Enjoying the Pool in Brazil
Gotta Get the Hang of This!!! September 28, 2009
Weekdays suck. I get up, shower, get Madeline up (she leaves earlier than me or Mackenzie with Jeff), fix her breakfast, get the coffee ready, shoo her and Jeff out the door, get Mackenzie up, feed her…sometimes get to eat myself…..you get the idea.
Then, teach all day, stay after most days for Kenzie’s soccer practice, get home, start dinner, help her with homework if she has questions, we eat, Maddy and Jeff usually eat later when they come in, clean the kitchen, start at least one load of laundry….when the heck am I gonna squeeze in exercise?
I started out the way I intended to go on….working out about three days the first week, maybe two last week, this week…..nada. Not one weekday. I felt like such a failure! Other people have children, work, home life, and they manage to squeeze in a short workout. I feel run over by a Mack truck in the evenings. Out of all week, I got in one good workout today…and Jeff browbeat me into it.
Why is it so hard to motivate myself to get back into this? I wanted to start work at school again…but I hate working out in the morning. I already get up earlier than I need to, to make sure Maddy and Jeff have what they need as they head out the door. The thought of getting up even EARLIER makes me want to hurl. Definitely NOT a morning person. That means I’ve GOT to make changes….I’ve GOT to get serious…or I’m going to gain weight over this winter. Eck.
It’s a Good Thing September 17, 2009
Okay, okay, I’ll admit it. I once was a Martha Stewart wanna be. I even went so far as to can green tomato pickles one year for Christmas gifts, because Martha said they were fabulous, and the bright green color was so festive.
Now, time dictates what I consider a “good thing”. Today, it’s a great exercise tip, food tip, surprise, timesaver, etc. I recently rounded up a few from magazines, books, and friends. Enjoy.
*In the week before your period when those sugar cravings hit, “bulk up” (literally!) on high fiber foods. The cravings will diminish or go away.
*Energy drinks have as much caffeine as six cups of coffee. Okay, if your workout is a.m., but lay off if you’re a p.m. exercise junkie….your slumber time will thank you!
*Tired of searching for the perfect running shoe??? I know I get tired of searching for Sauconys that were discontinued about three years ago. Ebay can only go so far. Check out www.somniorunning.com , which will build you the perfect shoe based on your running needs (support, cushioning, running style–pronator, supinator, etc., weight)
*Sore muscles after running all the time? Try drinking cherry juice before you lace up those sneaks. Cherries have lots of anthocyanins, compounds that reduce inflammation!
*If you’re like me, and cook way too much food for you, your significant other, or your family, and always have leftovers you FORGET about in the fridge…check out www.stilltasty.com , which has a system that allows you to input a particular food, how long it’s been in your fridge (approximately!), and whether or not it’s okay to still eat it. Love it.
*An easy math problem….how many calories can you eat and still lose weight???? I’ve seen every calculation in the book. And I’m no Algebra whiz. So take your desired weight, multiply by 11, and presto….aim for those calories.
*Love pickles, olives, and pickled beets? Good thing, because vinegar has been proven to have enzymes that BREAK DOWN FAT. You heard me, people. Start drinking that pickle juice.
*October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. I have a good friend who is suffering with this damned disease right now…for the second go round. Let’s support causes that donate to research to kick breast cancer’s ass. Here’s a few I recently found: a gorgeous trendy necklace by Prismera Design, $80; Susan G. Komen Foundation gets a whopping 10% www.prismeradesign.com ; like high end sunglasses? Lacoste shades, super cute $125, another 10% to Breast Cancer Research Foundation, www.lacoste.com for stores; love sweet/homey smells in your home? ALL the net proceeds from the Antica Farmacista Home Ambience Fragrance Peonia Romantico collection go to Gilda’s Club (in honor of Gilda Radnor), $25 for 100ml at www.anticafarmacista.com .
* And finally, an easy peasy lemon cheesy recipe to make your life a little easier….I made this one up, just by being bored one day and wanting something quick, easy, healthy, and of course, using ingredients I had on hand.
PITA PIZZA: one whole wheat pita, jar of spaghetti sauce (I used leftover piece of a jar I had in the fridge!), fresh mozzarella (I keep some in the summer for tomato and mozzarella Caprese salad….), fresh basil, sliced olives, and any leftover meats from dinner the night before will do.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray pita lightly with spray, place on cookie sheet and pop in oven for five minutes. Spread pita with spaghetti sauce, sprinkle with meat and olives, top with small slices of mozzarella and finish with basil. Turn oven to broil, and slide pita under broiler for about 3-4 minutes or until mozzarella is melted and bubbly. Cut in half with pizza cutter, and enjoy!
