Good morning, Maintainers! If it’s Monday, I must be in … Florida?? DH and I are traveling and spent Thursday through Saturday in California. It was my first trip there and we loved it! The weather was perfect and everything was just so beautiful - deep blue sky and ocean. Then we got up yesterday, said goodbye to the Pacific Ocean, hopped two planes and are now looking at the Atlantic Ocean from our hotel room. How amazing to see both oceans in the same day!
Fortunately, both hotels that we’re staying at have first-class fitness centers – oh my, you all would die! Individual TV screens on the cardio equipment, lovely thick towels, chilled bottles of water, ocean views …. And I’ve been trying to hit the exercise hard first thing every morning because the food is incredibly good and there’s way too much of it. Honestly, I’m struggling horribly with the eating. I’m trying to make the best choices that I can during the day, but group dinners are so difficult (we’re here with a group of about 400). Take last night - I was starving but passed by all the hor d’oerves and alcohol during the cocktail hour, so that went as planned. But when we all got into the ballroom, they just plopped plates of wonderful food in front of me … and I ate it all (except the mashed potatoes – do I get points for skipping those? ) Crab cake, goat cheese tart (with pecans and figs!), and filet and grouper with veggies. Several glasses of wine. Everything with sauces - nothing even remotely diet-friendly. THEN they set up ‘dessert stations’ of coffee, pastries, and cheesecakes. At that point, I should have grabbed DH and run for the hills, but I grabbed a plate and loaded it up. Took two bites, was consumed with guilt, and set it down and left.
Well, today’s a new day and I’ll try to make better choices! It makes me realize how much easier it is to control my eating when I’m at home instead of eating out all the time. All restaurants seem to focus on is giving us gigantic quantities of good-tasting food, which is totally at odds with my goal of reasonable quantities of healthy food. One bright spot – we changed planes in Dallas and had time to grab something to eat there. Amidst the usual selection of food court restaurants (pizza, Cinnabon, McDs) was a Wendy’s, so I got a grilled chicken sandwich there (dumped the bun) and one of the new fruit plates. Wow – it was good! Grapes, cantaloupe, honeydew, and pineapple, with a little container of strawberry yogurt for dipping. The web site lists the fruit at 130 calories, yogurt at 90, and sandwich with bun at 360, so I figured maybe 220 without the (large) bun? Total of 440, which is a lot for an individual meal but we missed a few while we were traveling.
So if anyone has any advice on negotiating the pitfalls of resort food, please let me know!!
It will be a few more days of paradise here and then back to reality on Friday. The conference ends on Wednesday but DH and I are staying for two extra days to visit DS, who goes to school in Orlando. The last time I saw his apartment was when we moved him down here last August and set it all up. Now, he informs me, he’s moved his bed into the living room and all his guitars and sound equipment into the former bedroom, which is now the sound studio. Can’t wait to see this set-up!
I’m off to do cardio now and there’s a group bike ride this afternoon, so hopefully I’ll burn off a few of the excess calories today. Did I mention that I’m beet red already? Despite sunscreen?
Enough blather about me … how’s everyone doing? How are our moms to be? What’s going on in everyone’s worlds?
OK, I'm hungry reading your post. Ya mean you didn't carry a chicken breast and broccoli in a baggie down to dinner?
My solution to resort food was to be like the kid with the Whitman Sampler. Take one bite out of each item, them put it back That didn't work with the wine for me, either
Hi Meg, if I get to fill my own plate, I try to load it up with salad and veggies first, so there isn't much room for other stuff. I've heard some people say 'ruining' food after they have eaten what they need, by coating it with salt or something similar, will keep them from picking at it--I put my napkin over it when I'm done. As far as desert and appetizers go, when I'm being good I pick the best looking one, eat it, and try to enjoy it. I just find it too hard to say no completely, and at least if you only have one the damage is somewhat limited.
It was 110F here this week. I just hid. Tried not to do too much and pretty much succeeded. Watched about 20 episodes of Law & Order on TV this weekend. Got my laundry done. Woo-hoo.
