-
I Have A Plan.
I have a post-Thanksgiving plan. It does not involve eating sensibly, because let’s face it, we’re heading into the time of year where I basically survive on fudge and Christmas oranges, and that doesn’t seem super likely to change. o.o
It does involve pilates and yoga. My goal is just to gain more core strength than I currently have. That shouldn’t be hard, because at the moment I possess the approximate core strength of an un-set bowl of Jello. I have a whole set of Exercises (wow, it took me literally a dozen tries to spell that correctly) For Jello People. They work. I know they do, because I’ve used most of them in the past. My CRAZY GOAL is to NOT GET SICK & do them more or less daily from Monday thru the end of the year.
Some of it is not actually core-strengthening, per se. It’s “attempt to loosen my hips and spine up”-ening. My massage therapist friend made many horrified noises while she was trying to change me from a log back into a human being earlier this week, which does impress upon one one’s log-like-ness…
I have a 5-minute yoga routine which makes a Noticeable Difference within 3 days of doing it daily. (Every time I do this, usually at night, when she says “this is probably your first downward dog of the day” I think “You’re not wrong.” :))
There’s also this set of stretches, which, o my sweet purple potatoes, I have done once and
1. they are good stretches
2. i am far too fat and far too stiff to do them with ANY kind of grace or comfort but i guess that’s the point of doing them, isn’t it the stretches that I have not done yet but CLEARLY need to incorporate into my day at least once, ideally 2-3 times, but DEFINITELY onceAnd for thingy stuff, like, impacty stuff, this body-weight only workout from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s website is very, very good. I strongly recommend not starting with 4 reps of the whole set unless you’re already in reasonable condition, bc otherwise YOU’LL BE RUINT FOR DAYS!
I can’t currently find my “pilates for people who are too weenie to do beginner pilates” list/post right now but I’ll post it when I do. It’s also actually quite good and if done regularly strengthens weenie people up to being able to do beginner pilates. :)
On the one hand I’m probably in no danger of doing all four of these on any given day. OTOH it wouldn’t take more than half an hour to DO all four of them, so…I should work toward that, probably. But especially just…stretching and core strength, because oi.
-
a smol exercise
I went to the gym for my Consultation today. That sounds very impressive, doesn’t it, a Consultation? Very impressive.
I was not looking forward to it at all. I have never been Consulted at a gym before. It turned out to be fine. My strong opinions were not swept away by Somebody Who Knows Better, so, y’know. It was fine. (“Okay, cardio,” the guy says. “What kind of cardio are you interested in?”
“I will not run for you,” I said flatly. “I’ll swim, cycle, row, whatever, but I will not run.”
He wrote down “no running.” Good Consultant. Have a cookie.)
Anyway, I was Consulted and Weighed and Measured and as Ted said, “They weighed me in kilograms, but at least they didn’t have to use metric tonnes,” and I told Consultation Guy I was interested in having the arm and waist and thigh etc measurements but not in knowing what they were, because I’m genuinely not interested in the actual number. But I’ve often thought, after several months of working out, “I should have measured to see where I started,” and so now I have a record to look back on sometime, which is potentially interesting. Consultation Guy was fine with that.
What, he wanted to know, were my goals. Stress relief, primarily (“hard job?” he asked, and I didn’t have the wit to say “PARENT, SO YEAH” because mostly I was thinking “more like afraid we’re all going to die in a nuclear holocaust, actually”) but core strengthening and weight loss would be nice too. Free weights or machines, “Free weights,” I said, and then I went out and prodded at the machines and was like “dang I’m gonna need a primer on using these things because they’ve gotten a lot fancier since I used them regularly, ai.” And he asked a couple other, well, he asked a bunch of other things but anyway that was the gist of all that Consultation.
And the result is that he’ll work up a workout for me (one that will not, I presume, involve running) and I get to try it tomorrow.
In the meantime I did a smol exercise on my own. I did about ten minutes of dance floor exercise, poked at a couple machines, and did ten or twelve minutes on a stationary bike. I’m sure I’ll feel it tomorrow, but I’m sure it’ll be nothing like the anticipated crippling agony on Thursday or Friday….
I’m going to need a gym icon if I blog about this much more. Should I blog about it more?
