Broke the 10-pound barrier … again!

Starting weight Jan. 1, 2012 … 205 lbs

Today’s weight at Weight Watchers … 194.4

Today’s weight starkers and after peeing … 192

If slow and steady wins the race, I am turtling my way downward. I’d prefer to hurtle towards 155, but the trend is going the right direction.

I’ve been quite silent on this blog. I am used to setting goals and exceeding them. The only thing I’m exceeding with my quest to lose 50 pounds in 50 weeks is the time frame within which I pledged to drop the weight. It is now week 22, so I have 28 weeks til my end date and 39.4 pounds to go. That means I need to lose 1.4 pounds per week from now on. Yikes!

I’ve had quite the hiatus from the gym. I simply don’t feel like it. I know I can’t wait til I feel like it. But knowledge does not equal action. Funny enough, I quite like it once I’m there.

The good news is  that it’s gardening season again! Which is my second favourite earthly joy. (My fave earthly joy is  when Jay jumps on me ;). Oooh, that was a distracting thought! Anyhow, I was out digging, transplanting, watering, pruning and planting last weekend for 25 hours total. Made me soooooo happy, and it’s like doing continuous squats.  So my legs are feeling it and must be oh, at least a couple of millimetres smaller!

So this week’s plan is gym tomorrow,Tuesday and Friday. There are a couple of evening events, so the plan is ONE glass of wine at each and no fried appetizers or cheese.

 

Stay tuned!

Post-Miraval report

Starting weight: 205 on January 1, 2012

Current weight: 195.4

I spent a week at Miraval in Tucson on a weight loss program. The place is so zen that you feel stress and its evil minion cortisol evaporate in the desert air. I am a bit of a self-actualization junkie, so I lapped up every groovy offering.

I met with an athletic coach about discipline on the exercise front. She talked about how athletes adopt lots of obsessive practices that they never deviate from. Things like tying their shoelaces a certain way, exercising on a finely honed schedule, eating exact nutritional combinations, etc. She said that athletes break down the steps they must follow to perform at their peak at a race or whatever their sport is. But then they follow those steps religiously, and don’t focus on the ultimate goal (winning). Conversely, us diet afficionados focus constantly on the outcome (the magic number on the scale), rather than the minute, specific and utterly consistently executed steps to get there.

I meditated with a wondrous expert, whose very presence was soothing. Apparently guided or active meditation (e.g. Walking meditation) is recommended for those with active squirrel brains, like me. That is one of the reasons that I believe I revel so much in gardening.  It is completely absorbing and engenders amazing peace.

A nutritionist told me that it wasn’t necessary to forsake wine. (Be still, my beating heart!) She said to have four “doses” each of carbs, protein and healthy fats. Six ounces of wine counts as a carb dose. So if I choose a glass of wine, then I need to ensure that I only have 3 other carbs. I’ve been following this logic for the past week, and the weight continues to fall 🙂

Not that I’m focusing on the outcome…

1.6 pounds per month = 2.8 YEARS to lose 50 pounds

Yikes. I have lost a pathetic 3.2 pounds since January 1, 2012. How can this be? I lost 6.6 in the first two weeks of the year. I was convinced that I would exceed my goal to lose 50 pounds in 50 weeks. Not so. The tyranny of a decades-old habit caught up with me. I left for the cruise on Jan. 25, down almost 10 pounds. The well-documented hedonism aboard the floating Xanadu led to a 3-pound gain. On a roll, so to speak (pun intended), I proceeded to gain a couple of pounds each ensuing week. Argh.

So it’s back to tracking every morsel (even the pastel Easter M & Ms in the bunny bowl my colleague put out today). I went to a weight lifting class at Gold’s Gym yesterday. Endless squats. It was fun lifting the barbell to Joan Jett belting out “I love rock ‘n roll” until I realized that I was shaking and might drop it.

