Day 83 - baggy pants and puffy ankles

Today's report:

Your Daily Summary

114

CALORIES REMAINING

Goal	Food	Exercise	= Net
1210	1594	498	1096

Exercise:  Tae Bo ripped extreme, and 14 (!) push ups

My pants are all looking a bit too baggy & unflattering.  I'm happy that I've shrunk a bit, but I'm a little bit bummed to lose my favorite pants from the past few summers.  I can't really afford a new wardrobe now either.  Maybe a tailor?  Or maybe I'll just keep enjoying my bread and let the bloating help fill in my pants.  Clever, eh?  (No - I didn't think so either.)

I went to my friend's 85th birthday party today.  Her Italian family had made enormous amounts and varieties of Italian foods - eggplant parmesan, baked ziti, ziti w/ chicken & broccoli, fettuccini alfredo,  chicken piccata, chicken marsala...and then there was the dessert table.  Oy vey.

I went down the buffet line and took tiny servings of my 4 favorites.  My plate was full, but it was only one paper plate, and it included a small salad, and I passed by the yummy looking fresh Italian bread and whole wheat dinner rolls.  (bread with pasta seems a bit much, right?)  

Dessert - a brownie, an Italian jelly cookie w/ chocolate topping, and a plain jelly sandwich cookie.  So yummy.  2 glasses of wine.  I wanted very badly to go take more fettuccini alfredo, even though I wasn't hungry anymore...but thinking of adding it to my list later and seeing the fat cal's climb that high...well, it gave me the will power I needed to resist.  

It's been a good week!  If I don't overdo the starches between now and Tues morning, I totally expect a loss on the scale.  My best indicator of my water retention/bloat factor is the indentation my ankle-socks leave on my ankles when I take them off.  It's so bad sometimes that it takes an hour or so to vanish...if I change into sandals mid-day, it's embarrassing how my ankles show this sock indent.  I'm not a salt-adder.  Could it REALLY just be sugars and/or starches making me puff out?

My visual motivation for the new week:

11 Week Progress Pic

It's weird timing for a progress pic (11 weeks?  Huh?)  But I'm a little bit bummed to see my MFP progress ticker back down to 7 lbs lost (when it was up at 9 a few days ago), so I figured I'd snap a shot and get a visual on my progress.

Jan 31, 2012    and    Apr 18, 2012
154.4 lbs      and     147.4
(5'5")

I see enough of a difference (in the front facing photo, at least) to make me not care about the 7 vs.9 right now.  I'm gonna keep doing what I'm doing.  Still don't see a reduction in the amount of ugly dimply cellulite on the back of my thighs and under my butt.  That's just blech.  I want it gone.  Can't see that in the photo, so consider yourselves lucky.  (trust me - it's blech.)  But I feel better about my stubborn mid section after comparing the pics.  It felt like I was working my ass off to no avail - like my waist was just never gonna budge.  Truth is, it's budged, but it's just taking a lot more effort to get it back to the way it looked in my 20's and early 30's.  Man, it used to be a cinch back then.  I always took it for granted.

So I'm content with my progress!  Psyched to keep going and post a pic right before bikini season!

Now today:  I have all these excess calories in my budget from my hike/climb.  I can't possibly eat an extra 1100 calories today.  I have to end the day wayyyy under my daily recommended calories, though I *did* eat them.  I just burned too much off.  Is that considered bad?  It can't possibly be good for me to eat more when I'm not hungry, just to keep the numbers where they should be, can it??

Your Daily Summary

902

CALORIES REMAINING

Goal	Food	Exercise	= Net
1210	1408	- 1100	308

My local hike and all my extra calories.

My local hike: Lucky, lucky me - I live in this town, with this awesome hiking/rock climbing trail only 10 min away, which - 20 yrs ago - no one but us locals frequented.  Now, the NY Times and Newsweek have let the cat out of the bag, and we're swamped with city dwellers on day trips, sometimes BUS LOADS OF THEM!  ACK!,  clogging up the trails.  Blah.  Today, however - a Thursday morning - my friend and I had the mountain to ourselves!  How wonderful!!

It's nearly vertical right from the start.  Around the 1st peak, you get your 2nd wind in time to tackle the 2nd peak, and the climbs to the 2nd and 3rd peaks are the most scenic and most thrilling/potentially dangerous.  Then it levels out a little to the 4th and final peak - some hills, some descents, a little bit of climbing (hands needed) here and there.  It all coincides so perfectly with what your muscles want and need.  It's push push push, breath, breath, breath for the 1st 45 min, slightly eases up for the next 15-20 min, and then you start just hiking...some dips/hills, but nothing that strenuous.  The descent is steep in parts and you have to lean way back while you step forward, and it works your quads so well!  By the end, it's just a slight decline and easy walking, as you cool off and realize how totally freakin' amazing you feel, with your exhausted muscles and sweaty clothes and hair!  I feel so much sexier then than I do when I'm all dressed up and standing around some social event, trying to look pretty.

