It may or may not surprise you to know that I bought my treadmill wa-a-ay back in 1991, and if length of use were the sole measurement employed to determine its condition, it would still be practically brand new.
Over the years, I walked on it occasionally, and once I even walked on it pretty regularly, for about ten days or so. But something else always came up to distract me. The problem was, I wasn't determined to walk on the treadmill so...I almost never did. I did however, turn it into a fetching free-form Art Deco clothes hangar and box storage unit.
The clothes and boxes are gone now and I am on Day 25 of my 90 Day Fitness Walking Program. I am doing it. I am sticking with an exercise program because I finally found the right carrot. Telling myself I was going to get slender and beautiful never did the trick, but telling myself if I didn't get up off my doublewide and walk I was going to die sooner rather than later, well...that had a most efficacious effect on my motivation.
But just realize, this is my carrot, and my carrot may not work for you at all. You really do have to find your own.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I learned way back in March that I had dangerously high blood pressure. Now that's a health problem that responds rather quickly to a walking done as an exercise, a health problem that can sometimes be totally managed or even "cured" by regular walking. Yet, even knowing this, it still took me to October to get up on the treadmill. I walked a few times between then and now, but it was always a desultory sort of "catch as catch can" sort of thing. I knew my health was on the line, but I was still not motivated to make the changes I needed to make to improve my health.
I know. I'm probably a head case.
Then I figured out how to give myself a dandy carrot, a carrot that is working. It's a sort of unusual carrot to be sure, but a carrot nonetheless and as long as I don't cheat, as long as I play by the rules I have set for myself to be allowed to grab that carrot every day, my exercise program will continue unabated.
I'm sure you're all wondering what in the heck my carrot it. It's simple. It's TV.
What? What? TV? How can that be a carrot?
It can be a carrot if there's a show you really enjoy that you won't let yourself watch unless your hump is up on the treadmill working out. In my case, the carrot is Frazier. "What?" again? Yes, Frazier.
In the 11 years that show was on the air, I never saw it once. My kids were young then and every night there was homework, music lessons, soccer practice, quality family time - a dozen things way more important than a television show. But as I laid up in that hospital bed last March, scared half to death and worried about how my test results would turn out, I tuned in to the TV hanging from the ceiling and found...nothing.
Endless shopping channels, Spanish channels I couldn't understand, wrestling, hunting, fishing, kick boxing, TV preachers of the most odious "Send me your money and I'll build you a staircase to heaven just as soon as I get finished building my 12-million dollar mansion sort" ... and little else.
Desperate, I flipped backwards through the channels and found an episode of Frazier. I'd heard a lot about it; I knew Kelsey Grammer had owned the Emmys for a few years in his role as Dr. Frazier Crane, so I thought, "Why not?" There was nothing else on that was even remotely interesting to me.
Turned out to be just the thing. I was fortunate enough to catch the pilot episode, The Good Son, which explains how Frazier ends up living with his father, Martin, a policeman recovering from a bullet wound suffered during a robbery. Then I found out a local station was running the series in order late at night; that was five episodes of Frazier a week. I started watching them as soon as I got home. But the problem was, I was supposed to be getting a lot of sleep to help me get better faster, and watching Frazier kept me up too late, until past midnight.
The solution was to tape the shows and watch them the next morning. I did that for a while but finally realized I could use my growing affection for the show and its cast of characters to my benefit. If I made a rule stating that I couldn't watch my taped Frazier show unless I was walking on my treadmill, then that, coupled with my desire to get fit and healthy, would be a wonderful carrot. And it's working.
Every morning, I turn on my TV and DVR and press play, then hop on the treadmill to walk the specified number of minutes. It has now become a ritual and in this case, the ritual is a very good thing.
So what's going to happen when I finally run out of Frazier episodes? It's getting close. Niles and Dapne have already eloped and found out they're expecting a child.
I expect I will just find another classic half hour comedy to keep me going, because laughing and walking...well, that's a good combination.
Friday, October 12, 2007
I Understand About Portion Sizes
I have to say I was touched by Fat Cat's description of her dinner out with a friend and the incredible restraint they displayed whilst dividing up and not consuming the "Chocolate Eruption". I would like to relate a shockingly similar story and thus demonstrate my commitment to ongoing health improvement.
