Learn to run: on hold

This is the second time I’ve tried to complete the week 3: session 1 run. (Run 3 minutes, walk 2 minutes x 10) I don’t know if it’s that I’m getting dehydrated, or the heat is sticking around a little longer the last few weeks (or both), but I’m able to get to about 30minutes, and then my body just quits. I feel sick to my stomach and I know if I don’t stop, I won’t even be able to make the walk back home. I’m also wanting to try to work in a few new things too – so I can’t commit to running 3x a week. I want to try an aqua aerobic class, there’s a new dance/aerobic type class starting soon, and I need to squeeze that weight training in. I’m not giving up completely, but just going to change things up. I’m going to try to run at least once a week – and I’m going to keep trying to finish the full session. I’ll go for as long as I can and stop when I start to feel sick.

Taming the Lion

There was a great analogy that was posted on the MyFoodDiary forums: Addiction is like a roaring lion. Addicts who use tobacco, alcohol or drugs have to slam the door to the lion’s cage and walk away to recover. Food addicts have to open the cage and pet the lion three times a day for the rest of their lives.

I’m certainly not saying that food addictions are harder to handle than drug or alcohol addictions. But there is something uniquely difficult about an addiction where you can’t just avoid the trigger completely. You have to eat. You can’t just walk away from food. You can’t draw that clear line. There’s no monitoring needed – the solution is very clear: DO NOT DO THAT.

This is not the case with food. With food, you gotta go in there and make nice with the lion. To me, that’s why diets like MediFast (I also tried this one very briefly) and Jenny Craig are so appealing. Follow these instructions on how to pet the lion, and it won’t eat you. But the problem, of course, comes when you have to fly solo – the lion looks awfully hungry.

While I did gain some weight – maybe in comparison to others, I never let it get too bad. But I feel I was lucky in that I quickly realized how easily it could be to just keep packing on the pounds. These are all reasons why I now monitor what I eat as carefully as possible. If I have to go into that lion’s cage, I’ve got to know exactly what I’m doing, when I’m doing it, how I’m doing it because otherwise, it’s all over. If I could quit food cold turkey, I would. But (a) I love food!!! and (b) well, you can’t. Sorry. I may be thinner now, but it’s something that I’m going to always need to keep on top of. I’ll never be able to turn my back on that lion.

Beyond monitoring/calorie counting, a few other things I do to keep the lion under control:

If there’s snacks in the house, do not leave them where they are easily reached or seen.
When I go shopping, I try to buy a few healthy snacks to help with random cravings. I’ll look for the healthiest, lowest calorie things I can find. But even then, if you’re just going to town on the bag, it’s not going to be good. Also, if I see it, I’ll start craving it, even if I wasn’t craving it to begin with. So I’ll put them out of sight. (On top of the fridge or waaay in the back of the pantry) That way I have them when I really need them, but I won’t just want them because “they’re there.”

Do not bring bad things into the house!
Maybe this goes without saying, but I’ve heard people who are on diets say they suddenly lose it and eat a whole bag of Doritos. Uhm. WHY is there even a bag of Doritos in the house?? Do not buy things that will tempt you or have portions so ridiculously small that there is no way you could stay within their range. Sometimes the kids want some of these things, and I tell them point-blank – Sorry, we’re picking out healthier snacks – not just for you but for me too. Clear out the pantry and the fridge of unhealthy food. Throw it away! And do not bring more into the house.

Pay attention to what you’re doing
This does kind of fall in the monitoring category – but I think it’s worth mentioning. It’s way too easy to grab the bag of “healthy snacks” and bring them next to the computer – and eat the whole bag without realizing it. (Or maybe that’s just me) If I want to snack while I’m on the computer (which is probably not a good thing to begin with, but whatever), I’ll go measure out a portion, leave the bag in the kitchen, and then bring just the measured portion with me. That way, hopefully when the portion is gone, I’ll be done, and if I still want more, at least I’ll be aware of what I’m doing: get up, measure out a second portion, leave the bag, go back to the computer. Sure, if your computer is close to the kitchen, this is probably not going to work for you. I’d say the best bet is just not munch by the computer at all in that case.

