Posts by windrinre

If you can, try to make the walking (and any other exercise) a fun event rather than a task to lose weight.  My mother is the same way about results and it was hard to get her to start exercising and to eat right (she favored starvation diets). 

We started bike riding together with my father in part because it was fun and in part to encourage him to exercise (he has a severe heart condition and so can only ride thanks to a motor-assist bike).

I think the second key, after making it fun, is to emphasize fitness over weight loss.  I'm telling you what, my mom gained on the scale those first several weeks - but she looked so much better.  You could really tell she was much fitter, and she felt better.  It took a while for the feeling better part to hit, but I think it is something important that people miss.  If doing something like that makes you feel better than why not do it?

• May 18th: 156
• May 25th: 158 (+2 from last week, +2 total)
• June 1st: 157.5 (-0.5 from last week, +1.5 total)
• June 8th: 158.5 (+1 from last week, +2.5 total)

Ugh, another increase.  Since my doctor ruled out pregnancy I was told to cut my exercise to a minimum and eat at or slightly over maintenance last week (and this week if there's still no TTOM - which is the case).  I despise the scale trending up when I'm still not even in the upper end of a healthy BMI for my height!  I feel like I'll never make the goal at this rate 

I'm down to 157.5  - still a net increase of 1.5.  Despite that, I'm down 1" on my hip measurements this week!  I've been stuck at 40" forever - now I'm at 39".  I even lost a little on my arms and thighs - and when I was out clothes shopping I could actually wear some medium tops just fine - some of the tops with sleeves were uncomfortable around the arms, but at least I could get them on!

I got in far more exercise than ever due to the nice weather - logged a bit over 4,000 calories in exercise this week via the heart rate monitor.  It came to about 7 hours and 30 minutes of activity.  I kept my deficit between 500-1000 most of the week except Sunday, where I went a bit over maintenance.  It was a good week in regards to doing the right things, even if I didn't drop back to 156.

The downside:  TTOM didn't materialize this week, despite all the indications it would - it should have hit Thursday or Friday.  I'm a bit concerned on that; I may not be able to stick in this competition depending on the cause.  I'm hoping it was just due to the freakish amount of exercise this week (I usually only log burns about 1,000-2,000).  I may be a fretful mess this week - I'm going to try to cut my exercise down to only weight lifting and wait and see.

Happy birthday Shapeshifter!  Hope it was fun!

• May 18th: 156
• May 25th: 158 (+2) <- week of this post
• June 1st: 157.5 (-0.5)

I'm not surprised; I usually go up for TTOM.   Add that to the holiday plus the fact that I started lifting weights again and it means I've got at least some water weight.  I'll have to wait until next week to see what really happened.

I managed to eat terrible today, so I'm a little demoralized.  It's bad when boredom and stress at work leads to eating over your burn... even after adding 500 to your burn meter total for the day through exercise.  I wasn't even hungry, and I even felt fairly full, but I couldn't help myself today.  On top of a gain, this feels icky; I know the gain so far is water - I'll have to work 'harder' to get a real gain.  It doesn't help things though.

Maybe I'll catch a second wind and do a workout video here in a bit.

You all rock... it's motivating just seeing all you awesome people here so we can lose together   

I'm going to drag myself out of bed now and try and sneak a bike ride in this morning so I feel like I'm making headway on this goal.  I may not get a chance to ride this evening, depending on how much of a stressful work frenzy we are in to get caught up on the project work.  So better get it in now when all I'll be missing is sleep!

I couldn't go without munching through my last semester of graduate school, so here are things I found that were helpful for snacking a little bit better:

-Gum: Something to chew on with flavor, better than snacking on candy

-Hard Candies: better than soft, because they take a while to eat.

-Beef/Turkey/etc Jerky: protein and takes a while to eat if you get the tough kind

-HOT pepper slices: you can't eat them very fast and you'll need plenty of water with them.  For me Jalepenos are hot enough... get something that pushes your hot limits :)  This was actually my favorite, because it really got me drinking enough water!

-Grapes/Precut fruit: I didn't have the time to fuss with prepping fruit, so grapes and other bite sized fruit made nice snacks - and those pre-cut apples were nice to bring along.  I always felt oranges were too much fuss, but that's just me.

-Flavored low/no cal drinks:  Sometimes I just wanted flavor more than food - so those flavored carbonate waters were nice, as were crystal light on the go packs.

-Popcorn:  Not great, but better than some of the snack options (doughnuts, candy bars)

-Strong Mints:  (like Altoids) the little strong mints kept me from eating other things much the same way brushing your teeth does.

Other than snack options, just keep in mind that more time in doesn't always net more productivity.  It's always good to get a feel for when you'd actually get more done by taking a break, getting more sleep, and de-stress yourself.  

And good luck on your exams!

