When Is The Last Time?

This is the title of my newest post on my other blog, Stars on The Ceiling.

A Brief Lapse

A little reminder of what 127 lbs. looks like:

The bottom line is that two weeks after reporting a weight of 194.5 lbs., I am still at that weight. This is both a good thing and a not so good thing. Most importantly, I am still on fire to get rid of the lbs. Perhaps "on fire" is not such a good metaphor from a Californian living approx. 500 miles away from the raging flames down south, but the term well describes the energy that I'm currently able to harness to burn off the flab.

The stumbling blocks during these past two weeks involve food and exercise. Fatigue is a common denominator with both. The remedy is obvious: Get enough sleep. Something else that has effected my use of the elliptical cross trainer (ECT) has been pain and the remedy there is also obvious at least in this case: Don't overdo it. Some of my on-line friends have warned me about this. I think I set myself up for injury by setting the resistance and the incline level higher than currently appropriate. I find myself using the "random cross" program on a regular basis. I had been amping up the resistance to be four levels higher than the set pattern. Having learned my lesson, I'll be doing the set pattern for a while. Some of my on-line friends have commented that they get tired just reading about this exercise. I am at a point of totally enjoying it. My time on it, usually an hour now, is like a dance and a meditation. I'm freed from the impact of walking, dancing, running and can gently move to the music that I've chosen. I've become steadier in my pacing of this, trying to maintain a heartbeat level that doesn't go over 84% of the maximum. This is a change from the bursts of speed that I was doing before I overdid it. Without the heartbeat monitor, I could easily go much faster. And I want to. The monitor is my safety net and I allow it to guide me.

Where I've gotten off track with food, the reasons derive from fatigue, lack of preparation, and a week-end away from home. I've already mentioned the first of these and the remedy for the second is to take the time to stay prepared. I need to make this a priority. The third reason rings the alarm for the holidays ahead. Matt and I went the week-end of the 21st/22nd. We spent Saturday and Saturday night in Scotts Valley. I think I gave myself an appropriate amount of leeway in my menu choices at dinner that night. On Sunday, we went to San Jose to visit Bendy (Ben and Wendy) and my granddaughter, Maddie. The lunch that Bendy served, a prepared chicken dish and risotto from Trader Joes, was high in calories and 3M delicious.
(3M=multi-mega-mighty) Usually Bendy serve less fattening fare. Of course, I could have declined dessert, 3 mini chocolate covered cheesecakes. Yeah right! Having eating the 3M delicious dinner, there was no way that I could have walked away from the cheesecakes. I did well by not scarfing down the one that Matt left on his plate. Of course the highly intelligent way of dealing with this all was to waltz with the binge monkey when I got home. Fortunately it was a short dance.As I said, the alarm has rung for the impending holiday season. I'll figure strategy before then. For now, I'll consider myself warned.

So I had a little foray into the doomed world of bouncing flab. My visits were brief and, more often than not, I compensated for them by doing the ECT dance. There will be no more forays in the coming days and weeks. I'm well along on the path to finally get rid of the regain.

Just A Quickie Note

I'm still on track - more or less. Most importantly, I've been keeping up with the elliptical. I've had some food lapses, including today. I also just finished an hour on the elliptical. My weight this morning was 195.

I'm waaay behind reading the blogs of my on-line friends (but I'm up to date with an important chore that long loomed over my head). I'll be playing catch up soon (I hope).

Momentum

I've got the momentum going now. Thankfully, with a weight in the 190's, I've got 29 points (approx. 1500 calories) to play around with each day. In the final leg of my journey to 127 lbs. in the Spring and Fall of 2003, I had to keep the daily point count between 18 and 23. The Weight Watcher plan is well devised in this regard. On a number of days this week, keeping to 29 points was difficult. I allowed myself an extra point and was still on track because I'd worked out on the elliptical. One day I went to a Japanese restaurant for lunch with a friend. I ordered udon noodle soup with tofu and a tiny bottle of sake. Later that afternoon I had a small piece of apple pie that she had made from home grown gravensteins. Before meeting up with my friend, I'd decided to make the wisest decisions I could with regard to food. If healthful eating is truly going to be a life time thing, I've got to train myself to sanely enjoy the pleasures of "the real world." The alternative is a lifetime of reaching out between the bars of my diet cage for stalks of celery because one bite of pie will have me dancing with the binge monkey. When I returned home, I put in an hour of high intensity work on the elliptical.

When I began the journey from 192 to 127 lbs., I knew that I would be successful. As I've previously mentioned, my weight loss was preceded by a dream in which the sun was shining on me and I was radiant with the knowledge that I would succeed. In the past few days, I've had dreams of resisting temptation and of meeting people from the past who I wished had seen me at 127. In these dreams, I'd already gotten rid of some of the regain and looked forward to the gradual process of getting back to my goal weight.