I hired a certified health coach last week. A lovely, earnest woman who gave me cherry tea (quite good, even though I generally detest tea) and told me to eat kale. My soul longs for cheese, but my body doesn’t.

So I don’t want to take almost 3 years to lose the 50 pounds. That means facing up to three things:

1) It ain’t going to be easy.

2) I can’t let ‘er rip on the weekends, or it takes a whole week to shed what I gain after indulging.

3) exercise is magic – annnd it’s super hard to get out of bed or out of the office to get to the gym consistently.

Weigh-in is in 3 days and I’ve lost a couple of pounds since Saturday.  Here’s hoping.

Equating discipline with death

 

Ms. Supersvelte here. I am decidedly less bullish about the 50 pounds in 50 weeks being a relatively easy endeavour. I came back from a 2-week cruise on Feb. 6 and have been quite lackadaisacal since. I’ve gone faithfully to Weight Watchers (WW) on Saturdays, but I haven’t tracked what I’m ingesting too diligently and exercise has been almost non-existent. Back to my old tricks with wine. (I only had two days this month so far where I was a tee-totaller.) And the scale is saying “I told you so”.  Weighed in at 201.8 today at WW. So I weigh 3.2 pounds less than January 1. Quite behind target, I’d say. I’m supposed to be at 197 today to lose 50 pounds in 50 weeks.

I’ve concluded that I equate discipline with death. Let me explain. My Mom died at age 48 from breast cancer. She was a healthy and slim non-drinker. My sister and I had quite opposite reactions. Robin became a runner and a roasted vegetable fan. She drinks wine maybe once a week. I decided that genetics get you no matter how you live, and since I fully expected to die young, I merrily ate and drank my way through my 30s and 40s. Now that I’m 52, it has caught up with me. My metabolism has slowed down due to menopause and advancing years. So if I’m going to stick around on planet earth for awhile longer, I’d like to maximize my energy and be healthy.

Whenever I am at a venue where the wine is flowing and the conversation is sparkling and the food is divine, I always think “live for the day, for tomorrow you may die”. This week, I was worried about my Dad, who is battling cancer.

So if one equates discipline with death, it’s tough to resist whatever is at hand. So I need to shed this thinking pattern.

Today I was quite hungover from a lovely evening – started out with wine quaffing with a friend, followed by dinner with some buddies where the wine was flowing and the table groaning from lamb and other delicious morsels.

So Jay and I went to the gym, I tracked Weight Watchers points and calories (1,100) and made a delicious shrimp stir fry. I had 4 oz. of wine. So virtuous. So disciplined. So life-affirming. 🙂

 

A pleasure dome upon the waves

Coleride’s famous poem Kubla Khan includes the line:

“the shadow of the dome of pleasure floated midway on the waves”.

Ah yes. The shadow of this cruise ship, a paeon to excessive pleasure, throws the blue of the ocean into darker relief. A feast is being laid out as I write. Cakes of pastel hues, seafood of every description, fruits and cheese – too much of everything. Quite ironic, given this year’s quest to adopt a mindset of “less is more”. Or maybe a perfect reminder that too much is disturbing. Jay and I are still sated from breakfast, and they are rolling out trolleys of pleasure.

I am drinking Perrier with lime after last night’s margarita, white wine, red wine, scotch/Drambuie and cosmo. (I am a colourful drinker.)

My waistline has expanded. Need to repent at the gym this afternoon. Repeat after me: less is more. Less is more.

Heading into dangerous and uncharted waters: a cruise

Day 22 on the Supersvelte quest to lose 50 pounds in 50 weeks. Weighed in at 0.4 pounds less than last week at Weight Watchers; 6.6 pounds less than Jan. 1. I was kinda bummed because I was disciplined for the third week in a row, ingesting less than each week previous and going to the gym 4 times. Pissed me off.

Used all the Weight Watchers points and 5 of the activity points, but still had 11 left.

