Filed Under: goals

New year, new goals, and a FREE gym pass!

January 2, 2008 at 7:36 am

I don’t have anything against New Year’s resolutions, but I don’t usually make them for the same reason I don’t celebrate “Love Your Body Day.” Every day should be “Love Your Body Day” and every day is a new year. Every day is the fulcrum of your life story. However, I do need to rededicate myself to this whole health and fitness game and since my timing coincides with the start of a new year, I guess we can call this a New Year’s resolution. It worked out rather well three years ago, didn’t it?

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m slipping out of my groove and I know that I need to do something about it now or regain 50 pounds. The former sounds much more appealing than the latter. I have a lot of sympathy for people who regain weight, but I do not want to be one of them. So, here’s my plan of attack:

PastaQueen’s Not-So-Secret Plan of Attack

1) Write down my goals. I need to know where I’m going or else how will I know when I’ve gotten there?

2) Identify my problems. I did this in the last post.

3) Create strategies to overcome my problems. The word “strategy” makes me sound like I’m planning a military campaign, but boot camp makes you fit, right?

So, I already identified my problems. Let me lay out my goals and my strategies. Goals need to be SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. A goal like “Eat better” is nice and all, but too vague to be of any use. How are you going to know if you are eating better? A better goal would be “Eat three fruits and vegetables a day.” This is something specific that you can do and is easy to see if you are accomplishing. I recently posted some non-weight goals for 2008 on the wall above my computer so I’m reminded every day of what I want to achieve. It’s all rather cheesy, but it tends to work so I’m just going to have to get over my lactose intolerance on this one.

My Health, Fitness and Body Goals for 2008

1) Run the Indianapolis Mini-Marathon. I thought about setting a time goal for myself, but honestly I’d just like to finish this thing without injuring myself along the way.

2) Run a 5K at a 9:30 a mile pace. My fastest and only 5K time was at a 10:31 minute a mile pace. After I train for the half-marathon, I think I can get that fast.

3) Try at least one exercise class/sport I haven’t tried before. Variety is the spice of life.

4) Fit into size 10 jeans. When I was at my largest, I thought a size 10 would be a great size to end up at. Right now I’m wearing size 12 jeans.

5) Do not weigh-in over 186 pounds. I had to lose 186 pounds to weigh 186 pounds, half my weight. I want to stay on this side of half of me.

6) ~~Lose the last 20 pounds~~. I keep flopping back and forth on this one. I did set 160 pounds as my goal weight and there are many reasons I’d like to get there. However, I don’t care that much about the scale anymore. I don’t want to gain any weight back, but I can name at least 5 other things that are more important in my life than losing 20 pounds. I know I write a weight-loss blog, but ultimately losing all this weight has allowed me to live my life, a life where I don’t care that much about weight loss. I care about my health and fitness and maintaining what I have lost, but losing any more weight…eh. The best reason I can think of to lose 20 pounds is because I’m going to be promoting a weight-loss memoir in 4 months, but that’s a pretty crappy reason to lose weight. It’s based entirely on other people’s expectations of me and that’s no way to live. I also think if I put a lot of pressure on myself to lose 20 pounds in 4 months, the stress would backfire on me and I’d end up binging. While I would not be unhappy to wake up tomorrow weighing 20 pounds less, it’s in my best interest not to get obsessed with that number and instead to focus on maintenance, health and fitness.

Okay, I’ve got some goals. What are my strategies?

PastaQueen’s Super Cool Strategies

1) Join a gym. The National Body Challenge from Discovery Health is offering an 8-week FREE pass to Bally Total Fitness. You have to sign up by January 11, 2008 to get the pass and it can only be used until March 2, 2008. No doubt Bally will also try to get you to sign up for a full membership and a personal trainer and shake you down for smoothie money once you’re in there, but I’m willing to give it a try. I’ve never joined a gym before, so I’d like to try out these spinning classes I’ve heard everyone talk about. Bally is only about 10 minutes away from my house and I think a change of scenery might help me get revved up about exercising. The thought of my treadmill in the bedroom isn’t really doing it for me right now. I would like to apologize in advance to all regular gym goers for being one of those annoying newbie January members who will be hogging your elliptical machine next week.