Little news from here. Scales still don't move but the pants are looser. I splurged on a treadmill to spike up the cardio, and i think I like it. With it came a new scal, which has metal plates to measure body fat.
Yikes !!! Not only does it give 0.5 kg more than my old scale, but also a body fat of 31% !!!. Room for big improvement here, but the number is a bit disheartening. Are these things at all accurate ? it seems to me there must be a huge influence of the contact resistance between your feet and the plates.
Rabbit, I loved to look at my body fat readings before and after I take a shower. I always dropped about 5 percentage points after, and the only difference in 15 min was some slightly damp skin! Some BF scales have setting for athletic people too, with guidelines like exercising X hrs/week and resting HR of Y beats per min. That setting makes another 5% difference on my scale. I never trusted any BF measurement I got anyway, with calipers at the gym (by a certified trainer) giving me a 17% reading, and a handheld electrical resistance gadget giving me 35% on the same day! Without the dunk tank or one of the new scans, DEXA I think, who can know. But it was sort of useful in a relative sense--I'm gaining or losing. More variable than the weight tho, and you all know how I feel about that.
Hanging in! Another 105+ day yesterday, and looking about the same today. Got in a walk this morning, getting home just as the sun came up. I'm on business travel tomorrow thru Friday, so I'll just try to survive that.
Hope everyone is doing OK. It's been quiet this week.
Hi! I hope you all don't mind my joining your group. I feel like a peeping Tom right now. Hopefully it is okay for me to read and reply.
Meg - What do you do that you get to travel from coast to coast? I want your job!
I live in Michigan and we are only going to be in the low 60's for most of the next week. Rain is expected every day but tomorrow. I am not complaining though as I teach in a public school with no air conditioning! After next week, you can send all your excess Arizona heat my way though! Maybe something between the two temperatures would be nice.
Do any of you have suggestions for a good aerobic exercise that is easy on the knee? I have tendonitis in my right knee (since January) and am unable to do my regular fitness tapes or treadmill. My goal is to try to get into a good exercise routine this summer so that when school starts again in the fall I'll be motivated to continue it.
It was long weekend here in Canada - Victoria Day I guess. We went camping inspite of rain and cold! In a tent! To the Washington State, where we camped in the State park. Was cold and rainy. Kids loved it though. We also went to a hike and later on returned home...
Foodwise was fine, went to the gym and had my fat measured - I always wonder why scale in the gym is usually about 5 pounds higher reading than tanita scale for fat measurement. Like at the same day I weight 131.8 and fat 22.8% and go int he same gym on normal scale and I am 136??? never mind, my fat dropped 1% in one month which is 1.3pounds according to my weight, I feel that my waist is falling off my pants but my weight stays the same. Well, I can not have everything at once!
Hi Sue Welcome to Maintainters Don't feel like a peeping Tom; now that you've posted, we know you are out there and hope you stick around and continue to post. I'm going to answer your question for Meg, since she has her hands full at the moment: she is a personal trainer like I am, but is attending business conferences with her husband and visiting her kids who are in college. Unfortunately, a trainer's job is not nearly as glamerous as her travels sound!
The only aerobic exercise I can think of that doesn't involve your knee at all is an "arm bicycle". Some gyms, and most rehab gyms have them. Unfortunately, the only way to really heal tendonitis is to REST. Since I never follow my own advice, I can tell you that from long personal experience It probably sounds wimpier than you want, but have you looked into any of the "chair aerobics" type tapes or dvds for a short-term solution?
