The Arsenal

WEEK 4: Still Tickin'

"If you intend to go to work, there is no better place than right where you are."

-Abraham Lincoln

Week four is over already!!!  I have to admit that I have made it further than I initially thought I could. Normally, by now my ADHD has usually kicked in and...wanna ride bikes? Oh look, a butterfly! Only kidding. This time, although I have had struggles, I'm dialed in. The process has been fun, my mind is engaged, and my body is responding. Perhaps all 10 of my commandments have not been met each week.  Perhaps I have curled up and napped a time or two instead of going to the gym as scheduled or embarking on a run.  It doesn't matter, as long as I jump right back on where I left off without too long a pause in the action.

This week was actually pretty fantastic. My eating habits while on the road have been historically atrocious-to the tune of 2500-3000 calorie days. This week I was able to whittle it down to 2000 calories a day and below.  I intend to improve on that during week 5.  My culinary skills are improving-so much so that I think I used every dish in the house, and the resulting dish-washing marathon may have left permanent water wrinkles on my hands.  And here is the best part-  I ONLY ATE FAST FOOD FOUR TIMES LAST WEEK!!  That doesn't seem like such a big deal until you consider the fact that at my lowest point I was eating it three times a day every day! (Apparently watching "Supersize Me" ten times wasn't enough to make the message stick).

A dear friend volunteered to walk with me and many others have been offering encouragement and support. This is invaluable and means a ton to me. Interestingly, I have so much to gain by succeeding and so much to lose if I falter. This journey isn't just about weight loss.  People tell me that they understand where I'm at and have been inspired by my efforts to change. This is a complete surprise to me. For so long I felt like I was the only one in this predicament and hid away in silence and shame. Those of you who have reached out to me, please know you inspire me right back. You've helped to recharge my batteries in a way I never expected-thank you.

Some of you have asked me how exactly I'm doing what I'm doing-what kind of diet, excercise, program, etc...  To answer some of that, I'm going to share my arsenal.  This IS a kind of war.  It is a waging of battle against an invisible, deadly, internal enemy that will be ousted!!  I decree it!!  So, here are my weapons of "Body-Mass Destruction." (tee hee)  I've inlcuded links at the end.

CULINARY COMBAT

The Yellow Plate of Power and the Magic Placemat             
 The YPP came from the camping section at Walmart. If you tip your head to the right, you can see that it smiles at you. The Magic Placemat came from the nutritonist. My partner is addicted to laminating and therefore the placemat is neatly laminated. I suck at portion control, but kind of rock when I have the YPP to use. The big part is always filled with salad and veggies, the little parts with the healthy amount of protein and starches as outlined on the Magic Placemat.  The Yellow Plate of Power and the Magic Placemat have a sidekick: Felicia the Fabulous Food Scale. Felicia is digital and is capable of weighing in kilograms, grams, ounces and pounds. Very handy for figuring out of I'm serving myself the correct amount of food.  Not surprisingly, I am always shocked by how very little food is contained within an ounce.

The Eat Clean Diet by Tosca Reno.  For food guidance and recipes I follow the eat-clean diet as outlined by Tosca Reno. In addition, I make a lot of the recipes the good folks at Better Homes and Gardens put together in the Eat Well, Lose Weight cookbook. Why did I pick these books?  Tosca Reno is not a bullshitter. She says it's hard work, and she says it will take time, but she also says it's worth it. Her books are both inspirational and make sense to me.  Although she does seem to be extraordinarily fond of photo shoots of herself.  :) And dude, it's Better Homes and Gardens. What else is there to say?

The Traveling Answer    One of my biggest issues has always been travel and how to make healthy selections when it seems that everything is a fast food option. My gym had a special on cases of these lovely little 100 calorie Muscle Milk shakes. They are perfect and filling, and they stave off hunger just long enough for me to fight off the siren call of the drive-thru. They are not entirely horrible on the taste buds either. It says right on the side to serve cold...they are not kidding. Drinking one of these things warm is definitely a gacky mcgaggerson experience akin to drinking eggnog mixed with sidewalk chalk. Chilled, these drinks are transformed! It's like magic.

Weapons of Body Mass Construction

These are the applications I have added to my phone to help me keep track-REAL TRACK-of what I'm doing. mapmyfitness, Couch to 5K, and myfitnesspal.
mapmyfitness: This app is a GPS tracker that records a map of my running or walking route.  It tracks how far I went, how long it took me, and where I went geographically.  It is a totally 100% Big Brother-esque application that stalks me when I work out. On an up note, if I somehow get hit in the head during a collision with an albatross and suffer a bout of temporary amnesia, when I regain consciousness my mapmyfitness app will show me the way home. Cool, huh?

Couch to 5k (C25K):  This is a lovely little program is designed to take someone from couch potato-hood to 5k running capability. The plan is to start with walking/running intervals and slowly work up to all running over the course of the 8 week program. I've been on week One for four weeks now. Granted, I've been more like a full-on couch cushion instead the couch potato sitting on top, so I certainly have further to go.

myfitnesspal: This application rocks. It has both a mobile and an online interface. You record what you eat and what you do to work out. It does all the fancy math and tells you how many calories you have left in the day, how much you burned, how long it will take you to reach your goal...tons of peachy info with graphs and everything.  There is a HUGE food database for figuring out calories, an online support community-all the fun stuff. It just makes tracking everything incredibly easy.  I use it in tandem with my favorite work-out and fitness log the Bodyminder Workout and Exercise Journal (at right). I've seen a lot of different journals and this one is just easy, simple and not full of a lot of fluffy b.s.  There's room for a 13-week fitness plan and goal-setting, as well as a whole lot of useful trackers in the back. And I like to have a paper journal too so I can flip through it later, stick stuff to it/in it, and make notes and doodles in it.  Sort of a smash journal for my flubber.

