Honk Honk

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

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?

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...

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?

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

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

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.