Am I the only one?
Am I the only one who finds herself working out while watching shows like Ruby (about a 700 lb+ woman who wants to lose weight) and The Biggest Loser? I think I get a sick sort of satisfaction over the fact that I am not that far off from a healthy weight in comparison to the people on the weight-loss reality shows. It's like my cyclic passion for Clean House, which seems to reassure me that my messy house isn't that bad because there are other people out that who put my clutter to SHAME.
Sometime I wonder why I am attracted to shows like this. I know that we have mirror neurons on our brains that light up when we see someone doing an action and mimic the same pathways that would light up if we were doing the action ourselves. So does watching someone work to lose weight or clean their house somehow satisfy my mental need to do the same, and then absolve me subliminally from doing the work myself?
Friday, September 24, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Update
I had to take the size 9 shoes back and switch them for 9.5. I can chalk half a size up to differences in manufacturer's sizing, except that my shoes from last year really are obviously too large for me now. So it is possible that my foot shrunk 1/2 a size, but if that was from weight loss or barefoot running, I don't know. On the bright side, I have a pair of winter shoes that fit. Yay!
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Mad Scientist
The Experiment
In many ways I find loosing weight to be a science experiment with a sample size of one. I can read about what has worked for other people, but until I try it myself I won't know what works for me. I can even read about other people's results, but that doesn't mean that I can extrapolate those results to my efforts. So when I read about some barefoot runners shrinking their foot size I thought that it was interesting, but unlikely to happen to me.
The Results
I went shoe shopping today because I need to get new winter shoes. About 10 days ago we had a very short-lived cold snap that caused me to break out my winter shoes from last year. They are too big for me now. My foot slops around so much inside of them that I am concerned about the potential for injury do to poor walking form. My old shoes are a pair of Keen slip-ons that I ADORE. I bought them last November at Track n' Trail at the outlet mall in Park City. I ended up back there today. Last year when I measured my foot my big toe was over the 9 line and right at the 9.5 line - making my actual shoe size a 10 (you size up about 1/2 size for comfort). This time my toe was just a hair under the 8.5 line, making my shoe size from 9 - 9.5 depending on the cut of the shoe. I bought a pair of Merrill slip-ons in size 9. I doubt that all of my shoe size shrinkage is due solely to weight loss - that should make my foot slimmer and lower volume but not affect the length. So maybe the barefoot running really does change the length of your foot.
In many ways I find loosing weight to be a science experiment with a sample size of one. I can read about what has worked for other people, but until I try it myself I won't know what works for me. I can even read about other people's results, but that doesn't mean that I can extrapolate those results to my efforts. So when I read about some barefoot runners shrinking their foot size I thought that it was interesting, but unlikely to happen to me.
The Results
I went shoe shopping today because I need to get new winter shoes. About 10 days ago we had a very short-lived cold snap that caused me to break out my winter shoes from last year. They are too big for me now. My foot slops around so much inside of them that I am concerned about the potential for injury do to poor walking form. My old shoes are a pair of Keen slip-ons that I ADORE. I bought them last November at Track n' Trail at the outlet mall in Park City. I ended up back there today. Last year when I measured my foot my big toe was over the 9 line and right at the 9.5 line - making my actual shoe size a 10 (you size up about 1/2 size for comfort). This time my toe was just a hair under the 8.5 line, making my shoe size from 9 - 9.5 depending on the cut of the shoe. I bought a pair of Merrill slip-ons in size 9. I doubt that all of my shoe size shrinkage is due solely to weight loss - that should make my foot slimmer and lower volume but not affect the length. So maybe the barefoot running really does change the length of your foot.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
What was that Tolstoy quote?
Oh yeah...