Yesterday evening I was asked to the home of some friends for a night of entertainment and fine dining. The invitation went something like this: "Hey, Loy picked up some fried chicken. Wanna come over and watch some stuff we recorded on the DVR?" I graciously accepted and drove over fully intent upon displaying my newly-learned good eating habits.
(I won't mention the name of the "restaurant" that the chicken came from because I am terrified of offending the trademark gestapo, but suffice to say you can't pray at this church's chicken.)
When I arrived, the food had been placed buffet-style on the counter and we divided up the chicken tenders, dirty rice, mashed potatoes, and biscuits according to normal societal rules like "fair share", "dont' be a total douche and take too much", and "leave some leftovers for the host to snack on later". I immediately showed my good judgement by choosing a large round plate and not a cookie sheet to put my food upon as I had read an article that said I would eat less if my plate was smaller. I further showed control by building only a very small mashed potato and gravy "volcano" in the center and then surrounding it with only five or maybe eight chicken strips, a pile of rice and two biscuits. Even though it was difficult to lift my plate, I theorized that the effort was a chance to get in some isometric muscle building and just a touch of aerobics at the same time. A great start.
Now I can already hear some of you complaining that in no way can fried chicken and mashed potatoes be healthy, but I will remind you that we ate chicken tenders which means there was no bone. And although we had cream gravy to dip the tenders into, we did have normal, dietetic brown gravy for the pale, highly processed white potatoes. Granted the Cajun-style rice had enough grease to lubricate a car engine, but again, I washed that down with only one soda.
In case the comparison to Fat Cat's dinner weren't clear enough already, I will explain that we left two whole biscuits for someone to eat later after the appropriate lag for digestion had occurred. Could we have finished those off? You bet. But we didn't; we controlled ourselves.
I'm telling you friends, sometimes it hurts, but if you just work at it, you can lose weight.
Pigassus
Yesterday evening I was asked to the home of some friends for a night of entertainment and fine dining. The invitation went something like this: "Hey, Loy picked up some fried chicken. Wanna come over and watch some stuff we recorded on the DVR?" I graciously accepted and drove over fully intent upon displaying my newly-learned good eating habits.
(I won't mention the name of the "restaurant" that the chicken came from because I am terrified of offending the trademark gestapo, but suffice to say you can't pray at this church's chicken.)
When I arrived, the food had been placed buffet-style on the counter and we divided up the chicken tenders, dirty rice, mashed potatoes, and biscuits according to normal societal rules like "fair share", "dont' be a total douche and take too much", and "leave some leftovers for the host to snack on later". I immediately showed my good judgement by choosing a large round plate and not a cookie sheet to put my food upon as I had read an article that said I would eat less if my plate was smaller. I further showed control by building only a very small mashed potato and gravy "volcano" in the center and then surrounding it with only five or maybe eight chicken strips, a pile of rice and two biscuits. Even though it was difficult to lift my plate, I theorized that the effort was a chance to get in some isometric muscle building and just a touch of aerobics at the same time. A great start.
Now I can already hear some of you complaining that in no way can fried chicken and mashed potatoes be healthy, but I will remind you that we ate chicken tenders which means there was no bone. And although we had cream gravy to dip the tenders into, we did have normal, dietetic brown gravy for the pale, highly processed white potatoes. Granted the Cajun-style rice had enough grease to lubricate a car engine, but again, I washed that down with only one soda.
In case the comparison to Fat Cat's dinner weren't clear enough already, I will explain that we left two whole biscuits for someone to eat later after the appropriate lag for digestion had occurred. Could we have finished those off? You bet. But we didn't; we controlled ourselves.
I'm telling you friends, sometimes it hurts, but if you just work at it, you can lose weight.
Pigassus
Thursday, October 11, 2007
The Whole Truth
It should come as no surprise to anybody, least of all me, that I weigh more today than I did yesterday, not after all the shenanigans I pulled to trick the digital scale into reading 202.0 pounds. Today I weigh 203.4 pounds, an overnight gain of 1.4 pounds that was entirely earned.
