I am aware!

I remembered to weigh in today. Up half a lb. since I started working, though I completely forgot last week's weigh-in, so who knows? I ended the month of April down. And that's why I post those scary little numbers only at the end of the month. Whatever else may be going on in my life, at least I get a sense of overall trend in those monthly stats.

Is there a blogger award for typing entire posts with your thumbs?? I have been remiss in all things weight loss: tracking food, measuring, working out, and blogging. Yep, that just about covers all the things I rely on in my "journey". Hence I find myself knocking this out on my blackberry on the subway.

Positives: since I didn't really cut out any foods or drinks from my "program" (everything in air quotes when you're blogging pre-coffee), I don't feel I went outta control "off" plan despite not tracking and measuring. That helps. Also I did wake up and go for a run yesterday. Since I could only spare 30 minutes, I incorporated sprints. My goal is to wake early on 2 weekdays to workout and then get 2 sessions of activity in on the weekend. Or honestly, even one weekend session if I'm really exhausted come Sunday. Not ideal, I know ("ideal"!) but I want to be realistic and aim for something achievable and sustainable.

Sadly my bodybugg has been on the fritz and has thus not been a part of my life this past week. Luckily my friend (who gave me a bugg when she purchased one for herself) will allow me to borrow hers to help me diagnose what is ailing mine (not sure if it's the arm device or the display watch, which has a fresh new battery btw). But I would like to incorporate that into my plan - even if the bugg may be more obvious under work clothes, potentially inviting commentary or questions. I got by in the past with it's a pedometer.

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Struggle

So sore. Went to my strength training class last night. With the federal holiday, I was able to rope in a friend who had the day off who normally wouldn't be able to make the earlier start time of the class. Too bad, because it was so fun to have her there. Knowing I'd be meeting her there would totally remove some of the struggle from getting myself there every week. (I do usually get myself there, but not without some inner debate between my funk and fit selves.) 

I started this post unsure of its tone. I have been struggling the last week, but also doing some very positive things, so I decided to just freestyle here. Looking back over the last 10 days or so, I see positive and negative. Achievements and setbacks. And I realize that's not unique to this FitQuest, nor is it unique to me. That's just life. So how can I be positive about the negative?

I ran 18 miles last week - that's huge! It included a 6-mile run. I'm very proud of that achievement, but there's a small part of me that fears I won't be able to continue to progress. I have a training program in Excel, where I mark off each scheduled run as it is completed and I have to say lately I've become somewhat ambivalent. I'm really excited to gray out the number in the cell to signal completion (yay!), but then find one eye wandering (not literally) down the sheet and agonizing, "7 miles?! When is that run? No way!" Struggling...

Message From Above interlude: as I was staring at the paragraph and confronting my running fears, the cursor hovered on the toolbar at the top of the screen and displayed this wisdom from the Laptop Gods, "Change system appearance and behavior, or get help." I am soooo trying to change system appearance and behavior! 

So I'm thinking that admitting there is struggle is the first step. Awareness is good. Now what can I do with that awareness? This might be a good time to review and retrench. I'm on top of the running at the moment. That is my anchor, my main fitness activity with built-in progress points, increasing challenge, fairly easy to execute. (Well, "easy" is not the word, but it can be done anywhere with minimal equipment, etc.) Yoga has fallen off a bit. Or rather, I have slacked off on the yoga. This, too, is something that could be done independently. There are a couple classes I enjoy at my gym (a sunk cost as the membership is already paid, so why not go and maximize the investment already??), but could also be done at home via iTunes or using one of the many routines I happen to have from back issues of Yoga Journal or yoga books I own.

I also think I've been slipping back into on or off eating. I wrote about trying to check in with measuring some commonly eaten foods, like last post's peanut butter debacle. You say tablespoon, I say teaspoon. Let's call the whole thing off. No! Off is bad. My food planning and tracking has been a huge (you guessed it) struggle of late. I don't really plan per se, just try to have a variety of healthy fair on hand, which requires me to rely on the tracking part of the equation. And if I don't track one meal, there's no point in tracking the next and the whole thing snowballs until I can't remember when I last recorded what I ate - or what I ate for that matter. And it couldn't be easier to do! I do it online and the database is full of stuff I eat regularly. 