Back to my actual thought for this post. When you have a concrete goal like running a 5K in October, posting is easy because you talk about your daily progress towards your goal and whatever else pops into your mind along the way. But now that my tendinitis has sidelined that goal until at least Spring, I find it harder to have something worth publicly saying. I walk on the treadmill every day for an hour, and I seem to be loosing weight at about a pound a week. Whoohoo! Ha! I've gone from (avert eyes and groan) a 3X shirt size down to a Large. I spend an inordinate amount of time fantasizing about what I will look like in my current batch of new clothes (it's not cold enough outside for me to wear my 3/4 sleeve shirts and sweaters yet) and thinking about shrinking down from Large to Medium. I also need to buy a new pair of winter shoes because my pair from last year are loose on me. Money I don't mind spending, if I only had it after all my wild ways the past few months.
Happy Round Runner
I am in that rare demographic of people who are loosing weight and are happy with their process and progress. Which means that I will probably continue to post sporadically until my next challenge presents itself. I am just under 3 lbs away from breaking the 200lb barrier. My reward for the first big push is to sign up for Krav Maga classes. Even though I should break the barrier this month I will probably have to wait until January or February to sign up for classes because they are $85 - $105 / month. Looking at the schedule I see that they will also require me to give up 2+ hours a week in family time, but then anything I do alone during the week nights will take me from the family.
Weird and slightly creepy Round Runner
I have long had an affinity for apocalyptic science fiction. While realistically I know that I am probably going to die in the first wave of whatever that comes along and kills off a bunch of us, I'd like to have some chance of surviving the coming shit storm if I manage to survive the big bad. Hence my hankering to pick up a martial art. I probably need to learn to shoot a gun and do some basic agriculture and chemistry. All things to look forward to in becoming a renaissance survivor.
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, Chapter 1, first line
I love the Internet!! I no longer have to have a memory, I just need to retain enough information in my poor abused head to look it up later. Take that all you cretinous teachers who force children to memorize useless facts - didn't see the Internet coming, did ya?
Back to my actual thought for this post. When you have a concrete goal like running a 5K in October, posting is easy because you talk about your daily progress towards your goal and whatever else pops into your mind along the way. But now that my tendinitis has sidelined that goal until at least Spring, I find it harder to have something worth publicly saying. I walk on the treadmill every day for an hour, and I seem to be loosing weight at about a pound a week. Whoohoo! Ha! I've gone from (avert eyes and groan) a 3X shirt size down to a Large. I spend an inordinate amount of time fantasizing about what I will look like in my current batch of new clothes (it's not cold enough outside for me to wear my 3/4 sleeve shirts and sweaters yet) and thinking about shrinking down from Large to Medium. I also need to buy a new pair of winter shoes because my pair from last year are loose on me. Money I don't mind spending, if I only had it after all my wild ways the past few months.
Happy Round Runner
I am in that rare demographic of people who are loosing weight and are happy with their process and progress. Which means that I will probably continue to post sporadically until my next challenge presents itself. I am just under 3 lbs away from breaking the 200lb barrier. My reward for the first big push is to sign up for Krav Maga classes. Even though I should break the barrier this month I will probably have to wait until January or February to sign up for classes because they are $85 - $105 / month. Looking at the schedule I see that they will also require me to give up 2+ hours a week in family time, but then anything I do alone during the week nights will take me from the family.
Weird and slightly creepy Round Runner
I have long had an affinity for apocalyptic science fiction. While realistically I know that I am probably going to die in the first wave of whatever that comes along and kills off a bunch of us, I'd like to have some chance of surviving the coming shit storm if I manage to survive the big bad. Hence my hankering to pick up a martial art. I probably need to learn to shoot a gun and do some basic agriculture and chemistry. All things to look forward to in becoming a renaissance survivor.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Make it Easy
Eliminating Barriers
As of Saturday I am officially down 33.8 lbs. At this point you would think that I have it down pat, made in the shade, etc. for continued weight loss. But what worked for me at 237 doesn't necessarily work for me at 204, and what worked in the summer doesn't often work in the winter. Think about your personal barriers to moving enough every day to maintain your health and to reach your fitness goals. What are they? Here are some of the barriers that I commonly face:
Here are my solutions:
Being tired - this is okay once in a while but not on a regular basis. Suck it up and workout anyway if you have already "been tired" once this week.