My gym of choice is 24Hour Fitness. We have a love-hate relationship.  I love the gym, I hate all the skinny little troglodytes in the locker room talking about how fat they are, and then whispering behind their hands about which gender I really am. Ugh. However, I've been with 24Hour Fitness long enough that I pay an amount per month so low that the membership people gasp whenever they see it. Recently my hate has subsided and I just don't give a fig what the skinny little people are grumbling about anymore. Fuck em'. I have muscles to grow and fat to make cry.

Little Red Riding Wii:   There is a red Wii in our house. It's main job has been to provide Neflix to a chip-eating, couch-cushion-becoming, bump on a lump on a log. We only have two actual video-type games for the Wii (I don't even know what they are). What we have instead is a stack of fantastic I like to think of as my own personal sexy stack. That's right, I'm going to dance myself sexy to the sweet beats of Just Dance 2-4, Zumba Fitness and Michael Jackson-The Experience. For those days when I can't get to the gym we have WiiFit Plus and EA Sports-Active 2. The other night I worked out with the traininer on EA Sports and I almost puked.  My 24-Hour Fitness trainer would be so proud. She DID make me puke the first time we worked out together. Mortifying, but at least she knew I was giving it my all.  :)

Fitbit Ultra: This little gadget goes with me everywhere. It rides around on my bra and counts my steps, calories burned, distance traveled (on foot) and even tracks my sleeping patterns while in a band around my wrist at night. It's tiny, but it's been quite illuminating. Not only was I not moving around enough during the day, but every night around 3:30-ish I'm awake for about 1/2 hour, but never have memory of it.  Must be when I'm doing all the sleepwalking...  My favorite thing about the Fitbit is that it grows a little digital flower as I work out. If I work out enough it will grow a whole sunflower. This entertains me and somehow encourages me to work harder and more often to keep the flower at maximum growage. (I feel vaguely manipulated.)  It also has an online interface with graphs and charts and other cool, gadgety stuff.

Accessories

Bandanas: 50 of them. One for each work out. Necessary for motivation, accessorizing, flair, sweat control, snot rag, what have you...


Shoes: Went to Fit Right Northwest and got fitted for these awesome shoes.  They have a lot of miles on them and my left big toe is coming up out through the top, but I love them. Time to go get a replacement pair.


Sunglasses: to hide from the paparazzi.



Push-up gloves: Not like a push-up bra.  These are for people like me who have issues with wrist pain because we stay up all hours typing out blogs and such.  There are special pads built in to relieve stress on the wrist while doing push-ups

Water Bottle: I searched high and low for just the right water bottle. It has more to do with the lid than anything. You see, I somehow never learned how to gracefully drink from a normal water bottle.  I'm all slurp and spill and unacceptable glugging noises. And then, because 1/2 of my lower jaw has no nerves, a good portion of the water ends up all down my front without me noticing.  So, the water delivery system is key.  With this bottle I can just lean back and pour water down my gullet with minimal racket and only minor spillage.  Hydration bliss.




Inhaler: Another love-hate relationship.  I never needed one until I let myself go.  Now I need one. I love how it opens up my lungs, but I do not want to get dependent on it.  I want to eliminate it from my life by getting healthy. Damnit.

Necessities

Creative Cursing:  Because I need to branch out with my blasphemy.  And nothing makes me blaspheme quite like the mirror, the scale, and getting dressed in the morning.

Motivation and Encouragement: I keep going for me, but love and support in this endeavor is invaluable. On the hard days, I know I can reach out for help if needed.  Thank you to my inspirations!  If you'd like to send inspiration via snail mail or if you'd like to receive inspirational postcards from me via snail mail, feel free to write to:
Tracy Sand
P.O. Box 821506
Vancouver, WA 98602

I'll always reply.

That is my arsenal. It's keeping me strong.  It's keeping me going, and it's going to keep me alive and well.  Start building yours today!!

Links:

Yellow Plate of Power:  http://www.walmart.com/ip/Coleman-Melamine-Plate/16472392

Magic Placemat:  CCS Diabetic Placemat

The Eat-Clean Diet:  http://www.eatcleandiet.com/

Eat Well, Lose Weight: Better Homes and Gardens Eat Well, Lose Weight Cookbook

Muscle Milk:   http://www.musclemilk.com/

mapmyfitness:  http://www.mapmyfitness.com/

Couch 2 5K: http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml

myfitnesspal: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/

Body Minder: Body Minder journals

24-Hour Fitness: http://www.24hourfitness.com/

EA Sports Active 2: Amazon.com EA Sports Bundle

Fitbit: http://www.fitbit.com

Fit Right NW: http://www.fit-right-nw.com/

Rejuvenation Gloves: http://www.dickssportinggoods.com

Subzero Water Bottle: http://www.subzerogear.com/

Exercise-induced Asthma: http://www.webmd.com/asthma/guide/exercise-induced-asthma