Alright. Enough whinging then. I already did the strength class this week. (Yay, one cell in the spreadsheet tackled!) I will do the runs. I will do some yoga, even if it is a solo session at home. I will track every meal this week and focus on assessing portion sizes. Struggle be damned, I know I can do these things this week. And I'll worry about next week when I get there.

Again already

I'm baaaaaaaack. I just posted yesterday, but that post really helped me, so I'm going to try posting more and see how that goes. For one thing, I was really in a funk over the last week and since the title of the blog is Less Funk More Fit, well, I needed to get myself sorted. I find that it's really hard for me to post when I'm feeling blah. Which is probably when I most need to write down or try to capture whatever is swirling around in my head. And which may, in turn, help someone else, which is a really cool aspect of this whole blogging deal.

Posting helped me psych myself up for the gym, which I had been trying to gear up for all day and had only gotten to 50/50 on before the entry. Exploring perfection also got me thinking about the Strength class I was hemming and hawing my way out of attending. The last few times I've gone, I have been nitpicking the moves and not enjoying it as much as I did in the past. Yesterday it occurred to me that unless I plan on developing my own fitness class, there is likely never going to be some perfect class I love every time from start to finish. So I really enjoyed last night's class. I tried to go all out ("it's only an hour") and tried to complete all the sets, even when things started burning. There was only one point I rolled my eyes ("how many freaking lunges are we going to do anyway?!"), but caught myself and made a conscious effort to shift my focus.

So much of this journey is my own attitude. I felt good about my performance in the class and instead of nitpicking my instructor's choices in moves and music, I instead appreciated her for pushing me much farther than I would have ever contemplated going on my own.

In other update news, BF placed an order for groceries online and I reminded him to order me my recovery drink (chocolate milk.)  We had some back and forth on the selection; one was my organic standby and the other was the holy grail of milk from the dairy found at area Farmers' Markets, which had just added some of their products to the online grocery service. Well, when I came back from a 4-miler today, lo and behold, both were in the fridge. Apparently BF forgot to delete the first one ordered after I found out about the holy grail. "Chug up," says BF. Mmph. I'll chug up - in moderation. But that's a lot of milk!

My last couple weigh-ins have been flatlining or to put a positive spin on it: Maintenance Preview. So I'm really trying to get my fitness on, but not in a punishing way, more of a take-the-bull-by-the-horns-you-go-girl motivational approach. I've also tried to track my food better. Today I revisited weighing & measuring, the dastardly duo dreaded by losers the land over. (Even for the sake of alliteration I won't say "dieters".) When I track my food online and select natural peanut butter (ingredients: peanuts), it defaults to 2 Tablespoons as a serving, which I thought was absurd! "No way do I eat 2 T's of PB," and I'd change it to 1. Well, 1 might be sufficient on my whole wheat english muffins, but it only covered one piece of my whole wheat toast. Enlightening. And depressing. But why track if I'm going to make up some fantasy (perfectionist?) idealized version of my intake?

I want to own my journey. My decisions. I knocked out [x] miles... I worked out for at least an hour 6 days this week... I ate 2 Tablespoons of peanut butter... So be it.

Am I Half Fat?

I have been trying to post more than just the day I weigh in and thus, hopefully, talk about things beyond the scale's feedback. 

So what else is going on? I am committed to my running program and am now focused on running 4x per week and increasing mileage.  I just did 5 miles today. (I know!) My approach is still a bit helter skelter but that seems right. That is, I end up making up the session's running "program" as I go. Sometimes I run straight through at a 12-minute pace (5.0 mph) or I switch it up by going faster and incorporating walk breaks. Today I alternated a minute running a 10-minute mile (6.0 mph) with walking 4.0 for about 20 minutes, then switched to an 11-minute mile (5.5 mph) for about 4 minutes with 1 minute of walking. And so on, until I'd hit 5 miles. It's not ideal, but it keeps me from going crazy on the treadmill.  I need to take this show on the open road, soon!