Choose wisely
There are some days that lion is just loud. And really damn hungry. Some days you just want a massive huge plate of food. On those days, I’ll try to deal with it by getting a whole head of lettuce, which thankfully isn’t very calorie dense, and having a massive salad. (Of course watch how much dressing you put on, that stuff adds up). I’ll add in some cooked chicken to add some protein, and that usually does the job.

Some weight you don’t want to lose

I signed up for a few personal training sessions a few months ago. I’ve spaced them out with the idea that I could do some work on my own then check back with the trainer for futher advice. Unfortunately, I haven’t made the most of the last few months as far as strength training goes. I met with him anyway knowing that he was going to remind me why I really need to get the strength training back in.

As expected, I have lost a fair amount of weight since the last time I had my measurements taken. Inches came off everywhere (I’ll have to get and post the tally *see stats at bottom of post) but he told me that, without the resistance training, you can expect to lose between 2-3lbs of lean body mass (muscle) for every 10lbs of weight you lose. (Obviously you don’t want to do that. The idea is to be lean and mean – not lean and unhealthy.) And he was almost spot on. I’d lost 13lbs since the last time I was measured, and 2.3lbs of that was lean body mass. BOO! 🙁

So yes, I need to get the weights back into the routine. There’s so many obstacles – the biggest one being that right now, I’d rather be doing stuff outside; running, walking or biking. And of course there’s the issue that I’m just not into weight lifting. It’s not a whole lot of fun. But neither is losing muscle – so yeah, I know, I know. I’ve got to try and work it in, even just once a week is better than nothing.

* Here are the stats of # inches I’m down: (first number is how much from last time, second number is how much from the first time I was measure in February)
neck: .25″ (1.75″)
chest: 2.25″ (3.25″)
biceps: 1″ (2″)
forearm: .5″ (.5″)
waist: 1″ (1.25″)
hips: 1″ (2″)
thigh: 2″ (4.75″) (WOW! That is crazy.)
So a total of 8″ since last time, 15.5″ total.

Life getting in the way of health

It seems contrary to say that life could get in the way of health. If you are truly living a healthy lifestyle – wouldn’t health just be a part of life? That would be nice, but I think sometimes I continually battle to live that healthy lifestyle, and obstacles are always in the way of that. It is always a constant challenge. I have to accept that sometimes, living a health lifestyle doesn’t mean living it every second of every day. I am human, sometimes I lose focus, get distracted, have other priorities I need to deal with. And yes, that sometimes means forgetting about the “diet” (Sorry – not diet – HEALTHY LIFESTYLE!) 😉

The past week has been a perfect example of life getting in the way of health. I had two social events last week that impacted my dinner – My tickets for Harry Potter were on the early-ish side and that meant either completely skipping dinner or grabbing something from the movie theatre. (Neither option a particularly healthy one). The next night was a Margarita BBQ party. I planned on not overdoing it, and I didn’t totally pig out, but probably could have done better. Then the next day my daughter got sick at camp in the middle of the day, so I had to run and get her, get her to the doctors, run and get her medicine. She seemed better the next day, sent her back to camp, only to have to repeat the whole process again. Both nights, dinner became whatever was fast and convenient (which also usually means not the healthiest). Then on Monday night, Sam and I had our first date night in several months and we wanted to sample a number of foods from a nearby restaurant. This time, I KNOW I’ve done better.

(As another example – if you look at my weight chart on the right – you’ll see a huge drop and then a huge spike in the middle. That would definitely be life getting in the way of health. At that time in my life there were some significant events – one that made me stop eating completely for a few days, and then shortly after that a lot of traveling which made me eat food on the go. I think it took a while for my body and metabolism to recover from all that!)

