(Im)perfectly manicured

Day 7

2007-02-05T12:27:00.000-08:00

breakfast - egg whites scrambled with turkey, 2 slices canadian bacon, 1 apple

mid-morning snack - 1/4 c. Dreyer's No Sugar Added Coffee ice cream topped with chopped walnuts

lunch - tbd

snack - tbd

dinner - tbd

Morning weight: 169.5 lbs

My weight went up yesterday morning but I think that was because of all the salt in my diet on Saturday. Sausages, wings and salty pasta in one day is a bit too much - note to self.

Day 6 (Sunday)

2007-02-05T12:25:00.000-08:00

breakfast - 1/2 c. cooked oatmeal

lunch - 1/2 c. steamed broccoli, 5 pc KFC hot wings

snack - 2 morningstar soy breakfast patties, 1 banana

dinner - Dreyer's No Sugar Added Mocha Almond Fudge and Coffee ice creams (1.5 cups total) topped with chopped walnuts (about 1 oz)

Morning weight: 170.5 lbs

Day 5

2007-02-03T23:42:00.000-08:00

breakfast - 2 sausage patties (pork, full-fat), 1/4 c. scrambled egg white, 1/4 c ea. all bran & blueberries

lunch - 1 c. steamed broccoli, 5 pc KFC hot wings

snack - 2 morningstar soy breakfast patties, 4 chocolate covered espresso beans

dinner - 1 serving Bertolli sausage & rigatoni with 1 small zucchini sliced in + 1 small orange

Morning weight: 170.0

Day 4

2007-02-02T23:33:00.000-08:00

breakfast - egg white omelette with onion, bell pepper, turkey and 1/2 c. egg whites

lunch - lettuce & turkey rollups (made with 3 oz. chopped roast turkey and approx 1 c. total of caramelized onions, tomatoes and beans rolled in lettuce leaves)

snack - 2 morningstar soy breakfast patties, 1/4 c. ea. all bran and blueberries

dinner - brown rice pilaf (1/2 cup cooked brown rice stir-fried with small pieces of veggies and some spices), leftover salmon

Movie snack - 18 dk. chocolate covered espresso beans -- I got a little carried away with the dark chocolate covered espresso beans as I was watching a movie but it was definitely worth it. Enhanced the whole movie watching experience.

Morning weight: 170.0 lbs

Another Really Long Post (aka Day 3)

2007-02-02T10:22:00.000-08:00

The thing about dieting is that you are always in this keyed up mode where one misstep will send you right back to the starting line or worse, off to the bench to nurse your ignominy in silence before you are even halfway through the game. You are no longer one of the dieting elite, you are the dregs of humankind.

While this may be poetic exaggeration, dieting does create a a lot of artificial pressure and the one thing we don't need more of today is stress. It's worse than sugar and white flour combined because stress sends you scurrying for sugar and white flour thus fueling your guilt complex and adding more stress. You overindulge, feel guilty, behave, then misbehave, and the cycle continues. While this may not be true of everyone, I would imagine it's true of a large portion of the population or we wouldn't have so many diet failure stories and fad diets to begin with.

And it's probably even more true for people with pcos, insulin resitance, leptin resistance or any other kind of biological issue that makes it chemically harder to control this cycle in the first place without the stress of added guilt and the pressure to conform throwing us off our balance even more. I know it's not always that simple. Some people need structure. But for me, when structure starts to spell restriction it's a warning sign.

My dietician keeps saying, "If you have to cheat, cheat and then get back on the plan right away." It always freaks me out and I am beginning to think it was perpetuating the same vicious starve-binge cycle I was trying to break out of. But last night was different. I had planned on having pizza for dinner. I remember standing in front of the freezer. I had opened it to take out the pizza when I noticed this piece of salmon that's been sitting there for a week and suddenly thought, "Oh yum! I want salmon!" Normally, at this point, I would have reached for the pizza because the pizza is off limits, I shouldn't have the pizza, the pizza is bad for me and therefore it's cheating and therefore I should cheat so I can then get back on the plan right away. I don't think I have ever thought "yum," "want" and "salmon" in the same sentence before either.

Dieting's always an act of such great virtue. You are doing all these really great things for your body but not because you want it but because it's good and wholesome and healthy and all things noble and oh wow, don't you have willpower while you are at it too?!

Don't get me wrong. I am not trying to knock anyone who believes in dieting. For some people it works great. For some people it's right. But that's how it was for me. I always felt like I was making some huge sacrifice and being such a virtuous do-gooder. But that's not being a virtuous do-gooder. Giving up my nice cushy lifestyle to save lives in Africa? Now that would be a virtuous do-gooder act. Not picking salmon over pizza. What I realized last night was that all this time I had been so focused on how I "should" eat healthy that I had forgotten that I might actually want to eat healthy.

Not everyone's the same. In one of the 20/20 group sessions the moderator talked about different eating types. One of them was Intuitive Eater. Intuitive eaters don't follow any eating rules, generally eating treats when they want them but studies show that overall they eat just as nutritiously as those following eating plans and actually have lower body mass indexes and better cholesterol levels than women who watch what they eat. I think, last night, for the first time, I became an intuitive eater. I listened to my body and brain instead of food cravings. I didn't have the impulse to cheat so I could get back on the plan because there was no plan to get back on. There were no off limit foods. Nothing to throw away. That pizza wasn't going anywhere. I had the salmon.

Still no exercise. My knee is not just hurting, it's so sensitive that even pulling on my pjs makes me yelp. The area to the left is tender, soft to the touch and tingles when I brush my fingers lightly across it. And it's not a pleasant tingle. I am planning to do a high intensity session of upper body strength training and core moves today to make up for the missed cardio and lower body work. Next week, I start physical therapy.

On another front some good news. My morning weight was down another 1/2 lb. I don't know if there is any significance to it yet so I will keep monitoring for a few more weeks before I draw any conclusions. I am not doing this to speed up my weight loss so much as to find a reasonable, sustainable, balanced way of living that doesn't require me to be constantly tied to a scale and calories and frees me up to enjoy life more.

Day 3:

breakfast - scrambled egg whites with canadian bacon; all bran, blueberries and 4 oz skim milk

lunch - turkey-lettuce rollups (turkey, onion, tomato, chickpeas, a little cilantro and low-fat mayo rolled in lettuce); 4 dark chocolate covered espresso beans

snack - 2 morningstar soy patties, 1 small apple

dinner - 1/2 c brown rice, cut up mixed vegetables, salmon; 1 oz tiramisu (leftover) + 1/2 glass skim milk

Morning weight: 170

Day 2

2007-01-31T17:26:00.000-08:00

Yesterday when I went to Whole Foods to get some tiramisu I also picked up a couple of Fontera pizzas that were on sale. Incidentally, while I am balancing my diet maybe I should also try balancing my checkbook. Last night I walked out with 2 frozen pizzas, a carton of milk and a single slice of tiramisu for $27, and that was with the pizzas being on sale. At least it wasn't like the time I bought 2 lamb chops, a small onion and a candle and they handed me a bill for $50. Now that was a surprise.

This morning I woke up and thought, "mmm.. pizza." Now that I am officially on a "diet vacation" where I can eat anything I want it's actually kind of fun to do the exact opposite and not eat anything I want. I have a good feeling about this. (And a bad feeling about myself. What does it say about me if I am constantly rebelling even against myself?)

