Thursday, April 28, 2011

Day of Rest

Today I am resting. My legs are pretty worn. Also, my left ankle will not unswell. It's driving me nuts. I always have problems with it but the swelling usually goes down while I sleep and if I can control it with some potassium and exercise, it stays in check. None of that is working currently though.

So tonight I am doing laundry, cleaning my apartment, and watching How the Earth was Made. That latter one is pretty addicting. Woop woop!


Stats for Thursday, April 28, 2011:
WW Points: 37 out of 37
Exercise: light cleaning; sitting on my ass

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Legs and Bunnies

My body is a giant mass of ripped muscle right now. I walked/jogged tonight (mostly walked), and also did some leg exercises with my friend Hannah. Squats? Shut your face. I thought things were okay, I even thought "This is nothing. I run on the arc trainer all the time. I got this, girls. I. Got. This." Only I didn't have it because when I walked down the stairs my legs turned to jello and each step felt like a free fall to the next, that's how little muscle control I had.

But it feels good to mix things up. I thought I was going to take today off from exercising, but I guess not. So tomorrow. Only I want to jog more. It's so addicting! I only run a few seconds at a time (tonight I ran for 40 seconds in a row! And I ran UP a hill!) but it feels good to be able to do even that. I know I'll work up to doing more.

I love love love Greensburg. The hills, the quiet residential streets with dogwood trees and lilac bushes, the porches with ceramic cats, the bakeries with worn signs where the smell of fresh donuts and bread linger outside the door long after closing time. It was a good walk.

This weekend, Clay and I are going on a picnic/biking/fishing trip (first ride of the season - woohoo!) and I get to pick the menu since my diet is more restrictive than his. I'm going with fruit, a turkey cajun wrap and a brown rice salad, the latter two of which I found on the WW website.

AND, I ate so well today that I had enough points at the end of the day to have one of these little guys:


I know it says "6 Bunnies," but I only had one. I promise. And I still have one point to spare!

Stats for Wednesday, April 27, 2011:
WW Points: 36 out of 37
Exercise: 45-minute walk; 20-minute weight lifting (legs)

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

How It Starts

Today, I joined Weight Watchers and, thanks to my friend Kristi, also discovered http://www.sherylyvette.com/. This woman is a wonderful dose of motivation. While I snuck a few blog post reads at work, I noticed that she posts her daily heart rate monitor readings. I exercise on a regular basis but never thought of buying a device that allowed me to track my progress. I did some quick (20 minute) research on Consumer Reports and various other sites, and found one that was good for casual exersisers (is that a word?) and got good reviews across the board.



I bought it immediately.

Until it arrives, between May 2 and May 6 according to Amazon, I can only guess at my exercise specs. I usually run on the arc trainer and burn 500 calories in 35 minutes. I do that three times a week. Sadly, that is not enough. It seems that I’m not shaking up my body enough and I’ve stagnated on the exercise front. So I’m shaking it up.

But first, let’s revisit Weight Watchers. I’ve lost weight on my own before, but only once in my life, and it was done without any planning. One day I decided to join Curves and four months later I had lost a ton of weight. I kept it off for a year or two, but it crept back on and then some. I have no idea how I lost it. Maybe it was the fact that before Curves, I didn’t exercise AT ALL and my body just reacted well to it. Maybe it was because I started dating a guy who ate like a bird, which, in turn, made my eatings more bird-like when I was around him. Either way, I lost it and I don’t know how. Nothing I’ve tried on my own has worked since then. So Weight Watchers it is.

My intent with this blog is to keep an active log of my exercise and weight loss progress. I need to be held accountable for my actions when it comes to losing weight and what better way to do that than to make it available to nearly the entire world? (Actually, everyone has a blog nowadays so I’m banking on mine staying pretty underground, thus being very diary-like in its exposure.)

So here’s me today, April 26, 2011. I don’t want to tell my weight. Not yet. Let me lose some weight first. It’s bad enough I’m publically posting a picture of myself in a tank top.



Once I get my heart rate monitor I will start logging that info on here. But so far:
WW Points Used: 37 out of 37
Exercise: 15-minute weight lifting (arms); 25-minute walk/jog combo