ChubbyChicklet

Wow.  Today I’m pooped.  I’m waiting until the day when I wake up and feel energized and the exercise is freeing and I feel better or different or stronger.  Right now I just feel exhausted and sore and have little to no desire to do anything at all.  Well if you read yesterdays post this is pretty much the same.  I made it to exactly the same place in the dvd.  As a matter of fact, I made it through 2, count them 2 basketball jumps and quit.  I know part of me just doesn’t have the mental stamina to push through the fatigue but part of me is just so sore, even the movements I did were nothing like yesterday.  Part of you will be in the “you need to take a day to rest” camp and the other part of you I’m sure can appreciate the need to do something everyday to make it a habit or else the quitting takes over.  Man that little devil on my shoulder is seriously a jerk.  He’s so convincing.  “You can’t do this, you’re tired, you can surely find another way”… but here’s the thing.  It hasn’t mattered over the last 2 years what type of exercise it is.  Strength training, cardio, weights, body resistance, yoga, fluidity… not only do I quit it all after an insanely short period of time.  But I also always hear the little devil, no matter how hard the work is or how “easy” I always hear him nagging that its time to sit on the couch and do nothing again.  So while it seems severe and intense I know its always like this.  I just feel like I no longer have a choice.  At 25, or 28 as I saw myself gaining pound after pound I did nothing, and now I look at that time as though I’ve wasted so much and I can already feel the toll the weight and the poor health is taking on my body.  So.. you’re stuck with me, complaining so far but one day it will be better.  I’m giving myself 4 weeks to get to the point where I can actually start the insanity program, including diet and video rotation.  Until then I’m just doing what I can do.  I’m also trying something new for me which is to ignore the scales.  I’m weighing in once a week but which is so hard because unlike a lot of you who seem to have will power for days I’m completely addicted to that digital readout.  So next monday I’ll step on and we’ll see if I’m still in the same place.  I have a hard time believing it could have moved considering I’m really only doing 15 minutes of work a day, but ya never know.

Insanity is indeed insanity.  One day I’m hoping it pays off but for now, I’m tired and sore.  I started with the Plyometric Cardio Circuit because its in the set of dvds for the first round so I was hoping to keep up.  I failed.  You start warmup with a jog, then into jumping jacks, then into the Heisman.  For any of you who don’t know your legs are wider than shoulder width, jumping from right foot to left, and picking up your knees on the hop.  Thats enough.  By then alone I was worn out but Shaun T wasn’t done with me yet.  I told myself I couldn’t quit 2 minutes in.  Then he does a step called 123 - 123 which is a side stepping move.  With feet shoulder width apart, step out to the right with the right foot, step in the same direction with the left and again with the right.  And the end of the third step you will life the opposite knee up toward your chest instead of taking another step.  All this is done in a bounce and very quickly… I did them at about half time but paused twice to grab a drink and rest for a second.  Then moved on to basketball, where you squat, pretend to pick up a ball jump up and “shoot it”.  This was the end for me.  This was all I could make my body do.  I know I have a long way to go.  I made it 15 minutes into a 28 minute workout.  I was so exhausted but I had to get ready for work.  I showered, sat down on the couch and passed out.  Woke up an hour later and got my late butt to work.

I didn’t get around to posting yesterday, I feel sort of sluggish in general.  Its funny because I know so many people that are pumped or excited in their first days of starting a new exercise program.  Even when the body hurts and the brain is telling you that you’re an idiot you’re so proud of yourself for being so motivated, but honestly, I’d rather sleep.  The last whole week I’ve just been feeling really laden.  On to the workout recap.  First of all let me say that man do I suck.  I told myself before I started that I knew I wasn’t keeping up with the video and I knew I was only going to be able to do what I could do but its a 30 minute fitness test to give you a place to measure from as you improve.  There is a quick 3 minute warmup 22 minutes of testing and 3 minutes of cooldown.  After the warmup I could feel the burn in the back of my throat telling me I needed water and begging me to stop.  I managed to hang in there for 12 minutes of the 22 minute test.  The burn in my throat is a strange thing, by the way, it isnt just “I’m thirsty” but its actual kinda painful.  At any rate, I didn’t feel I did well and despite knowing I wasn’t going to be able to present a really great showing I’m disappointed I didn’t even finish.  I’ll take the test again next week after working out all week this week and we’ll see if I’ve developed the stamina to make it further.    Todays post will have to come later… I’m off to work.