Another thing that's been on my mind is the Body Fat % on my Tanita scale. It's been at about 43% since I started weighing in. That seems really high to me. And it doesn't seem to change! Does anyone else have experience or insight? I know it's not a completely accurate reading and I am only using it as a gauge, but I'd still like it to MOVE. I should mention that I am also, like George Costanza, a "pear-shaped loser" meaning I carry most of my weight below the belt. I've read that because the way the current travels in these scales, that they may overstate body fat % on those carrying weight in their lower halves (lotta junk in the trunk, if you know what I mean, ahem)

Which is probably why although I am gradually beginning to see my fitness improve, see small wins on the scale in terms of the "lbs.", and am starting to see some tone in my arms...I have not noticed my jeans getting too much looser. I guess they fit better, but it's not, "OMG, I have to get a smaller size asap!" Hopefully I am slowly melting from the top down....

Another theory I have heard is that people tend to lose lbs or fat and go through phases of losing each? So you might lose some lbs and then go down in body fat % without the scale moving?  I guess I'm not too worried at this point, but I would like to see that % decrease eventually!  Please.

I do love half-and-half, though...

Back in the 80's!

I rejiggered my sidebar to report my weight monthly here, so the next "official" post will be whatever the scale reveals on 1/26/10.  But I do weigh myself weekly and am happy to report that today, I finally dropped (more like tip-toed) down into the 80's. Woo-hoo! 

Yes, folks, that is a picture of what we used to call a record back when I was coming up.  The Jacksons!  REO Speedwagon! 

Of course I'm probably cursing myself celebrating my new low before the appointed hour, so my next post will be along the lines of Stuck in the 90's with a photo of some dark grungy Nirvana CD cover art.  No, no, I'm in the 80's, anything's possible! I can go from welder/exotic dancer to the fancy Conservatory!


I've got a workout schedule now that I'm a week or so into. Really it's what I've been doing over the past month, but a more formal version. I'm not working at the moment, so this will all need to be re-evaluated once I have to get out of bed before noon on a daily basis. 

• M- Strength training class

• T- Run (I have a mileage schedule, though still struggling with faster pace w/walk breaks vs. slower pace. Trying to just focus on completing the mileage for the day, however I do it!)

• W - Rest

• T - Run

• F - Run

• S - Yoga class

• S - Run

And trying to incorporate incidental walking throughout the week. Which is somewhat easy to do in NYC, but does require planning. (If the movie starts at 5:00 and will take 45 minutes to walk to, leaving at 4:30 equals taxi.)  Yes, this is fitness-intense, but as noted, I do have the time (if not always the mojo!) at least for now. 


I have a friend who was unemployed in the last big recession (at least in the NY area, 2002) and she still looks back fondly at the period as being her fittest ever. Which just shows it can go either way....the extra time can be filled with workouts (where I'm at currently) or the stress of the life change can leave fitness by the wayside (or weighside, where I was). 

That just reminds me how much of weight loss is in your head. The equation is so simple, but the reality is far from easy. How do you properly support yourself so that you balance pushing yourself with loving yourself? How do you pick yourself up and continue on the path after a bad weigh-in, skipped workout, pizzafest - or all of the above? I think reading blogs where the bloggers took years to lose their weight, where they captured ups and downs and plateaus and less-than-perfect choices really helps put in perspective that it's real life. 

You have to adapt and strategize constantly. It's not XYZ Diet Book with a list of Do's and Dont's. [Ominous movie preview voiceover:] This time, it's personal. What workouts do *I* enjoy? What do *I* like to eat (and drink)? What am I willing to live without? If I go overboard, how do I right the ship? I don't really know the answers to these questions, but I think asking them is a good first step.

