Live from the grocery store: BIG NEWS!!!

Reached a milestone today....a slightly embarrassing one, but in a good way. More about that in a moment. 

The big news? That I got while leaving the grocery store?....I have been offered a job! It's for a full-time French position. Surprisingly, I think this is probably the PERFECT job for me this year. I'll be teaching French 1. That's it. Not French 2, no IB or AP French, just...French 1. It's surprising to me to think this is perfect, because for a long time I was soooo convinced I really wanted only to teach upper level French. But, see, upper level French usually means you're teaching French 2, 3, 4, and maybe 5, plus AP and/or IB French.

If you're a teacher - you will understand when I say that upper level French means I could have 5, 6 or even 7 preps. If you're not a teacher, well, let me just say that each prep requires a lot of work, so the more preps you have, the more work you have. Three or four preps is kind of a lot. More than that is nearly insane.That's why it's a blessing to have only one prep. Some teachers work for years to get to the point where they only have one or two preps. And that's why teaching upper level French would be a daunting proposition, as there would be SO many preps.

So I'll be teaching French 1, on a campus with what appears to be a very supportive administration, as well as a foreign language section leader I think I will really enjoy working for. I will be assigned a mentor - probably a real mentor, someone who is actually helpful and willing to spend time with me - and I will also be collaborating with other electives teachers during our mutual conference periods. This is SO different from my previous experience! 

Now, for the other news, which happened while I was still at the grocery store:  my shorts almost fell off me! Right there by the cheese and sandwich meat! I could feel my shorts sliding down, then a little more down, and I had to stop to actually pull them up so they wouldn't fall all the way down. Woo-hoo!

Now, if only I could get my thighs to stop rubbing together...

Friend Vacation, and Weight Update!

When you go on vacation, do you worry about keeping up a healthy diet? 

What about if you don't leave to go on vacation, but the vacation comes to you? Let me explain: I had a dear friend in town this weekend, and I knew we would be busy sightseeing / hanging out / possibly doing tourist-y kinds of things. That's kind of like a vacation, isn't it?

I was worried about being able to work out - this turned out not to be much of an issue - and also, I was worried that I would be able to keep up with logging my nutrition. 

Well. I didn't need to worry about working out. We spent so much time walking (HOURS and HOURS, I'm not even kidding) around the museum and the aquarium, I still managed to burn calories. And food? We were so busy gabbing we didn't have a lot of time left over to stuff our faces. Although, we did go out for a rather expensive (calorie-wise) Mexican dinner with my family....but no biggie, it was just one meal. 

Here's a pic of us at the aquarium:

My friend left today. Which makes me sad, because I miss him, and I miss the freedom we had when we were younger to just hang out pretty much whenever we wanted to. Things are different now. I've discovered it's hard to hang out when you live half a nation apart. Also, it's hard to hang out when you have children, or grandchildren, or actual, grown-up-type jobs. (Between us we have all these things.)

So after a brief moment of staring out the window when he left, and after wallowing nostalgically in some '80's music, I went to the gym to work out. Because I'm not a teenager anymore. (And I have the waistline to prove it!) 

First, I figured it was time to actually weigh myself and take measurements. I haven't done this yet. I did weigh myself a couple months ago, but haven't bothered since then...I was too horrified by how much I weighed, and I was hoping that by avoiding the scale it would somehow magically make the weight start melting off of me. This doesn't work, just in case you were wondering. Anyway, the last time I weighed myself - and if I were to be honest, I might admit it was more than a "couple" months ago; it was probably around 6 months ago - I weighed (ahem) 171 lbs. I knew I'd gained weight since then so when I started on the Really Cool Website To Help Me Get Healthy Again and Get In Shape For The Spartan Race (Let's call it the RCW, or Really Cool Website, for short), I said I weighed 180 pounds. 

That may or may not have been the case. I don't know. I will never know, because I tried to pretend I didn't need to weigh myself (because guessing is so much better, right?), so I just assumed my top weight was about 180. (It was around that, though, for sure. But it could've been more. I'm positive it wasn't less, because my clothes were fitting even worse than they had at 170.) 

I took my measurements at home, and let's just say the results were not inspiring. Moving on.

My gym has this really nice scale. It's like the scale at the doctor's office, the one with the bar at the top with the little weights you move around until the arrow on the right floats upward.

Good news! I've lost at least 6 pounds, and I'm strong enough to actually move the pin on the free weights to 25 lbs!  Hooray! 