I sat for a while with a small pen and paper. Since starting the program, actually, since starting dieting at 100-something lbs some 6-7 years ago, I think this is the first time I have thought about food with any kind of pleasure. It's fun the way planning workouts for the week is fun. There are a lot of things I want to do and I know I can't do them all this week and I should get at least two days of strength training and some cardio in no matter what so figuring out what I am actually going to do is a bit like solving a very interesting puzzle. If all I had to do were power drills that I hated - kind of like the protein shakes - then it would take the fun right out of it.

I can't believe how easy it was to draw up a plan involving egg whites and bran flakes, spinach, tomatoes & chickpeas and lean turkey and lettuce with one slice of pizza thrown in to keep things interesting. Planning the 20/20 meals, even during the honeymoon phase of the first few weeks, was never fun.

But then, food hasn't been fun in a really long time. Sure, I believe we should eat to live and not the other way around but life is too short to not take pleasure in the things you do. Ironically, this used to be my philosophy. Up until a few years ago. Somewhere over the last few years as I got busy trying to adapt my carefree spirit to a staid world and mimic the grown up sophistication that I felt I should aspire to I lost a lot of what used to make me, me. I don't care for rules and truth is, I have never really cared much for manicures either.

In the end, I did not exactly follow the menu I had drawn up this morning but it turned out okay.

Day 2:

8 am - 1/4 c scrambled liquid egg whites, 2 slices canadian bacon, 1/4 c blueberries, 1/4 c all bran, 4 oz skim milk

1 pm - 1 c steamed broccoli, 5 KFC hot wings

4 pm - 2 oz tiramisu + 1/2 cup skim milk (4 oz)

7 pm - turkey-lettuce salad, small apple or pear (planned)

Since I already had wings today I am keeping the pizza for tomorrow. I don't feel the pressure to have it so I can finish it and get back on a diet because there's no diet to get back to. Oh, and when I stepped on the scale this morning, it read 170.5 lbs. I know it's too early to tell if this is working but considering I have been at 171 lbs for weeks now I would say that's not a bad sign. Worst case scenario, I will find out that it isn't my new way of eating so much as changing up the routine that is working but at least, I will be smarter than I was before.

Morning weight: 170.5

Day 1

2007-01-30T20:39:00.000-08:00

I am pretty happy with today. Here's how today went...

Day 1:

7 am - 1/2 c blueberries, 1/2 c all bran, 6 oz skim milk

1 pm - 1 c steamed broccoli, 5 KFC hot wings

7 pm - chicken and veggie stir-fry (3 oz chicken, 1 c mixed veggies, 1 T teriyaki sauce)

8 pm - 2 oz tiramisu (yes, I did weigh it - some of the 20/20 lessons stuck!) and 4 oz. skim milk

The KFC hot wings weren't the most nutritious choice but I did get my 5 fruits and veggies. And the tiramisu was yummy if a little too sweet, I didn't overindulge and I remembered to balance it out with milk. So, yay me! I need to be careful about going too long between meals though as I got really hungry just before lunch and then again at 6 pm. Other than that, I think I did good. Sadly, no exercise today as I am nursing a knee injury back to health. It hurts so much to walk right now that anything strenuous is out of the question but I really hate missing my workouts. So we'll see. Maybe I will go for a light swim tomorrow. Like Jessica said on her blog I too feel silly swimming at 1 mph when everyone else is ripping through the water. But they probably don't even notice.

Morning weight (start weight): 171.0

100 Day Project Stats and Guidelines

2007-01-30T13:45:00.000-08:00

Over the Christmas week I went to Paris, didn’t calorie count, ate anything I wanted and lost 2 lbs. I tried to practice moderation and balance my meals. E.g. A piece of fruit with the piece of cheese, a salad sans dressing with a piece of chicken floating in a delicious, creamy sauce, skim milk with a slice of tiramisu. But other than that, I didn’t restrict myself.

I didn’t workout either although I did walk just about everywhere averaging over 10,000 steps a day. That might have helped a bit particularly since it was so cold. I read somewhere that working out in the cold you burn more calories as your body has to work extra hard to warm you up. But I wasn’t expecting to lose weight. All I was hoping for was that I averted a huge gain. And then I stepped on the scale and found I had lost 2.8 lbs, my biggest 1 week loss to date. Granted some of it was water loss since I had just come off a long flight but the rest was real weightloss and it didn’t come right back the next day. In the end, I was still down 2 lbs at the end of that week.

Then I went back on my 20/20 diet and I have been stalled ever since. I was stalled for several weeks just before I went to Paris too. This, more than anything, is what led me to wonder if the diet is working as well for me as it does for some others. I’s not all the program’s fault. I am not good with rules. I don’t like being told what I can or cannot do. When faced with restrictions I either become apathetic or rebellious and that has been happening. I have gone offplan a few times and at other times struggled to even get to my 1200 calorie requirement out of boredom. But that still doesn’t explain why I can lose weight eating all I want in Paris but not when I practically kill myself over a diet here.

So, this - this question - forms the basis of my 100 Day Project. I have read up more on the effect of insulin on people with pcos since being diagnosed last year and I have found that food pairing more than the type of food seems to have an effect on blood sugar. My goal over the next 100 days is to find balance - that elusive balance I had in Paris when I was taking in the sights and enjoying life instead of obsessively watching every morsel that passes my plate or working out to the point of blowing my knee out. Who knows, maybe loosening up and more general awareness is the missing ingredient to my success.

Project stats:
Start date: today January 30, 2007 *
Start weight: 171 lbs
End date: Wednesday May 9, 2007
End (goal) weight: 130-140 lbs
Current red light number: 172 lbs (the weight I absolutely cannot and will not go over again)

Guidelines:
1. Meal track daily.
2. Eat everything in moderation (try to make more healthy choices).
3. Find balance.
4. Stay active.
5. Have fun.

* At first I was going to start tomorrow but then I thought, why not today? What better time than the present? And since my general theme is everything in moderation I can get started right away. So, today it is.

Phase 1 Wrap Up & The 100 Day Project

2007-01-30T09:30:00.000-08:00

Wow, I have been gone a long time. It wasn't until I logged on and looked at the date on the last post that it hit me. But I did stick to the program, for the most part anyway. And now it is end of Phase 1 and on to Phase 2, the maintenance.

So far I have lost 18 lbs which is both a good and a bad thing. On the one hand, it's still 18 lbs. On the other, it's only 18 lbs. That, in a nutshell, sums up my attitude about the program, the diet and my lifestyle in general at the moment.

It's good but is it good enough? In the case of diet the answer is most resoundingly a no. Over the weeks my dietician added a lot more dairy, fruit and grains and my cravings came back with a vengeance. I wanted to go back to a more structured regimen but I was discouraged and I wanted to give the program the benefit of the doubt by sticking to it as closely as possible. Sadly, for people with PCOS and insulin resistance I don't think the diet works as well because it fails to take into account that our reaction to certain foods is much stronger than that of people with poor nutrition habits but otherwise generally normal metabolism. The other reason I am convinced the program does not work as well for everyone is because I recently came across someone else with the same medical conditions as me who only lost 17 lbs overall. Since I would prefer not to become yet another failed statistic it's up to me now to tweak the program and make it work.

