Good morning! Welcome to Income Tax Week, for those of us in the US. Doesn't it just give you a warm and fuzzy feeling inside when you pop your return in the mail? DH always likes to fantasize about what obscure task force we're buying coffee and donuts for ... Anyone NOT done with taxes yet?

Wowzers, do I have sore legs today! I did legs yesterday by myself (not optimal because I don't have a spotter for squats) but seem to have done OK based on how I feel now. Let's see, I did track lunges, squats, hack squats, leg extensions, and then grabbed a leather ankle band and did inner and outer thighs and kicks with cables. Hope I won't have to demo too many lunges today at the gym!

Yesterday turned out to be an off-track eating day and I finally figured out why (at 3 AM) ... I was home studying for my trainer test and just kept wandering in the kitchen, looking for something to munch (fortunately there's hardly anything good here except peanut butter). Back in my law school days, I was horrible with cookies and late-night studying and apparently the urge to snack while I'm studying hasn't gone away, even after all these years. So I'm going to have to get me out of the house and away from food while I'm studying. My first thought was - ah ha! I'll go to Starbucks and drink coffee and study! My second thought was - oh no I won't! There are far worse things to munch there than at home! So I think it's going to be the library for me.

What's going on with everyone this week? Anyone got spring fever yet?

Morning:

Taxes are 99% done here except the hard part writing the check!!!
Things seem to be near the track here so I am enjoying it. Had some "event" eating over the weekend and am proud to say that I was able to enjoy it and not blow the rest of the weekend because of it. Durining the "event" I could have made better choices but I was in the all or nothing thinking. This is a continuing issue for me and I have been returning to my old behavior of "perfect thinking". So I have been working hard on adjusting to "90%" thinking. My goal is 80% but small steps.

Hello to all and a good week ahead.

Here in Canada, we have until the end of the month for taxes but I got a jump start on mine this year and had them done and filed by the first week of March. I've got my mother's done too, but she has to include a cheque so that's not happening until the last minute!

I'm pretty excited. I've been going to Curves now for almost a year but the times that they are open are sometimes not the most convenient for me so I finally broke down and bought a home gym last week - talk about some assembly required! It was a 3 night job and I finished Friday night. I did my first home workout Saturday morning which was a little slow going as I got used to the setup and so on but then Saturday night I did a pilates workout and couldn't resist trying a few more of the upper body exercises on the gym. Boy am I sore in places I never knew had muscles! I rested my poor aching body yesterday and I think I'll go to Curves tonight and just work out the muscles that are used to it . Then I'll have another go at the gym tomorrow.

My gym is the type with resistance cords, rather than a weight stack. I have a very curious kitty and I had visions of him sticking his head in the gap, just before the weight stack came crashing down! I was surprised at the resistance that I got from the machine and I've got it adjusted to the lightest to start off with. Lots of room for progression!

My kitty is quite into the whole working out thing, now I'm doing it in the rec room. Picture me laying on my back during a pilates workout, doing leg lifts and all of a sudden a grey fur ball lands with all four feet on my abs!

Have a great week all!

Gina, sounds like you are doing great working on the all or nothing thinking. I'm glad you got to enjoy your event.

Meg, sorry to hear about the study eating, but sounds like you have it under control. You don't have to do lunges to study do you?

I really only had time to lurk last week. After my tire exploded and took out the back of my car, I was stuck carpooling to work with my husband. He was having one of those weeks, so we were putting in 10-12 hr days. I'd come home and pass out. I keep waiting for the fatigue to lift--it should start to go any day now.

This weekend I got to volunteer at an Ironman triathlon, 2.4 mi swim, 112 mi bike, 26.2 mi run. It was so exciting to watch all the athletes. As always, many of them don't really look like what you'd expect athletes to look like, especially over those distances! Makes you realize what you can do if you work at it and put your mind to it. I want to do one of these races one day, but right now, I can't even stay awake as along as some of these guys were racing! I'll try in a couple years, after I'm done nursing the baby.

Hope everybody is having a good week.

Anne

Hey Barb, you snuck in there! Sounds like your home gym is going to be a really good investment.

wndrAnne

Hey Maintainers

Some day Anne I will do one of those Triathlons, a mini try-a-tri , I keep dreaming about it!! I just have to learn how to do laps in the middle of the river without floaties ....


Barb -- A new toy... OH I new gadgets, I bet it'll be fun to experiment with... Watch the kitty though , I love cats and I'd hat to log on and have you report some morning that your kitty has been smooshed by a machine....EWWW...

Gina -- Baby steps that's all it takes ...