Fortunately, or unfortunately, the interesting thing was that last week I hit a new milestone. A week ago my weight had been the lowest I’ve ever been able to get it down to. (135.2) I was worried that the past week would have really messed me up – but except for the few pockets of “could have done better” – the rest of the time I was doing okay. If my dinner sucked calorie wise, I had at least watched the calories for breakfast, and lunch and snacks.

So the a few takeaways I wanted to leave you with that I have learned:

1) Just because you blow it on one meal, doesn’t mean you’ve blown it for good. It’s not all or nothing.
If you know you’re going out later that evening, and know you want to be able to eat more “normally” – don’t figure the whole day is a loss and pig out all day. It doesn’t have to be that way. Save it for the party. That way the damage for the day is at least minimized. That’s not to say you should starve yourself during the day – but just keep the calories in a tight check. In the end, you’ll probably do better at the party than you thought, and you won’t have strayed off target too bad.

2) If you forgot to brush your teeth one day, would you throw your toothbrush away and figure the whole point of brushing teeth has been lost?
Of course the answer is no. You’d just brush your teeth the next day and get on with your life. This advice comes from one of the posters on the MyFoodDiary forums. I think it’s a great way of thinking about it. If one week is just a total disaster (like my week has been) keep trying to get back on track. Keep moving on. Don’t give up.

I did the above. Some meals had to slide and I ate more than I should, or the meal wasn’t as healthy as it could have been – but in between I did the best I could to stay on track. Things should start to settle down now. Work is still insanely busy right now, but I’m going to try and keep to the plan. The reminder to me that this is working is that despite the mistakes I made during the week – I still hit a new low today: 135.0lbs. So I only lost .2 lbs for this week – but given all the areas where I know I could have done better – I’m pretty happy with myself.

iPhone Applications for Kids (Part I)

Just about a year ago, I bought my iPhone. I have loved (almost) every minute having it this past year. I was a Mac fan even while I was still using a Windows machine, and finally made the switch to all Apple last year. At first, I was extremely protective of the iPhone and the thought of actually handing it over to my kids to let them play a game on it – it was madness.

Welllll….never say never. It’s amazing what one will do to entertain your child. There’s a number of apps (many of them free) that are great for kids. Some of them, I’ve even loved playing myself. Whenever I can, if there is a free trial version of a game, I’ll usually download that first to see if it holds their interest long enough to make a purchase worthwhile. In some rare cases, I’ve just gone ahead and splurged and just bought a game because it looked cool from the description (usually at a pricetag of $1!! Big spender that I am!)

I thought I’d share some of my favorite downloads. I’m constantly finding and downloading new applications (Yes, I have QUITE a few pages of apps on my phone!) so expect another post like this sometime in the future (shorter next time I promise). So assume this post is part one.

1) Solitaire City (Free trial | Full version)
Ok, maybe this one is more for me 🙂 but I can see older kids liking this game. I think the concept may be too hard for the real little kids, though. I got the free trial, and it became one of my favorite games on my iPhone. I went ahead and bought the full version to have access to all the other versions of solitaire, but the same one that is included in the free trial is the one I still play the most.

2) Airport Mania (Free trial | Full version)
In this list, you’re going to quickly find out that my favorite game genre is the what they call time management games. You have to do something for X Y and Z in such an order before A B and C walk in the door, or X gets pissed and leaves, etc. So this is a time management game with airplanes. Landing them in sequence, unloading and loading passengers, fuel and or repairs for the airplane.

3) Arcade Claw (Free trial | Full version)
Like the arcade game without the headache of feeding the machine endlessly while you continually just miss getting the super cool elephant stuffed animal.

4) Balloon Animals (Free trial | Full version)
I really like this one – kids “blow” the balloon up (by blowing into/at the iphone) then you shake the iPhone to twist the balloon into an animal. We only have the free trial on this one because it only comes with 7 animals if you buy it. (The free one only comes with one.) The description says it’s “packed with various animals” – I don’t really consider 7 to be “packed”… 15-20… maybe that’s packed. 7? Not really. Also, the game is about $2 (yes, I know, we’re getting nit-picky).  If they lowered the price, I’d buy it. OR if they added A LOT more animals, I’d buy it. In the meantime, my kids are still amused by the one that comes free.

