Confession and Penance

OK, first the confession: my plan to join in on the morning fitness scheduled at Blissdom? Didn’t happen. I have no one to blame by myself for that, too.

The first morning, I mistakenly set my alarm for PM instead of AM, so it didn’t go off and my body took full advantage of the extra sleep. The second morning, I was feeling unwell after a night full of rich foods and way too much wine, so I chose to sleep in and rest my poor angry stomach.

In my defense, I do work third shift, so mornings are usually the worst time ever to ask me to be awake.

The good news is that despite the lack of formal exercise, and despite being surrounded by a non-stop array of delicious foods (Blue Bunny ice cream! Lobster bisque from Red Lobster!) I didn’t gain a pound while in Nashville. I did eat plenty of good food, but the Gaylord Opryland is practically a city within itself, so you have to walk a mile to get anywhere. I may not have been in a group fitness class, but I logged a lot of distance in my shoes!

But this week, oh, I’m gonna be served some serious penance. You see, last month Groupon ran a special for a 6 week bootcamp program offered by Body by Todd here in Columbus. It includes two 1-hour sessions a week, with the promise of serious results if you stick with the program. The deal was too good to pass up (seriously, it was like 90% off the usual price!), so I bought it.

On Saturday I went for my “fitness evaluation” which was really more an orientation of the facility and how they operate. It was a little frightening. I mean, the facility is very nice, and the trainers seem dedicated to helping people reach their goals, but it sounds…hard.

Everyone has to bring a Gatorade to their first three sessions in case we feel any nausea and need to get our blood sugar up right away. We also bring our own towels and were told that we will be dripping with sweat. Wet with sweat and a threat of vomiting – sounds like lots of fun, right?

I’m aware this will be hard. However, I rarely make enough time to take care of myself, choosing instead to let other things get in the way of my needs. For the next 12 weeks (I bought 2 of the Groupons), I have two classes that I’m scheduled to attend, and I will attend them because I’ve paid for them and won’t let that money go to waste. At the bare minimum I will have two hard workouts each week, with the hopes that I’ll squeeze in some workouts at home in addition.

And during the fitness evaluation, the trainer was reviewing my materials and saw my goal weight listed. My weigh-in weight was 181, and I wrote 155 as my goal weight. She looked me up and down for a moment, then said, “Hmm, you want to get to 155? Well, I’m going to list your goal weight as 155-162. At 155, you’ll be SKINNY!”

I nearly laughed. 155 is considered the top of the “normal” BMI range for my height. I’ve always seen it as my “wouldn’t it be nice, but not dreaming too big” goal, because I figured I’d still be heavy at that weight, just not quite as bad. Hearing her say I’d be skinny at 155 made me feel really good about that goal, or even getting near it.

I’ll report back after my torture tonight – it’s my first bootcamp session. Here’s hoping I don’t vomit or pass out!



Dedication While Away

Keeping up a workout routine and good eating habits is hard enough when you’re in your normal environment of home and work. You can select what foods you bring to work. You know when you have free time to work out. You select what foods go in your cart at the grocery.

But when you’re away from home at a conference or on vacation? All bets are usually off.

Not this time.

I’m leaving this morning for Blissdom, and not only am I excited about attending the conference again, meeting up with great friends and having a fantastic time in the Gaylord Opryland Biodome, I’ve also signed up for morning fitness sessions.

Say what?

Yes. I’m going to get up way too early – ON PURPOSE – and drag my (likely) underslept self out of my room to exercise. Willingly. Twice.

Maybe this has become a lifestyle change? Or maybe I just want to get in a good workout to justify the extra calories I will be consuming while at the conference? Either way, I’m going to make sure I’m at each workout to ensure I don’t completely derail my progress in one trip.

I just hope I don’t look too bad when I’m red-faced and gasping for air in my frayed workout gear.



Practice Makes Perfect?

I’ve done the dieting thing many, many times. And over the past two years I’ve slowly figured out the best method for losing weight, by making entire lifestyle changes and incorporating healthier foods and more exercise into my daily life.

