All posts in category Goals

200 POUNDS!


And we’re back again! For good this time? Probably not, but you never know, do you? In any case, there’s certainly news to report and I’ve promised my Health and Wellness Coach, Dr. Eeks, that I’d get back on the blog, post-haste! Actually, I promised her that I’d give it a revamp by (last) month’s end, but… some days, if my head’s still attached after I’ve brushed my teeth, that’s a GOOD SIGN!

In any case, I simply MUST post today because we’ve hit a landmark that cannot be ignored – 200 pounds! Yes, I have LOST over 200 POUNDS!!! And who do I have to thank? So many people! But who gets the major credit for putting me on the right path? Dr. Eeks!

We don’t work together as solidly as we did when I launched this blog, but I do still check in with her from time to time, and she is a very trusted adviser, not only to me, but to my family. Recently my sister had to go to the emergency room. She started getting a bunch of what I like to call “Medical Don’t Care” and the first person we called was Dr. Eeks, who patiently listened to our story and made her recommendations based off of what we told her. She was the only person who my mother would listen to about the matter.

I’m very thankful to Eeks and to her organization, Blooming Wellness, which is, at its heart, a blog about all things holistic wellness, prevention, public health, humor therapy. It’s also a blog that provides a special focus on ways to naturally reduce stress, depression and anxiety.

Holism may sound like some out there stuff, and in truth, I still raise an eyebrow to things like “laughter yoga”. OK, I raise my eyebrow and wait impatiently to try it! And I suggest that you take a good look at what she offers as well. From her homemade recipes for skin and facial lotion (just imagine ladies – you can put age defying creams on your skin without worrying about what animals it’s been tested on or what chemicals have gone into it!), to her alternatives for gluten allergy sufferers, there’s quite a breadth of subject, and if you manage to have a malady that is unmentioned, just tell it to her, and she WILL find help for you!

I didn’t mean this to sound like a advertisement for Dr. Eeks or Blooming Wellness, but it’s starting to look like one. I guess I’m just that grateful to her!

I am planning more posts in the coming days. I’d like to pick up where I started to pick up a while back, talking about what’s changed, and how. There’s so much to discuss, and besides, I have a book to write!

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by gendjlee on June 4, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Goals, Health, Medical Don't Care, Weight Loss
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Posted by gendjlee on June 4, 2013

http://exercisedammit.com/2013/06/04/200-pounds/

Diet


So, I’d posted just a little bit ago, basically saying that there probably wouldn’t be another post (the one I’d promised you at least) for a while, but here it is! See that, things are looking up already!

In my last article, “The Soft Re-Opening”, I mentioned a number of updates. The two I’ll focus on between this article and the next are diet and exercise. Of course, these are the very foundation upon which weight loss is built. Good health and fitness set upon the structure of diet and exercise.

This article will contain the first, diet. As indicated in the update, I want to go back a year and work our way to now, highlighting successes and failures, ideas tried, etc…

A year ago, Thanksgiving of 2011 had just passed and Christmas was on its way. I had started losing real weight (more than the typical water weight), which blew my mind. I didn’t think I had it in me. I’d really given up on ever losing weight without surgery. I hadn’t lost the first hundred yet, mind you, in fact, I’m not sure I was out of the “500 club” (how I refer to weighing 500 or more pounds; right now, I’m trying to get out of the 400 club) yet, but what I had lost was truly encouraging.

Still I overate at Thanksgiving, not quite as bad as years past, but I had a fill. I want to say the same thing happened Christmas. The truth is my eating habits weren’t much better. I was eating breakfast on most days, and given which week it was, I probably was struggling with recording what I was eating. I still have that struggle, but I’ve gotten better at it.

Even then, with the shoddy, inconsistent journaling that I was doing, it was having an effect – I was seeing on paper what I was eating. Even when I wrote it down from memory and forgot things, I still got a good idea, and having strings of days and occasionally weeks where almost all of it is there gives a VERY good idea of what one’s diet is like. It’s like giving yourself tools. You could walk into Harbor Freight and fill a cart with tools you need around your house and walk right out with them, just skip past the checkout lines – it’s a shopping spree! So why not give yourself the tools? I still have to ask myself that sometimes, when I’ve let myself get behind a day on the journaling.

I had a little splurge last night – a year ago a splurge might have involved a buffet or a discount at some restaurant, maybe Denny’s or Bennigan’s (yes, only the finest restaurants, thank you), or Breakfast with Becker at the TA truck stop/All You Can Eat diner. Maybe just a call to Carmelo’s in Bridgeton for a cheesesteak (garlic) stromboli (the thing’s a honkin’ monster!) with a couple of appetizers (variety!), something cola (mix garlic and cola and I can let out {oral} gastric emissions that will curl your nose hairs. And now you know that. Condolences.), etc…

Last night, I went to Bennigan’s with my friend Mark and his lovely girlfriend Kathleen. Kat had a burger, Mark ordered a Turkey O’Toole (sliced turkey, cheese, a little dijon on a pretzel roll. Quite nice), and I ordered a bricked rocket steak salad (with LOTS of nice green leafies and a light balsamic). Mark and I also ordered fajitas and shared them. I let myself eat more than I normally would, but still took home fajitas and salad. We also had some tortillas with salsa before dinner, and I had a slice of carrot cake after.

All told, not an unhealthy meal, except maybe the carrot cake at the end, and even then, only because it was as late at night as it was. But last year it would have been a lot worse, and before I’d started working with Eeks? *shiver*

I slowed down on the blog around the time my weight loss slowed down, which was late Winter, approaching Spring (I think). Around that time, I was still struggling with the journaling and really just starting to find some success with diet. One thing I’d learned from all this recording is that there really wasn’t enough consistency in my eating. There wasn’t a lot of balance either. I was eating breakfast consistently. That made a huge difference. But it wasn’t enough. I finally decided that I wanted to try three meals a day. I could eat at other times, if hungry, but I wanted three meals a day, morning, mid-day and evening.