There are my Martha tips for the day. Sorry there’s not more on exercise…I am working hard to get in at least four days a week, but with the girls’ schedules it’s kind of hit and miss. Have a great week!
Back in the Saddle Again August 12, 2009
As Jack Nicholson famously said, “I’m baaaaaack!” After a few weeks off, I started back on some semblance of a workout routine this week. So far, I have done the evil Jillian’s dvd, weightlifting, a 3 mile run/walk, and an hour power walk. I have NOT begun tweaking my diet again. I figured I would see how my body reacts to the activity once more, before I start torturing eating healthily again.
One thing to note: I had heard that if you take about two weeks off from exercise, it feels like starting all over again when you do resume. And boy, was that rumor correct. My first day back, I thought, “Oh, I won’t do an hour of walking/running/etc., I’ll just do a half hour or so. Jillian’s tape is only about 25 min., so I’ll just do that.” Sweet Lord. The next day I sounded like cavewoman, grunting and groaning while moving about the house. How could I have forgotten that bitch woman and her kickass approach to fitness??? The day after, I had to take off because of soreness. Not a great re-entry into my routine.
So far, I have not gotten back into working out every day, but I figure 4-5 days a week is a good start. Once that becomes comfortable, I’ll have to start worrying about the diet (or I guess I should call it nutrition, not the D-word). I have slid back into old (bad) habits that can easily derail the good I am doing with the exercise. Picking at plates after the girls, eating on the road (hard to curtail THAT one, with volleyball practice every night from 6-8!), not having time to do some healthy grocery shopping…..all combine to make this another hurdle to overcome.
My job begins in just a couple of weeks…..and I know I need to get a handle on this routine before getting back into the swing of lesson planning, grading papers, making school lunches, etc. Once that starts, I will be “Back in the Saddle Again” in more ways than one!
Taking Time Off June 30, 2009
I suppose you have figured out by now that I have not been posting updates for awhile. Call it burn out, call it fatigue, call it hypothyroidism (yup, have that, too), call it two daughters on five collective softball teams…and you have what’s happened to my diet and workout regime. For now, I’m not sweating it (literally!), but I have let two pounds creep back on. It’s amazing to me that I can stop all working out, still drink my wine, not be such a beast about my diet, and the only difference is two pounds. Makes one think.
Anyway, until my girls are done with All Star season (at least two more weeks of nightly games/practices), I am not going to be worrying about it. Until I’m back on–and taking myself seriously again–I will be limiting my work outs to helping tote softball equipment back and forth to ballparks, and splashing about in my pool. Hope everyone has a glorious 4th weekend!!!
A Recent (Short) Update May 12, 2009
I apologize to those who have asked me where I’ve been the last couple of weeks. Blame it on my facebook addiction. Everytime I come near the computer to update my blog, my fingers seem to steer me to facebook instead. Then after checking friend updates, playing Mafia Wars, reading my notifications, etc. I realize a couple of hours have passed. Oh well. I will try to do better!
Not much to post recently, which is another reason I have neglected to worry overmuch about blog posting. I have been eating well, exercising when time permits (which during softball season is NOT as often as I did during the winter months), but oddly enough, I am either tightening up or maintaining. Part of that may be due to the fact that I visited my doctor who confirmed that my thyroid is indeed acting up again (I wondered why dieting and 1-2 hours of exercising daily was having no effect!). She put me back on my thyroid medication, and once again my efforts are being rewarded.
Other than that, as I said earlier, I have recently acquired Jillian’s (of the Biggest Loser fame) workout dvd entitled, “30 Day Shred”. My oh my. Even avid exercisers will be challenged by this one. I first thought, a twenty minute workout???? Big deal. Well, after day one, I was begging for mercy. (See the dvd description two posts ago). I am now at only Level 2, and it still kicks my butt. Of course, you are supposed to do it everyday and you will advance throught the levels quicker, but I also enjoy things like power yoga and just weight days, so it’s taking me longer.
So there it is–not much happening in Denise World. One kudo for myself though….I am now within 3 1/2 pounds of my goal. And believe it or not, my fourteen year old daughter only weighs 7 pounds less than me!!! Stay tuned….hopefully by this summer and opening our pool I will be brave enough to post that bikini picture.
