Goal!

I know it's been a while since I posted. I have been bad: I haven't exercised since I posted last that I did. I meant to go to zumba on Monday, but didn't get home in time. It's just been crazy busy every other day and haven't had a chance. Yesterday, we had a chance!

I decided that I had not swum in a long time, so swimming it was! My plan was to swim for an hour and see how far I could get. Remember, I had a goal to swim a mile in under an hour. I stopped swimming after forty-five minutes. Before you start yelling at me, I SWAM A MILE!!!! :D

I seriously thought that the clock was wrong because it didn't seem like it was taking me any time at all. I probably could have done it faster...at 1000 meters, I swam a fast 100, then a normal 100 and kept that up until 1600 meters. At 1300 meters, I was feeling quite tired, so I did my normal 100 breaststroke. I did the next normal at breaststroke, too. If I had kept up with freestyle, I probably could have done it in less than 45 minutes, but I needed a breather.

I was/am so proud of myself! One goal down!

exercise did not happen

My intention was to go exercise today after my six hours of training. But, I was exhausted from the long, early day and took a nap. I was bad.

My back is killing me

I don't know what it is. I exercised on the machines today: elliptical 35 minutes, hand bike 15 minutes. When I was on the elliptical, my back was tensing up. It has been achy all day, but it was more so when I was on the machine. I probably could have done more on the elliptical, but I just couldn't handle my back hurting so much. Ben was on the hand bike at the time, and about 15 minutes before I was done, I asked him if he would switch with me when I finished. So, we did. I was so glad to be sitting down where my back wasn't locking up. It was the muscles, too. Usually my back pain is spine related.

Sigh, I don't know. Could be from sleeping cockeyed on the bus or it could be from Triumph. Eh, whatever. Hopefully it will go away soon.

Reflections from the Boston trip

So, we had limited access to the internet and the gym down the street did not honor our Ohio membership, so our exercise consisted of walking almost everywhere we went. I wasn't able to keep my food journal, but I tried to eat as healthily as possible whenever I could.

Anyway, on to the reflections I mentioned. I have been thinking. I think I'm trying to do too much at once. I am going to stop doing the food journal, but I went grocery shopping today and did not buy ANY frozen dinners. I have decided it is salads for me for a while. So, I bought green leaf lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms and I can use olives I already had for a nice salad each day for lunch. I'm still going to do my yogurt and pickle, but I also got some apples and bananas that I can add as well. I'm hoping that changing my diet will help me lose some of the weight that I haven't been able to lose throughout this whole process.

I am going to continue exercising, of course. I went to zumba last night and did 45 minutes, because I was 15 minutes late. Next Wednesday I can finally go to the morning one again. I really liked that one. Ben and I are meeting a friend at the gym tonight. I haven't decided if I am going to just do machines or if I'm going to do some laps in the pool. I think I will save the laps for Friday, since I want to talk to our friend.

I am going to go measure my stomach and thighs now. I don't remember what it was before, but I will check it once I post this. Stomach is 38" and thighs are 23.75"

I doubt there was any progress, but it's been two weeks and it needed to be updated.

**Edit: I just read the post where I had originally measured. Great. Friggin wonderful. You know, sometimes I feel like nothing I do is working. It seems like the more I do to try to lose weight, the more weight I gain and the bigger I get, meanwhile Ben drops the L.B.'s like a little league outfielder. Why is nothing helping?

Food in Boston

So, Ben and I are headed to Boston for a week. I don't know if I'll have internet access, but I plan on taking my laptop with me. We'll see.

Anyway, to cut costs for food, I am taking a bunch of stuff that will keep on the road and for lunch, so we can splurge a little at dinner. I am taking rice cakes (white chedder, carmel corn and salted), cashew butter (like peanut butter), strawberry jelly, muffins (blueberry and banana nut), triscuits (parmesan garlic for Ben and sun dried tomato for me), apples, sausages, olives and ho-ho's. Hopefully I will be able to keep myself from eating too many of the ho-ho's. I can live with myself eating one, maybe two.

There's a lot of stuff to do in Boston that is within walking distance and we hope that the weather will not be too bad that will allow us to do that. I don't think they have a fitness room or indoor pool, so we will have to find somewhere, somehow to exercise.