And each of those meals would consist of a serving from each food group. You know, a balanced diet, almost! It’s funny, how simple this ended up being. I never really got that whole food pyramid business, which is now something completely different, thanks to government by Monty Python (who would probably do a better job – wouldn’t you all rather see Johnny Cleese up on the supreme court?).

The food schemes had always been complicated because it all boils down to a serving. What’s a serving? Depends on who you ask. Notice that the food companies change serving sizes to suit their needs – their needs being you feeling secure enough about the nutritional values to buy the product.

So what exactly IS a serving? I decided that I couldn’t be bothered with that drivel. May be the best thing I ever did. Look, I can figure out a basic idea of what a serving is – so can you! A slice of bread? 1 bread serving! An apple, 1 fruit serving! Yogurt – whatever seems reasonable to you! My yogurt servings are smaller than what’s recommended on the Fage containers. Simply because I don’t feel like I need a damn cup or two of yogurt, a few spoons will do (mind you, in a mini container, the serving is MUCH smaller, you see what I mean?).

So I call the shots on the servings, and each meal basically has one of each. I did that, and it was MUCH easier to track what I was eating. The only trouble I had was remembering the 5 food groups. Of course there’s fruit, vegetable and meat (which I just refer to as “protein”), but even now cereals and dairy tend to, at least momentarily, elude me.

But you can write them down. In fact, I highly recommend it – make a list  make 5 lists – one for each food group, with foods that you like from each one. There’s a solid starting point. All you have to do to each a nice balanced meal then is go through each food group at a time and pick what you want. Done-ski.

Once you’ve established that for a week or so, it’s time to start playing with it – maybe you have two slices of toast in the morning, and skip bread at lunch or dinner. Of course, if you decided to have two protein, you don’t have to skip anything! Same for fruit and vegetables!

Then you can get into splitting up the meals, so that you’re eating something more like 6 meals than three. I’d start with breakfast. This is how it went and somehow, following this practice, I came to the point where, granted, it’ll still help if I continue, but I really don’t NEED to record what I eat. I don’t enjoy crap foods the way I used to.

Somewhere along the way I learned something else – about my stomach. I splurged late one evening. Started eating and had a hard time stopping. I’m sure I set off some kind of trigger and there I was. Well, I noticed that I was starting to feel full. It had been a while since I’d felt full – that’s a good thing.

Now here I was feeling full, which probably meant I should stop eating soon, but I didn’t. Suddenly I was in pain. Up until then, my stomach had been shrinking down from it’s normal, engorged size. And I decided to fill it right back up. The pain I felt, I soon realized, was the stomach organ stretching.

Suddenly, I felt like throwing up, and on two different levels. I’ve come to understand bulimics over the past year or so. I actually really get it. As I sat there that night, in pain, I seriously thought about throwing my fingers down my throat and letting it all back up. I put it down there, now I want it back, is that so wrong? I didn’t want to deal with the consequences that all that food was going to put on me!

Not only did I want it out, but I actually felt like I might throw up whether I wanted to or not. That put my head over the toilet. I actually considered trying, at some point, to induce the vomiting. I was scared. I knew I’d like it. I’ve been sick enough that vomiting has given me relief before, and I knew it would give me overwhelming relief then.

I had to take responsibility for what I’d done. I didn’t really want to vomit, because if I did, whether I’d made it happen or not, I’d enjoy some part of it. I’d want to do it again. I’d start looking at things a certain way – where I can eat what I want and just vomit it out. I’ve got enough “f’ing” problems.

So I tried very hard not to vomit, though I kept my head over the toilet. Swallowed back, breathing exercises, everything I’ve ever taught myself to avoid vomiting. I succeeded. I showed myself something important – that I’d take the consequences of my binging and splurging, over using vomit as a “get out of jail free card”. I’d deal with any weight gain and just keep hacking at it until I’d lost that weight again.

I began to look at it as a road traveled. For most of my life, I enjoyed the feeling of my stomach stretching. I’d go to a buffet, look it over, say “Yes!” and waddle out of there feeling so… euphoric, relaxed, my stomach felt like it was in love with me. These are some awfully frightening words, when I think about it. I LOVED the feeling of my stomach stretching out, and managed to ignore that this is exactly what was happening.

Even worse, I LOATHED the feeling of my stomach shrinking. I had to come to terms with that too, that night. That awful, squirking, skulking, whining feelingin the pit of your stomach, that you get when you’re REALLY REALLY hungry, is your stomach shrinking (I think). And I’ve avoided that all my life. I hated it.

Now, mind, I still don’t really LIKE it. But I embrace it. If I feel it, I don’t immediately start looking for food, I determine if I need any. Can I wait, or am I being too active to risk running through my nutrients?

So the path – most of my life walking in one direction, suddenly I’m walking in a different direction. I’m going the other way, and occasionally, I’m going to get sidetracked here and there. It would be foolish to hope for the impossible. So I have to deal with that, and the most important thing is how I deal with it – do I keep going or do I turn around again and head in the proper direction? I can make up a small loss.

So, to help keep unnecessary backsliding to a minimum, I still keep a food journal, and I’m better about writing in it, a lot better. Still not perfect, but no one is. The funny thing is, now that I have that taken care of, there’s still plenty in the food world I need to work on. For one thing, I need to wrap my head around calories. I can keep track of my calories if I get a better handle on it. Again, I’m going to need to apply certain principles, like not getting too overworked about precision. But I’ll get it.

