Fattie, Fattie Two-By-Four

I started another post with this subject and I got like 7 paragraphs in and realized that I hadn't even begun to talk about what I really wanted to talk about. So in the interest of brevity and the sanity of all you loyal readers (whoever you may be), I'm starting fresh.

Ok, so in a nutshell, the idea that took up 7 paragraphs in my scrapped post is that while pregnant, I decided that once Lucas was born I would take up running by doing the Couch to 5K (C25K). To help motivate me, I asked my friend Theresa if she'd do the 9-week program with me. For many, many reasons, this whole deal has been delayed until recently. (I'm so proud I was able to condense this much.)

So Theresa and I looked at our schedules and decided to run twice a week together and once by ourselves, to get in the 3 days the program dictates. Dan and I finally sucked it up and got a pass to the Rec Center (highway robbery, by the way. $350 for a couple, it's only something like $50 more for an entire family. But, as usual, I digress.).

Last night, I decided to hit the Rec to do my solo run. The first week of the program is simple: Brisk warm-up walk for 5 minutes, then alternate 60 seconds of jogging with 90 seconds of walking for 25 minutes, then 5 minutes cool-down walk.

Ok, I'm going to have to condense again. Theresa and I tried to start the program in like February. So knowing that, I started exercise at home to free Exercise TV OnDemand to try to get my body over the initial shock of working out again. I didn't think I was doing a whole lot, but when Theresa and I did the first week or C25K I found the first week to be pretty easy. But the program specifically tells you not to jump ahead, to take it week by week, so I gave myself a pat on the back and did week 1. Then after week 1, a lot of unforeseen circumstances presented, so Theresa and I had to put C25K on hold and decided to start from the beginning again.

Fast-forward to yesterday, my first day of week 1 and my day of running alone. I got all dressed up in my cute work out clothes, feeling pretty good since I have lost 18ish lbs on Weight Watchers (almost half-way to my goal woot!). Something about exercise clothes makes me feel really attractive. I don't know what it is, but I guess that's the way things are.

So anyway, I strut into the Rec feeling all good about myself with my cool iPod touch and pink ear buds, get my new ID pass, try not to look at my horrible picture on it, and head over to a free treadmill. There's something about walking into any type of gym or exercise facility that makes you feel like everyone is looking at you. Maybe it's because everyone is looking at you?

Because I was the temporary center of attention, I tried my best to be cool. Since I was feeling pretty good about myself, I was thinking something along the lines of, "That's right everyone, eat your hearts out. You WISH you could look this good 4 months after having a baby. Even you, muscle-bound but otherwise skinny high school boys."

So I get to my treadmill and step on. I took of my sweatshirt and put it on the floor next to me, and, since I was feeling too cool for school, I decided to just toss my wallet onto my sweatshirt. Did I mention it's the kind that has a little push-button clasp? And wouldn't you know, my wallet decided to land right on that button and explode open, tossing loose change and old receipts everywhere.

A quick look around confirmed that, yes, everyone was still looking at me and no, my trying-too-hard-ness did not go unnoticed. Slightly deflated, I tried to position myself in the 4 inches of space between my treadmill and the treadmill of the lady next to me so I could clean up the crap from my wallet, aka my pile of shame.

Ok crisis averted. I hopped back on the treadmill, set my iPod on the monitor ledge and started to untangle my awesome pink ear buds (I really love them). Of course, the ear buds were more tangled than I realized, so my iPod fell off the ledge, and dangled from my hand as I tried to grab at it in the most inconspicuous way possible.

Yeah, inconspicuous is not really my thing. My iPod fell off the ear buds just as I went to grab it and bounced off the treadmill about 2 feet in front of me, right at the feet of the high schoolers. One of them gallantly picked it up and handed it to me. I quickly thanked him and got to work on my run, any possibility of people thinking I was cool completely thrown out the window.

At first, it was easy. I was feeling good, doing my warm-up walk, starting to get back in my groove. Then the jogging started. My treadmill was unfortunately positioned to face a blank wall. All the tv's were far to my left, and I couldn't even look directly into the basketball court. So I basically had nothing to stare at except the timer on my treadmill, ticking more slowly than I'd ever seen it.

After the first few jogging stints, I started to get tired. And then I started to feel nauseous. Refusing to admit that I had quickly gotten out of any sort of shape I'd been in, I quickly decided that I must be pregnant. That would be the only logical explanation for my nausea. Normally, the thought of being pregnant would fill me with fear. This time, I was like, "YES if I'm pregnant then I'll have an iron-clad reason to stop doing C25K." So I decided that 1) I must be pregnant, 2) I'd pee on a stick when I got home, and 3) I won't jog anymore, I'll just walk until I get to 17 minutes (I was somewhere around the 14-minute mark at that point). (Also, the test was negative, in case you're wondering. I really am just out of shape.) (And also, in case you haven't noticed, my favorite things in the entire world of punctuation and grammar are parenthesis.)

So I got to like 16 minutes and 45 seconds, and my iPod turned on me. First, it called me a fattie and a quitter. Then, it threw on my power tracks. Then, it dared me to keep going, just until the end of the song. So I said, "Screw you iPod, I'll show you what I can do." And I kept going until the end of the song. Then it said, "You think you're awesome? Well here's another power track. See if you can make it through this one." Rinse and repeat.