Food wasn't good yesterday, it was downright aweful, in reliality the food was too *good* just the wrong choices, you guys know what I mean ... But I ran 10K and DH and I went out for a walk last night... So I hope burned some of the cwap food off. I couldn't weigh myself this morning because the battery was dead in the scale, I must get one today!

Have a great week everyone, I'm off to wash windows and siding...

Hi Maintainers
I had a good weekend with only a minor scuffle with a bag of peanut m&m's I think I won that round, tho. Being able to eat some instead of all is a victory. I worked on Saturday, then ds and I bought him a new pair of rollerblades. He spent about an hour and a half "teaching" me to skate. LOL, I have no problems skating...I just can't stop! My most successful method is turn into my driveway and do a soft crash landing into the back of my car. I'm going to drape a quilt over it next time I go out. I took out one large clump of daffodils, but no damage to myself. If I could just find a place where I could skate perpetually uphill, I'd be safe and get a great workout

Sunday I did major housecleaning...ugh. Then took ds to his soccer game, sat on really hard bleachers for 2 hours (that didn't hurt as much when I had 50 lbs more padding!), then came home and cooked for the week. So much for the weekend.

I haven't gotten on the scale for 4 days. It was going nowhere and just annoying me, which was probably why I dipped into the candy Friday night. Think I'll stay off it for a while. I can tell by muscle definition and ribs which direction I'm going in.

Gotta go do some sort of cardio....
Mel

Hey all!

Just a quick posting…sounds like there were a few of us who had bad weeks last week. Work was a zoo last week. There was an “emergency” and I got suckered into overtime and the whole nine yards. All the time chained to my desk wrecked my exercise schedule last week.

However, the week before that my exercise schedule was great. I completed the 10K my little sister had wanted me to run with her. I finished in a respectable time (very respectable for a formerly obese, asthmatic lapsed runner who had become a couch potato). I was so thrilled with myself that I ordered a new pair of running shoes on Monday.

Food’s been okay lately but I am noticing a tendency to nibble. I never was a binger but I am a nibbler – a little of this now, a little of that later on, a little bit more of that later still. You know the routine. I’m journaling the significant nibbling, of course. It hasn’t shown up on the scale yet and I think I know what the problem is. My routines have been a bit out of kilter recently (overtime, daylight savings time and the change in the daylight hours) and that stresses me a little. A little stress about something I can’t control = cookies or chocolate or something like that. I need to find my “groove” again and stick in it. And remember to breathe!

Taxes were done (filed electronically) in February and we had our refund in early March. I was so glad to get all that done!

Barb, sounds like you *and* your kitty have a new toy.

Mel, it’s gonna be mighty hard to do cardio in a body cast! Be careful out there!

Hope everyone has a good week!

Hi maintainers,
Sounds like everyone is off for a good start this week. Including me!
Scales won't budge excvept in the wrong direction, so I'll take a leaf out of mels book and decided not to let it bother me and just stick to the thing i know.
Food was Ok yesterday, will try for the same today.

Did 15 mins row, 30 mins jog, 15 mins bike today, and LBW.

A question on my weight workouts: I seem to notice that you guys work much heavvier and longer workouts then myself: I do 1 excercise for every major group (for instance for LB I do squats, deadlift, calf raise and abs crunch) and I do this excercise 3 x 10 -15 reps. This takes about 15 - 20 mins. I do not lift to failure because I am afraid I hurt myself and be out of lifting for months. Is this OK or should I add more excercises ?

have a great day,
rabbit

Rabbit -- Do you have back problems? Is this why you don't want to increase your weights? In order not to hurt yourself add weights very very gradually...You could add lunges to your workout too... A typical LBW for me is: squats, leg extensions, leg curls, deadlifts and lunges (lunges could be walking lunges, lunges on the bosu ball, I vary them workout to workout ), I do 4 sets of each exercise with 8-10 reps and I go to failure, 99% of the time I cannot do more than 10...HTH....

to everyone else .... TTFN

Hi, fellow Maintainers,
I thought this week will be a good start. I purchased iPod shuffle last week and i found out that listening to my favourite songs while working out makes it way more attractive to work out. Also, having my teen daughter with me makes it more pleasure too Anyways, I was expecting hectic week at work but I was sure my exercise/food week will be fine. Little did I know. My 6y.o DS brought this stomac flu bug - whole Friday night we were cleaning beds, carpets, floors... Poor guy, and poor us as we did not have enought time to sleep! When on Sunday we thought it is over, my 4 y.o. DD and I went down with the same thing... Boy, was it bad - I guess I never had stomack flu so bad!!! Yesterday I could barely walk and we spent the whole day in bed... Of course, since at my work we deliver product this week - I rushed to work today as soon as I could walk properly (I am still eating only toasts but I am fine walking though)... My DD cried that I sent her to day care, but what can I do? I tried to find bright side of it and this is goind to be - I am going to go home earlier AND my weight dropped 4 pounds (of course it is maiinly water but still for the abcence of other bright sides it is going to count!)