Next article I’ll be talking about exercise, which is what I’m off to do right now!

by gendjlee on December 8, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Health, Eating, Food, Diet, Nutrition, Goals
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by gendjlee on December 8, 2012

http://exercisedammit.com/2012/12/08/diet/

The Soft Re-Opening


I can’t say exactly what I’ve been waiting for. There’s plenty to update… plenty of ideas to write about. I think that’s why I stopped keeping this blog up, I had lost some weight but factors kept getting in the way, a lot of which had to with physical limitations. Those still exist, and are still disabling, but there has been a lot of improvement.

This first new blog post will be in the form of updates. There’s a lot to tell, but I’d like to get it all out first, in a series, then maybe later I’ll expound. Also, see the bottom for a great recipe!

Update #1 – I believe I’d mentioned that I was fighting to receive disability. I won. Rather, the state appointed lawyer won. A few months ago I received the bulk of my back benefits. This has made things far simpler. There’s still a lot that I have to take care of, and I’m laughably far from financially solvent, but at least there’s a little more stability.

Update #2 – My diet has improved drastically. I’ll go in to the past at another time, but currently my problem seems to be not eating enough, as opposed to eating too much. Also, I’m eating the right kinds of foods. I’m sure I make mistakes here and there, but they’re far more minor than they used to be. From here on in, it might be smooth sailing as far as diet goes, a few tweaks here and there. I still have to understand calories better, because I’m still not counting them. That’s probably my biggest obstacle right now.

Update #3 – I have finally begun a real exercise program. I guess I finally determined that the problem in my exercise equation was me. A lot of times, the best option for simplifying your problems is to remove yourself from the equation. Here I saw that I had no idea what a good exercise program was, and that I’m not very good at holding myself accountable when it comes to exercise. Furthermore, it’s hard to be accountable to Eeks, particularly in this area, because we’ve never met.

I took a good chunk of the money I received from disability and purchased a two-year membership at Anytime Fitness. It’s actually a three-year membership, because they give you an extra year for free, when you pay in full. I also signed up to work with a personal trainer once a week, who helps me out more than that, when I’m working out while he’s there. So whether I work out during the week or not, I have to see this guy, once every week. Maybe I could skip a week, sure. But the next week, then what? I’ve already paid for the gym membership. I’m going to have to face the music.

Being accountable to someone else allows me to put more focus on what it is I’m supposed to be doing. Again, I’ll save the details for later, but I will say now that my abilities have improved already, including something I never thought possible – I kind of enjoy using a treadmill!

Update #4 (finally): My weight. When I stopped writing I was around 440 lbs, I think. It went up, I noticed (after not having used the scale for a week or so, I imagine), to a little over 470. I tightened up on what I was eating and looked for opportunities to exercise, even if just stretching my legs. If anyone invited me to a gym or to walk somewhere, and I was up to the task, I went.

My weight went back down to 440. From there I relaxed the eating slightly, but kept the activity up as best I could. Fall came and I got rather busy. It didn’t hurt matters that my disability money had come in and I could actually enjoy my yearly trip to Ocean City, among other things. I was still fairly active, but I really relaxed on my eating.

This time my weight didn’t balloon so high though. I got back up to around 460, and used a notebook I had picked up along with a lot of organizational materials I bought with the disability money. It’s a simple notebook, one of those black and white (marble design) numbers from mead. 100 double-sided sheets of blue lined paper with the red margin. It has my name on the front (no, my name’s not Mead), along with the date I started using it.

Inside I keep a record of what I eat on one side of the sheet, and a log of any exercise I did on the other sheet. I started working out at the gym, 3 days a week. Since then I’ve increased it to 4 days. My weight not only dropped back down to 440, it’s been dropping off and on ever since. It was one of the last days of October when I purchased my membership. A few days later I started working with Mike.

As of this morning the scale read 416 pounds. That’s not only 144 lbs in total, that’s also 24 pounds in 5 weeks! And we’re still going. Today marks the end of my two-day break from the gym. The muscles in my legs are nagging at me to get back on it. Shame for them, they won’t get worked until Tuesday, except for some cardio between now and then. I really want to let them mend some.

I’ve had a little trouble the past few weeks with overdoing things. We’ll cover that soon, too. Expect another post sometime around Wednesday (I hope) going into detail with at least one of these updates! I hope to post on all my may days off from the gym (Sat, Sun and Wed).

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

RECIPE!

So, here’s a new feature I want to introduce. We’ll bring back the other features shortly, but for now I’m going with this.

Crunchy Salmon Wraps

I don’t know how many this feeds, I don’t have measurements for you either.

We start with two tortillas. Any kind that’s flour based will do. Multi-grain are better. You want to avoid corn.

I used a spinach tortilla and a sun-dried tomato tortilla – tasty and colorful!

On the night previous we made roasted salmon for dinner. We took filets of salmon and present thickly cut chunks of garlic into the salmon. There were some curry seasonings, I think, and each filet was wrapped in foiled, then thrown in the oven.

It came out wonderful and I used one leftover filet for this recipe.

I first heated the tortillas – my favorite way to do this is to turn on the stove top range. This will work best with a gas or electric range. Either the coils or the fire warms and slightly cooks the tortilla (as long as you keep on top of it) it takes a little skill and I’m not sure I’ve heated a tortilla any other way in quite a few years.

After that, I took some humus with “Tuscan herbs”, which equates out to some reddish/greenish mess in the center of the humus. It’s a tasty mess, though. I slathered the humus onto the warm tortillas and followed that with was freshly washed raw kale and romaine lettuce.