Having something unusual crop up in my work schedule that makes working out in the morning difficult - this one can be hard to fade. Sometimes life happens. If I can't shift my schedule around to incorporate exercise before work I might be able to do it after work. If not, roll with it and workout the next day.
Having company - sometimes I can exercise with company present, sometimes I can't - it depends on the situation. When in doubt, exercise.
Going out of town - I relax and enjoy myself. If it's not more than a week, take the time off and have some fun.
Being sick - Relax and get well. Working out while sick is not the best use of your body's energy; getting well is.
Being injured - Work around the injury as best you can. If you must lay off exercise for an extended time period (more than a week) be extra careful of your diet to not gain weight while lame.
Not wanting to leave the house (due to bad weather or any number of issues) - find a way to workout indoors. Get home exercise equipment (treadmill, elliptical, kettle ball, weights, workout DVDs, whatever) so that bad weather doesn't become an excuse to no move.
Not being able the leave Little Runner home alone when Round Hiker is out and about - see the solution above. Being house-bound for non-illness related reasons doesn't mean that you should not exercise.
Having something better to do (like read a great book) - Taking occasional, unplanned breaks from exercise is good for you. Have at it once every few weeks or so, just not every day.
Just plain old not feeling like it - This is a major symptom that something in your workout/exercise plan is not working. You may be bored, so try changing your routine up. Or you may be over trained and need some time for your body to recuperate. A change of pace activity may help, or just taking a rest day may do the trick. If it doesn't, you may need to rethink your whole exercise plan. I have a high need for one of two kinds of exercise - novel and different, or completely mindless. Highly repetitive exercise that isn't mindless is difficult for me to sustain for more than a week or two.
As of Saturday I am officially down 33.8 lbs. At this point you would think that I have it down pat, made in the shade, etc. for continued weight loss. But what worked for me at 237 doesn't necessarily work for me at 204, and what worked in the summer doesn't often work in the winter. Think about your personal barriers to moving enough every day to maintain your health and to reach your fitness goals. What are they? Here are some of the barriers that I commonly face:
Being tired
Having something unusual crop up in my work schedule that makes working out in the morning difficult
Having company
Going out of town
Being sick
Not wanting to leave the house (due to bad weather or any number of issues)
Not being able the leave Little Runner home alone when Round Hiker is out and about
Having something better to do (like read a great book)
Just plain old not feeling like it
Here are my solutions:
Being tired - this is okay once in a while but not on a regular basis. Suck it up and workout anyway if you have already "been tired" once this week.
Having something unusual crop up in my work schedule that makes working out in the morning difficult - this one can be hard to fade. Sometimes life happens. If I can't shift my schedule around to incorporate exercise before work I might be able to do it after work. If not, roll with it and workout the next day.
Having company - sometimes I can exercise with company present, sometimes I can't - it depends on the situation. When in doubt, exercise.
Going out of town - I relax and enjoy myself. If it's not more than a week, take the time off and have some fun.
Being sick - Relax and get well. Working out while sick is not the best use of your body's energy; getting well is.
Being injured - Work around the injury as best you can. If you must lay off exercise for an extended time period (more than a week) be extra careful of your diet to not gain weight while lame.
Not wanting to leave the house (due to bad weather or any number of issues) - find a way to workout indoors. Get home exercise equipment (treadmill, elliptical, kettle ball, weights, workout DVDs, whatever) so that bad weather doesn't become an excuse to no move.
Not being able the leave Little Runner home alone when Round Hiker is out and about - see the solution above. Being house-bound for non-illness related reasons doesn't mean that you should not exercise.
Having something better to do (like read a great book) - Taking occasional, unplanned breaks from exercise is good for you. Have at it once every few weeks or so, just not every day.