I made it to 30 minutes. Even though I didn't jog after my pregnancy scare, I walked at a very brisk pace on a slight incline. I felt pretty good after those 30 minutes, so I decided I'd go work out my arms a little.

I hate using non-cardio machines because I don't usually know what to do. I am that person that you laugh at when you walk by because I'm trying to use a leg machine for my arms. I literally spend a few minutes putting my stuff on the floor so I can sneak-read the directions on the machine. So I did a few pully-type exercises and decided to just do one more machine - the one with the long bar that you pull down.

I proceeded to make an idiot out of myself by trying to pull down more weight than I could handle and had to adjust the weight to a much smaller level. And then I hit myself in the head with the bar and had to do the whole "What are you looking at? That didn't really just happen" dance and try to hide the tears that involuntarily sprung to my eyes (like when you get hit in the nose and can't help but cry. I wasn't really crying, it was just my body.). And then I decided it was time to go home.

So I'm thinking my program might be more of a couch-to-couch type deal than anything.

Weekend Update

Well, yesterday was my weigh-in day. Down another 2.5 pounds for a total of 11.5 lbs in 4 weeks. Now I have 27.5 to go. That sounds like a lot, but if I keep going at this rate, I'll get there.

It's been a mixed bag. After 4 weeks of WW, I'm definitely starting to see what reasonable portions look like. I'm also actually thinking about the food I eat. Example: Valentine's chocolate (those amazing chocolates with stuff in the center) have 4 points in 2 pieces. I used to eat 4 pieces of chocolate without even thinking. Now I stop myself and think about whether I want to use up 4 points of my daily 24 allotment on 2 little pieces of chocolate. Yesterday that answer was yes. I had those 2 pieces of chocolate and they were amazing. Instead of shoving them into my mouth all in one bite and barely even tasting them, I ate them slowly because I wanted to savor what those 4 points tasted like.

On the other hand, after 4 weeks, I'm getting a little tired of having to plan every bite I take. I miss being able to go out to dinner with Dan and just ordering whatever I wanted. Granted, that's what got me 40 pounds above where I should be, but I miss it. Now if we want to go out to eat, I have to save the bulk of my points for that meal and not eat much for the rest of the day. I also have to plan and look up the restaurant's nutrition information on their website. This is annoying because I'm now finding out how bad all my favorite dishes are for me! It's also annoying because the average "cost" of a restaurant meal is in the neighborhood of 20 points.

But, I plan to hang in there until I get to my goal weight. If I continue to lose at this rate, I'll be there by June. Just in time to wear all those cute summer clothes. And then, I'll be able to buy a bathing suit without crying in the fitting room.

Eye of the Tiger

Today is one of those days when I'd love nothing more than to be home with Lucas, watching Ellen and The Price is Right. It's been snowing all morning, starting with those big, fat, fluffy flakes that make you want to curl up in bed or on the couch with a hot cup of whatever floats your boat (tea, coffee, cocoa, bourbon) and just laze the day away with a good book or your favorite show on DVD.

Alas, this is not possible for me today, so here I sit, blogging on my lunch hour because it's cold out and I don't feel like going outside and getting the hem of my too-big (more on that later) and too-long pants all wet. Want to know what I've done today? While my boss was in a meeting in his office, he asked me to sit on the phone holding for him because he had a question to ask whoever he was calling. Want to know how long I was on hold? An hour and a half. I'm not even kidding. And my boss had been holding for half an hour before that. So we were on hold for a collective two hours before he finally told me to just hang up. Yeah, I had to hang up. No one ever came to the phone after TWO HOURS. My ear hurts.

So, not to give myself a major pat on the back, but my pants are too big. "Why is this?" you might be wondering. They are too big because I've been on Weight Watchers for 3 weeks and have lost 9 lbs. so far! I'm really pumped, and am starting to see why people who do WW tend to keep the weight off after they reach their goal. It's not because it's easy, but WW teaches you what an acceptable amount of food is. Seeing what I've been eating on WW compared to what I used to eat when I thought I had been "good" on any given day makes it painfully obvious why I am so far above my goal weight. So, 9 lbs. down, 31 to go (cue Rocky music).

On a related note, I somehow now enjoy exercising. I don't know where this came from, as I used to despise working out. And actually, now that I think about it, despise is a really mild word for my feelings towards working out. Abhor? Detest? Loathe? All those words seem so inadequate, but I guess they'll have to do. Anyway, some switch must have flipped when I was pregnant with Lucas, because once he was born, I was chomping at the bit to be cleared to exercise.

I started out with the 30 Day Shred, but once Level One was taken off Free Exercise TV OnDemand (and Level Two made me want to cry), I moved on to Walking for Weightloss, just to keep myself moving. I liked it, but it was a bit too easy. Now I'm doing the Couch to 5K running program with my friend Theresa. The only problem is that we have nowhere to run while it's cold and nasty out! I'm trying to find a gym that has a super-cheap monthly membership fee, but as of now no such luck. Stay tuned.