Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Testing Results

So tonight we did our final night of testing at boot camp, and I decided I want to record it all here so I can look back at the end and see how I did. Last night we did the situps, hop ups and pushups, two minutes of each with only thirty seconds of rest in between. Let me tell you after the hop ups I was dying, so my pushups sucked. It looked like this:

Sit Ups (full body, not crunching): 64 in two minutes
Hop ups (two legs at a time, not step ups: 57 in two minutes
Pushups (regular pushups, once you fall to your knees you're done): 7 in two minutes (yeah I need to improve on that)

Tonight we did tests on running. We ran up to Cheeseman Park and were timed at how fast we could run around. The loop around the park is 1.6 miles, and I did it in 17:38. That's a little over an 11 minute mile by my calculations. Which I'm pretty happy with actually. And hopefully by the end of the five weeks I'll do even better.

Food is going well, I'm eating more fiber than I had been and that's taking some getting some used to. Tomorrow I have a work lunch out and then its girls dinner night after boot camp, so I hope I can make good choices. I'm going to try to have a salad wherever we go for lunch, and then I think my friend I. is making fish tacos, so that should be of the fairly healthy variety anyway. Now that I'm back at boot camp I'm earning a ton of activity points, but I don't want to fall into the trap of thinking I can eat whatever I want just because I'm working out so much.

So yeah it's all good. It's amazing what workouts can do for your mood! Later taters.

Monday, March 26, 2007

Whine (wine)

This weekend absolutely flew by and I am really sad its Monday. But I guess Monday's basically over so it's all good. My impetigo has improved vastly, now I just have a few dry spots on my face and neck and I'm feeling much better about everything. It is amazing how much I rely on my face, my smile. No matter how gross and ugly my body is feeling, at least I can make my face look pretty with nice hair and makeup. Not so much with the impetigo. Eh.

Moving on - I started another 5 week session of boot camp tonight. I was SO looking forward to going after work. I just needed to blow off some steam and I don't think my workouts have been as good when I'm not in that controlled environment. It was a beautiful day yesterday and I did go on a run down to the lake, but I've just been missing the group environment and the pushing I get from the instructors there. I dread it, but I love it. It's great.

So last night, we had company over to watch the Discovery Channel's Planet Earth series (amazing by the way) and I drank too much wine and got cranky. And basically picked a fight with my husband.

I find myself doing that a lot lately when I drink wine, and I think I need to check myself. We talked about it tonight and I think I'm mentally addicted to the idea of drinking a glass of wine to relax. Not so much when I'm working out a lot, but on the weekends, especially with my girlfriends, I feel I need some wine to relax. What usually happens is one of two things. I don't eat enough food and the wine goes straight to my head and I get cranky. OR, the wine goes straight to my head and I end up eating too much food. Either way I end up unhappy and feeling like I've sabotaged my weight loss efforts.

So even though I think I want to drink wine to enjoy myself, the end result is not always positive. Of course that's not to say I can't enjoy the occasional glass once in a while, it's just that right now it's not working that way.

So I'm not going to completely cut it out, but I think I need to find other ways to relax. My husband suggested meditating, but I guess I'm not sure where to begin. And how does that help me when it's a beautiful day on a Sunday afternoon and we're having dinner with friends and everyone is having a cocktail? That's where the mental struggle comes in.

I'd love to just go into hiding and try to lose weight all by myself, eating perfectly, drinking only water and exercising like a champ. It's not so realistic though. I know I just need to find my own perfect balance, but somehow I don't know if that's ever going to happen.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Tuesday

I'm surviving the impetigo, but just barely. So far the antibiotics don't seem to be doing much good, but I guess it hasn't really even been 24 hours since I started them. I'm home from work again today hiding from the world, but hopefully I'll be able to go in tomorrow.

Tomorrow is a big day because it's both my mom's and my husband's birthdays. I was excited for the approaching day, but now that I've developed this infection I'm sort of dreading it. I don't have gifts for either of them yet (was going to go to the mall yesterday after work but that didn't happen). The other issue is of course that I'm supposed to go to lunch with my mom and then dinner with the husband. That means going out in public with my yucky face.

I think I'm going to have to just take one for the team and deal with it, because even though the waiter might look at me funny it's spending time with my loved ones on their special days that is important in the end. Send some zen vibes my way though so I don't have a panic attack about it.

