I am STILL aching from Zumba on Monday.
And that’s all I have to say right now. 
Archive for October, 2009
Just in case you were wondering . . .
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 Comments Off
Zumba!
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009I promise I’ll stop talking about this stuff soon. But now that I’ve opened up to actually start talking about it, something I wasn’t ready to do for a long time, I find I can’t stop thinking about it and wanting to share with ya’ll what I’m thinking about. So you’re stuck with a little bit more about exercise.
Zumba class last night was AWESOME. I’m trying to think of how to explain it. The Zumba website says this about the program:
The Zumba® program fuses hypnotic Latin rhythms and easy-to-follow moves to create a one-of-a-kind fitness program that will blow you away. Our goal is simple: We want you to want to work out, to love working out, to get hooked. Zumba® Fanatics achieve long-term benefits while experiencing an absolute blast in one exciting hour of calorie-burning, body-energizing, awe-inspiring movements meant to engage and captivate for life!
The routines feature interval training sessions where fast and slow rhythms and resistance training are combined to tone and sculpt your body while burning fat. Add some Latin flavor and international zest into the mix and you’ve got a Zumba® class!
So basically, it was song after song of really fun music with aerobic jumping and hopping and squatting and dancing and oh, my gosh! so tired but SO MUCH FUN! The hardest part for me wasn’t actually keeping up with the different choreography, but keeping my heart rate from jumping up so high I had a heart attack. A lot of the moves were actually familiar to me from the Yoga Booty Ballet videos. There were variations, but the basics were similar. And with that in my favor, and how many other times I’ve followed choreography, I was able to pick up on a lot of the steps after a few times through.
But my heart rate! I’m supposed to be under 153 BPMs right now, but I think I maintained somewhere in the 166 area. And spiked up to 177 or so. And that was with me taking things slower and lower than other people in the class! I have a lot of work to do.
I ran into the children’s pastor from my church in the class, too! That was fun. She apparently has lost a significant amount of weight since she moved here a couple years ago and started coming to the gym. She was very encouraging.
When I got home, after the hour or so it took me to actually get my core temperature back down to normal (I get so hot and my face so red!), I crashed. I was so tired! Justin was a hero and got me food and tucked me into bed and we cuddled watching TV (Castle! Nathan Fillian as Richard Castle dressing up as Malcom Renolds for Halloween! *Squee!*)
And today my hip hurts and everything aches. But I’m feeling so good! And I am absolutely going back to the class next Monday. It’ll be the highlight of my Mondays and I can’t wait!
Still going on about weight and exercise stuff
Monday, October 26th, 2009I’ve been trying to really focus on the positive stuff lately. I read a book years ago that mentioned how we talk to ourselves in our heads. Our internal dialog speeds by so quickly that we probably don’t even catch up on it most of the time. But if you’re running trash-talk about yourself, you’re getting a beat down so many times a day it’s undoubtedly damaging. And since negative thoughts and comments stick to us so much better than positive ones (it’s like you can have 10 positive comments but one negative will knock them all out flat), it’s important to change that dialog to positive thoughts.
I read the book in high school so I might not have everything remembered right, but it seems solid. Stop beating yourself up at several miles an hour and start encouraging yourself instead. Doing that will change how you feel about yourself and life and others.
I have my good days and bad days with this concept. And when I’m not exercising and looking at my fitness and shape, so often my head is just filled with trash talk. Even when I am exercising, it’s hard to beat out the negativity. But it is easier.
Example: I love yoga. I love the concentration, the multi-level work on balance, strength, alignment, and flexibility, the hard work balanced with the meditation. I’m not that “good” at it if you look at how deep I can get into asanas and how long I can hold it, but I’m doing it to learn, to stretch, to strengthen, to focus . . . .
Since we got this gym membership, I’ve been able to go to yoga two times. Saturday, I was standing there and caught sight of myself in the mirror. Mirrors in gyms. Good for checking alignment and posture. Also good at showing the flab handing from my arms and the width of my midsection. Especially when my image completely obscures the reflection of the women behind me. And immediately the talk starts:
Good Lord, look at my arms! When did I grow fat wings? Oh, good! Now we’re leaning over and all the fat on my face is hanging to the side. Gross! And I can’t reach far enough because I can’t make it over these lumps of fat on my stomach. And my butt is enormous! Ack!
And immediately I start talking back to myself:
Oh, but check out my alignment. My spine is so straight! And I can get my arms up straight. I can hold this pose for ages because my legs are so strong. I know how to adjust my hips so I can do this pose even better. And the burn I’m feeling through my legs is calorie burn and I’m strong and beautiful and taking control.
The internal dialog about how awfully fat and ugly I am is probably what I’m the most tired of when it comes to my current health and condition. The constant self-loathing. So I’ve really been working on reversing that. It’s easy to stand in the gym and look at the little stick-figure girls and get frustrated and upset. But I’m trying to focus on the positive things I’m doing instead—the strength and stamina I’m building. And I’m doing things that I really enjoying instead of forcing myself to do things that I think I *should* do. Like, “I should work out 6 days a week.” I’m working out 3-5 days a week. “I should work as hard as I can until I can’t do it anymore.” I’m keeping it between 115 – 153 BPMs and stopping when it’s appropriate. “I should try to lose weight as quickly as possible.” I’m not even stepping on the scale right now but at most, I should lose 2 pounds a week.