2) Index cards of inspiration. Oh man, the index cards make feel completely loony, but I’m going to try them anyway. My only real problem with eating right now is binging in the evenings. I’ve written reasons I want to lose weight on several index cards which I’ve set on my kitchen counter. The next time I want to go on a binge in the evening, I’m going to make myself read these stupid index cards and hopefully they will convince me to put down the fudge pop. I have no idea if they’ll work. I do know that part of the reason I’m eating too much in the evenings is because at that moment I care more about eating than I do about weight maintenance. The cards might help me rebalance my priorities at that moment. Part of losing weight is admitting that you don’t do it through strength of will alone. You have to acknowledge your weaknesses and make plans to circumvent them. And if they don’t work, at least my cat likes to play with them.

3) Do what worked before. Basically, I’m going to make myself start working out in the mornings again. I’m going to focus on eating more fruits, vegetables and lean meats and less carbs. And I’ll keep on blogging about what’s happening. I know how to lose weight, I just need to actually do it.

Those are my goals and strategies for now. I’ll monitor my weight and see how things go. At the end of January I’ll do another evaluation and make any adjustments or set new goals and strategies if necessary. Sound like a plan?

Weighing in on November

December 6, 2007 at 7:57 am

November was so insane that I forgot to weigh in on it until six days into December. Oops! And what a wacky month it was. First I discovered the common cold was the secret to losing those last two hundred pounds. Then I discovered the stress of which I cannot speak was a good way to gain back five. Then there was Thanksgiving. The net result? In November I lost and then regained about ten pounds. I’ve never ridden a roller coaster like that without wearing a seatbelt.

During the time I was excreting half my bodily fluids out my nose, I went four days without exercising, the longest period of non-activity I’ve experienced since the days when I had to rock back and forth to heave myself off the couch. When I was stressed, I ate about three pints of ice cream, the most dairy I’ve eaten in a week since I was breastfeeding. I didn’t eat much for Thanksgiving dinner, but made up for it during dessert by devouring several helpings of Dirt Cake, a delicious trifle with alternating layers of crumbled Oreos and cream cheese mixed with powdered sugar.

That’s not an apology. That’s life. I was fully aware of what I was doing and I’d probably do it again, though I may limit it to two pints of ice cream the next time. I don’t really care because through it all I stayed below or only slightly above 180 pounds. That’s the weight where I string up the yellow police tape that says “Danger! Danger! Do not cross!”

My biggest obstacle to getting to goal is that some days I don’t care about it that much. As long as I am under 180, I’m satisfied with my size. That is the magic weight where I no longer shop in the plus-size department and I can buy bras in brick and mortar stores instead of on the Internet. As long as I’m also exercising and eating well 90% of the time, I feel healthy and energized and life is good.

Some days I care a lot about getting to goal. I’d like to have a buffer of twenty pounds between my maximum weight limit and my current weight. I set a goal and I’d like to experience the pride of achieving it. I know knocking off another ten or twenty pounds would allow me to run faster and beat my personal record for the 5K and run a faster half-marathon.

Some days I see Dirt Cake and I don’t care how fast I can run.

I know some of you will suggest that I just let it go and name 180 as my maintenance weight and be done with it. I understand that point of view and maybe a year from now I’ll agree with you. But for now I’m going to keep working towards 160. I like having that goal. I like working towards it. If I were to reset my goal at 180, I might suddenly think 190 was okay and then 200 and then even my “fat” pants wouldn’t fit. Maybe it’s better to keep striving towards that asymptote line even it’s unreachable? Maybe it’s nice to have a dream?