Fun Run?

Even though I've been faithfully doing my C25k training runs and feeling pretty good afterwards (if not during and certainly not before as I cajole and harass myself into lacing up), I never thought I could get my head around the concept of a "fun run".  A fun dinner party, maybe. Fun date, sure. Fun night out drinking with friends...I could list dozens of "fun" activities before I scraped the bottom of the barrel with running. 

And yet, I had the most fun New Year's Eve ever running the 2010 Midnight Run in Central Park.  This is a 4-mile "fun run" that kicks off at the stroke of Midnight amidst fireworks and (sober) revelry in the heart of the Park. It was a balmy 34 degrees with little wind, which was good. Though it was snowing/raining and the roads were a bit slick at times. (Otherwise I totally would have won.)

I'm so glad I completed the race!  We didn't get a chip to track our exact times (this being a fun run and all), but I estimate I came in at about 50-55 minutes? Now I'm eager to run a race with the chip so I can get my personal time. My pace was erratic. I ran a faster pace with my boyfriend the first 2 miles, then waited and walked a stretch at that water station for my friend to catch up and ran a slower pace with her for about a mile, then ran the last mile myself. 

It felt good to be out there, despite the wet snow. A great antidote to the winter blahs I've been feeling. A lot of my favorite blogs are capturing this vibe lately, so I'm glad it's not just me.  I can't even blame holiday travel or festivities really...it's been a fairly low-key affair around here. Gym schedules get all mucked up, the weather makes me want to curl up with a book and a cookie, I feel sorry for myself that I'm not having some super terrific idealized holiday...who knows? Since my last post, I tracked my food a bit more, but there are still some gaps. I think I'm just going through one of those periods where I have to focus on doing the best I can, accepting that I have to just hang in there and cling to some minimal level of my plan instead of allowing myself to freefall completely (in my old Perfectionist way of being "off" or "on" plan), but rather to embrace days I eat more and days I eat less, days I burn lots of calories and days I burn less, as a way of life for the long haul versus some temporary regime to grow tired of until I come up with the "next" thing.

Running on empty

I find this photo inspiring. There's water behind her, greenery. She's got her water. And it doesn't look very hot outside. When I do encounter "optimal" running conditions outside, I don't think I appreciate them. I was running on vacation in London a few months ago, but instead of experiencing it as a fit and fun way to see the sights and take in the local vibe, as a fitness magazine might suggest as a tool to not gain weight on vacation, instead I just felt like everything was really far away. Or had thoughts such as: When will this song be over? How long have I been running? How red is my face? Look at how fast that dude is! 

I always enjoy it afterwards. And am glad I did it. Honestly it does help me when traveling. At least it clears my head and sets me up to want to eat fairly well the rest of the day. I think I just have this idealist vision in my head of effortlessly running among the landmarks that I never experience in reality.

I've been doing this about a month now and seem to have fallen into a groove.  Running via the C25k program 3 times per week. (Just started Week 6 today.) One strength class and one yoga class per week, typically. And lots of walking added in whenever possible. Foodwise, I'm just eating and drinking (ahem) as consciously as I can. Tracking calories. 1900 per day on average, sometimes more or less. Not putting any food on a "Do Not Eat" list. Slow going. Which is what I say I want. Until I step on the scale. Then I have to talk myself off the ledge and remind myself about the marathon versus sprint, living on a plan I can live with for the long haul, weekly weigh-ins only data points, blah, blah, etc. Knowing all that intellectually is all well and good. I need to feel it and live it intrinsically though. 

One final note. If I really want to avoid a funk, I should not compare my weight or weightloss (or lack thereof) with others.  Like, I should not, for instance, have my boyfriend get on the scale so I can see that I've got a good 12 lbs on him! I really did not need that information today!

Checkin' in

Just checkin' in. I should check in more frequently, just to keep myself on track, I suppose. I worked out a bit less this past week. The Thanksgiving schedule at my gym meant I missed my favorite yoga class. Then I missed my new favorite Body Conditioning class through my own fault (as we used to say in the confessional).