-
Sugar Wars: 28 Days Later
I’m doing this for 30 days and keep thinking “4 weeks” and also keep forgetting what day I started, so today is 4 weeks but I’m not quite done yet. Not, she said grimly, that this can ever be *done* for me, because I’ll just fall back into old habits if I loosen the rein. Old, tasty habits. Still, I may treat this as sort of a wrap-up post, although hey, don’t worry, there’ll be a new leg of it starting soon.
The only other time I’ve gone off sugar for this long I was MUCH stricter with myself. I went absolutely cold turkey that time. I’d say I’ve run somewhere between 80-90% on target this time, which, since I’ve stuck with it, is certainly sufficient for my purposes right now.
The scale hasn’t moved much over the past couple weeks, but I think that’s as much a combination of bad timing regarding my digestive cycle and biology, as anything else. I’ll see next week where things are. Even as things stand, I’ve lost 7 pounds in the past 4 weeks, which is completely reasonable. It’s not, of course, the mega-dramatic OMG LOOK WHAT AMAZINGNESS HAS HAPPENED JUST BECAUSE I CUT SUGAR that one dreams of, but it’s completely reasonable. It would also be better, of course, if I hadn’t regained ten pounds in the six months previous to starting these sugar wars, but there’s not much point dwelling on that either.
As much of a triumph as the actual cutting of sugar aspect is that I’ve kept a calorie calendar going for 28 days, too, despite eating out. I don’t really know why I’ve managed to, but it’s probably helped, because I was able to see that the problem wasn’t necessarily that I missed sugar, but that I’d cut so many calories that I missed FOOD. That probably helped me choose wisely about what to eat to make up for the sugar, instead of just throwing the towel in and eating an entire cake.
Exercise has been hit and miss, and when I say exercise I mean ‘getting my 10k steps in’ because I’m not even trying to accomplish anything else. Most weeks I average pretty close to 10K a day, but I don’t often hit 10K every day. I’d say I’ll try to do better, but realistically I won’t. There are days when I just don’t leave the house, and nothing I’m really honestly going to do is going to get me 10K steps on those days.
Anyway, so that’s not quite a wrap, but it’s where things stand at the end of four weeks.
-
exercise room :)
So my dad has converted the garden shed at my parents’ place into an exercise studio, with a weight bench and a stationary bike and free weights. I said heck, I was going to just start going over there to exercise!
“Good idea!” Ted said brightly. “It’s even a gym that provides childcare!”
*laughs and laughs* My parents thought it was funny, too, but I just like imagining the look on Mom’s face. :)
Actually, Ted also said “All it needs is a dance barre!” and now I’m all thinky. :)
-
random collection of things
So disappointed. The weather report promised fog today and I was hoping to go over to Glasnevin cemetery to take pictures, but no, it’s lashing rain. Maybe we’ll go to the last day of baby group instead. Bah.
Did pilates yesterday morning. So out of shape I was sore by mid-afternoon, instead of it taking until this morning like decent soreness would.
Finished the Daisani short story, “Betrayals”, for AFTERMATH! Daisani, apparently to no one’s surprise, is a real rat bastard. I love him. :) Now I’ve got one more to write for that collection. Votes are currently weighing in most heavily for a Cameron & Cole (the roommates) POV story, with runners-up asking for a story about the post-trilogy selkies.
(Also requested:
-a story about Margrit’s mother, which you can get in BABA YAGA’S DAUGHTER,
– votes for stories about Chelsea (which, if you’re looking for her backstory, will never, ever happen),
– Grace (whose story will get told, possibly through another crowdfund, because it’s at least novella-length…),
– and “something about the half-breeds”, which will be part of AFTERMATH already. Hah! Now you can’t wait for it, right? :)).So place your preferences, folks: roommates or selkies?
Singing bouncing toddler now, so I’d best go get him out of bed. :)
Sorry for all the lists. I’m just totally dropping the ball without them. :p
– put bike and grill on jumbletown
– pcon website
– get a skip
– plane tickets
– make an CSOR banner ad (not immediately, just soon)
– put away baby clothes
– email betsy
– embarrass ursula
– get HCW out to KS patrons