So, that's really the reason I am back. I have a lot of things going on as always and I need a mode of accountability that is fairly easy and accessible. Blogging is it. My plan is to start on what I have affectionately named "The 100 Day Project." This has the dual advantage of being a nice round number that makes me smile and ending just 1 week before my birthday thereby giving me ample time to cook up a proper celebration. More on that in the next post.

I am happy with what I have learned in 20/20. I am swimming regularly now, I can do a whole hour on the elliptical whereas I could barely hold my own for 20 minutes in the beginning and I know more about nutrition than I ever did before. My sugar is also down quite a lot (I was right on the borderline of diabetes with 125 when I started) and I have an increased awareness of what constitutes a healthy lifestyle. So, on the whole the program was definitely a success even if the results bring up mixed emotions. But I couldn't be happier that I am working out and planning meals more on my own now. This is the fun part. And I get to do it for the rest of my life!

Epiphany

2006-10-23T20:00:00.000-07:00

I survived 3 days with family and my first day back at work and only escaped with minor scathes to my ego, a .7 lb gain and 1 giant pimple. Seriously, what is going on with my face? It's not flawless but it doesn't usually look like that of a hormonal teenager's either. Now, every time I blink I see it. I see it even when I close my eyes. I see it in my imagination! Okay, so it's not really that bad but it sure does feel like I am carrying mount rushmore around on my cheek. This is not how adult skin is supposed to behave.

Other than the horror and stigma of being a grown woman with a zit my weekend wasn't a complete wash thankfully but it wasn't as good as it could have been. For one thing, I found out on reaching Chicago that the surprise birthday party was actually at a restaurant and the menu had already been set. If I had known before I could have planned better or if it had been at home I could have had something else. Instead, I was pretty much at the mercy of the delicious but greasy choices at the buffet followed by the sugary treats. I was able to restrain myself to only about a third of a slice of the birthday cake and vegetables and chicken and then on Saturday and Sunday I stuck to the snacks and shakes for the most part which was good. Main meals were harder as I was staying with my aunt and food was paninis from Panera or sweets from the Indian market. Yikes! Scary to think that I used to eat like that every time I went home. Scarier still that I didn't really start gaining weight until the PCOS.

Seeing my cousins and relatives again was great though. We stayed up until 3:30 pm on Friday just talking. And then on Saturday we got back from dinner and spent hours watching old movie clips and talking and laughing. It was nice to get all the hugs and to have people look at me like I just waltzed down from the sky. When you are overweight and your self esteem has started to take a hit from other people's and sometimes even your own neglect of yourself some days it is easy to forget that you are worth being loved.

I deliberately don't talk too much about my relationships here a) because it's private and b) because I post under my own name. But let's just say there's this guy I had kind of started to like over the last few weeks. Normally, before, he would have been very interested but this time he kind of blew me off. And I don't know what's worse - knowing why he did what he did or knowing that if things change, that if I catch his eye again after I have lost the weight, I won't be able to see him the same way.

But the thing about a weekend with family is that even when they make you feel bad, make the occasional jokes at your expense, ignore your nutritional requests, give you a giant zit and make you gain .7 lbs, you know that at the end of the day they still love you, they still think you are pretty special and will always be there for you. And you realize you are not willing to settle for anything less from anyone else. As weekends go I can't think of a better one.

As for the rest, as Scarlett said, tomorrow is another day.

Breakthroughs

2006-10-18T16:54:00.000-07:00

All last week I have been struggling on the weight machines. I still love them as much as always but it was hard getting through the set of 20. Heck, it was hard completing 10 sometimes. It was easily my hardest week so far. And then, yesterday, I ran through machine after machine - Leg Extension, Leg Curl, Double Leg Press, Row, Lat Pulldown, Chest Press, Overhead Press, Seated Crunch, Back Extension - at higher weights and they felt light as feather. Go figure!

Okay, so light as feather may be a bit of an exaggeration but it took me about half time to do 20 reps on each machine at higher weights than all last week.

I think I also broke through some kind of personal cardio threshhold. Typically my heartrate jumps up to 150-160 pretty quickly but both last night and then this morning, my heart rate stayed much lower even though I was working out at the same intensity as before. I also felt a lot less tired. This morning I did 50 minutes on level 6-7 and my heart rate stayed at around 145. Even when I pushed really hard it didn't go over 170. When I first started the HRM would read 170 within minutes and that was only at level 4. It's pretty cool.

Now if I can only muster up the same amount of enthusiasm for the diet part. I am flying out in a little over 24 hrs and I still haven't given much thought to what to do foodwise during the trip.

I did come to a rather startling realization though which could qualify as a breakthrough of another sort. I have always had body image issues, even at my lowest adult weight of 98 when I was probably too thin to be serious, and somewhere inside my warped commercial-driven, unrealistic standards of beauty-addled brain I have always held 99-100 as the magical number where I would feel "comfortable" with my weight. Looking over the program documents last night I came across the number for my lean body mass: 108 lbs. Which means if I were to go down to something like 100, not only would I have 0% body fat - probably not healthy - but have to lose muscle definition.

I think this is the first time since starting the program 5 weeks ago that I looked at the ideal weight range of 130-140 and felt that I might be okay with that.

A NEAT Concept

2006-10-17T16:57:00.000-07:00

I have either reached a new low or a new high point in my life. I can't decide which. I just spent two hours last night playing a recording of a KBTC showing of a John Fogarty concert and dancing around to it in my living room.

In the 20/20 intro seminar they talked a lot about something called NEAT or Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. It's the amount of energy you burn throughout the day on top of your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate - or the amount of calories you burn in a day simply by being) that does not come from exercise. i.e. if you spend 7 hours sleeping a day and 1 hour working out, NEAT is the extra energy you burn in the other sixteen hours going about your day on top of what you would have burned if you had just, say, slept through those sixteen hours. This covers everything from showering to shampooing the dog to fidgeting while you are at the supermarket checkout line, which I tend to do an awful lot of thanks to my impatient nature. But I digress. That's not the point. The point is that a Mayo Clinic research conducted by a Dr. Levine showed that the difference in metabolism between an active and a sedentary person comes not so much from exercise or Activity Thermogenesis as from NEAT or Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis.

Let's take the example of two people. Say they both weigh 150 lbs and exercise 3 times a week for an hour each. However, person A normally goes through the drive thru at the pharmacy, parks near the grocery store or the office entrance and spends a lot of time on the couch upon returning home from work (or a person like me in other words) while person B walks briskly up to the pharmacist, parks further away and spends an hour tidying up the house and sorting mail on returning home from work. According to the same study, person B will have a higher metabolism overall because although both persons are burning the same amount of calories through sleeping and exercising, person B has a higher NEAT. And because our bodies have a memory for these kind of things, even if person B slows down for a day or two his or her body will continue to burn more calories than that of person A.

