Woo! Day 2!

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.

New! and Exciting!

Holly and I have come up with a new challenge. I say "new" because we come up with stuff like this a lot. And by "we" I mean "me." Mostly Holly is just a good sport. Though, in my defense, she has dragged me into a few of her schemes. For example, because of her I had nary a taste of sugar in all of February of 2001. And she made me do Body for Life with her once, too. (In her defense, she made it all 12 weeks; I made it 2.)

So last night we were IMing, and I was whining, er, brainstorming with her ideas for ways that I can get myself exercising regularly again. And then the brilliance hit. And again, Holly is a very good sport, so starting today, we are each going to do an exercise DVD a day--and report back here about it--through the end of August.

In actuality, this is going to be harder for me than for her. She is an old pro at DVDin' it up; I hate them. She has a collection of about 5 billion; I have maybe 10 (and I hate them). But the reality of life right now is that exercising at home is my best option to get a workout, and DVDs are going to give me the widest range of such. So, here goes nuthin'.

The "Hey! I Live in Africa!" Diet

Here's all you need:

A 17-hour plane trip, to include a non-existent layover because you spent it all sitting on the runway waiting for a gate to open up. This means you get no real meal for the day.

A 10-minute sprint through JFK to make up for aforementioned lack of a layover.

No place to put your carry-on bag except in the overhead compartment, leading to not being all that willing to get it out and get to your snacks very often.

Get picked up at the airport and virtually whisked away, taking away any chance of eating there either.

Have someone else do your initial grocery shop so that there's food already waiting for you and your family (yay!), most of it being food I like but don't looove, therefore making it easy to eat alone.

Four words: tiny bowls and spoons. Seriously, this hotel has the tiniest bowls I've ever seen (aside from Ikea's children's bowls, which these are about the size of), and the spoon choices are huge (almost serving spoon size) and teeny. So I go with teeny, resulting in way less cereal being eaten. For me, this is really great (cereal has always been my go-to binge food, even cereal I'm not that fond of).

Sweet sweet jet lag. Ok, really there's nothing sweet about it, but since I have it and it doesn't seem to being going away all that soon, I figured I might as well embrace it. Usually being bone tired all the time makes me stuff my face with sweet sweet carbohydrates (for real sweet, not the sarcastic kind), but this time it seems to be leading to very little eating. Of course, the elven-sized dishes don't hurt these efforts either.

Here's a big one: don't speak the language, so you know there's no chance you're heading out on your own to get food.

Another biggie: don't have a car. Then, even when your husband is home who does speak the language, you can only go as far as you're willing to walk (i.e. the length of time you have patience for listening to your children tell you they're hot, i.e., not that far).

And last but not least, be sure to have the heaviest flow day of your period start midway through your transatlantic flight and continue right on through your first day fighting jet lag.

Result? 3.5 pounds down in 48 hours!

Now for the real plan: this afternoon a guy we just met is taking my husband to the store to do some grocery shopping, so my main task today (if I can stay awake long enough), is to make a menu and shopping list. One of the great things about this move that I'm choosing to focus on is that I get to start from scratch when it comes to our pantry and menus. You know how no matter how much you say you're going to re-vamp you eating, you just can't seem to get away from the ol' stand-bys? Especially when you have kids? Well, since I have a completely empty pantry (and technically, not even a real house yet, since we're still waiting to get into our apartment), I get to say what goes in it. Of course I'll still have food my kids like, but my husband and I have decided that we want to use this opportunity to move our family's eating towards the less-processed side of the spectrum. As in, stop relying on convenience foods and try to make our meals as well-rounded as possible. Our kids are on the "fair-to-middling" side of adventurous when it comes to food (Little Miss Sunshine ate a carrot last night! Alert the media!), we are optimistic that if we are patient, we can make some good changes this year. Feel free to laugh your tails off at us if, three weeks from now, I tell you we're eating mac 'n' cheese and hamburger helper everyday.

As for exercise, I haven't figured out yet how I'm going to get my cardio in until we get our household shipments (one of which contains my recumbent bike), but I have exercise bands, and, jet lag or no (I vote "no"), I can still do some toning exercises. Plus I can do body-weight circuits.

And, if all else fails, I can always try sweating of the weight. It's certainly hot enough outside. Just ask my kids.