Inactive Weekend

This weekend was a lot less active than normal. I was taking a first aid/CPR course for work and it went from 8am to 4:00pm both days. As well, my husband had a work function Saturday evening so we had that to go to. It was a lot of fun but it did mean that there was no chance to work out Saturday evening either.

It also meant that my food intake was a lot less healthy than normal. I did try and snack on vegetables and low-cal stuff during the course and my lunch on Saturday wasn't overly unhealthy but it was eaten at a restaurant and that usually means high sodium in everything. Saturday was a different story, however. It was a buffet and both the main courses and the desserts were amazing (especially the desserts).

Sunday was less good as far as eating. Again, I tried snacking on veggies during the day but lunch was just awful. I tried eating a steak panini at Tim Hortons and it was terrible. I ended up just having a tea and donut for lunch. Then, I made supper at home. This is what I made:

It's hard to tell from the photo but my Sunday dinner was a crepe stuffed with mushrooms, garlic and a little bit of bacon. There was some white wine involved and a bit of fresh Parmesan cheese and some cream. On top, I added a four cheese blend. It's rich and fresh and definitely not low-cal. I know that it, at least, is part of the reason why I didn't end up losing weight this week.

Today, though, I'm back on track again. Back to eating more veggies and trying to cook using as many fresh ingredients as possible. I'm back to portion control when I eat and counting calories. I know that all the exercise in the world can't make up for a bad diet and that if I want to see results that I need to be more careful with what I eat but in reality, there are a number of things I don't eat often or at all:

• Breaded food. I hate breading. I think it's a texture thing, really but in the end, I'm further ahead by not eating food like this
• Fried food. We don't have a deep fryer at the house. I also am not a huge fan of KFC or eating fried chicken as most of it is breaded (see above)
• Pop. I actually physically CANNOT consume pop. I end up with migraines. I don't know if it's just cola or if it is anything carbonated (other than beer) but to be honest, why bother trying to find out. It's a bit like shooting myself in the foot repeatedly to see which type of bullet is least painful
• Sugary candy. While chocolate is something that I crave almost constantly, sugary candies like jujubes, gummies etc are not something that I chow down on. I'd actually rather have a piece of fruit or some popcorn instead

I know that my food choices are not always the best but I do believe they are nowhere near as bad as they could be.

What this Blog is NOT

I just wanted to take some time at this point to tell you what this blog is, and what it is NOT. There are a ton of fitness related and exercise related blogs and websites on the internet. A lot of them are written by personal trainers or dieticians and are aimed at helping people lose weight or get in shape. Others are written by people who are giving advice whether or not they have the training and/or experience to do so.

I am not one of those people. What I am is a middle-aged potato. I am not trying to tell other people how to exercise or how to eat in order to lose weight. I don't have the training or the background to do that. What I am doing is telling my personal journey. I am going to have setbacks. I am going to make mistakes and I am going to keep going. I am not going to give up until I have achieved the kind of body and the fitness level that I am going for.

If you're looking for some sort of solution here, you're going to be disappointed. What you'll see is my personal and candid experiences with working out. I'm not someone who loves exercise (as a general thing). If you asked me three or four years ago whether I would be someone who went to the gym and drank protein shakes and chose to be active voluntarily and for fun, I would have thought that perhaps you were mistaking me for someone else.

And yet, here I am.

If you're someone who is on this same journey, I'd love it if you came along with me. I'd love it if you share your experiences with me and what has worked for you.

Work Parties and Cheat "Days"

So this weekend I didn't put in my best effort when it came to eating properly. Usually I try and make sure that I am careful about what I eat during the day and then, assuming I am not working, I make a home-cooked meal for supper that doesn't use a lot of pre-made ingredients. I also try and avoid alcohol. This weekend that plan sort of went off track. In kind of a major way.

All weekend.

Friday night, my husband and I went out for a late Valentine's Day dinner. We went to a local restaurant that has crepes on the menu. Mine was filled with asparagus (good) and bacon (not as good) and then topped with shrimp (healthy), Mornay sauce (ahem) and lots of melted cheese (double ahem). I had a salad and a glass of wine and dessert. I guess when it comes RIGHT down to it, there are worse things we could have had. We could have gone to a burger joint and had something that wasn't fresh or which didn't contain veggies.

