Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Nike "Kiss my Butt" ad - the body image I WISH I had


My bestest friend in the world (you know who you are) sent me this ad today. And aside from the strange spelling of "ambassador", which I gather is actually quite acceptable in the US, I really, really like it*.

It's the kind of body image (not to mention the kind of glutes, although I'm not really sure I want them enough for the aforementioned 10,000 lunges) that yeah, I'd really like to have. 

That kind of "This is what is. I'm proud of it. And if you don't like it, that's your problem."

I'm not there yet.  But one day, please gods, I will be.

Also? YAY for using models with short legs and SERIOUSLY sexy quads. Because, whoah. Especially with the boxing wraps to accessorise, this lady is very definitely my type :-)

More like this one, please Nike. And Asics. And... well... pretty much everyone, really.


_______
*Well, OK, I'm also not 100% sure about that whole border collie herding skinny women away from deals at clothing sales. Because a/ I'm not going to fit the same clothes as the aforementioned skinny women, so why be a dog in the manger? and b/ I'm really not sure about the whole "butt as border collie" metaphor - possibly someone in the marketing team was burning the midnight oil a little too long when they came up with that one -  is it just me that finds the image vaguely disturbing?

Monday, November 29, 2010

Running, NSVs (and everything else) roundup - Week 3, plus weigh-in

Image courtesy of the Stock Exchange
Pretty good week this week on most fronts (well, running aside - that didn't go so well, but you get that sometimes).

I've had quite a few Non-scale Victories (NSVs): a couple of pairs of pants that have DEFINITELY been fitting more loosely, and one that I've had to retire due to being silly-loose now. I also had a white summerweight work-shirt that I'd been putting to one side till I'd lost enough weight to fit into it again... except that when I tried it on just to see whether I could wear it yet, I discovered I'd missed my opportunity window, and it was, in fact, too big now. And, on top of that, I had a workmate comment that I was looking really good and healthy, so that kind of made my afternoon.

The best one, though, was going out on Friday night for dinner with my husband for our wedding anniversary. I'd told myself that I basically had permission to eat what I wanted, but I still found myself making *reasonably* healthy choices for the entree and main (which were seriously DELICIOUS). Then I ordered dessert, because it sounded so good, but when it came out it was... OK, but really not worth the calorie investment. So I had maybe a third of it, before deciding that, no, y'know, I just wasn't enjoying it - and left it. No drama, no big deals, no angsting. I just left it.

Exercise-wise, it's been a pretty damn AWESOME week in which I managed to make, and exceed, pretty much all my weekly goals (except for that running one I keep mentioning - see writeup for Saturday):
  • Monday 22 Nov:  5.5km neighbourhood loop walk. Daily Burn: 390
  • Tuesday 23 Nov: 8.6km running session, with 4 running intervals of 17, 16, 12, 6 in there - definitely had difficulty with that last interval - may need to back out a bit. Daily Burn: 709
  • Wednesday 24 Nov: AM: gentle 4.5km neighbourhood walk. PM: hard-out "conquering the mountain" 12ish km walk with a friend who's offered to 'push me' a little to get the intensity up. Daily Burn: 1,291
  • Thursday 25 Nov: Complete rest day - and ye gods, I needed it!
  • Friday 26 Nov: AM: 1 hour of boxing (yay, my trainer is back!). PM: 3km of walking to meet husband for anniversary dinner Daily burn: 500
  • Saturday 27 Nov:  Attempted an 11km route with 3x 20min running intervals.  Managed 18 on the first, then everything kind of went to custard from there. Still, when all the little intervals were added up, they totalled ~43min and ~5.6km, so not a total loss. Daily burn: 877
  • Sunday 28 Nov: Repeat of Wednesday's walk with my friend. This time with a different HR monitor on, though, and the calorie burn looked somewhat different. Daily burn: 850


So for my overall week's exercise, I did 8 sessions, with a combined total of 4,600 odd calories. So I think I'll definitely up my weekly goal here for December.  And I covered 53km,which I'm well pleased with, even if not as much of it as I would have liked was running.  If I can do a little more of the same this coming with (but with a little more of it running and a little less of it walking), I'll be a happy Starfire


Weight-wise, I'm pretty happy as well - I've dropped another 800g, putting me on 80.7kg.  The which I am SERIOUSLY happy about... although I'm also trying to remind myself that, hey, it's just another marker of progress. It's good, but not the be-all and end-all.  But yeah. It's looking like I might well be able to manage to break 80kg by the end of the year :-)

So that was my week. How did everyone else go with their weekly goals and exercise/eating?

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Ambivalent goals: AKA "Well, hello there again, hipbones!"

Image courtesy of The Stock Exchange
I mentioned back in my "Give me a Reason" post that a couple of my reasons - the ones I'm least comfortable with, funnily enough - revolve around visual appearance.  I don't like that they're reasons, but as mentioned in that post, I don't think I'm really doing myself any favours by trying *desperately* to pretend that they don't motivate me.

One of them was about the appearance of muscles. I love the look of muscles moving under my skin - especially when I'm working out, but also those "surprise, bet you weren't expecting us!" appearances I used to get sometimes when I was getting dressed in front of the mirror and there'd be like... whoah... abs... are those really MINE????

What I'd forgotten, when I wrote my reasons post, is that I also used to like being able to see my hipbones occasionally. Now before you panic and figure the Beast has got its hooks well and truly into me again, I should probably say that I'm NOT talking about the angular, gaunt, protruding hipbone look. It's more... when I was lying on my back and I turned my leg to one side, I'd occasionally have this moment of... hey... there's a bone under all that curviness and muscle and flesh.

It's getting hot during the day here in New Zealand, and yesterday was hot enough that I was lying around in some reasonably loose pants and a sports bra. And my husband asked me something and I moved, and... there was one of those hipbones of mine. Still well and truly covered by muscle and... well, not-muscle... but definitely there. For the first time in a long, long, long time. And I could see/feel it moving!  Which prompted a moment of glee, followed by an experimental *prod* *prod*, and then a distinct thought pattern of  "Well, hello there, again hipbone! Long time, no see!" and finally a sense of "Cool! Human anatomy is an awesome thing, and hey, look, I have some!"

As usual when it comes to this kind of stuff, I'm trying REALLY hard to keep it in perspective. It's a mark of progress. Which is nice. But it's not a particularly important one.  It's not like, for example, being able to run an entire 5k without stopping to walk at any point. Or finishing a 10k in less than 1 hour 20. Or being able to do 50 full pushups without stopping or breaking decent form. All of which are current short-to-medium term fitness goals that I will be celebrating like nobody's business when I finally manage to achieve. But it's still a mark. And I'm kind of enjoying it, even if it's mixed in with some... ambivalence.

And I wonder, am I the only one with goals I'm not always 100% comfortable with? Do you have weight loss or fitness goals that you're just a wee bit ambivalent about wanting in the first place, let alone conflicted about actually achieving? How do you deal with the ambivalence?

Monday, November 22, 2010

Running (and everything else) roundup - Week 2, plus weigh-in

Image courtesy of the Stock Exchange
A bit of a mixed week this past week. On the minus side, I seemed to be heading back towards injury-ville after Tuesday's run, and spent much of the week with a sore adductor/hip flexor combo that seemed to fluctuate between serious OW and just niggling.  So I backed off on the running completely until yesterday.

Also, with having been at a viking/medieval-themed wedding on Saturday night, my eating for the day was... not so great, and I ended up forgetting to track my intake for the first time since I found that tracking ap.  And of course, from a psychological viewpoint, there was the resurgence of the Beast earlier in the week too.