The really neat thing about NEAT (pardon the pun) is that you can reprogram your body to have higher metabolism by cultivating a more active day to day lifestyle. And the neater thing still is that it doesn't mean that you have to start coaching your son's or niece's little league baseball team anytime soon for this to happen. A person's NEAT can be increased by simply standing up when you would normally seat (at the computer for example), walking when you would normally stand, pacing when you talk on the phone, dancing around in your living room or even fidgeting at the bus stop. It's all these little motions in addition to your normal routine that add up over the 16 hours x 60 minutes x 60 second of your day to make a significant difference in your metabolism. Do the math. Even if you raise your metabolism by .02 calories/second we are talking 16 x 60 x 60 = 57600 x .02 = 1152 calories/day. Okay, so 57600 is a lot of seconds to fidget without a stop but if you do it even a third of the time, you have still burned an additional 384 calories in a day.

So, I am not sure exactly how many calories I burned in that 2 hours last night but I know I raised my NEAT. And that's pretty neat come to think of it.

Talking of neat things, I also got to go shopping yesterday after work and picked up some more rewards.

From left to right, clockwise starting with the lip balm. Vanilla honey lip balm, Pro Club pink breast cancer awareness water bottle, pink index cards for jotting down exercises, black 4x7 6-ring binder for logging workouts and a reward that wasn't on my list originally - Revlon Super Lustrous lipgloss in Pearl Plum. The lip balm was for completing a rather challenging 2nd week after a disappointing first, the water bottle for fitting in an hour of cardio in a very busy day, the index cards & the exercise log book for sticking to my 5 days/week minimum exercise goal and the lip gloss for making it through "LemonCakeGate" and onto my 5th week.

Week 4 Results & My First Indoor Cycling Class

2006-10-15T22:32:00.000-07:00

If it is true that habits take 28 days to make then I should be well on my way to making some. This week marks my 28 days in the 20/20 program. 28 days of getting up in the morning to pack lunch and snacks, 28 days of working out almost every day, 28 days without chocolate, cheesecake or ice cream, 28 days of meal tracking and 28 days of getting up every Saturday at 6 am in the morning to join the early morning stragglers outside the gym door.

The first couple of weeks was actually quite easy. I was excited to go to gym at the crack of dawn. But not this last week. I woke up at 6 am to what looked like a dark and rainy night outside and all I wanted to do was go back to sleep. But instead I got up, put on my workout clothes, my shoes, my heart rate monitor, filled my water bottle and drove to Pro Club cutting through the flimsy strands of fog swirling under the yellow traffic lights. Afterwards, I felt pretty good. Not so much for having worked out as for having got up when I didn't want to. I am sure my challenges aren't over yet but for now that feels like a victory.

At the dietician's this week I also had a taste of another victory. I lost 2.4 lbs bringing my total weight loss to date to 7.0 lbs. After last week I really wasn't expecting much so I was pretty much through the roof.

If this week was a celebration of perseverence, it was also a week of firsts in many ways. This is the first week since starting the program that I saw pretty impressive results (for me anyway), without outside influences - that is, I wasn't sick or dehydrated or skipping meals, - my clothes are defintely fitting better, and I attended my first ever indoor cycling class. I actually left work to go attend the class at noon, came back, worked until 6 pm and then went back to the gym for my Pilates session as my instructor is on vacation next week and can't do Monday. I honestly don't remember the last time I changed into my gym clothes twice in one day, not even when I was active.

Workouts

Sun - Morning walk - 1 mile (2554 steps with step counter)
Mon - 1 hr Pilates with instructor
Tue - 40 min bike + weight machines (upper body)
Wed - 39 min cardio circuit (bike, elliptical, outdoor walk)
Thu - 40 min bike + weight machines (upper/lower body)
Fri - 1 hr Indoor Cycling class + 1 hr Pilates with instructor
Sat - 22 min cardio + weight machines (lower body) + core

The Indoor Cycling class on Friday was brutal. The next morning I couldn't even shift my foot 2 inches from accelerator to brake without wincing in pain. My heart rate during warm up was easily high and my legs felt both solid as steel and limp as noodle at the same time which was weird. Jacque didn't ease up on me on the weight machines still. Thank goodness for trainers. If I was working out on my own I may have slacked off. Which I did on the cardio. We typically do about 15-20 minutes to warm up and then I do another 20-25 minutes on the video bike on my own afterwards to make sure I get at least 40 minutes in. Yesterday I could only do 9 min warmup and another 11 minutes on the video bike before I was beat. I was done. Couldn't do a second more. And yet, I can't wait for my next indoor cycling class! Wonder what that says about me. Maybe I am some kind of a closet masochist. Just never knew it before! Jacque came to the cycling class with me for support and she was laughing. I was literally gasping, unable to get a word out, and every time she asked me how I was doing I yelled, "I LOVE IT!"

Next Week

Julie's back. I really missed not being able to talk to her last week. She laughed when I told her that I specifically drove out to Whole Foods at 11 in the night to buy lemon cake. Granted it was a mini piece and I only had half before throwing the rest away but still. But she said not to worry about it. That it was important to stick to the guidelines but if I did slip what was more important was that I stop myself from going too far and got back on track as soon as possible, which I did.

This week the addition is cheese. I can have caesar salads now. Minus the croutons of course. And cottage cheese with fruit or string cheese for snacks. This should make the weekend easier. I am going to be in Chicago Fri - Sun for my uncle's birthday. Since I am going to miss the dietician appointment Julie went over the following week's changes as well. I can have additional fruits like apples and pears after Thursday which means more options which means greater flexibility while I am away from home 3 days. I just have to figure out how to turn down chocolate cake without upsetting my aunt.

Week 3 Results & More Psychobabble

2006-10-11T11:50:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my last post, when I went to weigh myself last Friday I found that I had gained .2 lbs. Since my dietician was away at a conference and I didn't get a session with her last week I couldn't be sure if this was because I was sick the week before which typically makes me temporarily lose weight or if I was doing something wrong diet-wise.

And then on Saturday, I crashed down on my knee during a running step off attempt on the treadmill at 3.7 mph, gave myself a real beauty of a bruise and on Monday I found out that I have some nerve damage on my feet from the high blood sugar, a torn meniscus on my right knee (probably a leftover from my knee injury four years ago) and some arch problems for which I would need custom orthotics and new running shoes before I can attempt any sprints again in the near future. I think I have officially broken the "bad news comes in threes" myth. Even when I am underachieving, I am an overachiever!

For all the reasons above, and the fact that I am struggling with the amount of planning & cooking involved, I have been having a hard time staying focused on the positives this week. That is until this morning when I woke up, put on my size L previously-too-snug tunic top and realized that it was actually a bit loose. Not swimming loose. Not, "Look ma, I am a size 4 again!" loose. Not even remotely "Ready to buy size mediums" loose. But loose nevertheless.

Somedays you win the war. Somedays you gain an inch on the battlefield. I am learning that victories come in all shapes and sizes. I had my second meeting with Stacy, my 20/20 counselor, yesterday. Something she said stayed with me even after I left the meeting. I was expressing my frustration with the slow weightloss and she said, "But the important thing is that you are losing weight. Once you have lost all the weight it won't matter whether you did it in 3 months or 3 years." Once you have lost all the weight it won't matter whether you did it in 3 months or 3 years. One simple statement, one profound truth. I have to keep remembering that.

On the progress front - workouts are still going great, I have my final sleep evaluation tonight and I went for my Podiatry consultation yesterday and will be getting the custom orthotics next week.

