Diet Cake

What's all this?*

2009-03-26T00:38:00.009-06:00

Blog? What blog? I have a blog?

(Next thing you'll be telling me I have a third child who I've forgotten all about. Yuh-huh--it could happen. I'm just that loopy. Once we were at Disneyland with Sara's family and I was in charge of keeping track of two of the kids. Well, eventually that responsibility had to be taken away from me and I was then put in charge of keeping track of zero kids and just making sure I didn't get lost.)

*Please say in a British accent, preferably as if you were a chimney sweep in Mary Poppins.

P.S. There's no point to the picture, other than I look like a complete dork and it makes me laugh. Well, maybe it is relevant. I'm 4 years old there, by the way (in case you were thinking it was taken last Tuesday).

Size: L (L is for Limbo)

2009-03-16T21:10:00.007-06:00

When Sara was here way back in January (that seems so long ago), we went to Target. I think we were there mainly so Sara could give it (Target) a big "I miss you" hug, but we also purchased a few items. As it was still freezing cold here way back in January, Sara purchased some tights. I thought I would enjoy owning some tights also, so I picked up a package of Target tights and checked the back to see what size I should buy to fit, well, my size.

Here's what I saw:

For those of you who can't read Blurry, here's a translation (I'm near-fluent in Blurry):

4'11"-5'5" 100-130 lbs Small/Med

5'5"-5'11" 130-175 lbs Med/Tall

5'5"-5'11" 190-240 lbs 1X/2X (I'm not positive it says 240. It's 2something though)

Back in January, I weighed about 184 lbs (I'm not sure of the exact number, but I'm too lazy to look it up.)

Do you see the problem? The tights skip from 175 pounds to 190 pounds, with no size offered for those weighing between 176 lbs and 189 lbs. Yeah--those who are under 4'11" or over 5'11" and under 100 lbs or over 240 lbs are also tightsless in this situation, but at least there are specialty stores for them (or the girls' department for those under 100 lbs). What am I to do? Where's my neither-here-nor-there store? I haven't done any research since to see if all tights have similar size gaps. Now that spring is here (kinda), I have no use for tights.

And now I have a goal for this fall '09 (other than somehow acquiring several millions of dollars [which I will totally share with you--I'll at least buy you some tights]): to fall below 175 pounds so I can get me some of them fancy Target tights.

I think Hallmark can see inside my house

2009-03-15T13:07:00.004-06:00

A few days ago I got this card in the mail from my friend that I used to go to the gym with when I lived in Southern California. She lives in Japan now, and ergo carries the title of My Only Friend That is Usually Awake at the Same Time That I Am. Because of this, we chat on Skype a few times a week. Every once and awhile we talk about how little we like exercise compared to how much we like to eat. See why we're friends? Food = awesome, exercise = necessary evil.

Anyway, I don't really have a point to this, I just really liked the card and wanted to share it with you.

Bad Idea of the Week:

2009-03-05T21:53:00.004-07:00

Eating 1/2 a box of Trix cereal (dry) in one sitting. (Hey-- Lost makes me anxious...and munchy).

Good idea to counteract the bad idea:

Skinny Buns

2009-02-24T14:58:00.005-07:00

Get this. (I read somewhere that the secret of successful bloggers is that they start each post with a forceful command.*) You know Carrie Fisher? The actress/writer/gold bikini-wearer? (Of course you know Carrie Fisher. Who doesn't?) I just heard from her very mouth that she was offered the role of Princess Leia in the Star Wars trilogy with the caveat that she lose 10 pounds. The thing is, at the time she weighed a mere 105 pounds. Sure, she's 5'1" tall, but that's still incredibly skinny. Shame on you, George Lucas and Star Wars casting agents!

I hate Hollywood. (Except for when they make an enjoyable film--I like that part.)

P.S. My source for this information is an NPR podcast of "Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me" episode, which originally aired on January 31st of this year.

*I made that up. The actual secret of successful bloggers is that they tell outrageous lies.

Never Give a Half-Baked Answer to a 4-year-old

2009-02-22T21:26:00.008-07:00

Conversation with above 4-year-old tonight, just before bed:

4-year-old (In sweet lispy 4-year-old voice): "Mommy, what does 'fat' mean?"

Me (In an absent-minded, lazy voice): "It means 'big.'"

4-year-old: "Mommy, you are very, very fat!"

Me (In a paying-attention-now voice): "Honey, many people don't like it when you call them fat. It means they are...uh...bigger than they'd like to be."

4-year-old: "Mommy you are bigger than me!" (OK. I can agree with that.)

I suppose I should have told her that "fat" means, "having too much adipose tissue." (see below). That would have cleared things right up.

P.S. I really don't have a problem with the word "fat" myself (not that I want people yelling it at me in the street), but I don't want 4-year-old to start telling anyone who is larger than she is that they are "fat."

Product Review: Wheat Thins Fiber Selects

2009-02-20T22:12:00.004-07:00

I know you value my opinions...about everything. So based on that, I decided to sample a new food product and write about it. You're welcome!

Have you ever had Wheat Thins? Sure you have. Everyone's had Wheat Thins.

Do you like Wheat Thins? I don't--not really, anyway. I suppose I would eat them if I were starving, or if I ran out of popcorn and there was something good on TV (is it possible not to eat while watching TV? I really need to find out.)

Still, they're not my favorite cracker. They're kind of anemic tasting. (Can something taste anemic if it doesn't have blood? What does anemia taste like, anyway? Don't tell me if you know.)

Well, in spite of my lackluster feelings about Wheat Thins, I decided to give the new Fiber Selects 5-grain version a try. It helped that I had a good coupon that made them cost $1.

Guess what? They're tasty! I really like them. In fact, I will certainly buy them again (no, I am not on the take from Nabisco). They have a nice, nutty crunch. I like the large grains of salt on the surface. (I'm a fan of salt.)

What about nutrition, you ask? Be patient! I'm getting to that.

Here's some of the nutrition info from the box:

1 serving=13 crackers

Per serving:

4.5 grams fat (no saturated fat)

30% of calories are from fat

22 g carbohydrates

5 g fiber

2 g protein

What's exceptional about those numbers is the fiber gram count. 5 grams of fiber is a lot for a serving of crackers. Most crackers have little or no fiber, even those with "wheat" in the title. (Did you know that? Does it annoy you like it annoys me? Are you annoyed that I'm annoyed by stupid things?)

For example, regular Wheat Thins have 1 gram of fiber per serving. Wheatsworth crackers (made from stone-ground wheat!) also have 1 gram of fiber per serving. Multigrain saltines have NO grams of fiber per serving. Triscuits are better than most, with 3 grams of fiber per serving (and, they are delicious)(also, never try to eat them without a drink at hand--they will always get stuck in your throat).

What's so important about fiber? Well, that's a subject for another post. I could go on and on about fiber. I love fiber. What can I say? I'm just a regular girl.

Twisty brain, twisty body

2009-02-18T15:06:00.008-07:00

An artist's rendition of me. Honest.

Does anybody out there love yoga? I keep thinking I should love yoga, and I want to love yoga, I just, well, have never done it consistently enough to find out if I do. Every time I do it, I like it, but since that only happens about twice a year, I can't say for sure if there's a potential love connection or not.

I think one of the reasons is that I haven't done a lot of it is that every yoga DVD or tape (Holly gave me some for Christmas once about 100 years ago) I've had has always been, like, a whole hour. For someone with an attention span like mine (see also: gnat), that's a really long time. Here's the thing about my brain--ok, fine--one of the things about brain is that it might have no problem doing something that takes such a long time, and it might even like it, but good luck, my friend, trying to talk it into doing it again. Even if I liked it. My brain sometimes is not my friend.

I found something neat today though. Yogadownload.com. I have read about their yoga, well, downloads in several places, with the consensus being that they're good, so I decided to go check it out, mainly because I had read that they have 20-minute sessions. My brain likey 20 minutes waaay better than more than 20. And guess what! Turns out the 20-minute sessions are free! At least a whole bunch of them are (I haven't exactly checked out the site extensively). I'm almost as cheap as I am easily bored, so this seems like a good combination for me.

I downloaded the three beginner sessions, and I'm going to try one of them tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes!

Words to Eat By

2009-02-17T21:22:00.005-07:00

I just love folksy sayings, don't you? There's nothing like some homespun wisdom to inspire and instruct a body.

You know what I mean? Stuff like:

"Birds of a feather have lots of feathers."

and

"A penny saved is still just a penny"

(Inspired yet? I know I am!)

What about this gem?

"What's good for the goose is good for the French hens"

and let's not forget:

"A stitch in time leaves you with a holey clock." (That one has always been a comfort to me.)

This past weekend has certainly been governed by another of my favorite proverbs. Let's see if I can get it right. Oh yeah:

"You are what you EAT

This is more interesting than anything I have to say

2009-02-15T11:59:00.004-07:00

So I was going to write a "Confess and Assess: Sara Edition" post, but I can't find anywhere the paper where I wrote my measurements down, and heavens knows I am waaay too lazy to just take them again.

Instead, while I'm off searching through the random stacks of paper I have on every flat surface, read this article. It's about the boys' basketball team at a high school in a small town in New Brunswick, Canada. One of my very dear friends sent it to me, as that is the town she grew up in and the high school from which she graduated.

I kinda disappeared last week, because my mood spiraled into a pile of crap (figurative, thankfully) brought on, best I can tell, by the combination of hormones (ttom doesn't want to stick to any sort of schedule, it would seem) and my husband only being home for 3 days of the last month. Let me just say that there are days I handle his absences better than others. This past week was a few of the others. Reading that article though was a good reminder that maybe my life isn't as difficult as I sometimes seem to want to make myself think it is. Please don't think that, by posting this article, I am telling anyone to "suck it up" because their problems aren't "as bad" as this town's. I am a firm believer that you can't compare suffering (except maybe in extreme cases, i.e. hangnail vs. multiple organ failure--in that instance I might have to call you a whiner).

I am grateful whenever I find examples of people who carry on and succeed in the face of great difficulties. The circumstances may not be the same, but I think that we can gain something from stories like this to use to make our own lives better, even if it's just to give our loved ones an extra hug.

The Simple Life

2009-02-14T00:40:00.004-07:00

I've decided I would like my goal list to be the same as my nephew's. I saw it posted on my brother's fridge last night and was struck by its straightforward simplicity. Maybe I'm making life more complicated than it needs to be.

Confess and Assess: Part 2

2009-02-11T21:42:00.008-07:00

Waaaay back in November of aught eight, I posted my measurements and other general information about my health and weight loss efforts. Since three months have passed (wow!), I decided to do it again. I LOVE putting personal information on the internet! (Almost as much as I love sarcasm!)

Today's information:
*Weight: 182.5
*Height: still 5'9"
*Exercise regimen: finally working on it
*Best thing I eat regularly: oatmeal
*Worst thing I eat regularly: chocolate
*Husbands who weigh less than I do: Joel
*Nights per week I get enough sleep: one or two
*Number of aches and pains: three
*Water consumed daily: around 64-80 oz.
*Measurements:
-Upper arm: 14 inches
-Neck: 13 3/4 inches
-Bust: None of your diggity dang business
-True waist (smallest part): 33 3/4 inches
-Waist at belly button: 35 inches
-High hips (at hipbone): 42 inches
-Largest hip measurement: 44 inches
-Thigh: 26 inches
-Knee (just above kneecap): 17 inches
-Calf: 15 inches
-Ankle (why not?): 9 inches

Compared to last November:

-Weight: 3.5 pounds down.
-Upper arm: same
-Neck: 1/4 inch smaller (be gone, neck fat!)
-True waist: 1/4 inch smaller
-Waist at belly button: 2 inches smaller
-High hips (at hipbone): 1.5 inches smaller
-Largest hip measurement: same
-Thigh: 1 inch smaller (per thigh)
-Knee: same
-Calf: 1 inch smaller (per calf)
-Ankle: 1/4 inch bigger (why?)

Overall progress. My most annoying trouble spots--my hips and arms--haven't budged yet. Considering most of the positive changes I've made over the past 3 months have been food-related, and I've only just started exercising regularly, I'm pleased with the results. Not gaining weight over the holidays was a thrilling development.

I think I'll do this monthly from now on. I need the accountability.

Amy Lawson, Come on Down!

2009-02-10T12:47:00.007-07:00

Dear Amy,

Holly and I are busy putting together the prize packages for the contest that you dropped out of after three weeks. By "Holly and I," I mean "Holly," since I already mailed her my part of it; when it gets to her is up to the post office gods.

But back to the quitting. We understand. That's ok. Really it is. We've quit lots of stuff before, too. Mostly crafts. But also lots of weight loss-related things. For instance, weight loss. I think it's safe to say that we've both been lifestyle-changing (that's the PC way to say "dieting" nowadays, right?) most of our adult lives. Honestly, the only reason I didn't quit the contest is because Holly makes my kids really cool cakes on their birthdays and occasionally mails me shoes. If I had quit, the shoe pipeline would have likely dried up. (P.S. Holly, when are you going to give me those black shoes I borrowed in December? And the red ones. I want those, too. The End.)

We were pretty excited when so many people joined our contest and even more excited to see how many of them actually stayed with it the whole time. (Did you know that your sister stayed with it the whole time? Yeah, she's really great.) And Holly and I have been grateful the whole time that you gave us a mention/entire post on your blog which is what ultimately sent a large portion of those people to our blog. After that post, our readership increased sizeably, and our hits started coming more from Google Reader and less from people searching for this picture. I am not kidding. For most of this blog's existence, the majority of the people that have looked at it were really looking for Igor. And anytime we see a hit from the UK or northern Europe, we can pretty much guarantee they want Igor, not us. I can't explain it, and I'm not sure I want to, but that's how it was. Until you.

So we want to thank you. Since you did quit the contest, we can't technically send you a prize, but I hope no one will mind if we send you a present. It's not much, and there wasn't even close to a dozen dollars spent on it, but it's something I think you'll like. I originally bought for my son, but once I realized the treasure that it truly is, I quickly distracted him and stashed it away for me to keep, only occasionally bringing it out to show people on webcam so they can see the sheer awesomeness of it.

Here, I'll give you a hint:
And some clues:

My son is obsessed with the movie Cars.
I bought him a 10-pack of Cars cars at an Egyptian toy store for 35 LE (Egyptian pounds; that's about $6.29).
Copyright laws in Egypt means nothing.
Egyptians frequently manufacture and sell things that are made to look like licensed products but clearly are not.
Many Egyptians don't speak English.
Best I can tell, most of these companies that both make these products and don't speak English, have some sort of aversion to hiring native English speakers to, you know, proofread.
Often, hilarity ensues.
Best. children's. toy. ever.

Why am I telling you all of this, you ask? Because, if you want this really great truck (I promise you; you're going to want to hide it from your child lest he break it, uh--in the interest of full disclosure--more than my son already has)(but he just broke of one of the high-quality ladders on the side; the text is still fully in tact), and I think you do, we need you to please e-mail us your address to myweightisasecret at g-to-the-mizz-ail dot com, and I will send it on its way to live at your house.

Why didn't I just e-mail you privately, you ask? Because it's my day to post, and I can't think of anything to write about. Simple as that.

Never change except for the better (what? you mean I'm not signing your yearbook?),
Sara and Holly

P.S. I have a picture of the side, too, but thought I'd let you decide whether or not you want to see it before it arrives at your house. If so, lemme know, and I'll post it. If you want it to be a surprise, I'll wait until you have it before sharing with the class.

I have a bone to pick with Nordstrom

2009-02-09T21:58:00.016-07:00

A few times a year I get a catalog/big ad booklet in the mail from Nordstrom. I think they'veseen the palace I live in and realize I'm made of money, and they want some of it.

I shop there once in a while (mostly from the clearance racks), so maybe that got me on the list.

This past fall's catalog horrified me, and not just because of the prices or the hideous leopard-print loafers (look at me! I'm sassy and sensible at the same time!).

Specifically, I was horrified by the legs on these models:

And let's not forget this model (I think she's in the top photo as well, but that doesn't really matter):

First, I want to invite these girls over for hoagies and chocolate milk (the thick kind). They need nourishment. Second, I want to ask Nordstrom why they are using impossibly thin models to sell their clothes.

I know. I know. They're models. If they're not impossibly thin, they're not worthy of the title. I know that, but I don't have to like it. (Don't get me started on the topic of plus size models. Yeah...a size 12 model [who is probably at least 5'10" tall] does not wear plus sized clothing.)

And really, I don't even expect or want companies to use average size 12-14 women in their ads for misses' and juniors' clothing. I understand that clothing is displayed to its best advantage on a slender frame. I just want there to be a line between slim and starving. Is that too much to ask?

Young women have enough pressure in life without the subtle (and not-at-all-subtle) message coming from the fashion world: "Your body isn't right. You don't meet the ideal." (Raise your hand if you thought you were fat in high school, whether you were or not.)

The bodies of the girls in the above photos go beyond thin. There doesn't appear to be any flesh on their limbs, let alone fat. I worry about their health--really I do. I don't blame the models themselves for these ads--they are just doing their job (which is to look pretty and try to stand upright using the energy gleaned from 1/2 a saltine and a baby carrot).

What's the solution? I don't know. I don't know if I have the the time to figure it out...not today at least--I have things to scrub and polish.

What do you think?

Food of the Week (Week 2): Clementines

2009-02-08T17:39:00.006-07:00

"Oh my darlin'

Oh my darlin'

Oh my daaaaarlin' Clementine!

I will peel you

Then I'll eat you

Very yummy

Clementine!"

Have you had a clementine (a seedless variety of mandarin orange) yet? Why not? They are delicious! They are little! They are cute!

Have you, like me, ever not eaten an orange because you didn't have the energy to peel it?

Well, clementines are the answer to this dreadful dilemma. They are so, so easy to peel. You won't even believe how easy they are to peel. My niece told me her Weight Watchers leader says all you have to do is sneeze and they're peeled. That's pretty close to the truth.

This is clementine season--right now. Hurry, because I don't think it lasts much longer. I buy 5 lb boxes at Costco, but you can get them at just about any supermarket. Don't be put off if the clementines seem a little squishy. That is likely because there is often space between the peel and the fruit (hence the ease of peeling). Just watch out for mold or crushed fruit that may have contaminated the whole bag/box.

Here's what you get from a delicious clementine (besides deliciousness)-

3.5 ozs of fruit (2 very small or 1 very large):

50 calories

1.7 grams fiber

80% of your RDA of vitamin C

B vitamins

juicy goodness

a delightful citrus fragrance

Notes:

1) Yes, I did create a bonnet for a piece of fruit. You wanna make something of it?

2) I also rhymed "you" with "you" in my "song." Sue me.

If I don't put them in therapy, I'm not doing my job

2009-02-05T13:36:00.009-07:00

Just now I was regaling Holly over IM with my "I'm Such a Great Mom" story of the day. It involves me lying to my daughter and convincing her that I really did see the entire assembly that her class sang in this morning when really I left as soon as her class was done. In my defense, I had just sat through the whole thing just before that when her sister's class did the exact same thing in the exact same assembly, so I really did see the entire thing, just not at the same time she saw it. (This also made it easier to supply information that only someone who had clearly been at the show could have known.)(Details are important when you're lying.)(But not too many; then you sound desperate.) An hour of watching other people's children perform entirely too long dances all while trying to keep my 2-year old both happy and quiet (you try it; it's worse that trying to both hula hoop and apply eyeliner) was more than enough for me.

