maybe protein is the answer

Last week, I fired up the old SparkPeople account and started logging my food and exercise again (I started way back when I was trying to lose the weight from Kat’s pregnancy).  As I’ve mentioned before, my exercise routine isn’t about losing weight, but I thought maybe it would help to get a good look at the food I’m using the fuel my body.

All I can say is, bleh.  My eating has really gotten out of hand.  I think my biggest problem is that I’m not consistent.  I don’t always eat 3 meals a day.  Sometimes I get busy and let myself skip a meal.  Sometimes I eat way too much (like the two full bowls of cereal I had for a snack yesterday) and sometimes I don’t eat enough.  Sometimes I don’t drink enough water.  Sometimes I drink one too many beers in the evenings.  Lots of things I can see wrong with my eating habits. 

One thing I noticed over the last several days is that I’m not getting enough protein.  I know protein is an important fuel.  I wonder if this is part of the reason I’m sluggish during the day.  Yesterday, for the first time since I’ve started tracking food again, I finally fell into the appropriate range for protein (the days before I was way below) and today?  I feel great!  Maybe it’s in my head?  Hehe.

I think I’ll start making an effort to eat more protein and see if this continues.  I’m already in the appropriate range for today after having scrambled eggs for breakfast and leftover pork chops for lunch.  I need to do some research and see what other high protein foods I can have on hand, because I know that after about a week I’ll be sick of eggs.  Hrm, maybe sausage!

In other news, I DVR’ed Kathy Griffin on Larry King last night.  For those who don’t know, I’m a huge Kathy Griffin fan.  I watch all her D List episodes, I DVR all her comedy specials.  I love that she’s outrageous and outspoken… Jason’s so surprised at my love for her, considering how crude she is, and how I’m so NOT like that.  Maybe that’s why I like her so much, she says all the things I wish deep down I could.  ANYWAY, I think it rocks she got an Emmy and all that - but the exciting part is that she’s on tour and she’s going to be at the Bob Carr in Orlando in January.  I MUST GO!!  I’m emailing with Jason right now trying to work it out.  I need someone to go with me - anyone in Orlando want to go see Kathy Griffin??  Email me! 

i’m the type of girl that loves a challenge

So I threw out my “smart program” level 1 for a week plan this morning.  Because you know what?  Getting on that machine for 20 minutes of level 1 again just seemed like a waste of time and I don’t like wasting my time.

See, I did a little reading on this machine - level 1 is for weightloss.  Level 2 is for when you hit your weightloss plateau.  Level 3 is the beginning of real aerobic exercise and that’s what I want.  So I skipped ahead to level 3.  And let me just say - THAT was a workout.  It was awesome.

“Smart program” level 1 spent a lot of time on resistance levels 1-3.  “Smart program” level 3 today spent the majority of the 20 minutes at resistance levels 4-7.  That felt awesome.  I didn’t hurt at all throughout, but I worked up a good sweat and a good pant, and I felt some burn in my muscles.  Just exactly what I want.

Don’t know how long I should keep at level 3, I suppose as long as it takes to feel like it’s not a challenge anymore?  And then move up?

This goal of mine to hit “smart program” level 6 is going to be a cinch.  I need to add something else to my goals.  I’ll think on it.

For now, I need to go get a shower.  I’m icky.

getting physical - day 1

Jason cleaned up the elliptical for me and brought it in over the weekend, so I started my new little workout plan today.  Pleasantly surprised to know that the activity involved with 2 kids, and walking Jag back and forth to his kinder building everyday (rather than dropping him off in the carpool lane) has me in better shape than I thought.  Two years ago when I bought this machine, I could barely make it through the level 1 “smart program” without hurting about half way through (it has 6 workouts pre-programmed, 1 being the easiest of course).  That was in July/August 2005, just before I got pregnant with Kat (at which time I was ordered by the OB/GYN to stay off the machine for the duration of my pregnancy and I’m sad to say I never got back on it until now).  This morning, I breezed right through level 1 with barely any sweat or loss of breath!  Woo!

So in light of that, I’m going to stay on level 1 just for this week, then starting next Monday I’m going to move on up to level 2 and see how I do.

As I mentioned before, I’m not really looking to lose any weight in this process (though if I do, I won’t complain!) so I’m not going to track my weight and such.  I think I might get myself one of those step counters though, that might be a good way to track my activity.  Otherwise, it’s going to be all about how much of a workout I can get through.  More specifically, I want to get to level 6 and not feel like I’m going to die.  If I get that far, I feel confident I’ll be in good shape for hiking through rainforests like the Ticos do. 

So that’s my goal.  Level 6 on the machine by March 2008.  I plan to do this by working on the elliptical every M-F for the duration of the pre-programmed workout, which varies 20-30 minutes a day depending on the level.

I want to add more goals and plans as I go, as well, so I’ll post as I think of them.  And I’ll continue to update on my progress.

this blog and some other stuff

So I made a blog change.  It’s not huge, in fact it shouldn’t really be too noticeable to most (especially since there are only like 3 people reading - hullo, 3 readers!).  I had set up a WordPress blog through my host, and honestly?  It sucked.  I had very limited customizing options and I had limited access to stats.  SO, I switched to a WordPress hosted blog with a much more feature-rich version of the interface and just forwarded my domain to here for now.  You three readers can change your bookmarks, or not.  I’m not getting rid of the domain name so I’ll keep it forwarded, I hope to eventually install something on my own server myself, but until I find the time, this will work.  (NOTE:  I just realized that if you read me through something like Google reader, you will have to switch to the new url - sorry ’bout that!)

Not totally crazy about the template but I haven’t taken the time to look through them all yet or see about the customizable ones so it’ll do.  It’s SO MUCH better than the last one though!

I seem to have lost my blogroll in the move though, and didn’t think to save it all before deleting the old blog, so I’ll need to make some time to sit down and redo it.

On to other news…

We spent Labor Day weekend in Atlanta.  We got it in our heads that we needed to get away, so we sat down at the last minute and booked it all.  It was a really fun time, but completely exhausting.  I learned after the first full day that while I’m okay weight-wise, I’m not exactly fit.  My endurance sucks and if I don’t start working on it soon, I’m going to be in a world of hurt for our big vacatoin next spring.

Did I mention our big vacation next spring?  I think I might have said we were thinking about it, but it’s pretty definite now… Costa Rica!  Kid-free!  Woohoo!!  Lots of hiking, kayaking, zip-lining, etc, so I really need to get in shape!  I’m going to have Jason drag the elliptical machine back in from the garage as soon as he has a few free minutes (the poor man is non-stop lately) and when the weather starts to cool off, I’ll be able to do bike-rides and walks with Kat.  That’s the start of my plan.  I’ll do that for a couple of months and see how it goes before I take it any further.  I’ll try to keep note of my progress here as I go.  In fact, I’ll add a new catagory for it.  Oh, and one for my travel notes too.

I’ll close with a few of my Atlanta shots.  I rented the Canon 10-22 for a week.  Love love love that lens.

    

    

    

Not finished processing yet, but this is the bulk of what I’m putting online.  You can see the rest here:  Atlanta - Labor Day Weekend 2007.