Also, my fat pants are fitting kinda loose now!!! Yay me!! That's not a direct result of weighing and measuring, either, in case you were wondering. No: I've noticed the pants were loose the past few days. This means, I've actually lost some weight. Hooray!

To celebrate, I had some chocolate wine tonight. 

Okay, I know what you're thinking. 

"Why would you celebrate your weight loss by consuming a calorie-laden alcoholic beverage? Doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose?" And you may have a point. But I was feeling quite sorry for myself that my friend was gone, and that we're not teenagers anymore, and that there is not, in fact, music still on MTV. So I think you would agree with me that a judicious glass of wine was necessary to help me wallow in the feelings of being sad and old.  

And I will STILL lose weight!!! Because, guess what, I'm still tracking everything I eat or drink, and I'm still working out!! So there!!!

Chromium Picolinate = My New Best Friend

Holy moley, I cannot believe this stuff works!

Dear Hubby suggested I start taking chromium picolinate to support muscle growth. I kind of remembered taking this years ago...hoping to lose weight...but back then, it didn't seem to have a serious impact on either my appetite or my waistline, so I gave it up. But today? TOTALLY killed my appetite. Wow. I mean, I was not hungry, at all. In fact, food didn't sound appetizing to me at all. Not even chocolate. (!!!!) What manner of witchcraft is this? To not even want chocolate? How is that possible?


I had a normal breakfast, but by lunchtime my appetite was pretty much zero.  Since it was Father's Day today, the kids and I took my dear husband out to eat, but I only finished about half my meal. Hours later I was still not hungry. My food tracker indicates I only took in about 650 calories today, but still, no hunger pangs.  Finally, about 9:00 tonight, feeling sort of weak, I did manage to swallow some dinner.  Man. How bizarre is that? Normally if I'd only had 600 calories, I'd be starving by now, ready to sink my fork into the nearest flank of animal. But no. Not tonight. I'm not hungry, and food doesn't sound good to me either. 

Zero to Spartan in less than a year....yeah, that's do-able, right?

 Hooray! You're looking at my blog! How'd you get here, are you a friend? Then, please, let me apologize in advance. I'm not a great writer. I'm not a great athlete. I'm probably really not great at anything aside from spelling. (SPELLING. That's a super-valuable skill nowadays, isn't it? I mean, who really uses spellcheck...) So if you're my friend, and you're looking at this blog, I apologize that you got roped in to reading this crap. Seriously. You should probably go watch "Biggest Loser," it's bound to be more entertaining, and besides, at least you know right at the beginning that people will actually be losing weight, and getting in shape, which is all somehow satisfying in a story-book kind of way: you know that the contestants will face obstacles, but most, if not all, of them will struggle through to lose massive amounts of weight. And they will be able to run a marathon by the end of the show. Sadly, unlike a season of "The Biggest Loser," I cannot make any kind of promise that I will lose weight, even if I do somehow get into marginally better shape than I'm in right now. And, come to think of it, I cannot promise I will actually finish the Spartan. So if you're looking for a surefire feel-good story, this probably isn't the blog for you. 

If you don't know me, then I am really, really sorry you are here. Who coerced you into reading this?....oh, wait, maybe it's an office pool or something like that?....you're waiting to see the train wreck? I understand. You may quite possibly see a spectacular train wreck. On the other hand, I cannot promise you massive public shame, humiliation and failure. It's possible that I might indeed complete this journey; I may, in all honesty, lose a lot of weight AND finish the Spartan race. So if you are here, popcorn in hand, gleefully expecting epic failure, I'm sorry to say you may not get that. 

If you are my family....good heavens, you have to live with me or else you have to see me at Christmas, isn't that enough? Surely you have better things to do. I'm related to mathematicians, doctors, PhD's, business owners...surely you ought to spend your precious time coming up with a formula for the Theory of Everything, or you've got murderous crimes to solve, or students to teach (even peripherally), or businesses to run....Please, you have more important matters to attend to. (Hey, yeah, I know I ended that sentence on a split infinitive. Deal with it. It's my blog, don't get all English-y up in my grill. I might just take my gift back this Christmas.)

Why the Spartan? I don't know, honestly. A couple of my church friends did it, and I was jealous and insecure, and I said, "I'll do it with you next year!" because I want them to like me and because I imagine that possibly there might be some kind of moral support forthcoming from that impulsive declaration.  Also, I know I need a goal in order for me to bother getting up off the sofa and to stop eating barbecue potato chips. I need purpose. Definition. An outside force. Something, anything, to get me back into shape. 