The doctors who wrote The Duke Diet Plan say people who are trying to lose weight should weigh themselves every day and record it, and expect fluctuations up and down the scale of several pounds over the course of a week, but overall, a gradual trend down. That's what my own records reveal, a gradual weight loss over the last three weeks with plenty of ups and downs, but overall, down.
The reason I say I earned the weight gain yesterday is that I went out to eat. Even though I ate a modest amount, even splitting the meal in two and saving the other half for lunch today, I did two things differently...I ate later than I have been eating, knoshing almost until 9 PM, and I had a calorific but utterly delicious, decadent dessert called Chocolate Eruption.
I'll say.
Even so, my friend and I split the piece of chocolate heaven in two, and then we each ate only half of our half. So I was being naughty, but mindfully naughty. Nonetheless, that was all it took to bump up the scales.
I'm not worried. I'm sticking to my walking, and I DIDN'T order a soda at the restaurant, a major temptation I resisted, which is huge. I know the scale is going to bump up when I enjoy a night out with friends. That's okay. What's not okay would be losing sight of the fact that this is a very long journey and I just started. It will take me the better part of a year to finally reach my goal weight of 150 pounds. I hope you all stay with me for the whole ride.
Fat Cat
The doctors who wrote The Duke Diet Plan say people who are trying to lose weight should weigh themselves every day and record it, and expect fluctuations up and down the scale of several pounds over the course of a week, but overall, a gradual trend down. That's what my own records reveal, a gradual weight loss over the last three weeks with plenty of ups and downs, but overall, down.
The reason I say I earned the weight gain yesterday is that I went out to eat. Even though I ate a modest amount, even splitting the meal in two and saving the other half for lunch today, I did two things differently...I ate later than I have been eating, knoshing almost until 9 PM, and I had a calorific but utterly delicious, decadent dessert called Chocolate Eruption.
I'll say.
Even so, my friend and I split the piece of chocolate heaven in two, and then we each ate only half of our half. So I was being naughty, but mindfully naughty. Nonetheless, that was all it took to bump up the scales.
I'm not worried. I'm sticking to my walking, and I DIDN'T order a soda at the restaurant, a major temptation I resisted, which is huge. I know the scale is going to bump up when I enjoy a night out with friends. That's okay. What's not okay would be losing sight of the fact that this is a very long journey and I just started. It will take me the better part of a year to finally reach my goal weight of 150 pounds. I hope you all stay with me for the whole ride.
Fat Cat
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Everything You Wanted To Know About Fat But Weren't Afraid To Ask
Have you ever had a burning feeling inside you that you just had to address? An itch deep down that you were compelled to scratch? A fire you couldn't put out?
Well, it would be way too obvious to suggest you had a sexually transmitted disease and that you needed to seek medical attention immediately and not the advice of a blogger, but HA! You probably have gonorrhea.
No. Since few of you are having sex anyways, you might instead just have some curiosity about health and nutrition that perhaps you were embarrassed to discuss with your physician, your priest, your spouse, or any of the other few hundred other qualified people you know that you should go to first. If in fact you are here with a burning question, then we at Fat Chat would like to provide a forum to air your dirty laundry and poke fun at your most sensitive areas... and not in the good way. Ewww.
Actually, when someone tries to lose weight they often keep most of their activities to themselves. No one likes to go around constantly announcing their particular efforts and sacrifices. Results, sure, but no one trumpets details of the struggle like how chaffed their inner thighs get during brisk walks. OMG no one wants to hear that.
So dieters end up becoming somewhat isolated in what, to them, is an undertaking of life-altering proportions. The inward focus has the unwanted effect of divorcing them from others who might have shared experiences and making all the unusual things that accompany diet and exercise seem like gross abnormalities. That is to say, because a fat person doesn't talk about it with other fat people, they start to think they are the only ones who have red, swollen thighs that smell vaguely like bacon after each jog.
And that is simply not the case. I mean, raise your chubby hand if you HAVEN'T felt your thighs rub together.
That's what I thought.
