delalana

Now that you mention it, I also have a 50 lb bag of sand somewhere in the garage. 😛 What is this, selective amnesia targeted at all the things I don’t like carrying around?

Thanks for the idea. Planks have been feeling better lately. Although I do have some yoga planned for later today to relieve lower back pain, so I should probably still be careful.

I forgot the kitty litter. Turns out I do have a 35 lb weight sitting around. That should buy me some time to macgyver a platform for under table rows. Right now I have to do them lying on top of a table leg, which is decidedly uncomfortable to say the least. The scale went up this week, which wasn’t unexpected. Sunday ended up being emotionally heavy and I ate more than I necessarily should have. I’m a lot more stable now, though, and if a few pounds was the price I had to pay for that it was totally worth it. They’ll come off again later. I’ve been keeping up with workouts and am looking forward to taking half a day off tomorrow after pulling a really long Thursday last week.

One extra thing I noticed that I really wasn’t expecting. Around the point of having just a couple of bites left with the restaurant meal, I hit the point of being a bit uncomfortably full. 2-3 months ago, this would only have happened if I had chowed down on an order of mozzarella sticks first. Yay to shrinking appetites!

Got in calorie goals up until today. Today I picked up carryout for lunch. If I can keep to this cadence of only eating out once every two or three weeks once things start opening up again, I'd be ecstatic. No workouts Thursday or Friday, unless you count a relatively short walk over to visit my cousin. I did get one in today, though. Anyone have any suggestions for something to progress from single arm rows with a 24lb weight? I don't think I have anything heavier around. I do have ratchet straps that I can throw over top of a door, but those aren't the most comfortable thing to hold onto and I haven't yet been able to think of anything to make the grip more comfortable that I wouldn't be worried about sliding down the straps.

Well, it would be a very strong motivator to do the rows. I’m more of a rum girl. My tequila tolerance is shockingly low.

Way back last summer, when I was brand new here (and before I disappeared for a few months because I didn’t have the consistency thing down yet), you suggested this race to me. Chicago ran out my tolerance on cities. It’s a great place and I liked living there, but I’ve had my fill of concrete. I love having grass and trees right off my patio.

Workout went well today. I was able to get two sets of in incline push ups off of the fourth step from the floor instead of the fifth! I also need to start thinking about substituting sobering for single arm rows. I’ve been using my tool box, which is about the heaviest thing in my house that’s not either really awkward to pick up or fragile, and that’s feeling pretty easy these days. Calorie goal was met yesterday. And, for once in my life, I was actually patient enough to let the sauce from last night’s dinner thicken all the way. It was DELICIOUS.

I got in appropriate measures of food and exercise yesterday. On to the more interesting bits. I stepped on the scale this morning, which revealed a couple of interesting things. First, my old scale was within 0.3 lbs of the new one. Given that the old scale could only measure down to half pound increments, this was way more accurate than I was expecting. (The old scale was undoubtedly cheap and I got it for free six years ago.) Second, weight went down again and by quite a bit more than last week. For the past few weeks, my weight has been going down, but by decreasing amounts, so now I can stop worrying about things reversing course quite so much. I do very much appreciate the support of people here as I (over)react to week by week changes. And now I’m down over 10 lbs from my heaviest (late February), so yay!

Makes me feel a little better that at least some people in Minnesota are taking things seriously. I live closer to Coon Rapids and am normally one of very few wearing a mask at the store. And the busy road I live next to still seems plenty busy.

Delalana is calm now. Calorie goal was hit Thursday and Friday and may be today as well (there are some advantages to being too frustrated to eat until 3pm). In a possible portent of future days, I drove to the store today for the first time in weeks at what could be vaguely considered meal time (2:30pm with no food so far for the day). A few of the restaurants I drove past were indeed tempting, mostly the same ones as would have been before the pandemic. But at the same time that stress and annoyance was driving me to want fast food, they were also heightened enough that I really had a sole overwhelming focus of fixing my technology problems. So, in this case, it all evened out and I ate at home after my issues were sorted out. Still,I think this says that, in the future, it would do to make sure I am either at home or have already eaten when mealtimes come around. We’ll leave events that last until 1 or 2 without providing food aside for now. Workouts have been going well. I’m planning on skipping today, but have gotten something in every other day this week. Oh, hey, it’s 5pm already. When did that happen?