Just plain old not feeling like it - This is a major symptom that something in your workout/exercise plan is not working. You may be bored, so try changing your routine up. Or you may be over trained and need some time for your body to recuperate. A change of pace activity may help, or just taking a rest day may do the trick. If it doesn't, you may need to rethink your whole exercise plan. I have a high need for one of two kinds of exercise - novel and different, or completely mindless. Highly repetitive exercise that isn't mindless is difficult for me to sustain for more than a week or two.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
The Difference Between Knowing and Doing
The Install
It was far easier than I expected. Round Hiker agreed to hang around the house until lunchtime when the condo association grounds crew could come over and help bring the machine in while I was at work. We expected 4 to show up, but only 2 could make it, so I paid them $30 a piece. We will probably have no problems getting them to help move things again in the future as long as we continue to pay well. So no tears on that part.
I took the lead on setting it up, and it wasn't that difficult, but we definitely needed two people to put it together. It takes up more space than I expected in the living room. It's a bit of a mondo piece of equipment, but I love it. It's even quieter than I expected, which is a total plus. My current goal is to do at least 6,000 steps a day on the machine, which at 2.0 MPH is about 1 h 05 min. I'm going to up my speed by .1 MPH a day until I get my 6,000 steps in a just under an hour. 55 minutes would be good.
The Doing
One of the things my sports doc told me is that icing my heel would help the pain. I've known this for 5 weeks or so and yesterday is the first time I managed to actually do it. And by crikey, it seems to work. So as I type I am resting my heel on a flexible ice-pack for 20 minutes. It's amazing what happens when you do the things you know you should be doing.
It was far easier than I expected. Round Hiker agreed to hang around the house until lunchtime when the condo association grounds crew could come over and help bring the machine in while I was at work. We expected 4 to show up, but only 2 could make it, so I paid them $30 a piece. We will probably have no problems getting them to help move things again in the future as long as we continue to pay well. So no tears on that part.
I took the lead on setting it up, and it wasn't that difficult, but we definitely needed two people to put it together. It takes up more space than I expected in the living room. It's a bit of a mondo piece of equipment, but I love it. It's even quieter than I expected, which is a total plus. My current goal is to do at least 6,000 steps a day on the machine, which at 2.0 MPH is about 1 h 05 min. I'm going to up my speed by .1 MPH a day until I get my 6,000 steps in a just under an hour. 55 minutes would be good.
The Doing
One of the things my sports doc told me is that icing my heel would help the pain. I've known this for 5 weeks or so and yesterday is the first time I managed to actually do it. And by crikey, it seems to work. So as I type I am resting my heel on a flexible ice-pack for 20 minutes. It's amazing what happens when you do the things you know you should be doing.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Obsessive
The secret of my success
Round Hiker says that the traits he doesn't like about me are the far end of a continuum of traits that he does like about me. He likes my tenacity, but he sometimes doesn't like my obsessiveness. But, as he well knows, you don't get one without the other. If I had to point to any one trait of mine that leads to the many successes I've had in life it's the tenacity--------obsession continuum that I have to credit. But there are some downsides. With obsession comes rigidity (for me). I really want to loose weight, and I found a pattern that worked, so I worked it until there was a problem. And then there was trouble! [that's a little side joke for all you parents of toddlers obsessed with Thomas The Tank Engine]
I've been running, barring injury, since about January. I'm on my second left-foot injury (which actually pre-dates the metatarsalia I had in February) and I know that to get rid of this Achilles tendonitis I'm going to have to change what I am doing for a while - perhaps a longer while than I would like. I've been doing nothing work-out wise for 3 weeks and my foot is very very slowly starting to feel better. I'm on Mobic (a prescription anti-inflammatory drug) and for the last week I've been doing my physical therapy exercises. My doc said to call her if I didn't start feeling better within 6 weeks - but she never said that I would feel completely better within 6 weeks. And she also told me to no run while my foot hurt. What to do?
Learning to be more flexible
It seems that I am being given the amazing opportunity to exercise all sorts of life skills during my quest to loose weight, get into running and hopefully avoid more cancer. I've had to put aside my tenacity during one foot injury, and now I have to do it again. But it seems that you can't do things the same way twice - this is looking to be a much longer layup that the 4 week running vacation I took in February. So, in the spirit of flexibility, I looked at everything I was doing and have made some decisions. Dum dum duuuuummmmmmm.....