So for anyone with a question about dieting or an observation about anything that changes during the process of weight loss, please contact us here at Fat Chat. We will, without in any way attempting to give medical advice, try and answer questions about fat loss and weight loss programs. We will publish, without names, any interesting stories, successful or just funny, that can cast some light on losing weight and remind you all that you are all in it together.
Just not me, because I'm hott and gonorrhea free!
Pigassus
Well, it would be way too obvious to suggest you had a sexually transmitted disease and that you needed to seek medical attention immediately and not the advice of a blogger, but HA! You probably have gonorrhea.
No. Since few of you are having sex anyways, you might instead just have some curiosity about health and nutrition that perhaps you were embarrassed to discuss with your physician, your priest, your spouse, or any of the other few hundred other qualified people you know that you should go to first. If in fact you are here with a burning question, then we at Fat Chat would like to provide a forum to air your dirty laundry and poke fun at your most sensitive areas... and not in the good way. Ewww.
Actually, when someone tries to lose weight they often keep most of their activities to themselves. No one likes to go around constantly announcing their particular efforts and sacrifices. Results, sure, but no one trumpets details of the struggle like how chaffed their inner thighs get during brisk walks. OMG no one wants to hear that.
So dieters end up becoming somewhat isolated in what, to them, is an undertaking of life-altering proportions. The inward focus has the unwanted effect of divorcing them from others who might have shared experiences and making all the unusual things that accompany diet and exercise seem like gross abnormalities. That is to say, because a fat person doesn't talk about it with other fat people, they start to think they are the only ones who have red, swollen thighs that smell vaguely like bacon after each jog.
And that is simply not the case. I mean, raise your chubby hand if you HAVEN'T felt your thighs rub together.
That's what I thought.
So for anyone with a question about dieting or an observation about anything that changes during the process of weight loss, please contact us here at Fat Chat. We will, without in any way attempting to give medical advice, try and answer questions about fat loss and weight loss programs. We will publish, without names, any interesting stories, successful or just funny, that can cast some light on losing weight and remind you all that you are all in it together.
Just not me, because I'm hott and gonorrhea free!
Pigassus
Scale Baiting
Pigassus has claimed repeatedly that bathroom scales are Devil-made. I went along with that at first until deductive reasoning proved otherwise. Here's what I've learned. Analog bathroom scales are Devil-made. Digital scales are made by near-anorexic 19-year-old boys who cannot gain an ounce no matter how much pizza they stuff into their mouths because their mothers have had them on ADD drugs since they were three-days-old. A known side effect of ADD drugs is severe loss of appetite sometimes resulting in anorexia, particularly in boys, so in order to retaliate against the world for their own lack of mass, they build cruel inconsistencies into digital scales to torture those of us who cannot keep ourselves off them.
Both Pigassus and I have nobly posted about our Monday weigh-ins. The truth is much darker. We weigh in Monday when we awaken at 6 a.m. to visit the bathroom, at 7 a.m. when we awaken for real, at 7:01 a.m. to make sure the damned digital scale really knew what it was talking about; about 7:04 a.m. to really, really make sure; at 7:17 a.m. after we have managed through brain-busting effort to squeeze out another three drops of urine, certain it will change the number; at 7:23 to...well, you get the picture. And that's just on Monday morning. The same thing happens over and over all day long every day of the week.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Lest you be entertaining any naughty ideas about my friend Pigassus and I weighing in naked together each morning, let me reveal he lives about 200 miles away and I am old enough to be his mother...in some cultures, even his grandmother, so fantasize about something else. Perhaps a hot fudge sundae? END OF NOTE.
Now don't go calling in the head docs to treat our mutual obsessive-compulsive disorders just yet. Neither of us have OCD, what we have are evil, lying, taunting digital scales that have trained us to weigh ourselves over and over and over again within the space of minutes, because the digital numbers change radically within minutes. So it's the scales' fault, not ours. Oh, and those vengeful, anorexic scale designers who are jealous of the glorious flow of our excess avoirdupois.
Here's exactly what happened to me this morning, ounce by ounce. I awakened at 5:56 to visit the head, did my business and stepped on the digital scale. Odd time of the morning to weigh yourself, you might be thinking. But bitter experience has taught me that for whatever reason, it's the time of the morning I weigh the least. But not today. The scale said I weighed 204.8 pounds, a rather large overnight gain for no discernible reason.