Anne - I was always wondering how do they do those marathons! I am curently training with guys who want to run matathons in May - they are already on 16 miles while I am still max out by 8km!

Rabbit - I also always wonder that I am not suing enough to tire my muscles. I always feel like I can do more... But for whatever reason I don't - probably that is why I am still at 24% fat???

Catharus - 10km run beeing asthmatic - that's great! I can do 10k too but most of the time I do not feel good after it - 8K are maximum for me and still sometimes I suffer afterwards - the worst thing is that I can not figure out why on some days it is fine and on some days I feel so bad I have to rest in bed... Darn asthma!

Barb - New gym! It is a dream for me but we are far away from it! And my cats will not let me exercise... As soon as I get on my 15 y.o (free from garage sale) treadmill - one of the cats jumps on it, the other just screams and dog barks - so everybody in the family knows that Mommy is on the treadmill

Taxes - I like taxes - first of all I always get return as I pay 2 day care expences and secondly, I never fill them in and let my hubby do it... This year present for tax return was my iPod shuffle and I love it - great to exercise - it is so light that even if I drop it - it is still OK.

Mel - spring is for cleaning, I seem to do sleaning a lot lately !

Hope everybody has a good week!

Sandy.

Morning;
Well its Wednesday so hang on in group we are half way to the weekend.
Feeling much better at this end. Thanks to all for your support and encouragment. Food and exercise are back to a life-style change. Seems I fell back into the diet, binge cycle pretty hard. So I am doing the baby step suffle and feeling better. One thing about maintence you may know all the steps but sometimes you need to reclimb them.
Sandy hope your feel better. Take it easy this week, I have also added music to my workout. I had gotten away from it and tired of my cd's. So I have bought some new ones and it is really a big motivation.
Rabbit: I am from the never lift enough weight school.

Good Day Ahead,

Hi maintainers,

Ilene .. I used to have back problems, knee problems and elbow problems so that is why I am very carefull to add weights. Thanks for the tip on lunges, I will look into that.

Sandy- loved your post, and I hope that you are feeling better.

Barb - have fun with the new toy. how is it working out ?

Gina- You made it halfway through the week ! Keep hanging on in here!

Mel- how is the skating coming along ?

Wheather here has turned cold unfortunately, but it is still dry. Foodwise I am still OK, although this evening will be a challenge as it is DH birthday and we will be having cheese fondue with french bread. Cardio I did 20 mins row, 30 mins jog and 20 mins bike, plus I biked the 10 kms to get my daughter from school.

Have a great day,
rabbit

Hi all...

It's amazing what kind of food I will go for. I got a cake mix yesterday. I put half a cup of the mix in a cereal bowl, add some water, stir it up and eat the batter. Not a good health food.

Why do I want all this sweet stuff all the time?

Thanks for listening.
Linda and the zoo.

I think that 'sweet stuff' is positively addicting and that's why we go for it over and over again. I read that someone did MRIs on people eating sugar and apparently the same pleasure center of the brain lights up on a brain scan with sugar as when people do crack cocaine. In my experience, the longer I stay away from sugar, the easier it is. But once I slip and fall back into the sugar pit, it can be soooo tough to climb out. Sugar also make me feel like crap and I just have to keep reminding myself of that over and over again.

Tomorrow morning I've been invited to some classes at the local high school to demonstrate the BodyGem metabolic tester (we use it at the gym to determine resting metabolic rate) and to talk a bit about my story and what I do as a personal trainer. Yikes! I don't know WHAT to say! DD and DS's reaction was that they're just glad that they've already graduated, otherwise they'd be embarrassed to death. I have to find some time today to plan out a talk, but have a pretty full day of clients.

Gina, I totally agree about new workout music being a huge motivation and really need to update my iPod. Thanks for the reminder!

Hope everyone is doing well. Let's just take it one day at a time and do the best we can. I talked to a woman last night who needs to lose 100 pounds and was completely overwhelmed by the idea. So I asked her if she could lose just 5 pounds and she instantly brightened up and said 'sure'! So I told her that's all she has to focus on - 5 pounds. It made me think how it's the same for us - all we need to focus on is TODAY. Let's make today the best day that we possibly can and tomorrow will take care of itself.