I’m going to be writing about kale pretty soon here. I’ve decided to give it a try and like it. Everything I’ve read so far seems to sing its praises, so I’ll be writing about it soon enough.

I also threw in a few raw string beans, for extra crunch, before breaking up the salmon filet and divvying it up between the two wraps.

That’s really all it took. One average sized filet of salmon with plenty of garlic pressed into the side (or however you like it), however much raw kale and romaine lettuce you like, a reasonable amount of humus and two tortillas. Plenty of protein, nutrients and solid calories, and it’s relatively easy to make.

Have fun!

by gendjlee on December 2, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Diet, Eating, Exercise, Fitness, Food, Goals, Health, Nutrition, Weight Loss
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by gendjlee on December 2, 2012

http://exercisedammit.com/2012/12/02/the-soft-opening/

Organization and Motivation: Part 1


Issues that I’m dealing with lately – the two big ones are motivation and organization. Let’s be honest, I’ve been struggling with organization all of my life. OK, perhaps not all – I’m sure I wasn’t even the least bit concerned with it at 2 years of age, but when I was 6 a nun started yanking on my hair because of the state of my desk – she wasn’t even my teacher! (I didn’t even make it ¾ of first grade at the Catholic school)

My psychologist seems to think that organization can wait, motivation is more important. I suppose, in some ways, it is; if I’m not motivated to organize my life, how will I ever manage it? Still, I feel like my lack of organization gets in the way of my motivation. Every time I start to do one thing, I notice that there’s something else that’s also rather important, which needs to be done as well. I should probably make a note and stick to what I’m already working on, until it’s finished, but I feel like I must give attention to this other thing that needs doing. I think I convince myself that it won’t take long, but that’s not always true. Plus, I don’t always get back to the original thing I was doing.

The worst is when this gets strung out – I’m working on one project, and I remember something very pressing that needs to be done, so I try to take care of that first. Then I realize that I’ve completely forgotten about something altogether different. I waste time trying to decide whether I should stick to what I’m doing or try and take care of this newly realized issue, and usually end up moving on to the new issue. And so on, and so forth.

The result – I start a lot of things and get very few of them done. I guess that’s a pretty strong sign of disorganization. Not surprised. I really need to work on this. Part of the problem, I think, is that there are obligations attached to some of the things I do. It’s not that hard for me to ignore Facebook, or check it for a moment and then get back to what I’m doing. I have no real obligation to anyone to use FB.

But I do have obligations in other areas. I get some of the bigger ones covered – appointments and such, but even in that area I manage to screw up. And once I get off track, it’s tough to get back on.

We had a June storm knock out our power for about 5 days and tear up the property as well, and that really knocked me down a peg or two, in a few areas.

Anyway, I’m going to have to figure this out and make it work. This issue with the organization and motivation, it’s like the chicken and the egg: Which came first/Which to work on first? Is it even possible to make one work without the other?

I haven’t really discussed motivation and the details of that problem, yet. I’ll make that next week’s article. The plan with this blog, for the moment, is to post weekly, and increase the frequency as I go along. To punctuate the problem I have with organization – I was originally working on another project, when I realized that I still haven’t gotten a blog post done this week. So far, I can at least say, that since I started writing this article, I haven’t given it up for another project. Yet.

You know, just from reading what I’ve written here, and trying to decide on a title, I’ve come to realize that there is yet a third problem that conspires with my two main problems – priorities. More on that later.

by gendjlee on July 13, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Goals, Scheduling, Weight Loss
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Posted by gendjlee on July 13, 2012

http://exercisedammit.com/2012/07/13/organization-motivation-p1/

A Late Post for a Late Morning


I have to work on fixing my internal clock. I have been working on this, but it’s all been thrown awry since Saturday night, which I believe I mentioned in yesterday’s update. Last night I was up until shortly before sunrise again. I am reminded of Billy Joel’s “I’ve Loved These Days”, specifically the line “… we’re sleeping long and far too late” – I did end up sleeping closer to ten hours than 8. I’m not sure that I can help that. I may need the extra sleep, I don’t know. Who knows what’s right for a person that’s almost 300 pounds overweight?

Oh, speaking of weight, I hopped on the scale after my workout this morning and had a reading of 439! That takes us out of the 440s, which means that I have completely fulfilled the goal I had of reaching 440 by beginning-to-mid-April. It’s time for a new goal. I want to hit 390 by the beginning of September. I’ll be satisfied with 400, but I want to see 390. As usual, the standard consequences apply – if I’m not able to get close to this goal, I’m going to have to go back to considering weight loss surgery, which has been put on indefinite hold, for the time being.

I do believe that I’ll be able to avoid surgery. I believe that I can get this weight off myself, by eating right, exercising, and persevering, even through the setbacks. I don’t believe in bad plateaus. I see a plateau as a good thing. It’s a sign that I’m able to maintain the weight that I’ve lost. Perhaps that’s part of the reason that I’ve been so lucky to have such short plateaus.

Well, there’s not much more to say. My friend is still in the hospital, and I need to go visit. I’d like to thank Nick and Emilio, members of our local congregation, who responded to the call for a blessing, and met me at the hospital late last night. I know my friend appreciated it greatly, as do I.

As for my sleep troubles, I think I’m going to put in today’s second workout around midnight – 20-30 minutes of walking, either inside or outside. And if I feel I can manage it, and it will help, maybe a little extra. That might give me a few hours of energy, but I figure around 3 or 4 AM, I should be out like a light.