Yesterday I weighed 202.4 pounds. Because I was very busy work-wise, I didn't eat much...a carefully measured bowl of raisin bran and a small glass of orange juice for breakfast, four crackers with Boursin cheese for lunch, and four paper thin slices of provolone with four paper thin slices of Genoa Hard Sausage (the natural kind, made with no nitrates), along with 3 stuffed grape leaves and 2 dried apricot halves for dinner. Only water to drink other than the orange juice at breakfast. By the numbers, about a twelve hundred calorie day, perfectly disciplined. So I would have thought that this morning I would at least weight the same or maybe even, slightly less.
Wrong! the evil scale sneered.
Yes, I didn't walk yesterday, and no, I never did quite get around to unwrapping an exercise tape and sticking it in the DVD, but still, there were no honking gobs of ice cream slathered with butterscotch sauce on my menu yesterday; none of the freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies that just seem to keep magically leaping out of my oven, and no potato chips or anything like that because I actually don't like them all that much. I mean, if I'm going to waste calories, it's going to be on something sublime and ambrosial, not some Frankenfood from Dr. Nutowski's chem lab. So I thought, "At least I maintained, right?"
Wrong again.
There was no getting around it. The evil digital scale said I weighed 204.8 pounds, but I sure wasn't going to put that in my weight log until I figured out if it was the truth. I dragged myself back into bed, full of sorrow, and worried about how much weight I would gain over the next hour or so of sleep. But I must not have been that worried, because I promptly dozed off.
When I woke up for the day, I immediately repeated my routine, fully expecting to weigh even more because that's what usually happens. But the scale said I weighed 202.8 pounds, still more than yesterday, but a full two pounds less than 90 minutes earlier. It was just a .4 pound gain over yesterday...disappointing, but manageable. But it was also weird, because I usually weigh about a pound more on my wide awake weigh-in than on my early morning bathroom break weigh-in. So I was happy and decided to accept the number. I scratched my head and grinned like an idiot child at the bathroom wall. I must have done some pretty heavy breathing during that last cat nap and exhaled a lot of carbon gases to achieve that result.
I was walking from the bathroom, putting my jammies back on, when I realized I hadn't pressed the little personalized button on my digital sale that also gives me my body fat, hydration and muscle mass measurements, so I stripped off my jammies, turned and walked back to the scale, arriving there exactly 7 nanoseconds after leaving. Yet in that brief window of time, according to the scale, I had gained one full pound and now weighed 203.8 pounds. I weighed again. 203.8 pounds. Damned scales!
Now do you understand why I don't trust digital scales? I walked back out of the bathroom to my desk, burned up all of two calories checking my email and walked back into the bathroom. Using a very tentative toe, I thumped the top of the digital scale to activate its evil, leering blue eye. Then I tapped the P-1 button, for "Person One," (even though at this weight I might possibly qualify to be two persons...) uttered a quiet threat: I double dog dare you to lie to me again...and the scale said...I weighed 202.0 pounds even.
Sold to the lady in the third row!
I rushed back to my computer weight log and duly recorded my true weight. And as for being obsessed with the scale, you can bet I won't be going anywhere near it for the rest of the day. I have my truth, the truth I like, and any additional instances of scale-baiting will have to wait until the damned thing lies to me again tomorrow morning.
Fat Cat
Both Pigassus and I have nobly posted about our Monday weigh-ins. The truth is much darker. We weigh in Monday when we awaken at 6 a.m. to visit the bathroom, at 7 a.m. when we awaken for real, at 7:01 a.m. to make sure the damned digital scale really knew what it was talking about; about 7:04 a.m. to really, really make sure; at 7:17 a.m. after we have managed through brain-busting effort to squeeze out another three drops of urine, certain it will change the number; at 7:23 to...well, you get the picture. And that's just on Monday morning. The same thing happens over and over all day long every day of the week.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Lest you be entertaining any naughty ideas about my friend Pigassus and I weighing in naked together each morning, let me reveal he lives about 200 miles away and I am old enough to be his mother...in some cultures, even his grandmother, so fantasize about something else. Perhaps a hot fudge sundae? END OF NOTE.
