All posts tagged Buddha the puppy

BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH!


Apparently, there’s some law that says all bloggers must blog about certain days when they are in the current, prank on April Fools (Perhaps the Beer and Ice Cream Diet will ride again!), and blah, blah, blah (Save the Life of My Child!). Well, because I’m a wordy bastard, I will say this much about today:

“Ides” is an early label that signifies division – equal division, so that there are two halves.

Months were once built around phases of the moon, and a full moon was called the ides, because the full moon is in the middle of the lunar cycle.

In the Roman culture, two monthly days were called Ides – the 15th of some months, and the 13th of some months – interesting that one of the few days more ominous than today is Friday the 13th!

Why was the Ides so ominous? Why were there such superstitions about the day? Because it was based on the day of the full moon – when everyone goes nuts.

One probably was more likely to get murdered during a full moon than any other time, just because of the effect a full moon has on people in general (notice that the word “lunatic” is rooted in the word “lunar” – for moon).

TODAY’S WORKOUT

Today’s workout was just a stretch and warmup, with a small amount of exercise to follow. In the past week, I’ve had to deal with some issues and working out has been put on the back burner. I’ve already mentioned the reasons in the preceding blog posts (of which there were very few over the past week and a half) so I’ll spare you a repetition of the excuses. This blog is, after all, about few things – losing weight being chief among them; excuses – just the opposite.

WEEKLY WEIGH-IN

Just hopped on the scale. I’m maintaining at 456.6 lbs. Since the “shit hit the fan” (so to speak) last week, I’ve essentially put 7 pounds back on. Unimportant. The important thing is that despite the issues I had to deal with, I still ate healthy, and was as active as I could be under the circumstances. Because of that, I’m in a far better position to hop back on than I could be.

I know a lot of people hate plateaus. Not me, in fact, because of the negativity associated with the label, you generally won’t see that word used much by me. You’re welcome to use any word you like, of course, but I think the label “maintain” allows one to appreciate and respect what a plateau is and should be – welcome and healthy, as opposed to what most people view it as – not a plateau at all, but simply more of an uphill battle.

Stay tuned in the near future for a blog post about plateaus!

TODAY’S SPECIAL

Let me tell you – I have a LOT to choose from today, and really, for the next week or so. I’ll try to keep it down to three daily, and I’ll make sure at least one of them is from the current day.

In the ongoing story of SheBANGS’s weight loss, we are treated to a brief tale of motivation and discussion of two different types of events that make running fun! One includes zombies!

Natural Knowledge 24/7 shares the top ten cancer risk foods.

Also from SheBANGS come a list that ALL OF YOU SHOULD LOOK AT! This is a great reference tool for ANYONE trying to lose weight!

SOME THINGS BEAUTIFUL

The same problem I had with the specials today I also have with today’s image. So, for the next few days or so, we’ll be putting up at least 2 different images. Hey, if I get some positive feedback about it, I may even consider keeping it that way.

I’ve been wanting to put this one up since the blog posts feel by the wayside, so I’ve been saving it for my return. Take a good look, it’s quite impressive. Especially the fish.

And now, something for our mascot, Buddha!

by gendjlee on March 15, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Administrative Junk, Diet, Exercise, Happy Crap, Health, Weight Loss
Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Posted by gendjlee on March 15, 2012

http://exercisedammit.com/2012/03/15/beware-the-ides/

Results of last week’s poll and a morning update!


So, I’ve made the results of last’s week poll available. The top two answers were “Right after I wake up” and “Mid-Morning”. I’d have to say that I agree with those, I try to keep mine closer to waking up, but I almost always seem to get roped into something before I get my workout in. The most important thing, though, is that I do get it in.

This morning, I had to take my sister to work, because we’re helping a friend of her’s move down here from North Jersey tonight. (same friend mentioned in an earlier post) Taking her to work makes the rest of the day a little easier, as she’ll be getting picked up from work by someone else and riding up there with them.

