Progress?

Well, tonight I get to find out if I'm making any progress. I feel like I should be - I'm really embracing this gnawing in my stomach... odd as that may sound.

About 10 years ago, the husband and I got in very good shape and lost quite a bit of weight in the process. I'm trying to do the same thing now as I did then - only I'm kind of stepping it up a notch on the food part of it, tracking every calorie and severely limiting them.

At that time, I had heard about people who were using prayer to lose weight. It was an interesting catch-phrase that made it national news at the time, but it turned out what they were really doing was just waiting until their stomach growled to eat - which is really the point, right? You should only eat when you're actually hungry. But then they used prayer to help themselves get to the point that their stomachs were growling.

So, I tried to implement that idea along with the idea that calories out must equal calories in and suddenly the pounds started melting away. I'm hoping that if this "crash diet" gives me the kick-start I needed, I'll be able to keep up the weight/fat loss for awhile. I'll be 40 next year and it's my goal to be fit and healthy again by then.

So you know what can really help out in the "calories in" part of the equation? If you go for a bike ride that should only take a couple of hours, but then it ends up taking four hours and by the time you get home, you've entirely missed lunch! Which is what happened to us yesterday. (but I don't really recommend it)

We decided to take the kids mountain biking at Double Lake Recreation Area. We've been here before and it's a great place to mountain bike - and it's only an hour away from our house! The problem is that there are quite a few rolling hills on the trail and Marxo's little bird-legs just don't have the muscle-strength to get up them. She has to get off and walk in many places, so our average speed ends up being about 3 miles per hour. And since we haven't been riding much lately, the kids' tolerance level has decreased and their whining index has increased and then the 1st of Newton's laws comes into play: things at rest tend to want to stay at rest. Ugh.

Since a cold front came through Saturday night and it was significantly colder on Sunday morning, we didn't want to get out too early. But then we ended up getting to the park a little later than we probably should have: Noon. That's Ok, though, I thought - we'll be done and home by at least 3:30 or so. We'll have plenty of time to eat a (very) late lunch, clean up the house, have dinner, and still have time to finish putting up the Christmas decorations.

Hrmph. After taking two snack breaks and noticing that the sun was starting to get low in the sky, I was getting rather worried about our plans for the rest of the day! We finally made it back to the car at 4:00, which meant we got home at 5:00, we missed lunch and went straight for dinner.

Calories in yesterday = 1250
Calories out yesterday = 609 (approximately - hard to tell, we were going so slowly!)

I think by that calculation, I should have lost about 2 pounds just yesterday! (kidding) But, we'll find out for sure tonight when I weigh-in...

Another day, another (not) pound

So I managed to make it through the day without cheating and made it to bed before my stomach started grumbling too badly. I was surprised this morning that I wasn't more hungry. I even made it to work before I really started feeling hungry at around 7:15 or so. I normally try to hold out until 9:00 to eat my granola bar for breakfast and today it was a struggle. I was actually shaky right before and after I ate. It's going to take a little while for my body to get used to this few calories - in the meantime, I'm sure it's going to protest.

Last night it took me an hour and forty-five minutes to get home. There was apparently a fuel spill on the highway that I take on my way home and it was closed. It was a nightmare.

There was a small up-side to this, however. It meant that we didn't eat supper until almost 8:00, so after my measly portion, I didn't have much time to get hungry before I went to bed!

I did make the mistake of weighing myself last night before I went to bed. I gained a pound. I don't know how that could be possible, but, for real, this time I'M NOT WEIGHING MYSELF UNTIL MONDAY!

My one concern in undertaking this challenge is the message that we're sending our kids. I don't want them to be concerned in any way about their weight while they're growing up. Fellan is a very healthy, very muscular boy, which means that according to the BMI scales, he's bordering on the label "obese". He is not in any way "obese" and our daughter doesn't have enough body fat to keep her warm during her swimming lessons! So, I don't like talking about my weight in front of them. We include the kids in our weekend exercise (bicycling) and the husband and I usually try to talk about being fit and healthy, but I know we occasionally refer to ourselves as being fat. Just an observation and something for me to think about.

And day one went down in flames...

Like I said, I knew there probably wouldn't be a chance that I could lose 10 pounds before Christmas, but I was hoping to at least get some sort of weight-loss or fitness-enhancement started through this challenge.

If yesterday is any indication of how seriously I'm taking this, then I will have gained 10 pounds before Christmas.

Last night was "Date Night" for the husband and me. We let our nanny go at the beginning of this school year, but since the kids love her so much (and we do, too), we didn't want to cut all ties to her. Instead, we have her come every other Tuesday night so that we can have a Date Night.

So last night, we decided to go check out an Indian restaurant we've never been to before. And when I got to work this morning, I started putting in everything I ate and drank last night, but after the vodka martini, saag paneer, and saffron rice, I gave up. I was well over my limit and I didn't even get to the gigantic King Fisher beer I drank and the other two entrees! I weighed myself this morning. I'm up more than a pound. Nice.

