A single step

[sea.bee]

Well that was embarassing...

 

Day 1, the real day 1 of my rebellion started today.

 

I posted my first ever challenge goals last Wednesday, and except for a pretty solid walk and study session that night, I have rebelled from my rebellion. A small mountain of sushi for dinner one night and half a pizza the next, even a "deLite" pizza, don't count as healthy eating. So I can't say I was surprised this morning when the scale read 240. You are what you eat, after all.

 

After scaling the scale, I started my first ever beginner's body weight workout at give or take. 5:20 in the morning. I'd scanned it a time or two, thinking "I've got this. I can do squats, I can do lunges, a CHILD can do jumping jacks all day long"

 

First set of squats, a little winded but I made it. First set of pushups, less than dignified but overall I kept my form and got them done.

 

My first set of lunges, a flashback to my 20 year old self trying to impress a new girlfriend who was a bit of a gym rat, by doing lunges down the university track with her. That night I basically had to pull myself up the staircase of my apartment using my arms. That's the same 20 year old self that regularly took 6 mile round trips to and from LSU because it beat sitting in traffic to go to class, football games. And the first time I did them, lunges absolutely killed my legs. The only good news is that I kept at the lunges, so I've beaten them before and know I can beat them again.

 

I still have to finish the rest of my workout. But I'll finish it today, even if I have to reduce the lunge reps for now. And then I'll take my dogs on a walk. And I'll keep working out and walking. I had fresh fruit for breakfast today. Lunch will be a salad with balsamic vinagrette, zuchinni slices with guacamole, and roasted butternut squash. Dinner will likely be pretty similar. And I'm going to damn well stick with it this time.

 

Because I only just found out I hit 240 again this morning, and I'm already tired about it.

 

 

[Liberator]

No worries! Glad your back to the rebellion! Lunch sounds great! This is a journey that will have a few bumps along the road, the important thing is you are back on track. Keep it up you are doing your body good! It is okay to make small steps forward and give your body time to adjust and build new habits. It is amazing what can happen with just one small diet change and a small routine of 15 minutes of exercise.

[sea.bee]

Lessons learned so far:

 

If I want to get a walk in, it must be right when I get home from work. No power in the 'verse can get me to climb out of bed any earlier than the 5:00 I'm already waking up at to get ready for work. Once dinner has been cooked and consumed, I'm in study mode. However, doing reps of basic exercises during study time to take breaks actually helps clear my mind some.

 

Lesson two: It is apparently a matter of national serurity where I work to eat something that seems to be veggies, veggies, and more veggies. I don't think I've ever had anyone as concerned about what I was eating as today when my boss checked in on the contents of my stir fry (which was both delicious and full of bacon, just no rice...mmmm, bacon)

 

Lesson three: zuchinni slices are not a substitute for office candy, but it's good enough for an hour. And if I can make an hour, I can make a day. Mostly it's about avoiding the candified office. Seriously, that thing is evil. One piece of candy turns into all the candy. Actually the zuchinni isn't too bad. Still mighty suspicious of the guacamole though.

 

I'm really enjoying having all of my pots and pans back, lets me cook the way I want again. Still got a long way to go, but it feels good to be on a strong start

[sea.bee]

Turns out I lied. If I'm going to make this work, I'm going to have to wake up before 5. Today was 4:30, got in a pretty good half hour study session before shower/work/etc. This, combined with the magic power of putting dinner in the slow cooker before I was even really awake, should actually give me the time to get in a good workout today.

 

I've been developing a love/hate relationship with cucumbers and zuchinni. I say this because we have both in the fridge, they're pretty much indistuingishable from each other when I'm scrounging for one to slice up and put into a little baggie for lunch, and I like the taste of one and not the other. I'm gonna say I like zuchinni and dislike cucumber, but your guess is really as good as mine. It's at least probably 33% in my head, filled with false accusations and mistaken identies. Mostly because sometimes I really miss chips.

 

Right now I'm trying to stop eating goldfish, and part of that strategy is for us to stop buying the ginormous boxes of them. When I'm in hungry scrounging mode, a giant box of goldfish grabs my attention. A smaller package of them hopefully will not. Also when you eat a handful of goldfish from a ginormous box of them, it still feels full. You can see the little bag emptying before your eyes. I'm pretty sure this is actually why the packaging industry favors opaque boxes.

 

 The household not buying goldfish, while seemingly a reasonable option, might cause my fiance to murder me. What can I say, I want to live. 

 

New addiction: club soda with lime juice. Trying to replace the coke habit, one that's been mostly extinguished for a while, but still definitely has flare ups from time to time. It's more the sting of the drink than the sugar I'm hooked on, so the replacement is going fairly well. Considering buying a sodastream if the money fairy decides to visit me. Unfortunately, getting sent home early last Friday due to Louisiana having all the bridges and not knowing how to commute when <32F and a likely repeat scenario tomorrow and Tuesday makes this difficult. Then there's the upcoming wedding, car note, house note. Eh, maybe it happens, maybe it doesn't. There's always the option to drink regular water.