JOKE OF THE DAY

I’d like to thank The South Jersey Deviler for today’s joke, since I lifted it from his publication (he doesn’t know yet). If you like a good laugh, check out the site. You can read a few pages from his monthly newspaper – which is always dedicated to humor! If you live in or around New Jersey, you may be able to find the paper at his advertiser’s locations, for free. If not, but you like the paper, you can have it delivered for the sum of $21 per year (As Alfred E. Neuman would say – “Cheap!”)

And now for the joke:
“Signs from Hotels around the World. In a Japanese hotel:
‘You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.’”

So… anyone else making travel arraignments to Japan?

 

TODAY’S WORKOUT

Today’s workout was simple – indoor walking laps for 30 minutes. My shoulders were killing me by the time I was done, but I’m so glad I did it. Now I have to get some breakfast down me and get going!

TODAY’S SPECIAL

I made Brussels Sprouts for dinner last night (if you want to argue about the spelling, please refer to the link), just dumping them in the pot with a little water, letting it boil, then dropping the heat to low for a while. That’s how we’ve always made them, and we love them, but I got to thinking – can’t there be a better way to make these babies? My philosophy is that any question you can possibly think of has probably been asked before, and on the internet, at that. Google let me to this – Rantings of an Amateur Chef, which has a great way to make these tasty veggies even better!

NK24/7 gives us some much needed help with our heartburn.

SOME THINGS BEAUTIFUL

Photobotos gives us what I call “God’s Swimming Pool”.

A blog I’ve recently started reading, called “Serene One”, gives us images of Spring.

by gendjlee on March 26, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Goals, Health, Medical Care, Weight Loss
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by gendjlee on March 26, 2012

http://exercisedammit.com/2012/03/26/a-late-post-for-a-late-morning/

Morning Improvement


I’m feeling pretty decent today. I got up, did my mantra, had some coffee, and got to the business of exercising. After that I had some breakfast, and treated myself to a little Rita’s Water Ice (mmm… Mango!) afterward. On the way home from Rita’s I was thinking about how to best improve my time management.

I’ve successfully come up with a very basic and easy to use daily schedule – it’s basically a blank page with lines on it. I write in what I intend to do, or what I’ve done during the day. I have more ambitions for it, but I need to go slow and get used to it. I tried scheduling a whole bunch of stuff for a few days, and what I found was that I’m just not ready for all that. I need to spend some time, maybe a few weeks, just getting used to using the agenda on a daily basis – recording what I’ve done, more than scheduling what I want to do, and prioritizing the things that I need to do.

Still, doing so is a little frustrating because I’m not getting nearly as much done with my days as I’d like. I decided that if I’m to improve my days, I need to start with the morning. Mine starts around 11AM, lately. That’s mostly because I get to bed late. I’d probably be more interested in going to bed earlier if I got more accomplished during the day – I’d be too tired to stay up late! But before I can walk…

So, instead of worrying about what time I get up, I’m going to focus on the things that must be done EVERY MORNING, before anything else gets done (visiting the restroom is a reasonable exception). The things I have come up with, in order:

  1. Reading my mantra out loud

  2. Coffee with 1 food item

  3. Get workout music ready

  4. Warmup, exercise, cooldown

  5. Shower

One problem I currently have in trying to get these things done is the computer. Each morning, I wake up with the intention of getting up and working out, but I need to set up my music, to help me get going. That’s on my computer, because I’ve never had much use for an mp3 player. I have one, somewhere. If it still works… I don’t know. So I have to open my laptop, and when I do that, I, inevitably, get distracted. After all, my curiosity demands satisfaction – any new e-mail I should know about? What about Facebook? Oh, look – today’s blogs are in my e-mail, I could take a minute to go through them. Ooh, and there’s some really good article finds on Facebook, let me take a look at them.

Suddenly, I realize I’ve been up for an hour and a half and haven’t even read my mantra – which is also on my laptop.

Remedy – I have a droid. While my exercise playlist is on iTunes, and apparently, you can’t get iTunes on a Droid, all of my iTunes songs (yes, all of them) have been converted to a non-protected format – meaning I can put them on any device I damm well please. And I can print out the mantra and put it in a page protector. That means I don’t need to open that laptop until I’m finished with the above list. To help me control that, I’m going to try to remember to shut the laptop down completely at night.

I’m making “Morning Improvement” an immediate goal, so I’ll let you know how it’s going.

On a separate note – I’m removing the food journal and exercise archive from the menu. The archive has outlived its usefulness. I’ve made my daily workouts a feature of the daily blog post. As long as I can meet the demand of a daily post, we don’t need separate documentation, and it’s been long enough since I created that feature.

As for the food journal, there’s no respectable reason for that – I simply don’t keep up with it. However, as I mentioned above, I am working on using my agenda every day – recording my meals and snacks will be a part of that. Once I get good at doing that, I hope to restore the food journal.

JOKE OF THE DAY

Introduction: I’m getting close to finishing Ben Franklin’s biography. It’s quite a thick book, and at some point I began to think that I’d never get close to the end of his life. Amazing to realize that it’s really only a collection of his highlights. In any case, I was reading recently about some of his famous chess matches. Much of his humor came out during these matches, indeed these games may have marked the best of his wit.

He played some notable games in France, while he worked as an American Ambassador trying to get more support from France to the American cause. All the while, Washington was leading men into battle, and losing more often than he won. Support from France was tricky, because, while they hated England, they believed in the unquestionable right of a king to rule. In supporting America, they felt as though they were condoning rebellion against a crown.

Franklin, ever the diplomat, did his best to quell these concerns, but occasionally let his guard down.

The Joke: So, Franklin’s playing a match against one of France’s elite ladies and he noticed that she has placed her king in check, which is against regulations. He should have informed her of her mistake and let her make another move, but Franklin liked to play loose with the rules sometimes. He then took the king, which got him this response – “We do not take kings!” He slyly retorted “We do, in America.”