Saturday we went skiing and I burned off a chunk of the calories that I ate the night before. Probably not all of them, mind you. I have a feeling that there were lots of them living in the sauce and cheese. Some of them, though, were left broken and bloodied on the ski trails. I ended up eating reasonably well for the rest of the day and dinner wasn't that bad. I made salmon, asparagus and potatoes for supper. I did put a bit of cheese on the salmon and I do use butter when I cook asparagus but overall it was pretty good.

Sunday, though.... well that was a different kettle of fish. My work was having a party and there were appies. Plus I was bushed from skiing again and I hurt all over so we chowed down on pizza. Delicious as all get out but really fattening.  When we got to the party I had a couple slices of cheesy garlic bread and a lot of carrots and celery. I let my hubby sample all of the chicken wings, pulled pork spring rolls and other treats that were laid out. Ah, but the alcohol. The beer wouldn't have been too bad, I don't think, but I can't see the shooters as being super good for me on any level.

In the end, I think I probably undid some of the hard work I've been doing which is regrettable. Hopefully it won't take me long to get back on track and focused once again.

Fun in the Snow

Where I live we can get quite a bit of snow in the winter. This year, that has been especially true. When you add in the fact that this year the temperatures have been pretty warm (for winter) it means that not doing winter sports would just be silly. One nice thing about where I live is that the area is surrounded by a lot of undeveloped land. Even where land is developed they have also made it possible for people to ski or snowboard without having to travel a long distance to do so.

Yesterday it was super warm. I have wanted to cross country ski for years. I used to do it when I was a kid and I really remember it being a lot of fun. We decided that since temperatures were actually going to be above 0 Celsius that yesterday would be a good day to go. We had a blast. Because my husband is military we were able to borrow boots, skis and poles for free and go skiing on the military base. There are trails all through the campground that are groomed for just that purpose.

It was super sunny yesterday. The trail goes along by the river for a little while before it goes back into the woods and there was a bit of a chilly breeze coming off the water but other than that it was beautiful.

The gentleman skiing away from me in the top left-hand picture is my husband. He's had more practice lately than I have thanks to the fact that he goes skiing for PT. It's not hard to have had more practice than me lately. In fact, anyone who had been skiing once in the last 28 years would have had more recent practice than I did. But, really, that's neither here nor there.

Flat trails are great. I'm super good with flat trails. Problem is, this area is really, really.... not flat. There are one or two significant hills along this trail. I'm proud to say that I didn't fall (the first day) nor did I take out the small child who was skiing with their mother. I had to wait for them to pass because really, I have 0 steering ability at this point and I'm tall enough and heavy enough that I would have done them serious injury had I smacked into them.

We were out for about an hour and went a couple of kilometers. Don't ask me how far, I forgot to turn on my tracking watch thing and it felt like we went a really REALLY far distance. Adjusting for me being a middle-aged potato and all, I'd say we did between 2 and 3 kms.

Did I mention I'm a glutton for punishment? I am. It's not my best personality trait but it would explain why I ended up going skiing again today. Except that today we tried a DIFFERENT ski trail. The trail yesterday was (mostly) flat. The one today was hills. All hills (it felt like). Hills BOTH ways. Yesterday, I didn't fall. Today, the only reason I only fell ONCE was that I took my skiis off and walked for part of it. Yesterday the snow was soft and fluffy and nice. Today the snow was nasty and icy and angry.

There are no pictures of today, you say. Nope. I was too busy swearing and worrying about death and broken bones to take pictures today. My husband wiped out about four times. Neither one of us hit any large trees but I will say that its a bit of a miracle. Whoever broke this trail felt that a nice feature would be steep downhill stretches that ended in sharp curves. Add in large trees right where the curves were and you have a recipe for disaster.

I had enough fun Saturday that I know skiing will be one of my regular winter fitness activities. Who doesn't like long screaming streams of swear words and a fear of death, right? All kidding aside, I know that once I get more practice in that I'm going to have a blast out on the trails. I just need to figure out how not to break anything important in the meantime.

Aerial Yoga

For the past two weeks I've been taking an aerial yoga class. It's been really awesome. I love doing inversions but when I'm on my own all I can really manage is a shoulder stand or a really sad sort of handstand against a wall:

As you can see, I'm not good at it and I need a spotter to make sure that I don't go tilting off to the side or come crashing down and break things (like me). But aerial yoga, now THAT is something else.

