Frustrated

I haven’t been updating this journal in awhile, partly because I have a new blog that’s sucking up my time and attention, and partly because I’m just frustrated with this whole side of my life. I don’t feel like things are getting better, I don’t feel like I have any part of anything under control, and the whole thing just makes me want to pound my head against things.

I keep wanting to add new things (or, rather, old things back in), but I can’t even get my shit together to do the three things that are currently on my list — walking, water and charting my calories.

I’ve been getting my three glasses of water most days, but some days it is only two, and often those come late at night when I already feel dehydrated, and I’m not tracking it, so I couldn’t say for sure how many days it is of each. I haven’t been tracking my calories or measuring my food.

I have been walking, most of the days I’m supposed to — though not yesterday since there just wasn’t time other than in the heat of the day, and I had already spent an hour and a half on my feet at the farmer’s market anyway — but it’s really not going well. I seem to make it okay through the first lap around the house, but the second lap is constantly bringing with it problems — I can’t breathe or my feet cramp up or my sides cramp up or something. I don’t think I’ve made it properly all the way through any of my last 5 or 6 walks, and it’s pissing me off.

Add to that I just feel fatter than ever, even if I’m still hovering around 350, and I’m just not happy. I went to a plus-sized clothing swap today, and nobody wanted any of my stuff, because my skinny clothes from when I lost weight a few years back were too big for all the other women there. That was depressing. Even if I lose all the weight I’ve gained in the last 5 years, I’ll still be the fattest person I know.

Blah.

Some days, I tell you.

Where I’ve been and what I’ve been up to…

So, I did go to St. Louis, and I did walk for the two days I was supposed to while I was there, though not with what I describe as great enthusiasm or speed. It’s hard to walk with a hangover. I did not manage to go to St. Louis under 350lbs, though I did manage to come back under 350. I assume that was mainly dehydration. I almost, but didn’t quite manage my non-goal.

Then, after returning, I promptly stopped walking for a week. I had a lot of trouble with sore feet there, as I always do — mother$%@&ing Duck Room floors — and I seem to be developing a noticeable plantar fasciitis problem, as well.

I’ve gone back to walking though, this week, so that, at least is progress. And it’s thoroughly kicking my ass, let me tell you. I don’t think it’s just from having taken a week off, I’d presumably be over that by now. Rather, I think it’s the weather. Breathing in all that waterlogged air is just hard damned work even when I’m not walking.

There’s no point…

… in updating my calorie counter today. It would just cry in protest. Instead, allow me to present a list of everything I tried even a nibble of in Niagara-on-the-Lake. It’s a pretty long list, but some of these were the barest of nibbles — a single kernal of pickled corn, or a 1 ounce wine sample sharing amongst 5 people, for example. Still, it’s a long and gluttonous list.

On the way there:

Chocolate Chip Cookies

At Upper Canada Cheese:

Comfort Cream Burger
Debrezini (sp?) sausage
Smoked sausage
Niagara Gold Cheese
Comfort Cream Cheese
Sticky Toffee Cheese
Smoked ricotta

Bought to take home:
Lemon Fetish
Cheese Curds
Niagara Gold
Sticky Toffee Cheese

Whitty Farms:

Garlic Peanuts
Strawberry Rhubarb Tart

Bought to Take Home:
Stawberries
Asparagus
Butter pecan tart
Butter raisin tart

Olson Foods:

Baguette with hazelnut spread
Lemon square
Fried chicken w/ potato chips
Roasted nuts
Beet Salad
Asparagus salad
pickled corn
Cherry juice
Gesundheit grape juice

The Pie Plate:

Carrot cake with orange cream cheese icing
Chocolate silk pie
Banana cream pie
Lemon meringue pie
Lemon coconut tart
Rhubarb custard tart
Steak & Guiness pie

Sunnybrook Farms:

Peach wine
Pear Sec wine
Black Currant wine
Pear ice wine
Chocolate embrace wine

Bought to take home:
Pear ice wine

Stratus:

Stratus Red
Stratus White
Ice Riesling
Ice Red

Bought to take home:
Ice Red

DeLuca’s:

Bread w/ balsamic and cold pressed canola oil
smoked trout on a stick
Mushroom Risotto
Smoked duck
Pickerel sashimi
Venison with asparagus in bacon and potato gratin
Rabbit fettucine

And, because I know Edith will include it, McDonalds:

Coke Zero

Awesome T-shirts?