That said, on the plus side, I still did a reasonable amount of exercise despite pulling back. I still walked. I still had at least one date with workout-pr0n Bob. I still ate reasonably well, and I didn't blow out completely at the wedding (my personal favourite in the "I didn't deprive myself but didn't go crazy either" list was ignoring the brandy snaps, chocolate fountain and assorted other cakey type noms for a bowlful of fresh strawberries and a little of the dark cherry pottage - yum!).

And my personal victory of the week is actually a/ packing my running gear to take down to the wedding with me; and b/ getting off my butt and using said gear in a 10ish km running session along Wellington's waterfront, which was gorgeous, even in the drizzly rain. It's actually quite a neat feeling running in a strange city - it's only the second time I've ever done it (the first being in London earlier on in the year). So the week ended up looking like this:
  • Monday 15 Nov:  4.5km amble-pace walk... basically intended to be a recovery walk from the 12km running session I did Sunday, without spending an actual rest day. Daily Burn: 287
  • Tuesday 16 Nov: 8.4km running session, with 3 running intervals of 16, 16, 17 in there. Daily Burn: 669
  • Wednesday 17 Nov: REST DAY after developing some potentially nasty adductor/hip flexor shennanigans
  • Thursday 18 Nov: morning: 5.5km walk. Evening: strength workout pr0n with Bob. Daily burn: 677
  • Friday 19 Nov: 5.5km walk because I just didn't feel up to running. Daily burn: 354
  • Saturday 20 Nov:  5ish (estimated) km walking around Wellington. Daily burn: 321?
  • Sunday 21 Nov: 9.8km running session along Wellington's waterfront. Daily burn: 728


So for my overall week's exercise, I did 7 sessions, with a combined total of 3,000 calories. So again, no problem with the exercise calorie goal.  And I covered 38.7km, which isn't quite the 40 I was aiming for, but it's still damn close.


I'm going to be aiming to up the kms a little this week - probably not to quite the same level of crazy as in Week 1, but if I can get them somewhere between 40-50, I'll be a happy Starfire. I also want to do at least two workout pr0n sessions, and possibly work on acquiring another set of dumbbells for the using of therewith, since my little 2kg ones are getting a wee bit silly for some of the strengthwork.

Oh and weigh-in wise?  I'm pretty much in the same place I was last week - a slight drop of 200g, making me start this week at 81.5kg.  Which, given the way the week went, and the larger-than-expected drop from the previous week, feels total fair and reasonable, and hey, at least it wasn't a gain!  And, for a weekly NSV, my abs are apparently visible enough now for my husband to comment on them unprompted (for which, I suspect, I have Bob to thank)

So that was my week. How did everyone else go with their weekly goals and exercise/eating?

Friday, November 19, 2010

Grasping for control: I think the Beast is awake...

Image courtesy of the Stock Exchange
Once upon a time, I conceptualised my eating disorder... disordered eating... whateverthehellitis... as a sleeping beast in the dark.

I commented, a few days back, that I'd been going for just over a year without really feeling the seductive siren song to just give in and go all out into calorie restriction and compulsive exercise.  Apparently, the universe took that as a challenge.

Yesterday and today... possibly with the frustration of maybe-possibly having buggered something up in my hips/adductors injury-wise, or possibly some other kind of persykologikal stuff, I've been hearing that soft whisper inside myself.  Again.  And there's no denying it. The Beast is definitely awake.

What's started as "hey, let's allow yourself to feel hunger mindfully, and then to notice what it feels like to satiate that hunger with healthy food", keeps turning into, "Hey, let's *enjoy* the hunger. Let's prolong it. Let's not eat and satisfy it until you're ready to let it go in your time on your terms. Let's stay in control."  Then there was the tracking my food yesterday and realising at the end of the day that I was well under what I'd set as my target. And instead of deciding to eat something (despite feeling hungry), I started thinking about just going with it. Because hey, more deficit = more loss. Especially since I'm doing less exercise this week. And... and... and...

Yeah. We can all see where that's going, can't we? 

I'm conscious that I have three immediate possible responses open to me here:
  • I can dive headlong into it:  there's that oh-so-seductive promise of weight loss and those pretty muscles I want. And I can decide it's just too hard to keep fighting it, so I'm going to USE it to get me to my "goals" faster. That just requires a slight change in mindset. And a complete ignoring of the goals that don't fit in with the decision (like, oh, the running one, for example. Not to mention the balance one).   But it's an option. It's the tempting one right now.
  • I can freak out and back the hell off from anything that resembles "dieting":  it's understandable, after all, that I'm scared. I've fought the Beast before and lost... running away when I notice it waking up makes perfect sense. But y'know what? If I don't face the battle, the Beast still wins. I give up on my goals. I let it define what I can and can't achieve. It's the path of least resistance, and something I've learned is that that path very rarely generates results I can be proud of achieving.
  • I can notice the Beast and simply let myself be with it : I can acknowledge that it's there and hear it without doing what it says. I can thank it for sharing without accepting its goals as mine. This is my own mind, and the only power anything within it has is the power I allow it. If there are epic, dramatic battles to be fought, they're only dramatic and epic because I'm bringing the drama to them.
Just reminding myself that I have that choice of responses helps me to reframe the Beast from the slobbering, threatening monster about to leap out at me like the one in the image above, to something... more manageable.  Maybe the voice of that annoying kid in the movie theature who just won't shut up, when I'm trying to focus on what the characters are saying.  Maybe there's even some metaphor that acknowledges that the Beast wouldn't be there unless it was serving a purpose, so maybe it's some kind of dodgy friend that's trying to give me a constructive message, but has appalling communication skills and hasn't figured out how to tell me in language I know how to understand.

Meh. Not sure. But one thing I do know. I'm less afraid of realising that it's woken up than I was at the beginning of this post.

And that can only be a good thing.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

I think I've found the soundtrack to my running/weight loss journey

Today, I discovered the soundtrack for my running and weightloss journey. I kid you not - I've been a down today because I managed to overdo it on my run on Tuesday and the brain squirrels from yesterday, and... general stuff.  Then someone linked me to this video, and it gave my eardrums (and possibly my soul) a SERIOUS happy. I think I may have to see if iTunes has it, because it totally needs to be on my exercise playlist :-)

(also? Moodwise, it probably doesn't hurt that I spent the first part of my evening watching/doing workout pr0n. I should probably be embarrassed by just how much I'm enjoying the Bob Harper Strength Burn DVD!)


Comparisons, pity parties and brain squirrels

Image courtesy of the Stock Exchange
I'm usually pretty good with comparing myself to others.

By which I mean that I don't often compare myself; and when I do, I'm generally fairly easy with noticing differences, and just acknowledging them without putting a moral value on one being better than the other.

Generally.

Some days, though, my insecurities rise to the surface and I can't help a/ comparing myself; and b/ finding myself coming up short.  Especially when my brain squirrels are particularly active.

You know brain squirrels? They're those little rodent thoughts that go round and round and round in your head, chittering on and on, telling you all sorts of negative stuff you know intellectually is utter garbage, but you can't help believing because deep down, you're afraid it's probably true even if it makes no sense whatsoever when you look at it logically.  I think we probably all have infestations now and then, but when they're particuarly active, they can make us feel like we're the only ones who have this kind of crazy inside our brains. Yeah. Those are brain squirrels.

I've been experiencing a bit of a brain squirrel infestation recently around comparing myself to the fitter, more determined people in my life. My sister-in-law, for example, who was run down by a car on a pedestrian crossing back in February, was told she'd be in wheelchair for at least 3 months, and that she should say goodbye to her plans of running the New York marathon.  Two months later, she was on her feet again, a couple of weeks later she was walking with a cane, and a couple of weekends ago, she walked New York in the extremely respectable time of 6 hours & change.