I’m ENJOYING myself. I’m ENCOURAGING myself. And I’ve made it through a week and I’m feeling better than I was a month ago.
Tonight I’m going to Zoomba class! Or something like that. Isn’t that a robotic vacuum cleaner?
My post about weight and exercise
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009I just read this post by Schmutzie about a victory she had yesterday in her quest to quit smoking. She’s been cancer-stick free for a month and half and yesterday she found 2 old, forgotten cigarettes in her purse. In her post, she wrote about the emotions and struggles that she felt while looking at those cigarettes and how her husband disposed of them for her because she simply did not have the strength to do it herself.
It’s a great post. I’ve never smoked, never had an addition to chemical substances or alcohol or anything like that,but it made me think.
Is my weight issue an addiction issue?
It seems both ridiculous and right. I don’t know. I’m writing this and working it out as I go. I mean, I know I have a weight problem. By all scientific counts, I’m obese. I’m not gross or anything, but I have a greater than 30 body mass index and a greater than 40% body fat percentage. Clinically, that means I’m obese. Because that makes me cry, I just go with “fat”, on bad days, and “heavy” on all the rest.
It’s not something that happened overnight. It’s something I’ve been doing for a while, obviously, because unless there’s something chemically wrong with your body, weight like this isn’t accidental. Oops! I just picked up another 5 pounds. Dang it! It’s stuck on! No Stain Stick is going to get this mess out.
I figured it was just laziness. I’d rather come home, curl up with a book or a TV show or something relaxing like that than push my heavy bones down the street doing cardiovascular work. Ugh. No, thank you. I’ll sit here in my chair, covered by my comforter, and type on my computer. Oh, and cookies?! Sure! I’d love some!
I’m sure a lot of it is still laziness. I’m sure a lot of it is not watching what I eat very carefully. But am I addicted to food?
Justin and I signed me up for the gym on Friday. He won a drawing and we didn’t understand what he had won, and while it wasn’t what we expected (we thought he had a free membership for a year or a waived membership fee, but what he actually won was one free month) they did offer us a reduced fee that was quite pleasant. I’ve been three times now, once for a yoga class, once to meet with a personal trainer for an hour (a part of the sign-up process), and once on my own to do the work-out taught to me by the trainer. I am SO excited about this membership. I’m going back to the yoga class on Saturday and I hope to catch a class on Monday and the trainer I worked with chatted with me when I was there on Wednesday and wants to keep up with my progress as I go. We’re going to get together in a month and see how my numbers have changed–I’m actually not supposed to weigh myself until then, in order to avoid the discouragement.
I wrote a piece several months ago that I never posted. I looked all over for it today but I still haven’t managed to find it. In it, though, I went on and on about how I am so sick of this. I’m tired of being fat. I’m tired of this flab. I’m tired of my low energy and low self-esteem and I don’t know why I can’t just get over this, get thin, and stay thin. We’re looking at more than 10 years of this. And I just can’t stop.
But I want to.
I have an exercise plan. I have confidence in this plan because it was given to me by a certified professional trainer and it seems like that ought to mean something. If it doesn’t scientifically, at least it does mentally. I BELIEVE in this. I’m supposed to do this weights work-out 2-3 times a week and cardio 4-5 times a week (same day for cardio and weights, in case you were wondering how I fit 8 days into my week).
The challenge will be to keep it up and not get so LAZY again. But since we’re paying good money for me to have access to this gym, I have financial reasons, as well as mental and physical. If there was a Bible study happening at the gym, then I’d have all corners covered.
The other half of the coin is the food issue.
I’ve been writing down what I’ve been eating in one of my journals. I’m enjoying that, by the way. I have all these journals and I’m finding ways to use them. It’s great! On one page I write down what I’m eating (it shouldn’t go onto more than one page!) and on another page I’m writing my thoughts. Sometimes, like today, it’s more than one page, but that’s okay. So I’m writing it down and just the act of writing it down means that I bypass the candy bowl and I measure portions a little more carefully.
But I have to get back logging again. I know, know it so well, that I lose weight when I track my intake. I’m better about balancing my diet, better about portion control, better about sodium and saturated fats. It’s just so HARD. And food is so good!
So maybe I’m more addicted to simple laziness?
I don’t know. But I’ve been babbling like a crazy lady for a while now and I should go to bed. It’s food (heh) for thought, though. And some of you might have been curious to know how things were going with me on that front. When I talk with my family, we almost always talk about food and diets and struggles and frustrations all around the same issue. Why is this such a battle for us? My whole life, knowing that I should exercise more and eat less and not wanting to do it because exercise is hard and the bad food is so yummy!
But I don’t want to be there anymore. I want to be slender and fit and healthy and want to eat right and all those things that I hear skinny people do. I’ve never been one, so I have no idea.
So tomorrow I’m going to the gym again. I’ve been taking it slow this week because my muscles have really ached. But I’m going tomorrow, and yoga on Saturday. And I’ll write down my food. And I’ll just set it out that one of my weekend goals is to go log some of that online. If I can get started, it’ll be easier to keep on going. It’s just starting that’s so hard.
Fun with a scanner!
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009I’ve started a project I’m calling “Stuff at my desk that I can fit into my scanner.”
Smells nice and looks pretty
It’s a work in progress. But you can look at it under the Photos gallery called “Random Stuff.”
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