Because I was in shape a couple years ago. I was, in fact, training to run a half-marathon. I was really looking forward to this event. I was going to run with my dad, who is super-fit, and of course he's my dad so I really, really want his approval, and what better way than to run 13 miles with him? He really digs exercising. More than anyone else I know. Maybe more than Jilliene Michaels. (Supposedly she hates exercising. But I guess she's super-motivated to look a certain way, i.e., thin and gorgeous, so that's enough motivation for her to work out. Whatevs. My dad could kick her butt. Not that that's saying much, but, well, it kind of is. And my dad is REALLY OLD compared to Jilliene. So that makes it more impressive, right? ) 

Anyway, I was training for this half-marathon - really training, not sitting on my sofa theoretically thinking about maybe possibly going for a run; no, I really was running. Quite a bit. I would go for a short, 4-mile run most days. Then about every ten days or so, a longer run. My longest run? Sixteen miles. That's right. SIXTEEN. Count 'em. Yep, I ran sixteen miles once. (On a treadmill. Don't judge. My longest street run was ten miles.) It was right about this time that I took a week off for the holidays, and that week turned into two weeks, and then I realized this was a bad trend, so I decided to go for a short, four-mile run one day. And that's when it happened.

Right down the road from me - where the road takes this perilous 90-degree turn - my knee started to hurt.

No big deal, I thought. I'll push through the pain.

Ha. Ha. Ha. In about 30 feet I was limping like a horse that is about to get "put down" with a shotgun. About 10 feet beyond that, I about fell over from the pain. However, figuring that getting run over with an actual moving vehicle would be slightly worse than a throbbing knee, I managed to stand up and careen over to the side of the road. For a few minutes, I considered, then rejected, the possibility of calling a taxi. Or maybe an ambulance. 

Ultimately I rejected both of these ideas, and managed to limp / drag my foot pathetically behind me like a zombie, home. 

Then I spent the next five years pouting. Because, you see, I liked running. It was fun. Nothing else was fun. I didn't have a reason to go work out. Oh, sure, I tried to "keep up my physical fitness" by going to the gym, but that made me want to stab my eyes out. What was the point? Why sweat on a machine, staring into outer space / at other, more fit people on their machines / the wall? I couldn't even watch anything on the TV screen, it just bored me SO much. 

I tried classes, too, but you know how it is when you can't dance, you can't keep up with everyone else, you can't get the moves down...it's just sad. I couldn't do that anymore either. 

Working out at home? No, not so much. My kids were small and thought that "home workout" meant "time to join in and laugh a lot," which I, very maturely, interpreted as "making fun of Mom," and I just couldn't do the home workouts anymore, either. Even if they were just kids being silly I felt like a complete idiot dressed in Spandex and jumping around in my postage stamp-sized living room.

Eventually, all that pity and loathing pointed inward turned into me mostly sitting on a sofa all day, periodically eating potato chips or cake (possibly a whole cake, once, but I can neither confirm nor deny). Shockingly enough, pouting does not burn very many calories. I know, right! How can this be? Especially when one puts so much effort into pouting. Such elaborate face-saving stories that are told to justify the pouting. Such sighing to be had, when certain very kind-hearted people would try to solve my problem (of basically un-gluing my rear end from the reclining chair). You would really think the calorie investment would be greater. 

Alas, it is not. Pouting will not make one physically fit. Neither will sitting around and thinking about how nice it would be to join a gym, throw around some weights, and maybe eventually heal the bad knee. This I have learned.  

Which brings me to....today. At the gym. Impossibly, I was at some kind of weight-lifting class (low weight, high reps) and I found myself looking the instructor in the eyes and saying "I plan on competing in the Spartan race next year." Yes, I said that. Yes, she's a weight-lifting instructor. Yes, it seems I have finally, completely, yet not unexpectedly, lost my mind. But I said it. And I meant it.

It would be great storytelling if, at this point, I either finished on a high note: I'm stronger than I thought I was! or, better yet: I tried valiantly but after wallowing in a pool of sweat and vomit only five minutes in, I gave up. Neither of these things happened. I'm about as shapeless as I thought I was, and I could barely keep up even with the lightest baby weights (you want to know how light? Try one-pound weights on either end of the almost hollow, nearly-weightless barbell. That would be TWO POUNDS. That's right. TWO. Deux. Dos). 