Yesterday I was out on the road with one of the sports nutrition reps at work, who's a posterchild for using the products she's selling. She's training for a half-Iron Man triathlon; and is currently doing something between 2-3 hours training a day for it. She was talking to one of our customers about her training (after the customer asked, it should be acknowledged), and mentioning that when she started training, she was at 20% bodyfat. Right now, she's at 14%.  I have a "4" in my bodyfat levels too, if my scales are to be believed. But it comes at the beginning of the number, not the end.

I know we're all different, and we all have different goals and start from different places and we're all special, special snowflakes in and of ourselves :-S. I know they're them and I'm me.  But there's a part of me that was just feeling... huge and whale-like and lazy and excuse-ridden and impatient (and, let's not beat around the bush here, self-pitying) right through yesterday because I'm not where they are. It's the height of dumb, I know.  But it is what it is.  Or was, since I have to admit, I'm feeling a little less down on myself this morning after a semi-decent night's sleep than I was yesterday.

Part of the sudden onset of comparison-itis, I think is because I probably overdid my run on Tuesday a bit.  I spent most of the day afterwards with legs that were... not sore, exactly, but incredibly stiff, and almost dead-feeling - they just didn't want to move, and walking was slow, arduous and fairly limpy.  It was a little better yesterday (more sore, less dead, still a little limpy), but I took a complete rest day just in case.

I tried running this morning, but my legs told me clearly after about 2 steps that it was NOT happening, so I just ended up walking a shortened version of the route instead. And as I walked, I reminded myself over and over that my primary goal is to get to the end of the month uninjured (which I don't think I technically am YET) and that any and every other exercise-related goal is secondary. 

I also tried, while I was walking, to focus on being grateful for the knowledge that, whatever I've done, it can't be TOO serious, or I wouldn't be walking at all; and that at the end of the day, seen from the vantage of a long-term training plan, a couple of days out is far from the end of the world. And to be honest, that helped a little - plus I suspect just getting outside and doing something, even if it wasn't the run I'd planned, helped to play whack-a-mole with the brain squirrels that had survived the night.

I'm not sure whether I want to ask for support or a kick up the attitude here.  Maybe both? Intellectually, I know that comparisons between myself and others are less than useless. I know that having to take a few days out because I might have pushed things too hard is much better than having to take a few weeks (or gods help me, MONTHS) out because I didn't listen to my body when it first told me I'd pushed things too hard.  I know these things, but I'm having difficulty believing them deep down, because my brain squirrels' chitterings and chatterings keep on drowning the knowledge out.

What brain squirrels do you find yourself dealing with on a regular basis? And what do you do to quiet them down?

Monday, November 15, 2010

And now for something totally different: FMM question

Image (as usual) courtesy of the Stock Exchange
Kenz over at All the Weigh has a Monday tradition: FMM, or Friend Making Monday.  She posts a question that she invites anyone interested to comment on, and answer on their blog, and then visit and comment other other answerers' blogs.

This week's question is "What have you got on your DVR?"

Now, scarily enough, I'm not tech-savvy enough to actually OWN a DVR at this point in time, but I do have a metric frakload of DVD series that I'm watching, so I shall answer using those, on the basis that it's the same kind of thing.

  1. CSI Miami: Don't ask me why, other than that I'm enjoying hurling abuse at the poor forensic science and Horatio's constant smug hokey-kokey with his sunglasses.  But it's brainless fluff, and there's the occasional pretty worth leching over.
  2. Dollhouse: My s2 DVDs FINALLY turned up, and I'm lovin' me some twisted Jossian awesomeness. Also, neither Eliza Dushku nor Tamoh Penikett are exactly hard on the eyes. And Enver Gjokaj out-acts the entire planet in every single episode. What's not to like?
  3. Burn Notice: Just finished watching s3 and itching to get my hands on s4. This is the perfect balance, for me, between warm, fluffy silliness and actual occasional edgy grit. Plus?  Dear gods, Jeffrey Donovan can MOVE during fight scenes. And I have a soft spot for Fi and Sam too.
  4. Magnificent Seven: (don't laugh) - my beloved husband loves this series, and I have to admit, it's grown on me since we started watching it together. Plus, hey, again, neither Michael Biehn nor a young Eric Close are a sacrifice to watch (are we sensing a theme here?)
  5. Criminal Minds: ZOMG... the writing. The acting. The complexity. The sheer awesomeness. This is the first of the ones I've mentioned where the pretty (nice as it is) comes in a distant last behind all the other awesome-itude. If only more TV was like this.

How about you? What are you watching (on DVR, DVD or actual TV) right now?

W1 Weigh-in: Woohooo - Happy Starfire is Happy

Image Courtesy of The Stock Exchange
Wheeeee - I just stepped off the scales from my weekly weigh-in, and today, they appear to be my friend (must be all that exercise craziness I did last week!)

Results today? 81.7kg, baby! (that'd be 179.7lb for those in the States). I was hoping to break 82 by the end of November, so that's that goal well and truly met AS LONG AS I can maintain it until the end of November and not end up going back up a little for the next two weeks... and hey, with the insane way my body fluctuates sometimes, that's not beyond the realms of possibility.

Also, this week's going to be a little less active than last week was, given that I'll be away for a wedding over the coming weekend, and even if I wasn't, I actually want to do a lower mileage week this week to give my joints some downtime after everything I put them through last week.  So that's me attempting to rock the scales of balance, as well as the scales of weight!

But yeah. For the moment, I'm feeling REALLY good about this result :-D

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Running (and everything else) roundup - Week 1

Image courtesy of the Stock Exchange
My exercise goal for each week in November was 2,500cal worth of exercise burn, and I'm deliriously happy to report that I more than exceeded that this week.  I was also aiming to cover at least 40km between walking and running each week.

NOTE: when I call something a "running session" below, I'm really not running the whole way. Basically, I'm working my way through the Bridge to 10k programme, or at least a modified version thereof, so my running sessions are actually broken up into 3 sets of x-minute runs, separated out with with a 1-2 minute walk. Session times also incorporate my warmup and cooldown walking time. That said, ladies and gents, allow me to present my Week 1 in review:
  • Monday 8 Nov:  morning 7.3km running session; evening Jillian Michaels cardio + yoga DVDs. Daily burn: 1,103
  • Tuesday 9 Nov: 5.5km walk. Daily burn: 356
  • Wednesday 10 Nov: morning 7.3km running session; evening 8.5km walk with a friend. Daily burn: 1,127
  • Thursday 11 Nov: REST DAY (needed like whoah)
  • Friday 12 Nov: morning 7.9km running sesssion; evening, Bob Harper strength training DVD. Daily burn: 991
  • Saturday 13 Nov: 9.6km walk doing errands: Daily burn 628
  • Sunday 14 Nov: 11.6km running session, incorporating Kelly's 5k challenge. Daily burn: 844


So for my overall week's exercise, I did 9 sessions, with a combined total of 4,049 calories. Yeah, I think I rocked that goal. I also covered 58km, of which distance I actually ran a little over 24km.  *blinks*  WHOAH. Seriously? That's... kinda crazy.

I think this week is going to be a bit more sedate. For a start, this weekend I have a wedding to go to in another city, so I'll probably get to exercise Saturday OR Sunday, but not both.  Also, I suspect that given that I've increased my mileage from 43km last week to 58km this week, it would behoove me to make sure I do a lower mileage week before my joints put in a complaint to their union rep.  I also expect to have more than one rest day this week, which is probably no bad thing from a balance viewpoint either.