I don't now have the same certitude about my success that I had in October 2001. I'm aware of vulnerabilities that I have now that I didn't have back then. Or perhaps they were there and made themselves known when I struggled with maintenance. In any case, I feel more optimistic about getting back to my goal weight than I have for a very long time. It's been an epic struggle to get the momentum going. I will not jeopardize it with careless decisions and lazy behavior. I have the inner strength, intelligence and self discipline to keep it going. As I am doing now. And onwards.

Oh yeah, my weight this morning was 194.5

And also, today I had a pain in my back, particularly on the left side, that was a result of overdoing it yesterday on the elliptical. I'd gone up to a resistance of 12 out of 20 and an incline of 10, the highest level. So today I stayed at resistance level 1 and incline level 1 (for a little longer than an hour).

Yup. I working hard to get rid of the regain.

At My Fattest and On Track

The only thing standing between me and my goal weight is time.

My eating has been off track this week, but I've been getting solidly into a working out routine. I've taken long walks or done vigorous stints on the elliptical six of the past seven days. On the one day that I didn't exercise, I had a tooth pulled in the morning, also a bridge removed, bone material inserted where the roots of the tooth had been, and the wound sewn up. I only worked out for eighteen minutes on the previous day. Time had gotten away from me, but I was determined to at least get in those eighteen minutes to keep the momentum going.

Today I weigh 201, my highest non-pregnancy weight and possibly my highest weight ever. Having persevered with the exercise, I am confident that the lbs. will be coming off in the succeeding weeks and months. I have been reluctant to state specific weight goals in the past. I have believed, and continue to maintain, that if I eat appropriately and exercise regularly the weight will take care of itself. Even so, I am setting a realistic target weight: 185 lbs. by 1/1/08. This was my weight on 9/29/05 when I began this blog with the goal of getting rid of the regain. Oh, how sad, how tragic, how . . . human, that I now find myself beginning again 16 pounds heavier than I was when I started. I notice that I'm smiling as I write this . . . . because I really really really know that the only thing that stands between me and my goal weight is time. I am up for the job of doing what I need to do to get there.



The Good Bubbly -----------------------------My Sweetie
















Endorphin Amplifier--------------- The Keys to Getting High

With A Little Help From My On-Line Friends

I've got to thank Half Man again for his inspiration. I was planning to go on the elliptical today, as I've planned and not done for the last several days, while time was running away from me as I read through the blogs of my on-line friends. When I came to Half Man's (and was realizing that today was likely to be another one of good intentions left undone), I got the kick in the head that I needed. He described his "foul mood last week" as a result of his inability to exercise because of a bad back. "I was not able to cope . . . with the other crap going on in my life" without getting the endorphins that are produced when one exercises. Eureka!! The man has found gold. Getting on the elliptical is not about burning calories or increasing cardio health. It's about those awesome endorphins. It's a way to get a legal high. Thus motivated, I read through another few blogs and got on the elliptical that is always standing therewhen I write my blogs.

And it's a good thing that I did. Despite it being October 1, the first of the month and a wonderful time to be-good-from-now-on-without exceptions, I was slowly paving the way for an off track day. I returned home from a stressful consultation with my oral surgeon and had a wonderful on-track lunch. I'd given myself a very decent serving of watermelon then, already full, another very decent serving. I was pigging out on watermelon. Of the various foods one might binge on, watermelon is not a terrible choice, but . . . On the kitchen island was a package of biscotti that Matt had picked up on his way home from his lab tests. "They're only 100 calories for 2 of them," he told me. At some points in my day, these 100 calories could easily fit in with my remaining on track. After lunch and a watermelon binge, this was not such a point. Still, they were there and I'd already had the watermelon, so I might as well have a couple I decided. And I did.

The way this tale would usually go is on to other indiscretions. Instead, I checked my blog and saw 6 comments on my previous posts. People are checking up on me. And I really really really want to be a success story. I want to be writing one of those blogs about goals set and achieved. I did that last year prior to going to Spain. Prior to Matt's leukemia diagnosis. And I can do it again.

And I got inspired by what people wrote. I got inspired by what Cactus Freek wrote: "No Excuses." And "No Compromises." And then I came to Half Man's post about endorphins.

And I got on the elliptical for 36 minutes including warm up and cool down. According to the machine, I burned up 223 calories. That should make up for the watermelon and the biscotti. And now I'm feeling good about the day and, at 6:25 p.m. am pretty sure that I WILL PERSEVERE.

Profile Photo