TODAY’S WORKOUT

This morning’s workout was good. I haven’t really been timing them lately. I do my warmup (stretching and loosening up), then I do about 5 laps to kick off the workout. Since I’m in training for a 5k, I’ve upped that to ten laps. That’s inside the house. When I do laps up and down the driveway, I do less, because the driveway is longer than a full lap inside the house.

Yesterday, I just kept on walking, but today I cut it off at ten and got to doing my blocks and punches – 20 lower blocks in place with the legs spread apart and knees slightly bent, 20 punches, same way. Then I do walking lower blocks – I’ll have to make it a video, in case anyone doesn’t understand. Basically, I step forward and make the block. About ten of those in one direction, then ten punches walking the other direction. Another ten up and back, and I’m back to doing my blocks in place.

Then I do about 5 laps around the house, but this time, I do a normal walking lap, a lap of walking low blocks, another normal lap, a lap of walking punches, and finish with another normal lap. Today, I increased the action laps to double laps.That makes a total of 7 laps around.

I got as far as doing the upper blocks, and another set of laps around the house, followed by getting down on the floor and working on my core – it needs so much help. I can’t do leg lifts, I’m sure my hernia would have a field day with that, but I got pretty close to pedaling my feet while on my back. Felt pretty good, too!

The only problem is Buddha, our puppy (and mascot!) thinks I’m down there to play. I ignored her for a little while until my hand was covered in slobber. Time to get up!

I decided to go for my cooldown, but the dogs made things difficult. I’m not happy with today’s cooldown. I hate to take one over the other, but it seems that’s the way it’s going to have to go.

TODAY’S SPECIAL

It may seem like I just read the same blogs over and over and push their stuff here. Yeah, that’s kind of how it works, but I do add to the list of blogs I read as I have time. I’m working on a new one, now, and if I find her posts useful, or feel that they could be useful to you, they’ll start getting posted here as well! So keep checking, I’m sure you can find something valuable.

Foodimentary covers “National Water Day“, along with “An Overview of Drinking Water“.

SheBANGS gives a tip that’s often talked about and has some benefits in “… Lose Your Utensils“

NK 24/7 shares 8 known carcinogens often found in the home. I wouldn’t suggest you eliminate these from your home, but it’s definitely something to think about.

SOME THINGS BEAUTIFUL

This photo, taken in Scotland, reminds me very much of the film “What Dreams May Come”, with Robin Williams.

Here’s another from… you guessed it, Photobotos, but it’s a little different. Check it out.

by gendjlee on March 22, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Exercise, Food, Goals, Scheduling, Weight Loss
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by gendjlee on March 22, 2012

http://exercisedammit.com/2012/03/22/morning-improvement/

An Announcement and a Mantra


Last night I returned from a long weekend that started with a LOT of shit beer (I had the choice of Coors Light or Miller Light – I went with Coors.), and switched to REALLY shit wine when the beer ran out. After I spent a few hours sobering up, I headed to my friend Patricia’s house, where I stayed until Monday evening (last night). I would have posted something yesterday, but my computer and her wireless router were having difficulties and I couldn’t be bothered to worry about it.

Trish lives on 7 acres, so there’s plenty of room to move around. Plus she lives not far from a State Forest and a nice lake, with a long creek that shoots off from it. She also has some very nice animals, including pets and a little livestock. It’s a very peaceful setting with some laid-back people and intelligent offspring. I really enjoy spending time there, and love that I can still get some exercise in, even when I’m taking a few days off!

So, even though I did some exercise over the past few days, it really wasn’t up to my normal workout. On the other hand, I took so long to get back on the trolley, that I’ll have to work my way back up to the level I was working at. Also, I’m hoping to surpass, instead of staying there when I get there.

I have to, because I’M NOW IN TRAINING! More on that in a moment.

The mantra – yeah, I woke up and, like many mornings, just didn’t want to do this. I get a little disappointed with myself, because I know when I started doing this, those whiny, bitchy little voices had almost no control over me. They’d say “Oh, I’m tired” and I’d tell them “SHUT UP” (imagine a deep voice) and they would. Now they keep bitching, and more loudly. They’ve conspired with my muscles and joints, to remind me of just how much they’d prefer that I keep my ass right on the couch. What’s worse is that my inner drill sergeant doesn’t seem to be nearly as loud as the voices of those hippies telling me to take it easy. All this worries me, because, as I’ve said before, I have to keep this from being a chore, and now, when I’m waking up, it feels a LOT like a chore.

It also occurs to me that when I would wake up and look forward to working out, I wasn’t really working out. I was just stretching and warming up. I believed that’s all I was going to do, and I knew it would make me feel good, not just in the moment, but well into the day! And it would only take 10 minutes!

Now it takes a good 15 minutes, and is followed by a workout, and a cooldown. I remember that in those first days, I had no plans to exercise, but after a few days, I’d do some kind of exercise after the warmup anyway, just because I felt so damn good! And yet, the next day, I could still motivate myself easily into the warmup.

It seems that making the workout part of the routine is what is bringing me down. I have to decide what I can do about that. This morning, as I considered it, it occurred that there were only two real options -

  1. Keep on hacking at it, the way I have been (technically, do nothing) – yeah… and what do I expect from that? Will this trend of discontent subside? Ben Franklin taught us the definition of insanity – you’ve probably heard it before: Doing the same thing over and over again, while expecting different results (Paraphrased). I’m not interested in that.

