“The Thought of My Thighs”

So the Borders in the town where I live is going out of business. This makes me incredibly sad, as I like Borders better than B&N, and this Borders has always employed really decent, friendly, bright people, unlike my local B&N.

BF and I went there last weekend to take advantage of 20% off the entire store, and I gave in and bought a hardback that I’ve been wanting to read for some time now (since I read this): Portia de Rossi’s memoir Unbearable Lightness. I don’t like hardbacks, for a slew of reasons, and I didn’t really want to buy this one, but I badly wanted to read it instead of waiting a year for it to come out in paperback. Now that I’m a third of the way through, I am so glad that I caved.

For those of you who haven’t heard of it, this book is the story of Portia’s all-consuming eating disorder (interesting choice of words my brain gave me there) during the years she was on Ally McBeal. She had been coping with eating disorder behavior since she was about 12, but between 1998 and 2002, she shaved herself down to 82 pounds at her thinnest before the disorder was finished with her.

This is a fascinating book, thoroughly real, intelligently written, and as candid as you could possibly want a memoir to be. It’s given me a great deal to think about, in part because of my own long-ago struggle, in part because of what’s going on in my diet and life now, and in part because it’s just a doggone incredible piece of work.

What’s going on now is that my wedding is just over three months away, and I am not as skinny as I’d like to be. I feel loose everywhere, with a body that’s…undisciplined. Generally I’ve been feeling overwhelmed and under-prepared for life in the last three months, and this means that my ability to make healthy meals at home has slipped, and I’ve been relying on frozen foods a lot. My psychological reserves are way down, and I can’t resist comfort foods, I can’t take the energy to count calories, I can’t make myself do much of anything that my mind is resisting.

I’ve been feeling angry at myself, lazy, undisiplined. But when I read about Portia’s ironclad discipline during these awful years, it makes me wonder what’s so great about being disciplined anyway, particularly about diet and exercise. At less than 100 pounds, at 300 calories per day, she still spent hours on the treadmill every morning. Her anxiety about her appearance led her to a kind of leveled-up self-discipline that I’m not sure I ever want to experience.

I joined Planet Fitness in January and I’ve been trying to make it there twice a week, to spend gradually increasing spells on the elliptical. I like the elliptical. It’s not as hollowing and jagged as running, and I still manage to work up a sweat. Ace of Base and Ke$ha keep me company, and I feel utterly satisfied when I get home.

I have been beating myself up that I haven’t set strict goals and met them, going there three or four times a week without fail and insisting on a certain amount of time on the machine at a certain level (or working my way up to running, which I don’t really like but burns more calories), but I just didn’t think that was the way to success for me. I thought if I aimed for twice a week and made it more about the memory of how good I feel when I’m done, I’d do better, dread it less, maybe even make it more often.

After reading about what Portia put herself through, I am much surer that this was the right way to go about it. If it weren’t for the wedding, I might abandon all of my concern about how my body looks and focus only on how it feels. I wish I had a more defined midsection and slimmer hips, arms and neck. But the more of this harrowing book I read, the more I think it might just not matter, maybe not at all, as long as I have a good brain, a good heart, and good health.

From the epilogue:

I’d still like thighs the size of my calves, but the difference is that I’m no longer willing to compromise my happiness to achieve it, or for the thought of my thighs to take up valuable space in my mind. It’s just not that important.

Jacked

I have (finally, perhaps) come to the realization that living a pain-free life in a flexible body is more important at this moment in time than losing weight.

I’m not losing weight, and my body is a jacked up mess of pain and stiffness. This is, just about entirely, due to my constant computer use. I can’t sit comfortably, stand comfortably, lie down comfortably, sleep comfortably, or BE comfortable. My workouts are suffering because I can’t be effective when I’m this stiff and in pain.

It’s time to take control, and take some action.

There were two times in my life when I felt like my body was flexible and pain-free – when I was getting regular massages, and when I was practicing yoga regularly. Fortunately, AcronymCo has a full-fledged wellness center – a doctor’s office, really – that has a full-time massage therapist on staff. We book appointments with her through our corporate calendar, and she charges $20 for each half-hour. Right here on campus. Work away, sneak off for a massage, come back and work some more. I’M ON IT.

The yoga studio I went to last year is still going strong and adding more classes all the time. There really ISN’T a reason why I haven’t continued to make use of them, other than that I just, well, haven’t.

My freelance stuff pretty much tossed my good intentions out the window to spend LESS time in front of the computer, so I’m going to have to modify and ENFORCE my off-line times. That’s going to be tough, but it HAS TO be done.

So (thinking out loud here), here’s how things are probably going to shake down:

Sunday: 9:00 a.m. yoga
Monday: Cardio/weights (possibly the gentle yoga class at 10:00 a.m.)
Tuesday: Massage session during the workday, followed by 5:00 p.m. yoga
Wednesday: off
Thursday: Cardio/weights
Friday: off
Saturday: Cardio/weights

THERE WILL BE NO COMPUTER USE AFTER WORK on Tuesday nights or Friday nights, and no computer use AT ALL all day Saturday. That’s right, you heard me. All day on a WEEKEND day. I’ll just have to fit in my freelance stuff on Sunday, Monday, lunchtime Tuesday through Friday, maybe some on Wednesday and Thursday evening depending on how much I have to do. I mean, damn, that’s GOT TO be do-able. Right?

Something’s gotta give, and if I keep going at this rate it’s gonna be my digestion from all the Advil I’ve been popping lately. I mean, damn.

I’m tired of hurting. Worst thing is, I did it to myself. Stupid girl.

