Monday Cat Blogging

Cardio Day

I had a plan of running along the trail that is close to my home. That was the plan. Now, I don't know. I will not have an opportunity to go to the gym for another 32 hours... at least.

Maybe if I just walk very fast everywhere I go today?

Losing It In All The Wrong Places

Well...this is a fine how do ya do! After two weeks I'm finally noticing some significant changes in my body. I'm getting smaller...yes I am...there are parts of me that are slimming down very nicely. Trouble is, it's not particularly where I want to be slimmer. I'm losing weight on my feet like crazy; so much so that I can barely keep my shoes on through the day. I also seem to be getting thinner fingers as my wedding ring feels on the verge of falling off.

But my belly? Oh...it's still sticking out there to beat the band.

Monday Cat Blogging

Compromise

I happen to like rice. It's easy to prepare, cheap, nutritious, non-fattening, and goes well with just about anything. The common wisdom; however, is to eat brown rice rather than white. Trouble is....I don't particularly like brown rice. Oh, I can eat it and I can tell myself that it's better for me than the fluffy white rice while I'm spending several minutes trying to chew a mouthful, but there is no joy in the meal. One thing I have learned is that, if I don't like what I'm eating, I'll quit eating it eventually and most likely will find something else that is not so good for me. So I compromised. I've mixed half and half of brown rice with some sticky sushi rice. The blend is perfect, giving me the best of both.

And I think this is the secret to sucess on any type of planned eating. I see a lot of people go on diets that are all about exclusions. Don't eat this. Never eat that. I see a lot of people fail those diets because....let's be honest....those that need to diet do so because they LOVE to eat. I just feel that you do not have to give up the pleasure of food in order to be healthy.

Monday Cat Blogging

The end of my first week on the BFL challenge sees me with 214 lbs. Not exactly going in the right direction as far as weight loss, but I feel a bit better.

Start

Yesterday was my first day in starting a 12-program. I've decided to get down to basics and go back to Body for LIFE. I've also decided that I didn't particularly like putting up before photos of myself for all my readers to gag on...so I spared everybody the especially horrifying parts.

I'm not in as bad of shape as I have been in the past. My weight is 213 lbs, which is much lower than it was at the first of the year. I lack a great deal of muscle tone so, though I've lost about twenty pounds, I'm basically just a slightly smaller version of myself rather than physically fit. That's kind of why I went back to BFL with it's emphasis on weight training as an integral part of the whole process of losing weight. I did an upper body workout yesterday and pushed it to my limits...which wasn't much, but I'm hoping that ceiling gets higher every week. Today is cardio and I thought that I would do some fast walking for a couple of miles.

Oh....and I felt comfortable being at the YMCA. I made the right decision.

Sweet Little Lies

Twenty of them actually. Sweatshirts. Large and bulky, great for hiding the gut and helping me to ignore being overweight and out of shape. I wear these almost exclusively. My favorites are the XXLT sizes.

Trouble is...as the weather gets warmer...it gets a bit harder to keep wearing them. There is a reason why they are called sweatshirts. With the onset of Spring and temperatures climbing into the 80's, the little lie that I tell myself and others that I wear these shirts because they are comfortable starts to appear somewhat delusional.

Easter Cat Blogging

Weighing a Decision

A couple of weeks ago, my membership to Anytime Fitness expired. I hate to mention that I didn't exactly wear out my membership card by using it, but I have goals of getting more into a gym than I have of late. Yet, this was a good time to think about whether I wanted to re-up at Anytime Fitness or try someplace else. I briefly considered some other gym memberships in town but, I've been burned before with gyms that suddenly go out of business leaving you hanging with already paid dues, so I wanted one that I was sure would be around for a good long time. That left me with two...Anytime Fitness and the YMCA.

Both are pretty solid. So I did what I always tell my clients to do when they want to make a choice between two seemingly equal options...I made a pro and con list.

ANYTIME FITNESS pro:

Close to home, less than five minute drive

Clean

Good equipment

Open 24/7

People are serious about fitness

No rug rats running around without parents

Cheapest membership in town

ANYTIME FITNESS con:

A bit small, doesn't take much to make it crowded

A lot of self-appointed trainers

Weight machines and treadmills...that's all

It seems most people can't exercise without talking on their cell phone

YMCA pro:

Three gyms in my town

Good equipment...gobs of it

More people my age

Swimming pool, racket ball court, sauna, shower, locker room etc., etc.