When I got home, I needed to make some Cream of Wheat for Dad, because our toaster is for crap and, though it has these numbers on it, really only has two settings – “Burnt” and “Untoasted”. And I used a pot that was too small for the range I put it on, so it wouldn’t boil until I put it on a smaller range. *sigh*.

So, all that’s done and I finally got my SW2 (Stretch/Warmup/Walk) done. All I did yesterday was a ten minute warmup because my skin was so raw and sore. The swelling and redness has gone down and the pain has abated, although not entirely. I used a paper towel to avoid chafing and got it done. 25 minute warmup – I actually use the music to time the warmup. I just pause it when I stop, write down how far into the song I am, then go back to the previous songs and write down their times. Add it up and there’s your warmup time!

The walk was only a little more than ten minutes. I’m going to have to start taking a different dog out with me each time. Snickerdoodle, our other dog, a black lab mutt who is about 10-11 years old, is on to why I keep taking Buddha, the puppy (1 year old), outside with me. So, now, when I put the pinch collar and leash on Buddha, Snick is trying to butt in, demanding that she get to come. She’d prefer I put that collar on her, too, but that’s not happening – she’s too old for that.

So, I’ve been taking them both outside with me. Mind you, inside, while Buddha is at my side the entire time I stretch and warmup, Snick could care less. I have no idea where she is. She must think I’m playing with Buddha out there. So, she comes with us, and she wants to have fun, and Buddha sees her playing in the trees and gets distracted. Getting very frustrated when I should be feeling great.

So, I finished up with a short period of mediation and, finally, laughter yoga. Did some breathing exercises first, then laughed like a maniac. I know laughter yoga helps a lot of people, but I’m not really sure I’m getting anything out of it. I roared for at least half a minute this morning, though.

Well, I just wanted to make this available and give an update. I still have to get to the dump before I hop in the shower (where I live, we don’t have local trash pickup – according to Jeff Foxworthy, I might be a redneck), and then there’s the lifting and moving we’ll be doing up North. Looks like a busy day!

by gendjlee on February 17, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Exercise, Food, Health, Weight Loss
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by gendjlee on February 17, 2012

http://exercisedammit.com/2012/02/17/results-of-last-weeks-poll-and-a-morning-update/

Ready to begin a new week!


With the weekend over there’s plenty to cover, so here goes.

Best way to start the week is with a nice weigh-in. And this week’s magic number is 465. Yes, still. Been maintaining that number for half a week. If I’m going to have another 2 month long plateau, I would like that happen after I’ve lost another 10-15 pounds. That way, I can put the bariatric surgery off for a while. It’s funny to think that this started as a means to lose weight before having the surgery, and instead, because of the success I’m experiencing, could end up being a way out of the procedure.

 

Now to get into this week’s topic. First, I’ll be honest, exercise has never really come easy for me. When I was 14, I thought I was on top of the world, because FINALLY, I could run an 8 minute mile. And then I let a doctor talk me into two, count ‘em, TWO elective surgeries (bunionectomy and a hammer toe fix) that took me off my feet for half a year. And of course, at the time, they didn’t talk to you about diet! They didn’t even bother to warn you that you’d need to change your eating habits.

So, by the next year, I couldn’t run a mile, period. Hell, I could barely walk one. I took karate, but even that didn’t help me get back on track. So, now, I’m trying to drop this weight, all of this weight, and I’m still focusing on the diet when I should be focusing on the exercise. And why? Because I always felt like I could control my diet, much more than I could control my exercise.

Working out was a matter of forcing myself to do it. Even recently. I made a discovery this week, because I forced myself to work out. It was a decent day out but things weren’t exactly looking up for me. I’d been going through a plateau for 2 months. Now, don’t get me wrong, A PLATEAU IS A GOOD THING. It is. No, really, it is. I know, we all want to get down to our target weight as quickly as possible, but I feel that enjoying a nice plateau will help you to avoid the yo-yo effect. I’d lost 70 pounds. Some people would do that, stop dieting, and watch the weight slowly creep back up. But if you can MAINTAIN THAT WEIGHT for a while, that’s good practice for what you’ll be doing once you’ve reached your goal! It’s practice FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!