So, to sum up: I rule. Thankfully my mother can give my kids free therapy.

I do have some good qualities as a mother though, so I going to share a few of the ways I think I'm succeeding in helping my kids be healthy.

Some of my prouder parenting moments:

My kids don't know that you can add sugar to cereal. I'm talking Corn Flakes here, people. The kids eat them completely plain and like it. When I was a kid, there was always an at least inch-thick layer of sugar silt at the bottom of the milk.

Last year, my oldest daughter came home from a church youth activity where the lesson had been about healthy eating. The woman who taught the class had a picture of Adam and Eve displayed, with a sign that said, "Adam and Eve didn't eat Ding-Dongs." After telling me about it, my daughter asked me, "Mom, what's a 'Ding-Dong?'"

My older son has started getting up at 6am completely on his own just so that he'll have time to play Wii Fit for 15 minutes before school and get all his morning stuff done, too. He's done it for almost 3 weeks now without missing a day. This is the boy that usually acts like I sacrificed his favorite animal in front of him whenever I say something like, "Time to wake up."

While they really do take after me (and I take after my mom, whose father once told her "You would rather read than run"), they are much more physically active than I ever was as a child--and they actually like it.

They have been known to turn down soda pop for water.

They stop eating when they're full. And usually don't want more than one serving of dessert. Whenever that happens I have to remind myself that the fact that they are little clones of my husband is proof that yes, they are actually the children I gave birth to, and no, they were not actually switched at the hospital.

My older son has become a smoothie-making whiz. He'll whip them up for anyone at the dropof a hat, and he loves to try different fruits and other flavor combinations. (I will neither confirm nor deny that I sometimes only pretend to drink them.)

This one isn't health-related, but it makes me laugh, so I'm including it: My kids accept it as completely normal that when someone is drinking too much or too quickly, you say, "Easy on the Pepsi, Fuller;" when you have to clear your throat in order to say something, you follow it up with, "Welcome to the Pit of Despair; don't even think about trying to escape;" and if you're in pain, you adopt a British accent and say, "And that really hurt, Charlie, and it's still hurting."* That's just to name a few.

My kids are just cool. Or seriously messed up. Either way works, because the bottom line is that they make me laugh, And as long as I'm entertained, it's all good.

What are some of the ways that you help your kids to be healthy? Are they more healthy than you were as a child? Also, tell me something funny they do or say. I love me some funny kid stories.

*If you don't know what I'm talking about, go here. My 2-year old was quoting it to himself in bed last night--"Chaw-wee eat me!" Hi-larity.

WonderTread

2009-02-04T22:59:00.007-07:00

I exercised today. Guilt made me do it...or gratitude--you pick. Last night my niece Annie was here and she was bemoaning (great word, bemoaning) her injured knee and the way it keeps her from her beloved exercise. (Annie lost a boatload of weight in 2007 and has kept it off for a year.)

So today, when I was (yet again) contemplating not exercising, I decided in honor of Annie I'd better stop being a whiner and be grateful that I can exercise. Sure, I'm as out-of-shape as a reject loaf at the Wonder Bread factory* (that's my favorite bad analogy EVER!), but at least my body has working joints and muscles. So I did rejoice exceedingly as I treadmilled this morning: hurray for knees! hurray for ankles! huzzah for hips!

*Touring the Wonder Bread Factory was my favorite elementary school field trip of all time. Paper hat with Wonder Bread circles? Check. Tiny load of Wonder Bread for each of us? Check.

But I don't think I've purchased a load of Wonder Bread in my entire life, so their advertising ploy didn't work.

And not really one to this one either

2009-02-03T12:18:00.009-07:00

Today I think I had a personality-altering blow to the head, because I spent the bulk of the day--get this--doing some of the things that are constantly in my head as Things I Should Be Doing. Weird, huh?

Anyway, to further go along with this theme of acting completely unlike myself, I'm also going to go to bed soon (it's just after 9pm here; maybe I didn't so much change my personality as age 50 years? Where's my Geritol?).

But before I grab my prune juice nightcap and go shake my fist at youngsters and their devil music as I toddle off to bed, I'm going to share with you my new favorite quotation:

"We do not suddenly become
what we do not cooperate
in becoming."
William J. Bennett

'night, you crazy kids. As my grandma used to always tell me on my way out the door, "Don't do anything I can't do on a bicycle!"

There is no point whatsoever to this post*

2009-02-01T13:30:00.007-07:00

Consider yourself warned.

At 10 o' clock last night I was packing up the veritable mountain of stuff I had to mail off (mailing packages here is such a pain in the kiester that I tend to save it up until there's so much that I just can't put it off anymore)(well, I could, and I usually do, but this time I didn't). One of the boxes was to send to Holly containing the Egyptian part of these nutritious prize packages. It also contains my mom's walking stick. She couldn't fit it in her luggage, so I told her I'd mail it to her, but it didn't fit into any of the boxes I had, so I slipped it into the larger box heading for Holly. So hey, Hol, when the box comes, can you call my mom and have her come get her stick? Thanks. But I digress. Try not to be too shocked.

As I was getting ready to tape up the box, I realized I hadn't included the most important thing! The trash! I couldn't exactly promise bona fide Egyptian street pickings and not follow through, now could I? I mean, if you're denying yourself figgy pudding because it might get between you and your own piece of garbage (or, say, because it's figgy pudding, but work with me here), you want your trash, dangit! But you know what I don't like doing? Going out at night by myself. Especially to, you know, pick stuff up off the ground. Lucky for me--and you winners, you--my husband was home this weekend.

I gotta say, he looked at me really, uh...bewilderdedly...when I told him what I wanted him to do. I think for a moment or two he thought I was kidding. You may not have guessed this about me, but I kid a lot, so I can get where he might think this. But I was serious. And he is a seriously nice man. Holly is not the only one who goes along with my harebrained schemes. So he took his little flashlight (or, as our 2-year old calls it, "The Ghostlight! Aaaaaaaaaahhh!")(Said 2-year old is a little obsessed with Cars.)(That was a little bit of an understatement.)(So was that.) and went and foraged on the streets around our house. My husband loves me very much.

As a(nother) side note, Eminem just came up on my iTunes, and my husband thinks it's really funny that I even have Eminem on my iTunes. What? I don't strike you as someone who would like really crass rap? Have you never met me? Besides, it's just one song. Plus it's the clean version. So there.

But rest easy friends, the trash is on its way! Also some stuff that's not trash (I hope)(I have a really hard picking things out for other people). Yay for prizes! And yay for everyone for doing this with us. I'm thinking that if those of you who didn't win want to join us again for a Springtime contest, I might offer a piece of garbage as a participation prize. Mostly because a) they're funny (and really isn't that reason enough?), 2) they're free, and III) I've clearly proven I can get my husband to do some pretty crazy things for me, so why not?

P.S. I just noticed that dh's Facebook status update is referencing my Eminem. I can't complain though; I might need him later. That trash ain't pickin' itself up!

*Told you.

Food of the Week (Week 1): Edamame

2009-01-30T22:42:00.010-07:00

I know most of you are sushi-eating urbanites who have been eating edamame from the womb (though I have yet to hear of a pregnant woman who craves edamame specifically, but it could happen). If you are in this group, feel free to skip this post and

I interrupt this post about healthy food to tell you that I just looked down at my left arm to find it covered in brown goo (don't panic--it's not that kind of brown goo). Also covered in brown goo? The left side of my favorite ragged sleeping t-shirt (the one that just says "Dude" on the front). Wha? My confusion lasted only a moment and I was able to use my excellent deductive reasoning skills to deductively reason that several of the chocolate chips I was eating (hey, I'm human) must have fallen between my arm and my shirt and melted there. You'll be relieved to know that Clifford the Big Red Couch was unscathed.

Back to talking about soybeans. Edamame=green soybeans. Edamame (pronounced ed-eh-MAH-may...I think) is a much funner word than soybean. Soybean makes me think of tofu. And tofu, while it may be reasonably tasty when prepared with skill, is almost never fun. (Prove me wrong, folks. Prove me wrong.)

Here's what you do. You go to the store. You buy some frozen in-the-shell edamame (you'll find it frozen in the freezer section) and you heat it up. You can even do it in your microwave--no fancy edamame steamer or boiler needed. Then you sprinkle it with a generous amount of course salt such as kosher salt. Then you take one of those ugly, hairy pods that looks like something your 6-year-old has in his/her "nature collection" and you use your teeth to remove the delicious little soys inside. Yummy! It really is. (Don't forget the salt.)

Here's what you get*:

1. 6 grams of fiber (woo! fiber!)

2. 11 grams of protein

3. oodles of vitamins and minerals

4. a mere 120 calories

5. a pile of discarded hairy pods for your little one's "nature collection"

Try it. You'll like it! (If you don't, try some chocolate chips instead.)

*in a 1 1/8th cup serving (in shell--1/2 cup shelled)

Oh!

Here's the situation that inspired me to write about green pods:

Earlier this week I was getting Joel's food ready for him to take to work (Egg Beater sandwich? Check. 2 cups grapes? check, frozen diet meal for lunch? check.). He requested a bowl of edamame to snack on. I got it for him, and as he was putting it and the other food in his backpack, Laura (age 4) ran up to him and said,

"Mommy's going to give me a treat!"

Joel said, "What is it? Edamame?

Laura, laughing (and without missing a beat), replied:

"Adaboblo?"

Silly Daddy and his made up words!

Not that quarters are all that heavy, but still...

2009-01-29T12:24:00.006-07:00

Last week I spent the part of a morning doing 3 things they say you should never do: I colored my own hair, cut my own bangs, and cleaned up a month's worth of eyebrow growth all at one time. Practically the only thing I didn't do was give myself a bikini wax. I'm not really sure what I was thinking. I guess it was kind of like the time (this is a true story; you can't make up stuff like this, folks) when he was a little boy that Holly's husband thought to himself, "Now would be a good time to put this quarter in my mouth," which he did and then promptly choked. Luckily his mother was nearby, picked him up by his ankle, and with a firm upside down shake, dislodged the quarter. Best I can figure, my brain decided that last Wednesday would be a good time to spend an hour or so doing tasks left best to professionals.

It turned out fine though, don't ask me how. The color's good (though I haven't worked up the nerve to do the highlights yet, so I'm currently missing being blonde), my bangs turned out better than they should have, and I don't look constantly surprised, so I really can't ask for more.

Something else I like to do that the all-knowing "they" say you shouldn't do is weigh yourself more than once a week. Not me. I weigh myself everyday, usually twice, sometimes more than that. For some reason, it helps me stay aware of reality. Or at least more aware, since saying I'm aware of reality is like saying I'm blonde. Two things I don't do, however, are let what the scale says effect my mood, or trust any weight other than the first-thing-in-the-morning-no-clothes-pre-breakfast-post-bathroom-use weight as the real thing. Every other time I weigh during the day, it's more out of curiosity than anything else. In fact, one of the reasons I weigh right before I go to bed is because I like to see the big drop that happens overnight. And then when there isn't a big drop, that's usually a clue that I ate too much sodium the day before or didn't drink enough water or didn't get enough sleep.

I think because I get on the scale so much is the reason the number of the day doesn't effect my mood. I've done it so many times that it's made it so the my weight has become just a number, a way to gauge how I'm doing. I will admit, though, that the fact that I spent over a year within 5 pounds of the same weight got pretty darn frustrating at times. But since I know that I wasn't being consistent with my diet or my exercise or (all to frequently) both, I knew that my "plateau" was due to my own actions, not the scale, and therefore I was frustrated with myself, not the scale.

Another benefit to my frequent weighing is that I've noticed some patterns in my weight. For instance, I know that after I have a drop into new territory (like last week's final weigh-in where I saw a number I haven't seen in yearsandyears), I tend to go back up 2 or 3 pounds and then work my way back down over the next couple of weeks (if I'm being consistent that is). So this week, I've been trying to be extra careful about what I eat and how hard I workout, because I'd really like to keep up my momentum. I was thrilled last week because I was finally back into the 140s, but I don't consider myself fully into a "decade" until I'm closer to the middle of it. But a big success for me this week has been that I haven't seen the 2-3 pound jump I usually see after the drop. In fact, I'm hovering right around the new weight still.

I read an article several years ago that really changed how I felt about getting on the scale called Why the Scale Lies. This information is probably one of the biggest influences that turned my relationship with the scale into a diagnostic tool and helped remove a lot of the emotional aspect of it.

One more thing to remember: this is just my experience. My issues are not your issues (and you should be grateful!) and something that works for me might not work for you. My hope is merely that maybe the way I do something will help you evaluate the way you do something and see if it is truly working for you. If it is, great! If not, at least you know.

Also, there's really never a good time to put a quarter in your mouth, no matter what Joel says.

Dum, dum, dum, DUM! And the winner is...

2009-01-27T11:51:00.008-07:00

Sun Productions! (Do you want me to reveal your real name Ms. Sun Productions?)

She lost a whopping 6.1% of her body weight.

We're ever-so impressed. And also awestruck.

In second place is dcfullest, who lost an amazing 4.23% of her body weight.

In third place is Patty, who lost an outstanding 4.07% of her body weight.

Will the three of you please send your contact info to myweightisasecret at gmail dot com ? Thanks! The most amazing prizes in all the land are coming your way. Eventually.

Kudos to Hannah, Sweet Escape and Katie who all lost more than 3% of their starting weights during the contest.

A big old hearty pat on the back to Rachel, Maureen, Rachel R., Heather, Wendi, Marie, Renee, Sara (yes, that Sara), Holly (that's me!), Amy Lou Who, Joolee, Tiffany and Gina Lee for persevering and making some positive changes over the past couple of months. I am impressed with how many either lost weight or maintained at a tough (and delicious) time of year.

A less hearty, but equally sincere pat to Kelly, Katy and Diane, who all weighed in the week before last, but didn't show up at the final weigh in on Friday. All three of them lost significant amounts of weight!

(If any of you want to know what your final percentage was without having to do actual math, send us an e-mail at myweightisasecret at gmail dot com.

Thanks for all your comments, insight and good humor.

Thanks to those who kept reading even though the contest got away from them somehow. We'll expect to see you next time. (cue menacing music)

And last but not least, a huge lump of thanks goes to Amy Lawson of Amy Lawson Inc. for writing about the contest on her mostly-famous blog and bringing many of you to us. She may have thrown her scale down the basement stairs, but she'll always be a winner to me. Also a quitter, but a quitter in the best way possible. Thanks, Amy Lawson!

Keep fighting those pounds, folks. It's worth the effort. Honest! And please come back for more Diet Cake anytime.

Coming up...

2009-01-26T22:43:00.002-07:00

Tomorrow by noon (Pacific Time) I will post the winners for the contest. Woo!

I'd do it now, but I've been doing math (I should have made you figure out your own percentages) and my brain is too fried to write a post more interesting than this one.

See you tomorrow!

Butter Soup

2009-01-25T14:10:00.006-07:00

Not to be confused with Butter Face.

My mom's been here visiting for the last three weeks (in fact, she just left for the airport, sob), and in an attempt to think of something new to do (three weeks is a long time, and if you can believe it, even pyramids get boring) I signed us up for a Lebanese cooking class.

It was a one-day deal, and the teacher showed us how to make six great dishes. I went into the class under the impression that Lebanese was my favorite of all the Middle Eastern cuisines I had tried, and I left the class positive of this fact. Every recipe was just as good as--if not better than--the last, really easy, and very healthy.

One of my favorites--which I honestly didn't think I'd like, since I'm not a huge fan of lentils--was her Red Lentil Soup. I swear it tasted like it was butter-covered butter with butter filling, but it wasn't just completely butter-free, it didn't have any other fat, either! So I guess another name for it would be Magic Soup.

Red Lentil Soup
by Sahar Melhem

1 cup red lentils
1 tomato, cut in large chunks (seriously, I think she cut it in half and that was it)
1 potato, peeled, cut into large chunks (same)
1 carrot (take a guess--cut in half, and she didn't even peel it)
1/2 c. water
1 tsp. cumin
salt (to taste)
pepper (just a little)

1. Wash the lentils until the water runs clear. Put lentils into saucepan and cover with water (about an inch; it's supposed to be a creamy soup, so don't add a lot unless you want it to be more watery)
2. Put lentils on the stove over medium-high heat
3. Add the vegetables and bring it to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer until everything is very soft (or how we worded it in class "'til mush"), about a half an hour
4. Turn off the heat and let cool slightly
5. Put everything in the blender and blend until smooth
6. Pour through a strainer (she said this isn't necessary if you peeled your carrot)
7. Put back on the stove
8. Add water, cumin, salt, and pepper (she used quite a bit of cumin and salt, but this soup can really take a lot of flavor, if that's what you like)
9. Heat through

Serve with lemon juice squeezed over each bowl (optional; I preferred it without)

A couple of other notes: She said you can add an onion, too, if you like, but make sure it is really small, and just cut it in half, like everything else. Also, after step 6, you can freeze the soup to use later. If you do this, thaw it and then proceed with step 7 (you may need a little extra water).

What now?

2009-01-25T00:52:00.003-07:00

Bring on the cookies! Yee haw!

Nah. Just kidding. (Kind of.)

First of all, if you didn't post your final weight and you should have, please do it! It's not too late.

Once we've figured out who is who and what is what, we'll announce the winners of the First Annual Diet Cake Holiday "Ho Ho Ho We're Fat" Weight Loss Contest. Then we'll send those winners some sort of fabulous prize, which will include, but not be limited to, Egyptian trash.

All of you, winners or not (oh gosh--you're all winners, but you know what I mean), figure out what's next in your battle to get/stay slim, strong and healthy.

We'll keep posting here at Diet Cake. Maybe some of it will be helpful. (It could happen!) I hope you'll keep reading and letting us know about your successes and struggles.

I'm thinking another contest is in order...maybe sometime in the spring. Won't that be fun? (Answer: of course it will)

This is it, folks!

2009-01-23T05:46:00.004-07:00

Just as all good things must come to an end, so must all great! things like this great! contest. (I emphasize great! just in case you didn't know how truly great! it is.)

The great!est part about it is how many of you stuck with it! Really, Holly and I are totally impressed. Thank you for sticking with us.

And now for the fun part--weigh in! Post your weight in the comments, and tell us what you're most proud of from the contest.

Bob Harper would tell me to get a pack of Extra gum

2009-01-18T05:19:00.005-07:00

Do you ever have those days where everything seems to be clicking--your eating's great, you exercised hard, and you're just feeling like you've got it together--and then you eat the house? Yesterday was one of those days for me. It felt like I was doing everything right and then when I got up from a short afternoon nap (which, if you know me, you know I only took because my body sneaked it up on me; you know, sitting there one minute, waking up the next. I almost never nap voluntarily; it seems like such a waste of quiet), bam, I ate 2 brownies, 2 pieces of french toast with butter, a bowl chicken alfredo, and some pudding. It's a darn good thing those brownies were the last 2, or I'm sure I would have had more.