I did keep on track with C25K though. I finished up Week 3 - woo hoo! And am just about to head out to start Week 4 - yaaaaay (she said unconvincingly). Each week incorporates longer stints of running, obviously. I think this week will include a 5-minute running segment. Yaaaaaaaay!

I'm pretty content with my eating over the past few weeks. Trying to incorporate some new recipes and be conscious of what I'm eating. Primarily, that means enjoying what I'm eating or, if not, trying not to eat it. Why does that sound so elementary written out like that? Is it worth it?? That's what I need to remember. I even made a semi-healthy dessert. An apple crumble thing with rolled oats and nuts and uh, apples. I serve it warm with vanilla frozen yogurt and feel like I'm having a good time. It's good, but it's not something that I would go crazy overboard with. And vanilla frozen yogurt is not calling my name like, for example, mint chocolate chip or chocolate brownie ice cream would. ("Finish me!")

Next stop - 180's! Please! I'm so sick of the 190's. Actually knowing the way I lose (up, down, up, down) I know 180's won't be the next stop. But hopefully I'm on the 180's line? If not, I'll have to switch at an upcoming station. For now, this track is feels like it's working for me.

First Weigh-in 6 lbs, 13 ounces...How Did I Get Here?

My Weighty History

I was born long ago in a small village...just kidding. I was probably an average-sized kid, who got tall before she got fat, but around 10-11 years old was much bigger than her not-yet-tall friends. And being different (bigger) was not a good thing moving into middle school. I never dieted, ate 3 squares like a good midwesterner, but gradually moved a lot less (not running around outside as I moved into my teens) and ate a lot more junk. Some numbers I remember along the way ("weigh" ha ha): 6th grade - 130 lbs. Not sure how tall I was, but remember being very unhappy and rather annoyed that we had to be weighed in gym class! In 8th grade I weighed 185 lbs. Yikes, so that means I gained 55 lbs in (at most) 3 years?! Well I strategically avoided the scale until I joined WW at the age of 18.

WW - Old School

In 1988 I contracted a horrendous intestinal flu. I was out of commission for over a week, at one point vomiting almost every hour on the hour for 24 hours! The doctor had me on an IV at one point. Then for a week, had me slowly work back up to solid food, literally starting with a tablespoon of apple juice every hour, if I kept it down, 2 tablespoons, etc. I was so weak and miserable, but happy to be done vomiting. So fastforward a week and I returned to the crappy waitress job I had at the time, doctor's note in hand, but still not really up to solid foods yet. Well I passed out in a cloud of dishwasher steam in the kitchen and fessed up I hadn't really gotten completely back into real meals yet. A nice co-worker made me some toast and sent me home. And I recall sitting down to ponder, "Hmm, now that I haven't eaten for almost 2 weeks, what should I eat?? I wonder if I've lost weight...maybe I could lose weight...how would I do that, if that was something I wanted to do, not that I do?" And I stumbled on to Weight Watchers. I think it was in January, so there were lots of New Year's adverts & specials. So there I was weighing in at 235. (So who knows what a "high" weight was after 2 weeks of starvation mode?) And I took the pamphlets and went to the grocery store and made navigating the program my secret part-time job for a good six months. This was back in the day with "Exchanges", not Points. So I could have, say, 3 "Fruit Exchanges" in a day. There was a handy booklet to tell you, for example, 1 small apple or 20 grapes, are 1 Exchange. (I remember the grapes in particular because I used to count them out! Watch out you don't eat 21 grapes and blow the whole program!)

Finding my weigh on WW

So after my first week on WW, I gained 2 lbs! The leader grilled me on my Exchange knowledge and I was too stupid to tell her that instead of a Last Supper approach to joining WW like so many in the room, I had come to the program after a 2 week Flu Fast. I lost 6 lbs the next week and pretty much kept on keeping on thereafter, until I had lost over 80 pounds total.