But two months… frankly, I wouldn’t have been upset with three. But I have people around me, who, whether they know it or not, put pressure on me if I’m not losing weight. I can’t tell them that, because they’ll just sit there and deny it, instead of just keeping it in mind and trying to make sure they don’t do it in the future. But they’re here.

So, I had all of this on my mind, and had very little else on my hands. Except that beautiful day, of course. So, I decided that I’d force myself to get a little exercise done, and since it was so nice out, I’d do it outside. I wasn’t sure what to do, exactly. I don’t really have any weights outside, and yeah, I could walk, but not for very long. In the end, I decided to do the stretching a warmup that we used to do before karate and go from there.

It wasn’t long before I realized I was HAVING A GOOD TIME! The stretching made a difference, and after the warmup was over, I wasn’t ready to stop! I ended up going for a walk, and while walking, thought to myself – “If I feel this good, and can do this much, after that, I should try starting EVERY DAY with ten minutes of that, just stretching and warming up.

I think Eeks was a little concerned when I told her. After all, she was trying to encourage me to commit to doing 30-40 minutes of exercise a day, broken up into 10 or more minute blocks, but I’m saying, no, I just want to commit to ten minutes of extremely light exercise in the morning. It was a stretch, but I promised it would only be a week, we’d make a small increase for the next week, and build our way up from there.

Talk about a payout. The next day I felt amazing. I got up, a little groggy, and yes, I kind of had to push myself to get up and turn the music on for a workout, instead of going back to sleep, eating, or any other normal morning activity that I usually take. I told myself “Come on, you came up with this. Pretty sad state of affairs if you can’t make your own goals… “. I really had to goad myself into it.

But I got up, and the rest of the day went juuuuuust fine. I realized hours later how good I felt and went out for another walk. The next day I did forget for a little bit and watched a movie before I remembered. But as soon as I remembered, I was up and warming up. But I didn’t limit myself to ten minutes. Instead, I let myself go for 15 minutes, then went for the walk outside for another 15 minutes. (You can see the details in my exercise log, just click the tab in the menu above)

For three days I felt like a million bucks. And that’s saying something. I’ve only this year come to understand that I am, and probably have been, for a long time, suffering from depression. It wasn’t easy to accept. My Doc prescribed me an anti-depressant, but it hasn’t done anything. Then again, it’s only 60 mg, so maybe it’s not going to at that dose. I don’t know.

But since I started doing the warm up, every day (except for one) has felt great! I have energy, I’m upbeat. Before Saturday afternoon, I thought I’d found the definitive cure for depression and anxiety. Then Saturday I managed to trigger my depression (long story; not germane to the matter at hand) and it was a bad one, too. I walked around a parking lot for about an hour and couldn’t manage to bring myself down. I may as well come out and say it, emotionally, I can be a real mess. When it gets seriously triggered, it doesn’t go away for days, sometimes. I never understood that “being in a funk” and being depressed are basically the same thing. I saw depressed people as whiners. When someone started talking about depression, I thought about Denis Leary’s rant on dysfunctional families (include link here). And I thought this while I, myself, was suffering!

The only thing that put it away was a good night’s sleep, part of which was spent in the pickup truck, and the other part kneeling on the couch (these are my preferred ways to sleep). Yesterday morning, when I woke up, I felt a little better. And after my warmup, do you know how I felt? Like I was back on top. Maybe not the top of the world, but on top.

I really feel like this simple act of stretching and warming up can help anyone to improve their quality of life. It won’t solve all of your problems, and yeah, if you’ve been suffering depression and anxiety for years, even half your life, without realizing it… Well, it might be less effective than for those who haven’t, and my depression may never really go away on its own, as much as I want it to, but I feel like I’ve improved my quality of life. Before this, every day I was depressed. Every day, I ached. My back hurt, every day. Lower, especially. Some days, my back did nothing but hurt. In fact, this week, the only time my back bothered me was after I’d removed the bed from my bedroom (don’t use it anyway) carried it all downstairs, outside, and put all but the mattress in the back of the truck. I’d say that’s pretty good.