5) Bug Squash (Free trial | Full version)
This one is a big favorite with them. Pretty simple game, bugs run across the screen – you need to squish them by touching them on the screen. We bought the full version on this one to get access to more bugs and get rid of the nagging in the free trial to upgrade. It’s worth it. My one complaint with this game: My son really isn’t playing a game here – he just likes squishing the bugs. For him, I wish they had an “endless mode” that would just keep the bugs coming until you said you were done.

6) Bugs! (Free)
This is like Bug Squash – with the endless mode – but without the variety you get in Bug Squash. BUT it’s free. 😀

7) Cooking Mama (Free trial | Full version)
We have this game on the Wii and my daughter loves it – we got the trial version and then the full version for the iPhone. You have to do certain things to cook a meal – and the better/quicker you do them, the higher you will score.

8 ) Crazy Hotdogs (Free trial | Full version)
Another time management game – cook hotdogs, don’t burn them (it makes the customers angry) 🙂 give them to your customers before they get tired of waiting and leave.

9) Diner Dash (Free trial | Full version)
Time management – seat customers, take their order, get their food, clean the tables and get the next set of customers in before they leave hungry. 🙂

10) Crazy Penguin Catapult (Free trial | Full version | Free trial version 2 | Full version 2)
Apparently there is something extremely entertaining about catapulting penguins. At least to my kids. Should I be worried? 😉

11) Pocket God (Full version)
This is one of those games I just had to risk it. As of this writing the game is only $.99 which is an amazing bargain for the amount of content they already have in the game. It seems like every other week they add a new “episode” (which you get as a free update after you buy the game) with new stuff. I don’t even know how to describe this “game” really – there’s pygmies on the island, and you can pick them up and move them around… or fling them into the distance into a volcano. Do that enough times and it will rain lava on the rest of the pygmies. A shark swims by, pick it up and it tries to eat the pygmies. Or in another scene, there’s a dinosaur egg that if you pick up and drop enough times, a dinosaur appears and eats pygmies that get too close to it. Latest episode has a dodo bird that flies overhead. Touch the dodo bird to drop… uhm… droppings on the heads of the pygmies. Just crazy random stuff.

12) Sally Spa (Free trial | Full version)
Cute time management game – my daughter loves this one. Send customers through a round of various spa services.

13) See ‘n Roar (Free)
My son loves this one. A wheel you spin with various animals on the wheel. When the arrow lands on an animal – you hear the sound it makes.

14) Supermarket Mania (Free trial | Full version)
Time management game – stock shelves in a supermarket, pick up dropped groceries. Watch out for theives, etc.

15) TanZen (Free trial | Full version)
Fun game with tangrams. When I first bought this game – it was missing a few features they’ve since added. Most notably a “hint” feature. (You’ll need that one the tougher puzzles!) 😉

16) ToMaCow (Free trial | Full version)
Another one that I don’t even know how to begin to describe the randomness. Aliens come to attack your farm, and you must try and kill them… with a hose that sprays… tomatoes.

17) What would you chose? Party game (Free)
I found this game through my niece (who is 13) and who giggled endlessly at the questions.

18) Dress Chica (Free)
Chica is a chicken puppet from the cable TV show PBS Kids Sprout, and in this application you get to dress her. Who knew putting clothes on a chicken would be so entertaining!

20) Kids Four (Full version)
I don’t know, maybe even the $.99 is still too much for what the app does, but my son really does like it. There’s four mini games – pick letters, shapes, colors, and numbers.

Also – don’t forget the applications that come with the iPhone (or at least the latest version of iPhone OS software). Voice Memos and the Camera are two of my son’s favorite apps. He especially loves recording himself singing. (Ironically, if I tried to get him to sing so I could record it, he’d probably refuse, but because he’s doing it himself, it’s fun)

(See Part II here for 15 more iPhone applications for kids)