Sizing Myself Up

I’ve entered this weird state of limbo. I’m having a hard time defining my self-image because I don’t have my usual reference points. I’ve been through the South Beach program, I’m cycling more than ever, clothes are hanging off of me, yet my scale doesn’t yield. I seem to be hovering at the same weight even though by every indication, I appear to be losing weight. Couple that with other changes in my life and it’s become more and more difficult for me to “size myself up”.
At the prime age of 36, I had reached the pinnacle of my portliness and so I decided to do something about it. I was tired of having to move up a size every time I went shopping for new clothes. I was tired of my current clothes getting smaller and smaller. I had begun a little bit of excising at the gym during 2003, but I wasn’t really committed to it. So at the start of 2004, I got on the South Beach diet and kicked my exercise into high gear.

I lost some weight and my clothes were getting loose again. As I added more cycling to my workouts, I added back more and more carbs and sugars because my body needed them. As things currently stand, I’m out of phase 3 and have been for awhile, but my clothes still kept getting bigger, so I didn’t mind. If it wasn’t for that darn scale not budging, I probably wouldn’t be thinking twice about it, but as I look at the television and see football players who are taller than me and weigh less than me, I can’t help but think that I’m a long way from where I want to be. Am I really losing my love handles if the scale won’t budge? Am I still fat?

How we perceive ourselves is one of the most relative things in the world. There are hugely obese people that think they are super-sexy and there are anorexic people who think their fat. So it’s obvious that a person’s self image is not based on what is reflected in the mirror. My self image has changed several times over the years and I’ve never really settled into a comfortable grasp of what my true self looks like.

More

The World’s Largest Pink Ribbon

3M Corporation, the company that makes Post-It Notes, is building the World’s Largest Pink Ribbon, which will be on display in Times Square, NYC for breast cancer awareness month in October. As nice of a gesture as that is, they are also donating $1 to the City of Hope Cancer Center for every person that enters their information on their web site.
Normally, I would stop right there and chaulk this gesture up as yet another method of gathering up user data. However, that doesn’t appear to be the case!
All 3M is asking for is your First and Last Name, City and State. This information will be printed onto one of the Post-It Notes used in the World’s Largest Pink Ribbon. So for each of the first 75,000 people who sign up to show that they are “sticking up for breast cancer”, your name will appear on the ribbon and $1 will be donated to the City of Hope Cancer Center.

In a world where your personal information is constantly under attack in order to sell you more stuff, it’s nice to see a large corporation “take the high road” and do something honorable. It’s this type of gesture that makes me want to support a company and purchase their products.

To submit your name, and for more information, please visit this link.

Who Kicked My Butt? Oh Yeah, Yoga Did!

Last Thursday I was sitting at a keyboard typing away and when I went to adjust in my chair, I noticed my back was a little stiff and sore. Still focusing my my typing, I dismissed my pain as a side effect of all the yard work I did the Saturday before. As I continued typing, it dawned on me that I hadn’t been sore the day before, so why was I sore now? Last weekend I built two raised flower beds set into a hill and as you might imagine, there was a LOT of digging. On Monday I was a little stiff, but that was it. By Tuesday morning my stiffness had subsided and I was my old self. So I stopped typing and began to think long and hard about what I had done to cause my back to feel so sore. I knew I hadn’t been sore the day before, so I retraced my steps through the day and lo and behold, I found the cause of my pain and discomfort – yoga.
I don’t know about you, but when I think of yoga, I think of stretching, relaxing and soothing music. Although yoga does have those elements, there is also another element that most people don’t think about. That element is called pain. I’ve been doing yoga now for well over a year and if I step away from it for a few weeks, my memory of past workouts fade and all I can remember is the calm and relaxed feeling I have at the end. If I’m “in the groove”, I’ll work out three times in one week not including frequent bicycle rides. It’s not the weight machines, the treadmill, or my bicycle that will work me the hardest. The hardest workout of the week will be yoga. Book it.