Shi**y Shingles April 16, 2009
Are you kidding me? The doc looks at me, and responds…..”No, I’m afraid you have a classic case of shingles. ” (There follows a lengthy explanation of how the chicken pox virus stays in your body after you contract them as a youth, then reappears later as an adult to attack your nerve endings…yada, yada, yada)
Two prescriptions, $75 in meds and office copays, and 100% frustration later, I end up at home, seething. I have a freaking excruciating painful rash…..right by my left boob no less…..shooting pains around my left side, encircling under my left arm pit, swollen lymph nodes in said arm pit….I just want to cry. I was doing so well. I am eating clean (er), exercising pretty much every day for at least an hour, usually more, and feeling great. Then yet another hurdle to overcome.
Why is it that just when things seem to be going great, life throws you a curveball? Is there some great big cosmic joke out there that I’m not aware of? I have several friends training for Ironman Lake Placid in July….and now a LOT of them are experiencing far worse maladies than I am dealing with. Of course, there’s a lot of wear and tear on the body preparing for an IM (I don’t even compare my little workouts with all they do!), but I feel so badly that after all the hard work and dedication they’ve put into the race already, that they’re also going through injury/inflammation/chronic pain….etc. It’s enough to make a grown woman cry.
Honestly, I’ve had the shingles for over a week now. I just have been a little on the manic depressed side, dealing with the pain, discomfort, and general crappiness of shingles, and haven’t really felt like posting. BUT, since this is my blog about how I’m dealing with building this body into something a bit better than a middle aged, pudgy couch potato, I thought I would rant just a little bit about the unfairness of it all.
I only stopped working out for two days….then right back into it. Lifting was a little tough on that side, so at first I concentrated on exercises I could endure with just some discomfort (treadmill, elliptical, cycle, lower body weights)…then this week added back in upper body lifting and cardio that involved my arms more. I really didn’t want to ditch all my hard work and blame it on yet another illness. But I miss my power yoga…..I can’t quite hold those poses yet, though. It will come.
For now, I’m just happy I didn’t throw my hands up in defeat. I conquered that horrendous awful upper respiratory virus a couple of months ago…..and worked my way back after regaining my strength. Now, even though the shingles aren’t quite “conquered” yet, I feel better, and have a better outlook on getting back to normal workouts. With Summer just around the corner, I still have that new bikini laid out and the promise of that tropical vacation to try to motivate me to not……give…….up!
Muscle Confusion? April 2, 2009
I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately on what works and what doesn’t when it comes to working out and eating for weight loss. (Maybe the oreos spawned that, who knows.) One topic that kept coming up was muscle confusion. Hmmmm, I thought. This sounds interesting.
The idea behind muscle confusion is that if you keep doing the same exercise, day in and day out, the muscles get used to it and stop working at their peak (read–no more weight loss). I kind of figured that out on my own after weeks of the bodybuilding diet and weight pumping. Unless I was willing to do competition type eating and lifting, I was gonna go nowhere. I know some girls who do competitions, and as it draws nearer, they literally have a diet of egg white for breakfast (notice I said egg white not egg whites), lettuce and fish for lunch (also notice I mentioned no salad dressing….plain), a small handful of almonds in the afternoon before their workout (the little bit of fat in them is what they fuel the lifting off of), followed by more lettuce and fish for dinner. WELL. No way, Hosea.
So, I decided to explore the idea of muscle confusion, and started looking for a dvd that incorporated it. I already knew that I needed to change up the workouts weekly. Right now I run a couple of days a week, do at least one day of power yoga, two days where I lift serious weights, and one day where I do something else like kickboxing or circuit training. Sometimes it’s hard to plan the circuit training workouts on my own, though, even though I used to have a personal trainer license. The ideal way to do it is to allow little rest between the cardio and weight exercises, moving quickly from one to another. Well damn my 44 year old brain it’s hard to concentrate and remember the series I’m working on sometimes, so I thought a dvd would be a great idea–let someone else do the planning, and I’d do the work.