Other people leave you alone and don't try to train you

YMCA con:

A bit of a drive, about 15 minutes without traffic or snow

Membership cost is double of Anytime Fitness.

Sometimes crowded and cannot get on the equipment you want

Lots of people seem to just lounge on the equipment and socialize

Kids playing on the cardio equipment as if they are playground monkey bars

Closes in the evening during the week, shortened hours on Sunday, closed on holidays.

After making the list, I wasn't much closer to deciding. I finally had to go with something that really can't be quantified....I feel comfortable working out at the YMCA. Don't get me wrong; Anytime Fitness is a great place, it's just that I've never felt at ease going there. I can't really explain it other than to say that I don't feel the need to "dress up" to go work out when I've gone to the YMCA.

So, I'm back at the Y.

Monday Cat Blogging

Too Thick

All right, I guess it is possible to make a shake too thick. I'm fiddling around with these, trying to find just the right flavor and consistency for my morning shake..smoothie...whatever you call them. This morning I tried the usual vanilla Myoplex mix with a cup of blueberries, a cup of fat-free milk, and a container of vanilla fat-free yogurt that I had earlier frozen. The result was a super duper thick shake with the added bonus of small chunk of yogurt that my blender couldn't quite handle. It's still pretty tasty but a bit hard to drink so I'm eating it with a spoon like ice cream. Next time I'll try chopping up the frozen yogurt first, maybe use less blueberries, and add a bit more milk.

Monday Cat Blogging

Springtime in Kansas

Sticking To It

And still sticking them on...nicotine patches, that is. Lots of people tell me that the first few days are the hardest but that's never been my problem. For me, the first few days are the easiest. My sinuses clear up, my cough goes away, I no longer feel like I have a perpetual cold. I feel great. I love it. This is why I don't want to smoke anymore...so I can feel that way all the time.

Then I start to forget how bad it felt while smoking. I still have all the triggers in my life that urged me to light up forty or so times a day. The stress is still there. The hunger for bad food. The boredom. The plain old habit of puffing on a cigarette in conjunction with most of the things I do.

And I start telling myself....."you can smoke a little, you have it under control, you have a free day with dieting surely it's okay to have a free day with smoking". Crazy stuff....stuff that makes sense to the part of my brain that really misses the cigarettes. I woke up at 2am this morning and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. While sitting at the table I glanced at the patch on my arm. Having the patch helps in a lot of ways and one is that, while I am wearing one, I can't smoke or it makes me very sick. Yet, while looking at my arm early this morning, I had the thought "if I take it off now, it will be out of my system by the time I wake up, I can smoke for a couple of hours before putting another back on".

As I said...crazy.

That's addiction for you.

Purple Food

Blueberry shake for breakfast this morning. Made with water rather than milk this time. Not thick like I like it...but still good and I can chug it down a lot faster.

Breakfast of Champions

It's just amazing how much better everything tastes when served in my favorite glass. In this case; a Myoplex shake with strawberry, mango, and pineapple tossed in.

Ides of March

It just feels like a most auspicious time to pull everything together and strive toward that ever elusive goal that is the title of this blog. It's March 15th...the Ides...the Idus Martias...an old Roman holiday which was filled with fun and feast for all, except Julius Caesar I suppose. It also provided a great throwaway line in one of William Shakespeare's plays.

It's so close to spring you can smell it. No more snow (maybe) and the temps are mostly well above freezing. Daylight savings time is in place to kind of jump start the season; granting an extra hour of daytime in the evening while everybody is inside watching TV.

And, of course, Sean is all hot to start a challenge and I'm thinking that it might be good to start one with him. I can't think of anybody more enthused about doing things than Sean. If ever a guy can be called "bubbly" it would be Sean.

One problem though....I have no gym at the moment. My membership expired at my last one and I'm considering going back to a membership at the YMCA. Trouble is, since it's a corporate rate membership, I have to wait until all the red tape clears up between the Y and human resources where I work. Until then, I've dragged out my dumbbells. It's not very convenient and I'm pretty limited on what I can do with them...but I got an upper body workout done for today. This is the year I move beyond trying to reach the goal of being fit past fifty and achieve it.

