Vacationing and exercizing

I'm in Boston this weekend for a quickie vacation and I went down to the fitness center in the hotel this am, hoping to get a good workout in before we start seeing the sights today and visiting with family. The place was packed.

I was able to get a treadmill next to the HUMONGOUS woman who was running on her own treadmill. She was there before me, I walked for 30 minutes, and she was still running when I left.

I'm not kidding when I say this chick topped out at about 300. She was sweating, panting, and the fat was jumping up and down, but DAMN! She could go.

I was so jealous, I can't even begin to tell you.

Got me thinking: even if someone is VERY overweight or even morbidly obese, can they still be physically FIT? I started talking to the lady - because you all know I'll talk to anyone anytime anyplace - and said, "I'm impressed! I wish I could run like you but I have bad knees."

She smiled and said she run on the treadmill 5 days a week for up to an hour and a half.

Now remember, she was HUGE! I wanted to ask her how long she'd been doing it but she beat me to the punch. She said she's been doing this for over six months and feels great. Her cholesterol level has gone down as has her blood pressure.

I congratulated her and asked if she had lost any weight, because remember: she was HUGE!

She smiled and said no, because she still eats all her favorite foods, just exercises.

I thought this sounded really crazy, because the basic laws of physics would tell you that if she is moving soooooooo much, even with eating, she should have lost weight.

Was she selling me a line of bull? I don't know, but she certainly had it on me in the endurance department!

So, I'm plugging along, getting some exercise when I can, and continuing to eat well.

Even on vacation!

All or nothing

One of my beautiful sisters-in-law says of diets "I'm either all in or nothing."
She means that if she starts a diet, she is totally committed to that diet or she won't do it.
It's really not a bad philosophy when you think about it.
When I started the Ferguson plan in january I was TOTALLY and COMPLETELY commited. I did everything I was told to do, ate what I was commanded to eat and exercised as instructed. Somewhere along week eight I started to get tired of it all.
I still TRIED to eat my 3 foodloversfatplates daily along with my two snacks. I drank more than the detailed amounts of liquids. But my motivation somehow waned and I couldn't get back on total track.
I think I realize now why.
Even though I was commited, it wasn't exactly for the long haul.
All in or nothing.
I didn't get that straight in my head. I guess I thought the 50 pounds would melt off the minute I started eating correctly.
Wrong.
I guess I thought a few months of behavior modificiation would last a lifetime.
Wrong.
I guess I wasn't all in or nothing.
Correct.
Tonight starts another Ferguson 8 week challenge on his website. I am registered and I am committed.
Totally.
Long haul commited.
I still have a significant amount of weight that needs to go bye-bye.
Like everything else in life, you need to practice to make something perfect.
My weightloss is not perfect yet.
But I am all in or nothing.

Post holiday thoughts

Easter has come and gone and I survived unscathed diet-wise. Since I don't have little ones in the house anymore, I have no need to buy Easter baskets laden with chocolate goodies. That's a plus for me.

Dinner was healthy and not overbearing.

SO my thoughts now are turning to post-Easter things, like now that the weather is warming - yes, even here in the northland! - Layers will be coming off pretty soon, and in some areas, already are. I've seen kids around town already sporting shorts and flip-flops.

I haven't bought shorts in years and am a littler terrified of doing so.

And forget a bathing suit. I haven't had one in over ten years at least.

Just the thought that I have to go to the store and TRY them on is enough to give me agita.

I am going to do it this year,tho. I think I have to. For too long, way too long, I have hidden behind voluminous, caftan-y like tops, and stretch pants have been a fashion staple in my wardrobe. These are my comfort clothes. Just like we all have comfort foods, I have comfort clothes. Those looks that make me look older and rounder than I really am just so that my fat rolls are hidden.

I finally realize this: who am I kidding? Those fat rolls are not hidden, they are shown off to all their lousy glory by the clothing choices I make.

I would absolutely love to be on WHAT NOT TO WEAR because I know they would have a field day with me. The learning curve for me is GREAT here. I need to learn how to dress NOT to make me look fatter, but to show off my assets ( If I have any!) and to hide my junk. Which I have a lot of!

If anyone knows the producers of that show - send them my name and this blog!!

I can use help.

Any and all the help I can muster.

Another Holiday

Easter is tomorrow and as a Catholic I should be fasting.
As a Robert Ferguson follower, I can't.
I didn't want to anyway. Fasting makes me hungrier, and grouchy, and just plain miserable.
I still find it hard to beleive for DECADES I starved myself, fasting a great deal and still never lost any weight.
I really wish SOMEONE had told me years ago that you need food to keep you going; that depriving your body was really not going to do anything good for your weight, and that the moment you put anything into your mouth after fasting/starving, you were going to gain it all back in a heartbeat.
It sure would have saved me decades of agony and angst.
So, even though I consider myself a good Catholic, I will not be fasting this Easter season ( which BTW is over tomorrow!) I will be eating well and healthily.
Veggies, proteins, and good carbs.
Happy, Healthy Easter.