That said, I still want to aim for somewhere around that 40km mark. There are several Daily Mile challenges I've signed myself up to - not to mention the HBBC (Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge), whose logo you'll see on the righthand panel of this blog - so while I want to reduce the total distance, I don't want to drop it tooo far unless my body starts genuinely telling me it needs me to.

So that was my week. How did everyone else go with their exercise goals?

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Finding the time to exercise without getting unbalanced

Image courtesy of the Stock Exchange
I was out having lunch with my best friend today, and talking about questions that other people had asked us.

"What I really want to know," she said, turning to me, "is how on earth you find the time to do all the exercise. How do you fit it all in?"

It's a really good question, with a very simple, if not a satisfying, answer.  I don't. I don't fit it all in.  I don't even have very good excuses for not fitting it all in - I don't, after all, have kids or other dependents to look after.  I'm lazy as hell when it comes to stuff around the house - it's pretty much the "bare minimum" I can get away with to keep things hygienic and not TOO stressful when I finally do have to get around to dealing with them.  I don't work incredibly long hours at my job.  I don't have huge demands on my time, at this point in my life, from anything I don't choose to accept.

And even with the incredibly limited responsibilities and time-sinks I have in my life, I can't do it all. And when I finally get my butt into gear and get exercising the way I love to (which is, I'll freely admit, *a lot*), I can't keep doing all of the few things that I was doing before. Something's gotta give. So I let it. I read less. I watch fewer DVDs. I see less of my friends (or at least, I did last time I started on an exercise kick... this time around I've had about 2-3 years of being a hermit, so it's less of an issue).  And, gods help me, I sleep less. It becomes a tradeoff for me. I only get one shot at using a given chunk of time. So it ends up coming down to the question of how do I want to use it to do myself the most long-term good?  And when I'm on an exercise kick the way I am now, the answer to that question is almost always "by moving my body".

It's really easy to let that get out of balance. Y'know the juggling metaphor where all the parts of your life are balls you have to juggle, and some you can afford to drop and just pick back up again, and some you can't because they'll break? Part of me suspects I'm actually heading in the direction of out-of-balance exercising at the moment, and that I should probably dial it back a bit - not because I'm on the verge of injuring myself or overtraining or anything, but because I can feel myself dropping balls that I could be juggling instead of exercising... and some of those balls may well be breakables ones I don't want to allow myself to shatter.

But damnit, I *like* moving this much. I *like* feeling all strong and active and mobile. I *like* taking all this time out for me.  I guess the question is whether it's sustainable, and whether the endorphin rush I get and the fact that I feel good about all the activity IS actually a valid tradeoff for the long-term consequences of dropping any balls. 

So I'm curious: how do you attempt to balance the "right" amount of exercise in your life with everything else that you have going on?  Do you wish you could do more? Worry you're doing too much? Or are you pretty much happy with where you are right now?

Thursday, November 11, 2010

To quote the Corrs: "Give me a reason"

Image courtesy of the Stock Exchange
I've been meaning to make this post for a while now, and Dani's post over at Battle of the Bulge about the things that have improved in her life since she lost weight has prompted me to get my thoughts out of my brain and down on screen.

Why exactly do I want to do this weight loss journey?

See, the first time I lost a huge amount of weight, back in my teenage years, I knew exactly what I wanted on the surface. I wanted to be skinny. I wanted to be able to wear skinny clothes. I wanted to finally, finally, finally look good, in a way my teenage brain had come to the conclusion that a fat girl never could.  Let's just ignore the fact that churning away below the surface, I also wanted some vestige of control over my life - control that had been ripped away first first by sexual abuse from a family friend, then the early death of my mother days before my 17th birthday, and then my Dad's remarriage to a woman who... well, let's say she had a host of psychological issues with long, interesting, polysyllabic names, and leave it at that.

The second time, I was older and wiser. Or so I tried to tell myself.  I was in my late 20s. This time I didn't want to be "skinny".  I didn't want to be "thin".  I wanted to be "strong". I wanted to be "fit".  I wanted to be "healthy".  But at the root of it all, I really wanted to be able to wear leather pants and short skirts and the odd corset or midriff top and look HOT in them (once again, at the back of my mind "in the way a fat girl can't").  The affirmations I said to myself were all around the numbers on the scale and the size on the garment label. And again, in a new country, in a job that I had ethical issues with, feeling out of control with pretty much everything else, I wanted control, damnit. Yeah, that ended predictably too, although at least I got to my goals by adding compulsive exercise in with my crash dieting. Which meant I at least I *looked* healthy.

So you can understand why, despite having been on my weightloss journey for slightly over a year now, I've been absolutely loathe to focus on the way I looked as the reason for my journey.  I've worked hard, over the past years, to try to change my core belief to one where beauty is a matter of attitude and confidence and strength, and not a matter of size. And I've tried my hardest to be beautiful with what I have and who I am - not holding out with the belief that I can't be until I meet a given set of numbers.  So instead, I took a functional goal I was aiming for - to complete the 100km Trailwalker 2011 walk - and convinced myself that I'd do a far better job of it than I'd done the first time around (wherein I got to KM#88, but couldn't finish the full 100) if I did it at a lower weight.

Which was all well and good, except that... well... Trailwalker 2011 isn't happening any more. I didn't manage to pull a team together for it, and it's something you can't do unless you can find three other suckers... willing volunteers... as crazy as you are.  And I couldn't. So now I'm left without my original reason for losing weight... but still feeling, very strongly, that I want to continue with the journey.  And I thought it was about time I started exploring why - what the reasons that are relevant to me now are.

Here are the ones that come to mind:
  • Running more easily: I'm not entirely sure whether this is just my mind replacing one functional goal with another, but I'm enjoying the hell out of this "being able to run when I've never been able to before" thing.  I'm booked into 7 (count 'em *7*) 10k races from this December through to July next year, and then a half-marathon in August. And just as with Trailwalker, I just can't help thinking that the less excess weight my body is carrying, the easier I'm going to find it to run.
  • The joy of *muscles*: I'm one of these women who puts on muscle really easily when I do any kind of resistance work. I love that about my body. I love that it makes me feel strong. And I love watching muscle move under the surface of my skin when I move. It's not about getting super lean and ripped or going all bodybuilder or anything (not that there's anything wrong with that if that's what floats your boat, but it's not a Starfire thing).  I just like seeing my own muscles. And yeah - I can see my muscles more easily when they're not hiding under ~47% bodyfat.  So losing weight *sensibly* can help me with that.
  • The health benefits: I'm torn here. I *know* the research is conflicting, and that overweight women with healthy habits are likely to be healthier than average-weight women who live unhealthily.  But here's the thing. My genes give me a history of obesity on both sides of the family tree. My mum died of breast cancer before she hit 40. My dad has had to deal with heart disease, heart attacks and diabetes. Various cousins and aunts and uncles have or have had a laundry list of cancers and other ills.  If I live my life in a way that allows me to become or stay severely overweight, I'm *not* likely to be any different.  And people, I *CHOOSE* to be different.  I love my family, but I do not want their health issues.
  • The looking hot thing: yeah, I debated with myself back and forth whether I was allowed to include this as a reason. What about beauty not being a matter of size, hmmmm?  What about the danger of focussing on looks to the detriment of everything else? Because, y'know, that's worked so well for me before.  Here's the thing. It is a reason for me.  I don't do myself any favours by pretending it isn't.  Despite the stupid practices I used to get there, I *loved* the way I looked when I lost the weight the last time.  I loved what I saw in the mirror - the strength and the lines of my body. I loved being able to wear size 12 (s8-10 American) leather pants.  I loved knowing guys - or girls - were looking at me and liking what they saw. I loved it. I'm vain that way. And gods above and below help me, I want that again. But I *DON'T* want it at the expense of all the other reasons, and I think I'm finally in a place (please? maybe? pretty please?) where I'm strong enough in myself that that's never going to be my most important reason again.
  • The not being embarrassed about my body thing:  ooooohhhhh, I'm opening up a can of worms with this one. I know I am. I *hate* the concept that I have to be a certain weight or shape before I can be proud of my body. I don't want to be that shallow - that... conditioned by the media and what's supposed to be conventionally beautiful. But here's the thing.  I am. There was a day a couple of years back where I found myself making excuses to avoid going swimming with good friends because I couldn't face the idea of being in a swimsuit in front of them. Summer after summer, I wear long trousers and ankle length skirts because I can't handle anything that shows my balloony, swollen legs.  The ironic thing is that losing weight won't actually help with that last (it's a lymphatic condition, apparently). But the more things I have to be actively proud of in my body, the less I focus on the things I don't like.  And so yeah. This reason makes the list too.
  • And finally? Because I've never been able to lose weight healthily and keep it off before:  I really, really don't like admitting defeat and accepting that just I can't do some things. That doesn't mean I don't have to do it sometimes - there are a whole host of instances where acceptance of my limitations is my only healthy option. But I haven't learned to like it yet, and part of me prays I never do.  I was the same way with running. For the longest time, I knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that my body just wasn't built to run. I found lots of other things I could do instead.  Every now and then I tried. And failed. And injured myself. Which just proved I couldn't do it.  And then? After 37 years of knowing I couldn't run, I found Couch-2-5k. And suddenly, hey, look at me! I'm running! For interval sessions that last an hour!  I can do it! Finally, at last, I can do it!  And part of me wants to know... is losing weight and healthily, sanely getting to a size that I'm 100% comfortable with seeing in the mirror (and then maintaining it) going to be another thing I knew I couldn't do, but yet somehow I manage to anyway?