However, I put in all the food that I plan to eat today and the exercise I plan to do at lunchtime. If I don't eat any extras, I'm under my caloric limit.

I'm going to make sure to have more resolve today. And I'm not going to weigh myself again until next week. There's definitely such a thing as too much data. :)

Kick in the pants

I've been working out during lunchtime for the past several months, but I just can't seem to get in shape fast enough - or AT ALL!

I was recently moved to a different project within my company, but it happens to be located in the office building farthest from my house. I was not very happy about this since I would have to join the leagues of people who really commute every day to work, however, after I got here and checked out the workout facility, my mood brightened.

I have since been down at the fitness center every single day and I'm loving it. It's not because they have treadmills with individual TV screens for you to choose which program you would like to watch (which is really cool and would mean that I wouldn't have to watch Fox News while working out like I had to at the other office building) and it's not because they have elliptical trainers with individual TV screens. It's because they have one of these.

I'm totally hooked. I get a good workout and I'm not continuously checking how much time I've been working out, or how much time is left on the machine. I just ride and listen to the music (which is set to the XM satellite 80's music station) and remember what I was doing when each song was popular and then I climb another hill and check out the sheep or horses that they have programmed into the scenery. The people who did the programming must have a sense of humor, too - on one of the circuits, they included the abominable snowmonster off to the side.

So it has seemed that my pants are starting to fit a little better, but every time I weigh myself, I'm not making any progress. It's possible that I am losing some fat and gaining muscle, but Thanksgiving pretty much wiped out any progress I had been making!

However, I'm a reader of the Fat Cyclist blog (look over to the right on my "Blogs I Read" list) and it seems he has just given me the kick in the pants that I needed. He's laid down a challenge to lose 10 pounds before Christmas and I've signed up! I really have no hope of actually achieving that goal, but I might as well try.

I've started tracking my food intake through the Livestrong MyPlate website again and I might even use it for more than a couple of days this go-round. So far today, I've eaten 418 calories and burned 238, so I have 729 left for snack this afternoon and dinner tonight. (And I'm starving! Time to drink some more water...)

Tune in next time, when our topic will be... Rice

There's a skit on Saturday Night Live called The Delicious Dish that always cracks me up. The most famous episode, apparently, is the one where Alec Baldwin is playing a character called Pete Schweddy and he makes cheese balls for the holidays. The best line from that particular skit is when one of the lady hosts says, "I can't wait to wrap my lips around your Schweddy Balls." They do such a great job with the double entendre and never once break character. I think the sign-out for that sketch was, "Tune in next time, when our topic will be (they pause, smile, and together say...) Rice."

Which brings me to the topic of the post: Rice. Fellan finally tried and loved some whole grain rice earlier this week. How can you go through 7 and a half years of life without trying and liking rice? Really. Rice. The most important food staple in much of the world? Boggles the mind, doesn't it?

Well, that's not to say that Fellan has never been forced to try rice before. It's just that he would eat one grain of rice and refuse to eat the rest.

The stars must have aligned, however, earlier this week. He took a bite and literally gobbled down the rest.

We're going to be having rice again tonight. I'm interested to see if he has finally acquired the taste for rice, or if that was just a strange anomaly.

Halloween

I've been lazy this week and haven't posted a picture of the kids from Halloween yet! Well, here it is:

The kids decided to go with an Asian theme this year, I guess. I sprayed Marxo's hair with black temporary hair paint and put a little bit of makeup on the corners of her eyes and then wondered if this would somehow be considered being politically incorrect for some reason. I'm actually not sure why it would be, but I'm certain someone could come up with a reason. Instead, I just decided I wouldn't worry about it. :)

I was also lazy and didn't post anything about Marxo's birthday party. It was very fun and much less work that last year. My mom was very happy to find out that we wouldn't be making anything in the middle of the night like last year!

Except...

Well, I went to Whole Foods to order the cake on Friday after lunch and they told me it was too late to order something for Sunday. Actually, what they said was, "Well! It's a little late, isn't it?!" Uh, obviously I didn't think so, but I guess you've answered my question.

So! I set about trying to figure out how we were going to make the butterfly cake that Marxo had requested for her birthday. She wanted a cake with a blue butterfly on it. I knew I could make a chocolate cake and put chocolate chips on it, but I wasn't sure how to frost the cake, or make anything that looked like a butterfly.

Luckily, on Saturday, we went to Arne's (I love that place! My mom thinks it's a very strange place, though. She's right, but I still love it.) and found a cake pan with 6 butterfly molds and the husband insisted I get it to make Marxo's cake. I ended up making 3 butterflies and then outlining them with "blue" frosting (all-natural food coloring doesn't make nearly the good colors that artificial coloring does!) and I think it turned out OK. It tasted good and that was the most important part.


I'll try to be a little better about posting more frequently, but I say that all the time... :)

I should have known

Really. I should have known. I can't entitle a post with the word "Glorious" and not start singing that song from Ice Age 2. You don't know the song? It's really a catchy tune - and that's the problem. I now have it running through my head all day long!