Something that makes you go "hmmmm??!"

On Kirstie Alley's show last week she asked her daughter, "Do you only eat when you're hungry?" TO which her lovely daughter replied, "yes." Kirstie gave her a quizzical look and said, "what a concept!"
That's exactly the way I feel!
I DO eat when I'm not hungry. I eat because I "want" something. I'm bored. I'm lonely. I want junk.
I'm everything but hungry!
What a concept. To eat ONLY when you feel hunger. I don't think I've done that in, well, 50 years. I've been thinking about this ebcause I ate lunch an hour ago and I just "want "something sweet, like chocolate, about now. I'm antsy about it too. I have a snak for my appropriate snak time in another hour, but I just want something NOW!
What to do? I could go for a walk, but that would take my mind off of it for about a half a minute. I could eat something, give in to the craving, but that would defeat the purpose of trying to lose weight and would make me depressed that I once again "Failed" to control myself.
I wish there was a pill or a shot or SOMETHING that woudl take away cravings and thoughts of eating.
I would love to live in a world where for just one day I didn't even think about eating something. I would go through the entire day and only think about food when I was hungry.
What a world; nirvana.
All this talk about not eating is making me hungry.

Choices

Most of you know that I don't drink alcohol. This is a personal choice based on events that unfolded in my childhood.

Enough said about that.

Tonight on the Robert Ferguson teleconference he made the point that putting certain foods in your mouth ( body) is a choice. To whit - you KNOW you shouldn't eat that 6 pack of Twinkies, but you do because you have made the choice to. A conscious, personal, free choice.

Having made that choice you need to live with the consequences - again to whit- excess weight caused by the fat and crap in the Twinkies!

I never ever thought about it that way - that eating to excess, or eating something BAD for you -is a personal choice.

You DON'T have to eat it. It isn't calling your name, or forcing you to pick it up. You have made the free choice to eat it and must live with the effect of that choice.

Let's look at it this way: you NEED to eat to survive. That's a fact. If you don't eat, eventually you will die.

But you don't NEED to overeat to survive. You need a certain base of calories each day to keep you walking around on the planet. Anything extra that isn't burnt off will store and we all know it stores as fat.

So if you eat the correct amount of calories your body needs to just walk around daily, you will maintain your weight. IF you eat less, you will lose. If you eat more, you will gain.

That's kind of simple math, isn't it!

So, if I MAKE the choice NOT to eat something I don't NEED, I can control my weight.

So starting here and now I make the choice NOT to overeat. I make the CHOICE not to eat junkfood.

I make the choice to lose the excess I don't need.

Choice. It's a good thing.

Post Weekend

I survived the weekend and didn't overeat.
Yippie!
Back to work today and structure. I love it.
TV Chef Jamie Oliver has a new show on ABC about getting this country's kids healthy and moving. I watched a clip of it over the weekend and it wasn't bad. 99 % of the kids in this town that has been called the fattest and unhealthiest in America couldn't identify simple vegetables when shown them. They didn't know what a potato looked like right from the ground, having always eaten mashed ones with gobs of butter and salt. Forget eggplants and artichokes. These kids didn't even know what real lettuce looked like.
I felt bad for them and angry at their parents, esp when 99% of THEM were mobidly obese and setting their kids up for the same life.
In a town where EVERYTHING gets fried, including Twinkies, this is a small microcosm of what this country has become. A country of over indulgent, overeating, obese, out of shape and unhealthy citizens.
Fat knows no political parties, gender or nationality. It's basic math for all: if you put more in than you need and don't use the excess, it turns to FAT, plain and simple.
So Jamie is trying to do what Michelle Obama is trying to do and get our kids to push away the tatter tots for colored veges and fruits; put the Ipod down and get outside and play; get moving; get healthy.
When I was kid NO ONE but me sat home and watched TV after school or on weekends. The kids in my neighborhood were outside, skipping, jumping, running and BURNING calories. I was at home with the tv as my only friend and boxes of Entenmann's chocolate donuts to keep my company.
Kids now sit at their computers in their rooms all day and night, typing away. The only thing on their bodies that gets exercise is their fingers from all the keystrokes. No wonder they are the fattest generation in history.
No wonder they are the unhealthiest generation of all time.
No wonder theirs is the first life expectancy that will be less than their parents.
This is and should be a national disgrace.
Do something good for mankind today: if you see a kid encourage him to DO something physical; ask him to put down the Drake's cakes and forgo the sugared sodas.
Make his life better.
He WILL thank you one day. He WILL - hpefully -live long enough to thank you.