Y'know, when I go deep down and look at my motivations, I think it's that last one that really fires me up.  It's not about losing weight for a specific occasion (although I can think of plenty of them if I really want to).  It's not about being able to get into - or back into - clothes of a given size, or seeing a particular number on the scale. 

It's about proving myself wrong for every time I've said "I just can't do it" in the past.  It's about working towards something that's hard because if I just kept taking the easy way, I wouldn't in all honesty - be living the life I want to live. It's about stopping lying to myself about what I really want; and starting to become the best, strongest, most in-integrity me I can be.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is why I'm staying on the weight loss journey.  How about you? 

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

So *that's* sports massage, hmmmm? OW!

Image courtesy of the Stock Exchange
Mary, over at A Merry Life, asks what lessons life's taught us today.  And I think that what *I* learned is today that Sports Massages can create some serious OUCH if you let them.

See, I figured that now that I was running regularly (for "regularly", read: sessions of approximately an hour, three times a week), organising a regular sports massage every now and then might be a smart move from an injury-prevention viewpoint.  I'd already noticed a tendency towards stiffness and soreness in certain muscle groups - despite a pretty thorough stretching routine that I follow religiously after running. It's not at the injury stage yet - for a start, it tends to be stiff and sore at the beginning of a run, then gradually ease up over the first 20 min or so of a session - but I can see it getting there if I ignore it.

So on Tuesday night, I hie'd me off to my physio (I think that's what folks in the States call a physical therapist, although the parallel may not be exact), who's also a qualified sports massage therapist, and asked what he thought would be needful, given the background.  I figured he'd be an ideal person to work with, since he's already worked with me through two separate injuries and he knows my history.  He asked a lot of intelligent questions - got me to contort in various ways to test my current flexibility in the affected muscle groups - and suggested a half-hour massage that started with my adductors and hip flexors, where most of the stiffness and soreness was, then moved around to my quads, IT band, and finally settled on my hamstrings... a kind of "round the world" trip of my thighs, if you will.  That sounded reasonable to me, so I hopped up on the table.

That's when the pain started.

Let me be clear... I'd been warned in advance from other runners that sports massages were NOT like the relaxing, soothing massages many people are familiar with.  Especially the first time you have one, if your muscles are a mass of knots and tension, these things can be bloody uncomfortable. And when I'm not being all paranoid-hypochnondria-girl about any discomfort I'm feeling being a sign of a potential injury, I actually have a pretty high pain tolerance, so that didn't scare me off.  I'd told my physio this during the initial consult, and pretty much given him carte blanche to do what my muscles needed, promising that if it really was too much for me to handle, I'd tell him, but otherwise I'd just aim to breathe through it.

So he took me at my word.  And wow. Ow. I'm pretty sure that session was the closest I've ever come to safewording in a professional setting ;-)  The session never actual *hit* my pain tolerance level, but it skirted very near the edges a few times - and yeah, I always let my physio know when we were getting close, on the basis that it was probably something he needed to be aware of to do his job.

Once it was over, though, my leg muscles were literally humming. Sore, but humming.  Yeah, there may have also been one or two endorphins involved, because my wiring's just crossed that way - such is life. So I figured it was all good - till I got home a couple of hours later and saw all the bruising. The vivid, dark, mottled bruising. All up and down the inside of one leg, and a little on the outside of both. Ow. Wow. I don't think my inner thighs have *ever* gone that colour before.

To be honest, I freaked a bit - wondering if I should have said something sooner to the physio, rather than trying to tough it out on the table - wondering if something had gone horribly, horribly wrong (basically, I instantly turned into paranoid-hypochondria-girl for a bit).  Some discussion on the LJ Runners group I'm part of reassured me that bruising certainly isn't unheard of after a  sports massage - some people found they bruised every time they had one, others just the first time. So that was a bit of a relief.  But I still called my physio just to let him know what had happened and we agreed that while it's nothing to panic about, nonetheless, next time (and yes, there's absolutely going to be a next time) , I'll get him to take it just a wee bit more gently.

Meanwhile, it made running yesterday morning, and walking today more than just a little painful. Ow. Just OWWWW.  Especially anywhere I came to a change in gradient, for some reason - and given that my route covers quite a few hills, that was fairly regularly.  It also slowed down my pace considerably for both sessions - although with both of them, I ended the session feeling way better than I'd started it, so I don't regret going out.

So yeah. I think, if someone was asking me whether or not to get a sports massage, I'd recommend it, but only if:
  • ... they knew exactly why they were getting it done (in my case, because I think there's a good chance it'll lower my chance of injuring myself)
  • ... they had a massage therapist they could trust and felt 100% comfortable communicating with to say that something was too much or too hard WITHOUT it being a huge deal
  • ... they were prepared for it to be uncomfortable (and possibly actually hurt), not just during the massage, but possibly for a couple of days afterwards too

Have you ever had a sports massage done? If so, what was your experience?

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Podcast Review: Inside Out Weight Loss by Renee Stephens

Image courtesy of the Stock Exchange

I'll preface this review  by stating something that will probably be obvious from my profile - I'm a little weird. I spent most of my adult life as an Eclectic Pagan (right down to the pentacle tat over my heart chakra) - I'm not actually sure if that identity label still applies to me now, but I haven't found a better one yet, so I'll hang onto it for the moment. I do, however, still have a strong belief in the interconnectedness of mind, body and spirt; and I still use the word "energy" in a way that makes my friend, who has a doctorate in physics (the orthodox kind of physics, NOT the new age kind, and yeah, they're different), visibly twitch.

All of which explains why the whole concept of the Inside Out Weight Loss podcasts by Renee Stephens works so well for me. Caveat Emptor - your mileage may well vary.


