Archive for May, 2009

This posts for you Ash.

{ May 27, 2009 @ 6:51 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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My baby sister has issued an ultimatum to me that she won’t update her blog until I do. What she fails to acknowledge is that the life of a 14 year old girl yields better blog fodder than that of a 35 year old woman.

Yes, I’m still alive and I’m still plugging away at the monstrous weight loss demon that plagues me. The last 6-ish weeks have been okay. My original goal to taking it easier so I wouldn’t burn out at the end of this session in the ultimate loser seems to be working. I don’t have great, huge loss numbers to report but things have been steady and at a pace that I feel I can maintain for the long haul. I’ve been working out 1 hour a day with my class and then that is it. I’m more careful about what I eat but I haven’t been militant about counting calories and restricting myself to 1200-1400 a day. I’m not experiencing dramatic weightloss but it’s been steady (14.8 in 6 weeks) and I feel really good about things over all.

I’m not counting the days until this is over and thinking about all the things I will eat when I’m done. I haven’t been depriving myself of things I’m just being a lot more careful about everything and so far so good.

I know this is a brief report but May has been incredibly busy. I’m scrambling to get everything ready for my summer programs at work and trying to balance my exercise, diet and church calling along with it. Hopefully once the summer gets going I’ll have a bit more time and can update this here blog properly.  Until then…

Go see the new Star Trek movie! It is awesome (I’ve seen it twice) and young Spock is hot (new fodder for my dream life :-) )

using my arms to get to the goal

{ May 4, 2009 @ 2:22 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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So yeah, there was swimming last Thursday. I actually like swimming workouts because I don’t feel so behind and slow. I’m not a great swimmer but I can hold my own. Where I fail in the pool is when we use the kick boards. Natalie had us do 5 laps (down and back, 500 yards) just using the kick board. I do not move when I’m just kicking. I’m am naturally floaty. My Grandma Bowling was buoyant too and I’ve inherited her natural life preserver. Either that or my inner tubes of fat are not aerodynamic. Consequently, in the pool, I’m all about the upper arm strength. So Thursday, as my team dutifully kicked there way up and down the pool, I kicked my guts out and achieved an astonishing 1/2 pool length or 25 yards. Go Karen! When we broke into teams for a team swim relay race I was like a seal. I was gliding along quick-ish as can be.  Natalie asked where I came up with my considerably speedier lap. Easy… I could use my arms that time!

Friday, we had our third weigh-in and I lost 5 pounds which left me feeling vindicated after the previous weeks collosal failure on -1 pounds. 5 is a good and respectable number. Me likes the 5 :-)

As I was chatting with a friend later that day I mentioned that I was only 3 pounds off my goal of losing 5 pounds a week, thus shedding the 40 I recently gained during this 8 week competition. As we were talking she threw out an idea that I had not thought of before. She suggested that perhaps I was getting too caught up in those big goals. When I didn’t meet them it left me feeling defeated and then I give up. Since I’m trying to change my approach this time, she suggested that I need to reset the way I think about my goals. Instead each week the slate is wiped clean and I only need to think “how much can I lose this week?” I’m not even going to put a number on it because some weeks are harder that others. I’ll only focus on doing my best so I’ll have a loss on Friday. 1 pound–that it a loss. 5 pounds–great! Another loss. This way I won’t get so bogged down in that far off goal. The big number won’t depress me and cause me to give up.  We’ll see if this approach keeps me from gaining back everything I lose when I’m not longer participating in the Ultimate Loser. I’d love for this to be the last time that I need the UL to lose weight. I just need to take it 1 week at a time.

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