Poll: Focused or Free Flowing?

This question is more for people workout with at least one other person whether it's a friend, your partner or a class.

Do you like to be focused and get down to business with minimal distractions including talking or do you like to use it as time to gab, make funny sounds along to the music and just free flow it?

Personally, I like it focused.  I'm down there to do a job and I am VERY easily distracted and will mess up or go half assed if my mind wanders and then I get in a bad mood because I'm not able to focus on putting forth full effort.  This doesn't mean I GET a focused environment but I enjoy having it when I can!  ;-)

Don't forget to enter the green produce bag giveaway if you haven't already!

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Mmm...splinty

I could see our Sunday was shaping up to be pretty lazy so I suggested going hiking at this one park that the Mr had always raved about.  We hiked there once a looooong time ago and I remember being miserable but I was also out of shape too so I thought this would be nice.  So we made the trek over and picked the 2.5 mile trail that was rated moderate to difficult.  Finding it was a chore on it's own and was sending me further into irritation land (hellooo new old BC pills, where are all of those feel good hormones I had last time!?)  We finally decided to pick it up at the nature center.  That would've been fine if the trails were clearly marked but they weren't.  It wasn't until we were about 1/4 mile into it that we saw our first icon telling us we were on the right trail.  It was the perfect day for hiking sans the occasional rude child or wheezing runner that made us feel like WE had just run up the steep hills. 

We'd hiked 3x last week with the occasional hills at a park close to our house so I felt pretty conditioned to the terrain.  Well this park had a LOT more hills and it was apparently much harder on my body than I knew.  We took our HRM's and I remember looking at one point when the pedometer said we were nearing 2.5 miles and being disappointed I was only at 500 calories.  Now I don't know what nitwit charted that trail but it was NOT 2.5 miles, even with the wrong turn we took at their confusing fork in the road.  I was pretty sure they were going to find our bodies if we kept wandering around more.  I felt my hip flexors ready to raise the white flag.  I was close to tears when we realize how off track we were but more importantly how much further we had to go.  Not a happy girl.  By the time we got back to the car, I'd burned 1900.  Yep, everything I'd eaten for the day so you'd better bet I got the best DQ treat I've had in my life and it didn't even make a DENT in my restriction goal.  (My recommended restriction for weight loss is 850 and even after a sundae and dinner I was at 2000!)

We collapsed on the couches and later (10pm) when we decided it was time to go down and do the strength workout we had planned, the pain shooting up the front of my left leg was horrific.  Oh, hello shin splint.  I could barely put weight on it.  I took the stairs one at a time and did my first strength workout with free weights in 3 weeks due to my left thumb sprain.  My left arm was considerably weaker.  I was able to do the warm up with 10's and went right back to my 15's and had no pain in my thumb at all.  I was very much relieved.  I thought a good night's sleep is all I needed.  I woke up this morning and the pain shot up my leg again.  Awesome.  So I've got an ice pack on my thumb and one on my leg.  I should probably just soak in a tub of ice at the rate I'm going!  So the plan is icing it and massage and hoping for the best for exercise tonight.  I'll take it easy and if I have to do floor work tonight, that's what will be done.  Injury sucks!  Time to baby my bones and muscles!

Have an awesome Monday!


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Scale Makes Nice-Film at 11! Weigh In

Down 2 more lbs.  I am thrilled.  I would've been more thrilled with 2 more ounces so I could officially say 180 lbs down but I'll not complaining!  If the scale makes nice next weekend then I'll be able to say that then and I might be able to consider my plateau officially over.  (For me, it takes 3 good weigh in's to declare that)

Now who knows which combo did it, the new exercises because of trying to be kind to my thumb, starting to eat 30g of protein within an hour of waking up instead of 2 hours later or tracking high cal days BEFORE they happen and trying to reign it in a little more than letting ourselves go gonzo.  Probably a combo of the three.  We knew there would come a day where we could eat EVERYTHING we wanted on high cal days and that's fine.  Right now weight coming off means more than how many cupcakes I can eat on my free day.  (Rest assured cupcakes were eaten so yes Virginia, there IS hope to do this in moderation with your favorite foods!)  We hiked 3x this week and I have been trying to isolate my thumb and do no punching.  People have been telling me how it's taken their thumb sprains over a year to heal.  Well mama ain't got that long so beginning in July, I'll be adding strength training back in.  Ice, massage and wrapping and being careful when exercising will be my friends.  I refuse to let a nuisance injury derail me.  Sorry-ah! 