I really need to get some t-shirts for walking in, since I really only have two that actually fit, and the rest are really uncomfortably too small.

I figure if I have to buy t-shirts, they may as well be awesome, so does anyone have any favorite Threadless / T-shirt Hell / Etsy / Whatever shirt designs that I should look at? It probably needs to come in at least a men’s 3x to be the right size.

If I had goals, which I don’t, this would be one of them

I’ve read a lot about goal setting when it comes to dieting, and the advice generally boils down to ’set small, regular goals for weight-loss and try not to think so much about your overarching far away goal’. But probably the best thing advice on goal setting I’ve ever received was from Beaglesmuggler, who has a group dedicated to not setting weight loss goals at all. Instead, they focus on behavioural goals, things they can directly control, like how many calories they eat, or trips they take to the gym, and let the weight-loss which is indirect, take care of itself.

That makes a lot of sense to me, so I’ve avoided setting specific weight-loss goals, outside of my little ticker chart which lists an ultimate goal of 150lbs. That’s probably unrealistic and is, in any case, so far off in la-la land that I don’t even think about it.

But I still find myself mentally setting goals, even when I’m trying not to, and the most recent of these is “Under 350lbs by Twangfest” which is closely aligned with “Still under 350lbs AFTER Twangfest, because there’s a lot of calories in PBR”. Assuming I don’t pork up in the next week and a half, I’m good for the first half of that goal — 349 at this morning’s weigh-in. Now all I’ve got to do is survive the after parties, where I’ll be drinking my calories (something I normally don’t do).

Much faster than the disabled…

…moderately faster than an elderly smoker, slower than teenagers smoking pot.

That’s what I learned today whilst walking. I passed a woman being pushed in her wheel chair without too much effort, but then really had to struggle to get by the old woman who was walking and smoking and carrying groceries, and had no chance in hell of catching up to the pothead teenagers.

I had a lot of calories left over today and was really fixated on going to Dairy Queen, so I made myself a deal that I could go to Dairy Queen, but only if I ended my walk there, thus also having to walk home again after.

I did one lap around the block like normal — and it was a lap of awesomeness, let me tell you. I mark how fast I’m moving by where I am in the block at different points in my workout track, and I’ve been pushing the point in All That Jazz where Fred asks “Say, your husband ain’t at home, is he?” closer and closer to the final corner, but never quite making it all the way there. Today I made the corner and another 40 or 50 feet beyond that before Fred’s line — and that’s with having to maneuver around the wheelchair.

So I finished that lap, drank some water and headed back in the direction of Dairy Queen, figuring based on previous experience, to get there right around when I had to do my cool down and planning to walk past Dairy Queen for cool down and come back for ice cream. But when I got to Dairy Queen, there were still 3 minutes left in my power walk, so I walked that out, passing the smoking woman on the way, and then turned around and came back for my cool down, which I didn’t quite finish before I got back to DQ.

I ordered a Pecan Mudslide, ate 2/3 of it, figured the last third would probably taste a lot like the first 2/3, threw it away and walked home again. I meant to see how long it took me to walk home, not power walking, just walking walking, but I forgot.

The gods must be crazy…

I had pretty much decided that I was not going out for a walk tonight. It was dark, it was raining, and I was feeling pretty nastily ill. It was pretty much the trifecta of suck. I mean, dark and raining, I’ve done. Dark and miserable I’ve done. Raining and miserable I could probably handle. But all three? That was just asking for too much.

So, I sat here, and I made my decision. I was not going out for a walk tonight. I would make it up tomorrow, but I would not drag my miserable ass out into a dark and stormy night just to prove a point.

About 30 seconds later, it stopped raining.

I guess someone was planning on proving a point tonight, even if it wasn’t me.

So I schlepped my ass outside and I walked. It wasn’t my best walk ever — about a minute and a half off my best 2+ lap time, from Monday — but it wasn’t even close to my worst, either. And now it’s done.

And I still feel like ass, but at least I feel like responsible, exercising ass, instead of couch potato ass.

That’s helpful, thanks!