THE BIG CONCEPT: PODCAST OVERVIEW

Inside Out Weight Loss (IOWL) is a very different kind of podcast to many of those I've found on iTunes (my primary podcast source).  It's about weight loss and fitness, yes, but it almost never talks about food or exercise. And before you roll your eyes, that's not because the host, Renee Stephens, thinks they're not important; but as she so frequently says, there are plenty of other podcasts out there that cover nutrition, diet plans, ways to move your body, and the physical aspects of losing weight.  What's missing - although some podcasts do touch on this, none seem to focus on it - is something that looks at the inner journey.

Here's the rationale. Most of us who've tried to lose weight over and over aren't missing information. We *know* what to do - we know what's good for our bodies and what isn't.  We just don't do it. Merely throwing more information at ourselves means we just have more information we don't do anything with.  Inside Out Weight Loss, on the other hand, starts from the inside. Episode by episode, it helps us to explore the reasons we overeat (or eat badly) and underexercise in the first place, and then gives us practical tools - often involving NLP and/or hypnosis techniques - to make inner changes.


THE DETAILS: LENGTH, STRUCTURE AND COST

Most podcasts are about 20-25 minutes long, split in two with an ad for something (usually one of the products on Renee's site) in the middle.  As of writing this review, all podcasts - including those in the archives - are completely free.



HOW LONG I'VE BEEN LISTENING

Probably about a year now. This is one that I expect to stick with because I really do get a lot out of it. I try to listen to each episode as it comes out, and I've taken to going back through the archives and listening to the early episodes as well, since they have a lot of good information in them, and they make great companions when I'm walking or driving.



WHAT I LIKE ABOUT IT


First up, I like the whole concept of IOWL. As someone who believes that mind, body and spirit are all bound up together, I don't see nearly enough podcasts that work from - or even acknowledge - this viewpoint. Most of them are way too caught up in how to do particular exercises, or which diet plan works best for what result.  Secondly, I like that - for me at least - despite being about inner work, Renee rarely goes off into what I call "affirmation-land". Change in IOWL is actually about doing inner work and letting the changes flow through to behaviour in the outer world. I'ts not about telling yourself everything is perfect when it's clearly not, or writing affirmations on your mirror and expecting changes to somehow magically happen.

I should also mention that I like Renee herself, as a host.  She comes off as a warm, caring, sincere person with a great sense of energy to her voice; and she's not afraid to talk about her own screwups or historical issues (and oh yeah, she has them) to illustrate some of her points. At times, her energy can almost seem too much to me, but that's probably just a culture clash with me being a Kiwi, since I've had the same feeling from other American podcasters as well.



WHAT I'M NOT SO KEEN ON 


The only real criticism I have of these podcasts is a minor niggle - the structure doesn't work for me.  I know from a marketing psychology viewpoint exactly why they're structured as they are, and I know Renee is running a business and don't begrudge her that. That said, I find that dropping me out of the flow of the podcast to tell me about one of the products and then trying to just pick up where we left off feels... jarring - especially in an otherwise relaxing podcast - and so far, it hasn't convinced me to try any of the products.



WHERE YOU CAN CHECK IT OUT

IOWL is available over on iTunes - in fact, it was the top result to come up when I did a search on "weight loss and fitness podcasts", which says something.  Or, if you don't have iTunes, you can find the podcasts (all the way back to Episode 0) over on her website at Personal Life Media.com.


So, what (if any) podcasts do you listen to regularly?

Monday, November 8, 2010

Week 1: Monday Morning Checkin (aka how'm I goin' with those goals, hmmmm?)

Image courtesy of the Stock Exchange
Righty. So. I went with the lazy day option yesterday, and proceeded to sit around the house in my PJs and just... chill. Reading. Sleeping. And way too much CSI Miami, which I had fun ripping to shreds. Not what you'd call a productive day, but I mostly enjoyed it.

Today it's time to check in on how I went with my weekly goals last week.

Eating-wise, I was pretty good. I tracked my food every day.  And healthy-eating-wise, it was reasonably good too - not great, especially over the weekend, but I'm happy with it overall. 

Exercise-wise, I did a little more than my goal 40km (43km), and just slightly under my goal calorie burn (2,463 instead of 2,500).

Running-wise, I did pretty good. From the week before, where I was trying HARD to manage my 3 sets of "run 13 min, walk 1, run 1, walk 1" for W2.1 of Bridge to 10k and not always succeeding, I did two running sessions in a row where I managed that. And then I moved onto my W2.2, which is 3 sets of Run 14, walk 2. And I managed that.  So that counts as a definite win.

And the weigh-in?  82.7kg (181.9lb), which is 0.3kg up from last week.  Possible reasons include a/ hormones (hello period!), b/ a wee bit too much sodium over the weekend, c/ the vagaries of my body doing what it needs to do in the timeframe it needs to do it in, or d/ any combination of the above.


So. Triumphs of the week?  Definitely the running - I'm pleased with that. And the compliment at the picnic was nice, if not something I can claim as something I did myself.

And stuff I'd like to do differently, or try out this coming week?  Keeping a watch on my sodium next weekend would be good.  Plus, actually *doing* one or two of the fitness DVDs I bought myself - for at least 2 exercise sessions this week. Because seriously? They're doing me no frickin' good at all by just sitting on my desk in their wrappers!

Other than those two things, I just want to keep focussing on the food-tracking, the generally healthy eating, and the exercising. Beyond those three simple basics, I'll aim to keep letting my body look after what it wants to happen weight-wise.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Decisions, decisions... to exercise, or take a second rest day? (v2 of the post)

Image courtesy of the Stock Exchange
OK, so here's my quandary.

It's Sunday - the last day of my week. I've been pretty good exercise AND eating-wise this week.  I treated myself foodwise yesterday, but it was planned, so that's all good.

I've had one full rest day (Thursday) so far this week, which is on track for my planned "always at least 1 each week, and ideally no more than 3" aim. I've already hit my distance 40km goal for the week (43km as of yesterday's walk).  I'm within a hair's breadth of my goal total calorie burn (2,463 of a target 2,500).

The numbers for the week are basically good already, but I have a run planned today - W2.2D2 of the B210k programme.  And I'm not quite sure if I want to do it, or whether I'd be more "in balance" for the week if I just gave in to the little voice inside that actually, y'know, it would kinda like to be lazy today and sit on the couch ripping absolute shreds out of the plot and character inconsistencies in CSI Miami for a few hours instead.


This is actually version 2 of this post.  See, in the first one that wrote earlier this morning, I concluded by the end of it that there was really no reason to NOT run today. I went through my thoughts - I'm not sore (or no sorer than I have been the past couple of weeks), that nothing was setting off injury alarms, and that all that was keeping me from going out was inertia.  I concluded that I should therefore get my butt out the door for the aforementioned run, on the basis that once I'm out there, I'll probably enjoy it.

Then I wembled off to get myself some breakfast in order to fuel said run. And gave myself an hour after eating it for it to digest. And y'know what? In that time, I managed to fall asleep again for a couple of hours (yeah. I didn't sleep too well last night). Which should really tell me something about what it is my body actually needs.  Yeah, my ego would like me to head out the door. But that's just my ego, and I don't have to listen to it.  For a start, it's been responsible for entirely too many overdoing-it injuries in the past, which makes it an advisor of dubious credibility.

Meh. I'm leaning more towards the lazy option today.  I'll see how I feel with the rest of the afternoon - I might decide I want to pop in one of the Jillian DVDs that arrived on Thursday that I haven't had a chance to try out yet. Or I might not.  I think, right now, I'm just revelling in having the choice.

Which makes me curious about how other people handle wiffling and situation-by-situation choices. Do you do better long term if you give yourself the choice on a day-by-day basis about what you actually feel up to on that given day?  Or do you find the only way to move forward to your goals is to decide what you'll do in advance, when, and then stick to your schedule come hell or high-water?