I did have a moment of anger/frustrtation/weakness on Monday during which I had a 1/2 of a 3.5 oz slice of lemon cake and 1 Lindt truffle. I am not sure what the rationale was behind consoling myself with sugar (or was I rebelling?) on learning that I have nerve damage on my feet from high blood sugar but there it is. But it's done and over with and this is the first time I stopped at 1 Lindt truffle so that's progress. In fact, it is a testament to my tremendous willpower because seriously, who stops at only 1 piece of chocolate?

Next on the list - first indoor cycling class and a visit to the knee doctor.

Workouts

Sun - 40 min stationary bike + walk to Bellevue square mall & back (16 blocks)
Mon - 1 hr Pilates with instructor
Tue - 60 min cardio circuit (elliptical, bike, treadmill)
Wed - 65 min cardio circuit (elliptical, treadmill)
Thu - 40 min cardio + weight machines (upper/lower body)
Fri - Rest
Sat - 40 min cardio + weight machines (lower body) + core

This week so far:

Sun - Morning walk - 1 mile (2554 steps with step counter)
Mon - 1 hr Pilates with instructor
Tue - 40 min bike + weight machines (upper body)

Week 4:

Same as last week. Julie was out so I didn't get any diet modifications this week.

Aches & Pains

2006-10-06T15:15:00.000-07:00

I did finally get something to eat yesterday. At 4 pm. I don't know if it was because of this or because I have been running low on sleep and calories all week but I really felt yesterday's workout. All this time I was thinking, "This isn't so hard." I mean, the losing weight part, yes. But not the exercise part. I can typically do a 40 minute cardio and then run through the weight machines pretty hard for another 30 minutes and feel next to nothing. Not so yesterday. I was supposed to do 2 sets of 15 reps each. Halfway through my first set of leg extensions I was about done. The weights were higher. I have gone up 10-40 lbs on each of the machines since starting, but still. And I can still feel it today. In my arms, my back, my shoulders & legs. Reaching up to get a can from the top shelf or twisting around to tie the seat-belt. My muscles feel like lead.

It takes me back in time. To 9th grade to be exact. There were 6 or 7 of us, including one of my best friends. We were representing our school in a national championship. We still had to finish the coursework and take any final exams but other than that we were excused from all our afternoon classes for the next 6 weeks. Every day at noon we would file out in front of the envious glances of our classmates and pile into the training bus. Little did they know how little they had to be jealous of.

Little did we know!

We had to run lap after lap around the stadium. Then we would do drill. Then march. Then squats, then lunges, then jumps, then flips. Then more drill. Synchronization. March. More jumps & flips. The training went from noon to 6-7 pm in the evening. Sometimes we would go longer and it would be starting to get dark. My mom used to have to regularly shake me awake at dinner. I think I even fell asleep in a bowl of pea soup once.

I ached talking, walking, sleeping, beathing. I honestly have never known sore muscles like that except for one other time. The first time I went running.

This was some time after I had started working. My life had become increasingly sedentary and I didn't like going to the gym very much. But I was no longer lugging around a T-square and a drawing board all day, walking home 16 miles each weekend or playing tennis or swimming until dusk. I needed something to stay fit and since I was travelling all the time I needed something portable. So, one fine day in Chicago, after work, I went back to my hotel, put on my brand new running shoes and went for my first ever run. Holy cow! I still remember it. Everything hurt. I hurt in places I didn't know I had places.

That's how I feel today. And I love it!

I am sure anyone reading this post is wondering why, if I love it so much, did I ever stop. I busted my knee 4 years ago. For six months I could barely walk. It was another six months before I could even take the stairs and slowly at that. But afterwards? Yes, I could have started running then. I should have. But I had gained weight and I was embarrassed by it. I wanted to lose it first. Some logic. If I had just gone back to being active maybe I would have halted the weight gain at that point. Instead, the weight crept up, I grew increasingly more demoralized and slowly stopped even the little exercise I was doing.

According to the scale in 20/20 lounge this morning Ihave gained .2 lbs this week. I know there're some possible reasons behind this. I was sick last week which would made the weight lower. PCOS is a factor. And then there's the fact that I haven't ate or slept much this week which probably didn't help either. I should be happy I didn't gain more. But tell that to my brain. I could feel the disappointment etched in my every facial muscle as I walked out of the center.

The aches I can get over but the pain of disappointment? That's harder.

I am not giving up yet. Jacque sent me an email today asking if I wanted to do the Oct 28th 5k. I doubt I can finish one now but I want to run so badly and remember how it feels. I told her yes. Just for fun.

When I left home my mom still had the national championship outfit. It was a white tee with a tigger picture on it and some lettering (or something like that) and a pair of orange shorts. I doubt I will ever fit into them again. I was 106 lbs then. Size 0. But I think I will ask her to send them to me if she still has them. When I was very young I had rheumatic fever. I was bedridden for months. My legs had atrophied to the point f being stick thin. My bones were brittle. Doctors didn't think I would live, let alone run some day. I did it once. I can do it again.

Oh, The Irony

2006-10-05T15:11:00.000-07:00

And just when I was ready to start celebrating too. All I have had since waking up at 6 am this morning is a 20/20 breakfast shake. There goes my next reward.

Seriously, sometimes I don't need to go too far to look for saboteurs. I am it. I have the usual excuses, of course. Work, meetings, emails to send out. But if other people in my office get time to eat that doesn't really work very well, does it? So, what is it? All this week I have been struggling with food. Why? What's going on in my head? Sometimes I wonder if the weight isn't comfortable. Maybe a psychological crutch, a security blanket, that I cling to for whatever reasons.

Or maybe I am just overanalyzing and truth of the matter is I need to stop guessing and go get some food. The hunger is making me have crazy thoughts.

I wonder if rewarding myself for eating for a change would not be a little too ironic.

More On Rewards

2006-10-04T23:02:00.000-07:00

I wish I could write in detail about all my workouts. I can't believe how much I like them. At the end of every workout, no matter how hard it was, no matter how long it was, I feel like it was over too soon. Yesterday I went to the gym 10 minutes early so I could get in a few more minutes of cardio before my trainer showed up. When I first started my legs were aching after 5 minutes. Yesterday, even at the end of 20 minutes I felt like they were light as feather. It is amazing what a difference only two weeks can make. I managed a total 1 hour of cardio and also learned some new core exercises on the balance ball. As I was leaving I still felt like I could have gone back in for another hr and a half.

Somewhere inside this sedentary pile of loose clothes is a spandex clad exercise nut waiting to burst forth.

It actually gave me an idea for another reward: Index cards. Yes, index cards. More specifically, pink index cards to write down the exercises I am learning so I can do them later. (Do they even make pink ones? I hope so).

On the drive home sipping my cold 20/20 shake (I almost don't hate it anymore) I came up with some guidelines.

#1 - The reward has to be something I will use but wasn't already going to buy.

#2 - It can't be food or even, and this is tempting for me right now, exercise. It has to be something tangible that I can touch or see, like the lip balm, so that every time I use it I am reminded how I earned it.

#3 - It doesn't have to cost a lot.

There is a rationale behind these guidelines. In the past when I have thought about rewards in the context of weightloss or fitness I always set the bar ridiculously high and the reward, proportionately extravagant. I was going to lose 40 lbs, run a half marathon and celebrate by going to Paris. And when it wasn't that, it was food. "Lose 5 lbs, get an ice cream." Only, I think we all know I didn't exactly stop at 1 ice cream and often spent the next few weeks recovering from the ravages of my so-called reward.