Of course I’ve had moments where I’ve slipped up, gained a little weight back, and forgotten some of what I had learned. Which always means getting back on the bandwagon and slogging through those first hard days all over again.

This time, though? Getting back on track has been much easier. I’ve fallen back into good eating habits with relatively few feelings of deprivation. I’m trying to find moments to squeeze in exercise. My team ordered pizza (thin-crust) at work tonight and I ate three squares (roughly 300 calories) and stopped. Hear that, universe? I ate pizza and STOPPED AT THREE SQUARES! Hell might just be a little colder right now from that event.

Maybe I’ve finally done this enough that my body is ready to accept it as the new normal. Maybe I’ve just finally grown some willpower over food.

I’m still logging my food each day using the Lose It app, tracking how much I eat and trying my best to stay under my calorie limit each day.

I’m also experimenting with different workouts. I love running, and really want to get back into it, but our outdoors is currently all SNOMG! and my closest treadmill is a 20 minute drive with limited hours when I’m usually sleeping.

My current favorite is Crunch – Super SlimDown. I found it on Netflix and gave this yoga/pilates blend workout a try earlier this week. I like it because it is challenging but not impossible. There are modifications for beginners and she walks through each move fairly slowly before doing it full speed. I finished the workout and thought “huh, that wasn’t too bad” and then woke up the next day feeling every inch of my midsection. I had no idea I worked my abs that hard, but oh, I feel them now! This one is definitely part of my weekly rotation from now on!

The goal I’ve set for the next week is to focus on drinking more water. I tend to drink only caffeinated drinks – especially diet soda – and I know it’s not the best for me. So I’m going to start squeezing a few more cups of water in between each diet soda and see if it helps me feel better.



Sick Child = Picnik Account Giveaway!

We’re currently dealing with a sick child in our house. Mira came down with a massive cold on Friday, and we’ve reached new lows of sleep deficits due to her inability to sleep more than 15 minutes without coughing, waking up and crying.

This is only Mira’s second big cold, not counting occasional runny noses that don’t develop into much. Her first cold was at 6 weeks old, when they stuck a needle in her back as a result, so I can see why her immune system has been on high alert to avoid any further colds.

Since she’s sick, and I’m exhausted as a result, this makes it a perfect week for some giveaways. And it happens to be the Bloggy Giveaways carnival right now, too – Mira has good timing.

So first up, today I’m giving away a 1-year premium account to Picnik. If you haven’t used Picnik yet, you don’t know what you’re missing. It is a web tool that lets you edit your photos, with everything from simple touch-ups and brightness adjustments to wacky effects and collages. I use it all of the time to touch up and add special effects to my photos.

Many of the tools are free to use, but some of the cooler effects and collages are limited to premium accounts. They have a new set of Valentine’s Day collages right now. In less than 5 minutes, I put this together:


And I’ve used their special effects to produce images like this:

color boost, slight softening, greater contrast

To enter:

Leave a comment on this post telling me how you currently edit your digital pics. Be sure to leave an e-mail address for me to contact you if you don’t have a Blogger profile – many times Blogger doesn’t record e-mail addresses. One entry per person per day.

This giveaway will end Friday, January 30 at 11:59pm. One winner will be chosen at random using Random.org and e-mailed the gift code for a Picnik premium account over the weekend.

Good luck, and watch for more giveaways this week!

Edited to add: Thanks to the folks at Picnik, I’m now expanding this giveaway to TWO winners!

Comments are now closed for this contest.



Come Out, Come Out, Whoever You Are

Apparently today is Delurking Day, according to Rude Cactus and several others I’ve come across while doing my daily browse of blogs. This thing always sneaks up on me, kinda like the guy in the graphic.


So, um, if you read this, leave me a comment and let me know you’re here, OK? Especially if you don’t comment regularly – or at all. You can stay anonymous if you’d like.

Consider this the annual census of my blog. Only I don’t come knocking on your door at dinnertime to ask you how much you make annually and how many children you have. And feel free to drop any suggestions or praise you might like to share.

(As always, any complaints written in the message body of a $20 Amazon gift certificate e-mail will be read. All others will be ignored.)

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