Survival!

Well, my first workout down.  I made it.  No major injuries or near-collapses, which beats my previous and rather abortive “return” to the gym in February.

I did two 30-minute bouts on the crosstrainer, interspersed with some stretching and a water break.  And I did it without resorting to the lowest level on the machine!  Surprise score!

And of course, the weigh-in.  The stated over/under was 212.  Those of you who bet the under can now see my associate, Guido, and collect your winnings.  The verdict was 201.  So I only have to lose ~20 pounds instead of ~35!  Double score!  True, I was without my weight lifting gloves and belt like my last weigh-in, and my new iPod is probably lighter than my old mp3 player, but still that’s maybe 4-5 pounds, tops.  I’ll take it.

Lessons learned:

1)  I love my buddy Michael.  There’s a great way to distract yourself from the fact that you’re basically spending an hour of your finite life on a glorified hamster wheel, and that’s WTF!’ing your way through a few albums of Finnish folk-metal.  Seriously.  Check this out. You owe it to yourself to spend 60 seconds of your life in WTF-land here.  (And as that genre of metal goes, this is actually pretty good.)

2)  I may someday be too blind, I’ll definitely one day be too dead, but I’ll never be too old to enjoy a quick glance at bouncing boobs on a treadmill.  Sorry, ladies.  Nothing personal.  If it makes you feel better, if instead of the standard ESPN talk shows on the cardio room TVs they’d been replaying this weekend’s World Superbike races (or, better yet, the last three laps of the Catalunya GP last weekend – gotta love the Italian announcers, eh?) I’d have never even noticed.

3)  Like a landing, any first workout you walk away from is a good one.  Am I right?

Emotional eating

In a recent post, Shari asked us how we stave off emotional eating.  As a 17th-degree rainbow-belt Master of Emotional Eating (which means I’ve done it a lot and have also kicked its ass a lot), I had a big ol’ long answer that I thought was better as a post, so I re-routed it here.

While the answer discusses children, having kids of your own is not required to put it into practice:  any child that you know and love works well, spouse is okay but they are usually independent enough that it doesn’t carry the same weight in your mind.  A younger sibling might work or even imagining that you have a chance to teach your younger self.

I have a hard answer that sounds all righteous or something, and SO isn’t, but honest to God, it’s the thing that works best for me (when something works):

Daily Goals

Laura:

Water: 64 oz
Exercise: 30 minutes Elliptical L3. I’m “scheduled” to do 30DS but it’s That Time, during which abdominal exercises are a bad idea.
Calories/Nutrition:1100-1200 – only 250 have been consumed thus far, AFTER lunch, so hmm. Might make my goal today! Let’s hear it for appetite suppression due to cramps! (TOLD ya this was a TMI friendly site!)
Worst Thing Today:Had to hit the ground running on work related stuff. OH DEAR LORD, vacation can’t come soon enough! Plus I have laundry to do and grocery shopping and ACK it’s 11:30 and the pets haven’t been fed and… and… and… Send. Calgon. In. Desperate. Need. Yeah. I’m kind of stressed out today.
Best Thing Today: Rechecked the math (for the millionth time) on our vacation budget and savings goals, and looks like we’ll make it! If we spend NO extra money between here and the end of July, that is. Flagstaff/Sedona last weekend was the Final Splurge.
Notes: I’m recalling anew, after a weekend spent drinking and eating WAY too much, how much better my body feels when I treat it right. Also, because of the weekend activities and aforementioned That Time, I’m skipping weighing in this week.

TB:

Water: Um, yeah, drinking it when I’m not dodging it falling from ye skye.

Exercise: Didn’t walk this morning as it was raining.  (And it was Monday.  Ungh.)  First day back in the gym this PM:  30 minutes of cross-trainer.  If I survive without blurred vision, possibly another 30 minutes.  We’ll see.

Calories/Nutrition: Protein shake for breakfast.  My out-of-town meeting provided lunch.  Turkey & swiss on a croissant with mayo and lettuce, an apple, bag of Lay’s, a brownie, a single Reese’s, a fun-size (“fun?”  Fun-sized should equal huge, not tiny.) Kit-Kat, and a single Starburst.  I like this meeting.  Dinner is still negotiable.
*Worst thing today: Frickin’ heat and humidity.  Holy frijoles.  Good thing I don’t have hair to poof out, huh?  Oh, and the protein shake that tasted like wet dog.

*Best thing today: Good lunch with good colleagues I don’t see often.  Very nice.
Notes: See the *?  That means I’m reserving judgment for whether the gym goes under best or worst.

Kim:

Water: I’m doing much better with it, but I still only usually manage a little over 32 oz. Trying for 64 though.
Exercise: Starting Week Two of Hell on Earth…I mean 30DS
Calories/Nutrition:1600 – So far it’s around 470, so shouldn’t be a problem.
Worst Thing Today: After a chore-filled weekend, I was freakin’ EXHAUSTED when I woke up this morning and I know it’ll be a bitchfest to stay motivated the rest of the day.
Best Thing Today: Work has been nice and low-key.
Notes: Very happy about being able to button yet another shirt today that I couldn’t wear a few weeks ago. Every time that happens, it’s a great reminder that all this stuff pays off.

Bleagh

Willpower, that’s what it’s all about.

That’s what I told myself 10 minutes ago as I had breakfast – “cookies and cream” protein powder.  Of all the advances of science that I’m looking forward to, #35 or so would be protein powder that doesn’t taste like ass.  Expired ass.  FDA-recalled ass.  (And isn’t that a bummer about the Toll House cookies?  Argh!)

Out of town meeting this morning (complete with a decent lunch – bonus) and then my first day back in the gym this afternoon.  Cardio-only, which I haven’t done in ages upon ages.  Thank god for my new iPod, which was an early Father’s Day gift, so I’d like to take a minute to thank my lovely wife for that little gift toward my exercise goals!

This will include my first weigh-in of this little adventure.  I’m not so worried about my weight, really.  I plan to use my belt as my real measuring stick.  I bought this belt when I broke my last one two years ago.  I was just starting to put some weight back on from my good weight of 2006 then, and I actually had to add a notch to the belt to be able to keep my pants up.  For the last several months I’ve, uh, been using the notch three over from the one I added.  That’s about three inches of waistline for those keeping score at home.  When I get back to that last DIY notch I’ll know I’m doing great.

Still, for solidarity with my fellow travelers on this path, I’ll do a weigh-in on the gym scale.  That’s the scale I’ve always gone by for my actual weight since our bathroom scale sucked, so we’ll have an “official” weigh-in.

Over/under is 212.  Who’s betting?  After pizza and a Blizzard for Father’s Day, I’m taking the over, but it should be close.