The solution? A decent treadmill
After my usual obsessive research and shopping around behavior I am going to go to Costo after work tonight and buy a Freemotion XTR treadmill. I looked around a while ago on KSL.com's classifieds (a surprisingly effective free classified section run by a local tv station) and found that the vast majority of the MANY treadmills listed are fairly low-end machines. They often have less than a 2.0 CHP motor, which means that they won't last as long, aren't suited for running on, and are LOUD. In fact, my KSL shopping convinced me that a treadmill wouldn't work for me because I want one in the living room and the ones I tried out would be too noisy.
Then I saw an add (in the classifieds!) for a discount exercise equipment place. I checked out their models and they were all very acceptably quiet because they all had at least a 2.5 CHP motor, and the bigger the motor the quieter the machine. But like Goldilocks, I didn't buy there because the fit wasn't just right. The machines were at a discount because their packaging had gotten damaged in shipping which voided their warranties. Yuck. But armed with new knowledge I went to Costco and looked at what they had and decided it was a great buy and that I was willing to shell out the ducats necessary to purchase my in-home walking machine. I'll let you know how the living room re-arranging and treadmill assembly go. I expect lots of swearing to happen and maybe even some tears.
Round Hiker says that the traits he doesn't like about me are the far end of a continuum of traits that he does like about me. He likes my tenacity, but he sometimes doesn't like my obsessiveness. But, as he well knows, you don't get one without the other. If I had to point to any one trait of mine that leads to the many successes I've had in life it's the tenacity--------obsession continuum that I have to credit. But there are some downsides. With obsession comes rigidity (for me). I really want to loose weight, and I found a pattern that worked, so I worked it until there was a problem. And then there was trouble! [that's a little side joke for all you parents of toddlers obsessed with Thomas The Tank Engine]
I've been running, barring injury, since about January. I'm on my second left-foot injury (which actually pre-dates the metatarsalia I had in February) and I know that to get rid of this Achilles tendonitis I'm going to have to change what I am doing for a while - perhaps a longer while than I would like. I've been doing nothing work-out wise for 3 weeks and my foot is very very slowly starting to feel better. I'm on Mobic (a prescription anti-inflammatory drug) and for the last week I've been doing my physical therapy exercises. My doc said to call her if I didn't start feeling better within 6 weeks - but she never said that I would feel completely better within 6 weeks. And she also told me to no run while my foot hurt. What to do?
Learning to be more flexible
It seems that I am being given the amazing opportunity to exercise all sorts of life skills during my quest to loose weight, get into running and hopefully avoid more cancer. I've had to put aside my tenacity during one foot injury, and now I have to do it again. But it seems that you can't do things the same way twice - this is looking to be a much longer layup that the 4 week running vacation I took in February. So, in the spirit of flexibility, I looked at everything I was doing and have made some decisions. Dum dum duuuuummmmmmm.....
1) I want to loose weight
2) I can't run for an unknown period of time, and winter is creeping up on me
3) I loose focus and drive to exercise outside of the house in winter because it is damn cold out
4) I was planning on running out side this winter, but I wasn't particularly planning on liking it
The solution? A decent treadmill
Then I saw an add (in the classifieds!) for a discount exercise equipment place. I checked out their models and they were all very acceptably quiet because they all had at least a 2.5 CHP motor, and the bigger the motor the quieter the machine. But like Goldilocks, I didn't buy there because the fit wasn't just right. The machines were at a discount because their packaging had gotten damaged in shipping which voided their warranties. Yuck. But armed with new knowledge I went to Costco and looked at what they had and decided it was a great buy and that I was willing to shell out the ducats necessary to purchase my in-home walking machine. I'll let you know how the living room re-arranging and treadmill assembly go. I expect lots of swearing to happen and maybe even some tears.
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