Aerial yoga uses a silk (think giant hammock) that hangs from the ceiling and lets you do all sorts of really cool stuff. Like the stuff in the picture above. We did that tonight. Or, something really, really a lot like it. Now, that's not me in that class but I was hanging out like that tonight.

I was a bit nervous about going to class. Not because of the class itself but more because I hurt my back yesterday trying to shovel snow. Shoveling isn't something well-tolerated by my back and this snow was heavy and wet. I tried to move a small shovel full and ended up yanking something. I babied it but wasn't sure how class was going to go. I was a bit nervous and then we went upside down. 

After tilting upside down, I feel about three inches taller, nicely stretched out spine-wise, and a lot dizzier. In fact, I tend to enjoy being upside down enough that I stay like that for too long and end up with a head rush. Its a great feeling after but I ended up feeling a bit queasy tonight.

I'm halfway through a four week session and I'm planning on continuing if the class is still available next month (its a temporary location that the classes are being held in). I'm already looking forward to next week.

New Tech

I have to admit, I love gadgets and one of my favorites was my activity monitor. I had been wearing the Garmin Forerunner for about a year and a half and I quite liked it. I was quite sad when the band broke and I could no longer wear it. It's an older model and I think that it has been replaced with newer versions so of course the band (which can be replaced) is really hard to find and has to be ordered online. That's frustrating as hell.

When it first started to wear out I started thinking about what I wanted to get to replace it when it eventually became unwearable. I had thought about replacing it with an Apple watch. I will admit, I love Apple products. I have a few different i-things and felt that the watch would be a good addition. Unfortunately they are pretty pricey and I have heard that they can be a little on the pricey side. I also didn't really need some of the features that the watch includes.

Then, I heard about the FitBit Blaze. I liked that it sat closer to my wrist than the Garmin did and I also liked the fact that you could swap out the bands to change the look of the watch (what can I say, I like trying to coordinate things lol). Unfortunately, it was still expensive enough that I couldn't justify making the purchase. My Garmin was still trucking along and working quite well and I was used to the features.

Then, it happened. The part of the band that adjusts the size tore. It still sort of fit so I powered on. Then, I lost the part that holds the free end of the band in place. It broke and fell off the watch and it would no longer stay on. A fitness monitor is doing nobody any good if it falls off and so after losing it a few times I ended up biting the bullet and buying my Blaze.

I think it looks darn good on my wrist. I'm still getting used to the different functions but I like the fact that I can register specific exercises so that it tracks my calories accurately. Getting used to everything else will just come in time.

Adding in New Things

This week, I've tried to make sure that I added in some weights along with using the elliptical. I've used weights in the past and always hurt after I do but this time I'm determined not to stop just because I am achy afterwards. One frustrating thing is that I tend to hurt more the second day after a workout rather than the next day. It's always a little ominous when I am sore one day after because I never know how much worse its' going to be on day two.

I know that many women worry about getting too big when they lift and because of that they tend to stick to lower weights and just do quite a few reps instead. I know that since I am tall I'm going to need to really push myself and there is likely very little chance I will end up getting too bulky.  I'm also working on adding in a wider range of exercises when I am working each body part. I figure starting slow and working up is going to be a better idea in the long run and will end up with less of a chance that I will end up hurting myself.

I've been pretty good about eating clean over the past week. I've been cooking a lot of fish and lean meat such as chicken breast and pork tenderloin and making sure that I eat a lot of veggies and not a lot of sweet stuff. I've had one or two alcoholic drinks but have kept it to a minimum. My boss invited me out Friday night and in the past that has meant drinking quite a few beverages but I was careful this time and only had one while we were out.

I haven't lost a massive amount this week but have been telling myself that slow and steady wins the race. Its also that point in the month when I seem to retain a lot of water and end up weighing more than I would normally. Here are my stats:

Previous weight as of January 27th: 182.2 lbs
Weight as of Feb 1st: 181.4 lbs (a loss of 0.8 lbs).

As you can see, it's less than a pound and has been bouncing around a bit (which is normal when I retain water). I've been trying to reduce my salt intake and work out more. I've been averaging about 3.5 miles on the elliptical every day and have been noticing a bit of a change in my body shape which is more important to me than the numbers on the dial.

In the end, I'm trying not to feel too badly about the fact that I haven't lost much. Here's hoping that I can get back on track and start losing again.