Now don't go calling in the head docs to treat our mutual obsessive-compulsive disorders just yet. Neither of us have OCD, what we have are evil, lying, taunting digital scales that have trained us to weigh ourselves over and over and over again within the space of minutes, because the digital numbers change radically within minutes. So it's the scales' fault, not ours. Oh, and those vengeful, anorexic scale designers who are jealous of the glorious flow of our excess avoirdupois.
Here's exactly what happened to me this morning, ounce by ounce. I awakened at 5:56 to visit the head, did my business and stepped on the digital scale. Odd time of the morning to weigh yourself, you might be thinking. But bitter experience has taught me that for whatever reason, it's the time of the morning I weigh the least. But not today. The scale said I weighed 204.8 pounds, a rather large overnight gain for no discernible reason.
Yesterday I weighed 202.4 pounds. Because I was very busy work-wise, I didn't eat much...a carefully measured bowl of raisin bran and a small glass of orange juice for breakfast, four crackers with Boursin cheese for lunch, and four paper thin slices of provolone with four paper thin slices of Genoa Hard Sausage (the natural kind, made with no nitrates), along with 3 stuffed grape leaves and 2 dried apricot halves for dinner. Only water to drink other than the orange juice at breakfast. By the numbers, about a twelve hundred calorie day, perfectly disciplined. So I would have thought that this morning I would at least weight the same or maybe even, slightly less.
Wrong! the evil scale sneered.
Yes, I didn't walk yesterday, and no, I never did quite get around to unwrapping an exercise tape and sticking it in the DVD, but still, there were no honking gobs of ice cream slathered with butterscotch sauce on my menu yesterday; none of the freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies that just seem to keep magically leaping out of my oven, and no potato chips or anything like that because I actually don't like them all that much. I mean, if I'm going to waste calories, it's going to be on something sublime and ambrosial, not some Frankenfood from Dr. Nutowski's chem lab. So I thought, "At least I maintained, right?"
Wrong again.
There was no getting around it. The evil digital scale said I weighed 204.8 pounds, but I sure wasn't going to put that in my weight log until I figured out if it was the truth. I dragged myself back into bed, full of sorrow, and worried about how much weight I would gain over the next hour or so of sleep. But I must not have been that worried, because I promptly dozed off.
When I woke up for the day, I immediately repeated my routine, fully expecting to weigh even more because that's what usually happens. But the scale said I weighed 202.8 pounds, still more than yesterday, but a full two pounds less than 90 minutes earlier. It was just a .4 pound gain over yesterday...disappointing, but manageable. But it was also weird, because I usually weigh about a pound more on my wide awake weigh-in than on my early morning bathroom break weigh-in. So I was happy and decided to accept the number. I scratched my head and grinned like an idiot child at the bathroom wall. I must have done some pretty heavy breathing during that last cat nap and exhaled a lot of carbon gases to achieve that result.
I was walking from the bathroom, putting my jammies back on, when I realized I hadn't pressed the little personalized button on my digital sale that also gives me my body fat, hydration and muscle mass measurements, so I stripped off my jammies, turned and walked back to the scale, arriving there exactly 7 nanoseconds after leaving. Yet in that brief window of time, according to the scale, I had gained one full pound and now weighed 203.8 pounds. I weighed again. 203.8 pounds. Damned scales!
Now do you understand why I don't trust digital scales? I walked back out of the bathroom to my desk, burned up all of two calories checking my email and walked back into the bathroom. Using a very tentative toe, I thumped the top of the digital scale to activate its evil, leering blue eye. Then I tapped the P-1 button, for "Person One," (even though at this weight I might possibly qualify to be two persons...) uttered a quiet threat: I double dog dare you to lie to me again...and the scale said...I weighed 202.0 pounds even.
Sold to the lady in the third row!
I rushed back to my computer weight log and duly recorded my true weight. And as for being obsessed with the scale, you can bet I won't be going anywhere near it for the rest of the day. I have my truth, the truth I like, and any additional instances of scale-baiting will have to wait until the damned thing lies to me again tomorrow morning.