I don't really know what drove me off of my plan. I'm sure part of it had to do with the tired (dh and I have been up late every night this week watching the 2nd season of Lost, the bane of my existence and I love it, plus I got up at 2 am yesterday to see dh off on another of his trips). Another part of it is probably because my mom's been here for 2 weeks and will be here for another. Don't get me wrong--I'm enjoying having her here, but it does throw me off my routine a bit. Her being here is also why the brownies, alfredo, and pudding were also here It's the price I pay for not having to cook, thank you very much. I can't blame the presence of the food for why I ate them though; my mom of all people understands turning down food for the sake of eating healthier/losing weight. Mostly I'm just disappointed in myself, because I really was feeling like I was in some proverbial groove yesterday. I do need to give myself a little credit though, because I didn't eat any more french bread than that, I only had one bowl of pasta, and it was a small bowl at that, same with the pudding. No points for the brownies though (would those be brownie points?), since it truly was a good thing they were all gone; baked goods are my undoing.

Anyway, today I'm moving/have moved on. I'm noticing a bigger urge to eat more today though, and I don't know if it's related to yesterday at all. Mostly I'm just trying to ride it out. That involves staying away from the kitchen as much as possible and trying to find other things to do. My room is really clean right now. Though if I start filing, you'll know I'm really in trouble. That's a sure sign of desperation!

What do you do to keep yourself from eating when you know you dont need it?

Penultimate Weigh-in!

2009-01-16T05:37:00.006-07:00

An artist's rendition of me. Honest.

You know the drill--post 'em if you've got 'em. Also share with us something you learned this week.

I learned that bellydancing has almost nothing to do with the belly. Who knew!? Not I. All the motion comes from either your hips or your--get this--knees. Knees? Never would have guessed. But it's true. You only use your abdominals to keep your back straight and chest elevated (or as my teacher kept saying, "Boobies!"--and then she'd point both index fingers up--"To the ceiling!")(cannot wait to see what google hits we get for that).

It's my birthday present to ME! (I'm so happy!)

2009-01-14T10:28:00.005-07:00

Name that movie!

My birthday is next week. I'll be 36 years old. Yep! Closer to 40 than 30. Twice the age of the kids starting college in the fall.

I was thinking that our weight-loss contest shouldn't end until after my birthday. I know--it's totally selfish. I just want some kind of motivation to avoid a birthday-week snarf fest. (I'm not going to reveal the exact day of my birthday--my age is enough info for the internet).

What do you think?

The contest is supposed to end this coming Friday (January 16th). Does anyone object to extending the deadline to Friday the 23rd? (We'd have the final weigh-in on that day.)

I haven't even consulted Sara about this, so possibly she'll be the one to object.

Any strenuous objections? Concerns?

Those who are already doing really well are the ones whose opinions I'm most interested in, as they potentially have the most to lose if some sneaky dark horse decides to lose 10 pounds next week.

Talk to me.

P.S. That's a picture of me on my 10th birthday. It looks like I'm about to blow out a few blood vessels along with the candles.

You should know how dedicated I am

2009-01-12T12:07:00.005-07:00

Tonight our power went out. It happens a lot, so it's no big deal, but tonight it happened just as my husband and I were going to watch our nightly disc of Lost. I was also going to ride the bike while we watched, because I haven't gotten any formal exercise done yet today (I traipsed around some pyramids for awhile and hauled 10 bags of groceries up and down 5 flights of stairs, but can't quite get myself to count those as my day's exercise).

I don't like exercising to nothing, as I get bored easily, and I wasn't interested in using my iPod tonight, so what I did was strap on a headlamp and fish out a magazine I've been reading.

As I am also easily entertained, I thought it was so funny I had dh take a picture of me. As I also have very little shame, I'm posting it here for you.
The power came on about a minute later. Makes the story way less funny. Oh well. It probably wasn't that funny to begin with (see also: doesn't take much to amuse me).

The post in which I write all about ME ME ME!

2009-01-11T11:19:00.013-07:00

"Wait," you say, "Isn't that what all your posts are about?" You may have a point there, but I'm going to ignore you.

Lots of bloggers create a 100 Things About Me post when they reach 100 posts. We're somewhere around there, so I thought I'd go ahead and do that. Sara will be cringing when she reads this and wondering if she has to do it too. No, she does not. But if she doesn't, I will do it for her. That should strike fear into her heart (and possibly her stomach, too).

I'll try to include some weight-loss and/or health-related facts in the list to keep it relevant.

One of these things is a lie. If you are the first to guess which once, I will give you a prize. The prize may or may not be imaginary.

1. I like pizza

2. My favorite color is blue, but red is a close second.

3. I am the oldest of four children.

4. I am bossy.

5. I have two children, both daughters.

6. I want more kids, but I'm scared.

7. I feel great guilt over the condition of my barbecue.

8. My husband is my best friend.

9. My husband is shorter than I am.

10. We're both OK with that.

11. I wear heels on occasion, sometimes very tall ones.

12. I bruise easily

13. I've colored my hair twice in my life, both times with demi-permanent drugstore color. The first time it was a deep burgundy red. The second time it looked exactly like my natural color and nobody noticed.

14. I got better tips at my waitressing job when I had red hair.

15. I love thrift stores.

16. The smell of thrift stores makes me gag a little.

17. I don't use the library anymore because I always get huge fines.

18. I buy my books at thrift stores instead.

19. I like to cook.

20. I hate to cook.

21. I am both fascinated and disgusted by politics.

22. I think I'd be a good politician if I could get past my fear of everything (including criticism) and my inherent laziness.

23. I will never be a politician even if I accomplish those things.

24. I procrastinate. A lot.

25. I am getting better, but it is too slow a process.

26. I am definitely a late bloomer.

27. I have lots of wonderful friends who I don't deserve.

28. I neglect my friends too much.

29. I really like being thin, but I don't like doing what it takes to get there.

30. I need to do it anyway.

31. I was a total, glasses-wearing, bad-hair, bad-at-sports nerd in elementary school.

32. I did not like elementary school.

33. I was sometimes teacher's pet, but never the number one teacher's pet.

34. I watch a lot of TV.

35. Almost all the TV watching I do is with my husband.

36. I love to dig in the dirt and garden.

37. I never have enough time to make my yard look the way I want it too.

38. I don't manage my time very well.

39. I like sparkly jewelry.

40. I like jewelry in general.

41. I like stuff, but I know it isn't important to my happiness.

42. I love office supplies

43. Especially Sharpies

44. Paper is nice, too

45. I was really poor when I was growing up.

46. I lived in rich neighborhoods.

47. I worry about wrinkles

48. I wear a lot of sunscreen.

49. I don't tan.

50. I have an iPhone. I didn't think I wanted one, but my husband gave me his old one.

51. I like iPhones now.

52. I am a worrier.

53. I don't worry nearly as much as I used to.

54. I wish my feet were smaller.

55. But I think my height is just right.

56. I am painfully shy.

57. I have trained myself to be much more outgoing than I used to be.

58. It's still hard.

59. I hate making phone calls.

60. All of my bath towels are at least 8 years old and falling apart.

61. I can't stand that there are hungry and starving people in the world.

62. I like dogs, but I don't want the responsibility of owning one right now.

63. I love the smell of libraries.

64. I like rainy days, but too many in a row makes me depressed.

65. I like to hike, but I hardly ever do it.

66. I like reading movie reviews and watching movies, but I don't go to many.

67. I rarely see a movie twice.

68. My favorite movie is It's a Wonderful Life. I have seen it many times.

69. I think some of the most self-righteous people in the world are famous actors.

70. I admire the ones who realize they are just fallible human beings after all.

71. I have lots of strong opinions, but they are not all set in stone.

72. I am not always right.

73. I once had a job where I read (speed-reading style) newspapers all day.

74. I didn't make enough money at that job.

75. I had LASIK 4 years ago.

76. Before that my vision was about 20/1000

77. I had mono when I was in high school and was sick for a really long time.

78. I didn't graduate with my class and had to go to summer school before I could get my diploma.

79. I was a Girl Scout when I was a kid and loved it.

80. I'm a pretty good cake decorator, but I don't want to go into business. People act shocked when I tell them this.

81. I have an Etsy shop where I sell vintage accessories. It's called She's Fancy.

I haven't told many people I know about it yet. I don't know what I'm waiting for.

82. I think "fancy" is a funny word.

83. If you can make me laugh, I'll probably like you.

84. I have 2 brothers, 1 sister, 1 step-brother and 5 step-sisters.

85. I love movie popcorn, but lately it's been disappointing.

86. I'm a Mormon. I'm also a Christian.

87. I'm finally OK with all the people who say you're not Christian if you're Mormon. Oh well.

88. I like candy. My particular favorites are chocolate, sour candy and black licorice.

89. I've been a member of Weight Watchers for almost 2 years.

90. I like looking put together, but I rarely do (look put together.)

91. I like being alone, but I wouldn't like it permanently.

92. I dropped out of college.

93. I used to yearn to finish college--now I don't care.

94. My mom was right--I do regret not practicing the piano.

95. I used to want to be a ballerina, but I was not a very good dancer.

96. I want to write a novel, but I don't want to do the work. Yes, that is a contradiction.

97. I am prone to post-partum depression and depression in general.

98. Yet I still think of myself as a basically happy person.

99. My living room has yellow walls.

100. I think people can change for the better, even though they often don't.

My kid made me eat it

2009-01-09T20:55:00.005-07:00

Sometimes my 4-year-old daughter drives me bonkers. At such times, I want to 1) hide, and 2) eat everything in the house. Today was one of those days. So many questions, so much whining (just like her mom!), so much scattering of toys and books and crumbs...

But I didn't give in to the temptation to eat the chocolate chips in the cupboard or my 10-year-old daughter's Halloween candy (obviously she was switched at birth--a child of mine couldn't possibly hang onto candy for over 2 months). I did try to hide, but there aren't many places to go in a 1500 sq. foot, 1 story house. Locking myself in the bathroom doesn't work--she just patiently scratches and kicks and "MOMMY MOMMY MOMMYs" at the door until I come out.

Then there are times like this that make me want to keep her forever and ever, and forgive all the crumbs and whining. Keep your eye on the short angel--that's her. No wonder I resisted the chocolate chips.

Contest Day 36 (really?)--Weigh-in

2009-01-09T00:13:00.002-07:00

You know the drill.

I'll be back when it's actual morning and not fake morning (12:14 am) to post my weight.

Do check out the previous post. The blog I linked to is hilarious.

I'm tired--here's a link

2009-01-08T23:53:00.012-07:00

I told Sara I'd blog daily while she was traipsing around Luxor with her family this week. Uh...good thing Sara knows me. Her expectations are generally very low.

If you haven't looked at this site, you should:

Cake Wrecks

Start with the earliest posts and work your way to the present if you have the time. Be sure to read the descriptions. They're the best part.

Here's one of the cakes I made before I got into cake decorating and became the world's foremost expert. This cake is, uh, interesting. I had a lot to learn back then:

The year was 1999, and for my mom's birthday I wanted to make her a cake decorated with these marshmallow daisies I saw on the cover of Woman's Day. You know what I can't make out of marshmallows? Daisies. You know what I can make out of marshmallows? Bunnies. I showed the cake to Joel before we left for the party, and seeing his confused expression I said, "Bunnies just happened!" Well, they did.

I can never get enough whine

2009-01-06T17:20:00.000-07:00

I wanted to make sure Sara didn't miss her kids too much, so I made sure to whine as much as possible while she was here*. I think I covered pretty much everything.

"I'm tired."

"I can't believe I have to wash dishes again."

"I have shin splints."

"My head hurts."

"I'm cold."

"I'm hungry."

"I'm too full."

"My preschooler broke my nose with her hard head."

"My nose hurts."

"I want apple pie. Why don't we have any apple pie?"

"My lips are chapped."

"My nose is dry"

"My nose is full of dry boogers."

"My feet hurt."

"My elbows are dry."

"I can't do pushups because I have a thingy on my wrist and it hurts."

"There's pie in my hair."

"My hair hurts."

"Why did I eat so much pie?"

"I have a hangnail."

Sara really enjoyed it. She likes her best friends whiny and annoying.

Or maybe she was just holding her rage inside. Come to think of it, she did laugh a little too hard when I stepped weird while walking into the living room one evening and fell into a heap.

I am nothing if not introspective, so all that whining got me thinking. "Is whining ever OK?" I thought to myself, "Or is it just a form of vocal self-pity that should be abandoned at all costs?"

Well, I honestly can't see myself quitting with the whining entirely, so I think I've decided to support conditional whining.

Sometimes we need to let off some steam--complain a little. It helps us feel better in some cases. However, it can go too far. When whining goes beyond letting off steam and veers into poor-me-why-is-the-world-against-me-all-the-time-in-everything-I-do-life-sucks-and-I'm-a-miserable-failure territory, then it's time to shut up and regroup.

Whining can make it all worse. It can alienate you from your friends and family (ever been around a whiny toddler or teenager for a while and wanted to ship him/her off to Siberia at the first opportunity?). It can reinforce any sense of misery or hopelessness you already have. It can make you forget what's good in your life and forget the needs of others (many of whom probably have far more reason to whine than you.)

In short, I think I'll allow myself to whine from time to time, but only for a short while, then it's time to figure out what to do about my problems and take action instead of wallowing in the negative verbal soup (like alphabet soup, but more metaphorical).

So, Sara--sorry to have avoided the epiphany until after you left, but I'll try to keep up the reluctant-Pollyanna behavior until your next visit.

*Note: I am not implying that Sara's kids are particularly whiny. But, they are kids after all.

Not too late...

2009-01-03T09:01:00.004-07:00

I know you're hiding in a corner, recovering from a chocolate coma and trying to remember if you ate those M&Ms that rolled under the couch on Christmas Eve yet or not, but you should pull yourself up (lean on the wall if you need to) and shuffle off to the bathroom and weigh in.

Come on--you can do it!

Why? Um...cause I said so? (There are other reasons, but I don't have time for that much typing right now. So for now, just go with "because Holly said so.")

Contest Day 29: Weigh it...weigh it good.

2009-01-02T11:40:00.007-07:00

Hello! Sorry I didn't start the thread earlier.

Post your weight! I know you don't want to, but do it anyway!

If you don't do anything else this year about your weight (though I hope you and I both do lots), at least resolve to start facing the truth.

Clean air, clean hair

2008-12-30T13:49:00.011-07:00

Posted by Holly, but written by Sara:

Hey look, I'm not dead. Lucky. you. I am, however, in America. That's right--land of the free and home of the clean stores with miles and miles of products available for purchase, no haggling required. I think it may be heaven. Or not, since I sincerely hope that heaven isn't this cold and snowy. If it is, I may have to rethink some lifestyle choices and commence with the sinning.

Unfortunately I'm here because my grandma's health has gotten worse, and my husband and I decided that it would be better for me to come see her now than to wait for the funeral. I got here the day after Christmas, and have been spending my days at her house and my nights at Holly's. Girl has a seriously comfortable couch. I've also visited a few of those aforementioned stores. So many choices! I tell you, Americans don't know how good they have it. 73 billion different kinds of shampoo alone! And I'm pretty sure my kids' heads would explode if they could see the toy selection.

Today as I was driving over to my grandma's (thanks for the car, Hol!), I think I had to stop at every red light in town. And apparently every red light is really long. So I did a lot of sitting at red lights. Guess what I don't like doing? Waiting. I am not a notoriously patient person, and driving seems to bring out the worst of it in me. But as I was sitting at perhaps the 4,563rd light of the day, it occurred to me how flippin' great it is to drive in a country where there are actual laws that are both enforced and (usually) followed. As I was driving through an intersection it was nice to know that I had a reasonable expectation of not getting hit, and best of all it was nice to see everyone driving in their own lanes and waiting their turns to go. So instead of thinking about how annoying it was to have to wait for 6 years every 2.3 blocks (do you think maybe I have an exaggeration problem? No? Me neither), I tried to focus on being grateful that those lights exist. It made the drive much more pleasant. (Plus Holly's car is really old and makes a funny noise every time you turn the steering wheel sharply, and that was making me laugh)(what can I say? I'm easily entertained). Then when I got to my grandma's, she wasn't feeling so great and was especially not looking forward to going to the hospital for her radiation treatment, but she kept saying how great it was to be able to lift her arm, which she couldn't do before she started radiation because the cancer had gotten into the nerves in her shoulder and made it too painful to move.

Putting those two things together, it got me to thinking about how many different things there are that are annoying or difficult in life, but how somewhere there's something about them that we can be grateful for. Does anyone have any examples they'd like to share? Or something that may seem small but that makes your life a little easier or happier? Just now I was liking that the blogger sign-in page was in English and not Arabic, like it is in Egypt (I had to click on a lot of random links until I figured out the right one; this way is so much easier!), and clean air--both indoor and out--is something is short supply in Egypt that I am really enjoying here. The cold though? You can keep that.

P.S. Holly here--I am entirely responsible for the dumb picture and the even dumber title. I don't want to make Sara take the rap for that.

All I Want for Christmas is Stew

2008-12-27T19:43:00.008-07:00

No, I'm not procrastinating, I'm thinking ahead. My husband and I decided not to buy Christmas presents for each other this year for the sake of saving money and all that jazz, but I've thought of a few things I want for next year. I'm really not all that greedy or materialistic (or so I'd like you to think), but I have found a few things on the internet lately...

First of all, I think I want one of these.

And also, this thing right here.

And here's yet another annoying link

to a thing I want.

While we're at it, I would like this thing here .

You must be really bored if you're still clicking on these links, but fine, I also would enjoy this thing here.

And one more...right here.

Oh! I can't forget this one little last thing.

What d'ya know? It looks like I'm interested in opening an old-timey general store. Maybe I should. At the very least, I want the phone booth. I could hide in there with my cell phone when the kids are loud.

I suppose the thing I want the most for next Christmas (besides peace on earth--that's a given). I want to be quite a bit smaller (but not in height) and healthier than I am now. I think I may have to supply that gift myself.

Think of how well I'll fit in that phone booth!

P.S. The idea for that picture came to me a few weeks ago while I was driving alone in my van. I laughed out loud (that's "lol" for you internet-savvy folks) for about five minutes. Now that I'm not on cold medicine, and I realize that it isn't nearly as funny as I thought, I still laugh because of how much I laughed before.

(Those of you not familiar with contemporary Christmas tunes, you'll be extra confused by the picture. That's OK.)

Contest Day 22: Still time to weigh in, even if I am tardy!

2008-12-26T16:53:00.005-07:00

Feeling a little bloated post-Christmas? Me too. I ate pretty well, overall, but all that festivity and association with relatives makes me retain water.

Still, I weighed in this morning. I hope you did, too. If not, do it in the morning and get back here and post your weight (please).

Did you eat 5 pounds of peanut brittle yesterday? Two quarts of eggnog? All the hard candy that was stuck to the bottom of your kids' Christmas stockings (from last year)? Oh well. Weigh in anyway. Think of the number on the scale as a reference point, rather than a manifestation of your character and worth.

And by all means, please don't through in the proverbial towel and decide to "start over in January." That's baloney/bologna. Start now and avoid the January 1st here-we-go-again dieting fiasco with everyone else in the USA (and Canada).

Also...Merry Christmas! I hope you had a lovely holiday.

What I'm Not Doing Right Now

2008-12-21T14:44:00.004-07:00

It's quarter to midnight, and my husband and I are sitting on the couch watching the first season of Lost. Turns out it's an interesting show! I never knew that. I'm not sure I could take watching it in real time though. Slow exposition kills me.