About ten minutes into the class I knew I would be suffering tomorrow from horrible soreness, and since I'm such a wimp I immediately made a plan to track down some young, chiseled trainer to find me a recovery drink. God in His Eternal Mercy provided me a smoothie bar wherein one may order a smoothie, with a shot of L-Glutamine. If you've never heard of L-Glutamine, and you work out...what are you, some kind of masochistic pain freak? Please. There's no need for that kind of misery. (Unless you like that kind of misery. But that's a whole 'nother thing, and that's not what this blog is about.) L-Glutamine is a magical amino acid that helps you feel less sore after working out. In all honesty, L-Glutamine is the only reason I will push it, even a little bit, in a workout. If there were no L-Glutamine, it would take me approximately 137 years to work up to the kind of 30-minute "Chair Yoga" session usually reserved for the silver-haired crowd. Seriously: L-Glutamine is The Bomb!

Which brings me to now. Here I am, contemplating the sheer lunacy of telling EVERYONE IN THE WORLD that I plan to run in the Spartan next year. 

And it seems like a story that should be told. That I need to tell, if for no other reason than to learn to loosen up and laugh at myself. But maybe, the real reason is this: I need to have a goal. And the deeper reason might possibly be: I need to do something outrageous. 


Postscript: I DID NOT read this blog before making my big (dumb) decision. It just so happened this guy wrote this blog entry and it's on the Spartan site tonight. I like to think it's God's Way of Telling Me I'm Right To Do This. 

http://blog.spartanrace.com/note-to-self-remember-to-train/ 
                                                          

Going under barbed wire, through mud.

Running through fire. Yes - FIRE.

Don't just spell it correctly - Use it well!

Back in middle school, I entered a UIL spelling competition.  I was an excellent speller. Still not too bad, either; chalk it up to an excellent education in phonics, along with a strong genetic predisposition for language, and combine that with unfettered acccess to libraries, et voilà, you come up with a ridiculously pointless human spellcheck.  But I digress. At this middle school spelling competition, we were all seated at these big tables; some poor teacher who got roped into helping out at UIL had the job of calling out the words and their definitions; and we students were to write down the words.

The entire room missed "zucchini." They told us this after the spelling papers were checked. Then we were told the correct spelling. Guess who's never forgotten it since?....yeah. That's a totally useful job skill, let me tell you. It comes in handy ALL the time, like when you work at a restaurant and write the daily special on the chalkboard out front...and, well, pretty much that's the only time. 

So of course I was intrigued when my erstwhile spelling nemesis made its appearance with the word "brownies." Of all things! I mean, zucchini, in a brownie? Have you ever even thought of such a thing before? No? Well neither had I. 

Here's the recipe. You can thank me later.  

 

Low Fat Zucchini Brownies - from Sparkpeople

 

1/2 cup applesauce
2 small or medium bananas mashed
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups finely shredded zucchini
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup walnut pieces

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour an 9x13 inch baking pan.
In a large bowl, mix together the applesauce, mashed bananas and sugar. Add vanilla and cocoa and mix together. Then add baking soda, salt, and zucchini and mix together. Add flour and walnuts and mix together. Spread evenly into a prepared pan. Bake for 25 minutes until brownies spring back when gently touched.

So. LAME.

Yeah, I'm lame, I admit it. Almost embrace it, really.

I don't have an excuse. The holidays? Meh. That's no reason. Been busy with the kids underfoot? Hm. Again, no reason. Feeling sorry for myself because we are on a strict budget? Wow, that is the WORST excuse EVER. And more evidence of my intrinsic lame-ness.

So, no, I don't have an excuse for not keeping up with this blog.

How is the weight loss going, you ask?

*sigh*

I'd rather you not ask, actually. Because...it's not. Going. The weight loss.

It's not that I've given up....more like, been sidetracked?  With all those non-excuses above.

That, and I need to temporarily find a different way or place to work out, which makes things a little more complicated.

Also, I may be looking for a job very soon. But I don't think that's a bad thing, necessarily; although I'd rather not have my little grandson in daycare, and I would also rather keep my 13-y-o son out of public school, still, having a job would force a little more structure onto my shapeless days, and that might be just the motivation I need to start working out again (and to stick with a diet again).