I feel so strongly about this, I’m encouraging EVERY ONE of you to do it too! Stretch and warm up, every morning. All I’m asking for is ten minutes and a week. If you don’t feel it’s worthwhile at the end of the week, never mind!

I’m also hanging up my shingle as a warmup coach. I’ll be starting a new Youtube channel for the blog, by the way; that will help me to get started. I already did the first video this morning. There will be more, and hopefully they’ll look a little better too. What’s more, I have a webcam, and I have skype, so if you want something on more catered basis, I can help you there too. If you need more help than that, let me know, I’ll see what I can do! You can also ask Dr. Eeks, if you feel that she would be better qualified to answer your question (she probably would).

 

Next, let me welcome a new member to the exercisedammit family, our mascot, Buddha! You can read more about her by clicking her About tab, on the menu, above. Of course, Buddha is our puppy, and she’s my exercise buddy. She sits nearby and watches as I stretch and do my warmup, then when I walk laps around the inside of the house, she’s right there by my side. Then, she comes outside with me for the walk that will end my morning warmup.

I’ll have to put some pics up some you can see her pretty eyelashes (I’ve never noticed eyelashes on a dog!). I’m thinking the number that I have to lose (350 lbs) will draw people in, her sweet lashes will keep them around!

 

I’d also like to talk about what we’re doing with this blog. It’s a young blog, but already it looks like we’re going to have to separate it from its parent, WordPress. If I do, no worries, we’ll be keeping the website and name. Also, it may not happen. If I go with another hosting service, I’ll have to pay them, and I’ll have to find someone that offers a good balance of services offered to amount charged. Or, I can pay WordPress.

Why would I need to pay them? Well, there’s so much I want to DO with this blog, but I can’t. For example, music. I would honestly love for you to hear an upbeat song as you read this blog. Something that could inspire you to exercise, dammit! But if I want to post a song here, I have to pay an annual fee (I’ll also get extra storage with that). I’d like to post videos, but if I do… I have to pay them. Anyone familiar with Goodfellas? F-you, pay me; F-you, pay me. Want to put a nice looking graph up on your weight tracker? F-you, pay me! Want to use the custom style sheet for features that we don’t commonly offer? F-you! Pay me! It’s getting old.

The good news is that putting pictures up is free, up to a certain amount, of course, so there will be plenty more of those. (BTW, I’m writing this last night, and there’s an infomercial on for the Brazil Butt Lift. Basically, you do this program, and it makes your butt firmer, rounder and of course, the lift. And of course, the guy has a thick accent {Brazilian, I assume} and listening to him say “de butta” is hilarious. Of course, it is 2 in the morning)

Also, there will be a graph on the weight tracker, I just have to sit down and plot the information in excel and I should be able to use that graph. Which will look like crap, but… it’s something, eh?

Lastly, updates on the main page. I’m sure it will be awkward, but I’m going to include recent updates on the splash page (the section you see when you first access the site). This way you don’t have to search around to find it. I may look into that post calendar. Hopefully, this change will be in place by the end of the week.

 

And, before I close, I want to give a shoutout to three of our readers who were kind enough to volunteer some GREAT feedback about this site! I am speaking of course of Shawn Crowley and my cousins, Kaitlyn and Shannon Whiton. Thanks a lot guys, and to those that weren’t mentioned I got a lot of good feedback from many that visited this site. Thanks to you to. And some have visited without giving me the feedback. That’s good too! (But you’re not going to get mentioned that way!)

by gendjlee on February 13, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Administrative Junk, Exercise, Medical Care, Weight Loss
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by gendjlee on February 13, 2012

http://exercisedammit.com/2012/02/13/ready-to-begin-a-new-week/

AND we’re back!