Have a great weekend y'all!

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Just Keep Swimming

I found this really cute swimsuit last weekend when we were out of town but it was a tankini.  *Looking down*  This bod ain't ready for a tankini, yo.  I couldn't stop thinking about it though.  I kept looking at it online and when I finally decided to buy it, they were out of my size on top of course.  Now this is a junior plus shop so I know the sizes run differently but I couldn't help myself, I had to know if it fit.  I called the store closest to us and when I told her the size to hold, she's like (in my best valley girl imitation) "oooh, we don't carry plus sizes here...you'll have to call this mall location."  Oh, the one about 40 minutes away?  Awesome.  So I call.  They have it and will hold it until closing time the next day.  The Mr and I drive out on our rest night and I try it on.  It took everything in me not to bust out laughing.  I was giggling incessantly in the dressing room.  The boobs looked awesome, no prob there.  That's about where the flattery ended.  The suit was this dark grey glimmery snakeskin (it really looks better in person than it sounds) so besides the fact that on my tall torso it came up WAY too high, clung to my middle inner tube and showed my ample gut, there was no way I could lose enough weight between now and our Hawaii trip to fit into that bad boy unless Bob Harper showed up at my door.  The cute boy short bottoms?  I couldn't even get them past my hips!  I looked at my reflection in the mirror with awesome boobs, my argyle undies and rippling gut (and not in the good way) and too small boy shorts gathered at my thigh cracks and turned red trying to stop myself from losing it laughing.  If I didn't laugh I would cry and I don't believe in giving clothes that kind of power for the worse.

Total Trainer Home Gym Review

This is NOT a paid review.  I use this product all the time.  Affliate links below.

When we bought our Total Trainer DLX-III Home Gym I was 412 lbs.  The Mr was able to use it because he was under the 400 lb weight limit.  We bought 2 so that we could workout at the same time.  When I got down to about 405, I decided to give it a go and see if it could hold me.  I was able to do my first workout that included leg presses and that made me a happy girl.  That was a little over 18 months (and 95 lbs) ago and we're still going strong.  Upon first glance one might say it's just a Total Gym



I looked at a review someone did comparing the Total Gym to the Total Trainer and the Total Trainer got way better reviews and not only that, for the same weight limit, Total Gym was twice as much!  I don't think so, especially since we were buying 2 of them.  We do all kinds of great exercises for some sweet guns (kissing my bicep), strengthening our legs and working our backs and chest.  We are both thrilled with the amount of space it takes up...very little when folded.  It is solid for sure and I can't recommend it enough.

The other reason I had for writing this is my rollers have become a little pitted over time.  They claimed they had a lifetime roller, rope and pulley replacement policy.  Well, we just got the replacements for both machines completely free.  They didn't even charge for shipping.  That is awesome and I will always recommend them to anyone looking for a compact home gym.  Customer service is so rare these days and knowing they back up their equipment is proof enough for us that we made the best decision in getting the Total Trainer DLX-III Home Gym.
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Can I Get a Witness?- Weigh In

2 lbs down!  The Mr and I dance...

Isolating my thumb is proving to be a pain in the arm (and neck) with my sling but I'll do whatever it takes to heal it right now.  Ice, massages and finding interesting new ways to open jars using one hand.  This weekend I will be re-working our exercise plan for the rest of the month to include non-punching activitahs and given I burned 1165 calories just hiking at our local park on a non-sweltering day and 830 in 38 minutes of step aerobics, (cue Mary Tyler Moore music) "I might just make it after alllllll!"

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Changes for the worse?