I have a smart scale. It ended up being more expensive than planned as I also have a new wireless router. The scale gave me numbers that are probably interesting, but which I’m rather too ticked off to appreciate right now. So, for the moment, I’ll leave this with a curse-you-barely-two-year-old-technology-that’s-already-failed-me-and-in-an-ironic-reversal-of-the-very-problem-you-were-purchased-to-solve.-I-hope-your-circuits-overheat-and-you-whirr-away-into-the-junk-heap-of-reneged-upon-promises.-Although-given-my-laziness-with-disposing-of-old-electronics-that’s-probably-not-going-to-happen-any-time-soon. It’s been a long five hours.

I did some research and found a smart scale recommended by the internet. While I was a little put off by the price at first, after a coupon and some credit card rewards, it will soon be mine for a grand total of $11.01! I did get out for a bike ride yesterday. I kept it short to give my butt and legs a chance to get used to it since it’s been awhile. As a result, everything feels fine today except when I sit down cross legged rather quickly. Which, apparently, I do a lot more often than I realize. I also got in a strength training session today. I hit my calorie goal yesterday with a couple hundred to spare, but missed it today since I was still hungry after dinner. I filled in with peanut butter toast to try and keep things fairly healthy. Peanut butter toast has been my go to for insatiable hunger since I was a teenager and it almost never fails, even when everything else does. So far, not looking at my phone in the mornings or evenings has not been going well. It’s very much a habit I need to break and it’s looking like I’ll definitely have to put in a concerted effort.

I didn’t even know that was a thing. I might have to look into that.

I stayed under calorie goal yesterday and - judging by how much twinging there is in my arms right now - did my hardest workout in weeks. I also stepped on the scale this morning and it’s down from last week, although not as much as I had hoped. I’m debating whether or not I want to bump down my calories again. It feels like it would be a lot easier to do that now than it felt a few weeks ago. At the same time, the scale did go down and there’s the whole thing about it being better to lose weight slowly... Clearly, the challenge for me these next few weeks isn’t going to be getting the food and exercise goals accomplished, it’s going to be having the patience to give them time to work. I took the first step towards getting out on the bike yesterday, in that I now have a helmet to replace the one that was quite possibly acquired while I was still in high school. Provided the next few hours of work don’t crush me (unlikely) I might even try it out later today.

I need to find me a lake without boats... That’s the only way I’m getting any laps in

Can I call four different flavors of instant oatmeal variety? Cause that’s all I have the patience for in the morning.

First off, for anyone who was around last challenge, my moms knee surgery went well. She and my dad are still at the hospital, but should be going home in a few hours after the anesthesia wears off and she passes her first PT test. On to goals... last challenge went pretty well and I started seeing results about halfway through, so I’m going to continue with a fair amount of the same. 1. Stick to the calorie goal MyFitnessPal gives me Monday through Friday. 2. Get in a workout 4-5 times per week. Mostly strength training with a bit of yoga and outside as much as possible. 3. Go for a bike ride at least 3 times. Suffice it to say my dad has used my bike more often than I have in the past couple of years and he lives 700 miles away. 4. Stay off Facebook, news, email, etc. between 10pm and 7:15am.

I use MyFitnessPal to log everything. And the precision is a lie. It assumes I eat the exact quantities of everything I put in instead of, for example, logging a ~155 gram potato as a 148 gram potato because who really wants to weigh every single potato. So, really, the sort of precision that would make a high school chemistry teacher cringe. The upper portion of my abs has managed to remain somewhat sore since the last time I did strength training on Wednesday, so I took Thursday and Friday light with just some yoga. Things were only a tiny bit sore today, so I jumped up to the next strength level and things are back to challenging but mostly doable (10 pushups off the side of a table is still a bit more than I’m up for in one go). Oh, and I need to do equipment reconnaissance again, as I am apparently stronger than the reusable grocery bag. 😁 Stayed under calorie goal yesterday, which my habit tracker tells me is 74.3% of the past 5 weeks, so that part of the challenge is a success!

Stayed under calories Tuesday and Wednesday. Today it looks like I’ll be overshooting by 2, which I’m calling close enough. Got workouts in Tuesday through today. My right knee is a tiny bit painful. This seems to mostly be correlated with yoga where I’m holding lunges for a really long time, so I’m just going to not do that. My core is pretty weak overall, so I wouldn’t be surprised. I’ll have to figure out how to take a video on my computer. In the meantime, focusing on actively engaging my core seems to transition the back pain into non-injury indicating soreness in my abs, so it probably is largely a technique issue.

