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Bullwinkle: "THIS TIME FOR SURE!" Rocky: "Oh, that trick never works." Been struggling with weight loss for years. But this time it's going to be different. Really. It really is going to be different. Honest. |
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Monday, September 21, 2009 I wanna job OK, this video pretty much illustrates why I haven't been posting a whole lot lately. I've been busy looking for work, and you'd be amazed (or maybe not) at just how exhausting -- both emotionally and physically -- being unemployed is. So much so that I'm here to tell you that this whole Maslow's hierarchy thing has a lot to it. My big worries these days are not "What is my BMI?" or "How much has my fat percentage decreased over time. " However, I do have to watch my weight so that I can fit in a darn interview suit. You'd be amazed how fattening stress is. I've gained all the weight back that I lost when I started this blog. I'm up to 248. This sucks. I'm stress eating, and ugh. However, lately, I've been making an effort to exercise every day. I go for bike rides that help take my mind off this. It's the end of he summer, so good healthy food is plentiful and cheap. I'm going to try to start writing again, but by top priority is summarized in this song. So there you go. V'ron weighed in at 1:05 PM 1 comments Thursday, February 12, 2009 Little Victories in the Enchanted Broccoli Forest Wednesday Weigh In (even though it's Thursday), 249.1, so only down a half pound. Still, I was quote unquote, good. Writing down everything. Working out every day. It's those times you have to remember that the a victory isn't always reflected on the scale. And it wasn't just the writing down of EVERYTHING that was a victory. The kids are on this "trying new foods" kick and you best be sure I'm capitalizing on it. Just the other day, Sammy noticed one of my favorite cookbooks, Mollie Katzen's "The Enchanted Broccoli Forest" and he's been begging to make that recipe. (The fact that I have a 5 year old boy who loves broccoli is celebratory enough.) As you can see, our version of it bears little resemblance to Chef Katzen's version. But Stella, who loves red peppers, said that this forest needed some people, and the red peppers could be the people. (If a broccoli tree falls, and there are no people to hear it.....). Being home a lot these days (I'm looking for work) is giving the opportunity to cook from scratch a lot more, which means I have more control into what goes into my food. That's a victory in itself, too. V'ron weighed in at 11:42 AM 0 comments Wups -- accidentally deleted last week's post For the record, weekly weigh in was at 249.6, and I had nothing really profound to say. so it's not like we missed anything here, friends. V'ron weighed in at 11:34 AM 0 comments Monday, February 02, 2009 I'm back! And I'm annoyed. No really, I am. I've been admittedly lax. I've been stressed, I've had a lot going on in my life, and I gained all the weight back that I lost. And I'm not happy about that, not one little bit. In fact, I'm a bit over the line. I'm at 250. So I finally said, this has got to stop, and I'm back on the wagon. Part it it was realizing, "I really don't want to have to do the Danskin Triathlon carrying an extra 25 pounds. I just don't. It's bad enough I slowed down in the run this year." I was training in the pool this weekend thinking, "I really don't want to have to buy a new tri suit." So get this: the Danskin for the Chicagoland area (because even when it's in Wisconsin, it's still Chicagoland!) is TBD this year. It's usually the weekend after July 4, and that's fairly convenient. I'm wondering why they haven't published this yet and I just learned the answer today: the Trek Women's Triathlon is that weekend in Kenosha. I was actually quite happy to see such a thing -- so somebody besides Danskin is sponsoring a women's series. Cool! Except for one thing. See, on of the reasons I felt totally at home at the Danskin was that, as a large woman, I wasn't called out. We're separated by age and that's it. There's one more wave that's called out (besides elite competitors, which is standard for any race), and that's the Survivor wave, and that seems to be more of an honor than an advantage/disadvantage. They get to go first (after the elite racers) after all. But as a large woman, I'm in a heat with other women my age, we're all together, and, as I posted after my first Danskin Tri we're all considered athletes. But the folks at Trek seem to have missed this very important point. There's age and elite and survivor designations, but there's also "Athena." Do I need to tell you what "Athena" means? Neither did Trek. C'mon, everybody knows that when you use any ancient western goddess besides Aphrodite, it's code for "the fatties." (Note to Trek -- it's usually Juno/Hera that gets designated for the "large/mature" woman. ) That in itself wouldn't as bad (yes it would but I'm saving the best for last), guess what the cutoff weight is to be eligible to compete as an "Athena." 