OK, everyone seems to be having run-ins with different scales and methods of measuring body fat Every scale is different! Don't let it freak you out if you buy a new scale, weigh at the gyno's office, the gym, or the scale outside GNC at the mall! Even if your scale isn't accurate, if that's the one you use, you haven't "gained" 5 pounds when you weigh at the doctor's office unless his was the last scale you weighed yourself on. And even then, how many times has someone fallen over that scale, how many kids have jumped on it, how many really big women have hopped onto it? Bodyfat measurements are equally varying. As Anne pointed out, hers varied by 15% on the same device depending on her hydration levels. I only trust a 9 point caliper measurement done by the same person when my body is in the same condition. And even then, the number is just a relative number. It's not 100% accurate- only a tool for me to assess whether I'm achieving my goal of fat loss and not muscle loss, or at least not much muscle loss. The only method for measuring bodyfat that is 100% accurate is an autopsy...and I'm not THAT curious about my body fat to volunteer
Time to run back to the gym for my evening clients,
Thanks for your advice. I have tried resting my knee (as much as a teacher and mother of two can) for the past 5 months. I have gained seven pounds in the process! I can walk pretty good now as long as I don't try to carry too much or do too many stairs and I can do my Pilates without too much pain. I'd just love to get my heart rate up a bit. We live in a small town, so our resources are limited. I'll have to check out a video store the next time I go "to the city"! Does anyone happen to know of a good chair aerobics video? It sounds like something my grandmother might own. I have had trouble with my knee lots of times before but it always was better in a few weeks. I love to cross country ski and golf, so I don't want to do anything that would cause more damage.
Meg - I can relate! I have had a whirlwind weekend of travel.. . It was Victoria Day long weekend, and we had friends in from Toronto who wanted to see all of Alberta. Well, we were in Banff and Edmonton in the same weekend (had to visit the giant mall, of course).
We were eating out all the time, and it is not easy, is it? I hated being the picky one, but I didn't want to eat grease all the time. I managed to survive, eating was pretty good, probably had one too many beers, but c'est la vie. I realized I actually *like* my typical foods, I don't want greasy food anymore! Now there's an epiphany. Even my junk food loving DH was begging for vegtables by day 3. I was in shock, there's hope for him yet.
As for scales - I actually have two at home. My Tanita is more "consistent", in that it gives me the same reading five times in a row. My other scale is more "accurate", in that my weight there is closest to my doctor's office/WW (Tanita weighs me heavier). How sad is that??? Scale obsessed, anyone? Not me.... ha ha. I would like to know my body fat, but the Tanita gives me readings all over the place, like others have said. Haven't yet got up the guts to go get calipered...
Sashenka - hang in there. I always find my clothes get looser first, the weight loss shows up later - I have no idea why.
Seems like everyone is just doing fine.I am getting used to running (actually intervals running/walking) on the treadmill. i can see this makes a higherintensity workout a lot easier for me as I cannot slack of just thinking of other things.
Thanks for the comments about the variability of the scales 7 fat measurement. i thought so because i founs stuff relying on hands or feet contacting electrodes usually have a huge variance due to the variance in contact resitance.
BTW, mel- how did your anatomy test come out ? Did the computer crash on you before or after you submitted the snawers? I hope you did fine.
We are in for a rare treat herabouts--SUN!!! Hot wheater is expected, summer heat 25 C - 30 C !!!
Good morning from sunny and hot New Mexico! The resort part of the vacation is now over and I’m visiting DD for a few days before I head home on Sunday. And it’s reality check time since she has a scale in her bathroom! I briefly contemplated not weighing myself but decided to face the music and I’m up two pounds from when I left home a week ago … coulda been worse, coulda been better.
Here, at least, I have a lot more control over what I’m eating and there’s a gym close by. So the food part of the vacation is definitely over for me. But I’m just like you, Sue Jo – I LIKE the way I eat, so it’s a relief to get back to normal. Who would have thought that I’d prefer my oatmeal and egg whites for breakfast over resort breakfast buffets? But I guess there’s no way that we could stick to this as a way of life if we hate what we eat. Or maybe I just loathe that bloated, fat, overstuffed feeling now.
Hi Sue (Maintenance Momma)! Glad you jumped in! It’s not my job that lets me travel coast to coast, it’s DHs – he had to speak at two conferences and got to drag me along. I’m just a humble personal trainer, like Mel said (and like Mel IS ) and my normal orbit consists of the gym and grocery store.
Rabbit – way cool on the treadmill! Intervals are a terrific workout.