The scale went down again It’s a relief and makes last week feel a lot more like the start of a pattern, rather than a potential fluke. Got in a strength training session yesterday. The level I’m at is starting to seem pretty easy (with the exception of my back still hates planks), so I’m thinking about dialing that up a level towards the end of the week. Stayed under calorie goal yesterday, albeit not in the healthiest way (think chocolate pudding cake and chips as opposed to baked potatoes and veggies). I finally calculated how many calories adding the chocolate chips added to that recipe and... well, you’d think I would have learned with the brownies. But, oh well, the (admittedly large) serving size is getting cut in half and will be more carefully planned around going forward. I’m happy with where things are right now. And I hope they keep going that way.

Well, Thursday and Friday went as planned, Saturday turned into a bumper day for things that count as exercise (a long walk to the lake, a short walk to visit family, some yoga because my sciatic nerve isn’t happy about the strength training I’ve been doing, and, finally, the regularly scheduled strength training), and Sunday turned into the day of two desserts and a sugary beverage. I’m hoping Sunday will be offset by eating better the rest of the week and all the extra moving around on Saturday. Final tally, 21/25 days and 72.4%. Mom’s surgery got rescheduled for this upcoming Sunday, which is happily shortly after my dad’s birthday instead of shortly before, so they’ll be able to enjoy that day a little more now. And I’ve found out that I do not, in fact, enjoy going two weeks without chocolate, even if I have non chocolate cookies to tide me over, so I made some pudding cakes. They are delicious and I regret nothing.

The scale went down! I cannot overstate how relieved I am that progress is finally going on the right direction. 😁 Since Monday I’ve done pretty well, stayed under calorie goal yesterday and today for 19/25 days or 76%. I got in some light yoga yesterday. I was going to do another workout today, but I got hit with a wave of tired after finishing up work, so I relaxed and took a nap instead. In other news, the metro Detroit area is apparently starting up elective surgeries again, so my mom’s getting a new knee on Sunday. I’m a little worried about covid, but my uncle had surgery in Minnesota over a week ago with no signs of covid since. I’m sure they’ll be just as careful with my mom’s surgery as they were with his. And my mom’s been in pain for a long time now, so it’ll be really good to see her get back to being able to move the way she wants to.

There’s an element of laziness for me. Before I started planning out meal prep - when I would just do it when I noticed I was running low on food - there would be entire weeks where I pretty much just ate out because there wasn’t any food I wanted at home and I was too tired to cook until the weekend. So far I haven’t run into any of those since getting on a regular cooking schedule. 🙂 I think there’s also an element of relaxation. When I get home both of the cats understandably want attention right away and I’m introverted enough that that can be incredibly draining after a day at work. Eating out gives me a bit of a buffer where I can just sit and not have to interact much with anyone or do anything for them. Since I’ve been working at home all the time, the kitty interaction is a lot more spaced out and there’s no magical “she’s home!” moment for them. And, while the cravings have abated for the time being, my taste buds have not aged past childhood and I still have a very strong thing for chicken tenders. But now for a progress update. No calorie tracking yesterday, but on track to stay under goal today. That’ll bring me up to 17/25 days or 73.9%. Got in a workout today, so still making good progress on that goal. I’m dropping the get outside goal as it’s annoying me more than helping. I’ll still make sure that I’m going out decently often, but it doesn’t need to be everyday if I don’t want it to be.

Feeling a good tired today after working out this afternoon and spending some time outside six feet away from family. I was happy this morning that I ended up going for two pancakes (that looked like enough) instead of three (because I’m going to be throwing batter away if I’m only eating these for two mornings). Also got some cooking and a reasonable serving of dessert in today. While I didn’t track calories - but still feel like I kept things mostly under control - today, I did yesterday, which brings me up to 16/25 days or 76.2%. I’ve noticed that since I’ve been at home ask the time, my cravings for restaurant food have almost completely gone away. I went out for a meal the first weekend we were locked down and got a pizza last weekend, but the than that I haven’t even wanted anything. I don’t know what’ll happen after everything opens back up but, for now, I’m happy with the change.