What have we been up to for the past month or so?  Well, we had Christmas, of course, and we got to see family: my mom and stepdad came for a visit; another day we met my dad and stepmom for dinner; then, finally, my in-laws came for a couple days, and that was probably the best gift of all since we haven't seen them in a year! And they hadn't met our little grandson yet! We were very blessed they got to come.

My older daughter has been continuing to work at the pharmacy, which was recently bought out by a Big, Nationwide Pharmacy Chain....much to her chagrin and to the consternation of her fellow workers. Older Daughter was planning to stick around awhile with this new pharmacy but the longer she stays, the worse it gets. Some of the differences: BNPC is open on Sundays, where before they were always closed. The workers' schedules are no longer set but instead change week to week. Employees have to have their purses and pockets searched anytime they leave the store. (I guess I understand this...shrinkage is a big concern with retail...but man, that's dehumanizing!) And worst of all: Big, Nationwide Pharmacy Chain has virtually NO full-time employees.  Older Daughter took off from school this semester so she could work full time (and in fact, under the old regime, she was told she would get to work full-time). But now it looks like she will have to find another job.

And I need to do some organizing. House is cluttery.

Someone send the Cleaning Fairies, please. And the Job Fairy. And the fairy that will wave her wand so my metabolism goes from "needs to work out an hour a day just to maintain a normal-ish weight" to "high metabolic rate means I can eat whatever I want and not gain an ounce."

Pre-Christmas Blues

So, here we are, Dec. 23rd - Christmas Eve, eve. 

I haven't posted for a few days because a windstorm came through this past week and after that the internet wasn't working.  Ultimately, it turned out something had gotten disconnected under the computer desk. Who knew? I mean, I was the one who had to go under the desk and mess with all the wires, while husband and tech support guy - both on the phone - directed what to plug in or un-plug.  I just know I left everything plugged back in....but lo and behold, that night, hubby comes home and immediately locates the un-plugged wire.  Internet restored! And, my family's unspoken acknowlegment of a certain person's air-headedness remains intact! Normalcy returned.

Anyway - Working out and going to the gym HAVE been happening on a regular basis, I'm pleased to report.  Additionally, Bible reading has ALSO been occuring, usually in the morning, on a regular basis.  Yay for both!!!

Food intake.....still needs some work.  But it's coming along.  My allergies kicked into high gear with the phenomenal winds (you know, the same winds that knocked out the internet?) and as a result, I've had to take a lot of Sudafed to keep the sinuses somewhat unclogged.  The upside to Sudafed?  Apparently, now, it kills my appetite. This has never been the case for me before. Why it does now, I couldn't say. But I'll take it.  The downside to Sudafed is being awake for much more of the night than I would want. That's not the worst thing in the world, but it sure does take the wind out of my sails the next day. 

So, food today:

a pear
several Cadbury cookies
minestrone soup
1 1/2 bread rolls
1/3 Canneloni
a "light" chocolate bar
quite a few chocolate-coated pretzels, vanilla-coated pretzels, and something SUPER yummy that seems to be Chex coated in sweet yumminess that my daughter said is "puppy chow" like a friend of ours at the old church used to make

No, not my best food day ever.  I think I'll have a glass of wine. Or a Colorado Bulldog.

Road Signs

Day Two - the good news!  Woke up at 7 am but did not read my Bible; instead, hubby and I went for a 1-mile walk. It was a chilly but really beautiful morning.  Great way to start the day. 

Later I went to the gym and spent 30 minutes on the Nordic machine.  So, that's good! 

But, I did weigh in.  The bad news: 171 lbs.  The most I have *ever* weighed in my life.  The good news?  I'm still in pretty good overall health, and despite a gripey knee, I'm able to work out.

What I ate today: 

2/3 of a medium non-fat Caramel Macchiato
a 32-oz mixed berry protein shake
1 Oreo cookie (Not twelve! Not ten! ONE!!!)
one red pear
the tops of 2 cupcakes (Not three! Not ALL the rest of the cupcakes! This is an improvement, people!!!
1/4 serving of Gardettos
5 chocolate animal crackers
10 baby carrots
1/2 C mac-n-cheese
7 Li'l Smokies sausages
1/2 can Green Beans

Probably got at least 5 servings of fruits/veggies today - that protein shake had a LOT of berries - but, I got too many carbs in the snacks & treats.  Also high fat content in the frosting & in the mac-n-cheese with sausages.