Geeks Who Are Fit

What can I say, I was tempted to weigh early.

Last week: 198
This week: 197.4

Yes, I know that technically I didn't lose a whole "pound", per se, but wooooo I am totally losing weight OMG

*ponder*
I should have Eric drop me off to work out again today.  That rocked the goddamn mic, being in there to do whatever I wanted for two hours.
Not much to report diet-wise-- I eat less while on vacation, and I didn't really mess up too much on the 4th of July, going overboard only on the meat (when I have PMS, I eat like a wolverine, and tend to go for red meat when I gorge).  Diet Pepsi fills the "treat" category, I'm eating strawberries like they're going out of style, and Eric's making a lot of cool salads with a bit of fish or cheese when we need something substantial.  Portion control is really key, and I'm solidly in the mode of checking canned and boxed goods in calories per serving and sugars.

Strength-wise, I've been able to ratchet up some of my usual exercises about 5 pounds (biceps: 20 > 25, vertical bench 30 > 35) .  This doesn't sound like much, but I am trying to move to endurance, rather than bulk-based lifting, so the gradual increase in weight shows that my endurance is expanding. I am getting defined in a lot of areas, I just need to shed all the fat hiding it. 

Sitting around: yeah, I do that a lot while on vacation-- my favorite things to do: drawing, knitting, reading, playing video games and tabletops, they all require sitting.  Another sit-around temptation has been watching the World Cup.  I made that a very brutal carrot last night-- I stayed on the elliptical, and then, when I was starting to flag, the bicycle, so that I could watch it.  If those guys can run around for 90 minutes, I can at least try to keep up for 30-40 while I watch, right?  Phew, I was soaked with sweat when I finally made myself stop.  Another "while you're sitting" trick I have is sitting on an exercise ball to knit or read or vidgame at home.  I roll around, bounce, do the occasional crunch.  Staying on the ball constantly requires one's muscles to be engaged just a little bit, so it's a nice way to sneak a little workout in.  When I play God of War, I make myself do penalty pushups if Kratos dies in  mortal combat. (GRRRAAARRR)

I don't expect these two weeks to be a really big advance for me in my goal, but I'm trying not to have them be a setback, either.  Vacation makes me a lazy bastard, so I need to set routines so that I don't fail.

198 on the dot. I think I'm down a fraction.

Today, I was at a meeting where two whole boxes of donuts and sugared fruit juice were opened right under my twitching Monkey nose. I drank black coffee very, very slowly. Did not succumb.

In the immortal words of Robin Williams, if you need me, I'll be over in the corner kicking the cat. (Well, noodging her with my foot, wouldn't want to hurt either of my kitties.)

First day back at the gym after a week or so of being sick with a sinus infection.. I had a mild relapse this morning, so my lungs are congested a bit, and my endurance is shot. 20 minutes on the treadmill seemed waaaay longer than it really was.
Still, I did it. An I'mma do it again. Need to get my energy level back up for weights. Speaking of weight, I'm still hovering around 202. Geh. I should get back in the habit of logging food. The first two weeks of April did a number on my discipline, huh?

Post from mobile portal m.livejournal.com

First, the serious awesomeness: I'm down to 191 pounds, with weight taken at different times of day so that I can be reasonably sure of statistical consistency. Ladies will testify: eat a grain of salt, retain 5 pounds of water. I'm all over the map some weeks, so I got in the habit of taking two sample weights and using them for weekly reference.
In any case: 7 pounds consistently down since January. Easy striking range of 180. Time to kick it up a notch.
Hence my wearing a pedometer today. Did you know that your typical desk monkey may only take 3000 steps per day? (Or less?) I'm tracking my steps for the next week, exercise days and off days. If I'm over 3000, great. If not, I'm ramping it up. Kaiser's 10000 steps program intrigues me. I wonder what the time investment looks like?
* Other steps: fiber cereals have really helped me not make dumb mistakes that cause me to starve and binge later on.
* Liquid calories... Cutting back on drinking booze. Becoming, to my embarassment, a lightweight.

So, chums, workout is going nicely. Routine established, muscles already showing good tone again. One problem plagues me, though.
OW, MY ASS.
More accurately, my ass, my upper hip, inner knee to the side of my kneecap, and my outer ankle. I know I pronate horribly and my shoes need an upgrade. But are there stretches for these stabilizer spots, or ways to strengthen them. How DOES one stretch one's butt, short of doing one of THOSE videos?

Finally got to the gym after over a month off. Even just a little routine helps me feel normal, heaven knows. I've only gained 4 pounds in the time off, but I hold myself differently, and the little aches in my back tell me that my muscles aren't doing their job of helping with my posture and scoliosis. When I slouch, and have no energy, I feel more like Fatty McButterham than ever.
So! Back to it! Even yesterday helped me feel a little better.

Height: 5'9"
Weight as of this morning: 190.3
Goal in six months: 180, or less
Weightwatcher meeting: tomorrow!

The "keeping me honest" pants fit perfectly now, and I'm in the middle of hormone hell.  They were tight when I bought them a year ago.
Odd thing is, I'm not exercising any more than I usually do-- in fact, this week all I've done is walk a whole lot.

huh.

Still no word from the folks I asked to find me a personal trainer.  Grumph.