Ok, I can’t sleep so I’ve decided to jot a few thoughts about diets.  Here’s the thing.  I’m all on board with lifelong changes to lifestyle regarding diet.  But I can’t set myself up to fail, and I don’t feel like any “diet” has an option that suits my food beliefs.

A friend of mine is about to start HCG.  I’m really rooting for her but I gotta be honest, the whole thing makes me skeptical as hell.  Sure, its an injection and being deathly afraid of needles thats not an option, but you can always choose to take it in its sublingual form.  And ok, its a hormone extracted from the urine of pregnant women, but lets be honest… are we as grogged out by human excretions as we pretend we are when we first learn of this diet?  Ya, its also the lowest caloric intake recommended by any diet outside of liquid diets, but would any of us really turn down dangerously low calorie intakes if it were promised not only continued health but safe weight loss?  So you ask me… well chubby, what is it about this plan that has you taken aback?  The food.  I know.. it’s kind of petty but its literally the most limited selection of any solid food diet.  Check this out:

Crazy right?  I mean, individually I have little problem with any of the foods but you gotta admit its gonna be hard to do 2 things on this diet:

1. Meal planning - now this is a daunting task on any diet making sure that you adequately plan to cover all your meals and have shopped for groceries for the amount of time necessary.  And ya, at only 500 calories per day you just spend less on groceries.  However planning meals to take to work and reheat is very difficult where there is no fat in your ultralean meats and you can’t even do things like mix your veggies to add TO your meat to make it less dry.  This presents a certain level of difficulty for me.  Lets look at this:  100 grams of chicken breast with no fats is roughly 95 calories.  A medium apple is about 75 calories.  Torinesi breadsticks are sadly about 20 calories.  Now lets assume you have the same caloric intake for dinner.  That throws you at 380 calories which means you have 120 calories for veggies.  This is a problem for me.  First of all.. I like a salad as much as the next girl, but since you can only eat 1 vegetable per meal it becomes instantly limiting.  Lets say I’m feeling like cucumbers for lunch (um.. sure) and eat half a cup of slices (what? it could happen).  That’s a whopping 8 calories.  8.  EIGHT.  Which means for din-din I have to somehow manage to spend 112 calories on a single vegetable with no oil, dressing, butter, etc.  Ok.  Spinach, I love spinach.  3 cups of steamed spinach (which is a lot of effing spinach) is a … drumroll please… 20 freaking calories.  This makes planning a meal challenging when you’re struggling to come up with meals that are of sufficient calories.
2. Boredom - Here’s the thing that gets me.  You better be a gastro-genius to find a way to add enough flavor with the severe limitations because lets face it… we’re fat. We _like_ food.  100 grams of meat is 3.5 ounces for those of us not on the metric system.  This is slightly smaller than the recommended 4 ounce portion size.  Slightly less.. ok, I can handle that,  but its the lack of ability to mix vegetables that really does me in.  Cooking veal, great.. add onions.  And now for my side dish.. what?  The onions ARE my side dish.  Hmmmmm.  If it was a meal you could grab from the freezer and you didnt’ have to think about it or prepare it, ok.. you might be able to resign yourself to the garbage you’re ingesting.  But when you have to do all the work and this is ALL you get.. its just so boring to the tastebuds and the monotony would do me in.

