Shipwrecked & Comatose

After struggling for a few years to lose the weight I gained after surgery, and dealing with subsequent injuries, I rejoined the Precision Nutrition Coaching Program this year (formerly known as Lean Eating).  I will not be using this blog to bore readers with every detail as I did the last time . (If that interests you, I have a lesser-read public blog where I talk more extensively about the program and I will provide a link if you feel you must read it)  Regardless, I need to share a bit about my goals and dreams, because I see everything I want and everything I need to work on in the months ahead.  It's  worth sharing.  I hope readers can find their own inspiration and their own purpose as they read this. When the program began, there was a coaching lesson about having a "Destination Postcard".  The idea was for participants to visualize their goals and imagine what their lives would be a year from now.  The lesson suggested we write our goals do...

The fitness industry comes under heavy criticism for the way it feeds off women's insecurities. The fitness media machine makes women feel inadequate as if there is something defective about their bodies that needs to be fixed.  It preys on the way women tie their self esteem to how they look. It sets up and reinforces and impossible beauty standards.  We know all of this. I have another beef with the fitness industry.  I don't like the way it hits women in the wallet.  Fitness program marketers set up expectations for what women can do about their bodies.  Then it finds a hundred new ways to make them pay for it. Let's imagine a woman, just an ordinary American woman, whom I'll call Sally. Sally needs a lifestyle update.  She has become a couch potato.  She orders takeout for dinner most nights and it's not the kind of takeout that provides optimal nutrition.  She notices she has been gaining weight lately, but isn't motivated to do too muc...

I know health and fitness posts aren't the most interesting items I write.  I doubt there are many readers who want to know the narcissistic details of my health and fitness improvement efforts.  Nonetheless, every once in a while I do feel it's not a bad idea to discuss my progress and whether or not I'm making the right moves to achieve my goals.  I do hope it inspires some of my readers.  I'm sure there are many people out there with similar struggles who want to know what worked for me and what doesn't.   I felt my regular updates on my progress on the Lean Eating program provided some insight to readers who might be considering the program themselves.  I'm also sure there are people who are struggling with losing weight after recovering from an injury or illness as I was. So now that I have made excuses for why I still continue with this boring and self-centered pursuit of writing about my body issues, I want to talk about the problem so many women f...

Aren't you glad this isn't a political post? 2016 was the year to try to rebuild my strength to pre-surgery levels and try to find a way back to a healthy weight and bodyfat level. I succeeded at the former, but failed at the latter.  Nonetheless, I celebrate my success.  Over the course of the year I sometimes looked at the routines in my various workout programs and thought, "That's too hard.  I can't do that."  Then I went ahead and did it.  I continue to amaze myself every day. I swore that I needed to accept my body and just deal with the fact that I'm not willing to make the changes needed  to radically make over my body.  I got my level of fitness back and that's all that matters. Or is it? Unfortunately in recent months my pony has become impossible for me to ride.  She is unresponsive and even combative when I ask her for simple tasks.  My trainer has asked me to consider if I might be too heavy for her.  I think she m...

I took my vacation this summer at the annual Chincoteague Pony Swim.  I have written about the swim many times, so I probably don't need to say how much time is spent waiting on a boat for several hours for the ponies to cross.  It's usually the same group of people who go on our boat, but we had some newcomers this year. It was an active and cheerful older couple who were kind, funny, and polite, but whom I heard whisper to each other about how sad there were so many out of shape people on the scene.  I made an offhand remark about fitness at one point and the husband said to me, "You look very strong and athletic."  That remark made my day.  These past few months are starting to show.  I don't look out of shape. Or do I? I am still my own worst critic.  I still hate the way I look.  When I see myself in the mirror I can't take my eyes off the spare tire that sits above my hips and is starting to succumb to gravity.  I compare it to wear...

I wanted to do a quick check in since I finished my first phase of The Modern Women's Guide to Strength Training and I'm about to go on a (swimsuit) vacation.  I enjoyed the program so far.  In the past phase there were two strength workouts per week.  Normally I might alternate them to make it three strength sessions in a week, but I decided to experiment and leave it at two (if I did that, the phase would conveniently end right before going to Chincoteague).  I simply added another cardio session or sometimes backed off and did a yoga session.  One time I pulled out my old Piyo DVDs.  My cardio consisted of long walks, medium intensity sessions on the bike or elliptical, and an occasional Zumba program on the Kinect. Gallbraith suggests adding intervals to the end of strength sessions to accelerate fat loss.  Her idea of intervals isn't just getting on a machine and riding faster and slower.  She has users doing some intense but bizarre comb...

I finished The New Rules of Lifting for Women.  As planned I skipped Stage 6.  I was considering going back to it, but I tried one hanging exercise and the pain took over my entire elbow.  I knew I wasn't ready for that yet. The good news is I am back to my pre-surgery strength.  I can do just as many pushups as I did prior to the health issues.  I can deadlift and squat the same amount of weight.  I may not have quite the amount of endurance I had when I was deeply involved with Lean Eating, but I'm getting there. More good news is I am noticing some of my clothes are looser.  I still can't wear some of my skirts or shorts from last year, but some of my tops are looser.  I may have to give some of them away before the summer is over because they have become too big to stay on my torso properly.  The dress Kevin bought me in Hawaii fit fine when we bought it back in February, but now it gaps and saps and shows my bra when I sit.  It ...