I haven't hiked this trail since Autumn, so I was PSYCHED to bring my HRM and figure out the calorie burn.  However, I forgot one crucial piece of it at home, and so I'll have to wait til next time.  MyFitPal estimates 2 hrs of hiking w/ hills and carrying <10 lb weight to be 949 cals.  I burned more than that w/ tennis last weekend, same amount of time.  I'm certain my heart worked harder on this hike.  I'm going to safely estimate 1100, though I believe it's more.

It's not the majestic mountain trails Maren gets to hike, but it's my own local natural wonder.  Used to be that you could see the Twin Towers on the horizon from the top.  (60 miles away.)  And granite blasted from the side of this mtn was used to build the Brooklyn Bridge.   I get a kick out of these reminders about how close to the city we are, yet how it feels such a world away.

Photos taken from a blogger called HarrimanHiker.  (No relation, though we do share the same blogging last name.)

photo: Alan Petrulis
The Hudson River, the train tracks to Manhattan, and the street we drove here on.

Photo: Robert Rodriguez, Jr.

And a post workout motivation pic:

I have sooooo many calories added into my daily budget now.  I keep finding myself thinking of decadent ways of enjoying them.  Silly, silly thoughts....Must squash them.  Gonna go make a salad.

RFSC Week 3 update/Week 4 Goals

WEEK 3 GOALS:

Weight Loss:  .8 lb goal - SUCCESS!  (1.4lb lost)

My weigh ins are Tuesday mornings, so by the time I'm posting my RFSC weekly update, my weigh in is 5 days past.  But I want to include my stats in my updates, so here goes:

I lost 1.4 lbs, and was down to 145.0 on Tuesday!  PSYCH!!!!  

NSV:  More water & Sleep.  HALF SUCCESS

I've been making a point to drink more water each day, but I'm still up all wacky hours at night.  My daughter's been on Spring Break though, and school resumes tomorrow - so that should be changing.  

Nutrition:  Stay on track during a social gathering w/ lots of food/drinks.  SUCCESS!

Saturday's cocktail party would have been a much more indulgent event if not for my mental prep ahead of time.  I didn't overeat, but I also allowed myself to enjoy the food there without any guilt.  This is going to be life - I'm going to enjoy food at social gatherings, so my goal was to do that without going overboard.  I'm REALLY happy with how I did, and I am digging feeling so confident and in control about it.  Just the fact that numerous brie and raspberry phyllo hors d'oeuvres were in my presence that did NOT end up in belly - that is a huge deal.  They are sooooooo goooooooood.  (the three I did eat were VERY satisfying!)

Fitness:  Bring it outside and vary my workouts more.  12 push ups.  HALF SUCCESS.

Started tennis.  Will continue this outdoor/mix-it-up goal in the coming weeks, more and more.  

Push ups - did 10 last time I tried.  Did 8 more in a 2nd set, but there was a stretching-pause in between, and I want to complete 12 in a row before calling it a success and increasing my goal.

GROUP GOAL:  Visit other blogs - HALF SUCCESS

I visited quite a few and left comments on most of them, but no time to read them all, and I didn't want to post generic well wishes without bothering to read at least the latest post in full.  I do have a few favorite blogs by now, and they're quite varied in theme and style.  Some of my favorite bloggers are very motivational with their challenging workout details and healthy eating plans  (Annie the Shrinking Chick, Plum Petals...).  With others, I connect with how they feel about eating.  (So many of you I can't name y'all.)  I love Maren's blog pics of her hikes, and her always positive outlook.

Pink Elephant's pics and ideas (like her awesome journal w/ stats and stickers) are motivational and give me ideas I want to implement in my own journey.  Crazy (kind of) Fat's blog is hilarious and fun to read - but twice this week her posts about yummy foods left me craving those foods.  (After her bagel-love post, I got bagels stuck in my mind and had a huge one for lunch the next day, and debated having a 2nd the next morning.  Her latest post w/ the amazing pic of the pizza pie - yeah, well...I know what I'll be debating for lunch tomorrow.  I just hope she doesn't post a cheesecake pic.)

Raeesa's blog and feedback on my posts have been incredibly motivational for me too - maybe in large part because we're on the same track - similar goals, similar outlooks, and I think we want to lose the same amount of weight.  Plus, she's at MyFitPal also, and it's helpful seeing her daily updates (always good ones!) on my homepage there.  (Thanks, Raeesa!)