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Chalking today up for a win on SO many levels

Image courtesy of The Stock Exchange
Today was a good day. Not just exercise and eating-wise, but on other levels too.

A couple of friends were having their "minus-1th" anniversary do - which, translated, means that they've finally set their wedding date for this time next year, and since they didn't have an engagement party? Well, this is going to be their Minus-1 anniversary!

The party took the form of a casual meetup at Mission Bay - one of Auckland's beautiful beaches - sitting around, chatting, singing, eating, enjoying the sunlight (with sunblock, of course). And while I was looking forward to catching up with folk I hadn't seen in a while, I wasn't sure how well I was going to be able to deal with all the omnipresent junk food I was almost certain was going to be there.

So I sat down, beforehand, and had a think about strategy. What did I want to end the day having actually done? What did I *really* want to enjoy if I had the opportunity, and what could I happily sacrifice to stay in balance?  What could I do in advance to make sure I wasn't likely to blow out, but if I did blow out, it wouldn't be a big drama?  And if I felt like using today as a treat day (because it felt like a good occasion to do so, given the context), what kinds of treats did I want to say yes to, and what other kinds did I want to say no to?

The first thing I decided was that I was going to walk there. If I took a direct route, I could get there in a little over 7km, but I decided that, since I hadn't organised a long walk this weekend, I might take advantage of being over in another part of town, and actually plot a twisty, turny route through some nice streets with some awesome views, and then along the waterfront to the beach where the meetup was happening. I was aiming to get something around 15km (9 miles and change), but the route I picked ended up a little under that. No worries, it was still a great walk - one that burned something in the realm of 900cal - and I enjoyed it immensely for its own sake.

Another major win about it, aside from the inherent enjoyment, was that it involved a couple of major hills, one of which was steep and long and had been a major slog (complete with gasping, wheezing and emphysemic budgie impressions) to walk up last time I did the route back in... February, I think.  This time? No worries. Yes, sure, I knew I was going uphill, but I didn't find myself having to slow down to deal with it; and according to my Garmin, my HR never broke 145 the entire way, which means my impression of finding  it easier this time wasn't just subjective.

Once I got there, the first person to greet me (someone who hasn't seen me in six months, and whose opinion means rather more to me than I'd like, but that's another story) sprang up to give me a hug and the first words out of her mouth, "Wow, you look FANTASTIC!"  I just stood there, hugging her for a moment, absorbing the compliment, and not feeling any desire to block it or shrug it off. It was... really nice.  And definitely another win.

Foodwise, I'm really happy with what I ate and the balance I managed to maintain. I took part in what I wanted of the unhealthy stuff while I was there, but only a little of each thing, making sure to enjoy each mouthful mindfully; and I grabbed a basically healthy lunch that still felt like a treat despite all the other tempting options on offer around me.

And for the most part? Food *wasn't* my internal focus during the gathering. I chatted to folks I hadn't seen in ages and caught up with what was happening in their lives. I sang when one of the guys brought out his guitar. I just enjoyed being *social* for a bit, after entirely too many months of not having the emotional spoons for larger gatherings.  That's quite an achievement too. See, previously, if social occasions coincided with a time that I'd been wrestling with the "beast" of my disordered eating episodes, the occasions would become all-or-nothing events where I either held onto my control over what I ate with white-knuckled, tightly-clenched fists... or I just threw it all away for an evening and had whatever was there, regardless of whether my body actually wanted it or not.  Either way, food ended up being my major focus the entire time I was there. Today wasn't like that.  I knew what I wanted the overall results of the day to be, and I was willing to trust my body to fill in the specifics by letting me know what it wanted me to do and when.

So yeah. Results?  I had an awesome walk, spent a lovely afternoon being social, AND I totally met my goals around eating, exercise and balance.  There's no way a day like that doesn't get chalked up as a win.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Goals for November in the Starfireverse (dum dum dum...)

Image (as usual) courtesy of the Stock Exchange

It's been a while since I actively sat down and set goals for myself.

That's weird, because I've never disputed the value of goalsetting. After all, if you don't know where you're going, how on earth are you meant to get there, right?

I kinda sorta set a weight goal by default (by which I mean I joined up to the LJ weight_comp group and picked at target that seemed semi-reasonable to aim for by Boxing Day) But somehow, I still didn't do any conscious, mindful, what's-really-really-right-for-me-at-this-time goalsetting.  And I find myself curious as to why.

I used to really enjoy the process of setting goals, once upon a time. Thinking long and hard about what I wanted. Thinking about what I figured I could do. Thinking about how I could realistically get there. And then... that magic moment when I committed it to paper (or screen), and bang... I was on my way to either making it happen... or not.  Either way, I at least had a direction to head in, and I tended to end up achieving more than I did without the process, even if I only occasionally achieved the actual goals.

Quite a few of the blogs I've been reading this week have had posts about the author's November goals in them. And it's... y'know... got me thinking. What are my goals?  I must have them, or I wouldn't have any reason to be keeping this fitness and weightloss blog, after all.

I've been thinking about that this evening, and for what it's worth, these are what I've come up with on the eating and exercising front:
  • I want to keep tracking my food every day this month. I'm actually enjoying the tracking process in and of itself, and I'm definitely finding it valuable. My goals aren't so much about what I eat, except in that:
    • I want at least 80% of what I eat to be vaguely healthy stuff - y'know - for the most part, things that actually used to be alive and either grow in the earth, or run around/swim in it. I don't have to have cooked them myself (although that's good too), but I do have to be able to class it as "food".
    • I want, each day, to eat approximately 100-150 calories under my maintenance level. A couple of hundred calories over or under that is fine. Blowing out once in a while is also fine, as long as I track it... and then get myself back on track afterwards without drama.
  • I want to continue to burn at least 2,500 calories of exercise a week. That sounds a lot when I write it out, but y'know - it's only 5x 500 calorie sessions.  I'm actually doing a bit more than that at the moment, but I want to give myself the option of taking a second full rest day each week as the runs (and thus calorie burn) increase in time.
  • I want to log a minimum of 40km each week. Much like the calorie total above, it sounds a lot, but some weeks, between the walking and running, I'm already doing it. I just want to make it a formal goal to keep up the good work over the month.
  • I want to have FINALLY made it past W2 of the Bridge 2 10k programme: So far, I've spent 5 sessions in W2 of the programme, and I can't yet do 3x 15min runs in a session. In fact, I can only really do one, and then the others quickly collapse. So the past 5 sessions, I've been aiming for 3 sets of running 13 min, walking 1, running another 1, then walking one before I go onto the next set. Next week, I'm going to try running 14, and then walking 2 and see how I go. If I can manage that? Then I'll attempt the full 15. And if I can do that 3 times? Then woohoo! I'll have met my goal, and be ready to move onto W3!
  • I want to lose 1 more kilo.  Yep. That's all. Just a single kilo. More's nice, but ONLY if it comes through keeping my calories up just under the maintenance level, by exercising to a level that's safe and enjoyable and fun for me, and by meeting my final, absolutely 100% non-negotiable goal, below...
 
