Stress Management

PMS time here...on top of all the other craziness of tax season, raising four kids who are in three different schools and participate in several different activities, recently losing a pet (and preparing to adopt/rescue a new pet).....etc.  Life. 

I worked late today...got 6 tax returns done, tho...wow...but had no time for the gym.....erg.  I had to dash to the store to get some groceries for the rest of the week, get the kids, feed the kids, then get 3/4 of them ready for wrestling practice and feed #4 when he got home from swimming.  Once everyone got to where they needed to be (thank goodness my brother takes them and helps to coach!) I had about an hour to do with what I wanted.  Let's see...one hour...and I had about 3 loads of laundry I needed to get going, bills to pay, some housework to do, some emails to answer, some studying to do....just thinking about it all was making me stressed. 

What I really wanted to do was to eat bad food and watch mindless TV.  (remember:  PMS)  I thought over my options for about 3 minutes and then chose to go to the gym....even though I knew it would be packed and crazy there...at least I could deal with my stress in a productive manner that helped move me toward my weight and fitness goals.  (plus..that comment Wendy left yesterday about not resting on my laurels after my 180 buttprint......sort of stuck in my mind..thanks, Wendy!) 

AND I DID IT....darn it......I got my booty over there and I did the treadmill for about 50 minutes.  I warmed up then did 3 miles in 29 minutes (whoot).  After that I did interval work (alternated flat walking with steepest incline walking) for a mile or so.  Then....I ran the last quarter mile at a 7.5 mph pace.  (whoot)  Two minutes at a 7.5 mph pace is something I have never done before.  (I had done 1 minute of 7.5 a couple times.....never 2 minutes).  So, that was sort of exciting.  If I can do 2 minutes...then I can do 3 minutes....maybe a whole mile at that pace someday soon.  (that would be an 8 minute mile...not holding my breath....lol)

I got home just as my younger kids were getting home from wrestling.....perfect. 

I feel great now.  Calm.  Revived.  Not stressed.  A bit smelly....ooooh...need a shower!  lol  I got everyone to bed, got a load of laundry going, paid some bills, reviewed some tax law, made myself a yummy and nutritious dinner, tidied up the kitchen, and even flipped through a silly tabloid-ish magazine a friend gave me.  (oh, Brad and Angelina...just pull your heads out of your butts for the sake of the SIX children you somehow are raising......)  I even showed my oldest son a few kettlebell lifts he can do to build some of his swimming muscles...so I threw the 20 pound kettlebell around a bit, too. 

I do believe the exercise helped...and really was a much better way to deal with my stress than caving in to the PMS demons.  I rarely exercise in the evening....hopefully I am not too revved up to get to sleep later!  Hm.  It is Biggest Loser night, isn't it?  That should be DVR-ing as I type...so I can watch that and mellow out with an ounce or so of dark chocolate...it is a fancy one with some sort of spciy chili flavor.  Sounds good. 

Here is a fairly simple (yet informative) article about stress and exercise:  http://stress.about.com/od/programsandpractices/a/exercise.htm   

Since I tend to be a stress eater......I have been trying to read articles like this to remind myself that I have other options for stress management besides abusing my body with bad food.  Good to know, huh?  Why this all took me 42 years to figure out is beyond me!

How do you deal with stress??  How would you like to deal with stress?  Do share!

It is ABOUT freaking time! :)

Drumroll please......I have finally broken through 180!

I am not filtering or altering this pic at all...no sepia or black and white. I'm putting it out here in the harsh bright lights....so all the bumps and lumps are very apparent. I am hoping that the next (and perhaps FINAL) 15-20 pounds that leave will smooth some of these things out!  And what is up with those dimples behind my knees?  LOL  (And..WHEN the hell in this journey from 253 to 180 did I become a perfectionist? lol) 

I'm still a bit of a mess from our loss yesterday. I left work early and am going to take some time to regroup. I did not get much sleep last night, which is very unusual for me.... I did not mention in my last post that Dusty's demise was a horrible accident...but one that involved me. SUCH a hole in my heart over it.  It has really messed with my head.  The kids have recovered speedier than I have.....too many details still in my head and too many feelings of guilt and sorrow and horror at doing something, albeit completely accidental, that caused my kiddos (and myself...and a sweet little animal) so much pain.  :( 

Alright. I'm going to focus on good happy things and work this through.  Thanks for all of your great comments on my last post. It has definitely helped.

Hooray for 180!  I was actually 179.8 this morning.  I'd like to leave 180 in the dust....no more up and down stuff for this big bottomed blogger.  I mean...really....I have knee dimples that need addressing!  :)

Reward vs Abuse

There is a big difference between reward and abuse. That is such a simple concept, yet it has not really fully entered into my consciousness before now. It hit me like a ton of bricks last night that I keep getting these two concepts mixed up!