You know how when you're a kid you hate something and then for some reason you try it as an adult and you like it?  They say it's because your palate has changed.  For instance, as a kid I hated pumpkin and apple pies but I like them now.  I don't know why and they're not my favorite thing ever but around holiday time, I crave it.

Now, I've loved oatmeal all my life with brown sugar maple being my favorite and recently a blueberry oatmeal from Trader Joe's.  For some reason, when I eat it lately it grosses me out like I'm being forced to eat it.  I don't know if it was because I forgot about it one morning and ate it cold and it was disgusting or what the deal is.  But I have to choke it down now.  I know this isn't a good thing.  I'm supplementing with vitamin laden cereals but this is just freaky!

Has this ever happened to you?  If so, with what foods?

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Supplementus Rejectus

I have always been interested in taking supplements.  Honestly though, my vitamins are fine, even D and all the current buzz word deficiencies.  (I know some people have real vitamin deficiencies but the doc was telling us that's the rage right now and you will find a decificiency in about anything you're looking for if you want to find it.  Her words, not mine.)  But you know if there was something that could help aid in digestion or make me more regular since I can't set my watch to my system like some people, then I was more than willing to try them.  Sometimes I did my research beforehand, sometimes afterward.  Despite my willingness to try supplements here and there, my body has never reacted positively to them.

I've tried St. John's Wort back in the day when it first came out.  I had a horrible reaction to that including a tremor which was sexy.  (It actually locked up my dog's limbs when we tried to go holistic for her anxiety issues.  I've never seen the poor thing so scared)   I tried probiotic pills when they first became all the rage in an effort to even out the digestive system since I hate yogurt.  I felt horrible on them and discontinued after a few days.  I tried aloe vera pills for digestion but it wasn't until I did research on them AFTER I started taking them that I saw some scary stuff about taking it orally so I stopped that pretty quickly and informed a friend that I knew was taking it too.  The latest was Fish Oil supplements which are not known to give many side effects except maybe some...errr..."greasy" stools.  I didn't care about that.  I started taking it and the whole time my system was the opposite of what they said it would be and I actually didn't lose weight those 2 weeks I was on it.  When I went off of them, I lost weight.  So I think I'm done with those. 

Matter of fact, I think I'm done with supplements period.  I saw on a doctor show that sea buckthorn is supposed to be awesome for many different things from aiding digestion to improving skin and I was so tempted to try it but I already know it'd be a waste of money for me.

What about you?  Do/have you taken supplements and if so, have you ever had any adverse reactions to them?

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This is gonna be harder than I thought

Okay, if I learned one big lesson Saturday, the first lower cal high cal day, it's that we can't sit around the house because apparently I will OBSESS about food.  We had an egg white omlette and egg white french toast with high fiber bread and half a serving of syrup.  I thought that would hold us for a long time but it really didn't.  We had the whole wheat spinach lasagna for lunch and dinner.  Again, after lunch even though I was full for about 2 hours, I was then thinking "when do I eat again?"  That sucked.  The only thing we went over on was we stopped at the froyo place and added 170 calories to our total. 

But I need to think of the positives.  I still saved 1000 calories over what we had last Saturday so that's good.  I managed to get in my normal amount of water not my weekend total...so 110 oz of water.  I actually got in a decent amount of fiber too...28 grams.  The sodium was a little high but much lower than if we ate out.  So all in all it was a success but I will definitely have to make sure we have something planned because being lazy is not going to be an option if we want to continue these without much distraction or temptation.  I hope the scale is nice to me next week!  :-)

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Thrown a bone- Weigh In

Well the scale threw me a chihuahua sized bone this week in the form of a 1 lb loss.  I will take what I can get which is 1 lb more than I got the past 2 weeks despite my best efforts.  I was reeeeeally hoping for 2 because that would be the last of my vacation weight but whatever.  Well I suppose if you want to get technical about it, my vacation weight IS off because I gained a freak pound out of nowhere the week before we left so I will say that technically my vacation weight is officially off but I'm still one lb above my lowest.

