Jenn's Zen

Today I was at the gym, in the locker room doing my hair and make-up in front of the huge bank of mirrored sinks. Further down the counter from me were three bikini clad teen-aged girls. Their hair was up, suits on, towels ready and they were heading obviously out to the pool. While waiting for their friends they stood at the mirror and critiqued themselves. They pulled at their suits, they grimaced, they turned around seeing what others would see from behind. They thought they were fat. I wanted to scream, “You are young, vibrant, healthy young women. Love your body, you are beautiful!!!!”

It is a difficult thing to love your body.  I know of only a few who truly do.  This year I have worn a two-piece bathing suit (that bares my belly) for the first time since… EVER!  I’m 37, how did this happen?!  I look back at pictures and sigh because I thought I was fat THEN.

I’m blessed that my body works, my feet can dance, my arms can carry groceries, my hands can write. Yet, I often fail to appreciate those things.  When I was pregnant, and acutely aware of the power of my body, one of my mantras was, “my body was made to do this”.  Now I use the same mantra in spin class.  I was hit by a car when I was six years old. I spent three months recuperating, but I did. I healed to be a happy healthy kid whose body functions as intended.

We are so hard on ourselves, why? Wouldn’t we be happier if we accepted our bodies for their limitations, but worked within them to make them the strongest and healthiest possible? I think so.

You are young, vibrant, healthy. Love your body, you are beautiful!!!

:: Insert head-smack here ::

I know how to do this, really, I’ve done it before. How could I forget the drinking water part?

To be perfectly honest I’m not much of a beverage girl. We have coffee in the morning, but if Jeremy didn’t want it I wouldn’t make it. As a kid I had milk or water with meals, but now I don’t. I don’t crave milk, juice or soda. I drink diet soda instead of grabbing a handful of cookies. And I often forget about water altogether. One of the things I often forgot in the first weeks of working out at the gym was my water bottle. After paying over $1 a bottle for water whenever that happened I quickly caught on to remembering my Sigg bottle. At home I rarely have a glass of water. At the nanny family’s house I’m more apt to keep a cup of ice water around (not sure why it’s easier there).

I do know however that in order to get the pounds off the scale (and my thighs) I’ve got to drink a decent to significant amount of water. For me the important time is after dinner. I usually want to munch something while hanging out in front of the TV. If I drink 2-3 glasses of water between 8-11pm I see a difference on the scale. No lie. This of course is in addition to working out and tracking my calories.

It makes sense, it’s just something I tend to forget. So I’m here to remind you, just add water. 

After a couple days of my new plan I emailed the trainer at the gym and verified the numbers I was using. He promptly replied back that I needed to add calories. Did I hear you correctly!? Are you sure? So, I did. The revised plan:

2100 calories on “rest” days

2400 calories on workout days, workouts ~500 calories, 5 days out of seven

This takes alot of trust on my part. Trust isn’t exactly my strong suit (stop laughing!) and 2400 calories sounds like, feels like and is more calories than it seems like should work. We’ll see.

A new plan, not in any way related to the New Deal.

2000 calories a day, 500 calorie workouts at least five times a week. This for twelve weeks.

Food is fuel.

Work-out #1 is complete, looking forward to workout #2 tomorrow. 

Strong, healthy girls! (By the way this what I tell our daughter when she asks why we go to the gym, “Because we need to be strong, healthy girls”)

This is my way of staying accountable, by announcing to the web that I’m going back on the food diary wagon.  Tomorrow morning I’m getting up early and heading to Lifetime Fitness to get my metabolic numbers so I’ll know how many calories my body needs.  Then I will be able to calculate how much I can eat and how much I need to work out in order to lose weight.  This is part of what I did before that worked so well.  In my opinion it’s the scientific, non-sexy way to lose weight.  It requires math (thank goodness for spreadsheets) and honesty, but like I said it worked last time.

I’m halfway to my original goal, ok, maybe more like three-fifths.  Still, I’ve got a ways to go.  Even though I’m extremely proud of my results thus far I knew I wasn’t going to be happy with myself if I settled.  So here’s to not settling!  Here’s to not being afraid of swimsuit season!  Here’s to being a strong healthy woman (and an example to our daughter).

Oh! did I mention I’ve committed to a 5K in May.  Yikes!

Do you ever feel the need to pull out a persona in order to do something? Are some things easier or more fun when we channel someone else?

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Jeremy found this as part of a Fark headline. He read the stats to me and I absolutely could not believe it.