But anyway, I ate really well today. Wrote everything down, accounted for everything, stayed within my limits. I like sentence fragments. And it's really late, and my husband just got up and went to the kitchen.

What I'm not doing right now is eating cookies.

Contest Day Or Other

2008-12-20T14:38:00.006-07:00

My internet is super wonky right now, and it's kind of a miracle I can even get this page to load. But that maybe tells you a little bit about me--internet finally working (sort of) after a day and a half, and do I go pay bills or order last-minute Christmas presents? Nope. I blog.
I want to respond to everyone's great comments about what they're proud of this week, but I don't know how much longer I'll be connected, so I'll let Holly do that. (You're welcome, Holly!) I am really impressed with everything you're doing though--even if you don't think you did anything right but survive the week. And way to go with all the losses! This has to be one of the hardest times of the year to lose weight, and it makes me happy to see so many of you actually doing it!

Oh, and my proudest moment of the week is finishing off my 12-week chart with every single day filled out. And I started my 2nd one. While I was on vacation. Woot!

I'll leave you with this article I found at at VitalJuiceDaily.com that lists 12 tips to keep yourself from quitting. It's a good'un, so go check it out.

Contest Day Something: Weigh-in Day!

2008-12-19T06:19:00.002-07:00

I told Holly from the beginning that she'd have to be in charge of keeping track of the days, as my ability to remember stuff like that is not so great. Most days I'm lucky if I can remember my children's names.

Anyhoodle, don't you hate it when people say some variation of "anyway?" I sure do. But that aside, it's Friday! Hooray! Time to weigh in! And use exclamation points way more than necessary!

When you post your weight, also tell us something that you did this week that you're proud of. Of which you are proud. Grammar shmammar. It can be anything at all, such as not eating the entire package of oreos. That's just a random example I pulled out of the air. No matter how big or how small, there has to be something about this week that you did well, and we want to know what it is! If you're e-mailing us your weigh-in, still post a comment about your accomplishment(s) this week.

What is it about being around my kids that makes me mainline cookies?

2008-12-18T10:01:00.006-07:00

So we got back from our trip this morning. As is 3:45 am this morning, and neither of us could fall asleep until after 5, and then we were up at 6:30 to get the kids off to school. Me = tired.

But anyway, I did really well on the trip. I ate a lot of fruit and as many veggies as I could get. I also made a little rule for myself that unless the food was amazing, I didn't finish all of it. And perhaps my biggest victory foodwise was not spending all seven days gorging myself on pastries. Egypt, you see, does not have a single good pastry in the whole of its borders. The "donuts" taste like stale hamburger buns with disgusting frosting on them, and anything else they call a dessert is soaked in so much honey its inedible. I've told Holly several times that if we lived in France I'd surely be up to 500 pounds by now. Well, this trip I took was to Tunisia. A country that used to be occupied by France. Tunisia has good pastries. Lots of good pastries. Every hotel we stayed in that offered breakfast (which was all but one, because one of the nights we stayed at Luke Skywalker's house)(my husband is a nerd, and I am nice; what can I say?) had pastries at breakfast, but I made sure to eat fruit and eggs (hard-boiled, since that's the least grease-soaked option they had) before I had any baked goods, and even then I had very few. I didn't fell deprived though, because I was just choosing not to eat them all. I had some--and sometimes more than some--but I didn't have all, and for me, that's big. Plus--and this is another biggie for me--I wrote down everything I ate. Everything. (I didn't worry about amounts or calories; I just wrote down the food.) We also did a lot of walking, a little running (well, me; dh did a little more than a little), and quite a bit of Ancient Roman Ruin Climbing (I like to call it ARRC, you may have heard of it at your gym; it's all the rage these days)(seriously though, they let you roam practically willy-nilly wherever you want to go; it was so cool!). I drank as much water as I could, but the bathroom choices were usually, um, not so great. Usually I would just get in as much as I could at night. Except that night in Matmata. That bathroom was awful.

But today? Now that I'm home, surrounded by healthy food, a gym, and clean bathrooms? I think I've eaten my weight in Oreos. I guess re-entry into real life is harder than I expected it to be. Plus, me = tired.

So I'm giving myself one more day to stabilize a little. I'm still writing down everything I eat, even though today every other entry says "oreo." Saturday I'll be back to controlling my intake more, tracking my food beyond just its name, and real gym exercising. Also, the oreos have to go. And not by way of my digestive tract.

As you can see, I've been busy

2008-12-17T20:55:00.005-07:00

Sorry about the lack of blog so far this week. I have good reasons for my absence, and I'll be back tomorrow (I hope) with more information and lots of blah blah blah. Maybe Sara will appear at some point as well. If I had any short-term memory whatsoever I might remember when she was due back from her trip...

Meanwhile, put down the cookies, dust off the treadmill, and believe that it's possible to lose weight at Christmastime!

It's not easy drinking green

2008-12-14T22:24:00.007-07:00

You may have missed contestant Annie's comment containing a recipe for a spinach smoothie. Or you may have read it, gagged a little and decided she is crazy. She's not crazy (I'm her aunt, and nobody related to me is crazy). Spinach smoothies are good! Not only that, they are chock-full of stuff you need to be healthy, energetic and pimple-free.

Spinach Smoothie (Annie style)

about 4 handfuls of spinach

1/2 banana

1 or 2 huge handfuls frozen berries

some orange juice

Blend the heck out of it and drink.

Annie says, "It fills me up, gives me lots of energy and motivates me to eat well the rest of the day."

I admit I haven't tried Annie's version of the spinach smoothie yet. However, a few years ago my pal Amy from California gave me the following recipe. It's a little more hardcore than the above recipe, but it's surprisingly good. Don't let its green-sludge appearance fool you.

Amy's Glass of Green Goodness

3 big handfuls of baby spinach

3-4 inches of seedless cucumber with skin

handful of frozen mango chunks (or substitute pineapple)

1 fresh, very ripe banana

1/2 small lemon, peel removed (cuts bitterness of greens--adjust to taste)

Blend the heck out of it and drink.

Holly's note: my blender is from the early 1980's (no joke) and is just phoning it in, so I have to add a little liquid to get this to blend. I just use water or a little juice.

Amy's smoothie has also been referred to as the E coli smoothie, because when she first introduced the recipe to me and some of our friends, there was some sort of scare about e coli and spinach in CA. Or something like that. I'm really bad at remembering stories.

Are you inspired to drink spinach yet? I hope so!

If you're a spinach-drinking novice and are a little sickened by the idea, I suggest trying Annie's smoothie first. Even her 1-year-old son likes it!

Helpful hint: if you have access to Costco, get berries (or other frozen fruit) and spinach there. They are very affordable there compared to supermarket prices.

Contest Day 10: Lax weekend

2008-12-14T22:16:00.003-07:00

Who else weighed in on Friday then ate cookies the rest of the day? Make that cookies and pie. Someone left a pie on our doorstep, with a note thanking us for making his/her (pretty sure it was a her) evening happier with our Christmas lights. Either that was a very sweet gesture from a stranger, or one of you is a saboteur and will go to any lengths to win this contest. The good news is the pie wasn't poison. The bad news is I had two pieces.

Ah well. Yesterday and today could have been worse.

Sara IMed me on Friday when I wasn't on my computer and asked me to post her weight: 150.8. I don't know if that's up or down because I'm too lazy to open a new window and check. I think it's down.

Well, work hard this week all y'all. I promise not to leave pies on your doorsteps.

Contest Day 8: It's weigh-in time! Also, I'm conceited.

2008-12-12T00:24:00.001-07:00

Post your weight in the comments section of this post (please). If you're an e-mailing contestant, send us an e-mail instead.

Don't run away! Don't hide! We won't laugh. We won't point. Even if we get carried away and do some pointing, you won't see us because we aren't with you, so you'll never know!

Also be sure to read the previous post. It's important. (Do I sound conceited? Is it conceited if I think everyone should read what I write? Do conceited people even know if they are conceited? If I Google "conceited," will it bring me to this post? Do only conceited people Google "conceited"? Am I even spelling "conceited" correctly? You know how when you say or write a word over and over it starts to look fake? "Conceited" is starting to look like a made-up word.)

How to fail at weight loss...in 14 easy steps!

2008-12-11T09:01:00.012-07:00

1. Refuse to ask for help or accept advice from others.

2. Assume your work will be done when you reach your goal weight.

3. Give up at the slightest sign of adversity

4. Decide you can eat whatever you want since you're exercising regularly

5. Decide that weight loss is harder for you than everyone else.

6. Make a number goal (lose x number of pounds by x date) and feel like a failure if you don't reach that goal.

7. Whine more than you work.

8. Constantly criticize yourself and your progress (or lack thereof).

9. Decide you don't need to write down or track what you eat.

10. Go into each day without a plan.

11. Rely only on the scale to measure your progress.

12. Reward or punish yourself with food.

13. Hate yourself.

14. Don't weigh in on Diet Cake today

Contest Day 6: Brace yourselves

2008-12-10T22:49:00.002-07:00

Our official weigh-in is coming up on Friday. Are you ready? Huh? Huh? If the answer is "yes," good for you! If the answer is "no," you're not off the hook. We here at Diet Cake (I love saying that--it makes me feel important) expect all of you here. If you can't make it, you can have a make-up weigh-in on Saturday.

"It's Cairo. It's always the battery" and fleas and stuff

2008-12-10T03:30:00.008-07:00

I'm blaming what is sure to be a really lame post on the fact that we're leaving for the airport in 3 hours, and we still need to go grocery shopping (which is a long, involved process here) and do so in a borrowed car, because it turns out ours is dead (when dh called the mechanic he said, "It's Cairo. It's always the battery."), and even though the mechanic actually came to our house after going to buy the new battery for us, it turns out something or other in the car is something something (I am a mechanical genius!) which means he has to come back tomorrow with different tools and another guy to help him.

Have I mentioned that I like run-on sentences? I really do.

So anyway, I found a good article on sparkpeople.com called Lose Weight Over the Holidays! (enthusiasm theirs). I don't think it has a whole lot of groundbreaking information, and most of the tips in it are likely things you've already heard or read, but it's worth reading anyway. For the same reason I like reading magazines and blogs about fitness and weightloss, I also like reading articles about fitness and weightloss, because it keeps me in a fitness-and-weightloss mindset. Reading things like this not only reminds me (have I told you that I have both the attention span and the memory of a flea?) about some of the tips and tricks that help me lose weight, but they also remind me that I actually want to lose weight. Sometimes I forget that. This is most likely to happen when I'm either doing really well with my diet and exercise or when I'm just kind of cruising, not losing but not gaining, and I convince myself that I'm just fine where I am, thank you very much. It's also been known to happen when I'm doing nothing but sitting on my duff and eating fried cheese and chocolate. Basically it happens a lot. But it becomes less likely to happen when I read magazines and articles and the like, because it keeps it closer to the forefront of my mind. And if anything is going to register in my consciousness enough to do any good, it needs to be as close to the forefront as possible.

Contest Day 5: Already?

2008-12-09T21:02:00.002-07:00

I can't believe we're 5 days down already. How is everyone doing? Honestly, today is the first day of the five that I have eaten reasonably well. Better late than never, but I don't think I'll lose any weight with 20% adherence to sound weight-loss principles.

I'm doing my best not to beat myself up for my bad behavior of either the recent or distant past. (See? I listen to my own advice.) However, I'm recognizing the need for better, more consistent effort. Also, I need to eat vegetables once in a while. I have been really bad about that lately.

See you tomorrow!

Don't be a Judy

2008-12-09T10:07:00.007-07:00

It's human nature--we all do it. No, not picking our noses (stop protesting that you never pick your nose--I don't care). I'm talking about making snap judgements about people--people we know, people we don't know, people we're married to, people who need people, people who eat people, etc. I know I do it all the time. I meet someone, I label them, then I put them in a little box and store them away in my purse.

You know what's nuts (besides driving Hummers)? I'm so often wrong! (Write this down in your journals, folks--I don't often admit wrongness.) I'm not talking about the basics like, "She has brown hair," or "He's wearing his pants below his bum," but about the more subjective judgements like, "She is wearing 20 rhinestone bracelets while shopping at Costco--she must be a crazy-vain pampered princess," or "He drives a Hummer (and isn't actually on duty in the military)--he must be a tool." If I have the chance to really get to know a person, I find out they aren't the person I judged them to be, or even if they are, there's much more to them. Or maybe I've assumed something about them based on our initial contact or where they live or who they're related to (yeah, yeah--to whom they're related) only to find out later I was completely and utterly mistaken. Do you ever do this? I thought so.

(Of course once in a while you find out later that you were right on in your initial assessment of someone. "Wow! He really is a carny with a metal plate in his head and an anger management problem!)

This totally applies to people's weight. People are judged constantly by how they look, and how big or small a person is a basic component of a person's appearance. Not only do we have labels (skinny, fat, fatty, stick, waif, large, hefty, obese, scrawny etc.), but we make assumptions about why that person is fat, thin or in-between, or the character strengths or flaws that they must possess which led them to look like they do.

For example:

"She's huge! She must eat like a pig. What a lazy slacker."

"Look at that skinny girl over there. I hate people who can eat whatever they want and look like that. She's so snotty."

I submit that this is a lazy and unfair way to look at people. We don't usually know what is behind a person's appearance--even his or her weight.

That "big girl" at work may eat too much, but she might be a single mom with no time, support or money for healthy food.

That "skinny-butt snob" you see at the mall may have an eating disorder she developed as a young teenager that she'll be haunted by for the rest of her life, if her life isn't ended by it prematurely.

That "cut, stuck-on-himself guy" at the gym may have been a picked-on, pimply fat kid all through high school who has recently worked very hard to lose weight and get fit.

That "fat slob" at the bus stop may have to take prescription drugs for asthma that make him blow up like a balloon.

So next time you start making those snap judgements about a person's size or weight (this goes for judging the skinny people, too), think twice. I'm going to try a little harder myself.

That kind of sounded like the end of the post. But it's not!

We (and that includes you, too) have to stop judging ourselves this same way. How many times have you labeled yourself as a loser or lazy or a failure for being overweight? How many times have you decided you are an idiot or an impossible case because you keep gaining back what you lose? Seriously--it's not OK. It does NOT help you lose weight, it doesn't increase your motivation. It doesn't help your personal relationships (do you really think the people who love you want you to hate yourself? [if you do, you are so wrong]). It doesn't do anything but drag you down, destroy whatever sense of self worth you still have, and set a terrible example for your kids and other people around you. Whether you say it out loud or just think it, it's bad. I know this is true!

Honestly, I'm not a big fan of the fat acceptance movement. You know, the whole "we're fat and we're just going to be fat and love ourselves as we are!" thing. I don't think people are meant to be overweight for life (there are health issues to be considered, after all). But, I know we have to have some self acceptance no matter what we weigh or why we weigh it or how long it takes us to get healthy. Loving yourself isn't narcissistic--it's accepting that you have worth that is inherent, and that liking yourself is healthy and an important step in weight loss.

So, Judy, change your brain! If you don't know how, we can help (if not me, Sara...or someone else here). You're worth it. At least you will be after you throw away that ridiculous lace collar.

Please don't hate me...

2008-12-08T07:05:00.003-07:00

...but I'm going on a trip with my husband. For a week. With no children. And we're going far enough away that we have to fly there. This is the first time I will have ever been on a plane with him with no kids. This is also the longest we've ever gone away together (breaking our previous record of 4 days, which broke our previous record of 24 hours. What can I say? We don't get out much).

I am really excited about this trip, but there's something about traveling that I really hate: the unknown. I mean, I just don't know what I'm going to do with myself when I have a whole week without having to break up any Polly Pocket-related fights or get excited about anybody's excrement (did I mention that Sam is potty training?), and I'm really afraid that I'm going to sleep all morning every day. Oh, I'm just kidding (mostly), the unknown that I hate is all the stuff that goes with trying to lose weight. I don't know what kind of food I'm going to have access to, don't know when or where I'm going to exercise, don't know how much water I can drink and when (since I don't know when I'll find a bathroom)(or what condition it will be in, for that matter).

So all I can do is plan the best I can. I'm bringing along some portable snacks, exercise clothes, running shoes, and an exercise tube. In my favor is the fact that I never have to talk my husband into exercising (in fact, usually I have to talk him into leaving me alone about exercising already), and with the shoes and the tubing, I'll be able to get walks and modified strength training in, with bodyweight cardio moves to use in case other forms of exercise aren't feasible. I'm also going to try to get some fruit and water to keep in the rental car so that along with the snack I bring, we'll have healthy options available. As for the bathroom thing, I'm thinking I'm just going to have to hope for the best :)

What about you? What do you do when you're traveling? How do you make sure you get your exercise in and have access to healthy food you can eat? Is anybody traveling for the holidays and needs some help formulating a plan to get you through it with your goals in tact? Give me your best healthy-living-whilst-not-at-home tip! Also, do me a favor and try to work the word "whilst" into conversation today.

Contest Day 3: Are we there yet? and a Roster

2008-12-07T05:42:00.010-07:00

A few years back, my church women's organization, which is called the Relief Society, sent around a list of names of all the women in the congregation so we could check for correct spelling and addresses, etc. At the top of the page was the heading, Relief Society Rooster. Sometimes typos (spelling errors?) are great fun. My friend and I had a good time with that particular one for a few weeks after. "Who can cock-a-doodle-do-it? The Relief Society can!" You get the idea.

Hoo boy, do we have quite the list of contestants! I'm jumping up and down with glee (in my mind, not physically--that hurts). The more the merrier, I say. Thanks for joining. I hope this thing helps you get through the holidays with a little more sanity and health, not to mention less self-loathing come January.

I compiled the following list of folks who signed up for the contest. If I left you off, it was completely by accident (I can be a flake at times--Sara and I both have fun and alarming stories to tell about that). Please let me know and I'll add you. If I spelled your name wrong or did something else that needs fixing (not in life--just on this list), again, let me know. Feel free to post a comment or send an electronic message to myweightisasecret at symbol g(don't put this space or these words here)mail dot com.

Official Diet Cake Weight Loss Contest Rooster

Holly

Sara

Brandi

Tiffany

Jess

Katy

Stefanie

Amy

Vicky

Melissa

Maureen

Debbie

dcfullest

Stephanie

Kelly

Awkward Turtle

Leila

wowo

Joolee (is that you who e-mailed?)

Heather

Bethy

Anne

Savannah

Renee

Marie

Wendi

John

Rachel

Jeri

Kita

Gina

Patty

Katie

Denise

Rachel

Nancy

Hiroko

Rachel R.

Ash

Raiye

Andrea N.

Tanwon

Kara

EmmaLee

Jenn

Hannah

Christina

Andrea

Cindy

Natalca

Patty W.

Nicholle

Cathy

Stephanie L.

Liligurl

Amanda

Mandy W.

Julie

Amy Lou Who

RosieRider

Chantelle

Julia

Diane

Be warned, now that your name is on the rooster, you are committed. We're not letting you off the hook. Even if you wander down the path of forbidden chocolate Santas and eggnog (3200 calories for a 1/2 gallon of the teetotaler variety), you must return! No giving up. No whining that you can't do it. We'll track you down! (Scared yet?)(Don't be; we're really quite nice.)(But we'll still come find you.)(Plus there are prizes! You can't miss out on prizes!)