Why I'm hopeful the numbers are going to change.  This is our first lower cal high cal day.  Confused?  Instead of going out to eat and guessing at the numbers or using other restaurants that do provide nutritional info to gauge what we've eaten after we've eaten it, I'm making a favorite dish that might be a little more than we like to eat during the week but less than we eat on the weekend.  So I'm making a whole wheat spinach lasagna for lunch and will go into dinner too.  I've unthawed a half of a small baguette of Boudin sourdough bread that we ordered and roasted garlic (with no olive oil oil) so it's not adding butter to the bread but still adding flavor.  If my calculations are correct, I should save 1600 calories over what we had last weekend which was more than I thought it was once I started adding stuff up. 

Help me get to 100!

See that little column on the right that says "people who are awesome?"  (Provided the widget is working correctly...curse you Blogger!)  It's the 57 awesome people who are "following" me.  See the number of "savvy subscribers?"  Those are the people who get my ramblings delivered via email or in a reader on their homepages.

I'm trying to get to 100 and I'll even do a little giveaway for hitting the number.

So subscribe if you like my ramblings!  Encourage others to subscribe if you think they might like my ramblings!  I'll make it worth your while.  :-)

Also, I just want to check.  Is posting recipes a waste of time?  I know there's not much you can really say about a healthier recipe that you haven't tried yet but wasn't sure if anyone really paid attention to them or not other than me!  HA!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

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Never thought I'd say this

But I miss you strength training!  I feel like I can feel my muscles melting away like the Wicked Witch of the West after a good shower.  This thumb sprain has really screwed me up.  I am itching to get at some serious training and I can't.  (Rowing too which is off limits for now)  It stinks because even punching is kind of iffy because of the pressure you put forward on the punch.  Not only that but I can't even do simple tasks without reinjuring myself.  I'm talking things like opening a jar or even opening my cereal bar because the tearing motion aggravates the sprain.  It's so frustrating.  I'm wearing my brace but I'm not icing like I should so I promise I will start that today. 

I'm also starting some physical therapy exercises to help me maintain and build my strength in it.  Just simple mobility exercises like extending the thumb to the side, then extending it toward the pinky and holding the position.  Another is picking up objects like a marble or paper clip between the thumb and each finger and wrist supination as well.  I need to do those a few times a day since the stupid urgent care doctor didn't bother to give me anything, I went on sports medicine doctor websites to find proper exercises for thumb sprains and even tutorials on how to wrap it better.  I'd better be all healed up by the end of June.  I just can't take the wait and I'm so ready to do this little circuit I had all in my head before vacation to really push myself.  I know I can't rush it but I do need to make sure I'm doing everything I can to aid in healing and not icing is a chump move.  So if you want to occasionally yell at me to ice, this is the one time I'm giving permission to jump on my booty for my own good!  :-)

Hope everyone is having a great week so far!

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One More Week Weigh In

Can I just say I can't wait to be off of this damn brand of BC pills?  That would be another big fat zero this week.  Everything was perfect from the exercise range to the calories.  I even felt a little "looser" this morning.  You know how like you don't feel bloated or anything and kind of feel good about the weigh in?  Well I suppose if you want to get all technical about it I'm down half a pound because last week I was up half a pound but still in the same whole pound range.  I am confident increasing the calories was the right thing to do because I was just starving all the time the two weeks prior trying to get off vacation weight (which I'm still carrying 2 extra pounds of).  I stayed at the very low end of the recommended SP range because I still had that fear.  The first week of no official strength training and I feel like I can feel my muscles disappearing.  The sucky thing is my thumb is still being irritated by punching.  Can you believe that crap?  Tough noogies!  I'm not giving up exercise altogether so it's gonna have to deal with it.  It's still significantly less strain than weight training/push ups would put on it so I just have to hope all will be well by the end of the month.

We don't start the no high cal day until next weekend because of a few events that don't time out right if we started this weekend.  So we're going eat out but still try to watch it and not go gonzo so it's less damage.  I'm actually looking forward to it.  We acknowledge these days can't be done the way they used to so I think it's time to be more careful about them.  If only I could get my sweet tooth pulled! 
:-)

So if this pattern of non weight loss because of the pills goes on next week as well and the week of my cycle, that will pretty much kill the zipline dream for me next year.  This of course assumes that my body doesn't go haywire when I switch back to the other pill I was doing well on as I adjust back to it.  So not fair.  I won't give up on the dream just yet but come the beginning of July depending on how it goes, it might get official dropped which will completely break my heart.  Sigh. 

