Chipping away at weight loss

Ellyn Ritterskamp

I've lost two pounds since starting the food diary at My Fitness Pal. It's free, and it forces me to rein in my nighttime eating, especially. It also shows me why eating out is such a big tradeoff. I can still do it, but one meal can easily be half of that day's allotments.

I like freedom, but I also like the idea of working within a budget of calories and carbs.

At my weight, two pounds is not enough to get excited about, unless it continues with another two pounds next week.

But I'll take it! It's far better than going two pounds in the other direction, particularly when I've recorded two "bad" days out of seven.

We'll see where we are next week. For now, I'm scheduled for a three-mile run today. I'm not sure I have time for it before work, but I'll get out there and do two miles, anyway. Some is better than none.

Onward.

In which the food diary lights up like a pinball machine

Ellyn Ritterskamp

Logging my food choices/commitments has been an eye-opener. I started late last week, after my first visit with a registered dietician.

You can have Terrible Food X, but it will be half of that day's calories and fat grams and carbs, and not enough protein to be worth the tradeoff. Ugh. I am doing much better about smaller servings of Terrible Food Xs, since seeing those numbers light up like a pinball game on the web site.

The site is My Fitness Pal, free and only minimally distracting with ad support (except, like this blog, funny when the ad so doesn't match the content. But it can't be helped. We are so glad to have advertisers to keep up afloat, and I'm sure so is My Fitness Pal. So it is funny rather than tragic when there is a mismatch.).

We told it I wanted to lose a half pound a week, and how active I will be, and it said I could shoot for 2146 calories a day. This strikes me as reasonable and fair, not the capricious and mocking 1400 I expected.

Some days I have gotten home from work and faced a choice of snacks to have with my medicine before bed, and I can see now how many calories I have left, rather than just picking over the refrigerator for any and all available tidbits. It gives that meal/snack/situation purpose, rather than having it be a free-for-all while I read.

Today I learned that I probably will not be eating at noodles restaurants A and B much anymore, unless I can figure out how to supersize the delicious and inexpensive cucumber and tomato salad. Everything noodley just kills the carbs and calories. I knew that, but seeing it in print is just different.

To be fair, one of the restaurants indeed has some choices that fall in my ranges, and lucky for me, it's the one close to my house. But the other choices there are just never going to be on the list, even at a half serving.

If it were a scene in a movie, they would be bringing out the scary dunh-dunh-DUNHHHHHH music about now, to let you know something bad is coming and you are about to make the wrong choice. Like telling your friend to wait right here while you go inside the house with the suspicious noises inside. Like going out in such a movie in high heels, and then acquiescing to being chased. And catching your heel in the crack in the sidewalk as the bad person chasing you gets closer.

Oatmeal seems to still be fairly pedestrian and safe, though, so I will see about some for lunch. Even though, no matter what I do to it, it still tastes like oatmeal.

Onward.

I finished the burpee challenge

Elizabeth Templin McCamic

The 100-day burpee challenge is over. Thank goodness! It's not that I didn't enjoy this challenge, but some days it was really hard. I won't miss having to do a few sets of burpees every day, though I will continue to incorporate them - occasionally - into my regular workouts.

I intended to post about day 100 last week but was on vacation and didn't get around to logging in. I hope you'll forgive my tardiness.

Day 100 was everything I'd hope it would be: challenging, exciting, exhausting and final. I was a little sad to see day 100 come because parts of this challenge have been fun. It's nice to be working toward a goal and sharing that goal with someone (in this case, my husband).

We broke our final day into five, 20-burpee sets. I was surprised by how quickly we finished, in about 14 minutes. I still get winded after doing a few sets, and pretty sweaty, but I think that's a good measure that I'm working hard. It's the way the burpee was intended.

There were moments in the challenge when I was ready to quit. Many of those moments occurred between days 60-100. But we stuck with it.

I did miss a few days along the way, including a couple days when my wrists were hurting and I thought I needed to give myself time to recover. Despite these hiccups, I am still happy with the way things went. I don't claim to have a perfect record, but I did my best and learned how to do a pretty effective burpee.

In case anyone is interested, here are some tips for your 100-day burpee challege:

1. In the first few weeks, work on your form. Figure out how to do a good pushup. It will help later when your muscles are tired and you still have 40 burpees to go. There are tons of video demonstrations online, if you need inspiration.