 

Current mission: figure out how to repurpose spaghetti squash. Spaghetti squash and paleo pasta are delicious on day 1. Unfortunately, what makes them delicious is the WHAM of fresh ingredients that dies with storage in the fridge. The sauce freezes pretty well so far, but the spaghetti squash turns into vegetable mush whose sole purpose is to torture me with blandness.

 

current experiment: turn it into stir-fry noodles. Round 1 was semi-successful. Next try, I'm going to try to heat them up separately to try and get them a little crispier. If you have alternatives anywhere, feel free to link them to me. I'm sure they exist somewhere in the minds of you evil geniuses.

 

Work or no work tomorrow, my agenda is clear. Get home, walk like the dickens, eat dinner, study, work out, maybe catch a little bit of season 3 of Avatar, sleep the sleep of the dead.

[RES]

We are buying a dehydrator for the 'snacking' purpose. Since banana chips and everything else in the grocery store has all the icky stuff in it and those that don't are WAY over my budget...we're going to make our own...also jerky...I cannot tell you how happy this makes me

 

Might help, you can pick up decent ones for around 50.00

[sea.bee]

Mmmmm, jerky. Delicious, delicious jerky. If anything is actually left on my kitchen gadget list, it is a dehydrator. I probably also want to pick up a jerky gun, which you stuff ground meat/spices into and it'll extrude it all out in uniform, dehydratable strips. Hopefully that'll be cheaper than buying roasts/steaks and turning them into jerky.

 

Onto the actual logging of all things battle: Monday and Wednesday, completed rookie workouts A and B respectively. In case you're wondering, my leg muscles hate you all. I take that to be a good thing on the fitness front though. Hell, actually even doing the structured workouts for two straight sessions is a pretty good step in the right direction.

 

I think I was really scared that I couldn't do them, that if I couldn't finish a rookie workout, that this would be another pointless effort. I feel like my main trigger to start dieting/exercising is when I start outgrowing my large t-shirts. Outgrowing isnt' really the right word though, I feel like outgrowing means getting taller, not wider. So I seem to cut back on X, Y, and Z for a few weeks until I can wear both large and xl shirts without a problem. Then I quit, and a few months later the cycle repeats itself. Scale-wise, my plateau seems to be somewhere in the 220s. Last time I saw below that was due to the wonders of food poisoning. But I've got to be optimistic that it won't happen again this time (the food poisoning or the quitting). Adding the workouts is a step I haven't taken in a while. And everything I'm doing right now, I'm doing at home. So suck it, excuses. Much like the goblin king, you have no power over me. (please don't wear a codpiece, please don't wear a codpiece)

 

There's no its too dark to walk, my neighborhood is well lit and only someone suicidal would try to mug a 6 foot tall guy with a 75 lb german shepherd. No too much traffic to drive to the gym, I'm working out at home. I'm trying to make it harder for me not to workout than to workout.

 

 Walking has been going pretty well. Tuesday, we got one of those odd, once to twice a decade snows in Louisiana, so that made our walk with the dogs really nice. We've got a German shepherd and a shepherd/husky mix. The shepherd loves the cold and the snow more than just about anything in the world, where the husky can't get out of the cold and under his blankets fast enough. I love the furry little guy, but I have definitely mocked his lineage over it the past few days. We now own a husky with a dog coat and I am ashamed. The only saving grace is that it's at least an LSU coat.

 

On the food front, I probably didn't eat as well as I should have. Tuesday through Thursday there was some pretty nasty weather that iced us in. Still trying to implement some positive changes though. Trying out eating sweet potatoes for breakfast. Not too bad, really. Nuke 'em for 5 minutes and enjoy. I think I can eat them with salt and pepper and that'll do. Also working on hard boiled eggs. Tried popping a dozen of them in the oven, had some that were pretty well cooked and some that just came out nasty. The strategy of buying smaller packs of goldfish instead of the giant mondo box has helped me decrease goldfish consumption. Definitely not at zero, but a downtrend so far. One step today, one step tomorrow, etc.

 

Picked up a little journal yesterday to start logging my diet, exercise, and study on a daily basis. I know, internet, I'm cheating on you. We can still be friends, right? Or is this an open relationship? The thing that has helped me most is reading other people's battle logs. Some of you are scary, insane beasts of determination. It helped me get over my fear of failing to see someone else say "battle log day 1: **** my life, **** it to pieces. today sucked", and see that the battle log started in 2012 and that person still going like the goddamn energizer bunny. So with any luck, today doesn't suck. With a little bit more, you may still be reading me in 2016.

[sea.bee]

I didn't think I was going to be able to work out today. I got home and rolled straight into studying. That was interrupted for a brief dinner (paleo sloppy joes & pork&beans) followed by replacing the broken dryer belt and a run to the grocery store.

 

Long story short, I got home, changed out of store clothes, and worked out anyway. So now I'm dripping sweat, but still feeling really good. Because today felt better. Today I did my workout, did it well, and still have more left in the tank. I'm not going to limp around work tomorrow like I got kicked in the balls because my quads are killing me. I did my workout and I feel great. Right now I'm planning to either add sets or add exercises to Wednesday's workout to burn more.