Again, if I've left you off the list, butchered your name, or you are one of the folks who share a name with a fellow contestant and want to give us an initial to put after your name (or if you want us to use your real name vs. your handy moniker)(in my opinion, everyone needs a handy moniker), please let me know.

Have a lovely Sunday, and PUT DOWN THE BROWNIES!

A Little Longer!

2008-12-06T14:19:00.006-07:00

We've decided to let people join The Contest until 11:59 Pacific Standard Time tonight, December 6th.

So if you haven't already, and you missed yesterday's proverbial boat, jump on! We'd love to have you, and I'm quite certain we won't capsize. Post a comment to either this post or the original with your name and weight, or send an e-mail with the info to myweightisasecret at symbol gmail dot com.

Some times weight loss means playing tricks on myself

2008-12-06T06:59:00.001-07:00

Things that are bugging me today:
1. My next-door neighbors have been doing some sort of renovations in their apartment--I assume bathroom-related because of all the clanging--for over a week now, and the noise, while audible everywhere in our apartment, is concentrated in my bedroom. Ergo, even though for two Saturdays in a row now my teenager has taken all the other kids to the closest-thing-we-have-to-a-park while the 2-year old naps, AND I’ve actually wanted to take a nap (me napping by choice and Haley’s Comet are on equal footing in terms of frequency), I can’t sleep.
2. My kids are after me to set up the Christmas tree, which I’m all about, but the movers were supposed to pack up our little tree and instead sent the big one, which is a pain in the patootie to assemble. Usually I let dh do it, but he’s off camping with our older son and the Boy Scouts. While I could just add this to the already really long list of Ways In Which I Have Disappointed My Children Time and Again, I’ll probably do it tonight after they go to bed. It’s bad enough actually doing it; I certainly don’t want them watching me do it (and by “watching me” I mean “asking me every 90 seconds if I’m done yet”).
3. My thighs really hurt. I mean really really. My husband forced me to exercise with him on Thursday and forced me to do squats and other squat-like things and now I can barely walk, let alone sit or get up from sitting. I’m finding myself hobbling around telling myself “Walk normally” but then I can’t remember how to do that, because the pain has erased all memory of ever having done it. I think I’ve stepped gingerly my entire life. And don’t talk to me about going to the bathroom. Also don’t talk to me about how great church was yesterday with my wiggly toddler and his bony little bum on my lap for an hour. I can only thank my years of worship service etiquette training for keeping me from yelping and/or cursing loudly several times.
4. There’s this character on Bob the Builder that has what I believe is the official Worst Voice Ever. I think she’s the wife of the town building inspector. I don’t know for sure, because I can’t bring myself to pay close enough attention to it to find out. My lands this woman is awful! I thought for sure this title belonged permanently to Henry the Octopus, but she makes him sound like Sting or Bono or any other smooth-talking smooth talker you can think of.
5. My toddler watches Bob the Builder 7,483 times a day.
6. We don’t have real television, only DVDs.
7. Sam's favorite Bob the Builder DVD has Mrs. Building Inspector in every. stinking. episode.
8. Cupcakes aren’t calorie-free.
9. My daughter’s birthday was 2 days ago, and nobody has eaten all the cupcakes yet. That means that besides the clanging and that horrible horrible woman’s voice, I’ve also had to listen to cupcakes chattering at me non-stop. I truthfully can’t decide which one is the worst.
10. I’m having a really hard time making myself exercise today.

Lest you think I’m in a bad mood (Hee, I originally typed that “bod mood.” I think that would either be a time when I’m really excited about working out or how Arnold Schwarzenegger expresses crankiness.), I also have plenty of things that are counteracting all of the above (except for the thigh pain; nothing makes that better). These things include but are not limited to: the Christmas signs and decorations my girls have plastered all over the house (especially the snowflakes that my 6-year old just learned how to make), I spelled “Schwarzenegger” correctly without having to look it up, and no one has eaten all the cupcakes yet.

As for the exercise, I’m going to have to trick myself into it. Usually this involves plying myself with magazines, but I’m all out. So I’m going to post this and then go ride my stationary bike while I watch a show on my computer. Really I am. Really really really.

But this also got me to wondering: how do you get yourself to exercise when you don’t want to? And if the answer is, “I just don’t,” (I think that’s the opposite of WWND--What Would Nike Do), why is that? What keeps you from exercising?

Maybe I should invent an exercise machine that plays Mrs. B.I.’s voice loudly unless you’re working in your target heart rate zone. I’d be skinny in no time!

UPDATE: 40 minutes on the bike. My legs still hurt. Oh well. Also, what is up with Dandrew? How are they possibly still in the race?!

Woo! Day 2!

2008-12-06T06:08:00.006-07:00

You should know that both excitement and rhyming hurt my head.

When I was in high school I was in an improvisational theater troupe called, ironically enough, "Improv." It was kind of like group-therapy-through-drama (which, looking back now, I think "How is that effective?" and also, "Boy howdy did we take ourselves seriously"). We acted out different scenarios of problems teenagers face (well, faced in the late 80s/early 90s, that is; I'm awfully glad I'm not doing this sort of thing nowadays!), and we'd always leave the dilemma open-ended which then enabled the counselor who lead our group to talk with the audience about how best to resolve the problem. This part was called "processing." I hated that part, but that's mostly because I've always hated talking about feelings. I was raised by a therapist, see, and while most people may have what they call an "inner child," I have an "inner therapist's child," which means that I tend to run the other way when faced with anything that even resembles a discussion of feelings. I have a very patient husband.

Thankfully for him (and I guess my own emotional well-being, blah blah blah), I've gotten much better at it over the years. I've found, however, that while I'm still not totally hunky dory with talking about how I feeeeel, turns out I kinda like problem-solving. I like stewing things over in my mind and coming up with possible solutions.

Holly and I would like for Saturdays to be the day that we process our week (btw, I'm totally making fun of my teenage self by using that word)("process," not "week") and make our plans for the week to come. What was hard about this week and why? What was easy? What can you do to replicate your successes and minimize your missteps? This is also a good time to brag on yourself, since I really believe that focusing on the positive is what does the most good. I think that the negative is useful for examination purposes only--"why did this happen and what can I do to keep it from happening again" sort of thing, and after that we need to move forward.

Since we've only just begun (cue Carpenters) and can't really examine this past week in terms of What Will Bring Us Closer to Winning Our Own Piece of Egyptian Trash, let's look for some positive things that we did this week. Like I'm sure somebody's t-shirt/bumper sticker/piece of flair says, it's not bragging if it's true. What good thing(s) did you do this week?

Also, if you haven't already, make up your plan for this week. Make it as detailed or as vague as you want, but at least consider what's going to happen in your life. I almost never plan my food out in advance (though in my defense, I pretty much eat the same stuff all the time), but I always plan my workouts. I may not actually do the prescribed workout, but at least I've considered what's going on that week and when and what type of exercise I'm going to do. That not only helps me set it in my mind that I am going to workout that week (whether or not I "want" to) , it also makes it easier to come up with a Plan B if something unexpected crops up. So think about your week, look at a calendar and figure out when you can exercise, check to see if you have Your Food in the house--what can you do to set the conditions for success?

In a not-related-to-bossing note, Holly and I are both so happy to have so many participants! Thanks for joining up, and we're looking forward to getting through these holidays together smaller than we started!

P.S. The picture at the top is one I took surreptitiously at the Pyramids.

Join the Contest: Contest Day 1 and official weigh-in

2008-12-05T01:01:00.010-07:00

This is where you can post your name and weight. First names only, please.

See previous post and this post for more contest info. Don't see the information you're craving? Just ask! There are no stupid questions...only stupid answers.

If you want to e-mail your weight to us instead of posting it, still post your name and your intent to participate and e-mail your starting weight to myweightisasecret put that little at sign here gmail dot com.

Here we go!

P.S. Cut-off time for joining is 11:59pm Pacific Standard Time tonight! Join the fun now while you can!

Are you ready for some WEIGHT LOSS?

2008-12-05T00:08:00.006-07:00

Do they still use that song for the NFL (was it the NFL?)? Do you even know what I'm talking about? I've never been much of a sports fan and I'm married to a guy who watches History Channel shows about salt (not making this up--click the link) instead of sports. So, I don't know what ditties the NFL is using these days.

Which leads me to what I do know. It's time for me and Sara and you (yes, you) to defy the odds and lose some weight. According to this study, the true average weight gain during the holidays is a mere pound. But...BUT...people who are already overweight or obese are likely to gain more. I know I'm in that group. I'm already off to a bad start. I made an 11x17 pan of pecan pie bars last Saturday for a family party and I'm pretty sure I ate at least half of them. There was a lot of butter and sugar in that recipe.

I need a contest. Perhaps you need a contest, too? We're both in luck! The Diet Cake, still-unnamed holiday weight-loss contest begins today, December 5th.

Click HERE for the rules.

To clarify a few things:

-rule number 6 requests that you don't participate in the contest if you're below the healthy weight range for your height. This means it's OK if you're in that range now and want to go lower in that range. Go ahead, enter the contest! But, if your weight is already below the lowest weight in that range, don't try to lose more! Please!

-friends and family of Sara and Holly are welcome to join in. However, we will not favor you--you have to win fair and square if you want a fabulous prize. Sara and I will be joining in also. If one of us wins, I guess we'll supply our own prize.

-You MUST weigh in to participate and you must do it today (December 5th). We understand that some of you don't want to post your weight for all to see. So, we offer you the option of e-mailing your weight to us. You still need to post to let us know you're participating, and in your e-mail make sure you tell us who you are. We promise to keep your e-mail private and your weight even privater.

-The contest winner and the two runners up will receive prizes. We still don't know exactly what those prizes are, but they will include items from Egypt! Sara, as a person living in Egypt, has access to lots of very interesting Egyptian stuff, including Egyptian garbage. There is no cash alternative to the prizes. If you win and you don't want your prize, I guess we'll just donate it to charity and you get nothing (but why wouldn't you want your prize? It's free and you earned it!)

-We'll have a weekly weigh-in. If you can't make it on the specified day(s) (TBA), just make sure you post at some point during that 7-day period (Friday-Thursday) so we know you're still participating.

Don't post your weight in the comments of this post. There will be a separate Join the Contest post after this one for that purpose.

We're excited to have you on board! Good luck!

We will post daily during the duration of the contest (December 5th 2008 to January 15th 2009) and give you tips, motivation, and plenty of drivel and poorly-constructed sentences. We're here to help!

Name it! Another contest post.

2008-12-03T23:06:00.007-07:00

My dad is trying to name his new English Setter. My husband and siblings suggested "Timber," "Fire" and "Look Out." (Go ahead--yell for your imaginary dog using those names and see how awesome they are.) But my dad is more of a traditionalist. He had a name picked out, but then I said if I ever had a boy (human, not dog), I might want to use that name. I'm cool with having a son named after an English Setter, but my dad thought maybe he wouldn't want to call for his dog and have his grandson come running too, so he's still working on finding a name.

But this post isn't about my dad's dog. It's about our incredible holiday weight loss contest! I feel like our contest needs a name. How is it supposed to feel comfortable with its peers if it doesn't have a name? I want our contest to be properly socialized. Wanna help?

Here are some ideas (let me know what you think):

*Lose Your Bowl Full of Jelly (reference to The Night Before Christmas, you know)

*Be Thinner on Christmas Than You Were 20 Days Earlier!

*Put Down the Fruitcake

*Big Fat Holiday Loser

*Ho Ho Ho...We're Fat

*Santa's Stuck in the Chimney and So Am I

*Help! I Can't See My Feet!

Sara likes The UC or The Unnamed Contest.

Any other suggestions?

On a semi-related note, if I ever have another daughter (or get a really awesome dog), I'm totally naming her Amy Lawson.

Don't forget...the contest begins tomorrow! Dig out that scale.

Kid Vitamins Are Delicious (and other reasons I'm still fat)

2008-12-03T21:16:00.005-07:00

When I give my kids their vitamins each day, I eat one too. I think of them as more of a treat than a nutritional supplement. I like the purple ones.

Sometimes I'll have another one later in the day. I really want to eat the whole bottle, but I'm held back by fears of vitamin poisoning. I guess they have built in portion control that way, unlike Sweetarts or Smarties.

You know what else is delicious? Those chewy chocolate calcium supplements.

I really need to be more of a food snob. That's my problem. (Well, one of my problems.) Yeah, I like fine food--I like it a lot--but I also like hot dogs and Cheetos and the fried cheese at Arby's. I am a regular halfway house for food--I welcome all the foods that aren't acceptable in polite society.

Develop more discriminating tastes. That's what I have to do. 'Cause I just can't go on like this--eating anything that comes along. I almost never eat food out of the trash anymore, though. And I hesitate before eating old pretzels from my preschooler's car seat. I think that's a good sign.

Making Holly's Dreams Come True

2008-12-02T23:46:00.005-07:00

(Did you think that because November is over we dropped off the face of the blogsphere?)

(Odds would have been in your favor, you know.)

Did you know that reputable scientific study after reputable scientific study says that when you're sick you should rest, read, and eat copious amounts of friend cheese and chocolate?

Sweet.

Oh, wait...dang. Sorry, Hol. The general rule is that if the illness is from the neck up, go ahead and exercise (gently, yes, but you can still do it), but if it's below the neck, rest your bootay. This is Holly's situation, see. Poor sick Holly.

Unfortunately when you've significantly reduced your physical activity that also means you need to reduce your caloric intake. I'm no expert (though I should be for the amount of magazines I read), but I think that "reduced caloric intake" means the opposite of chocolate and fried cheese (unless you go with the low/no fat/calorie/taste chocolate/fried cheese)(and if you do, two questions: 1. Why? and 2. Why are we friends...?). Old wives will tell you that you need to feed a cold, but then please consider that they'll also tell you that you shouldn't read in dim lighting, and that's just plain crazy. (Please, like anything other than pitch black is too dim to read. And even then there's a good chance you can find a cell phone or iPod to use for illumination.)

Eat good, healthy food, and drink lots of water. Oh, and call me.

Love, Mom

P.S. Here is the IM conversation that precipitated this post (also from which I stole all the jokes in it):

H: that article said
H: gentle exercise is fine when you have a head cold
H: but to avoid strenuous stuff
S: what I've read is if the sickness is from the neck up, so ahead and exercise gently, but if it's below the neck just rest
S: go, not so
H: but you'll likely prolong your illness by exercising if you have bronchitis or anything goopy in your lungs
H hey
H: same thing!
H: I might try pilates in a few days
H: but
S: rest
H: I'm afraid even that would wind me
S: and eat well!
H: I'm so out of shape!
H: lol
H: crap
S: neener neener
H: you caught me
S: sorry the articles don't say anything bout feeding the cold
H: lol
H: with fried cheese and chocolate!
S: I could write one for you
H: but then at the end I'd have to add "NOT!"
H: there you go
H: your next blog entry

I have a feeling Holly's never going to IM with me again.

A Contest! An Unnamed Contest!

2008-11-30T20:57:00.008-07:00

You know how people eat too much during the holidays and gain 5-15 pounds in approximately 30-35 days and then find that it takes 3 months to 35 years to lose that extra weight? You know what I'm talking about, right? Well, let's not do that this year. I'm talking to you. Yes, you. You! Tell those visions of sugar plums to stop dancing around your head right now. (now!) I have a proposal. A proposal of the losing kind. I think we (this still includes you, by the way) should not only avoid gaining 5-15 pounds before the year is out, but we should also lose some weight. You heard me. Forget maintenance. Forget the status quo. We're talking about real live weight loss here. As in, pounds of fatty excess gone from your body.

Rather than have a vague notion of doing this thing (remember "hope is not a plan?"), I propose that we have a little weight loss contest with prizes and everything. We at Diet Cake care about our reader. Oh wait. I'm seeing a problem here...um...I'll get to that in a moment.

But first, let's talk about the contest itself.

I think the grand prize should be $100,000. However, I'm a little short on $100,000es today and I think Sara might be in the same boat (please correct me if I'm wrong, Sara). Also, all our major corporate sponsors have either backed out or outsourced their blog weight loss competition sponsorship to India.

But all is not lost. We will still offer a prize to the person who loses the most weight (as a percentage of starting body weight) during our competition. It will (brace yourselves) be worth dozens of dollars. I can't tell you what it is yet, because I don't know. I promise you will not hate it (unless you are incredibly picky, in which case you probably shouldn't be hanging out with me and my blog because I will undoubtably annoy you a great deal) and that you may or may not be the envy of everyone you know.

How about some rules?

Weight loss contest rules:

Contest is open to anyone, including me and Sara. We only ask that all contestants be real people and over the age of 18. I don't know why they have to be over the age of 18, but it seems like something I should put in contest rules.
Contest will begin on December 5th (there is a reason for this--be patient) and end on January 15th (of course).
To enter the competition, all you have to do is leave a comment on December 5th's post with your name and starting weight. If you don't want the internet to know what you weigh, let us know and we can make other arrangements.
Contestants must check in at least once a week to let us know they are still participating.
Contestants are requested to refrain from using extreme measures (e.g. fasting for the entire month of December, chopping off a limb) to lose weight. Please try to be healthy. If you don't know how to lose weight in a healthy manner, I'm sure there are people who could tell you (don't look at me!) As the restraining order forced us to remove our hidden cameras, the honor system will have to do.
Contestants are also requested to refrain from being contestants if they are already below a healthy weight range for their height. We want to encourage good health!
Grand prize will be awarded to the person who loses the highest percentage of his/her body weight. There is a possibility that second and third prizes will be awarded, but don't count on it.
Sara and Holly reserve the right to disqualify any contestant who seems fishy, dishonest or non-human. We'll try to be fair, of course.
We also reserve the right to amend these rules at any time during the contest.

I'm sure I'm missing something...

Oh yes. Back to the fact that we get maybe 10 hits a day (I'm not counting hits from me and Sara) on this blog and many of those hits are from people looking for pictures of Igor (I'm not even kidding). We have a few faithful readers (thanks guys!) and one very faithful reader (thanks Wendi!), but it would be far more exciting if we could recruit others to join in our weight loss fun as well (of course it will be fun! what's not fun about eschewing cookies and pie all month?) Plus, I don't think Wendi needs to lose any weight.

So, that's why we're not starting officially until December 5th. We need time to find contestants!

Anyway, if you're reading this, and you know of someone (or someones) who might be interested in losing weight over the holidays and possibly winning a not-so-valuable prize, please send them over to Diet Cake.

Stay tuned for more information!

It's times like these I wish Santa really existed

2008-11-29T22:39:00.005-07:00

Since the Christmas shopping season has officially commenced, I'd like to share with you what's on my fantasy health-related wish list.

An unlimited supply of shoes, for every activity. Whether or not I actually participate in said activity.
An unlimited supply of Nike athletic clothing of every kind. Specifically, this jacket. In pink.
Every piece of home exercise equipment my little heart desires. (Please note: my hoe gym will not have a namby-pamby elliptical like the one pictured. No, ma'am. Mine will be a pimp-tastic Precor.)