A friend recommended that I try the Biggest Loser’s female trainer, Jillian Michaels. She has done lots of books and dvds, and I like her philosophy and training methods she utilizes on the show. She’s a no-nonsense, take no prisoners kind of gal. So this weekend while at Barnes and Noble for my book club, I picked up the 30 Day Shred by Jillian Michaels. http://www.collagevideo.com/item.aspx?item=7963
The dvd has three workouts on it…Levels 1, 2, and 3. I generally work out at least 4-5 days a week and had run three miles the day before, so I was tempted to go straight to level 2 or 3. I watched the preview, and Jillian said to start with level 1, and as that got easy to move up. I thought, what the heck, I can do level 1 and then also do level 2 if it’s too easy. After all, the workouts are just over 20 minutes each….how hard could it be?
Oh….my……the next day it hurt to sit on the toilet. I’m not kidding. I am so glad I started at level 1, because that woman kicked my $#% big time. That’s the last time I start feeling smug that I am getting in better shape. This workout was a great big heads up that I still have a lot of work to do. When I watch the Biggest Loser, I forget that these out of shape people are in the gym, daily, with Jillian, busting their chops for 6-7 hours. I will not WHINE about a 20 something minute workout….I will not….I will not!
So, the muscle confusion issue did answer my question…..what to do to mix it up a little bit. No matter if you think you’re a great runner, kickboxer, weight lifter, swimmer, etc., there’s always room for improvement. I found out the hard way! Kudos to Jillian……
Jillian the Badass
Oreos…. March 25, 2009
My daughter wanted Oreos,
For her they are the best.
And so I went to market,
My willpower to the test.
I grabbed the bright blue package,
I threw it in my cart.
I hustled home in warp time
To do my wifely part.
I cooked a fabo dinner,
I had a glass of wine.
I did the mommy homework thing
And settled for “ME” time.
The cabinet started calling,
“Oh yoohoo come get me!”
Those cookies were a shouting…
And would not let me be.
And so I’m here to tell you,
The diet was a bust.
I crammed in four, and wanted more
I rolled in cookie lust.
The chocolate crust was heaven,
The cream was just the best.
And who’s to blame for this fat dame?
That damnable PMS.
(Sorry..just had to get that out)
Random Thoughts… March 23, 2009
I really haven’t been obsessing on any one piece of material for a new post, but here are some “random thoughts”.
After visiting a pal in Florida (and honestly, the older I get), a second home in warm, sunny FL is looking mighty good!
As for the above vacation, let me just say I totally pigged out. The bodybuilding diet went out the window. My friend, Angie, and her hubby help run a seafood restaurant in FL. I consumed my weight in fried scallops (yes, you read that correctly, I said FRIED), shrimp quesadillas, blackened mahi mahi, shrimp skewers, etc. And don’t even get me started on the pina coladas, parrot heads, et. al….
My Drink of Choice
Upon returning home, I was thrilled to discover I’d won the Gracie’s Gear tank I advertised on my last post (from my cyber pal rundmt’s site). Imagine my chagrin when I thought, hmmmm, now that means I actually have to run to work off this last week’s calories!
Speaking of running, a hale and hearty congrats go out to my buddy Kim for completing the Shamrock 8K after suffering a stress fracture in her lower leg bone this winter. She posted a blazing 47 min. and change. And then there’s her hubby, Tracy, who ran his first marathon Sunday (also the Shamrock) in an awesome 4:13. My hat is off to the athletic sweethearts! (And yes, I grumble, now that is motivating me to get off my keister and run myself!)
More randomness….huge hugs and kisses to my girls. Maddy Kaye got accepted right before Spring Break to the coveted Maggie Walker Governor’s School for Government and International Studies (now that’s a mouthful!) where she will start attending High School this fall. Very difficult to get in…and momma is proud to say she was the top student accepted from our county this year! And little Mackenzie came out this past weekend and pitched a game and a half to help lead her team to second place at their softball tournament. Big Daddy was so proud I thought he would bust!
Final random thought for the day…if you haven’t gotten on facebook yet, get ‘er done. I have had a blast catching up with pals I don’t see often, as well as old friends from high school. The trouble is, I find myself chatting too often, playing games like Mafia Wars (totally addictive) and Celebrity Agent, and ignoring the laundry. Not a bad trade off, I say.
The scene of my diet demise, Pop's Sunset Grill.
A New Giveaway….Thanks to Other Denise March 11, 2009
http://denisermt.wordpress.com/2009/03/09/run-dmts-gracies-gear-giveaway/
See my bloggie buddy Denise’s cool blog for another great chance at a giveaway this month…the Gracie’s Gear long tank. Denise recently completed a marathon in this tank and highly recommended it!