 

I may have pretty much undone a week's worth of healthy eating by hitting up the superbowl party last night in style. But I can move forward from that, and now I can work out harder. Gotta keep on keeping on. Good luck.

[sea.bee]

Didn't manage to work out on Wednesday, just completely too busy. Got in a really good workout today, attempted a bit of C25K. Probably going to do that mwf, workouts on tthsat next week. Going to work out tomorrow too make up for my missed day. Been eating better, more consistently this week. One more week to the challenge, want to do it strong. I don't know if I'll give myself a passing grade or not yet, but it's a step in the right direction

[sea.bee]

I WORK OUT! Also owowowowow. My body is not happy that I skipped Tuesday's workout and let me know it today. However, occasionally I notice these crazy trends like "Sunday I barely made my workout happen" and "Just missed it Tuesday" and "Wednesday I'll definitely make it up, definitely...or not" and managed to get myself out of my nice, warm bed to complete Thursday's workout on Thursday. Better yet, I finished before 5 am, so you cannot take it away from me. It's mine, my precious, my only! The real test, of course, will be to keep it going. Because workout, skip, workout, workout, skip, workout isn't a trend in the right direction. So right now my chest hurts from bicep curls and overhead press and my legs aren't happy about the lunges. But I'm done, so I win. Time to make a smoothie and go to work.

[RES]

Since this song is now stuck in my head

[sea.bee]

Weekend: 1, exercise: 0. Any attempts to exercise Friday were thrown out of the loop by Valentine's Day chaos. On the plus side, I now know where several lingerie stores in the area no longer exist. Thank you, Yelp, for keeping that information up to date.

 

The willpower I have to wake myself up early Monday through Friday to work out apparently does not extend to Saturdays. Barely scraped myself out of bed in time to get to work. Worked till about 1:30, had to jet to get my hair cut (trust me, it contributed to this week's weight loss), mostly completed the frame for the bench. Ate sushi, but didn't overindulge. Getting better at the portion control, even when not paleo. Also really improving on denying the fast food temptations. I used to probably stop by McDonald's 2-4x/month because there was no breakfast at home (right, of course that was it) or really, I just wanted a sausage biscuit and a coke to start off my morning. Saturday morning was one of those mornings, but I resisted this time. It hadn't been too hard for the last few weeks because I hadn't wanted one, but lord help me I wanted a sausage biscuit and a coke.

 

Sunday was exhausting. Out volunteering all day to work the Krewe of Mutts booth four our obedience club. Now play this scenario in your head.

 

A stranger walks up to me and my dog, "can he sit? Hey you, sit". Sasha, my loyal companion, doesn't even deign to acknowledge the stranger's existence, much less sit. "And you're here with an obedience club? She's not very well trained, she can't even sit right.".

 

I share a weary, knowing look with Sasha and politely reply the only thing I can. "No sir/ma'am, she's very well trained. She knows she doesn't have to listen to you". Believe it or not, as a handler, I spend a LOT of time training my dog not to respond to other people's commands in general, and especially when I'm working with her. This includes when you have food, squeaky toys, or just about any conceivable distraction. If the leash is in my hand, you shouldn't really exist. I've actually had to spend a lot of time on this training so that she won't key in on my fiance' when we're working. So when I go the extra mile to make sure my dog doesn't key in on one of her favorite people in the entire world, no she won't listen to you.

 

But yeah, that was my entire day and I was too drained for a workout when it was over with. And now, what you've all been dying to see, the current baseline fitness shots. I have no clue if the damn thing is actually going to show up, because I've never actually attached photos to anything before. I also learned that if there is a selfie gene, I probably don't possess it. And I would like to thank my sponsors, Trader Joe's, for the freshly shampoo'd and showered hair, and Gilette, for my grandfather's safety razor. It's decades older than I am and still gives a top notch shave.

 

 

 

.

[Liberator]

It sounds like you had a rough couple days, but it was a very funny and entertaining post! A sense of humor is important, just keep at it, good job at resisting that McDonald's urge! 

[sea.bee]

Truth, they were a little rough, but nothing insurmountable. I just got engaged to my fiance' just over a month ago, we bought a house literally the day after I asked her, so anything I pulled off for Valentine's day would just be lagnaippe. If one of my biggest problems is that when I have to work on a Saturday, I still get paid for working on Saturday! Spending time with my dogs, I love it. We were just out there from too early o'clock to why didn't this thing end an hour ago? We were tired, the dogs were stressed from hours of interacting with strangers, and we had done a similar all-day event with them the weekend before.

 

 And it helps a whole lot to realize just how ridiculous I am while taking these pictures. Y'all also missed the fun realizations like "if I turn on the bathroom lights, people will be able to see more than just a camera flash", "it looks like I'm staring mysteriously off in the distance, when really I have no clue where the camera lens is aimed", and "hmmmmm...let's retake that photo right there, the NF boards do NOT need to see my package". I'm actually squatting down a few inches so you can't. Some things I don't need to share with you.