Thank you to everyone who's taken the time to read or post on my blog.  I check in on everyone in my bloglist as the newsfeed shows new posts.  I just don't always have time to post, but I'm pulling for all of you and appreciate all the honesty, bluntness and optimism being shared!

My goals for Week 4:

Weight loss:  .8 lb

Fitness:  12 push ups, 6 challenging workouts (including a hike/mtn climb), and start adding weighted butt crunches to my workouts.

Nutrition:  If my Tuesday weigh-in shows another loss, this will illustrate to me that I lose more on weeks when I have both low calorie intake days, and 2 or even 3 high calorie intake days - as opposed to keeping every day right around my "daily goal".  If this is the case, I'll start thinking more along the lines of my weekly calorie intake, and not bother with ANY negative feelings on the days I eat a thousand of more cal's over my daily goal, the the days I barely meet my goal and am wondering if I should workout for fear of ending up too low for the day.

NSV:  Water & Sleep - get the water up to 6 glasses a day each day.  Bed before midnight.

(I'm typing this at 3:18am.)

MOTIVATION PIC:  A no-cellulite butt.  My summer goal.

Day 75 - Tennis, Sun & Champagne

Such a great day!  Warm, sunny, got out early and played tennis with a friend who sucks as badly as I do at it.  Burned 998 calories playing, running after missed balls, and cracking up for 2 hours.  Got a bit of a tan in the process.  And honestly, I discovered I don't suck at tennis as badly as I thought I do.  We're making it a weekly thing. YAY!  I've always wanted to be a decent tennis player.  Tennis players have the best quads.  (Well-defined quads are one of my top priorities in this fitness endeavor.)

As for tonight's cocktail party, I'm happy with myself.  There WERE brie and raspberry phyllo dough hors d'oeuvres there (my fave!), and I had 3 - after I finished my 1st plate of raw veggies.  ( >applause< ) I had about 2 oz of very crappy champagne, then switched to water in a wine glass - it being a cocktail party n'all.  I took a palm-size of the main food there - eggplant rollatini.  There was also a table full of desserts, and I had 1 large chocolate-dipped strawberry and 2 small chocolate dipped peanut butter balls.  I skipped the eclairs and butter cookies, and avoided going back near the brie treats as soon as I decided "that's gotta be it."

I'd also eaten regular dinner earlier, just so I wouldn't show up there famished and make a meal of fried hors d'oeuvres.  So I had a lot of calories today, and ended up about 200 over, despite my tennis workout.  I didn't want to end the day that way, so tonight I did 25 min of jumprope/jacks/jogging/knee lifts to burn off the extra cal's.  I LOVE my HRM for enabling me to track this stuff!  I'd never have guessed I burned so much playing tennis because I was having way too much fun to consider my HR.  I'd also never have felt so sure of the extra workout cal's burned without the HRM.  It's pretty great being in-the-know about these things, since, y'know, it is my body and my metabolism.

Your Daily Summary

15

CALORIES REMAINING

Goal	Food	Exercise	= Net
1210	2419	1224	1195

Exercise:  1 hrs 10 min of tennis in AM, and 24 min of jacks/jumprope/jog/knee lifts in PM.  It's worth noting that MyFitnessPal's database calculated 130 min of tennis for me as burning 998 calories.  I used my HRM for it, and it calculated 996 cal's.  I'm really impressed with MFP's database accuracy!

Today's motivation pic -Anna Kournikova seems appropriate:

Week 9: To Weigh or Not To Weigh - That is the Question

Today wraps up my 9th week of my weight loss/fitness endeavor.  I've been very PMS'y, bad migraine for 2 days, bloated, moody, blah blah blah...It's a bad month for my TOM and it's just starting - tomorrow will be the worst of it.  So should I stick to my usual Tues morning weigh in?  Or put it off a couple of days?  I'm so eager to see my progress, but really don't want to ruin the impact of a great week by seeing a smaller loss than I actually worked for, or NO loss (!) due to temporary stupid ol' girly issues.

What a dilemma.

I just can't stand waiting, so I'm going to weigh.  If it's not a loss, I may just not post it for a couple of days, til I re-weigh after my symptoms ease up.

I was doing knee lift ab crunches during Insanity tonight - lots of them in rapid succession, balanced on the other leg - and I saw oblique muscles I haven't seen in a very long time!  THAT was freakin' great!!!! By the end of this summer challenge, I want them to be visible when I'm just standing around in my bikini...because let's face it, there's no real reason to be doing knee lift ab crunches during poolside social gatherings.  (If anyone can think of a good excuse to, please do share!)

Today's stats:

Your Daily Summary

158

CALORIES REMAINING

Goal	Food	Exercise	= Net
1210	1468	- 416	1052

Exercise:  Insanity Max Cardio Conditioning