Here’s my 2011 workout schedule

I’m still in the process of honing my list of 2011 goals, dreams, and resolutions, but I have come up with a workout schedule that I believe I can stick with. Last year didn’t really go so well in the weight loss department, and I came to a conclusion. I was acting like a rabbit when really I’m a turtle. I would go fast and furious in great spurts, then I would look at how much I had accomplished and take a nice loooonnnng nap under a tree. After all, I DESERVED it, after all my hard work. The problem was that my naps and the snacks under the tree outweighed the spurts of activity, as evidenced by my weight loss goals not being met for 2010.

So, now that I’ve figured this out, and I am fully ready to embrace my turtle power, I came up with a plan. I know that consistent action is the key and that phrase is part of my mantra for this year. My word for the year is BRAVE, but that’s another post on another blog. So I have come up with the 30/30 workout schedule. I’m going to lose 30 pounds and I’m going to do it in 30-minute increments, consistently.

I recently had a massive schedule change for work, where I no longer go in at 5:00 a.m. Now I go to work at 9:30 a.m. With careful planning this allows me to go to the gym in the morning after I drop my girl off at school and before I start work. One of the biggest obstactles to my goal has always been lack of time. I always felt that if I couldn’t put in an hour, then what’s the point?  Well, the point is consistent action. So now I shoot for shorter increments….at least 30 minutes. My new schedule is as follows.

Mon:  8:30-9:30 elliptical + nautilus

Tues:  8:45-9:15 -dog jog. I have 2 dogs and take them separately.

Weds:  8:45-9:15 elliptical

Thurs:  6:15 a.m. Pilates or 7:00-8:00 elliptical + nautilus

Fri:  8:45-9:15- dog jog.

Sat:   11:00 a.m. Yoga class or a home activity…biking, walking, etc.

Sun:  Off

Also included in here is daily ab work in front of the TV at night and also evening dog walks with the family. Something almost every day for at least 30 minutes. So far, I lost 2 pounds last week, and that was a week that included 2 drinking nights (not heavy, just wine at art events but that adds up), 1 dinner at Olive Garden (bread-friggin-sticks!) and being led astray down the chocolate chip slice-and-bake path by the husband. Not every week will be like that, but some will and I am not very good at deprivation. It feels good and balanced and like something I can stick with…My goal is 30 pounds and I’d like to feel good in a bathing suit this summer! I’ll keep you posted.

Procrastination

I just read this somewhere else.  I think it had to do with budgeting or something, but as the author stated, it’s certainly a multipurpose issue.

When you commit to something — exercising more, eating better, saving money — it is challenging to stick with it.  Whole forests have been felled in the name of books meant to help us stick to self-improvement promises.

Every time I want to procrastinate about something, I shall now say to myself, “You’re killing a tree.”

I’m not necessarily the biggest tree-hugger that ever lived, but guilt?  Guilt, I can do.

Here it is.

Prioritize exercise.

Give up beer(!), bread, and cheese. For now. Until 20 pounds are gone.

Eat a fruit and/or vegetable at every meal.

I have no room in my life for anything more complicated than that. No tracking, no counting, no bullshit. Just moving my ass and avoiding my problem foods.

How are you simplifying your diet and fitness goals?

Happy New Year everyone!

I got this forwarded to me today. It looks pretty interesting. I just got Marianne Williamson’s book, A Course in Weight Loss, and she is one of the speakers. Thought I’d pass it on, if you’d like to check it out. I’ve been feeling under the weather with a cold and cough. I am so over it. It is hard to get motivated to start the year right when you don’t feel good. Maybe listening to this will help. Hope everyone is doing well!

http://secure.elabs6.com/functions/message_view.html?mid=883950&mlid=20949&siteid=12346080&uid=c999c01943

2010 in review

I got this summary of 2010 stats for No Butts in my e-mail this morning. I thought it was interesting/amusing, but I wonder why the picture of someone’s feet?

**********

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 2,600 times in 2010. That’s about 6 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 74 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 199 posts. There were 6 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 705kb.

The busiest day of the year was January 28th with 58 views. The most popular post that day was Salty.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were davideckoff.com, snerkology.wordpress.com, bourbon-central.com, Google Reader, and dashboardhula.blogspot.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for 30ds, weird tan lines, 30ds workout, 30 ds, and tanned butts.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Salty January 2010
11 comments

2

Weird Tan Lines? July 2009
10 comments

3

What DOESN’T Work In The Gym July 2009
12 comments

4

Little Bonuses June 2009
10 comments

5

When Hypoglycemia, Security Issues, and IBS Collide August 2009
8 comments

Hint Taken

I haven’t walked or done any real form of exercise in over a month. As much as I was looking forward to the weather cooling down, it only was a few weeks of walking outside before daylight became my enemy and as is often so easy, I lost motivation. Luckily I’ve only put 1 or 2 pounds back on, but I miss the feeling of getting off my ass and doing something.

Enter yesterday and a new foreclosure for us to clean out. To my surprise and wonder, included in the stuff the former tenant left behind was this:

Note: As much as I'd like to admit that's me, it's not

I’m taking this surprise windfall as a hint it’s high time to get my ass off the couch once again.

Merry, Merry

Before I fully succumb to a maple nut fudge coma, I wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas. I’ll see you back here bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (translate sluggish and hungover) ready to start the New Year and the new ME!

Working out is working out

My current schedule, for what it’s worth and for those of you looking for a new routine. Click to embiggen.

Weights routine lifted from the Body Sculpting Bible for Women.