**Edit: I just looked and found out that there is a gym right down the street from the hotel! Yay!

We hope to have a good time! Wish us luck!

Food Journal 3/7/2009

Lunch-
2 bowls of pasta with homemade marinara sauce
Simply Apple juice
Orange juice
1 Marshmallow Egg

ExerciseS and Food Journal 3/6/2009

So, I got up semi-early and went to swim a little in the pool. I did diagonals again, which would have been better if they hadn't put plexiglass in between the indoor and outdoor pool access. Every time I've been there, even when the outdoor pool was closed, the access under the water was open. Now, I'm not saying that's safe. It's not, in fact, when the outdoor pool is closed. But when you are trying your very best to do laps in an oddly-shaped pool and the pool is not very large to begin with and the water is hitting the sides of the pool and coming back at you, it's like swimming in your own personal ocean. I only did 400 meters. I counted my strokes again. This time it was much closer. One diagonal was about 12 strokes, and a 25 meter is about 24 or 25. So, eight diagonals was 100 meters. BUT, after I was done with the 400 meters, I did some aqua aerobics.

Then, in the evening, I went to pick up the dog from the friends who were watching her. They were headed to zumba. Did someone say zumba? I'm in! I didn't sit down once, though I did have to take my foot out of my shoe several times and I took a small break to the water fountain once. But I was really proud of myself.

Food journal behind the cut.




Breakfast-
Strawberry/Banana Yogurt...I don't know if it was fat free...I forgot to check
Granola (The hotel's room service granola was THE BEST granola I have ever had in my entire life. It had the oats and raisins you would expect, but it also had cashews and dried cranberries. I think it had honey in it, but I was able to get past it because it was SO INCREDIBLY GOOD.)
1 Strawberry
4 Pineapple slices
4 Cantaloupe slices
1 Honeydew slice
Tomato Juice

Lunch-
Baked Potato with cheese and butter
Some kind of Stew type thing...it was good. It had stewed tomatoes, zucchini, Mushrooms and Beans
Salad (Lettuce, Almonds, Oranges with a vinaigrette maybe?)
Pomegranate/Cherry flavored water
Pineapple flavored Lifesaver

Dinner-
Two bowls of pasta with steak sauce (yes, you read that right...I'm a freak)
Calcium Enriched V8

Exercise

I did 35 minutes on the exercise bike here at the hotel. I was doing "random hill" setting, so there were varied resistant levels. I so wanted to exercise more, but my legs were burning and there were no arm machines other than weights. I am going to swim tomorrow morning, and possibly tomorrow night if I get back in time to go with Ben to the gym. We'll see. :)



Saturday is a party. I am really looking forward to it, as is Ben, but it will be a test of willpower because I don't know what kind of foodage they will have. I think I may just eat before we go.

Food journal 3/5/2009

Breakfast-
1/3 slice Banana Walnut loaf
English Toffee Cappicino

Lunch-
Chicken Wrap
5 Celery sticks
3 Broccoli pieces
3 Cauliflower pieces
Ranch dip
Raspberry Lemonade flavored water

Dinner-
2/3 of a small Gnocchi al Telefono from Buca di Bepo's
1 1/2 slices of bread
Raspberry flavored Italian Soda

exercise (lack thereof) and food journal 3/4/2009

So, I wanted to go to zumba so much today...and then didn't watch the time. It was 10:45 by the time I remembered, and it started at 10. Grrr.

I will have to exercise extra, extra at the hotel.


Lunch-
1 bowl leftover pasta with homemade marinara sauce
Chicken Margherita cafe steamer
Orange juice
2 Marshamallow Eggs

Dinner- (I <3 Indian food!)
Chicken Tikki Masala with rice
Mango Lassi

weight

I weighed myself again today. 154.6

I'm not a happy camper, to say the least.



**Edit: So, I was a little upset when I wrote that earlier. I am still not happy, but I think I've calmed down to where I can rationally talk about it.

I just want to see some kind of result. Something. Something that lets me know that the exercise and the blogging and the food journaling have meant something.

I decided that in addition to watching the scale, I would measure my tummy and thighs (since that's the two areas I feel the worst about).