Deep Thoughts When I was a child, the nutritional catchphrase tossed around the media was, "You are what you eat."  I thought I knew what the food police were trying to convey to me.  If you eat junk, you are junk.  You are a reflection of what you are eating.  It was slightly insulting and almost too simplistic.  Like most kids, nutritional messages only sank in part way.  I knew what was supposed to be good for me and what was supposed to be bad for me, but when you're young and healthy, you don't care about such things.  Decay and disease are years away and you just want to eat what tastes good. Since those early days, I have actually matured (just a little) and now I understand what, "You are what you eat," really means.  It goes way beyond the idea that junky food will give you a junky body. When you eat, food literally does become a part of you.  It enters your body and is broken down into the most essential elements.  From t...

Comparison is the enemy of self love and the enemy of moving forward. I fell into a few brief moments of deep despair during this past phase and much of it came because I fell down the comparison rabbit hole. My addiction to food and fashion blogs can be a bit disheartening at times.  Why are fashion bloggers almost always thin?  Why are so many of the food bloggers I follow so thin?  Is there anyone out there in the blogosphere who isn't thin? I found myself feeling this weird sense of resentment after reading this pos t on the food and fashion blog Cupcakes and Cashmere (a wonderful blog I otherwise love to peruse).   Here you have this gorgeous, thin woman who has had a baby recently*, and she says she struggles to stay active.  She struggles to stay active and can wear a loose-fitting, spaghetti strap dress with no visible means of support and no saggy or jiggly bits waving in the wind.  Her body is enviable in its ability to wear almost anything...

As I write this post, I sit here wondering if I should, for accountability purposes, go and weigh and measure myself.  Isn't that supposed to be what the measure of progress is?  First I take away the photos and now I'm taking away the numbers? I am walking a line right now.  There are so many fitness experts out there who are telling me I shouldn't live by the numbers.  I should go by how I feel.  My weight and measurements don't matter and I should not judge myself by the scale. On the other hand, I wonder if not weighing and measuring is just a copout.  I just don't want to see proof that I'm not making any progress.  My eating habits are still not great.  I'm still eating too much at mealtimes and eating too much between meals. Right now I am going to go with the former and not do any weights or measurements.  Maybe I'll change my mind in the next Phase.  Maybe I'll change my mind next week.  I can step on the scale any ti...

Stronger, but not smaller. This month I will not be sharing stats.  I have no time or inclination to weight or measure myself.  Although I finished NROLFW State 2, I have not had much time to focus on health habits. So much has been happening.  I just finished another play.  It was fun and thrilling and I had a great cast to work with, but it was also exhausting and time consuming.  There was a fire in my building that took out the laundry rooms and I will be scrambling to find times and places to do laundry in the coming weeks until repairs are made.  I had a bad cold that still lingers intermittently.  My elbow, seemingly almost healed, has taken a turn for the worse.  My insomnia has been raging.  On the good side, I'm killing it at the gym these days despite the elbow.  I am adding more weight every week.  I still have to be cautious for certain exercises, but I know once the pain is gone I can bring myself to 2014 strengt...

As long as it takes. If anyone were to ask me how long I plan to stick to specific nutrition habits, work out along certain programs, and stay accountable to this blog, this is the answer I would give. Have you ever noticed how many diet and fitness programs are time sensitive?  You have a 6 Week Body Makeover, a 21 Day Fix, Power 90.   I had considered doing a program with a local personal trainer who had a 12 week fitness and nutrition program.  Even Lean Eating expects you to have your "after" happen within a year, complete with your progress photo (that they can use for their promotional purposes).  People set limits as to when they want to lose weight such as a wedding or a vacation.  The only program that doesn't set a time limit is Weight Watchers and that's because they are a pay-as-you-go system so they want you to stay in the program and keep paying for meetings. The problem with putting a time limit on changing your body is that it can set ...

Do it. Don't do it to lose weight.  Don't do it look hot in a bathing suit.  Don't do it to make yourself more attractive to current or potential sexual and romantic partners.  Don't do it because you fear obesity.  Don't do it because you fear other health risks. Do it because you can. As a klutzy, unathletic nerd, I spent years developing physical skills and a certain level of fitness that I felt I could be proud of.  My accomplishments were never impressive to most people, but to me they were everything.  I was proud of my strength gains and the crazy stunts I could pull off at the gym.  I was proud of how I managed to ride a green pony through the phases of her education.  I was proud of the complex tap dancing steps I could execute.  I was proud of my endurance for long hikes in nature.  I was proud of the time I was able to swim out to a sandbar and tow a drowning man to safety on my boogie board.  I was no athlete, but ...