DD and are going to do back and bi’s today and then go to a spinning class taught by the ‘Spinning ****’ … I’ll let you know if I survive! I’ve only done fairly tame spinning, so this will be a new experience. DD says that everyone shows up with their heart rate monitors, special spin shorts, spin shoes etc. I sure hope there’s a back of the room for me to hide in.
So Mel – has it gotten above 65 degrees in Pennsylvania yet??
Nope, it's freezing here. 65 degrees would be a treat. Enjoy NM I bought a new bathing suit for this weekend and should have bought a new parka. We turned the heat back ON last night.
On a side note, I think it was the first time ever that I tried on 5 bathing suits that I liked, didn't burst into tears, all 5 fit, and I got to pick the one I liked best, not the one that best hid whatever "the flaw of the week" was.
I'm in my last stages of frantic housecleaning. It's not perfect, but I can see my kitchen island top for a change
We have a heat wave!! I did 4 km worth of intervals on the treadmill this morning and I was literally dripping wet when I finished. Looked into the mirror and with some imagination I think I am even seeing some muscle definition in my arms, in between the flab that is.
Meg-good for you to be back into the food routine
Mel- Congratulations on the new bathing suit. I hope you'll get better wheater. Any excuse to keep from housecleaning!
Mel, that is so cool on the bathing suits! A moment in time to savor, for sure. I can’t believe that it’s still so cold in PA – I’m not looking forward to going home this weekend. But I have three clients coming into the gym on Memorial Day, so it’s back to reality soon.
Rabbit – congrats on the muscle definition! I’m sure it’s not your imagination.
So DD and I went to spin class last night … it was the toughest spin class I’ve ever been in, by far. It ended with about eight solid minutes of pop-ups out of the seat – down for five seconds, standing for five seconds, repeat endlessly. I was wearing my heart rate monitor and was surprised to see my heart rate shoot up to 185 frequently during the hour, since my theoretical max heart rate at age 50 is 170 and you supposedly aren’t able to work above 90% of that. Hmmm … so much for theory. I was wringing wet when we were done and starving. Took a shower and went out for Mexican food and a margarita. Not the best choices but I don’t get the chance for Mexican food very often (at least that's my justification ). We’re going to do it all over again this afternoon, minus the margarita and Mexican food.
Maintainers - Week Of May 23 - 29
DH and I are traveling and spent Thursday through Saturday in California. It was my first trip there and we loved it! The weather was perfect and everything was just so beautiful - deep blue sky and ocean. Then we got up yesterday, said goodbye to the Pacific Ocean, hopped two planes and are now looking at the Atlantic Ocean from our hotel room. How amazing to see both oceans in the same day!
And I’ve been trying to hit the exercise hard first thing every morning because the food is incredibly good and there’s way too much of it. Honestly, I’m struggling horribly with the eating. 
I’m trying to make the best choices that I can during the day, but group dinners are so difficult (we’re here with a group of about 400). Take last night - I was starving but passed by all the hor d’oerves and alcohol during the cocktail hour, so that went as planned. But when we all got into the ballroom, they just plopped plates of wonderful food in front of me … and I ate it all (except the mashed potatoes – do I get points for skipping those? 
) Crab cake, goat cheese tart (with pecans and figs!), and filet and grouper with veggies. Several glasses of wine. Everything with sauces - nothing even remotely diet-friendly. THEN they set up ‘dessert stations’ of coffee, pastries, and cheesecakes. 
At that point, I should have grabbed DH and run for the hills, but I grabbed a plate and loaded it up. Took two bites, was consumed with guilt, and set it down and left. 
Welcome to Maintainters 
It probably sounds wimpier than you want, but have you looked into any of the "chair aerobics" type tapes or dvds for a short-term solution?
The resort part of the vacation is now over and I’m visiting DD for a few days before I head home on Sunday. And it’s reality check time since she has a scale in her bathroom! I briefly contemplated not weighing myself but decided to face the music and I’m up two pounds from when I left home a week ago … coulda been worse, coulda been better. 
But I guess there’s no way that we could stick to this as a way of life if we hate what we eat. Or maybe I just loathe that bloated, fat, overstuffed feeling now. 