Fat Cat
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
What am I? Yoda?
The only time I like to hear the word "try" is when I am at a favorite restaurant and the garcon says, "Would you like to try the veal? It's very good today sir and goes well with your first two entrees."
Maybe, if I'm feeling bold I'll also try the Key Lime Pie, but I don't usually have pie at lunch.
That's not my point, however. It is instead this: Vocabulary is very important with regards to attitude. I know what Fat Cat really means is she will torture herself with that exercise video today. She will sweat and groan and pull a few muscles that were heretofor unknown to her. She will contort herself into unusual positions and stretch and bend where no woman has bent before. She will. She WILL.
And you know what? I feel really energized by all this positive reinforcement and affirmation and such. I feel, just by saying it, that I will. I WILL... have that Key Lime Pie after all.
It just takes strength friends. And the right words.
Pigassus
Maybe, if I'm feeling bold I'll also try the Key Lime Pie, but I don't usually have pie at lunch.
That's not my point, however. It is instead this: Vocabulary is very important with regards to attitude. I know what Fat Cat really means is she will torture herself with that exercise video today. She will sweat and groan and pull a few muscles that were heretofor unknown to her. She will contort herself into unusual positions and stretch and bend where no woman has bent before. She will. She WILL.
And you know what? I feel really energized by all this positive reinforcement and affirmation and such. I feel, just by saying it, that I will. I WILL... have that Key Lime Pie after all.
It just takes strength friends. And the right words.
Pigassus
It's a Habit Now
Okay, so yesterday was Day 21, and the folks who know about such things maintain it takes 21 days to form a new habit. Here's a stunning observation...I think they're right. For all the moaning and groaning I did all week long, for all the problems I had...really bad, searing pain in the back of my right calf for two days straight during the fast part of my walk; my lousy "Why should I have to do this, I'm already a Goddess," attitude; the Devil-made scales barely budging despite my dedication to regular exercise and caloric restrictions, I kept going. And today, Day 22, a mandated walking break, I actually find myself wanting to walk, and missing the walk.
Who knew? I am a certified, card-carrying, exercising-hating sloth. I hate to sweat. I am much too dainty to sweat. It's not ladylike, and yet now, after 21 days of torture, the walks seem like a necessary, if albeit sweaty part of my daily routine. Yes, I have only lost a little over three pounds, but I have also lost 5 inches and my fat is arranged much more fetchingly, even if I do say so myself.
So, tonight, since I am feeling so chipper and didn't have to walk today, I am actually going to put one of my 783 pristine, unopened, still-have-the-cellophane-on-them exercise tapes into my DVD or VCR (depending upon when in my seven years of desperation I actually bought them) and I am going to try to get through a beginner's exercise routine. Here is what I think I will find. I will find that I am still nowhere near actually being healthy and fit; I will sweat like a pig and suck in air like a drowning woman going down for the third time. I will use muscles I didn't know I had, I will hurt and I may not be able to finish.
But at least I am going to try, am willing to try, am actually looking forward to trying...and that, my friends...is a miracle.
Fat Cat
Who knew? I am a certified, card-carrying, exercising-hating sloth. I hate to sweat. I am much too dainty to sweat. It's not ladylike, and yet now, after 21 days of torture, the walks seem like a necessary, if albeit sweaty part of my daily routine. Yes, I have only lost a little over three pounds, but I have also lost 5 inches and my fat is arranged much more fetchingly, even if I do say so myself.
So, tonight, since I am feeling so chipper and didn't have to walk today, I am actually going to put one of my 783 pristine, unopened, still-have-the-cellophane-on-them exercise tapes into my DVD or VCR (depending upon when in my seven years of desperation I actually bought them) and I am going to try to get through a beginner's exercise routine. Here is what I think I will find. I will find that I am still nowhere near actually being healthy and fit; I will sweat like a pig and suck in air like a drowning woman going down for the third time. I will use muscles I didn't know I had, I will hurt and I may not be able to finish.
But at least I am going to try, am willing to try, am actually looking forward to trying...and that, my friends...is a miracle.
Fat Cat
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