Michele~in Scottsdale, AZ there is a casino with a hotel by Raddison. It's kind of in the middle of nowhere--obviously on a reservation because it's a casino. The setting is beautiful and you can do a lot of hiking. I believe there is an exercise room and spa. They have a restaurant, so you don't have to leave. I stayed there for a convention and it was really nice and you don't have to visit the casino if you don't want to. Here's a link: http://www.radissonfortmcdowellresort.com/. Also, if you want to go somewhere else to eat, it would take about 30 minutes or so to get to civilization (if I remember correctly).
Edited~they have a lot of package deals, so be sure to look at those. Some include spa packages. And the menus for the restaurants are there.
Third day snowed in here in Atlanta... DH went to work today, I'm worried that he won't get home as things that are melting a little in the sunshine are about to start refreezing soon...
CRAP
I was hoping to get out of jury duty but I have to report now. It is probably 45 minutes minimum drive and then I'm going to face horrible rush hour traffic afterward.
I sure hope I don't get chosen for a jury. Dh was having a panic attack when I told him he needs to get dd from school (can you believe we don't have school buses here?! I couldn't either when we moved to California).
Shannon-- hope your dh gets home safely. At least it isn't snowing here.
I think I'll run by the grocery store to grab some fruit for snacking. I sure don't want to be tempted by vending machines.
For those who haven't heard of TOPS, it's a weight-loss support organization. I suppose it's similar to Weight-Watchers, but on a more modest scale. Non-profit, for one thing. But there is no designed food counting program. It's every man (or woman) for themselves. Our little group gathers on Monday. We get our weights recorded,then chat and take turns giving a little talk about how we're doing, or what we've heard or learned. $32.00 a year, and a dime or quarter for this kitty or that. One of them is a Jackpot kitty...Biggest Loser Kitty. Anyway, I go for the accountability of having my weight recorded on paper. I also feel obligated to help the group keep it's members. We are so small, and it is so easy to give up on weight loss and maintenance. We have more missing members that present members. Sometimes I feel like calling it quits myself. I think I can maintain on my own. But for now, I will keep going.
Shannon - Sending sympathies to Atlanta for snow for which they're unprepared. I spend hours digging out yesterday, but feel that I signed up for that by living in Massachusetts. My dream is to retire to some warm place like Atlanta when I decide that I never want to shovel again. Gotta rethink that now, LOL.
. . . to me (sound of me slapping myself on the side of the head). Sometimes thigns seem so obvious after we discover them that it's .
Those of us in the northern climates tend to eat differently during the summer/winter months, yes? Particularly if we work outside in the snow, driving wind, etc.
So why the heck am I still eating the same number of calories at lunch and for my afternoon snack as I do in the summer?
That would explain why, when I get home after a particularly ardurous winter day outside, I am so that I start eating anything that's not moving or nailed down.
This all occured to me yesterday when I was looking in the fridge at the start of my 15 minute lunch break at home. There was a container of left-over beef goulash (beef, onions, mushrooms, in sauce). It was in the red zone for disposal so I thought "oh heck I may as well heat that up and have it for lunch".
Well I powered through the afternoon after that. Wearing 3 layers of clothes plus parka, through blowing snow and high winds, driving up and down slippery tiny streets lined with HUGE vehicles (the wealthy do like their SUV's, Hummers, Dodge Ram 1500's, etc. in this neighbourhood), I usually am totally beat by about 2 p.m.
Not yesterday. I had energy to spare when I got home. I had my lunch sandwich for a late afternoon snack, had a much small portion of dinner, and was satisfied after that.
I will now try to get home and eat a hot, protein-packed lunch (probably the day before's dinner leftovers). If yesterday was not a one-off then I should be able to control my raging hunger in the late afternoon and evening with this simple step.
Now all I have to do is figure out how to hide said dinner leftovers from DH.
Shannon, do you even **have** snow shovels & snow brushes for your car down there? (I've usually got an assortment of three thrown on the floor of the back seat.) What about salt & sand?
This recurring winter excavation chore happens to be one of my reasons for buying an apartment, rather a house.
I don't want to mow grass or shovel a driveway. Here, I pay monthly maintenance fees for a crew of unionized immigrants from Albania to do this, and when it really snows, they drive their pickup down to a well-known corner & hire a lot of diminutive but big-shouldered guys from Guatemala to help with the digging.
So all I had to do yesterday was shovel out my car, which took about 25 minutes, maybe a half hour. That, actually, was an NSV: Shoveling is much easier since I lost weight, improved my cardio fitness & started lifting 3X a week.
Everyone was prepared for this one, unlike the Christmas weekend blizzard, so this is why I nearly got shut out of my usual Wednesday night spin class. Complacently, I assumed I didn't have to reserve a bike because I could just walk in & get one, as everyone would be home avoiding messy roads. (I walk to my gym so it's not a problem: If my snow boots don't leak, I'm there.) Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. The gym was packed. It's a refuge, if you've got cabin fever after a snowstorm. If there hadn't been a last-minute cancellation, I wouldn't have gotten a bike.
ETA: Yes, this is the irony of educated middle-class life: I avoid calorie-burning manual labor the form of lawn & driveway maintenance & instead "exercise" in the artificial confines of a gym, for which I pay good $$ monthly. I do see the absurdity here. I really do.
ETA: Yes, this is the irony of educated middle-class life: I avoid calorie-burning manual labor the form of lawn & driveway maintenance & instead "exercise" in the artificial confines of a gym, for which I pay good $$ monthly. I do see the absurdity here. I really do.
At least you walk rather than drive a Nissan Leaf to the gym.