And of course, since I'll be properly outfitted and have all the equipment I'll ever need at my fingertips, I'll need someone to yell at me while I use it. Enter Jillian. And Bob. But Bob will just be there to teach yoga and fetch me drinks (But he won't be allowed to have that expression on his face. What is up with that?). Jillian will be the one training me. And hurting me. And I will love it.
And since losing weight is 90% about the food, I will of course need a personal chef.
I also want a Garmin 405. I have an earlier model of this and luuub it, but this one is better. Personal GPS is actually illegal in Egypt, so I'm hoping that by next Christmas the 405 will be cheap enough that I can realistically put it on my wish list.
Now this is the one item on my list that I'm actually getting this year. We are crossing over to the dark side and getting a Wii. I have always vowed that as long as there is breath in my body, there will never be a video game system in my house, but apparently my strong convictions cannot withstand the siren song that is the Wii. So that will be for the family. Dh is getting Guitar Hero, and I'm getting the Wii Fit. (I am also getting the Jillian game for it, so yay!)
And since I'm at it, I might as well add one of these to my list:
Mine's going to need to grow larger denominations though.

Would I eat pumpkin pie if I couldn't have whipped cream on it?

2008-11-28T23:31:00.006-07:00

Answer: probably not.

Thanksgiving was a lovely day.

Guess what! Guess what!

I totally didn't pig out--and it didn't kill me.

Now, to be honest, I can't say that I ate entirely prudently, but I don't have any regrets. I didn't eat seconds of any of the dinner items (though I had two pieces of pie when we had dessert later.) All my portions were quite reasonable--I even cut back on the things I didn't care as much about (mashed potatoes, for instance) so I could have a little more of the stuff I really wanted (stuffing). Best of all, I wasn't sick at the end of the day.

Joel is the dieting king--he is better about sticking to a diet/healthy eating plan than anyone I've ever met. Yesterday, however, he just let go and ate with abandon. He logged all his WW points, though, so I guess he wasn't quite as wild 'n' crazy as he might have been.

He used 37 points on pie alone. For those of you not up with the Weight Watchers lingo, that translates to roughly 1800 calories. I'm not entirely sure why he didn't descend into a diabetic coma during the night.

As promised, I took a picture of one of my mother-in-law's enormous Thanksgiving plates (see above). As always, I made sure this picture was as flattering of me as possible.

I hope you also had a very nice holiday. If you, along with Joel, ate a day's worth of calories in pie alone, please forgive yourself as soon as possible. Just be on the lookout for the diet dangers that December will be bringing your way shortly: fudge, fruitcake (ha!), chocolate Santas, frosted sugar cookies, eggnog, schnitzel with noodles...etc.

Insert Your Own Clever Title Here (cuz I got nothin')

2008-11-27T13:17:00.005-07:00

As you can see, my ability to think is still about where it was two days ago, so there's no possible way I could come even close to producing a list like Holly's. I do have a few ramblings to share though. Lucky you!

I was thinking today about gratitude and health/dieting/body image stuff, and when it comes right down to it, I am just plain grateful to have a body, even though I'm not entirely happy with how it looks. I am grateful that I'm healthy and that my family loves me no matter what I look like. I'm grateful that my children and husband are healthy, too, and that we have plenty of everything we need. Technically, I don't think sanity is a need, per se, because we're a little short on that.

Last year I had a malignant melanoma removed from my arm. It was caught early enough that the only treatment I needed was the one surgery, but my risk for skin cancer to return is what they call "elevated." I recently reconnected with a friend I lost touch with several years ago and found out that last year she was diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer. She went through 5 months of chemo and is currently in remission. In April, my grandma was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer and 2 weeks ago was moved to Stage V. She's not expected to live much past the new year.

None of us can control whether or not we get cancer, but we can mitigate the risk. None of us can control what happens to our loved ones, but we can control what we put in our mouths, how (and how often) we move our bodies and whether or not we wear sunscreen (p.s. wear sunscreen). We don't know what's going to happen in the future, but we do know that how we live today can influence it. Influence it for good, ok?

Because this post isn't very funny, I'll try to redeem myself by posting a homework assignment my Kindergartener did. I feel the same way she does.
Happy Thanksgiving!

Chock Full o' Thanks

2008-11-26T23:08:00.008-07:00

Sara has blogging duty (like guard duty, but with fewer weapons) on Thanksgiving day, so I'll have to settle for a pre-Thanksgiving gratitude fest.

(Who am I kidding? I'm happy to spend tomorrow doing nothing but eating simple carbs and watching other people do dishes--there will be no time for writing a Post-It Note, let alone a blog entry.)

I feel like making a numbered list. Please note that the list items are in random order (I don't want you to worry in case I happen to list Cheetos before my children...or something like that.)

Holly is thankful for:

Cheetos
My children
Cinnamon toast
Rhinestones
Indoor plumbing, especially toilets
Finding a good deal on a new furnace (not as good as the furnace not dying in the first place, but still...)
A husband and father-in-law who are relatively qualified to install a furnace
Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Grocery shopping with my sister tonight
Eggnog ice cream
Weight Watchers
Fresh salsa
My best in-state friend: Wendi
My best friend: Sara
My best friend who is also my husband: Joel
Cinnamon toast
Books!
Jim Dale and his performance of the Harry Potter audiobooks
Hot rollers (not to be confused with high rollers)
Coupons
Thai food
Our parakeets
My mannequin
French doors
Office supplies
People who know how to sew
My mom
Your mom
All the moms
Sunscreen
Lockets
Clementines
Post-it notes
Those pens I love (what? I'm not going to get off the couch to find one and look at the brand.)
Clifford the Big Red Couch
Good haircuts and the people who give them
Shop vacs
The Hotties
My siblings
England
Footy pajamas on little kids
Hot oil treatment
Health insurance
The USA
New York City
50's dresses and vintage clothes in general
Etsy
Apple computers
Cupboard space
It's a Wonderful Life
Shoes
People who spend their lives helping other people
My mother-in-law's homemade macaroni and cheese
Cheese
God and all the good stuff that goes with
Being free to worship Him
Our DVR
Jeans that aren't too tight or too loose
Lotion
Excedrin
LASIK
Flowers--any kind, but not calla lilies as much as the others
Silk
Wrap dresses
People who are thrifty but aren't snotty about it
Savings accounts
Player pianos
Digital cameras
Red
Cousins
People who like me anyway
Anti depressants
Teachers who are really patient
Tweezers
Lysol wipes
Heating pads
Cetaphil
Christmas trees
Christmas
Scottish accents
Dangly earrings
People who are smart but would never call themselves intellectuals
(Parentheses)
Sesame Street
Houseplants that just won't quit
No-iron fabrics
Food banks
People who get up early (how do they do it?)
People who do jobs I don't want to do
Trees
Polite children
My husband's insane but wonderful Christmas lights
Kind neighbors
Hotels
Hiking (as long as I can stay in a hotel when I'm done)
Hot baths
Air conditioning
Digging in the dirt
Gas stoves
Google

Yeah...sorry...I got nothin'...

2008-11-25T22:22:00.006-07:00

I've been trying all day to think of something to blog about, and I think I thought of some things, but they got lost. In my brain. Which means they are irretrievable.

I'm pleading the fact that as of today my husband's been gone for 5 weeks, and there's still another week before he gets home. I have officially turned into a wuss of a Marine wife. Last time he was gone for longer than a scout campout (which is pretty much the longest he's been gone since he got home from his last deployment 3 1/2 years ago), it took me until Month 5 out of 6 before I hit this level of No Rational Thought In Here. Plus my 2-year old was on a rampage today. Let me rephrase: my potty-training 2-year old was on a rampage today. There was so much pee to clean up today.

So really all I have for you is that I exercised twice today, both at home, because I had errands to run this morning and wasn't able to get to the gym. I spent an hour walking the length of my apartment after I got home from the errands and then tonight I rode my stationary bike for 40 minutes while I watched a TV show on my computer. I also drank all my water and recorded all my food. Most importantly, I did not eat all of the cookies I made for my Kindergartener's Thanksgiving party. That was probably the hardest part of the day.

I apologize for the lameness of this post. Probably what I should do instead of whining about the wolves that are chasing me (luckily I dn't have a hangnail; that would just be the last straw) is point you toward the comment of this post so that you can see how awesome Wendi is. You probably won't believe that I have an opinion about this, but I believe that real change comes through making small changes and then being consistent. Her trip to the store on foot for her very heavy appples (sorry, Wendi, couldn't resist) and not buying caramels for said heavy appples is what it's about. Go, Wendi!

Let's Talk Turkey...

2008-11-24T21:39:00.025-07:00

and stuffing and yams.

First, let's talk about yams. They are nasty. Don't waste calories on tubers smothered in marshmallowy ooze.

Next!

We're having Thanksgiving dinner with my in-laws this year. Somebody help me! (Just kidding--I love my in-laws. I especially love any of my in-laws who happen to read this blog entry. I love them SO much!)

My mother-in-law has special plates just for Thanksgiving dinner. And by "special," I mean, "bigger than my hair in the 80's." You could feed an entire third-world nation off one of these plates. I'll take a picture of one of them (the plates, not a third-world nation) on Thursday and post it on this blog.

This post is not about big plates or big hair--it's about food. Specifically, it's about the big calories in your Thanksgiving dinner.

If you want to eat until your belly button pops out like a Norbest turkey timer, go right ahead, but I want you to be informed first. Here's a veritable feast of information (tasty, tasty information) for you:

Thanksgiving Foods: Calories and Weight Watchers Points



*turkey, white meat    2 ounces (approx. weight   111 cal   2 WW pts
                   of an obese parakeet)
*turkey, dark meat     2 ounces (see above)       125 cal   2 WW pts
*turkey gravy          1/4 cup                     68 cal   2 WW pts
*mashed potatoes       1 cup                      233 cal   4 WW pts
*stuffing              1 cup                      300 cal   6 WW pts
*sweet potatoes        2 1/2" x 2" section of     151 cal   3 WW pts
                   casserole dish       
*green bean casserole  1/6th of 1.5 qt casserole  410 cal  11 WW pts
*cranberry sauce       1/2 cup                    209 cal   4 WW pts
*dinner roll           1 average size roll, white 111 cal   2 WW pts
*butter                1 tablespoon               102 cal   3 WW pts
*pumpkin pie           1/8th of a 9-inch pie      323 cal   8 WW pts
*whipped cream         1/2 cup                    207 cal   6 WW pts

This information was gleaned from the fertile fields of the internet. The caloric values of your Thanksgiving foods may vary.

What are you going to eat on Thursday? How much of it? How many new feuds will you start with your siblings?

(my answers: everything but the sweet potatoes, not enough to make me throw up, 2)

Photo notes:

1) It was taken in 1990, not the 80's, but for our purposes it works.

2) I don't know what's most horrifying: my hair, my pleated white pants, my facial expression or the lasers. What do you think?

3) In my defense, I was reluctant to be photographed in front of the laser background. The photographer talked me into it. "It looks really good in the finished pictures!" he gushed.

4) The pants were my idea, and there is no excuse for them.

5) This picture will probably come back to haunt me someday.

What a Middle-Aged Surfer Can Teach Us About Thanksgiving

2008-11-23T13:07:00.009-07:00

I thought about writing about how tonight when I was walking on the track at my kids' school I kept a really great pace because I was trying to make sure I stayed way ahead of any other people who were also on the track because I had gas. 4.52 miles in 71 minutes, thank you very much.

But (get it? Butt? Hee. I slay me.)(As a side note, something you should know about Holly is that when I first met her she was so refined that she wouldn't even say the word, "butt." It took me two years to wear her down.) I figured that that wouldn't be the most interesting post. Maybe it would, but that's sad. So instead I'm going to talk about Thanksgiving.

A couple of years ago I read a book by Anderson Cooper that I really liked--it was a good story well told, which is my main criteria for me liking it--but what I liked best was a phrase I took from it. I wish I were cool enough (or had enough brain cells, for that matter)(it is my time-tested hypothesis that placenta is made of brain cells) to remember the context of this phrase, but that doesn't make it any less good. Holly actually referred to it a few posts ago, because, well, I do say it a lot. "Hope is not a plan."

17 years ago, my husband was in Florida serving a mission for our church, and he was teaching a man named Greg. Greg was a nice guy--a typical surfer dude type--who was really interested in living a good life, but had a few addictions that he wasn't quite ready to give up. The way he said it several times to my dh was, "Man, I hope I repent." This has now become a saying that Holly and I use quite often when we're referring to something that is entirely in our power to do but that we may or may not actually get done. Such as, "Today I want to exercise and eat well. I hope I repent," or, "I really don't want to eat too much candy at my in-laws' house today. I hope I repent."

You get the idea.

With Thanksgiving coming up, you need a plan. You can't go into one of the most caloriffic days of the year saying, "I hope can control myself." Want to know why you can't do that? That's right, because hope is not a plan.

Your Thanksgiving plan can be any kind you want it to be. You can plan out everything you're going to eat and the exercise you're going to do that day and when. You can also plan to eat everything in sight and make sure there's always someone nearby to fetch things for you so you never have to get up. You could also take a more moderate approach and set yourself some guidelines, such as "Only a small piece of the dessert(s) that look really good," or "No thirds." Knock yourself out figuring out what's best for you. But while you're thinking of your plan, think about how you want to feel--physically and about yourself--that night or even the next day, and think about how you can best plan to make those feelings reality.

Now, I know that there's a school of thought that says, "It's the holidays! You should just relax and enjoy yourself!" You should know that I do not subscribe to that school. I do agree that the holidays are a great time of year and should be fun. However, I also believe that one day of gorging yourself and sitting on your duff (that's a term pre-Sara Holly would likely have approved of) all day is not going to do you any favors. You've tasted it all before. You will have another chance in your life to taste it again. This year make the decision to eat sensibly, make a plan for that, and follow through. The holidays are not about the food. They're about the people we love and getting in touch with our better selves. Thanksgiving in particular is about remembering the many things with which youve been blessed and expressing that gratitude, whether publicly or privately (personally, I am not a fan of having to go around the table and share something you're grateful for for every M&M that's in a little cup at your place, and I love that one year my brother-in-laws last gratitude was "I'm grateful that this is the last M&M.").

I do not, however, believe that the holidays are meant to be spent stressing out over every calorie and every morsel, or feeling guilty because you overslept and didn't get your workout done before it was time to start cooking/leave for Grandma's. Be realistic. You know you, and you know what challenges you're going to face on Thursday. Take all that into account, and do the best you can. You don't have to be perfect; just do your best. Eat three pieces of pie instead of your usual 5? Great! Just think about what you want to happen and then make a plan to make that happen. Want eat with wanton abandonment and just get back in the game on Friday? More power to ya! Plan it out!

Think it through. That's all I'm saying.

I hope we all repent :)

That picture up there is because when I entered "turkey" into Google Images, that map of the country, not the bird (though a map of a bird might be both gross and fascinating) is one of the first results that showed up, and it made me laugh, and since I am all about the humor, I went with it. Photo credit: shunya.net

If I knew you were coming...

2008-11-22T23:29:00.008-07:00

Those in my inner circle are aware that when I'm not clubbing, playing high stakes poker or committing random acts of macrame, I dabble in cake decorating. ("Ah ha!" you say. "That must be why she has 45 pounds to lose!" No, not quite, but this hobby may have contributed to the need for others to drop a few pounds.)

I enjoy cake decorating like I enjoy giving birth: it's a big, messy pain, but the results are pretty great. (Don't go too deep with this analogy--I have yet to consume one of my children.)

I decorate maybe 10-12 cakes per year. That's about all I can handle at this point in my life. Keep in mind that some of these are wedding cakes and take 40-50 hours from start to finish. Also, keep in mind that spending 40-50 hours on anything, ever, goes against my very nature.

Today is a cake day. In fact, I'm taking a break from making my 3-year-old nephew's birthday cake to write this post. It's close to midnight, but I still have at least 2 hours of work before I can go to bed, and that's being optimistic. However, I'm grateful that this cake doesn't appear to be an all-night project.

It helps that I'm making a cake shaped like a rock. (The picture above is of a previous cake I made for the same nephew, which was much more elaborate and large than the planned rock.) One of my nephew's favorite pasttimes is lifting up rocks in his yard in order to unearth the bugs beneath, then smooshing said bugs. So, his cake is going to be a bug-covered rock. It won't be one of my prettier babies, that's for sure. But I hope this cake will teach Ethan that bugs are for eating as well as smooshing.

This post doesn't have much at all to do with dieting. That's OK--we've warned you already that cake will play a part in this blog. At least I'm trying to create an association in your mind between cake and bug smooshing. You're welcome!

Honk Honk

2008-11-21T14:53:00.005-07:00

That's me, tooting my own horn.

(I guess this could be subtitled, "I Can't Think of Anything to Blog About, So I'm Going to Tell You How Great I Am Instead.")

Today marks 6 weeks of tracking my food. Everything I ate. Every day. 6 weeks. For me, that is huge. I think to this point my record is 3 weeks, maaaaaybe 3 1/2. But probably not. Today is also 3 weeks of drinking 100+ ounces of water everyday. And in 2 days, my 12-week chart will be 3/4ths of the way full. So yeah, I'm pretty awesome.

I will pause whilst you go hurl.

But that's really not my big deal this week. I am so grateful that the tracking and the water and the exercise feels commonplace and that, while I'm pretty pleased with myself about my consistency (usually me and consistency, well, we are not friends), it's almost so normal that it's almost no biggie. (I say "almost" because I'm trying to be better at giving myself credit for the good stuff I do.) No, my big deal this week is that I didn't quit.

I really wanted to. The combination of the scale jump and the abysmal running experience--along with a bunch of other junk going on--really did a number on my head. I would not have been surprised if my period had shown up this week, even though it's a week too soon, that's how bad my brain was. In fact, I was almost hoping for it because then I'd have some explanation other than "Crazy." But alas, it was just me.

Yesterday in particular was really hard. All day long I just wanted to stuff myself with whatever I could find. Yesterday just happened to also be the day I did my weekly grocery shopping. It's truly a miracle I didn't leave the store with nothing but a cart full of Oreos and Pop Tarts. I am so not kidding. But I didn't. Stuff on my list only, thank you (though I did buy a bag of really giant ziploc bags, because you never know when you might need a really giant ziploc bag, and around here if you don't buy something when you see it, you're not likely to ever get the chance again, so that was an impulse buy, though thankfully an inedible one). I spent the evening talking myself out of making cookies, a task made harder when a friend updated her Facebook status to read "is making cookies." Even Facebook was against me!

I didn't quit though. I even exercised 3 times yesterday. And after spending all week higher than last week's weigh-in, the scale was down 1 pound this morning. Still not caught up with last week's gain, but it's in the right direction, and I'm pleased.

I Gave Birth to Muppets

2008-11-20T22:13:00.010-07:00

It's the only explanation. When my children (girls, ages 10 and 4) eat, food enters their mouths, but then immediately flies out again in crumb form. There's no point in vacuuming, because the carpet crumb coating will reappear moments after I finish. (My fault for letting them eat over the carpet? Possibly.)

As frustrating as the Muppet-mouthed eating by my offspring is, I think they may be onto something.

Think of the dieting possibilities. You want cookies but are worried about the calories? Just make sure you eat with your mouth wide open so most of the pieces fall out.

Want to feel like a wuss while lifting 3 pounds?

