Biggest Loser Year 10!

Along with the fall 2010 season of the Biggest Loser I am starting a new challenge for myself in my fitness and weight loss efforts.

I joined a Ravelry group for some added motivation called Biggest Loser Fitness and Knitting*. There is a mini competition where people can sign up to keep track of percentage of weight lost, and will be matched up with motivation buddies and that sort of thing. There are already some discussion threads going about nutrition and exercise.  I am also helping out as assistant moderator.

Of course, since this group is on a knitting site, there will be some knitting and crafting involved. Hopefully there will be a knit-a-long too.

So far my goals are to:
-work out a minimum of 3 days a week
-convince my doctor to take me off blood pressure meds
-strengthen the muscles around my knee and thereby stop the creaking and occasional pain
-continue to lose weight - at least 1 pound a week
-lose 30 pounds by December 31, 2010
-buy and use a heart rate monitor to keep my workouts more consistent and more productive

The premiere is tonight! Off to buy healthy groceries, work out, and watch the show.

*You have to be a member of Ravelry to join the group.

Two dueling guitars - one plays American heartland, the other a screetching rock riff. two skaters trip by in the street, inline and old school big wheels paired together. In a back yard big band horns rehearshal takes place as 4, no 5 runners pass by. And yes, woodsmoke on the air to my door. This is my neighborhood at 7:25 pm on a Wednesday.

Grocery shopping

Thursday after work I went grocery shopping. While I was sitting at my desk at work, I wrote out a perfunctory list. I realized at the end of my struggle in the frozen food aisle that I had pretty much stuck to my list. I did buy a few extra items, but I also didn't get two things. I NEVER stick to my list. This is a milestone!

Here's what I bought:

*items that were on my list

*Yogurt
*Cheese sticks
*Dubliner cheese
*Cottage cheese
*Cheese (yes, after all that, I needed to write down just "cheese" because I didn't have enough. Yes, I bought 4 distinct kinds of cheese. No, I was not having a wine and cheese party. Shush)
*Zucchini
*Spinach
*Broccoli
*Tomato sauce
Mushrooms
Frozen smoothie stuff
*Grapes
*Melon
*Triscuits
*Beans
Bananas
Sweet Potato
Bagged lettuce (I've been craving salad and figured, why not?)
Carrots
Croutons
Skinny Cow single serve Cookies and Cream ice cream
Thin Crust Margherita Pizza (It was on sale!)
Still, my purchases came to more than I thought they would. I even bought lot of things on sale or in their natural state, and tried to stick to my list.
Total spent - $64.95
11 out of 23 items on sale
Total saved - $9.26
Most expensive item - 24 pack of low fat string cheese
Least expensive item - bananas, $.69/lb., got 2 for $.50
 
I'm just so irked at the cost of decent food. Ugh. Sure, I could have only bought sale items and store brand, and trekked around the city from store to store cashing in on the bargains. I don't have a car. The grocery store I go to is in the city and has a high mark up. I am however able to walk home from the store and eliminate the need for a taxi or long bus ride and total exhaustion, thought I do tend to collapse once I get home from the sheer irritation factor of having to go to the store at all.

I'm also kind of shocked at how healthy this list is and the fact that there's no chocolate (unless you count the tiny single serving of Skinny Cow and let's face it, it's probably not 'real' anything. My eating has really changed for the better!

Slow progress, or maybe not...

I finally saw some change on the scale this week. After three weeks of nothing, I'm 3.4 down, bring me to 18.4 down since April 24, 2010 (my starting off point). I should be excited, thrilled, blah blah blah. The only ting running through my head lately is "how long until I get to my goal?" Or even "how long until I get to my mid-way goal of 200?" Seems like a long time away. Forever. I've been using a free App on my iPod Touch called Lose It! to track food and exercise. It lets me put in a goal and plan how much I want to lose per week up to two pounds, so two pounds it is. Even with that formidable weekly target I will not hit 200 until January 6, 2011 (according to the program). I thought - that can't be right, let me do the math myself. I printed out a blank calendar sheet for September 1 - December 31 and wrote in what my weight should be each week with the 2 pound loss. Well, the tech program is right. January 6, 2011, If I stay on track and lose that much each week. If I never give in to temptation and don't hit any plateaus. Ugh.

*Yeah, if I cared about people knowing how much I weighed before, I guess I don't now. Whatever the number is now it less than my highest. So figure out whatever you want. Thbbft!

Taking time for breath

During my lunch break today I must have heated and reheated my lunch 3 separate times while poking through emails, printing out invoices, poking around the internet, and playing on Facebook. And squirming around in my chair, hunched with stress and back pain.