//b. strong,
Kim
PS. I can't fathom having to sign up for a bike in advance or risk getting shut out of a class because it's too full. Small town life has big advantages, sometimes.
ETA: Yes, this is the irony of educated middle-class life: I avoid calorie-burning manual labor the form of lawn & driveway maintenance & instead "exercise" in the artificial confines of a gym, for which I pay good $$ monthly. I do see the absurdity here. I really do.
How about you pay me to come and build another wood shelter?
Shannon - how are you doing? I know you don't like the cold much.
Last edited by silverbirch; 01-13-2011 at 08:26 AM.
Dagmar, I am with you. I absolutely cannot eat a cold lunch during winter (or a cold breakfast or dinner for that matter). Could you package your leftovers for lunch separately from the ones for DH? Write your name on it or something so he knows it's reserved?
I did some shoveling last night too. It didn't snow any more, but it blew around since the morning. When I got home I was going to pull the trash and recycling bins out to the curb, but the snow had blown over the driveway too much to do it. Feeling motivated, I grabbed the shovel and cleared off our driveway and the sidewalk, then pulled out the bins. A few extra calories burned there! Note to self: next time wear two pairs of mittens, my fingers were completely numb afterward.
My legs are totally sore from doing leg lifts yesterday. I guess that just goes to show that I am pretty weak in the small muscles of my legs, because I didn't use any weight or resistance or anything.
I learned something surprising last night: swiss chard has a lot of sodium. Who knew? DH is watching his sodium and we were calculating out some recipes, and I was shocked to see the sodium number for some braised chard I had made. The only ingredients were chard, olive oil, garlic, onions, and red wine vinegar. Apparently one bunch of chard has 33% of your daily sodium allotment.
PS. I can't fathom having to sign up for a bike in advance or risk getting shut out of a class because it's too full. Small town life has big advantages, sometimes.
City life can mean yoga classes so full that the mats are practically touching.
As for seeing how deeply fanatical people can be about spin, Google "Soul Cycle" & see what you get.
From a NY Times article (a publication not given to hyperbole or sensationalistic reporting), describing Soul Cycle's reservation system:
Quote:
The race begins each Monday at noon, when online reservations open for the coming week’s quad-burning workouts. The bikes in the most dynamic instructors’ classes are often all booked within an hour.
“It is impossible to get into some of the hot classes taught by the best teachers,” said Richard Wagman, a real estate developer in his 40s who joked that his strategy “involves three super computers registering at noon on Mondays.”
Others pay a premium to get ahead of the masses. The price of each session normally is $32. It drops a little when 10, 20 or 30 sessions are bought at once. But a 50-class series does not come with a discount. In fact, the cost, $3,000, works out to $60 a class. The package comes with the privilege to sign up weeks early for spots and even to request a bike in the front row — a chance to lead the pack of racers.
I so love living in a small town! I HATE crowds and love that I can show up for a movie 5 minutes before and still find a very decent seat! I don't ever want to live anywhere crowded again. That said, I'm very fortunate that this small town has all the amenities of a larger city. We have wonderful restaurants, museums, galleries and theaters. I think being only 100 miles from Los Angeles has its advantages. We do have an upturn in population each winter when the "snowbirds" arrive, so traffic more than doubles and there are more crowds, but it's still within reason.
I had a setback yesterday. Not that my eating was off, but the whoosh of weight loss that I experienced yesterday morning went in the opposite direction this morning. I can't see that I did anything different, so I'm hoping it was just a glitch and things will return to the norm tomorrow. I guess that's the trials and tribulations of daily weighing, but if I don't weigh daily, my mind thinks things are going in the right direction (when perhaps they aren't) and I get caught in a trap. I just have to realize that there are always going to be ups and downs despite wanting everything to be down.
Day 4 of snow-a-palooza for me. I let DH take my CRV to work instead of the Mustang, thought it was safer today. We are supposed to get up to 40 tomorrow, so I'm hoping this is the last day of this... My restaurants all opened today and payroll has been delivered to all but two locations. Nope, I don't own a snow shovel or brushes or anything. No salt or gravel. Heck, I don't even have a can of icemelt for my windshield. Our driveway is on the shaded side of the house, so it is still a sheet of ice, as is our front yard. Atlanta has been beaten down by the last few days... I am freezing - Birchie is right, I don't like cold!
Saef - those classes sound crazy! At least I've had my garage gym while I've been snowed in!
Allison- I have whooshes up and down with daily weighing fairly often, even when nothing is different from day to day.
Jessica - I had no idea that swiss chard had a lot of sodium. Wouldn't have figured it.
Kim - dig the new avatar pic, well newish - I think it has been up for a week, I've just been distracted and haven't posted.
Dagmar - hot, protein filled lunch sounds like a must for you in the winter. Outside, as active as you are, I imagine you were starving at night after a quick lunch.
Bill - looking at Atlanta the last few weeks I don't know if I would count it as a nice warm place to retire at this point!
Birch - I'm hanging in there, but am really tired of being in the house. I think tomorrow I'm going to work and will let DH fend for himself out in the 'Stang. We went to the neighbor's across the street last night for a hot dog & chili party, that was a nice break.
We're well into it already, but happy new year! I just returned to Tucson yesterday and it's a zoo. The building I work in is next door to the hospital where Gabrielle Giffords is being treated and there are media trucks everywhere. I think I will be brown-bagging it for awhile because apparently if I want to go to the hospital cafeteria for lunch I have to go through security checkpoints to get in!
I need to unpack and do some laundry but I really just want to curl up in my cozy bed...
Well, duuuh . . .
Sometimes thigns seem so obvious after we discover them that it's 
.
that I start eating anything that's not moving or nailed down. 