Last night, drank 4 glasses of wine. Friday night, had 2. Today, had 1 at my mother-in-law’s 85th birthday party. Only have 10 extra points until Jan. 28, and Jay and I are taking off for 12 days on a cruise. Oh-oh.

Have decided to work out every day on the ship. Will limit booze and strive for small portions. goal is to weigh the same when I get back and not gain. I fully expect it to be very hard. My willpower sucks when I’m trying to be moderate. I excel at all or nothing.

I’ve realized how uncomfortable it is to feel too full. It’s such a rare occurrence now. I don’t like it.

Extreme dieting: NOT!

   A high school friend of mine (David Findlay) posted this on facebook today. The woman above is aged 51, and is a well-known (except to me) health guru who advocates colonic irrigation, organic fruits and veggies, detoxes and supplements. The woman on the right is famous cookbook author Nigella Lawson, also aged 51. She eats butter, meat and dessert. My friend posted “To those of you on extreme diets, I rest my case!”

Apparently some of you are worried that I’m on an extreme diet, since last night’s post said I was on the Supersvelte diet to lose 50 pounds in 50 DAYS. Whoops. I meant 50 weeks. The only thing extreme about my diet is how different I’m living from the last decade. No wine, 1200-1400 calories per day and mucho exercise. In other words, I’m being sensible. (I really hate that word.)

Here is a photo of today’s homemade lunch – 8 Weight Watchers points or 480 calories. Low-fat corn tortillas, 3 oz chicken, salsa, cilantro, fat-free plastic (aka processed) cheese. Fat-free sour cream. Mmmmmm.

So fear not, dear amigos. I haven’t lost that much of my hedonistic core 🙂

30-second runs

I woke up at 5:30 a.m. to a resounding realization: I had slept through the night. Six hours, to be exact. HALLELUJAH!!!

Why so remarkable? Well, for women of a certain age, one’s hotness increases exponentially. The want to rip clothes off kind. Not stop traffic hotness.  The “Omigawd, I am burning from within” kind. Yup. I’ve had the pleasure of hot flashes for the past 7 years. I started doing time at age 45 and there are no signs of early parole. On a good night, I generally wake up 3 times. On a bad night, it’s like having a newborn again, without the joy of holding a cute little bundle.

Six hours of uninterrupted sleep and I was wide awake, pondering going to work. That’s when my Supersvelte alter ego woke up. “Let’s go to the gym!” she said, unbearably perky. But I went yesterday after work, only 12 hours ago, said Ms. Hedonistic. “You can do something different so that you use different muscles,” she stated, without empathy. But … there were no buts. I got my generous butt out of bed. My workout gear was already packed. I slipped my gear on, grabbed my floor-length coat and braced myself for the icy blast of minus 53-degree (with the wind chill) weather. There’s nothing to block the wind on the majestic Canadian Prairies, so it goes without saying that there’s generally a wind chill. It was pitch dark and no one else on my street was up.

At my new gym (Anytime Fitness, open 24 hours a day to prevent excuses), a variety of folks were working out. At 5:45 a.m.! I chose the treadmill and turned on MuchMusic. My friend Rihanna smiled saucily at me, and this was an early video where she spent a lot of time clutching her nether regions in various contorted positions. The more she did that, the more I vowed to be clutch-worthy again. Before I knew it, I had broken into a trot. Yup. 4.5 mph on the treadmill. I loped along for 30 seconds and came to my senses. Now Gwen Stefani was leering at me, wearing plaid and a midriff-baring get-up. So I broke into another running spurt for 30 seconds.

35 minutes on the treadmill. One minute of jogging. Level 5. Rihanna and Gwen, be afraid. Be very afraid.

Day 18 at the gym – who needs Red Bull?

Day 18 on the Supersvelte lose 50 pounds in 50 days diet. This is week 3. Each week, I have ingested less fuel than the week prior. And I reached my first plateau. Day four since the last weigh-in and the scale hasn’t budged. I have faithfully stuck to the Weight Watchers daily allotment of 27 points or about 1250 calories. Sigh.