  2. Give up – that’s what my body and mind are telling me to do, at least until I overcome them and get my warmup going.

  3. Change it up! That’s what has been working for me so far, so that’s probably the answer for me now. The only question is… what change?

So, instead of hopping up and starting my warmup… I delayed. I don’t like to do that, because far too often, if I put off my warmup, my workout is at risk of not getting accomplished that day. But today it was necessary. I needed a plan of change. I examined the issue at hand – I don’t want to exercise. I’d rather lay around for a while, like I used to, back when I ALWAYS felt shitty.

Well, that’s the other side of the issue, isn’t it? If I do what my body, or maybe, what my id is telling me to do, I have to deal with the consequences, and I have no intention of ever having to deal with those consequences again. I’d rather get rich, marry a gold-digger, get divorced, lose all my money, and die in abject poverty, than to go through all this crap again. At least I’ll die a healthy man.

I needed to examine my thoughts, either aloud or on paper. My handwriting is for crap and there were people around, so I typed up my thoughts and organized them a bit. What I came up with is my change – a mantra. Every morning, before I even get off the couch, I’m going to read this aloud, until it’s committed to memory, at which point I’ll recite it.

My Mantra

I’m tired and I’m bitchy and I DON’T want to exercise.

I’m sore and I’m sleepy and I just don’t want to!

But if I don’t exercise, I’ll continue to feel like shit,

and I won’t lose weight; I’ll end up gaining it back.

And if I just warm up, stretch and loosen up,

I’ll be awake, feel better, and I’ll WANT to exercise.

I just need a cup of coffee first.

And, of course, the next step is a nice “cuppa” (coffee). And next? You guessed it! A nap! Hahaha, after my cup, I ended up taking my setup (laptop – for music, quart jar of ice water, aluminum pitcher of ice water) outside and set it up in the bed of my truck. It’s so nice out these days, I need to take advantage of it.

So, I mentioned I’m in training. It’s true. Recently I linked to a post from SheBANGS’s blog last week; she’d been thinking of doing a mud run, but it turns out she can’t. Instead, she’s doing a 5k called “Run for Your Lives!”, which is a zombie themed race, complete with zombies chasing and obstacles to complete. The zombies attack you by taking a flag off of the flag belt you have to wear. If you lose all of your flags, you become a zombie when you finish the race.

I had been toying with the idea of taking part, as I’ve been toying with the idea of doing a mud run, or, at the very least, a 5k walk, for a while. Saturday, as I was preparing to leave for my night of imbibery, I got a call from my health coach, Dr. Eeks. She was catching up with me and in talking, I’d asked if she’d seen the link that talked about the “zombie run”. I told her about it, and she was seriously excited. I asked if she wanted to enter it with me. SUPER excited! I looked up the locations and found that there’s one in Baltimore, MD in October. We are now committed to this. Which means that at the VERY least, I have to be able to walk 3.1(ish) miles. This is not my new goal. I believe that in order to be able to do something well, you have to TRAIN to do more than that.

For example – consider the actors in a one-night performance. Do they rehearse once? Do they rehearse once a day? No – their rehearsals tend to last longer than the hour or so that the actual play will. In truth, if they want to be good, they rehearse all day long, until they are ready to do it once, correctly.

So, I believe I have to work myself up to at LEAST 5 miles. My goal is to able to walk the 5k without killing myself (figuratively speaking). If it turns out I can run or even jog, great, I’ll do that. But that’s not the goal. Anything over the goal is bonus. I don’t even care if I end the race as a human or a zombie. I don’t even care if I get through the obstacles or not. This is my starting point. And it’s going to be a fun one!

So, for the next few months or so, you may get a little sick of hearing about this damn 5k, but if you’re up for it, and don’t mind traveling to MD, you can join Dr. Eeks and I. I’m already talking to one person who says he’s interested in taking part, and is determined to be ready by October. Anyone else that wants in is welcome. Maybe we can even qualify for a nice hotel discount!

TODAY’S WORKOUT

Not much to say about today’s workout. I did it. Not sure how long I went, probably not as long as before though. I will say this, I did it all outside! It was kind of neat – my folks have a nice long driveway that widens up by the house. That allowed me to do my walking laps (that I usually do around the inside of the house) up and down the long path. My “in place” exercises were done next to the truck (for balance, when needed) and the walking exercises were done back and forth across the wide portion, by the house.

No music today – I listened, but didn’t make note of what the songs were.

TODAY’S SPECIALS

A favorite blog of mine, Natural Knowledge 24/7, wrote a great blog post about exercises that are effective at building your energy.

Another blog I regularly read, by SheBANGS, celebrates some wonderful thinning around her waist! Congratulate this woman, please!

I rarely share a link from The Better Man Project, but that doesn’t mean I don’t read it. It can be very inspirational, but he’s on a far different level than I am. However, I think this post, about not giving up, and using your low points to your advantage, can be of great use to our readers. Enjoy.

SOME THINGS BEAUTIFUL

Both of our beautiful images come from Photobotos today. I need to get working on new image sources, or they’ll all be coming from Photobotos (not that this would be so terrible).

All that’s missing among these horses is the cherry tree.

This photo makes me think of all kinds of wonderful, calming things.

by gendjlee on March 20, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Exercise, Fitness, Goals, Weight Loss
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by gendjlee on March 20, 2012

http://exercisedammit.com/2012/03/20/an-announcement-and-a-mantra/

We go from a poor day to a complete setback.


It’s not as bad as all that, but I’m rather unpleased right now. I spent the entire day yesterday cleaning up a friend’s septic back-up. I ruined a pair of shoes doing this, and had to keep taking the shoes on and off as to avoid tracking crap through my friend’s house. At some point, after the flood had been amended, the tank drained, the backup in the pipes loosened and the problem toilet unclogged (yes, this all had to be done), we got to work cleaning out the area of the house that was flooded with you-know-what. Once we cleaned that all up and went over the floors with a pine-oil cleaner, I ended up taking my socks off, as it made it easier to slip in and out of the shoes.