30 minutes walking at 2.5mph equals 320 calories burned. Or is it 242?

This does not leave me thinking happy thoughts about the accuracy of The Daily Plate’s calorie burn calculations. I mean, I’m suspicious of calorie burn calculations in general, but this is ridiculous.

Reason #26: Because it’s not good to be full…

… or it’s good to not be full or it’s not good to be too full, however you want to think about it.

I went out to dinner tonight and ordered a sensible appetizer, and a moderate entree, tried a few things off other people’s plates and finished up the night without dessert.

After consuming maybe 1/3 to 1/2 the food I normally would at a dinner out I was not full — and by not full, I mean, my eyeballs were still firmly planted in my eyesockets and not bulging out. I was certainly not hungry. I came home and finished my strength training for the day, something I never could have managed after one of my usual restaurant dinners.

Woot! Woot!

5 pounds lost since I started tracking my food consumption.

Moving along…

I’m still having a lot of trouble with my shins and ankles when I walk, but less so when I do it on a day of rest. Saturday, I ended up hobbling through the second lap, then Sunday was a rest day, and yesterday, I managed my best distance ever with very little pain at all, despite heavily using my arms to keep my heartrate up. I think I’m going to switch to a schedule with more rest days in it and see if that helps.

There are two workouts — speed ladder and power walk, so I figure to start with 2 days on, one day off and see how that goes. If all seems okay in a week or two, I’ll move up 3 days on, two days off and see if that’s okay, etc. My hope is that I’ll build enough strength in my legs as I build up my non-rest days that I’ll be able to get rid of the pain problem without enduring anymore actual pain.

I do see a noticeable improvement in my cardio fitness, though the big test was Sunday, when I schlepped myself and a bag of games up the stairs at the Yellow Griffin. I was hoping my new workoutness would have allowed me to do that and still breathe when I reached the top, but alas, no. I felt like maybe I was less out of breath than usual, but I was still out of breath.

I’m also seeing much improvement on the strength training parts of the workout, with better form and more ability to do the reps straight through instead of stopping to breath in the middle. I pushed this maybe a little too far and almost caused an asthma attack last night — I could feel that characteristic tightening in my lungs, but didn’t cough more than once or twice — but it’s nice to be seeing visible improvement there.

Today’s walk had to be aborted…

…on account of pain.

I got off to a slow start, because I forgot to close the garage door, and then I got caught behind a car backing out of a driveway, and then my neighbour stopped me to say ‘you go girl!’ and all of that meant that when I hit my Intensity 7 section of the workout, I was headed down a grade.

Trying to pump up my heart rate while walking downhill proved disastrous for my shins, and by the time I was finished that three minute section, I was pretty much done for. I hobbled back to the house and am now waiting for the tylenol to kick in.

It’s very interesting (not to mention painful) to me that my legs are giving out before my lungs. I’ve been asthmatic it seems like forever, and had so much trouble breathing, that I’ve always assumed my breathing would be what let me down, but in this case it’s definitely not. I can get myself all breathless, but I have to actually work at it, because my legs just don’t want to move that fast.

I have recently determined that a big part of the difference between my early distances covered and my more recent distances has been whether I’ve got my arms bent up or are letting them hang. I think I’m going to need to start working my arms as a much bigger part of my workout in order to get my cardio intensity up (already becoming harder, as I get more used to this) while not stressing my legs so much.

Overall, I think this is a good thing. My asthma attacks are scary things to behold sometimes, and I’d much rather not have one, so it’s great that I’m able to breath through all of this. I could do with less actual pain, though.

WTF!?

I’ve assumed that the reason I didn’t manage to lose any weight the last two weeks is that I was eating out too much, but as it turns out, the more likely culprit was a box of stale crackers that’s been sitting on my counter gradually being consumed.

Whole Grain Stoned Wheat Thins are 30 calories each! So the four I grabbed as a tiny snack to make my stomach stop rumbling over the smell of my lunch cooking were 120 calories total. Which makes them nearly 20% of my total lunch calorie consumption, despite the fact that the rest of my lunch was two entire servings of beef stew. For 4 crackers! And they’re even Whole Wheat crackers!

I haven’t felt this betrayed by a food since I discovered how many calories are in a falafel.