This year I've entered my mom and I in a Mother's Day 5K for us to walk together.  She's said for a while she always wanted to do one, but never has because she's not up to running one.  (I know I couldn't run that either!)  So this year we are going to do a 5K even if it's just walking.  Maybe later this year or next year we can work up to jogging it together and go from there.

Usually we do cards and breakfast though.

I wouldn't worry about not being able to jump too long at first - it may be discouraging but you'll improve.  Just try to jump for as long as you can at the fastest speed you think you can maintain.  Then rest for as long as you need to and start again.  

You'll also miss less jumps over time - I know I couldn't go 10 or so without missing when I picked it up in August.  Now I usually only miss when I'm getting tired toward the end of the workout.  I regularly get in about 150-200 jumps per jump period (about 2 minutes) without missing now.

The interesting thing I've noticed about jumping rope, since I got a heart rate monitor, was that jumping really tops out your heart rate - way more than I expected.  I regularly hit 94% max with an 80s% max average when doing a jump rope workout - the average still encompassing the time I spend walking to recover.  And that's even with resting LONGER than I think I need before I feel like I could jump again.

So I guess what I meant to convey is that don't just consider your actual jump time - your body is still working hard during the recovery periods.  A 15 minute work out, including resting period, is quite a workout in its own right even if most of it is rest time.

One thing about being a grad student - we rarely have final exams.  This semester I don't have any.. but also haven't gotten ANY grades back on anything we did.  It feels like our grades are going to be totally subjective.

I almost would rather have homework/finals just to know where I stood in the class.  Instead we get the lovely final projects, presentations, and papers. Ugh.

Good luck on all of your final exams!  Just keep in mind that it's the final stretch and then you'll be done with those courses.

Congrats ladyelizabeth!  That's great!

I'm still sitting SW of 156, but it's TTOM so it doesn't mean a whole lot. We'll see how in gear I can get this next week, before I'm gymless due to end of semester.

I thought the Christmas spirit was an adult beverage...   Both leave you warm and fuzzy on the inside.

Of all the things I've lost, I think I miss my TIME the most.

Oh for all that is good what I wouldn't give to have weekends.  It's coming soon when I get out of school... but not soon enough.  Having actual free-not-guilty-I-should-be-doing-homework time - is it just a dream?

Original Post by moonikins:

I honk too many people off to ever be offered a mod post.

Yeah!

Relates traumatic childhood experience involving honking, shaming poster for honking for less than entirely necessary reasons.  Defines in explicit terms what needs to be met for honking to be acceptable.  Cites 17 sources including 12 of questionable authority, 3 geosites by the same author, and only one reasonable source.  Refuses to leave room for alternative reasons for honking.

Changes topic without notice to note appreciation for moderators.  Brown noses shamelessly.  Briefly swerves off topic to relate Peeps into discussion.  Meanders aimlessly for paragraphs.  

Apologizes for long post, mentions need to do some procrastinated on task, and disappears for undetermined amount of time.

Original Post by moonikins:

I have to add:

Nobody likes me

Everybody hates me

I'm gonna eat some worms.

 

Oh goodness no, I had buried the memories of having to learn that song in elementary school... ahhhhhh

First you bite their heads off,

Then you suck their guts out,

Then you throw their skin away.

Nobody knows how I survive on worms three times a day!

(Sorry... reflex...)

Schnooder, I agree with the others who said you write very entertaining stuff.  I also would like to point out that some of the best things come out of trying to learn/do things and failing - but learning something new or stumbling across something better.   If you do things perfectly you never do them differently and never improve. Mistakes are some of the best teachers out there, after all.  We learn what not to do again and perhaps better understand what makes something work while we're at it.

Some people just don't have any respect for other people, let alone the property of other people.  That alone has always disgusted me a fair bit with my peers in high school and now college.  I imagine they enjoy it the same way bullies enjoy paining their victims.  They don't need any reason - they do it because hurting others makes them feel powerful and thus better about themselves.  Which is a pathetic way to live.

We have had our mailbox bashed on the order of two dozen times - the first dozen or so we had a 'release' style mailbox that just let go when it was hit and would go flying but sustain little damage.  So they put fireworks in it and blew it up.  They did that repeatedly to the steel ones we replaced it with,  and could have really hurt someone - one time it blew the back part of the box a good twenty-five feet before it smashed into the stairs to the house.  We went through at least two to three mail boxes a year for several years there.  A steel box could usually survive two to three attacks.  All this in addition to the shooting out of car mirrors, multiple eggings, tp'ing, and occasionally finding our mail box flat out stolen. 

It really makes me want to find a plot of land in the middle of nowhere and have no contact with the outside world for at least a decade.  It's disgusting that people treat others that way, and I really have had enough of it to last a lifetime already.