As of right now, my tummy is at 37 inches and my thighs are 23 1/2 inches.

Ben tried to help by telling me he thought I looked more toned. I told him to stop. It sounded gratuitous. I know it's because he loves me and he doesn't want me to be upset, but it was just the wrong time to bring it up. So, with his opinion in mind, I will be checking my circumference as well as my gravitational pull. :)

Exercise update and food journal 3/3/2009

Ben exercised today while I was at work. Then, he met me there after he had class. I got there about 10 minutes before he did, so I got straight to work. I ended up doing 45 minutes on the elliptical. I was so proud of myself! For the first ten minutes, I went at an easy pace. Then, I kicked it up a notch for the next 10 minutes. For the third set of 10 minutes, I did five one-minute wind sprint intervals (1 minute sprint, 1 minute "kicked up" pace). Then, I went back to the easy pace for the last 10 minutes and then had a 5 minute cool down.

Food journal behind the cut.


Breakfast-
Banana
2/3 Sausage/Egg/Cheese Biscuit
English Toffee Cappicino

Lunch-
Sweet and Sour Chicken meal
1/2 Pickle
Peach Fruit on the Bottom yogurt
CranGrape flavored water

Dinner-
2 bowls of pasta with homemade marinara sauce
Orange juice

hunger

For whatever reason, I'm still hungry. If you looked at my food journal, you'll see that I didn't skimp on the eatin' for dinner. I don't know what it is. I actually feel pretty much as hungry as I would if I hadn't eaten anything. It is really, really hard not to eat anything, because I know that I already did eat a decent amount...and yet my tummy is telling me differently.

I think I might swing by the store and grab some tortilla chips and take the leftover hummus with me to watch House with Ben.

I didn't go to zumba today (me=sad) because I didn't get home from work in time to take care of the dog, fix dinner and get to the gym. I have been wondering if I need to start exercising more on the days when I do exercise. I have been reading about other people's exercise schedules, and it has them exercising about two hours per exercise day. Mine's about one hour. Maybe I need to double it. I don't know. We'll see.


**Edit: I ended up stopping at Chipotle and getting a bag of their chips. I figured, that way I would not overeat, which was something I was worried I would do if I got an entire bag of tortilla chips. It definitely helped and it wasn't too terrible of a snack. :)**

Food Journal 3/2/2009

I have not been able to resist temptation very well today at work. :(


Lunch-
Garlic Tuscan Inspired Chicken Meal
Raspberry Cheesecake yogurt
1/2 Pickle
CranGrape flavored water
1 Mini Twix
1 Werthers hard candy
2 Hershey's Mini Nuggets w/Toffee and Almonds
1 Milky Way Mini
1 Marshmallow Egg

Dinner-
2 bowls of pasta with homemade marinara sauce
5 Peanut Butter Dibs
2 Marshmallow Eggs
Orange Juice

Goals and Food journal 3/1/2009

Is it seriously March already? Good grief. Didn't I have a goal set on here? What was it? Give me a sec and I'll look back...I did have a goal, but it was about swimming a mile. I'm good. I guess I should set a weight loss goal, huh?

Ummmmmmm...

Considering I've lost about a pound in three weeks, let's say ten pounds by the end of the summer. That gives me until September 1, my brother's birthday. (I'm not going by school calendars or by seasonal calendars. I consider the summer over at the end of August.) That is exactly six months. Twenty four weeks. Hopefully it is a reasonable goal.

Food journal behind cut. Food eating was unique today because we played in a tabletop game. I think I did pretty well for gaming eating, but in essence I was grazing all day, so there really wasn't a "lunch" and "dinner."


Roast Beef/Turkey Sandwich with Mayo and Mozzarella
5 Celery Sticks
13 Cherry Tomatoes
Ranch Dip
Multigrain Chips
Roasted Red Pepper Hummus
1 Venison Sausage slice
3 Cheese wedges
2 Gummi Bears
Bowl of Cheese Curls
5 Beef Jerky pieces
4 Chocolate Carmel candies
2 Chocolate candies
11 oz Blueberry Lemonade soda
11 oz Lime Cranberry soda
11 oz Blood Orange soda