So, this time I want to consciously take advantage of my strengths. I like competition for the pure joy of competing. I don't need someone to compete against. All I need is a challenge to overcome, a test of my strengths. Putting manageable short-term goals out there and dangling tangible rewards at the end work for me at that level. I have a greater chance of succeeding with this approach than if I keep focusing too far into the future. It's good to reach for the sky as long as you realize you have to build a rocket first.

After I got home I sat down with pen and paper and revised and refined and fine tuned my list of rewards. I think I have got something pretty workable for now.

Lip Balm

I still don't have a picture of this but it's the one I bought this weekend to celebrate getting through last week.

Water bottle

The pink breast cancer awareness water bottle. I saw this in the Pro Club magazine and have been wanting it ever since. Jacque (that's my trainer) said we would focus on working the muscles hard Thursday which meant no cardio other than the video bike, which in turn meant getting my cardio in another day. I typically don't workout on Wednesdays because it's a long day starting with an early morning status meeting at 7 and ending with support group and mid-week grocery shopping at around 9 in the evening. By the time I get home and have prepared dinner I am wiped. After working out Tuesday I stopped by Pro Shop and spotted the bottles. I had one in my hand, was reaching into my purse for my credit card with the other when I decided no. I could have the bottle but only if I exercise tomorrow. I didn't know how I was going to fit it in but that's what made it a challenge.

I will post a picture of the new water bottle after I change the batteries in my digital camera. .. Yes, I got it. I worked out during lunch and not only that but beat my goal of 40 minutes by doing a full 65 minutes of cardio. I keep looking over at it. It's pure validation.

Exercise log book

A book to record all my workouts - reps, weights, time, type etc. I am not sure if there are such books in the market. If not, I will probably just buy a small notebook and partition out the pages for different types of workouts.

I don't think I have quite explained my goals yet. There are some in my Goals post but most of them are long-term. I deliberately haven't set any short-term goals. There will be challenges every day, some new, some old. Part of being able to do this for life will involve being able to deal with situations I can't control, events I can't plan for. In Microsoft terms this will be what we call "dealing with ambiguity." If I can't do that I will fail. So, for this and most of the smaller rewards that follows, I am not setting any specific goals. My overarching goal will be to stick to the plan, stay motivated and keep doing my best. On a weekly basis, I will evaluate situations as they come and decide if it warrants a reward or not.

Pink index cards

Standard 3x5 or 4x6 index cards - but in pink - to write down exercises, like the balance ball ones this week and the Pilates leg circles I learned Monday that I would like to remember how to do on my own.

Lululemon yoga pants

Like these below in a size 4 or 6 preferably which means this would probably be more of a long-term reward.

Pilates lessons

Pilates private lessons. I am already doing this so it's less of earning and more of justifying. I will be in Chicago for 3 days soon surrounded by family who I know would push things I shouldn't eat. My aunt's idea of affection the last time we got together was to try to ply me with alcohol. (Still a bit of confused about that one actually. Did she have a wager with someone to produce a drunk niece? Who knows.) If I can go three days without going "offplan" (or going mad) I think I would have earned at least 2 classes!

New hairstyle

This is not so much something I want as possibly something I need. I am kind of stuck in a hair/beauty rut. Still iffy about this so we'll see.

New perfume

Something heady and exotic.

Manicure

Vixen red or French, I can't decide. But does it really matter as long as it's a manicure?

Paul & Joe powder brush

A big fluffy brush for my loose powder.

Gucci bag

I even have the bag picked out. How about that?

New shoes

Because Carrie was my shoe alter-ego. What more can I say. And because over the last few years I have neglected my appearance and wardrobe and I feel it's due. I need new shoes.

Trip to Rome

Last but not the least, Rome.
Rome evokes in me visions of romance and transports me to another time in history when the golden age of renaissance was unfolding through Europe bringing with it a new awakening and a new consciousness. I want to visit the Colosseum, look up at the big domes of Pantheon, sit quietly in the Sistine Chapel, enjoy the sunshine in the Baroque Squares, roam the gardens of the Villa Borghese, dip my hand in the Fontana di Trevi... I want to soak in the history, the culture and the sunshine. Go to the museaums and the main library and drink coffee by the roadside. Get lost in Roman splendor and discover the poetry in its rubble, away from the cadence and cacophony of everyday life. Bike through the Italian countryside and go for a dip in the ocean. And then stop into a spa for a luxurious rub down at the end of the day and finish my trip by window shopping the coveted designer labels lining the street of Via Condotti.

But the bag, shoes and the trip to Rome will have to wait. Not sure for what yet. Probably until I reach my goal weight, run a 5k or both or more. But it's motivation to keep keep working at it until I get there.

Daydreaming, Blogging & Pilates

2006-10-03T10:18:00.000-07:00

What I should be doing is getting tickets for my upcoming trip to Chicago for my uncle's 60th birthday. What I am doing is sitting around daydreaming about what I will look like, feel like, at the end of this and how many "rewards" I can "earn" in the process. Nothing like the prospect of guilt-free shopping to send a girl into tizzying daydreams. (The girl in question being me that is. I am sure there are plenty of women stoically indifferent to the allures of shopping.)

I feel like a kid again, bursting with enthusiasm at the thought of Christmas.

But what exactly is a reward? Is it a reward if I was going to do it anyway? Like replacing my old gym shoes. How is that an incentive for anything if I know that I am getting a new pair of x-trainers no matter what? It may work for some but knowing me I am just going to run out and buy the shoes and forget all about the earning part. For me a reward has to be something exciting, something I want badly enough but wouldn't normally get or do. Which is really where the daydreaming part comes in. It's like a license for my imagination to run wild and free through the field of possibilities. But my imagination being what it is needs reigning in from time to time. Like now.

Here's what I have come up with so far:

- A new perfume
- Voice microrecorder
- Chanel No. 5 body lotion
- A new hairstyle (maybe, I am not sure)
- Manicure (of course!)
- Melon colored lipgloss (also maybe)
- New Gucci bag
- Trip to Rome...

I think it was the "Trip to Rome" that halted my daydreaming on its tracks and brought me scurrying to the blog. Next step may have been a "Trip to the moon." You know what happens when you give a kid with an imagination permission to roam free in a fantasy world. Thankfully, the beauty of blogging is that I can always get back to daydreaming at a later time and keep refining the list until I have got it.

At a practical level, I am debating whether to add something Pilates related to that list. The private session with the instructor yesterday was fun. She was supposed to show me the orientation of the machines for my group class but spent more time aligning my posture and instructing me on how to stand and breathe correctly. It was fun in a weird kind of way. However, it did show me that I have some ground to cover before I can jump into a class. We did a few exercises that I really liked. One was lying on my back on the reformer pushing away with both my feet. The second exercise was sitting up on the same reformer doing some arm exercises and the last was leg circles. I am going back for another private session next week. The only catch? The private sessions are $72 each and the classes are progressive which means you can't join midway. So, if I don't join a class this week I have to wait until Nov and private sessions between now & then would add up to $360.

There goes my Gucci bag!

