Just say NO!

Hello sweetpeas!

So, it's Sunday evening and I am getting ready to settle in for a few hours rest before going back to work tomorrow. I've been on vacation since Jan. 1 and let me just tell you, there is power in resting. There are also temptations - hence the photo. Did I succumb? Do I have to tell you? Yeah...BUT...I also amped up my water intake, counted calories, exercised while in front of the TV and cooked healthy foods at home this week. Yay me!

Just like Amy and so many others in the community, I had the best workout ever while in my driveway this week. Did you know that if you use your legs, instead of your back, you really will get a great burn - for FREE! The proper technique is actually, squat, scoop, lift, toss and start all over again. Oh, and don't you even worry about the neighbors watching from their windows...you know they're watching, right?

There is a certain satisfaction in knowing that no matter what bad behaviours I did not correct this week, I made some great choices, lost inches - especially in the arms and I am beginning a new week minus 4 lbs. Not bad huh?

I've armed myself with good groceries and will head out tomorrow with breakfast, lunch, and (2) fruits. I will not visit any vending machines or the little store in our building for snacks. I will get up from my chair at least once every 90 minutes...walk a couple of laps around our floor - do a few arm circles, run in place...anything for exercise. And then...drum roll please...I will meet with Kara, our personal trainer.

I'll let you know how things work out but in the meantime, YOU be encouraged. We can do anything through Christ who gives us strength. My motto this year, or at least this month is: "Quit the jaw flappin' and just make it happen!" You can use this too if it helps!

Sleep well~

Jessica

Does anxiety burn calories?

Ever since I found out that I'd been selected as one of the Go Red Better U challengers, I've been most excited about the opportunity to work with a personal trainer. So when we received the news that we'd be working with trainers from Life Time Fitness in Castleton, I was pumped.

That is until Friday morning as I was driving to Life Time to meet with the trainer Kara. I could feel my heart beating a little faster at the thought of stepping onto the workout floor with a multitude of treadmills, elliptical machines, and stairclimbers and people who actually know how to use them. As I pulled into the parking lot, my palms got sweaty anticipating hard bodies in perfectly coordinated workout wear. When I walked into the building, I worried that my Vera Bradley bag would give me away as an exercise newbie or if that message wouldn't be clear until I actually asked my body to perform.

First, let me say that Life Time is a gorgeous facility -- spa/salon, restaurant, lap pool, traditional pool, hot tubs, gymnasium, cardio floor, massage rooms. If I ever had to choose to be snowed in somewhere, this place would not be a bad choice.

Second, despite the fact that she is fit and blonde and upbeat -- all things that can easily make me dislike a person -- Kara was terrific. She gave me a tour of the building, asked me to complete a profile of my current health and my goals and then discussed my answers with me. She talked about goal setting, nutrition, and body composition (how much of the body is made up of muscle vs. fat) Did you know that just sitting around, one pound of lean muscle burns 40-50 calories/day while one pound of fat only burns 3-5 calories a day?!

Soon enough though, the time for talk was over and Kara led me to a treadmill for the first part of my fitness assessment. I panicked a little when she set the machine for 3.4 miles per hour with a 5% incline, but I figured if I could do 15+ minutes on the elliptical, I could manage 5 minutes on the treadmill. I wanted to impress Kara with how fit I am despite appearances (delusion is hard to shake), so I struck up a conversation with her as the belt on the machine began to roll. That lasted about 3 minutes. By the end of 5 minutes, I wasn't talking to anyone except the voice in my head that was asking when it would be over.

I made it, with a heart rate about 15-20 points higher than optimal and a VO max (see Kimila's post "Paradigm Shift" below) that registered "extremely low." However, neither of those things led Kara to show me the door. Instead she was encouraging and assured me both of those things can change with some hard work.

The weight lifting test wasn't too bad, the flexibility measurement OK and the part where they pinch your body fat was as emotionally uncomfortable as always. The one bright spot in my fitness assessment was the fact that I did 23 push-ups (yes, the girl kind) in 60 seconds. My arms are still angry with me about that.

When the assessment was over, Kara gave me a printout of all my scores -- my 39-year-old body is actually behaving as though it's 55! She explained how working with the Life Time trainers over the next three months will help me improve my body composition, cardiovascular health, flexibility and strength. (We get a membership until the end of the challenge! Woohoo! Thank you Life Time!)

After I changed back into my street clothes and headed to my car, it struck me that I didn't recall what anyone was wearing or whether or not the person on the treadmill next to me was a hard body. What I did recall was that I watched a bit of an aquafit class I'd like to try, that the group aerobics class looked like fun and that no one seemed one bit concerned that I was wearing an old t-shirt.

I guess all that anxiety was for naught, except for maybe, hopefully, burning a few calories!

Paradigm Shift!!!

I had a fantastic week with many new opportunities! It was sort of an emotional roller coaster because I am wrestling with discarding my old habits and implenting new ones. I had been feeling really positive with my overall health reports until I went for my physical fitness profile. I have always thought of myself as being in quite good physical shape for my age, but I really am lacking in some areas. My strength and flexibility were great but my cardiovascular was really pretty discouraging. I knew this but really did not want to acknowledge it. My VO2 which is the oxygen intake your body is utilizing was not good. Of course smoking is the main culprit and that must go in order to make any significant change in my overall health. I love lifting weights but I DETEST doing cardio. I have been walking every morning at work thinking I was really doing something.....5 minutes on the treadmill had me gasping for air! I watch others running on the treadmills and wish that could be me! Kara of Lifetime (who is fabulous) encouraged me in that I was capable and had to commit to making it happen.

