you'd imagine it would be.

We also got to hold her gun, but that's not as cool as the medal -- even though it had a handcrafted wooden handle and a lot of foreign stickers on it. (No, she's not a trained assassin -- the gun is part of her latest sport, modern pentathlon.)

"She" being Sheila Taormina. She's one of those career Olympians up there with the likes of, say, Dara Torres or Carl Lewis. You know, the familiar faces we see every 4 years. As we age and get older and fatter and grayer, they seem to remain frozen in time while getting faster and stronger.

She keeps showing up in new sports. How amazing is that? Swimming, then triathlon, then modern pentathlon. Damn, I'd be happy to quasi succeed at one!

Anyway, the gold medal was from the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta - 4X200 relay in swimming (freestyle). (Brief observation: she has the most amazing triceps I've ever seen on a man or a woman. I guess that's why she's a gold medal winner in swimming.)

She was the headliner at a swim clinic put on by TriSmart Coaching.

It was such a positive experience. I'm all about that these days -- surrounding myself with happy, great people! Sure beats being an Eeyore, doesn't it?

We started off doing dry drills and learning essentially one key workout we need to do to get stronger, thus faster in the water, then it was time to hit the pool to put the theory to the test.

I love it when I "get" things, especially swimming. I bitch and moan and whine a lot about swimming, but deep down - I actually like it. Maybe not 5K straight in the pool, but in general, the water....yeah, it's alright. Yeah...it's alright.

I'm way sorer than I should be for the wee amount of swimming we did today, but it's all good. Gotta hop back on the horse one of these days. :-)

Crazy is good

I bought the coolest scale the other day.

I'll say it again, in case you thought you read it wrong: I bought the coolest scale the other day.

It's not the most expensive model, nor is it the flashiest, but it has some great features. Like how much fat I am. Literally, how much of me is fat (more on that in a minute).

I've thought about getting one of these babies for awhile -- it falls into my plans for 2010. You know, if I'm going to the trouble to hire a coach to become faster, it kinda makes sense to become as lean as possible too.

See? I'm so not insane. Take that Mr. Einstein!

I got it at Sports Authority -- it was on sale for $60. I couldn't wait to get it home and feed it a battery.

Let's see -- I've had it 2.5 days and weighed myself no less than 2,000 times or so. It feeds me the same info every time, unlike my current scale. You know that scale. Everyone has one, or at least their parents or grand parents have one. It's analog and the spinner flips back and forth in the little window before stopping at a random number. With that scale, if I don't like the weight it reads, all I have to do is hop off and hop back on again. Chances are I'll be 5-15 lbs. different because it's a shitty scale.

I've used the vagueness of it though as another excuse. I think 2010 might be the year of number one and "no excuses". It's hard to track weight on a lying scale. (This is the same scale that Moose hid this summer. He's not allowed to touch the new one, er, at least hide it. I've chained it to my floor.)

I've got a spreadsheet going with a weekly weigh in for pounds --and for fat %. I'm doing an experiment of sorts -- making my Lean Down Challenge a goal and not some esoteric bullshit I spout off when my jeans don't fit out of the dryer -- as I head to the pantry for some chips.

I've figured out the math -- by not eating a barrel of movie popcorn a week and hitting the DQ for Blizzards, I can lose 15 lbs. this year. Seriously.

• I've replaced my beloved Stella Artois with my beloved Coors Light. That's 33 calories per bottle. I'll probably lose a pound a week from this modification alone.
• I eat salads from Chipotle instead of brimming burritos (no dressing).
• Ben and Jerry's has been bumped for Luigi's Italian Ice or lowfat popcorn.
• I'm taking my lunches to work now instead of eating out daily (this is brilliant. Not only do I control what I eat, it also helps pay for da Coach).
• Coke is out. Diet Coke is in, even if it does make me crazy. Crazy is good.

So, these are just a few of the modifications I've developed so far. My goal is to lose 43 lbs. Yeah, I know, it sounds like a lot, but before you become my Mother -- it's something I need to do. I need to answer the same burning question I come back to over and over which is: what would happen if I really tried?

And to not leave you hanging, this is just how roly poly I am:
67 inches
163.0 lbs.
32.5% fat
I'm not a math girl, but if that's true, then I'm hauling 52 lbs. of fat around. 52 lbs! No way in hell I'm hauling 52 extra pounds around Florida.