Food, glorious food,
We're anxious to try it.
Three banquets a day,
Our favorite diet!

Just picture a mammoth steak,
Fried, roasted, or stewed
Oh, food!
Wonderful food!
Marvelous food!
Glorious food!

Apparently, this song was written for the musical Oliver!, but I guess I've never seen Oliver!, so the only thing I associate it with is Ice Age 2. (Which is OK, because oddly enough, the Ice Age series are movies that I can watch over and over without getting tired of them. I don't know why - I get sick of pretty much all of the other movies we watch/listen to on car trips, but hearing the kids pick out the Ice Age movies in the back of the car always makes me perk up. Strange, huh?)

Anyway, I've had to resort to playing my "office mix" of music that I have on my computer. It's a good easy-listening mix of Lyle Lovett, Jack Johnson, Susie Arioli, and Sting with a little Nine Inch Nails thrown in to keep me awake. I think it will work as long as I don't scroll down on my blog page and read the next title.

Glorious

The weather over the past week here has been absolutely glorious. There's no other way to describe it! The oppressive heat was just suddenly lifted about a week ago. Amazing.

But, have we been able to take advantage of it? Nope.

We had hoped that we would be able to go mountain biking sometime this past weekend, but Marxo had some minor surgery on Friday (oral surgery), so we didn't want her to do anything really strenuous for the rest of the weekend for fear of causing bleeding.

On Sunday, we did walk over to the Black Lab for brunch, though, and played some chess with the kids at the outdoor chess board.

This coming weekend is Marxo's birthday party and I'm hoping that the weather stays pleasant for the weekend. My family is coming to town and it would be extra-nice for them to experience Houston in October when it's not beastly hot and humid! Wouldn't that be something?

This year, we're going fairly low-key for the party. Nothing like the butterfly extravaganza from last year. We're just having her party at a paint-your-own-pottery place and inviting the girls from her class. (See? I'm learning in my old age!)

Hmmm... but that reminds me - I need to order the cake and get some plates and napkins for the party. Marxo requested a butterfly on the cake again. I guess I'd better figure out what she has in mind.

Getting our lifes back

There's a commercial out there where the guy who invented *whatever it is he invented* talks about how it has helped people get their "lifes" back. Every time that commercial came on, it would absolutely drive me crazy! It's "lives", you idiot!!!

(My husband would like to get me a shirt that says, "I'm the grammarian about whom your mother warned you.")

But this commercial now serves as an internal joke between the husband and I when we talk about getting the house back in order. "Ahhhh, it feels so good to be getting our lifes back, doesn't it?"

It's still like we're on vacation. And it's really nice. Last weekend, we finished dumping out all the accumulated boxes and containers full of parts of toys that had been separated from the main toy and put everything back together and organized the kids' room. We expected that we would have to get rid of lots and lots of toys in order to make room for everything, but guess what? When you put all the bits and parts of toys together and put them where they belong? It doesn't take up nearly as much space! Imagine that. We ended up with only one small trash bag full of broken toys to throw away. Well, that, and a clean room!!!

I think next on my agenda is my side of the closet. It's gotten a little cluttered in there lately, but I think I can knock it out in probably three 15-minute increments.

Why 15 minutes? Well, in our quest to get our lifes back, I decided I would finally join FlyLady. I'm not really doing everything that she suggests since I'm spoiled and have a cleaning lady, but I am trying to use her timer idea in order to break things down into small, manageable increments. The whole idea is that "you can do anything for 15 minutes". Very true. And it's amazing what you can actually accomplish in 15 minutes when you're focused on your task. So, little by little, the house is getting back under control. I'm hoping that by Christmas, we'll be "fly"-ing on autopilot. Har, har, har. :)

Henna Hands

About 10 years ago, a woman with whom I worked showed up one day with orangish brown swirly patterns all over her hands. She told me that she had just gotten it done for fun over the weekend - I think she said something like it was a good excuse to have a cup of tea and relax while she was having it done - but that it's typically done for brides of Indian heritage right before their wedding.

I thought it was really pretty, and that's when my desire to have my hands henna'd started.

Finally, this past weekend, at our Fantasy Football draft, a friend of ours brought her henna. I had mentioned to her that I really wanted to have that done sometime, so she spent the entire afternoon giving almost all the women and little girls henna tattoos.

Here are my hands. I thanked my friend profusely and she said that I should have gotten it done by her sister - apparently her sister does this for brides and is very skilled. Here are some pictures of some really fancy ones. But I still think mine turned out beautifully!


Lucky for me, I work in a very international industry and nobody has really thought it was too strange. Everyone at work just keeps asking me if I was in a wedding over the weekend. I have to admit to them that I had it done just for fun at our Fantasy Football draft. That gets some strange looks.

They've already faded quite a bit. And by next week, I'm sure it will all be gone. But it was good while it lasted and I can finally say that I've had it done. :)