2008-11-19T22:47:00.005-07:00

Hi, I'm Sara, and I'm a magazine junkie. If it's geared towards women, chances are good that I'll read it. Well, that's not entirely true. I don't like the fashion magazines, and I can do without the pseudo-fashion/how-to-be-a-sex-object ones, and I stay away from the ones that loudly profess on their covers things like "Lose 40 Pounds by Blinking!" So I guess to make that a more accurate statement I should say, "Hi, I'm Sara, and I'm a magazines-that-I-like junkie."

It just so happens that most of the magazines that I like are diet/health/fitness related. Big surprise I know. I'll give you a minute to recover from the shock. Feel better now? Good.

In this month's Self magazine, there is an arms workout that hurts me. It's by Madonna's and Gwyneth's trainer, Tracy Anderson. We don't get real TV here, so I didn't see Gwyneth on Oprah, but I did read some blog analyses of the interview, more specifically her trainer's assertion that no woman should lift a weight heavier than 3 pounds. Like most of the discussions of it that I read, I basically thought the woman was, er, wrong. But then I saw this workout in Self and decided to give it a try (think what you will about Madonna, Gwyneth, and/or their trainer, you can't deny they all have great arms).

Here it is:

Sculpt A-list Arms Fast!

It says to use 3-pound weights, but all I have at home are 2.5 (they're weight plates for dh's barbells; the smallest hand weights I have are 8-pounders)(yes, I am just that tough)(no, really)(stop laughing, Holly) and the gym's weights are in kilograms, so I can either go with 1 kg (which is 2.20462262 pounds) or 2 kg (which is 4.40924524 pounds). I've used the 2.5 lbs at home and the 2 kgs at the gym and the take on both is this: Ow.

This is a good workout, especially for your shoulders. I don't think it works my triceps all that well, so I've been doing extra sets of tricep exercises as well, and by the end of both, my arms are spent. If I were more concerned with building my biceps more, I might add in some exercises specifically targeting those, too, but right now I'm not.

I'm interested to see what the rest of her workout would be like, considering I was, er, wrong about the arms portion of it. Too bad I'm cheap. I can't bring myself to pay $30 for her DVD.

Go try the workout, and tell me what you think. Be sure to watch the accompanying video, because a couple of the exercises made no sense at all to me until I did.

Sounds too healthy to be good...

2008-11-18T21:37:00.001-07:00

and yeah...it wasn't good.

I'm referring to the 6-Grain Breakfast recipe I tried this week. A few things drew me to the recipe: the aforementioned six grains (there are six grains in the world?!? wonder of wonders) and the potential health benefits of those, the cooking method (Crockpot overnight--wake up to hot breakfast!), and the inclusion of apples and cinnamon in the ingredient list. It sounded like a perfect food--tasty, easy and ridiculously nutritious.

Here's the recipe as I found it (somewhere online [I like to give credit where credit is due]):

6 Grain Breakfast

2 1/2 TBS bulgur wheat

2 1/2 TBS brown rice

2 TBS barley

2 TBS quinoa

1/4 cup rolled oats

1 cup diced apples

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

3 cups water

1 TBS vanilla extract

Combine ingredients in slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours. Stir before serving. Serves 4.

I like most hot cereals, so I thought I would like this. I'm not stupid though, so I tested it on my 10-year-old first. She is very good about trying new things and she likes oatmeal, so I thought she'd love the apple-y goodness of the 6 Grain Breakfast. After a few bites and five minutes of silence, she said, "Um...Momma? This isn't very good. I don't think I can finish it." I gave her permission to stop eating (the kid loves vegetables and would rather eat salad than candy, so I give her a break every now and then when she doesn't like something).

After she left for school, I tried some too (I added plenty of sweetener). I managed to eat the whole bowl, but I didn't enjoy the experience.

*Problems with the 6 Grain Breakfast:

1) For the life of me, I can't figure out what the 6th grain is. I only count five. I didn't notice this glaring problem until I typed the recipe just now. I wonder if the missing 6th grain would have made the cereal taste good?

2) Too apple-y. Maybe I shouldn't have used Granny Smith apples. Perhaps a sweeter apple variety would have tasted better. The apples overwhelmed the cereal, and not in a tasty apple pie way.

3) Too cinnamon-y. I like cinnamon, but there was too much in this recipe. Yet it still didn't counteract the apple. Rude.

4) Too vanilla-y. It's rare that I complain about a recipe having too much seasoning of any kind. I like seasoning. But this had too much vanilla. It tasted like a vanilla candle (mixed with an apple and cinnamon candle).

5) Needed salt. There was a blandness underlying the overly vanilled, cinnamoned and appled flavor. Salt fixes stuff like that.

6) Nobody washed the Crock Pot for me afterwards. I don't like washing Crock Pots.

I'm not giving up on the recipe. I liked the texture (mushy--but in a good way). I liked the grains! I liked having breakfast ready with no morning effort!

I think I'll try again next week, but leave out the apples, cinnamon and vanilla; change the name to 5 Grain Breakfast; add salt; add pumpkin puree; and add pumpkin pie spices. (Sara adds pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice to oatmeal--tres good). I hope salad-eating daughter is ready to be my guinea pig again.

Perhaps not the first guy you'd look to for dieting inspiration?

2008-11-17T10:08:00.008-07:00

Winston Churchill: the right man for the right job at the right time.
Winston Churchill: not necessarily a bastion of healthy living.

But he did have a way with words. I'm sure I'm not the first person who has applied his famous "Never, never, never give up" to their efforts in getting healthier, but today I found another quotation that feels even more applicable to me right now.

On Saturday, Holly got to listen to me rant via IM (I'm thinking that at this point, she's likely cursing the inventor of iChat and/or whomever it was that gave me access to it) about how despite consistent exercise (9 straight weeks!) and diligent food tracking (5 weeks without missing a day!) and persistent water consumption (100 oz. a day! for over 2 weeks now!)(with no thought to the risk of injury to my person, no less!) I gained 1.4 pounds last week. Boo.

So far I've done pretty well and looking past the results and focusing on the effort, but sometimes it would be nice to have a little correlation between the two, you know?

Anyway, here's where Mr. Churchill comes in:

Success is the ability to go
from one failure to another
with no loss of enthusiasm.

Thanks, Winston; I feel better already.

I was just walking down the hallway and stepped with my bare foot in a puddle of pee. Right then I decided that this quotation is also really applicable to potty training.

If you fail to plan, you plan to gain 50 or 60 pounds

2008-11-16T22:14:00.011-07:00

I promised the world a plan by tomorrow night. For once I'm true to my word. In fact, I'm early. I'm never early. I live across the street from my church and yet I'm consistently 2-3 minutes late for services. But I digress. I have a diet and exercise plan. Or, rather, I will be making one up as I compose this post. But by the time you read this (all 3 of you), I will have a plan. Confused yet? I am.

Plan, the:

Exercise:

I don't exercise much nowadays. That's not good. My joints ache, I don't sleep well, and things are lumpy. I feel that exercise may change these things.

(Always go with your feelings--just ask teenage girls.)

Fortunately, I also know that exercise will change those things (aches, bad sleep, and lumps--not teenage girls and their feelings).

Exercise 6 times/week (Monday-Saturday) for at least 20 minutes.
Plan type and time of exercise the night before.
Keep track of it all on a chart. I love charts. So does Sara.
Buy stickers for chart, preferably scratch and sniff (Bubble gum and green apple, please)

That's a pretty basic plan. For now, I'm not going to focus on what type of exercise--just doing something that benefits my body cardiovascularly or gives me muscles and/or less lumpiness. As I see it, developing the exercise habit is much more important right now than fine-tuning a fitness program. That'll come later, I'm sure, when I'm all skinny and decide I need abs of steel.

Food:

Mmmm...food.

Make sure I eat breakfast before 9am. I used to be really good at this, but lately I forget to eat until 11 or so.
Track my food and Weight Watchers points. Joel found a great app for my iPhone, so I don't even need to use a pen and paper like some crazy Luddite! (Joel can't believe I still read actual books made of paper.)
AND (this is crucial), track everything I eat. Everything. Even on days when everything I eat is coated in cheese powder.

Again, I'm starting with the basics. I'm not setting calorie or point goals yet (though that should come soon.) I just want to raise awareness...of consumption of cheese powder.

Sleep:

Get more of it
Go to bed before midnight

Again with the baby steps and manageable goals.

Tomorrow night I'll post a wee analysis of my first day on the plan.

EDIT: I just noticed something on my "plan" picture. Under "exercise" I thought I wrote "boogie down." But it appears I wrote "boggie down" instead. Even better.

(See why I need more sleep?)

Turns out Gravity hates me

2008-11-15T01:15:00.003-07:00

This morning I had the bright idea that instead of going to the gym to do my workout, I would go to my kids' school and use the track there to do it. Today The Schedule dictates that I do 20 minutes of running. 20 minutes. Of running. 20 minutes straight running. Yikes.

But I really want to do this, so I made a new playlist for my iPod, charged that bad mamba jamba up, and headed out the door. I knew it would be hard, but I was willing to give it a try.

When I got to the school, I realized that there were soccer games going on on the field the track circles. Goody! My favorite! People! People to watch me! People on bleachers! I should have brought them all popcorn to help make the show complete. It honestly took everything I had not to just turn around and head home. If I had brought my purse with me I would have hopped a cab to the gym right then. But I was there, I had my music, I decided to just go for it.

Yeah.

Running outside = not the same as on a treadmill.

I barely made it one lap. And I really wanted to just go home. Again. Some more!

But instead I alternated running a lap with walking a lap. I was going to keep track of how many times I did it, but, well, I'm distracted easily. Especially when my lungs are on fire.

So I'll try the 20 minutes straight at the gym later this week and see how it goes. I've read that setting a treadmill's incline to 1 better approximates what it's like to run outside, so I'll probably try that.

I'm also thinking I need to figure out a way to work outside runs into my workout schedule. I'm doing this because I want to be good at running, not just good at running on a treadmill.

Confess and Assess

2008-11-14T20:03:00.008-07:00

Weight loss is a constant battle. I know that's not a news flash to most of you--it isn't to me, either-- but the past 12 months or so have been even more strugglish than usual for me on the weight loss front. Last October my weight was in the low 170s after a long stint in the 180s and I anticipated continuing the weight loss and reaching my goal weight (Weight Watchers goal: 155, personal goal: 145) in the next year.

As Sara likes to say, "Hope is not a plan," and I'm afraid I was running more on hope than finely-tuned plans. Throw in some battles with medication difficulties and changes (no, no--I'm not trying to blame all my weight problems on that, but it was a factor) and some holidays that sprang up out of nowhere (Christmas is brand spankin' new, right?), and I was on the bullet train to Chubsville in no time flat.

At first my gain was slow (there goes my bullet train analogy), but I gained momentum rapidly and by late spring I was in the 190s.

Allow me to backtrack a little: when I joined Weight Watchers in February of 2007, my starting weight was 194.5 pounds. I received my 25 pound award in August of that year.

Back to this summer. By mid July, I hit 196.5 pounds, putting me two pounds above my starting weight (WW does not currently offer an award for this). I had given away all my size 14 clothes in the previous year and not only did I need those again, I was fitting into size 16 (and even 18--curse you, Old Navy!) for the first time ever. (Hey plus size friends--I realize you're pulling out your tiny violins at this point, but too much weight isn't good for you, whether it's 50 pounds or 150 pounds, wouldn't you agree? [If you don't agree, I don't want to know.])

I guess you could say in July I was near rock bottom (though my actual bottom was far from rock-like). I don't know exactly what made me stop the weight gain, though if I ever figure it out, I'm totally bottling it and selling it on QVC. Nonetheless, I stopped gaining and lost a few pounds before kind of hovering for a while in the lowish 190s.

Ever since, I've managed to avoid returning to the habits that put me on the gain train in the past, but I haven't really committed to doing anything that will produce steady and continual weight loss. I have lost a few more pounds over the past few months, it's true, and I'm happy about that, but if it's going to stick I need to start trying harder. Effort is a beautiful thing.

I've been working long and hard on my plan. Well, actually, so far my "plan" has consisted of not resisting Sara's efforts to get me to blog about weight loss for NaBloPoMo.

I hereby promise to make a plan. A real live plan for losing weight and doing it soon. And I also promise to post this plan on this blog (this one--right here) by midnight on this coming Monday.

Here's the rundown of how things are with me, weight-loss wise and health wise right now:

*Weight: 186 (yesterday it was 185)

*Height: still 5'9"

*Exercise regimen: none

*Best thing I eat regularly: broccoli

*Worst thing I eat regularly: Arby's mozzarella sticks

*Husbands who weigh less than I do: Joel

*Nights per week I get enough sleep: one or two

*Number of aches and pains: four

*Water consumed daily: around 48-64 oz

*Measurements:

-Upper arm: 14 inches

-Neck: 14 inches (for pity's sake--why is my arm as big around as my neck? Oh yeah. Frequent fried cheese consumption).

-Bust: None of your diggity dang business

-True waist (smallest part): 34 inches

-Waist at belly button: 37 inches

-High hips (at hipbone): 43.5 inches

-Largest hip measurement: 44.5 inches

-Thigh: 27 inches

-Knee (just above kneecap): 17 inches

-Calf: 16 inches

-Ankle (why not?): 8 3/4 inches

Well, that's the scoop. The scoopity scoopy scoop.

Stay tuned for the plan.

Not only do I make Holly go along with my crazy ideas..

2008-11-13T10:27:00.008-07:00

...but I also steal her good ones.

Today we were chatting on IM, and she said that she thought we should occasionally post some recipes. And since I was simultaneously wondering what the heck I should blog about today, I quickly agreed with her--and then tried to figure out which recipe I could post today.

It took me a little while to come up with one, since most of my favorite recipes aren't exactly, erm, appropriate for a "diet" blog. But then I remembered a fun, easy, and really good recipe I found last year that my kids and I all love.

I found it on Green Lite Bites, which is a veritable treasure-trove for healthy meals, snacks, and food ideas. Plus Holly and I both like that Roni's our height and is currently at our goal weight, so we like seeing pictures of what we may look like when we get there, too.

So here's the recipe for "Big Simple Chocolate Cupcakes." They are awesome. I highly recommend adding the sprinkles. Everybody loves sprinkles.

The only thing I do differently is that I make them in mini-muffin tins, not giant (just reduce the cooking time to more like 15 minutes). I do this mostly because I have a lot of kids. It doesn't matter if I'm using the same amount of batter to make the cupcakes--if the end result is a lot of things for them to eat as opposed to a few, they are happier. They get this from me. And also, like sprinkles, everybody loves mini cupcakes. If they say they don't, they're probably lying.

Oh, and one important thing to remember--make sure they are cooled all the way before you feed them to your children. If you don't, they will say, "Hmm...what's the deal with these?" sprinkles or no (though they'll still eat them, mind you), but if you wait they'll only know they're eating really moist chocolate cupcakes. And maybe fight about who got more sprinkles.

Hit me with your best (flu) shot

2008-11-12T20:07:00.010-07:00

If I were one of those people who is convinced the world is out to get her, I would have a serious bone to pick with the world for the ineffectiveness of last year's flu shot. Sure, universe (or world--whatever)...I finally decide to get a flu shot for the first time in a decade and that's the year they (read: you) get the strain wrong, rendering the shot essentially useless and dooming me and my 9-year-old to a miserable bout with the flu. Miserable! Flu! Bout!

I want our $60 back. (Yeah--Joel never got the flu, but he could have gotten it, so I want his $20 back as well.)

But wait, I guess I'm not a world-is-out-to-get-me type person. Today I'm not, anyway. Which explains why I went to Joel's workplace today and got stabbed in the arm with a gigantic needle. (I never said I wasn't a whiner.) It also helps that it was free.

I sincerely hope they (not sure who "they" are--the CDC? the WHO? the cast of Grey's Anatomy?) have chosen wisely this year. As much as I dislike the stabbage of a flu vaccine, I dislike the flu even more.

I was thinking today that it would be nice if there were a vaccine for all potential diseases/ailments. And that led me to think (so much thinking today! is that a side effect of flu shots?), that while there isn't a single shot to prevent many/most of the physical afflictions that can befall us, there are things we can do, that in combination, can possibly and maybe prevent many illnesses and health problems.

The problem is, eating a healthy diet rich in fruits and vegetables, exercising, getting enough sleep and all that good-for-you jazz involves a wee bit more of a long-term commitment than a 2-second needle jab. And, just like getting last year's flu shot, doing those things doesn't necessarily mean you won't get cancer or pneumonia or a goiter. Still, in theory, I believe those things are worth doing. It's good to minimize risk whenever you can.

If I happen to be in a thinking mood again tomorrow, I should maybe figure out when I'm going to take my health more seriously. While getting a flu shot is a good start, it's only a start. I see a lot of exercise, healthy eating and self-discipline (oh horrors!) ahead.

Hmmm...maybe that needle wasn't so bad?

And you were so scared...

2008-11-11T10:38:00.003-07:00

I'm feeling a little like Grover right now. (Quick! Name the book!)

Today's run was actually pretty darn good. It would have been pretty darn gooder if my gym's A/C had been on, but whatevs. The schedule (which I totally meant to link to in the last post and then totally forgot) called for me to run 5 minutes, walk 3, run 5, walk 3, and then run 5 more. The first 5 actually weren't all that bad. From the get-go, though, I used my towel to cover up the clock on the treadmill and just focused on the music on my iPod. The next 5 minutes was fine, too, but the last 5 was more of a struggle. About 2 minutes in I realized that no way in heck was the song that was on going to carry me for the rest of the time, so I quickly scrolled through my workout playlist (no easy feat when you're dealing with an armband whilst running, I might add), and found one of my go-to songs and made it through the rest of the run alive.

What song was it, you ask? Well, I'll tell you, I answer. It's called Is This the Way to Amarillo? Is that a country song, you ask? Why no, it's not, I answer. It's a song from the 70's, written by Neil Sedaka and sung by Tony Christie (though until I googled it, I would have sworn it was Tom Jones). Why, on earth, is this a song you even know of, let alone use as a power song while working out, you ask? Because of the greatest. reason. ever. (I answer.)

My husband forwarded me this 3 years ago, and ever since it has been a constant source of happiness to me. And because I like you so much, I hope you like it as much as I do:

Warning: contains a couple quick shots of some bums (of the naked kind, not homeless), so maybe don't watch if your mother-in-law's in the room (assuming she's anything like my mil, that is)

Ok, this time the crazy's just coming from me

2008-11-10T23:13:00.003-07:00

I know it's nighttime in America, but here in Egypt it's morning. Specifically, it's time for me to leave to go to the gym. And--here comes the crazy--I'm a little scared. Because there are monsters at the gym. Ok, not really (I'm sure I had you going there for a minute there, didn' t I?). Because I have to run. I guess I don't have to, but I'm going to. I've been doing the Couch-to-5K running plan for the last 6 weeks, and today I start week 5 (pay no attention to the fuzzy math; I'm slow).

Week 5 means that never again on the schedule will I see a running interval shorter than 5 minutes. 5 minutes at a time is the longest I have run in my life. As far as I know, 5 minutes is my max.

Things aren't usually as bad as you anticipate them to be though, right? Well, at least gym-related things aren't anyway; I'm sure there are many things that are, but I'm not going there right now. Right now I'm going to the gym. Sigh. I'll let you know how it goes.