I invite all of you to read and comment.  I’m happy to have readers whether they be browsing or encouraging.  I must warn you in advance I don’t do well with negativity so if your comments aren’t constructive in some way and I’m just being bashed for my methods, my thoughts, my progress (or lack thereof), or anything else I will be forced to nuke your comments in favor of those that might be more uplifting.. if you knew me, you’d get that I don’t need the cynicism I have enough on my own.

More about me.  Well I’m in my early thirties and a mom.  I have a full time job outside of my home and am lazy.  Lazy is being kind I fear… I’m more, well… slothful.  Yes, that sounds nice and severe.  And yes, I understand the meaning is mostly the same but words have more than meanings they have connotations.  And to me, slothful sounds worse.

I don’t really want to be lazy.  It was never a childhood aspiration.  And I can’t really say that it’s because I’m fat because there are a great many unlazy-but-not-weight-related-things I could be doing.  For instance.  I like to sew.  I’m not great at it but I enjoy it.  I don’t do it.  I have a million excuses any given day but at the end of it all I’ve just become one of those people who was an active child and an inactive adult.  I’d like to change that about myself.  I’d like to change a lot of things but I’m going to start with that one.  I think its at the core of why I’m overweight.  If I could make myself not be lazy I would and could do a lot of things, including exercise.  And not all exercise is gut wrenching, make you puke, leaves you with the I’d-rather-be-anywhere-but-here feeling.  I live in Boston and I’d like to do things outdoors.  I’d like to take sailing lessons, and walk around this interesting city of mine.  Those kinds of things would help keep the bulge at bay but I don’t do them either.

My goal with this blog is to make myself accountable.  You’d think that being a mom I’d be so bound to my child that the accountability would be inherent.  That I would want to be alive for as much as his life as humanly possible and as a result would do indulge in overdoses of cakes or gravy.  Its not that I’m not mindful of that, I am, but it has proven ineffective in my struggles with my weight.  Ah, the power of rationalization.  At 150 pounds I’d say to myself, “yes self, I know I should be doing more to stay fit but I’m really not that far away, I could 20 pounds and and be more fit and I’ll get around to it eventually.”  At 160 pounds I would remind myself that the more I gain the more difficult it would be to lose.  At 170 I realized I had not only gained more weight than I had ever seen in my life, even when I was pregnant but something else happened.  I also realized I had been sitting at that weight for over a year and it would be much harder to lose since my body was clearly so adjusted to that daily caloric burn.  And today, currently, I’m at 186 pounds.  186.  I’m 14 pounds from 200.  Wow.  I want to slap myself every time I get the urge to say “How did I get here” because its so very clear from my history how I got here.  I don’t eat right and I’m lazy.  Its a recipe for fat.

And so we begin.  I’m starting ‘Insanity’ this week.  I’m not ready for it.  I’m too fat, too out of shape, too weak, and too scared to commit to the program.  Scared because I’ve been having heart palpitations and high resting heart rate lately and frankly, I don’t think I’m at a point where it would be safe to even attempt the hardcore workouts.

As a result I plan to do the fit test 6 days a week for 4 weeks.  Hopefully the work in the fit test alone will increase my stamina and lay the foundation for me to being the 60 day program.  You should know that I am not dieting.  I know… I have to.  I know… I can’t lose 60 pounds and eat blueberry muffins and cheesecake and fried chicken.  However I also know me well enough to know that I can only do so much before I quit.  Right now I need to know that I can complete something.  Diets are difficult for me because I get very very very bored with the food.  Most people just deal with this… I don’t deal.. I quit.  I quit because dieting is a slow process in which food-boredom can be planned on for the duration of your weightloss journey, in my case this will take about a year.  I need to know that when I diet I’m not going to be stressed out by the conjunction of food purchase, preparation, and planning in addition to daily workouts.  I need to feel like I have one thing that I just do, like taking shower, each day.  For some that thing is diet, for some diet comes easier than exercise.  For me it doesn’t so this is going to have to work in phases.  I wish all of you the best in your own journeys’ and hope to hear from anyone who is listening.