(But they are cheaper in Italy so if I go to Rome I can actually save money.)

Pricy proposition apart I really do want to try Pilates. I have been sitting straighter all morning today. Every time I find myself slumping over the keyboard I automatically pull back my shoulderblades and straighten up. I am also more aware of my body, but in a good way. Right now, I am signed up for 2 more private sessions but I would like to do the whole month or 5 sessions total. Maybe if I make it a reward for something, some goal, I will feel more justified in spending the money.

Of course, now I will need goals. More on that later.

Celebrating Success

2006-10-01T21:57:00.000-07:00

As personality traits go, being a perfectionist is a bit like getting the short end of the stick and not knowing it. The first time I had an indication of this was when I was ten years old and burst into tears in front of the tv because a picture hanging in the background of the show I was watching was crooked. I couldn't finish watching it. To this date I don't know what happened to little Stephen or Maya or whatshisorhername. Actually, I don't even know if there was a little Stephen or Maya or whatshisorhername because I don't remember what the show was about. But I do remember that crooked picture. And it still makes me cringe.

I spent half of my first support group last Wednesday looking around the table and thinking. "Look at all the paper. If I could only straighten it out..."

If this isn't bad enough add to it a certain amount of natural competitiveness and you get a whole new dynamic. Generally this translates to wanting to be the best or not wanting to play at all. Nice, huh? But fun as all this sharing is what exactly is the point? The point is, I don't celebrate progress - I celebrate success. And success for me is an all or nothing kind of deal. In this process I often ignore the everyday little accomplishments, banishing them to the kingdom of lost treasures to languish forgotten. So, fair reader, if you happened to say that 1 successful week wasn't worth celebrating, normally I would agree with you.

But not today.

Today I want to celebrate the fact that I went to the gym even though I was sick all last week, that I ate 4 servings of vegetables a day dutifully and even pretended I could get to like broccoli, that I did a full hour of cardio on a beautiful Sunday and that maybe, just maybe, I am stronger than a lot of times I give myself credit for.

So, what's my reward? Ice cream, of course. No, just kidding. As you can see it is the farthest thing from it. (Of course, this would make much more sense if I actually had a picture you could "see" but since I don't I will describe it.) ... It's a lip balm that goes by the exotic name of Vanilla Honey, smells like warm vanilla sugar and reminds me with every swipe that I earned it. Like a L'Oreal ad, with a twist.

2nd Week Results

2006-09-30T15:28:00.000-07:00

I was sick most of this week. Chills, fever, nausea. Yay! Not sure if it was the workouts or the diet or the new medicine. Looking back, I didn't do too bad despite it. A few missed shakes and berries but didn't go off the plan and I did get my exercise in.

This week's workout

Sun - 40 min cardio (bike, treadmill & elliptical circuit)

Mon - 40 min cardio (bike)

Tue - 40 min cardio (bike) + weight machines (lower body + chest)

Wed - rest/support group

Thu - 40 min cardio (bike) + core + new stretches

Fri - rest

Sat - 40 min cardio (bike, elliptical) + 3 weight machines (upper body)

At the dietician's

(-2.6 lbs.)

At the dietician's this week I was rewarded, clearly, for my perseverance although I am a little confused as to how I lost more weight this week than last since my calories were higher this week. Actually, the scale showed a loss of 3.6 lbs but I suspect at least a part of that had to do something with my being sick so I am only counting 2.6 lbs. It's still more than I expected to lose and I am puzzled but, as the saying goes, why look a gift horse in the mouth. My workouts were more intense. Maybe that helped. Last week I could only lift 22 lbs on the bicep curls. This week I was lifting 28. Me Tarzan! Well, ok, a wimpy one. But hey, it's progress.

Next Week

Same as week 2 + 1-2 servings of yogurt (Cascade Fresh, nonfat) or skim, 1% or soy milk as shake substitute. I also get to go to 2 tablets of Metformin a day from the 1 for week 1. Lucky me.

Shaking The Blues

2006-09-25T21:30:00.000-07:00

Ok, I lied. It's not slightly disappointing, it's a lot disappointing. Most people lose 4 .. 8 .. 10 lbs on their first week. I lost 1.2. Work didn't help either. Every life has its ups and downs but overall the last few years my life has been a little more consistently down than up. And today reminded me that I am not quite out of it yet. I feel depressed - about the slow weightloss, work, life in general. It sucks to feel this way. Rationally, I know I shouldn't feel this way. I am more than a number on a scale. I am the sum of my accomplishments and if I put all my achievements together I would be one of life's success story. And yet, I can't help the way I feel. There is no place for logic when it comes to emotions. And it sucks.

Some people are good at being miserable. It fits them like a glove, shrouds them in an aura of mystery and glamour. I would like to make a study of them one day to understand what's their secret. Me? Not so much. When I am sad I get even more sad that I am sad. Which is kind of sad when you think about it, no pun intended.

To take my mind off things I decided to drive up to Issaquah to check on my new condo. That was a mood booster! Drove 16 miles to see that practically nothing has happened since my last trip a month ago. Not even the first floor is complete. I shudder to think when I will get final possession at this rate. It did kind of help focus my energy though. I am always looking forward to the future or backward at the past. Things I have done, things I will do. And in so doing I often overlook the present. What about right now? What could I be doing, should I be doing? Right this moment.

Some good things did happen today. I scheduled my initial appointment for a sleep evaluation. I have a pretty bad case of insomnia among other things. My doctor has been bugging me to go for the sleep clinic for a while but I really didn't want to add another official diagnosis to my current list of ailments. But it's not like it's going to go away if I ignore it, is it? Finally made the call today. I also called up Pro Club and set up a Pilates Reformer private session (Oct 2nd, 6 pm). It's a prereq for the group classes I have been wanting to take.

As Andy said in Shawshank Redemption, "It's time to get busy living, or get busy dying." Which do you think I chose?

1st Week Results

2006-09-23T10:50:00.000-07:00

It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Turns out I have more self control than I realize. There were the usual attractions - chocolate, cheesecake and coworkers with brownies, but barring one moment next to the ice cream aisle during mid-week grocery shopping I didn't even feel tempted. I had already started cutting out soda, caffein and desserts two weeks before I officially started on the program which may have helped. Exercise was the easy part. Not necessarily physically easy but fun. After I workout I am already looking forward to the next session.

This week's workout

Mon - 30 min cardio (bike)
Tue - 47 min cardio (1st session with personal trainer; various cardio machines)
Wed - rest
Thu - 50 min cardio (bike) + 5 weight machines (lower body + chest)
Fri - 40 min cardio (more bike + elliptical)
Sat - 40 min cardio (bike) + 3 weight machines (upper body)

At the dietician's

(-1.2 lbs.)

A slightly disappointing start to weightloss. At the dietician's yesterday I found that I had only lost 1.2 lbs. I also learned on Monday that I have officially crossed the threshold between pre-diabetes and diabetes. So, good week for effort but not so good for results. Still. I had hoped to do at least 30 minutes of cardio 5 times this week + the weight machines and I exceeded my goal so I am pretty thrilled about that.

Next Week

More shakes & berries, lean protein + 2 servings of non-starchy veggies added to each main meal (lunch & dinner) & some shake substitutes. Both my doctor and the program dietician asked me to get started on the Metformin (diabetes & PCOS medication) so I will be adding that as well. I am hoping by the end of the program I won't need it anymore.