What started as an itch, last night, on the bottom of my foot has turned into a pain that makes me think I must have cut something and infected it, with some remnant of fecal matter.

It didn’t help that due to my exposure to such material, I didn’t feel comfortable eating much of anything. When I was hungry, I’d down a Fiber bar. Water, coffee, cigarettes and fiber bars. That’s what I subsisted on yesterday. Anyone care to guess what I was doing all last night? when you barely eat anything and you have a lot of fiber in your system, good heck do you get gassy! Uncomfortably so!

So, no workout yesterday, no workout today. I have to get my foot look at tonight, and we’ll see how tomorrow goes.

I guess I’ll just have to do that karaoke night in May, instead of April. May’s nicer anyway.

Oh, and guess what else I’ve been dealing with, due to my exposure to this issue? That’s right, extra canidaisis, or however you pronounce it. So, between the foot, the knee and hips (arthritis) and the yeast infection, I’m not much for moving right now. Let is prey that tomorrow is a better day.

by gendjlee on March 5, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Eating, Food, Goals, Weight Loss
Tagged , , , , , ,

Posted by gendjlee on March 5, 2012

http://exercisedammit.com/2012/03/05/we-go-from-a-poor-day-to-a-complete-setback/

It’s WEIGH-DAY!


It’s Weigh-Day, Weigh-Day, step on a scale it’s Weigh-Day, everybody’s looking forward to the readout, readout… Sorry.

Without further ado, today’s weigh-in revealed… 450 pounds!

That’s 110 pounds down from the highest weight I’ve been – 560. It’s also more than a hundred pounds over the weight that I started at this past summer. It’s has other significance as well – In November, when I had dropped below 500 pounds, I decided that if I could get down between 440 and 450 by mid-April, I’d put the bariatric surgery off indefinitely. And I didn’t even get close, I’d put all my efforts into getting the surgery as quickly as possible.

Now it’s the day before March and I’m a month and a half ahead of schedule! That means the surgery is off for the time being. My efforts will continue to be focused on weight loss, and I’m making another goal – I want to be down to 400 pounds by the first day of Summer. If I make it, the surgery stays off. As for not making it, I’ll have to evaluate that when the Summer solstice comes around. If I’m reasonably close to the goal, I’ll give myself extra time, but if I’m not even reasonably near the goal by then? Time to get back into this surgery business.

Speaking of goals, I recently promised that there would be a new page, for my goals, as well as a blog post to introduce them. That would be this post. The goals page will have both long term and short term goals, along with deadlines where applicable. Lastly, there will be an incentive section, on that page as well.

I could use your help with that last section. I came up with one, but would welcome any suggestions for future incentives. Mind you, though it may not need to be said, that food is not a suitable reward. Neither is something that I won’t enjoy, like extra exercise. Not saying I don’t get some enjoyment out of my morning workouts, and I’m not going to shy away an incentive simply because there’s exertion involved.

Money is currently an issue. I’m currently living on limited means. Any reward I might make to myself needs to be a cheap one. If you think of something, feel free to let me know, or you can leave it in the comments.

GOALS

Long Term

Reach my healthy BMI range.

Help a hundred people lose over 100 pounds (each).

 

Short Term

Reach 400 pounds.

Workout every day in March – 30 min each day. No “just a warmup day”s.

Make and keep a schedule

 

Deadlines

400 pounds – by the 1st day of Summer.

 

Incentives

If I go the entire month of March without skipping a workout, go to Bennigan’s for karaoke night in April.

 

TODAY’S WORKOUT

Redneck Yacht Club – Craig Morgan

Gear Jammer – George Thorogood

Standing on the Corner (Watching All the Girls Go By) – Dean Martin

I Got Everything I Need (Almost) – The Blues Brothers

Get Up Stand Up – Bob Marley

Santeria – Sublime

A Matter of Trust – Billy Joel

Africa (By Toto) – BYU’s Vocal Point

Drug Store Truck Drivin’ Man – Joan Baez

 

Not sure if I mentioned it, but Sunday I only did the warmup, because I’d done a lot on Saturday. Monday and Tuesday I worked out but got interrupted before the half-hour was up. Today I faced another interruption, but chose to take the cooldown walk with Buddha, our mascot, anyway.

Today’s total is 10 min warmup, 20 min workout, 10 min cooldown. As you can see, above, I’ve set a goal to workout each day. I don’t think I’d have been as quick to quit the workout before I took a day off. So, this coming month – no skipsies! If I need to keep a workout short, I’ll go with that, but, I’m also committing to follow the following – if my workout is interrupted I’ll either finish as soon as the interruption is covered or make it up later in the day.

TODAY’S SPECIAL

I’ve made multiple mentions of bariatric surgery today. I also came across a blog written by someone who has had the surgery. It’s a frank piece on the benefits of surgery, along with the downsides. It does its best to make it clear that this is not “an easy way out” and should be considered a last resort.

NaturalKnowledge247 wrote a great blog today about natural therapies.

SheBANGS wrote a post that we could all benefit from, about thinking positive.

 

SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL

Finally, here’s a great photo called “The Polar Express”, to celebrate the days we’ll be leaving behind!

by gendjlee on February 29, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Exercise, Goals, Medical Care, Weight Loss
Tagged , , , , , ,

Posted by gendjlee on February 29, 2012

http://exercisedammit.com/2012/02/29/its-weigh-day/