After being gone a couple days I came home to dirty dishes in the sink and a mostly empty fridge. I was tired and somewhat cranky, and really did not have the energy to go "big" grocery shopping at 9 pm, but figured I had better get to the store so we had food for the next day and next week. Going to the grocery store tired and cranky is never a good idea. Grocery stores are full of food that is not the food I should be eating. As I strolled past all the Superbowl carb-fest chip and soda displays..my head started going to a "not so good" place. Here is how it goes with me "you were so good for the past few days, you have exercised several times, you have eaten really well even when on the trip, your jeans feel a little bit loose today, you even dragged your kettlebells to the hotel so you could get in a workout this morning after your run....you really do deserve to grab some (insert name of two or three NOT good foods here)....you should reward yourself for all your hard work."

I actually went over to the candy bar section....started contemplating.... For me...by the time it gets to this point....the decision has been made and the action is as good as done. Logic leaves the scene. When I have gotten to this place lately I typically give myself a couple minutes to think it through.....but, there is definitely a point of no return where I know I am going to make a decision that is not going to help me reach my goal.....and I get into the "F-it" mode....and just give in.

What hit me last night as I was stumbling around the store in a tired fog, though, is the concept of "Reward" and "Abuse".

WHY.....truly......WHY...would I consider a dark chocolate milky way bar and a bag of thick sliced sea salt kettle chips...."reward"? (Well...actually...I know why..because they taste really good.....but...follow my logic here). What I am really saying when I go through this whole "binge contemplation" thing is not so much "you deserve a reward".....it is much more "you don't deserve a reward...you only deserve to abuse yourself and sabotage your goals". For ME (not projecting this to anyone else here....we all have different demons lurking in our heads).......buying and eating the bad food is NOT a reward...it is abuse...it is me not feeling like I deserve a reward...don't deserve to succeed and reach my goals. But I DO deserve some rewards for my hard work. I have worked VERY hard and I am proud of what I have accomplished this past year. The reward I deserve, though, is not junk food with hundreds/thousands of empty calories. THAT....is abuse.

Interesting. And, perhaps TOTALLY obvious to everyone reading this. And...at this point...obvious to me. But...for some weird reason, this whole idea of reward and abuse had not ever fully sunk in until last night.

It ended well. I chose to not buy the "binge foods". More than half of my cart (as is typical these days) was filled with fresh yummy produce. What I did manage to find was a package of gluten and dairy free chocolate cookies (which....did NOT look like tasteless cardboard)...4 cookies has 130 calories. I grabbed those and decided to have a big mug of decaf coffee and 4 or 5 of those cookies when I got home (after I unloaded all the food). And I did. And it was good. And that little snack made me feel satisfied. If I had bought and eaten the other stuff, I would have felt angry and frustrated with myself, bloated, full, sick to my stomach, and defeated....and it very well would have caused me to have a bad eating day today, too. Instead, I woke up feeling great. Jumped on the scale and joyfully saw a number that was less than 1 pound away from the next buttprint picture. THAT is the kind of reward I deserve! :)

The rest of today was great for food and exercise. But we had a horrible thing happen to a very beloved pet. It was devastating to us....just wrecked us for most of the day. Oh, the tears....buckets and buckets. My oldest son asked if I would take him to the pool so he could swim through his feelings and grief.....which I understood....so he and my 13 year old and I all headed to the pool and did laps and tried to work through things together, in a productive way. I have not been in a pool in an exercise capacity for many years. It felt good. For a while...I just floated with my ears below the water so it was just silent and calm. It helped. My younger boys were still with my Mom.....and when the incident happened, I called and asked her to please keep them for longer.....I was not ready to tell them about it and go through it all again. Man.....it was one of those "being a Mom is really really hard work" days. So, when the little boys came home I got to relive it all over again. My head is pounding! But, as awful and exhausting and tearful as it was....we are working it through and are on a path toward healing. And...eating bad food and abusing myself did not even remotely enter my mind at all today. Progress.

Rest in peace, sweet Dusty. You will be sorely missed, our fine feathered friend..especially when you so conceitedly called yourself a pretty bird and kissed yourself every time you saw a mirror. He brought us so much joy and laughter and was such a big part of our family. Damn....we will miss that bird.

How Do You Respond?

Hi gang! I just got back in town. I went to the middle of the state to watch my oldest son compete at the District level for swimming. He did great....he has improved dramatically in the past year. It has been such a joy to see his VERY hard work pay off and to see his confidence and abilities grow. He brought home a 4th place, a 6th place and a 7th place. Very exciting. I have no voice left.

Okay. I have a question for you. How do you respond if someone (whom you care about) tells you that they do not think you need to lose any more weight if you DO still need to ditch some fat?

I am getting closer to my goal, but am certainly not there yet. In fact...got a bit of a brutal reminder of that this morning when I ran on the hotel treadmill. The ENTIRE wall in the tiny little hotel fitness room was a floor to ceiling wall to wall mirror. (gaaaak..flashbacks to 5 year old ballet class!) It was sort of hard to not look at myself as I ran. At first I looked at my feet.....to see if my foot fall seemed correct...then slowly moved up the line and got to watch a semi-side view of my back-side and thighs jiggling around quite a bit. Even my arms, which have become somewhat toned...were flapping about more than I thought they still did. I feel sort of bad now for all the people on the treadmills behind me in my gym at home....LOL. It was FINE...I was not beating myself up over it or anything. I was being very objective about it and thinking...wow...I sure don't jiggle and flap around NEARLY as much as I once did...but I definitely still have some junk in the trunk that needs to go bye-bye and some triceps that still need some "bingo wing" reduction. I definitely still have about 15-20 pounds to get to my goal...and I got a chance to see it up close and personal today....in a tank top and lycra! (eeeep! lol)

So, what do you say when someone makes a comment you disagree with about your goals?