Basically, the problem is fixed. The problem was, I put the laptop on an ottoman, which has a slanted top, somehow or other (Buddha {our fine puppy} probably knocked it off kilter) the laptop fell off the ottoman and more or less landed on the power cord sticking out of it. So it lands on the cord, wrenches the port that the cord is plugged into and pushed that port into the laptop and off at an angle, so that I couldn’t charge the laptop any further. So, as soon as the juice ran out, so did this laptop.

And by the way, I owe Juice Newton another nickel. Don’t forget to pay your part, especially if you drink orange juice. You know, before her, they just called it “orange drink”.

So, the food log isn’t the best it could be, because I haven’t been able to post on this blog much this week, and the exercise log… well, let’s face it, the exercise has been shit.

EXCUSES: Take ‘em or leave ‘em. I’d like to say that there’s no excuses here, I hope I can just settle for no bullshit excuses. What are this week’s excuses?

Excuse #1 – Laptop broke.

Excuse #2 – My father is in the hospital.

I’m sure Dad loves being one of my excuses. Actually, I think that might qualify as a “borderline” BS excuse. Frankly, my Dad being in the hospital is no good reason not to exercise. It’s a lot to worry about, but there has been plenty of time since Monday (when he went in) that I could have exercised. Instead, the only exercise I’ve gotten this week have been the trip to the dump (Tuesday), and trips to visit my Dad (Tuesday and today). In fact, I wasn’t even THERE to visit him yesterday or today until the last visiting hour, so there’s two wasted days that I could have done something and I basically did nothing.

I mean, I can’t think of any walking I did. Bottom line is, I gotta ramp up exercise. Got to do more walking, even if it’s just inside the house (it’s warm out for February, but let’s not get crazy).

So, I had expected to have the laptop fixed by the weekend, since I have accidental coverage for my laptop. The only problem is, Dell wants the laptop. They want me to mail it to them, and in a month, or two or three (I speak from experience. I sent them my laptop once upon a time and didn’t see it for an entire semester at Rowan) they’ll send it back, all fixed, except it wasn’t last time. I still had to call a technician to fix the lousy repair they did, which almost resulted in the laptop not being sent to me in one piece!

Normally, I have very good luck with Dell. How good? This isn’t the laptop I bought! They took that in last year for exchange. This is actually quite a better laptop than the one I originally bought. The original one didn’t have a subwoofer on the bottom.
This time, Dell isn’t interested in exchanging (yet, it was the technician that got me the new one last year) but they still want me to send the computer in to them. I told them to go to hell. I found out last year that it’s their policy to find other means of repair if the computer in question is used for work or school (wouldn’t THAT have been nice to know last time around), so I told them I use it for work AND school and wasn’t about to go through that again.

They weren’t happy about it, but they sent out the parts and arranged to have a tech come to my house. Today I got a call from them. I guess the motherboard is on backorder, and they don’t want to send the tech out until it becomes available. I tried to argue that from what I can tell, the computer works just fine, with the exception of that port. Their argument was “you never know…” and they do NOT want to send the tech out twice.

So, they let me know that it would be a long time (think hell and cold) before that tech comes to my house, and for now, while I can hold on to my laptop and keep it nice and close, it isn’t going to work a damn. It’s just a $2000 paperweight!

So, I took my personal grooming kit/swiss army knife off and got to work unscrewing the back panel. Turns out the screw I needed to turn to get to where I needed was already stripped, but I figured out how to get into where I needed to be to try to hobo-rig port into place, so that I could plug in my computer! I ended up using one of my thicker keys to keep a wide opening at the back of the computer, and used another key, along with my knife to reposition the port and hold it in place while plugging the computer in. Now the plug seems stuck, but the computer is charging, so that’s one problem solved.

With any luck, my Dad will be home tomorrow, and that will be another. Now to just get those legs moving under me.

by gendjlee on February 3, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Administrative Junk, Exercise, Medical Care, Weight Loss
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by gendjlee on February 3, 2012

http://exercisedammit.com/2012/02/03/and-were-back/