Craigslist: Wanted: Husband-sized heat rock

2008-11-09T22:20:00.014-07:00

We used to be the stereotypical couple arguing over the thermostat, Joel* and I. I was always cold, he was always too hot. I'd huddle under a pile of blankets while we watched TV, he'd fan himself with the remote and eat a giant bowl of ice cream. I'd put my frozen feet on his legs in bed to try to get warm, he'd scream in terror at being awakened in such a fashion. You get the idea.

Then Joel went on a diet and something went terribly wrong (in addition to the fact that I gained weight while he lost). He's lost about 75 pounds over the past year and a half and he's still working on losing 10-20 pounds more. He's also lost his ability to regulate his body temperature, it seems. He's always cold!

Yesterday, the thermostat was set to 72 degrees. I was perfectly comfortable. And Joel was huddled on the couch, looking like this:

Look how miserable, poor thing. He's wearing two t-shirts, topped by a thermal-lined hooded sweatshirt, topped by another, greener sweatshirt. Note his hands tucked in the sleeves.

It's kind of funny, this role reversal, until I start wondering why this is happening to him. He used to produce heat (even before he got fat) like nobody's business. Now he can't get warm without going to McDonald's and climbing under the heat lamps. I wonder if he's permanently damaged his metabolism by dieting. He had his thyroid checked recently, so that can't be it.

I think he needs to go to the doctor again. ("So, patient, what can I do for you today?" "Um, I'm cold!") Meanwhile, I'll enjoy saying things like, "Well, you'll just have to put on a sweater--it's easier for you to get warm than it is for me to cool off." He may have said that to me a few times in the past.

(For the record, he was never mean about it--I'll try not to be mean either.)

Joel's mom suggested that he purchase this wearable blanket

She insists that it's a perfectly masculine item.

Uh. Sure it is!

You might notice that it's called a Snuggie. I hope he gets one, just so I can ask if his Snuggie is keeping him warm enough.

*I was going to use pseudonyms for my husband and kids in this blog, but Joel didn't like that I referred to him as "Nerd" in another post. Apparently only his brothers are allowed to call him that (there's a story behind it). I can't think of anything else, so I'm going to be lazy and use his real name...unless you think I should call him "Snuggie."

A peek inside our twisted little brains

2008-11-08T23:16:00.002-07:00

This is the transcript of an IM conversation Holly and I had earlier this year. It made me laugh, so I saved it. The only thing I changed about it was substituting our real IM monikers for the ingenious (and virtually uncrackable) code of "H" for Holly and "S" for me.

For a little context, we had been chatting earlier about me going out to lunch with some friends at a restaurant I'd never been to before, so I had been whining to her about not knowing what to get, and this is the conversation we had after I got home. She is so lucky to be my best friend!

Anyway, please enjoy:

H [4:39 P.M.]: how was lunch?
S [4:40 P.M.]: yum-o
S [4:40 P.M.]: I got "Chicken Delight"
S [4:40 P.M.]: which is like Turkish Delight I guess
S [4:40 P.M.]: but not gross
H [4:41 P.M.]: I'm going to start calling all my dinner recipes Something Delight
H [4:41 P.M.]: Chicken Delight
H [4:41 P.M.]: Tuna Delight
S [4:41 P.M.]: lol
H [4:41 P.M.]: Ramen Delight
H [4:41 P.M.]: McDelight
S [4:41 P.M.]: Eggs Weiners and Rice Delight
H [4:41 P.M.]: yep
H [4:41 P.M.]: Get Your Own Delight
S [4:41 P.M.]: Make Your Own Dang Delight
H [4:42 P.M.]: Leave Me Alone This Chapter is Really Good Delight
S [4:42 P.M.]: I Fed You Yesterday Delight
S [4:42 P.M.]: Your Hands Ain't Broke Delight
H [4:43 P.M.]: The Toaster's Over There Delight
S [4:43 P.M.]: What Do You Think They Invented Pizza Delivery For Delight
H [4:43 P.M.]: There's No End to Mama's Lack of Interest in Your Well-Being Delight
S [4:44 P.M.]: Cry Me A River Delight
S [4:44 P.M.]: You Don't Look Like You're Starving Delight
H [4:44 P.M.]: Tell Your Dad to Get off His Butt Delight
H [4:44 P.M.]: except then
H [4:45 P.M.]: it has Butt and Delight right next to each other
H [4:45 P.M.]: and I don't think that will do
S [4:45 P.M.]: ew
S [4:45 P.M.]: and lol
S [4:45 P.M.]: How about "You Have Two Parents Y'know Delight"
H [4:46 P.M.]: That's better
H [4:46 P.M.]: not so gross
S [4:46 P.M.]: yes
S [4:46 P.M.]: not quite as funny though
H [4:47 P.M.]: no
S [4:47 P.M.]: sigh
H [4:47 P.M.]: as much as it pains me
S [4:47 P.M.]: humor isn't everything
S [4:47 P.M.]: in theory
H [4:48 P.M.]: are you quite sure?
S [4:48 P.M.]: no

Healthy living is a pain in my rear

2008-11-07T14:18:00.006-07:00

Word to the wise:

If you set yourself a goal that you will drink a certain amount of water every day and said amount is 100 ounces and you have this great little chart that you don't want to miss a day of putting an X on because you didn't drink all your water that day, maybe don't wait until 7pm to start drinking said water.

Otherwise when you are inevitably getting up in the middle of the night to use the facilities, you might run into the exercise bike at the end of your bed, and this maybe will cause you to twist all funny and wrench your hip all weird, and then perhaps you may just end up with a wicked pain deep in your posterior. Possibly.

My butt hurts.

(But I got my X.)

My feet are cold

2008-11-06T22:25:00.002-07:00

But if I were on the treadmill right now, exercising, like I told Sara I would, my feet probably would not be cold.

That's all I got tonight, folks.

2008-11-05T10:48:00.004-07:00

So if the day after Halloween is All Saints’ Day and the day after Christmas is Boxing Day, what’s the day after Election Day? I’ll tell you what it is this year: exactly eight (8) weeks until New Year’s Eve! That means you have exactly eight (8) weeks until it’s time again to make you annual resolutions. Perhaps you were smart and kept this year’s list fresh and pristine, ready for 1/1/2009.

(True story: about 4 years ago I was cleaning out an old box of papers, and I found a To Do list from about 5 years before that. Except for about 2 things, the items on it were identical to that current day’s list. Sad.)

Or maybe perhaps you’d like to enter the new year with a solid 8 (eight) weeks of healthy living under your (by then smaller) belt!

Think about what you will be doing 8 weeks + one day from today. Think not so much about how you’ll look but how you’ll feel--about your body, the effort you gave, and how good it will feel to start January 1st with 56 days of momentum. Instead of beginning new health-related habits that day, you’ll be able to just continue on with what you’ve already been doing since early November. Make January 1st just another Thursday that you take the best care of yourself that you can, not Day 1.

Remember that on January 1st, you’ll being saying one of two things to yourself about your goals and your progress towards them (and think about which you’d rather)--“I wish I had” or “I’m glad I did.”

Vote for me!

2008-11-04T21:47:00.003-07:00

They totally left me off the ballot today, which is unfortunate, because I have some great ideas for this country. And by "this country," I mean "this blog." My opponent (and by "my opponent," I mean "my best friend and fellow blog owner.") claims to have come up with the fabulous idea of participating in NaBloPoMo and thus breathing new life into the soggy, inedible lump that Diet Cake had become. This great idea (and by "great idea," I mean "super-duper idea") may be motivating me to do wild and crazy things like walk away from my daughter's Halloween candy stash* and leave several handfuls of popcorn in the bowl tonight rather than eat them just cause they were there. Crazy! Wild!

Given the incredibly brilliant nature of this idea, I must claim credit. I think my opponent would agree that it's for the good of the nation.

*I saw on TV the other day that 90% of parents steal Halloween candy from their kids. The other 10% are lying.

Something Else I Have in Common with a Kindergartener

2008-11-03T13:11:00.000-07:00

Besides a short attention span and a love of snack time, that is.

I wish I could remember the website I found this idea on, but I can't, and so I totally thought of it on my own! Totally. I am very smart.

One of my biggest problems with getting and keeping weight off has always been consistency. More specifically, my lack thereof. Whether its exercising or eating well, I tend to start off strong and then peter out with a vengeance. See also: August. But about seven weeks ago, I found, er, thought up this really great idea--its called "Don't Break the Chain." It was originally intended as a motivational tool to help kids get their chores done, but I'm finding it's working almost embarrassingly well to keep me exercising. Well, it originally started with exercise and then when that worked so well, I branched out to food tracking (I just added water consumption, too, and I'm hopeful this will work, too).

So here's the dope: I downloaded a 12-week calendar from here. Then, each day that I've exercised, I've X-ed out the day. The idea is to create a "chain" of X's over time, and thus the motivation lies in not wanting to mess up this chain by missing a day. I also like to write in the box what it was I did for exercise that day, just cuz it makes me happy.

Helpful example here:
Don't I look lovely? That's thanks to last night's (when I took the picture) workout, which reads "80 min. walk."
Here's a close-up:
I am now six weeks into the 12 weeks covered by the calendar and feelin' pretty darn good about it. I do take a rest day every week, but I let myself earn an X for it if I use that day to plan out the upcoming week's exercise. So far so good.

About three weeks in, I started keeping track of days that I track my food, too. I use a thin pink (my favorite color) pen and make another X over the day (notice that I didn't say I have to be perfect with my food; I just have to write it down to earn the X). Yesterday I started in with water (if I meet the ounces goal I set, I get me another X), and for that I use a thin blue (cuz that's what color water is, duh) pen. I'm sure I could get quite the rainbow going, but I'm going to stick with those three for the time being, as those are the things I need to be the most consistent about in order to control my weight.

Like I said, I'm almost embarrassed by how well this has motivated me. What's next? Gold stars? Getting to be Line Leader? But as Paul Simon so wisely said, who am I to blow against the wind. It's working, so I'm just going with it.

Please feel free to steal, er, think this idea up entirely on you're own. I hear you are very smart.

The Dog Ate my DVD Player

2008-11-02T21:33:00.008-07:00

I very much wanted to complete Sara's inspired "Do an Exercise DVD Every Diddly Darn Day of August" challenge. Really, I did. But you see, one day in August I was baking my cousin's wedding cake when something terrible happened. The second tier of this wedding cake was supposed to be strawberry flavored. "No problem," I thought. I've made this recipe dozens of times. So I whipped up the cake batter, filled the pans and popped them into my trusty, preheated oven. I set the timer, then immediately began washing the dishes. Ha! Just kidding--I left the dishes to "soak," and turned to more important tasks like Googling my name (turns out I'm a fairly famous Harlequin novelist). Twenty minutes into the baking/Googling, I smelled a smell--not the fruitily fragrant smell of baking strawberry cake, but the acrid smell of a big fat burning mistake. With a heavy heart (it eats a lot of bacon), I opened the oven door, sending smoke spewing into the kitchen by way of my face (*cough choke sputter*). I found cake batter flowing out of the pans and onto the oven floor, where it was quickly turning into little mounds of carbon cake and creating the aforementioned billowing smoke. I turned off the oven, and began scraping the mess out of the oven, hoping that I could continue to bake the batter left in the pans if I was able to get the oven to stop smoking. (I'll save you the suspense--it didn't work.) Meanwhile, the smoke detector began to beep, sending the parakeets into noisy conniptions and causing my 3-year-old to start crying at a pitch several octaves higher than the detector. (I have yet to have my life saved by a smoke detector, but they've caused me to age 5 years on more than one occasion.) My husband walked in the door at this moment and asked, "What is going on? And why haven't you opened a window?" (see illustration). I responded the way any reasonable woman would, by throwing a handful of burning cake at him. (Hey! He happens to like burnt cake.) I missed him by a mile (I'm not good at sports [even those that involve cake] on the best of days, let alone in stressful smoky situations) and the cake landed on the dog's head. He (the dog) hardly noticed, as he was busy chewing the dickins out of my DVD player. So now you know why I wasn't able to complete the exercise DVD challenge or write in this blog for months. Thanks for understanding.

We Are Nothing If Not Challenged

2008-11-01T10:05:00.007-06:00

So apparently November is NaBloPoMo, or, for those of you who may prefer real words, National Blog Posting Month. This is clearly a spin-off (hee, I wrote that "spin-oof") of NaNoWriMo--National Novel Writing Month. Know what sounds a lot more pleasant than writing an entire novel in a month? Sitting on the couch eating donuts, that's what. And also sleeping. But since Holly's been pestering me about us being more dilligent about our little neglecterino (why, I ask you, doesn't spellcheck have a problem with that word?) of a blog (and by "been pestering me," I mean "mentioned it once or possibly twice")(and since, as far as I know, there's no NaDoEatMo, though there should be), I thought this might be more realistic. Of course I also once thought it would be realistic to organize my whole house in a month, so perhaps my grasp on reality ain't so great. But we'll overlook that for now, and sally forth on the assumption that maybepossiblyperchance we could post every day this month.

Or, as Holly's favorite humor writer and mine, Eric D. Snider once said, perharps perharps perharps.

Lesson Not Learned

2008-08-14T14:33:00.004-06:00

My husband occasionally will sing for the kids a song he learned when he was young called "Animal Square Dance" or something like that (feel free to pipe in here, Holly, to correct me)(what you don't know about Holly, see, is that she knows every song ever written, no matter how obscure)(in fact, the obscurer the better)(and especially if it invoves animals of some kind; she knows all of those). There's a part of it that goes, "Then the tiger killed a gazelle, then the tiger killed another gazelle, then the gazelles finally wised up and killed the tiger," and something something something...big finish.

It often feels like no matter how many times I think I've finally wised up and killed the tiger, it comes back to life. Case in point: time of DVD workout today was 11:10. In the PM. So much for not putting it of, eh? But the victory is that I did it. My brain was even composing a "Sorry folks, didn't happen today" post, but then I channeled my inner Nike advertising executive (didn't know I had one of those, did you?), and just did it.

So I made it 6 days in a row. Tomorrow's my rest day, and I'm afraid I'm going to lose my momentum. My goal tomorrow is to plan out all my workouts for next week and try to set myself up for success. As much as I love me my rest day (woo! the one day a week I don't have to feel guilty that I'm not exercising!), at times I can be the embodiment of the definition of inertia, mostly the "tends to stay at rest" part. I want to see changes in my body though, and that's only going to come from work and consistency. Not exactly my strong suits. More tigers I need to kill. It'll come.

One last thought before I go collapse into bed, courtesy of my kids' school newsletter (the thought, not the collapsing into bed; that's Jillian's fault)(oh yeah, and my procrastination's):

We do not suddenly become what we do not participate in becoming.
William J. Bennett

Believe me, no one is more shocked than me

2008-08-13T12:25:00.007-06:00

Not only did I do a DVD today, but I did it early. As in before noon. That's almost 12 hours ahead of my usual time.

It was nice to get it out of the way early. And extra nice now at 9:30pm when it's all I can do to stay awake.

Please don't tell my teenaged self how happy it makes me to get to go to bed before 10. She would die from the shame.

Is it possible to shake your fist at yourself?

2008-08-12T14:22:00.006-06:00

Because I really wanted to do that tonight.

Today was my kids' first day of school, which meant that the whole day was consumed by getting everyone ready and out the door, sitting through a couple hours' worth of orientations, helping the Kindergartener finish up her first day, going back shortly thereafter for the other 3 (the K classes are on half days for the first two weeks, so eventually they'll all come home at the same time), hearing all of them talk at the same time about their days, filling out the SAME FORM 6,548 times, dinner, nighttime routines, putting everyone to bed, then having the 8th grader come home from a church activity, hearing all about that, helping her get all her stuff ready for tomorrow (please cringe along with me at the memory of having to change for jr. high gym; that's what we were packing for her), getting her to bed, packing the lunchboxes (I'm being nice this week; chances are good they'll be doing it on their own soon cuz me no likey), cleaning that up, and finally sitting down. And did I mention that I have a hangnail and wolves are chasing me?

Oh yeah. Still need to exercise.

And not just ride-my-bike-and-read, which I kinda like (you get to read! while you exercise! what's not to love?!), but a DVD.

Insert fist shaking here. Except that it was my idea.

Well, phooey.

In all honesty, I actually got online, signed into blogger, and almost started typing a post saying that it just wasn't going to happen tonight. Then I fought with myself some more. And then I went into my room, changed my clothes, put on a DVD, and commenced with the sweating.

I'll leave you with something I heard Jillian Whom I Love say while she was making me hurt tonight: "You want results? They're not coming for free!"

Which is unfortunate, really. Because some free results would be sorta awesome.

I don't seem to be capable of being clever right now

2008-08-11T12:57:00.008-06:00

I've been sitting here for 15 minutes trying to think of a good way to tell you that I did a DVD again today, but I got nothin'.

So.

I did a DVD again today.

Bee tee dub, Mari Winsor also says "pellow" instead of "pillow." She sure can bring the pain though.

Putting Cal Ripken to Shame

2008-08-10T13:59:00.002-06:00

Yes, that's right--two days in a row of doing a DVD.

I wonder when Guinness is going to call?

I blame Andrea

2008-08-09T14:41:00.006-06:00

Hi! I hurt. Oh, and guess what (chicken butt)(sorry, couldn't resist; deep down I'm still 9-years old)! I did a DVD today! Today = 11pm. Hence, the pain.

I had it niggling (yes, that's a word; if I said it then it's a word) in the back of my head today that I needed to do it, but didn't quite get to it. I went hiking with my family this morning, and I rode my stationary bike this afternoon, and I went swimming this evening, but still no DVD. Honestly, by the time we got back from swimming, I had completely forgotten. But then when I was talking online with my mom, my inbox dinged and like the Pavlovian dog that I am, I checked my e-mail. It was Andrea's comment from my last post telling me that she had done a DVD and that I darn well better have had, too! Ok, was much nicer about it (and funnier), but that was the gist.

So here I am. It's almost midnight, I'm drenched in sweat, and I hurt. But I did what I said I was going to do, so I feel great.

I guess what I meant by the title of this post was, "Thanks, Andrea."

Technical Difficulties

2008-08-07T12:28:00.005-06:00

I got this e-mail forward a few years ago that was entitled something like "What Men Say vs. What They Really Mean," and it had a long list of "translations" of things men say. I remember chuckling a little at a few of them, but only one made me laugh out loud. It was also, conveniently, the only one I remember (clearly, if you want me to remember something, it darn well better be funny!). It said: "What He Says: 'I can't find it.' What He Really Means: 'It didn't fall into my outstretched hand, so I'm stumped."

So when I say "Technical difficulties," what I really mean is, "The DVDs aren't falling into our outstretched DVD players and forcing us to exercise to them, so we're not so much stumped as still sitting on the couch."

Sadly, Holly and I have a long and storied history of inability to motivate each other. I was hoping that This Time Would Be Different, as I always do. But I've decided (and I've decided for Holly, too)(because I'm nice like that)(and also bossy), that instead of just letting this totally fade away like we usually do, we are trying a novel new approach called "TRYING AGAIN." What we aren't going for here is to exemplify Homer Simpson quote, "Well, son, you've tried and failed miserably; the lesson here is: Never Try."

Tomorrow (Friday) is the Sabbath here in Egypt, and that's my rest day, and Holly is traveling out of state for a family funeral this weekend, but come Saturday for me and Monday for Holly, we'll be in front of our TVs, DVDin' our little hearts out. Right, Holly?