Goals

2006-09-20T21:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my first workout with my 20/20 personal trainer. We didn't do anything very strenuous. It was mostly lots of questions to gauge my habits, health and fitness. I have some previous running injuries and she asked me a lot of questions about them. Then she put me on a bunch of cardio machines - elliptical, treadmill, bike - and gave me a general tour of the fitness center and its more glamorous twin, the cardio theater.

The cardio theater has dim lighting, fast music and big screens of something - probably TV channels but I was so taken with the dim lighting and the general movie theater ambiance that I didn't notice. I think it might become my destination of choice on days I am working out on my own. For our first session together though we didn't spend much time in there. A quick tour and 5 minutes on the bike later we headed back up to the fitness center where she put me on an exercise bike to watch a 20/20 intro video. By the time I was done I had still clocked a total of 47 minutes of cardio and it had been fun.

What happened next was a bit of a comedy of errors. This was my first real visit to the gym and I went up to the concierge desk in the fitness center to ask how to work the women's room lockers. The guy there thought I was asking for directions and was quite ready to accompany me there (or so it seemed) but when I repeated my question suddenly looked completely freaked. Am I that scary? Maybe he had had a bad experience with a locker in the past. Anyway, I finally just marched into the locker room figuring I will work something out. Thankfully, a woman who had overheard me came to my rescue.

On the drive home I started thinking about one of the conversations I had with the trainer. She had asked me why I was doing this and I had replied that I wanted to get back to an active lifestyle. The more I thought about it the more I realized how true that was. Generally, when I try to lose weight that's all I focus on but because of my PCOS and insulin resistance it's hard for me to lose weight and when that's all I focus on I get discouraged easily. But somewhat to my surprise what I miss most, what I miss even more than fitting into my skinny jeans, is being active. That's a good thing to focus on for a change.

So, in honor of this newfound sense of enlightenment and before I forget it, here are my top 10 reasons for doing this program:

Run a 5k
Swim
Play tennis
Improve strength
Improve flexibility
Take the stairs to my office
Take skiing lessons
Lower my resting heart rate
Go hiking/glacier trekking
Try a new sport

I can't wait!

Numbers

2006-09-13T21:14:00.000-07:00

I am a numbers girl. I have always loved math. Well, except for 6th grade when I had to take algebra and almost flunked the first test. But I got the highest score in the next one and the one after that and Math and I have been best friends ever since. Besides, numbers are impersonal and a good way to keep track of one's progress without getting weighed down by emotions. So, here are the starting numbers from my Polar fitness test:

Start Weight: 189.4 lbs
Lean Body Mass: 108 lbs
BMI: 33.7
Body Fat: 43.6%
Ideal Weight: 130 - 140 lbs
Goal Weight: 160, then 140 (22.8% body fat)

Chronological Age: Early-thirties
Biological Age: 50 (No wonder I feel so tired)
Attainable Age: 18
Bicep Max Strength: 22 lbs
Flexibility: 5.2 inches
Lung Function: Normal

Some more numbers:

Program length: 15 weeks

Start date: 9/15/2006
Meet with dietician: 1x week

Workout with personal trainer: 3x week

Meet with support group: 1x every week

Calories: 1200 - 1400 initially, to be increased later

Program Outline

2006-09-13T21:10:00.000-07:00

The 20/20 Lifestyles program is a triple whammy of diet, exercise and counseling/support. The program starts with a blood test followed by a complete Polar fitness evaluation which spits out such fascinating data as your biological age and max bicep strength etc. followed by a doctor's appointment. After the doctor's appointment you are pretty much good to go.

It can be expensive if you have to do this on your own but in my case it's an employer-sponsored benefit if you qualify - which I do - so it's not that bad, but at the same time still bad enough that you can't just blow this off and not feel the pinch. Which is a good thing if you ask me because it's a significant commitment.

What's also a significant commitment is the time. You have to commit to working out several times a week either on your own or with your 20/20 personal trainer, meet with your dietician and support group on a weekly basis and come in for fitness evaluations and meetings with your program doctor every 5 weeks. And that's in addition to all the time you will undoubtedly be spending in the kitchen, at least for the first few weeks.

The diet portion of the program starts out by taking away all your food. The first week all you get is shakes & berries and a few servings of very lean protein. Over the course of the next 9-14 weeks different food groups are slowly added back to gauge your metabolic response to them. This is done so as to help the program clients understand how their bodies react to different foods so they can customize their own diet in the real world after the program ends. I am not crazy about the shakes & berries but that sounds pretty cool.

The exercise portion focuses on cross-training major muscle groups with a personal trainer and cardio on your own two other days and the support group I guess works the same as WW or any other support group where you get to meet with other women going through the same thing as you.

And finally, every 5 weeks you take the fitness test or some form of it again to measure your progress in the program until the program ends. That's when you start the real program.

The one that runs the rest of your life.

Getting Started

2006-09-13T20:59:00.000-07:00

After some time debating I have decided to start my own blog. My motivation is primarily to keep track of my progress through the 20/20 Lifestyle program as I go through it. For those who do not know it is a structured program for people with a combination of certain health and weight issues to help us over whatever nutrition, fitness and health challenges that ail us. In my case it's a number of things that I won't go into now except to say that I need to make some changes and after years of trying half-heartedly I decided this was the year to finally do them. For one thing, I am getting close to 35 and it's a pretty big milestone. For another, after waiting for a long time for inspiration to strike, for a moment to come that would change my life I realized there was no better moment to do something than right now.

But why a blog? After I decided to join the 20/20 program but before I officially signed up I went online to research other people's weightloss stories. A few blogs in general particularly stood out. I enjoyed reading their stories and learning about their progress. It seemed like a great way to stay accountable and keep myself motivated at the same time. Plus, by blogging and making my results public I am doing this as much for myself as for others like me who may someday need inspiration and courage just like I did. If I can make positive changes in my own life and influence others to do the same, what can be better?

As for the name of my blog, I read somewhere that positive visualization was a great tool in making lasting lifestyle changes. So, I asked myself, who did I want to be at the end of this? What was my future persona? And I always came back to the same words: polished, professional, pulled together and perfectly manicured.

The phrase "perfectly manicured" has a special significance for me. I wasn't always overweight. In fact, I have been thin and I have been fit. But I have never had a manicure. I am a chronic nail biter and have been since early childhood. There were times when I would show exemplary self-restraint and manage to get my nails to grow to a certain length only to mow through them like a lawnmower through the summer grass. A perfect manicure embodies for me something unattainable, something just beyond my reach. As I push myself to work harder towards my goals and break down personal barriers and walls over the next 12 months I couldn't think of a better symbolism to keep reminding myself why I am doing this.

Except, perfectly manicured seemed a bit silly as a title. What would I do if I never got a perfect manicure? Would I stop living? Will the world come to a standstill? Will all my other good work be undone? No. It is a goal and it will stay a goal and someday I will claim that victory but until then I will keep on living and having fun, chipped manicures and all. And thus, (Im)perfectly manicured was born.

Someday I hope to drop the first two letters altogether and just be the ultimate me: polished, professional and perfectly manicured.

Welcome to my blog!