This may also account for most of my fatness as a child, when I ate stacks and stacks of Stoned Wheat Thins on a regular basis. Who would have guessed?

So, am I turned around?

2 weeks of this walking thing was supposed to be my big turn around, right? That’s why they call it the 2 week turnaround? So, the question is whether I’m turned around.

And I’d say I’ve turned a few degrees, perhaps, but it was certainly no volte face.

I didn’t lose any weight, I didn’t lose any inches.

On the other hand, I didn’t gain any weight or inches, either, and I ate nearly every meal in those 2 weeks out or as take-out.

I do feel like maybe I’m a little bit fitter than I was. I can do the strength training stuff more readily than I did when I started. And yesterday I was up and down the stairs all day doing laundry, something I normally find exhausting.

I still haven’t made a decision about my gym membership, but I think I’m going to keep going with the walking for another 2 weeks, and see where that gets me.

Obviously, however, I can’t continue to eat like crap and still hope to lose weight, so I’m going to start tracking what I’m eating in The Daily Plate again. Just the act of having to write it down will force me to pay attention and stop eating crap.

I’m so fat and out of shape…

CHORUS: How fat and out of shape are you?

I’m so fat and out of shape, that I consider being able to get into the resting position for exercises an accomplishment.

I blogged about one of the strength exercises that’s in this 2 Week Turnaround Program last week — how not only could I not do the damned exercise, I couldn’t even get into the resting position.

Well, I’m pleased to say that I can now get into the resting position. It is not what you might call restful — I can only hold it for maybe a 2 count before I collapse, and have to take 3 or 4 breaths before I can try again — but it is something.

This thread is useless…

Why yes, I do look like a giant dork when I go walking. Why do you ask?

Encouragement and Discouragement

On the one hand, the woman at Running Room was very encouraging when I went to buy socks last night. She said it was excellent that I had gone walking, even in the rain, and was generally very upbeat on the whole thing.

On the other hand, she asked me if I was walking further each day, and that’s where I’m feeling discouraged. Maybe a week is too soon to see any kind of improvements, but I feel like I’m working harder every day, and yet I’m walking less distance every day, as well. Today, only 3400 steps in half an hour.

I’m not sure if this is just pedometer wackiness, but I don’t think I make it as far around the block, either. It’s kind of bumming me out. Not enough to stop walking, but still. Bummed.

On the plus side, I passed a nice old lady while I was walking today who, I believe, said “Good for you!” and smiled at me. Of course, I had my iPod going at high volume, so she could have said “Get the fuck out of my way!” too.

But she probably wouldn’t have been smiling.

On a less positive note…

I actually appear to have gained 2lbs this week.

I’m trying not to be depressed by that.

Also trying to keep in mind that I ate most of my meals out this week, which is why.

36570

That’s the total number of steps I walked in the first 6 days of my program. That includes non-program walking on some of those days (it looks like I didn’t wear my pedometer the rest of Thursday, since that number is very low). It’s nowhere near the 60,000 steps that are recommended by those 10K steps a day plans, but it’s a lot more than I’m sure would have registered the week before.

Looking back from my day of rest, I’m feeling pretty good about things.

I walked in the rain (twice) and in pain, and I even ended up doing my strength training last thing before bed, but I did do everything I was supposed to.

It was hard to do the strength exercises with correct form, because my own fatness (and my excess of furniture) got in the way, but I did them as well as I could under the circumstances.

I often felt like I was on the verge of pushing myself into an asthma attack, but I didn’t have a single one throughout the week, and my breathing recovered, if not quickly, then at least before I finished my cooldown, even on the hardest legs of the speed ladder.

I’m feeling relatively little pain this morning, despite having walked more yesterday than any other day, since I did both my walking exercise and went shopping on Queen West, which, while not done at the same pace as the walk, did cover the same distance.

Today is supposed to be ‘active rest’ and I have a board game thing to go to anyway, so I’ll mostly be sitting and not being active, but if I have time later, I’m going to try the pace marker on my pedometer and see if I can get a better sense of what my pace should be in different phases of walking, so I can have a better idea of whether I’m pushing myself more or less from day to day.

Do not want…

I did not want to do the other half of today’s exercise, the strength training bit. Did not. Tired. Sore. Cranky. Not want!

But now it’s done and I’m going to bed.