Time keeps on slipping, slipping, into the future

I mostly kept it off, eventually going off program and settling into the 170-180 range for most of my adult life. Over a year ago I met, and soon moved in with, my fabulous boyfriend. For the first time, my fitness slid as I chose a.m. snuggles to pre-work sweat sessions, romantic wine-soaked dinners out to the sensible repertoire of recipes I used to live by. And soon my clothes were tight, then tighter, then unwearable. My pull-a-12-off-the-shelf shopping style became, "Do these come in a 16?" My 185-is-my-scary-weight became "This-scale's-broken-there-is-no-WAY-I-weigh-200!"

Program (if you can call it that)

So, long post short: I got myself into a funk and decided fitness would be my cure. I use a Bodybugg (it was a gift, I'll talk more about how I use it in a later post.) I am doing C25K. I am not on a diet (ugh), trying not to deny myself, cut out food groups or do anything crazy or otherwise make myself miserable. Basically I want to be more active, eat less, but still enjoy the ride. Sort of like taking the maintenance philosophy into the weight loss phase. I expect it to be slow, but I like it like that. This is how I intend to eat the rest of my life, basically. I will weigh in weekly. That is really the core of my "program" - keeping myself accountable. In the past, knowing I'd had a rough week made me want to skip the scale and make up the damage to have a better weigh-result the next week. ("But now that I'm writing this week off...mmm, donuts!") Weigh in weekly and deal with it! Own your journey! (That's me talking to me.)

Hopefully that provides readers ("reader"?) with a little background for now. I'll try to add more useful info in an easy-on-the-eye format soonish!

Bubble Bath

I began Week 2 of Couch to 5K today. Decided to take advantage of another sunny Fall day here in NY and run in Central Park. (Dear Central Park, I like water all year round. Why do you shut off the water fountains after Summer? You know I'm too uncoordinated to lug a water bottle or strap one of those water-lugging belts around my waist!)

So this week's program consists of 90 second run interval followed by a 2 minute brisk walk interval. I listen to a great podcast by Suz in which she's broken down the program week by week and set it to great music, mostly hip-hop and some 80's. It really makes the session fly. And is a lot more fun than trying to program my watch to beep annoyingly at me when it's time to switch from run to walk. I have a link under my "Mojo" section.

Or I could just link to it in this post....but that assumes I know how to do that. I need to get some blog skillz! (ETA: I figured out the link situation, woo hoo!) I started this because I got so much inspiration from reading the blogs of other Fit Questers, but only finally posted something after much flailing about worrying about how wiz-bang-wow other blogs were. Yeah. One day at a time. I will make it better, flashier, more informative. All in good time.

So Tuesday is my weigh-in day. I am down 1.6 pounds today. Hooray! I know most weight loss bloggers have cool info boxes about where they started, how far they've come, and what program they're on. That's something I'll add to, eventually, I suppose. But since it's pretty much just me reading at the mo, I'll put some basics here in a separate post, right after I publish this one. (Otherwise it will be waaaay too looooong.)

One thing I'm slacking on in my fit quest is strength training. Does anyone like to do it all? It seems I know people who are all cardio, all the time or that are on a program like Body for Life and way into their strength sessions and dread the cardio. So after a week or more of trolling my gym's class schedule, I finally made it to Body Conditioning last night. I survived and have the sore quads/glutes to prove it. It's only an hour and the variety keeps me engaged. The techno music killed me a bit, but after a while, it was just a dull, thudding background and I focused on the instructor dudes cues and the apparently 17,000 muscles he has in his abdominals, all highlighted to perfection behind his form-hugging sporty shirt.

The run session was a bit rough with the sore legs, but I feel proud to have persevered! And for that reason, I rewarded myself with a soothing bubble bath...ahhhh. Hot, steamy, sweet smelling bubbly water, a good book...and me, cramped into the Manhattan mini-version of a bathtub. Oh well. It was still relaxing! For a while...