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want out of life. For most of my existence, the first wish I would have asked of a genie in a lamp was to please, please, please make me thin. I got my wish. Now I have to figure out what to do with those other two wishes in my queue. My weight used to define me, but it’s become so much less important in my life that it’s time to issue a revised version of the dictionary. I’ll always have to watch my weight. I’ll always have to kick myself in the ass when I start skipping weight sessions like I have this month. The struggle will always be there. But it’s silent work that only the Internet and I know about.

So, I’m not giving up. I’m not pitching out my goal. But I’m admitting it’s not as important as it was when I started this trip. I’ve seen so much beautiful scenery on the way that I don’t quite remember where I thought I was headed when I started walking on that treadmill in the green exercise room of our old house three years ago. I doubt it really matters anymore. There are so many crossroads ahead, detours to take, and scenic routes to explore. As long as I’m happy, healthy and traveling with friends and family, I’ll go where life takes me. Some day it might even take me to my planned destination.

Two Years

January 30, 2007 at 9:53 am

In case you don’t read the comments, the blog was mentioned in the Wall Street Journal’s Blog Watch column yesterday. You have to have a subscription to read the whole column online, which I don’t. So I braved the cold Indianapolis winter and parallel parked for the first time in half a year to buy a copy from the bookstore downtown. Thanks, WSJ! Now that I am famous, I will need an entourage. Any volunteers? Sorry, I don’t offer health care. I’ll need some bling too, so my entourage’s first task will be to scour the local pawn shops for shiny rich stuff.

After two years of losing weight and blogging, I’ve lost 180 pounds and I got a nice mention in a national newspaper. What other things could I have achieved in two years?

I could have:

Gotten an associate’s degree in business, so when I take over the world I’ll also have a very nice marketing plan to pitch the cardiovascular benefits of trench digging.
At an episode a day, watched almost all of the 400 episodes of The Simpsons twice.
Paid off 2/3 of my car loan, thus owning everything from the trunk forward.
Run a campaign for president, if I were older than 35 and the thought of politics didn’t induce bulimia.
Painted half the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel and eliminated my underarm flab.
Developed a video sharing site more popular than breathing and sold it to Google for $1.65 billion dollars.

There’s a lot you can do in two years. Here’s to 2009 and the possibilities ahead.

Fat-iversary

January 15, 2007 at 9:40 am

Today’s my two year fat-iversary. It was back on January 15, 2005, that I started losing weight for real after more false starts than a spooked horse at the Kentucky Derby. Strangely, I noticed I have the same fat-iversary as Diet Girl, but then decided that’s not so weird considering how many people go on diets in January.

When I started, I was hoping to reach goal in two years. We’re a bit behind on that. I might be dieting, but losing 200 pounds in 2 years was biting off more than I could chew. At the time two years seemed like forever and a day, so I couldn’t bring myself to set goal for any longer. Here’s a chart of my losses, the red line being the trajectory for hitting goal on time. Click on it for the bigger version:

Through April I was outpacing the red goal line, thinking this would be easy peasy. Then I started keeping pace with it, but by June of 2006 I’d crossed over to the other side of the line. Now I’m about as far behind schedule as a government-run road construction project. It doesn’t really matter since the timeline was something I arbitrarily picked because I wanted to chart in years. Who would ever picka strange amount of time to hit goal in, like two years 7 months and 12 days? Years are just easier. But I would like to be at goal by the end of the year. Here’s hoping!

Weight: 192 – Pounds left to lose: 32

December 30, 2006 at 10:10 am

The secret to weight loss – chocolate covered cherries and snickerdoodles. You heard it here first. Oh, maybe all that running and bending my body like a pretzel helped too.

Two nights ago I dreamt I was fat again, complete with butt shelf. My butt used to stick out so far you could rest a set of Encyclopedia Britannica’s on it. I looked as fat as I had been when I weighed 300, but in the dream I knew I still weighed 195. I’d only hallucinated all the body changes over the past two years, like I was wrapped in a fairy glamour that had finally worn off. I looked at myself in the mirror to see that my clothes were wrinkled and ill-fitting. I don’t ever want to go back there. I don’t ever want those clothes to fit again.