I did actually get started on "trying" again as far as losing weight goes yesterday. I can't open my mouth very far because it's swollen, so that's probably a good thing right now. For dinner last night I had a turkey pita with hummus and an apple. An hour or two after dinner I thought, "Mmm, I'm sort of hungry, and I have some points left. I'll have some ice cream! I deserve it after all the crap I've been through."

But as I thought about it some more, I didn't really want the ice cream. What I wanted was some emotional comfort. Something to make me feel better about being sick. Something to turn to.

But ice cream won't cure my infection, and it won't make work easier, and it won't make me happy. In fact, the most it would have done would be to give me some instant gratification and then make me feel terribly guilty for "screwing up" the first day of me trying to get back on the wagon.

So I had a banana instead. I felt good about it. Still do.

Monday, March 19, 2007

Impetigo

Warning: This post may contain too much information.

I have impetigo, which is basically like a strep infection that manifests itself in your skin. It totally sucks. But first, some background.

So we went to Newport Beach last week for a friend of ours from college's wedding (also why I've been gone so long). Six of us from the Denver area went, rented a house and had a blast from Tuesday until Sunday. We drank a ton of beer, ate like crap, but I managed to get in some sort of exercise every day except Saturday and Sunday. The wedding was fabulous and lots of merriness was made.

On Friday we were out in the sun all day on what we termed a "family bike ride" and when we got home, I started to notice some small blisters around my lips and on my finger tips. A few of my fingers were also looking pretty swollen. I thought maybe it was the sun or my psoriasis kicking up a notch, but I didn't think too much about it.

Well Saturday and Sunday the blisters grew and got progressively worse and today my face is swollen up like a giant tomato and I have nasty blisters all over. I know, it's disgusting, and it is driving me crazy. I went to my dermatologist this morning and he said it's a basic skin infection, probably from sleeping on dirty sheets (ewwww!!!) or sharing makeup or something along those lines. Drinking massive amounts of beer hasn't helped anything I'm sure.

I stayed home from work today but due to the three days I took off last week, I REALLY need to go in tomorrow. I just don't know how I'm going to face everyone. It's one thing being fat, but dammit I've always had a pretty face! Right, the fat girl with the pretty face? Classic.

Anyway, now I don't even have a pretty face, and I'm in pain and just embarrassed about the whole situation. I'm on antibiotics so hopefully it will start clearing up soon.

As you can probably guess by my reference to the massive amounts of beer I've recently consumed, things have not been going well on the weight loss front. To put it bluntly, I haven't even been trying. For months and months, I haven't even been trying. And I've been gaining weight because of it. Yes I'm working out a lot, but that is not enough. So today it's time to start trying again. And no more beer. Beer = bad.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Self Esteem

Wowzer. Tonight at boot camp we ran the capitol stairs. Up and down and around and around. Oh yeah of course first we had to run to the capitol (about a mile from the boot camp). The we got to the stairs. He had us do triangle formations and other nonsense but basically, it was running up and down the stairs.

It was hardcore. I thought I was going to puke. But I felt so amazing afterward. Absolutely incredible. It's awesome what a hard workout can do for your self esteem.

My sister and I went to get a salad at Whole paycheck after bootcamp tonight. I put ranch on mine. I felt like I deserved some ranch. There may have also been some cheese. And a crouton.

So guess who else decided to go to Whole F00ds for dinner last night? The boot camp instructor.

Of course.

That high I had was totally deflated when he looked at my salad and saw all that crap on there.
He didn't say anything. But I just knew he was thinking "No wonder she's fat, she can't lay off th ranch." It sucked. I felt like crap.

I mean, I doubt he even thinks twice about it and the end of the day, but the problem is, I think about it. I think about it all the time. What does he think? What does she think? What do my colleagues think? What do my friends think?

Who cares, right?

I guess I do.

On some level I know I just need to get over it and deal, but there's also that voice inside of me that really yearns for acceptance. I want people to think of me a certain way. And when I don't take action to make that happen, I feel like crap.

It's hard not to get so wrapped up in what other people think of you when you can't love yourself. So that's what I'm working on. At least I'm at boot camp. At least I'm getting a salad. I'm taking steps. And doing the best I can.