150 pounds! What, if we weigh more than 150 pounds, we couldn't possibly have a chance against the other athletes in our age category? Because, Trek, consider this -- in the bike portion, yes that's YOUR main product, I've finished in the top 11 percent of all people in that category when I raced the Danskin the past two years. I went flying past plenty of women who were definitely under 150 pounds. I had younger and smaller women come up to me afterwards and say, "You are an awesome cyclist." And, when I lose the weight (c'mon, I admit, I'm still trying to lose, but frankly, my goal is still above the 150 pound cutoff...) I'll still be "eligible" to compete as an "Athena." I have broad shoulders. I have thunder thighs. My goal of ~160-180s is appropriate for my age, build, and lifestyle. But according to Trek, the BMI scale, and a bazillion blowhards who have nothing to do but hate on women who don't meet ridiculous standards of weight, we're still "Athena." That's fat. As in, "too fat to compete with the real athletes." But really, if I drop 100 pounds from where I am today (at 250) you can bet my fat percentage is going to be way down. It's going to be way down, probably near the "Average" place if I hit 175, for chrissakes. I'm glad that Trek (as well as other companies, such as woman-designed and woman-run Terry Bicycles>) makes bicycles with Women Specific Design. (Even though, with my relatively long torso, broad shoulders and relative long wingspan, WSD bikes solve problems I don't have!) I'm glad this whole industry has begun to notice that women love bicycling as much as men, and is catering to that market. But Trek, if you're going to take the place of my beloved Danskin, a race I entered and enjoyed without being separated out because of my weight, you need to understand that one of the big points of a women's triathlon is to unite us all as athletes, to make us really believe that we all belong out there, that we are all participating in an athletic endeavor. At this point, I'm still waiting to find out where Danskin will end up having the "Chicagoland" race, cos frankly, I'm a little reluctant to do yours, and certainly I won't be registering as an "Athena." If I do the Trek (because Danskin Chicagoland is unavailable for me), I'm entering in the 45-50 age group. V'ron weighed in at 11:55 AM 5 comments Thursday, July 24, 2008 Not beating myself up over not beating myself 238.2. Here I am again. I've done a LOT of bike riding, even more so because my car's in the shop, so those last few things I've done by car have succumbed to the bike, and days where I wouldn't have felt like riding I was forced to anyway. The car's out of the shop today; after work I go to pick it up. But still, it was a good thing, in terms of this. It's forced me to re-evaluate how much i drive, how lazy i get, and how easily lazy I get. I've been cooking for myself, too -- not eating out has saved me money and pounds. But I'm still in a high stress time, and I still find myself eating to combat the stress. The answer isn't to wait until the high stress eases off. The answer is to deal with it better. Still, my ego was bruised at the tri last weekend, and that's kind of a good thing. Yeah, I finished, but i didn't beat myself. That's the thing about things like Triathlons. My tri buddy Jen commented last week that i still beat her in time, but that's not what i was going for. As far as I'm concerned, she beat me, because she beat herself. I remember doing cross country running in high school (and track team people were the same about this): the ultimate opponent in any race is yourself. It doesn't matter if you were first or last: if you beat yourself, you've won, and if you didn't -- i don't want to say you've lost, but at the same time... ugh. That's what's getting me. I didn't beat myself. But I'm not beating myself up over it. I just didn't hit an unwritten goal. So here I am, working out better after this race than before it. Go figure. V'ron weighed in at 1:58 PM 0 comments Monday, July 14, 2008 2nd Gig Blues: Free Your Mind OK, numbers first --I'm still hovering around 240, so weightloss hasn't been a priority lately. I ran the Danskin Triathlon this weekend, and I finished almost exactly with the same time 1:47:20 as I did last year (1:46:51), but with improvements and disappointments. Improvements and disappointments:
OK, here it is. I just didn't train as hard for this year as I did for last year. For one thing, I've been super busy, and had the accompanying stress. Just this past week, I was considering blowing off the tri, dealing with a major financial setback (the transmissions on BOTH our cars went kaput this week) but ol DH said, no, you need to do this. And so I did and I'm glad, even though I didn't show an overall marked improvement. I had Second Gig Ever Curse. Last year, I used a band analogy to describe the waiting for the race to start, this year's band analogy will be used as an excuse for my performance. Let's face it, I did it last year, was quite pleased with myself, and didn't take the second gig as seriously. As a result, results were not as satisfactory. Those numbers posted in the run are the kick in the ass I need. That's my problem with weightloss in general. I get a little success, I get cocky, and then I get lazy. Look at my photo this year -- I even know, on that bus, that this year I didn't deliver with my whole heart. Although, that last stretch of the run, my heart was the only thing that kept me going. In fact, God bless the women who had En Vogue's "Free Your Mind" blaring from a boombox at the last turnaround. I belted it out with em, using George Clinton's original lyrics -- Free your mind and your ass will follow. A few other highlights, musically and otherwise:
OK, so that's this year's tri. I'm glad it did it again, and I'm doing it next year. I will shake the 2nd Gig Blues, and I will Free My Mind, and my ass will indeed follow. V'ron weighed in at 7:00 PM 2 comments Wednesday, June 11, 2008 The New Scale Works! And it says 237.6, which, while up from last week (and that was a number I really didn't believe anyway), is still down from this massive upswing I've had over the past few months, and it's also a number i can trust. It was'nt five pounds different an hour earlier, or even five minutes earlier. I like it. I've admittedly been off-kilter from detox, but the detox weeks accomplished what they meant to: they sort of broke my dependence on all these morning treats and massive eating all the time i was doing. I'm not so hungry all the time anymore; i can actually think about really trying to do this again, get back on the wagon, and train for this triathlon. That's all for now. The new scale works! V'ron weighed in at 5:57 AM 1 comments Wednesday, June 04, 2008 My Scale's Not Working Right! Well, isn't that usually what people say when the number is too high? No, my number was way too low this morning. It said I lost 17 pounds since last week. As I did not undergo liposuction, I'm pretty sure it's wrong. I wish I could trust my scale. It's a digital scale, and i've had it for at least five years, and maybe it's dying. Because when i weighed in this morning, it said, 223 pounds. I'd love to believe that, but I know for a fact I did not drop 17 pounds last week. Fat Flush notwithstanding, nobody drops that much weight in a week. Then an hour later, it said 235.2, which is what I'll post for this week, but that's still a 5 pound drop. Not as ridiculous, but given the fluctuation on what the scale says (and that's a 20 pound fluctuation), I can't trust it. Another scale is on the way from A mazon. I know that there's a lot of people who believe one should just throw out the scale, but I need an objective metric with which to measure my success or what's working for me and what isn't. And if I can't count on my tool, that just throws everything out the window. So I can't wait for the new scale. Betcha you never heard a fat chick say that before, eh? Meantime, I'm back on the wagon and feeling good. And once again, I'm running the Riverwest Beer Run this Sunday. Yes, it's as preposterous as it sounds. A 1.8-mile race (and there are people who actually RACE it) with four stops, each of which runner down a 12-ounce of barley pop. First person to stagger across the finish line wins. In the spirit of the preposterousness that it is, myself and my friends are doing what we did last year -- running it in evening gowns and tiaras as "Team Prom Queen." Actually, only the two of us are actually running it. The rest are taking it easy. Good for them. V'ron weighed in at 3:22 PM 0 comments Wednesday, May 28, 2008 Off and on the wagon I didn't fall off the detox wagon. I planned to step off gently, and I did. I had lovely whole wheat lemon blueberry pancakes like I predicted i would, and took it easy the rest of the day. And I had a cup of Leon's Butter Pecan Frozen custard on Monday to celebrate the summer-like weather. And Tuesday I got right back on the wagon, and here I am. One pound down anyway. 240, fat percentage down a point to 47. Not bad for the week preceeding Rickshaw Ride. So I'm back, and feeling good about the control. I hate that i have to be this conscious about it, but I've kvetched about this before. V'ron weighed in at 6:52 PM 1 comments Wednesday, May 21, 2008 Week One of Detox ... and it's going well, not just because I dropped 3 pounds (that was simply a side effect) but its doing what I intended for it to do: force me to think about everything I eat. It's really odd, but cutting out an entire food group (refined carbs) really got me thinking about all the crap I randomly eat without even thinking about it, and how much crap it really is. A couple of days ago i had the classic carb withdrawl headaches, but now i'm past them, and the meals are seeming really filling. I remember feeling this way the last time I did this. I have to admit though, I'm a bit unclear what I'm going to do this Sunday, when we have a pile of people over to watch Indycar racing, (especially since I traditionally make whole wheat lemon-blueberry pancakes for breakfast for the hardcore race fans who arrive early to watch the Grand Prix of Monaco with us). I think I'll just have to take a day off from it. That's life, and if you can't live life (albeit a carefully planned one), you might as well check out now. Granted, those blueberry pancakes will follow a massive traditional bike ride. Anyway, numbers: 241, fat % at 48. It's good to be back following something, but it's better to have numbers that reflect it. V'ron weighed in at 10:54 AM 4 comments |
| I Could, I Should, and I Did. Ha! |
 V'ron: Stats/Milestones |
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Starting Weight(read: "Worst Weight Even That Wasn't During a Pregnancy"): 245 Starting Blog Weight: 234 Goal Weight: 145 -- that's 100 lbs gone! Starting Fat %: 48% Goal Fat %: somewhere in the high 20s Methodology: Modified Weight Watcher's Points TM Starting Dress Size: 18-20, XXL Goal Dress size:10-12, M,L |
 V'ron: Weight-Based Milestones |
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 V'ron: Fitness Goals |
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