I decided to try one of Kripalu's Audio Yoga Breaks for a little mindfulness to break up the day. How do I feel? Is this how I want to feel? I listened to Yoga Taps with Danny Arguetty. It was about 4 and a half minutes long, and guided me through a standing sort of soft pummeling of my body, working through the limbs, belly, butt, back, etc. as a way to increase circulation, stretch a little, and just step out of the stress of the day for a few minutes. It was great! I felt calmer, less tense, more awake, and more present in my day. I think I might start doing that when I hit my 2pm slump.

Kripalu has about a dozen of these 'breaks' posted on their site. Try one and let me know what you think.

God, is it hot. I am laying on the bed, half-dressed in the path of the fan, and I just dripped SKinny Cow fudge pop on the latest weight-loss memoir I'm reading from the library, Half-Assed* by Jennette Fulda. Whoops! What did I say I would do when I got home? Oh, right, work out with the P90 Sweat DVD. Uh huh. Maybe in an hour. While I'm doing laundry, cooking dinner, and talking to my sister. I think I'd rather read.


*This book is #31 on my 2010 reads list. Still attempting to read 52 books in 52 weeks, but not pressuring myself this year to finish everything I start reading. If it's bad, stop!

Citron progress

I have finished Row 18 of the 5th section. The pattern calls for 5 sections of 20 rows and a border section of 12 rows. I am definitely doing two more sections. I will never wear it if I stop at this size. I know the pattern makes more of a shawlette, but if this thing will never cover my shoulders, I think I would fling it across the room and leave it there. Maybe if I knit every day...I'll be done before the snow flies! Two more sections is 40 more rows, and these are biiiig rows that get over 600 stitches across. Eeep!

I also want to pick up a project from last fall - a wedding gift of a cabled pillow for my sister that I lost momentum on as the wedding drew closer. I figure if I can finish it by her 1 year anniversary then I'm in the clear. And I think that switching from working on my lace weight Citron to a worsted weight project will make the rows fly by! If you happen to look at the project in Ravelry, I have more knit than shows on the project page. Honestly I do! I just haven't updated the photo. Which I will do. Tonight. Really.

Citron frustration

I was poking around on Ravelry looking at finished Citron shawls, and found poofus73's citron. She said it ended up looking like a tiny tea towel! That's exactly what I'm worried about. I am from healthy German stock and have the proportions to prove it. I don't want a big floppy shawl thing, but I also don't want to end up with a tea towel that I spent 6 months making (at this point) that doesn't look good and I won't wear out of the house. The shawl model on Knitty looks quite tiny and I can't see how that same size shawl on me will even come over my shoulders. I've now knit to the point where I am halfway done with the 5th and final section. Then there is a ruffle edge section which is 12 rows. I can sort of try it on now, but I certainly can't hold it AND see where it falls, let alone take a photo. I think there might have to be some photos taken at my knitting group tonight.

When I bought the yarn to make this shawl I bought two skeins of Malabrigo lace, planning on making it doubly big. I just don't want it TOO big. And I know it will stretch out a bit. Relax. Settle in to it's shape. So I don't want to go wild and add too many extra sections. I've seen some pictures of this shawl with anywhere from 5-9 sections. The thing is, in most of the photos, the shawl is laid out flat and NOT shown on a person. How do I know how big it turns out if people don't photograph themselves wearing it???

Hopefully photo of 5 full repeats to follow soon.

Taking a breath

Sleep has been hard to come by for the past few weeks. A combination of reluctance to head towards rest time, mental and physical distractions including endless self improvement, impossible perfection standards, and a midnight visit from a bat have kept me from getting more than 5 hours of sleep at a stretch. I am tired exhausted. I am starting to resemble an after image. I have not been able to quiet my mind because I haven't taken the time for myself to make it possible.

I've managed to read a lot of books during this time, but my knitting has suffered a great deal - mainly becuase I don't trust myself to knit when I'm tired and not drop stitches, make mistakes, or switch directions in the middle of a row, as I did during my knitting group a few weeks ago!

Starting to practice yoga more, even if it's for 5 minutes. It helps me center and quiet my mind, this ambitious beast clamoring to outdo Wonder Woman by sheer volume of accomplishments. I end up with a pile of started projects, but nothing to show for my spinning wheels. I know what to do, I just need to think I am valuable enough to take care of and spend the time. 

Last week I read this on PlanetYoga:

"Waking up this morning, I smile, 24 brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with the eyes of compassion."-Thich Nhat Hanh

Meditation for today: sit comfortably tall, close your eyes, listen softly to your normal breath. Smile.