More

Making Time For Yoga

I was real close to skipping working out yesterday. I wasn’t as productive as I would have liked to have been and the temptation was to keep working and just blow off working out. It was a strong temptation, but in the end I opted to go workout.

The yoga class starts at 6:00pm and there wasn’t time to do anything treadmill, or any other activity before class. The class fills up very fast, so you want to make sure you get a place by getting there early. 15 minutes before the start of class and the room was nearly full. I laid out my mat and then went to ask Bliss, our instructor a question.

On April 10th, she’s teaching a class about integrating yoga into your daily life. In it, she’s going to create two 10 minute routines and a 30 minute routine. The longer routine is for when you start your day and the shorter 10 minutes ones are for throughout the day when you need a boost of energy, etc. It sounds very exciting and I would REALLY like to attend, but NPUG has it’s regular meeting on that day and I won’t be able to attend. I asked Bliss if she would be teaching this class anywhere else and unfortunately she said she didn’t. She did say that the topic would probably come up again in a few months, so at least there’s hope for me down the road. I went back to the mat and relaxed for about 10 minutes until class started.

Bliss announced at the start of class that she had just returned from an instructor’s workshop where they focused on the belly and everyone let out a collective “uh oh” and then we all laughed. Class was tough, especially on the stomach, but it wasn’t as tough as some of them have been. Maybe I’m getting better? I do notice that my stretches are going deeper and that I’m closer to my toes that I’ve ever been.

One interesting, yet odd thing happened towards the end. We were doing a pose and I was getting tired of holding it. I’m panting like a dog in heat and Bliss is saying “… and breathe…”. She saying that was should just be relaxed and breathing as deeply as if we were lying down resting. I’m taking many shallow breaths because I physically can’t breathe any deeper. Then all of a sudden, I felt myself give. It felt as if I had been hanging onto a ledge and just let go. I was relaxed, yet my pose was solid as a rock. I felt like I could have held that position all day. Breathing became much easier too. It happened a second time in one of our final poses. That pose is typically very uncomfortable and hard to hold, but again it felt like I just let go and it became very easy. I don’t know what this means, but I certainly hope to reach that place again.

Gym Time

Since I started doing the South Beach Diet, I’ve begun going getting back into the gym. This may be the first time I’ve written about it here in the workout log, but I’ve been fairly consistent. The first week I went to the gym three times, but then it fell off to two times a week, then one and there were a few weeks where I didn’t go at all. At this stage of the diet, I would say that I average two times a week now.

On Monday’s I start with 30 minutes of treadmill. If I’ve gotten to the gym early enough and if there isn’t anyone waiting on a machine, I’ll go another 30 minutes if I can. I choose a program that varies the elevation of the treadmill as well as the speed so that it varies things up a bit. Last night I cranked up the speed to 7 and I was flat out running my ass off for 3 – 4 minute stretches and then I’d kick it down to a fast walk. It’s the hardest I’ve gone on the treadmill yet, but it felt good.

When I’m done with the walking, I usually walk around the gym a bit to cool down and then I hit the machines. My legs are pretty well defined from my years of soccer, but my upper body could use some work. Holly really like muscles and she hasn’t had any to speak of since we’ve known each other, so I’m trying to pump up my arms and chest. On each machine I do two sets of 12 reps. The machines I hit last night were: bicep curls, lat pull down, butterfly, bench press, and a higher bench press. I’ll have to write down the names of the machines next time I go.

When it comes to weights, I go until I’m exhaustion, but not until failure. I remember hearing somewhere the you should do it until your muscles can’t do anymore. I did that my first time on the machines and I couldn’t move my arms for a week, so I stop when I get to the point that I’m exhausted. When I finished last night my entire upper body was shaking.

On Wednesday, I do the treadmill for 30 minutes if I get to the gym on time and then I do an hour of yoga. You wouldn’t think it, but yoga is my hardest workout! On Friday I basically do the same routine as Monday’s, but I’m thinking that I may start swimming on Friday just to be different. Every swimmer I’ve ever seen has a killer body, so it couldn’t hurt.