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My first "harvest"

I’ll admit it.  I know very little to nothing about growing a garden.  I used to help my grandma in her expansive garden as a kid.  Some of my fondest memories with her are picking beans and going into the kitchen…”snap…turn…snap…plink…" into the bowl and move on to the next one.  She also had concord grapes and she would make home made jelly and jam.  I always wanted a garden.  But I have no room for one really so I’m relegated to containers.   I tried to grow lettuce last year.  It was kind of a disaster.  I never knew when to pick it, how big I was supposed to let it get, etc.  By the time I’d picked it, it had mutated into some jagged edged bear trap lettuce that was not pleasant to eat.  Sigh.

This year I planted several different kinds.  Don’t ask me what they are, I have no idea.  But they looked like they were asking to be harvested so I answered the call.  There is something about harvesting anything you grow yourself.  You feel kinda proud of yourself even if all you did was water it.  I found it amusing how I was treating it like gold.  You realize just what kind of cleaning measures go into your store or farmers market bought food.  Little spiders and unidentifiable bugs you’ve never seen before that tried to set up shop must be washed away.  Then spray it with veggie wash to get off the debris.  Wash off each lettuce leaf and dry them to be stored.  Funny how when you’re washing regular lettuce you don’t really care if a leaf goes astray and washes down the sink but you wouldn’t think of doing that with the ones you’ve grown.  You work hard to get those little leaves.  Even though you may only have enough for one normal sized salad or two puny salads, it tastes better than anything you’ve ever had even if by restaurant standards you might’ve not thought it was anything special. 

Grow your own stuff.  You know where it’s been, how clean it is and it’s the single biggest geeky gardener’s thrill you can get…even if you don’t consider yourself a gardener.

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Oh HELLLL no!

I believe that's what I said I'd call it if I determined I was gaining weight from the new pill.  I think I confirmed it today.  I have felt bloated for 2 weeks now and I measured yesterday and my boobs grew by an inch.  I have NEVER gone up in my boobs in 3 years and one of the side effects is weight gain particularly in the hand, feet and breastages.  (I went up in 3 other places too and stayed the same everywhere else and I haven't measured in 2 months)   In addition to that loveliness, I have had 2 nausea attacks, headaches, my legs have felt gross and bloated no matter how much water I drink and I have been an irritated bee-otch for that whole time.  I will finish out the next week and a half but there is NO way in Hell I'm getting back on that pill.  The weight thing is enough to make me say no way.

But what about the skin of a 12 year puberty stricken child?  Well, that has actually gotten slightly worse but I just discovered it may not be pill related at all!  I saw this thing on that TV show The Doctors where using astringent on your face can actually dry your skin so bad that it causes your skin to signal more oil production thereby clogging your pores.  They specifically mentioned those pads with astringent.  What do I do right after a workout?  Slather my forehead and face with an astringent pad that had so much alcohol in it, it actually stings.  So I switched and got an alcohol free toner (which is what Dr. O suggested) and just started using that last night.  So I will report back if my face clears up. 

I know you don't care about my pill cycle and skin but that's what's consuming my world today!  LOL

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Do something nice for you...just because

I always have good intentions for "rewards" when losing certain amounts of weight.  Sometimes I follow through, sometimes I don't.  It's nice to have an occasion to get something but it's even nicer to treat yourself to something for no reason at all...because it makes you happy. 

One of my favorite things ever is smelly flowers.  My favorite smelly flowers are plumeria, tiare, roses, freesia and lilacs.  The other day I got some freesia and stuck them in a mason jar mug and they made me smile

I walk by them and just inhale their heavenly aroma.  There is nothing more dreamy than the scent of a beautiful flower and it is such a small thing but makes me so happy.

What do you get for yourself on occasion "just because?"  If you usually don't, what would you get?

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