At the end of the day, I was tired but thought I should make myself go to the gym as I skipped out yesterday. My front leg muscles were hurting like crazy after a weight lifting class the day before at Gold’s Gym. I was actually holding a barbell behind my head on my shoulders and heaving it up, down to my chest and then thighs and up again. All this to a blaring drumbeat and about 6 million squats. I am not much of a squatter to date, other than in the summer when I garden to my heart’s content. So maybe I won’t have that spring gardener butt and leg ache I get each year. The weight lifting class is 60 minutes long and I had to say uncle after 40 because I was shaking. In fact, I was quite wobbly all the way to the car, and just sat there awhile. I could feel my metabolism revving up, not the way a high-performance car would rev. Nope, it felt rather like the old Volkswagen Beetle I drove at age 16 in Montreal when I pushed it to 120 km per hour when it protested at 80!

So today, I went to my other gym (Jay and I figured out that with only drinking wine once a week or so, that we are saving about $7,000 per year, so I figure I can belong to two gyms). I got on the elliptical trainer feeling quite lackadaisacal. I remembered my earphones this time, so I plugged them into the TV. I punched in Level 4 (which means I have doubled my levels in 2.5 weeks, up from Level 2 – woo-hoo!). And started plugging away to tunes on MTV that I’ve never heard of. (I must say that Rihanna is one sexy son-of-a-b*tch. Beyonce is too, and she is meaty in the thigh area. Not Kellie Garrett kind of meaty, but meaty nonetheless.) And before I knew it, I was givin’ ‘er. I mean I was bouncing on that elliptical. I found myself grinning at one point. Then I looked furtively around to see if anyone had noticed. They hadn’t. The gym rats around me were too busy admiring their buff physiques in the mirror.

Thirty minutes went by in almost a flash. I wiped down my machine and sashayed over to get my coat. Maybe those endorphin thingies are starting to invade my person. I came home and celebrated with a virgin gin and diet tonic (zero calories without the gin 🙂 Who needs Red Bull, when you can get a natural high?

A dieter watches skeletal beauties

We watched a fabulous movie yesterday: “A Dangerous Method“. It’s about psychiatrists Freud and Jung, and a young woman named Sabine Spielrein, played by Keira Knightley. It is a riveting, tragic and true story. Keira – known for her waifish body as much as her immense talent – is hauntingly thin. This is completely in keeping with the role she plays as a first crazy and then intensely lovestruck young woman.

Last night, while watching the Golden Globes, Angelina Jolie wafted onto stage. Clad in white, with alabaster skin and incredibly slender, the only thing generous about her were her full crimson lips. Jay said omigod, she needs a hamburger. She’s in trouble. At that exact moment, I was staring at her thinking, “She is hauntingly beautiful – in an otherworldly way.” She also really reminds me of my mother, who was gorgeous, mystical and very intense. (Alas, the only thing I inherited was the latter trait; I am a shrinking violet compared to my mother.)

Jay and I then has quite the chat about fame and what it does to women on the body front. A strange conversation on day 15 of the Supersvelte diet. There is no danger, but I told Jay that I fantasize about having him say, “Oh honey, you need a hamburger.” (I used to fantasize about having him rip my bodice off on the stairs. Given his prediliction for remaining in the bedchamber, even that’s certainly more probable than the hamburger fantasy.)

So I went to bed somewhat hungry, and wondering how these women do it. Or maybe they aren’t hungry anymore, or they like the feeling. And once again, I thought of all the people in the world who are starving and how obscene our privileged world is – where we are obsessed with looks and dieting and excess. This is a world where a middle-aged woman with an overly generous form looks longingly at the television and sees only a gorgeous actress, where her husband sees only sticks for arms and an obsessive sickness.