  • I want to do all this without letting myself get dramatically out of balance to meet ANY of the above goals.  I mean this. The good gods above and below, please witness - it's OK to have a week where I blow out on my food. It's OK to have a week where I take more rest days than I'd planned - or even where I don't exercise AT ALL if that's what needs to happen that week. It's OK to still not have made it past the 13 minute max runs I'm doing at the moment. It's even OK if I end up gaining weight. It's NOT NOT NOT OK to achieve ANY of the aforementioned goals by pushing myself so hard I end up injured (again) and unable to exercise the following week (again), or obsessing so much about what I'm eating that I end up heading back towards disordered-eating land (again). This journey is about loving myself, being good to myself, and being the best me I can be. It's about breaking past patterns and learning from past mistakes.  And if I meet none of my first five goals but still meet this one, then I SWEAR to you, I'll consider November a successful month worth celebrating


It seems weird to be setting goals in one breath, and in the next, acknowledging that it's perfectly OK not to meet them.  I guess that's the thing with setting short-term goals for a long-term journey. It's never going to work out 100% the way I expect it to, but if I'm flexible enough, I can keep on heading in the same overall direction, even if I end up off course for a bit every now and then.

Do you set monthly goals?  If so, what are yours (if you're comfortable sharing, of course)?  And if not... do you have a general direction you'd like to be heading in for November?

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Let there be peas on earth and mindful nomming to men (or something)

Image courtesy of the Stock Exchange



I *love* summer. Don't get me wrong, I love all the seasons, pretty much. But from a healthy-eating, be-good-to-my-body, get-the-nutrients-and-antioxidants-into-myself-in-the-form-the-good-gods-actually-intended viewpoint, nothing beats the cornucopeaia of fruits and veges that become available around the approach to the silly season down here in New Zealand.

One of the things with living in a reasonably small island country that's miles away from pretty much anywhere else, is that we don't get a lot of stuff out of season here. Some stuff from over in Oz, or flown in from the States, sure, but not a lot of it. And that's not necessarily a bad thing - not just from a carbon footprint perspective, but because it means that when a lot of our fruit and veg are in season, we get to enjoy them more *because* we know they're not available all year round.

There are a whole load of summerfruits I rejoice to see on fruit shop shelves.  Strawberries. Rockmelon (what you folks Stateside would call "cantaloupe").  Watermelon. Oh, and cherries - dark, deep-red-almost-black, sweet, succulent cherries - I can't possibly forget those!

But beyond all of that, there's one food that I literally jump up and down, clap my hands and squee like a little kid in a candy shop whenever I see hit the shelves for the first time each year, and that's fresh garden peas. A couple of friends and I even created a goddess of pea pods (called Legumina, but of course), and started coming up with appropriate rituals for her worship. Don't believe me? I have written *proof* from back in 2006!

Part of the reason that I'm completely mad about these little green gems of vegetablehood is that the season for them in New Zealand is incredibly short. Some years we don't see them in until early December, and certainly by mid-to-late January they're always gone.  I think the longest I've ever seen them in season is for about 10 weeks one year - most years it's close to 6-8 weeks.  Which isn't a lot of time to get to spend with  something you're crazy enough about to create a new deity from scratch.  It means that the first day I see peas on the shelves each year becomes a day of informal celebration and initiatory worship of Legumina.

Yesterday, my friends, was such a day. I'd gone into my local fruit shop to pick up some healthy noms to have with my dinner, and there, on the shelves were the first long, green pods of Starfire-ambrosia for 2010. You can bet it was a day of celebration in the Starfireverse.

Interestingly, there seems to have been a bit of a change in the way I'm eating my nommy, nommy peas this year. It's not so much about sitting down with a bag and just munching my way through them now. I've noticed that I'm... noticing more.  The scent and the sound as I pop each pod. The taste differences in my mouth before and after I chew. The texture of each individual, luscious emerald pea as it gives under my teeth. Yeah. I'm eating them mindfully (well, at least a little mindfully, anyway - I probably wouldn't eat the whole bag in one sitting if I was being completely mindful about it. But complete mindfulness is a long-term journey, and I'm happy to recognise a small step in the right direction).  And it wasn't even a conscious choice to do so.  I wonder if that means something about mindfulness is finally sinking down to a subconscious level?

So what delicious fruits and veges are in season where you are?  What are your favourites? And how do you ensure you enjoy them when you eat them?  Enquiring minds want to know!

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Woohoooo! Let's call this one "restarting as I mean to go on", shall we?

 Image courtesy of The Stock Exchange

 


I had a wonderful surprise waiting for me when I got back from my run this morning.  You see, Tuesday has become my weekly weigh-in day; and I was hoping, given all the exercise and being sensible with my eating that I've been doing, that I might have lost another couple of hundred grams (half a pound, if you're American).

Apparently, I did better than that. 1.1kg down. In a week. I can't quite describe just how awesome this makes me feel.  So I'm now sitting on 82.4kg (181ish lb), which is the first time I've been under 83kg since... sometime around 2005-2006. So I'm pretty proud and pleased with myself.

But you know, that's not ALL I'm proud of. I'm also proud:
  • ... that I'm keeping in mind that really, this is just one step in a journey that I fully intend to last for the rest of my life. Yes, I'll probably blow out calorie-wise sometimes. In fact, no, not probably - definitely. It's going to happen. But I'm remembering that I'm in this for the long-haul, and that it's what I do every day that's important, not the occasional lapse.
  • ... that what I've accomplished over the past week has happened WITHOUT any restricting myself foodwise. Have I been tracking my intake? Yes, absolutely, and I want to do a post later this week on the method I'm using. Have I been saying "no" to goodies that I'd kinda, sorta like to be saying "yes" to? Yeah, I totally have.  But my whole aim has been to look at what my body seems to need to maintain my current weight, and then just have very slightly less than that (I'm aiming to go about 100-150 calories under maintenance), while still getting all the nutrients I need to stay healthy and feel good.  Any energy deficit beyond that has come from exercise that I'm doing, not to "lose weight" but because I enjoy doing it. THAT feels like a long-term strategy to me.
  • ... that this marks over a year of a journey I started last September at 93kg, and not once during that time have I gone back to the destructive dieting habits of my sleeping "beast in the dark" (the name I give my borderline eating disorder tendencies - if you're interested in why, check out this entry I wrote back in 2005).  I don't have the words to describe what a huge achievement that feels for me - to be honest, next to this, losing 1kg in a week just pales.

So yes. This is me, Starfire, celebrating my little butt off for what I've managed to achieve this week.  Not every week's going to go like this - I know that full well - but that just makes it even more important to celebrate the times that it does.

Hope everyone out there is have just as awesome a week!

Take care



Starfire

Monday, November 1, 2010

I'm back (I hope) - and things have changed a bit in my life

(image courtesy of http://www.sxc.hu/photo/374431) 



It's been a long time since I used this blog.  I did Trailwalker. I didn't quite finish it. I can't help thinking that my weight (93kg at the time I did the walk) played at least some kind of part in that.

I figured I wanted to have another go at it in 2011. So, about this time last year I started signing myself up for 10ks and half-marathons (walking ones) left right and centre.  I did a lot of them  - one of each a month from January to July.  Then I went for a walking holiday in Cornwall.

Meanwhile, I also figured I'd work on trying to lose some weight so that when I DID go back to Trailwalker in 2011, I didn't have the same disadvantage I'd had in 2009.  And I lost some. Around 8 or so kilos from September 2009 to September 2010 - I was 84.5 when I weighed myself again in mid-September. Which I guess isn't bad.  Now it looks like Trailwalker 2011 won't be happening, which has taken away my practical reason for wanting to drop the weight.

I want to get my weight further down (I was aiming fro somewhere between 70-75kg, on the basis that 70 is the lowest I know my body can healthily be, and I don't actually know if that's too low for who I am now, so I'm giving myself permission to stop before then if that seems right).  Now I'm left with the question: if I'm not losing weight for Trailwalker, why DO I want to lose it?  Can I find a reason that's not about fitting into a specific size, or hitting a specific number on the scale - one that won't wake my "sleeping beast in the dark". That's part of what I want to use this blog to explore.

We'll see where things go from here...