If you aren’t going to the link I’ll go ahead and tell you, it’s a milkshake available from Baskin & Robbins that has 2600 calories with 1220 of them from fat. I feel a coronary coming on just reading that. It’s a huge (36 ounce) shake, but I’m sure I could drink it. How many people are drinking these with no clue?

For those who need a little perspective, according to Cooking Light magazine a woman 25-50 years of age should take in no more than 2000 calories in a day. When I had my last heart rate test at the gym my number was around 1600 to lose weight. In a one hour spin class I usually burn between 500 and 600 calories. That means that if I drank (DRANK I wouldn’t even get to chew it!) this shake I would have to work my ass off in 5 spin classes JUST TO STAY AHEAD of the calories. And that doesn’t even account for the 59 grams of SATURATED fat. I wouldn’t be able to have a cholesterol test for like 3 months!

I guess my point is this, know what you are using for fuel. Fuel, that’s how I’ve come to look at food most recently. Is what I’m putting in my body going to help me do what I need to do? Is it going to get me through the day? through the stress? through the work-outs? If I eat crap I’m going to feel like crap. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of feeling like crap.

Eat consciously, be aware. Even when you splurge, be aware.

P.S. another possible word for the year: Focus

The new year, a trip to the Franklin Covey store and a new calendar. I’ve entered all the pertinent information, birthdays, anniversaries, track-in/out dates, Aftershock gigs, a trip in February to the beach for scrapbooking and the hours set aside for the gym and nannying.

Outside of family responsibilities these two things (the gym and nannying) vy for my time. It is part of the balance I worked SO hard for in 2007. This fall and into the winter I over committed and was all over the place. It left me feeling like I was running in circles getting nowhere and constantly supposed to be somewhere else doing something else. No mas.

2009 a fresh start and a new schedule. My nanny schedule has changed. The family I work for doesn’t need me so late in the day anymore. I said goodbye to a few hours and while I wasn’t sure saying goodbye to the money was a good choice, the sanity it will bring to my day (and thus less stress to our family) makes it a good choice.

The last few months (Aug-Dec) I’ve been able to maintain my success at the gym, but truth be told I still haven’t reached my original goal. 2-3 workouts a week is not enough for me to reach that goal. Lifetime Fitness just put out their January schedule and I’ve mapped out a Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday routine that should give me the variety and results that I am working towards. Maybe Jeremy and I will even sneak in a few Friday night “date” work-outs. This schedule (minus the Wednesday workout) is one that I will be able to maintain in the future even if my nanny schedule changes, which it certainly will by the end of the year.

It feels good, a breath of fresh air into my schedule.

That’s how long it took me to run a mile on Sunday.  I never thought I would know or care how long it took me to run a mile.  My line was always, “I will only run if someone is chasing me with a knife, if it’s a gun just shoot me already”.  Another new statistic that I know about myself is that I can run four miles.  That to me is a minor miracle.  Truth be told, when (18 months ago) I started working out I could barely jog 2 minutes.  By barely I mean winded, red faced, going to die, barely.  My goal for the end of this year was to be able to run a 5K (3.2 miles).  Now I know that I can.  I’m still not convinced I would do it in respectable time, but that wasn’t part of the original goal.  Maybe that will be part of next years goal.

Oh!  And for what it’s worth I still don’t enjoy it or think of it as fun.  I love knowing my body can do this. I love how it feels to ask my body to move and it moves.  I love being able to go out and dance my ass off at Aftershock gigs.  I love how I look in clothes (did I really just say that outloud?!).  I love all that.  The actual working out not so much, but I’m OK with that.

When did I get FOUR pairs of gym shoes? When did I get two different pair of running shoes? When did I become particular about what shoes I wear for certain workouts? Crazy isn’t it? I literally laughed out loud when I noticed this in the closet. This is SO not me. Well, I guess it is now. I’ve morphed into one of those people who gets a little stir crazy if I’ve missed more than one day at the gym. I have favorite classes and favorite instructors. I look forward to seeing people who I only know by their first name that I only see at the gym. Hopefully not too annoyingly, I’ve become one of those people. *sigh* I never intended it to happen. But here it is: I’m a happier girl if I’ve had a workout. Did I just say that outloud?

Let me see, where did I leave off with my Lifetime Fitness saga? I think I left you somewhere around Christmas, on my own, without the trainer, and still trying to reach my original weight-loss goal.

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