2. Find a friend to do the challenge with you. It keeps you accountable on days when you don't feel like it or when you're mid-set and want to give up.

3. Consider a mini challenge if 100 days seems like too much.

4. It helped me to listen to music or do my daily burpees while watching TV. My husband doesn't require entertainment when he works out, but I like to keep my mind off of the pain.

5. Figure out a system for counting your burpees. This won't be a problem until you get into the 30s or 40s, but I found I got really frustrated when I lost track (and I'd lose track some days even when we were dividing our burpees into smaller sets). I had the most success with counting outloud, though in the end I think I did quite a few extra burpees - just in case.

Have fun! I'd love to hear about your experiences, if you decide to give it a try.

Gym membership prices change - but it's a win!

Ellyn Ritterskamp

The area YMCA organization is changing its pricing structure; now, the rate will be based on members' income. The first person to mention it to me assumed it would be mandatory, and that her family would lose out, but the email I got shows otherwise, for me and I hope for her.

Membership now will be to all 19 branches, which she needed for pool access and something else. I am fine with just the one site, but it will be nice to know the others are free now.

Members do not have to change to the new structure if it costs more. But as far as that goes, I'm winning here, too: I'd been paying $12 a month less than the single rate in exchange for only non-peak hours access, which suited me fine. I didn't go during the most crowded times like noon and from 4:30-7:30 p.m.

But now? For the same rate I was paying for that, I can get full access. My friend teaches Pilates in the mornings, and now I can get in to take her class, and all the other classes that are offered during those peak hours. Might be trying some swimming classes and who knows what else, now!

Love. It.

Stasis

Lawrence Toppman

Right leg still hurts so badly I can't sleep, let alone exercise. Treadmill still broken. Repairman has been called twice, has been spoken to once, and still hasn't set a date to visit. Self-pity levels rising ro record heights. At least I made an appointment to see a chiropractor about my lower back, which is probably causing the pain in my leg.

Lunch today: raw carrots, a peach and an apple, with almonds (six) for dessert. This is not penance, just a precaution against weight gain at a time when I'm burning zero calories by any kind of extended, vigorous activity.

Next week, I'll be on my feet and on a working piece of equipment, I hope. If not, I may start doing sit-ups on that virgin exercise mat rolled up in my den.

New shoes are more than a treat

Ellyn Ritterskamp

It's time for new walking/running shoes.

How can I tell? My left knee hurts.

A few years ago, it hurt like this, and I couldn't figure out what was wrong. Finally, I went across the street to a wonderful locally-owned running store (Run For Your Life), and they showed me how the base of the shoe had zero cushion left. I may as well have been walking on bare feet at that point, which, the whole barefoot thing is a topic for another day.

So my first purchase with next week's paycheck: new Brooks shoes. I've worn basically the same shoe for five or six years now, sometimes a mens' version if mine are sold out. But they fit, and feel wonderful, and last plenty long, so once you find that perfect match, you don't mess with it.

I spent $300 on you!

Lawrence Toppman

So I call Nordic Track about my broken treadmill. The cracked rear endcap, a two-foot piece of plastic with holes for bolts, will cost $129 to replace. (This is the law of supply and demand: They have all the supply, so they can demand whatever the ^%$#@! they want.)

I also have to spend $139 for a technician to repair it, because I may have knocked something else out of alignment while pulling the endcap off. But I can't make an appointment with one until the part arrives -- which, a week later, it hasn't.

I had to think hard about this. I could buy a cheaper treadmill for $300 above the repair cost, consigning the old one to a landfill. I could turn it into a rack on which my wife could drape drying clothes and bags of books. But if I did that, I might relapse permanently into such a steady state of inertia that an earthquake wouldn't move me six inches. And what kind of blog would this be if I stopped halfway to my weight-loss goal? A true-to-life one for most of us, but still....

So I burdened the MasterCard. In the interim, I spent $32 for a comfy-looking exercise mat that would let me do sit-ups and push-ups until the machine is fixed. Then I threw out my back so badly that I could barely walk and have spent the last two days icing myself and thinking deep thoughts from a recumbent position. (I climbed out of bed today specifically to write this blog. For you, o reader, I sacrifice money AND comfort.)

The scale still says 183.5 pounds, 11 under the starting position, despite no exercise and a few days of indulgent eating during a visit by my parents. The fates are letting me off the hook for a bit, it seems. But I hope that Nordic Track endcap arrives before my own gets bigger.