So, how much calories are expended using the stairs rather than the elevator?  I used to have excuse after excuse for punking out and taking the elevator to my fourth floor office, but lately I have been using this summer to train myself into taking the stairs every chance I get.  The fact that BOTH elevators have taken to not relinquishing anyone foolish enough to enter into them (OM NOM NOM NOM) means that I am DEFINITELY taking the stairs as much as possible!

How much more exercise is it?  A quick troll provides this handy number: 0.11 kC/step.  Given that I'm a bit heavier and taller (5'9", 190 lb, down from 194 last month) than the average woman (or, come to think of it, a lot of men) that I think this calorie-unit is based on, I'll call my expenditure 0.12 for now.  Once I lose a bit more weight, I won't be burning as much.

Steps for each floor: 28
4 floors at 28 steps times 0.12 kC per step=13.44 kC burned.

13.44 calories does not sound like a lot.  But consider that it takes me a little under a half hour of a fast uphill walk to burn 200 calories on the treadmill, and you'll see that for (+/- 1 minute)'s worth of exercise there's a lot of caloric burn for one's time, and this is exercise I can do whenever I feel like it!  Today's been a busy day, so I've taken the stairs up (and down) to the fourth floor twice, plus once down to the third floor and back. 

9 floors at 28 steps x 0.12kC=30.24kC burned before 10 am! 

Go forth with the knowledge that 1 step=0.11kC, my amazons and hoplites, and burn for all you're worth!

I wonder if I'd have done better if I'd not had a big potluck lunch that day? As it was, the first test went OK. I'm very sore in my abdomen and shoulders and triceps, but otherwise I think I can try this again in a day or two.

I stretched a while, then did a single traditional pushup. Instantly, the socket between my pecs and my shoulders on both sides said, "No. Just no. Bad things will happen, not just muscular things, either. " Fair enough. I switched to crossed-knees position. Much better. Only problem with this is I forgot to put a pad down and I now have serious rug-burn on my knees. ♥ The fleet's in! ♥

I was able to do 36 good-form knee pushups before I had to completely stop. If that's 50% of the strength required for a regular pushup, it puts me in the third rank of the initial test.  I will try the first week's program, ranked 3, beginning Saturday.

I'm pretty conditioned to stop before I completely exhaust myself, which I don't think was the point of this test-- I think they really wanted me to torque myself, and I really wanted to, y'know, continue to work out for more than ten minutes. So I maybe could have done more, but as it was, I also slapped on 60 weighted pull-over crunches, 36 weighted tricep extensions, and then hit the treadmill for my usual fast-hike with hills for 30 minutes.
I was Endorphine Lass! Whoosh! I think that's what I've been skipping in all this maintenance jazz I do-- not pushing myself and feeling that big crazy rush. Went to hang out with folks, had a great time, maybe had one diet Coke too many.
Did not sleep until 3 AM. Big jangly wad of nervous energy, sore from sternum to hips.  Maybe I should have held back on the partying a bit after the adrenaline rush.

I can see myself doing this regularly, with the idea of keeping my increases steady and slow. And lots of Alleve and hydrating those muscles in between. 

When I first started working out and watching my diet in 2004, I was 5'9" and weighed 230, 27 pounds over what is considered obese.

Forget about the handwaves you'll sometimes hear from people about doctors having set obesity benchmarks too stringently-- I'll TELL you what obesity is. Obesity, for me, was daily acid reflux. It was bad sleep and exhaustion and insomnia, including having to sleep in a certain way so that the fat on my chest and throat wouldn't cut off my airflow. Eric sometimes had to keep vigil during the night to make sure I was still breathing.  It was rising mobility issues-- little things-- movie theater seats being too tight, seatbelts at amusement park rides not fitting, bolted-down tables and chairs at restaurants being too snug against my stomach.  It was the insidious rise in my blood pressure-- occasional dizziness, shortness of breath.  I was on birth control pills, too.  Oh, MAN, I was sweating bullets about strokes and blood clots when my blood pressure started steadily rising.

I don't know when exactly I came to the realization that the the pieces were coming together to form a really bad picture.  But I am really glad I did, and my one regret is I didn't do it sooner.  I gained about 10 pounds back before I moved up here, and I was painfully conscious of the difference between a heavier me and a lighter me.  I'm now at 186.  I need to go further, but I also cherish the little things I DO have that obesity denied me.  Easy clothes shopping.  Restful sleep, energy.  Ambition.  Healthy, empowered choices.  My realization that I needed to lose weight wasn't about looks, it was about health-- this decision means that I won't ever say "eh, I'm older, my looks aren't so important"-- my health is and should always be a big part of my decision-making process. I read articles like the one below to remind me of what we face now in our collective health as a society, and what we'll face in the future, when things like cardiovascular disease and diabetes-related disabilities will become commonplace among younger and younger people.  (WALL-E made me simultaneously want to go to my gym and my garden!!)  We will see (possibly already are seeing) this financially in our taxpaying outlook, as more and more people require disability assistance.  I'd like to think us geeks getting together to encourage each other, be it through exercising together, going dancing, cheer-leading, advice, or a penalty bet(!), is part of taking care of that collective health and each other as friends, as well as taking responsibility for ourselves.  To me, this is a part of being a good citizen!