What say'st thou to me now? I'm a dreamer?

perhaps

Monday Cat Blogging

I Get Knocked Down

Monday Cat Blogging

I Miss the Ocean

It's a fact that Kansas is about as far from an ocean that you can get and still be in the U.S. Therefore, if you love seafood and live here, you're just S.O.L. Oh...there are places you can go to eat something that may have been dragged out of an ocean at one time or another in the past few years; but nothing approaching what would be considered good eating.

Take Red Lobster for instance. Saying that Red Lobster serves seafood is akin to claiming that Taco Bell is a Mexican restaurant. The names for the food is all there. There is a decor trying to get you to believe you're getting the real thing. The commercials and the menus are packed with visual clues to make you think you're at the place to get what you crave.

But-the-food-is-crap!

I received a $10 off coupon from my credit card for Red Lobster the other day. I've usually been sorely disappointed with the place but...hey....ten bucks would just about pay for one meal....may as well load up the wife and head on over for a lunch. The fish and chips were always barely acceptable, so I figured I could have that rather than just making a baloney sandwich at home.

Red Lobster no longer sells the fish and chips. Instead they have shrimp and chips. So I shrug and get that instead. The shrimp (all five of them) was greasy and tasteless. The chips were not fries but potato chips, which were actually the best part of the meal. The soda was flat and, for nearly three bucks, it would have been nice to have at least one refill. My wife had some shrimp meal that was likewise gross. We ended up fighting over my chips and leaving the restaurant hungry.

I wish I had the baloney.

Monday Cat Blogging

Morning Cardio

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Yeah....right.

Ski Kansas!

Just Do It

I start off the day shoveling my walk and clearing the snow and ice off my pickup. Why? Because it's fun? Because I like it? No. Because I have to get to work. Because I have to make a living. Because if I don't do those two things...I'll have to do other things that I like far less. I may not like going to work on a cold winter morning but I sure do like getting a paycheck.

Kinda the same goes for exercise. Do I like to exercise? Well, yes and no. I like the effects of exercise but I'm not really wild about the application. And, like going to work, it seems I can't get one without the other.

Monday Cat Blogging

All Dressed Up and No Way to Go

It is starting to seem that this winter will never end. Every day off that I've had from work....every one of them since mid December...it's either snowed or I've had to deal with snow. I've got things to do! One thing I would really like to do is drive to the gym without feeling like I'm risking my life on the roads. There is only so much you can do at home. I need iron! I need to run!

But here I sit, watching big fat snowflakes fall hour after hour, with myself getting fat as well.

Control

I think that snowstorms suck but, like many things in my life, I don't really have any control over events...just how I react to them. I can sit moaning and groaning about the weather all winter long; it's not going to change a thing. The snow is still on the ground. It's still cold. The cosmos doesn't care about my comfort or convenience. All I can do is try to stay warm and wait patiently until Spring.

I can't control other people. Oh sure, I can manipulate a little but it's very temporary and entirely dependent upon another in allowing themselves to be swayed. I can't even get my cat to do what I want. She will blithely claw up the furniture no matter how much I yell at her. About the only thing I have a modicum of control is my own body.

Even that is selective.

I can't control getting a cold. I can't control aches and pains after working out. I can't control all the effects of steadily getting older.

I can control my weight. Wow! I really do get the total decision on what I put in my mouth and how often. I get to decide if the food I do eat is stored as fat or if my body moves around enough to build muscle and burn calories as fuel. Right now I'm losing about one to two pounds a week. That's not something that is happening to me, it's something I'm doing to myself.

I am in control.

Monday Cat Blogging

Okay...It's Snowed Enough This Year

Sigh....another day off for me and another snowstorm. I haven't been able to take care of several things that I need to do because it seems to snow every time I have time away from work.

These are the days where I see a real advantage of a home gym.

Hard Drug

I've never had to struggle with anything like I have in giving up smoking. As a little background about myself, I use to do drugs....lotsa them. I never really got into alcohol but I tried and liked just about everything else that was out there. How I managed not to wind up dead or in prison is a testament to luck of the stupid rather than any skill on my part. I did reach a point in my life where pretty much everybody that was important to me didn't really like me, so I made some changes, starting with giving up drugs and the lifestyle that went with it. It wasn't all that difficult. I just didn't do drugs anymore. No 12-step. No intervention. I just became tired of who I was and started doing things differently. I stopped my addictions.

Well...almost. I'm having a fight with smoking. Have been for quite a while. Sometimes I win. Most times the cigarettes win. I've held them off for today. Tomorrow....who knows?

This is the hardest drug for me to leave behind.