Another wake-up call was how important nutrition is to my health. I always kind of ignored the facts - I do eat fairly healthy...when I do eat. Hearing the facts of how I as neglecting my body was negating any progress was enlightening - how can you build muscle when your body is in famine mode? - DER!). I drink tons of coffee and little water which is basically leaving me dehydrated all of the time. Dry skin, tired, headache - all primarily due to dehydration.

I have come to realize that my brain is the "Master of Manipulation" and dealing with him is sort of like arguing with a three year old. My old habits do not want to give way to my new changes and it is an on-going internal war to overcome the Master! Telling myself, "Water and a piece of nicotine gum" becomes "Large diet Coke and cigarrette!" - "Treadmill" vs "Sauna." "I don't want to do that" is his primary response to my invitation to change.

I have a picture in my classroom of two birds in flight with the caption, "They can because they think they can." This has always been my philosophy in teaching.....it is not some new program, magic intervention, or sequenced activity - getting the students to believe in themselves is in itself ....the magic. Once they believe - they achieve.

I may be an old warrior - tattered and torn - but a warrior nonetheless. I have dealt with the Master many times and have overcome many difficult obstacles. Change is difficult - but necessary to move forward. So...all this being said; this week I have made some intial changes that are shifting the paradigm....

One bottled water before ANY coffee in the morning....limit intake to 2 before school
Cardio BEFORE weights...15 minutes
Hyberbaric chamber - 3 times to help heal and increase oxygen level - plus counter smoking need
Limit 10 cigarrettes - (He still is winning this one - but not for LONG!)
EAT - every 3-4 hours...(I know some are saying - "Oh, sooooo sorry!" - but it is a problem for me!)

All for now - hang tough!

Today's workout

Took me 50 minutes to shovel the drive and the walk. I'll admit that thoughts of having a heart attack while shoveling snow did run through my mind. Thankfully, my neighbor was also shoveling, so at least I knew if I keeled over, she'd be there to call 911.

I'm a believer

About a month before my friend handed me the Star article about the Better U challenge, I joined Weight Watchers. I was fed up with my weight, with the multitude of medicine bottles in my cabinet, with running out of breath any time I exerted just a little bit of energy.

My Weight Watchers journey has had plenty of ups and downs. Some weeks I'd have a good loss, some weeks a minor one, some weeks no loss at all -- or worse, a gain. By the time I met with Dr. Branyas in early December, three months after I started Weight Watchers, I'd lost a total of 8 pounds. Now, I'm not turning my nose up at 8 pounds by any means and I take full responsibility for the slow speed at which my weight loss was moving, but losing pounds at a glacial pace wasn't exactly inspiring.

One of the things Dr. Branyas told me was that I need to exercise...every day. Actually, she said plan to exercise daily. Sometimes things come up and the exercise doesn't happen. If you plan to work out 7 days a week, it's likely you'll at least make it 5. Plan to work out 3 days and soon enough you're only hitting the gym or the exercise videos once a week.

So I've been working out on my elliptical anywhere from 4 to 5 days a week and I recently dusted off the Wii Fit. I've also been walking the stairs at work -- up and down 5 times, for a total of 500 stairs. And do you know what? I've been losing weight more consistently. For probably the first time in years, I actually lost weight over the holidays.

When I went to my Weight Watchers meeting yesterday (Melissa Wrin, the registered dietitian at the St. Vincent Heart Center of Indiana said if WW works for me and I like it, to keep it up), I stepped on the scale and I was in NEW NUMBERS!

In fact, since my meeting with Dr. Branyas and my commitment to exercising just one month ago, I've lost 8 pounds -- the same amount it took me 3 months to lose without exercising.

While I may not love working out yet, I am a believer.

20 minutes of exercise today

OK, maybe 18. Or 17. Fifteen for sure.
And one pound off -- this is using Dr. Nancy Branyas' advice, which is to NOT weigh every day, but rather once a week. That's radically different than anything I've ever done before, which was basically, weigh every 45 minutes or so and keep exercising and/or starving until 3 lbs melted off.
Bummer.
The video workout I'm using now -- which I recommend -- came from HalfPrice Books and is titled YOU The Owner's Manual Workout. As advertised, it contains "three workouts -- hand weights plus cardio" plus 4 simple recipes (do not need that). Two doctors cooked it up; it's good. I especially like it because it involves no machines, just using the body's own motion. There's even one where you get on the ground and have to rise up with the use of only one hand, and you do this 20 or so times -- great for the heart, and great in case you ever fall down.
This is day 3 or day 4 of a cold,but I swear that exercise, Vitamin C, adequate sleep and good thoughts in general are keeping it at bay.
Good day, so far.

Guess what I'm doing???

Exercising with the Biggest Loser group...and tomorrow I'm going to find a stationary bike somewhere and go for the 26.2! Stay tuned...'nuf said~