Calipers!?! Pinch pinch pinch!

Greeting blogland! Thanks for all the nice messages yesterday! All is well, I just got off to a rough start this week and was feeling really buried. I was not able to get to the gym for a few days, either...and I realized that not exercising increased the impact of the stress on me about 20-fold!

I hit the gym hard yesterday for 90 minutes of strength work (felt SO good....and.....wow....skipping 4 days of weights definitely made a difference..learned my lesson there!). Then today I snuck over there and did the treadmill for an hour. I am sad to say that the last time I ran was a WEEK ago. Good Lord. See.....this is why the stress got to me so much earlier in the week!!! Good to know....good to know. I ran the first 2 miles in about 21 minutes then decided to alternate walking and sprinting. (Well....maybe 7 or 7.5 mph is not sprinting to many people...but to me it is! No teasing from you fast people out there--lol) So, for the next 3 miles I sprinted for 1 minute then walked for 2 minutes.....and so on. Intervals! It was good....my legs feel it...big time! Altogether I went 5 miles in 57 minutes. Felt good. Felt really good--mentally and physically. It felt MUCH better than eating cookies.

Today is my third day of very clean eating. I had 12 straight days of really clean eating...then went haywire for 2 days...now I am back on track again. If I could only learn to only go a "little" haywire...I'd be golden. Buttprint pic....who knows when..but I am working on it!

My gym had advertised free body composition testing today. I was sort of excited about that. I was eager to compare their measurement to my old tanita bodyfat scale (which can swing from a reading of 27.5% fat to 31% fat all in one day.....). I was also hoping to get a lean mass number...bone weight, water weight, that sort of thing. I was a little disappointed when it ended up just being a lady at a table with calipers. So, I did the caliper thing. She only took three measurements. One on my lower (not even the top meaty area) front thigh, one on my upper stomach area, and then my tricep. Then she did her little calculations, asked my age...and told me I was 23% fat. Which....I am not. (not being pessimistic here....but, I know that is lower than where I am at right now--and using calipers in just three areas is not very accurate.) The three places where she took the readings were nowhere near my "flabby bottom and upper thigh" region. I wish it was accurate....23% would be great....once I reach 21-22% I am DONE with the weight loss portion of this journey. So..back to the drawing board. The University has a bodypod that I think I can use for $30. I might do that to get a "real" reading just so I know if my scale is in the ballpark. I'm guessing I am somewhere in the 28-29% arena right now.

One cool thing I noticed the other day was that waaaaay back in 1993 when I got married the first time around...I weighed about 174 and my hips were 42.5 inches. (WHY do I have this data....lol....how weird...I had a little notebook where I used to record such things..even when I was in Africa I took measurements every month or so.....lol). I was fairly fit then....did aerobics, roller blading, hiking, that sort of thing....but no weights. I weigh more than 174 right now...but my hips are a half inch smaller now than they were at my wedding (!?!). As are my thighs! (My waist..bless it's pre-baby heart...was and inch smaller then) But the hip/thigh thing means I have more muscle than I did back then. I LOVE THAT! It is nice to know that an old lady like me can still build some muscle and be more fit than I was at 26. Three months after the wedding I had managed to gain 10 pounds and an inch around my hips (aaah....gotta love how my body loves to gain weight)...then became pregnant with son #1 and proceeded to gain 65 more pounds (and 6 inches on my hips!!!!!) during the pregnancy (eeeeeek!). It is good to be below my original "pre-pregnancy" weight right now.

Ok. Anyone have any caliper or other stories to share? The lady doing the calipers said "Oh, you don't really have much fat to pinch in the ab region"....that was a nice thing to hear! If only she'd seen me a year ago.....I'd have given those calipers a work out! :)

It is Official

It is official. (And, no, this is not a post with my 180 butt print because I have yet to see that on the scale.....!)

What is official is that exercise is indeed a better way to deal with stress than eating. And, another unscientific finding of mine is that...lack of exercise combined with stress can lead to eating the wrong foods.

I've been pretty darn stressed here.....more so than usual...and crazy busy for the past several days. Have not dealt with it as well as I would have liked. I am working on it..and doing much better today and yesterday then the two days before that. One day at a time. Exercise, not food. Truly. It works SO much better and feels so much better.

Sorry to not be around too much this week. And I am traveling out of town this weekend. I should be back online more next week. Stay tuned. :)

Food Villian.....

I especially liked this part of Drea's comment yesterday: "Maya Angelou says that once you know better, you do better."

So, with that in mind. here is more food villian info for you to ponder:

This Common Food Ingredient Can Really Mess Up Your Metabolism

Anybody make it all the way through the article? Thoughts?