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So Monday night during drill team practice I succumbed to the flu as did Mike. Luckily Mom was willing to risk catching the flu to come and watch the Bear. Luckily it was just a stomach bug, I'm guessing the same one the Bear had last weekend. But it was a 24 hour bug that rendered me useless. Mom and Dad stepped up to take care of the horses while I was curled up in a ball wishing to feel better.
By Wednesday, Mike, the Bear, and I were in the clinic because the Bear was going downhill. He'd caught RSV (poor guy). After we got back from the clinic, Mike and I pushed in round bales. Because we hadn't done it during the weekend, and I had planned on pushing bales in Tuesday night, the horses were out come Wednesday. Luckily Dad had thrown hay for everyone. After we pushed in bales for everyone, Mike and I were exhausted.
Thursday found me down with the adult version of RSV, which is really just a bad cold. But now I know what the Bear has been going through. Luckily the weather had been nice all during the week so I wasn't too worried about the horses. But about 2pm on Thursday it started to rain. Yup, rain in January. I was worried about the horses getting chilled and then the cold front coming through. But the cold front waited until Saturday to blow in. But the rain melted a lot of the snow. Unfortunately rain at this point in the season does us absolutely no good and the runoff of the melting snow doesn't do us any good either.
When I went out to do chores Friday morning, the ground was a sheet of ice. Holy Sheet of Ice! Everything that was slushy has now turned into a sheet of very slick ice. Ive come close to falling a dozen times. It makes hauling water back to the mares very tricky. Even walking back and forth from the hospital ward to the barn is tricky. I'm not sure if we'll get warm weather again to try and thaw out that sheet of ice or not. If not, I'm going to have to figure out some way to melt the ice in the horses's pens for their safety.
The cold front blew in Saturday. We went from 39 degrees to 12 degrees for the high. I forget how much I hate the cold. I would much rather have snow than cold temps. Because of the cold temps and wind chills (and the fact I'm still fighting off this really bad cold), I only did chores and came back in. I would have loved to spend some time with the herd but I was getting exhausted.
So that leads us to Sunday. We are curled up under blankets watching TV, resting and trying to recuperate. It's going to take a bit for me to get back on my feet 100 percent. Seems like the Bear is doing better. We'll see how I do as the day progresses. It's going to be a fairly quiet week I hope. I need time to recover from all these different bugs. I'm sure the horses are enjoying me not pestering them all the time.
24 Şubat 2013 Pazar
Makin' Snow Angels
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What a weekend. If I wasn’t asleep on the couch by 8:30pm, I was out living the high life (haha). Saturday morning we scurried around trying to beat the cold front that was blowing in. Mike worked his butt off to get tanks filled, doors unfrozen, corral panels moved, etc. I stayed in and watched the wind progressively get worse. Saturday night we attended the Inter-Lakes Rocky Mountain Elk Banquet (instead of going to the Mitchell Horse Sale). From the time we left our house to the time we got to the banquet, the temperature had dropped 15 degrees.
Running on Fumes
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It’s been an insane week. I’m running on fumes (and caffeine) to get me through the days. I don’t have the energy to go into all that we’ve been doing this week. In a nutshell: lame horse, pregnant mare, sick baby, hospital visits, major surgery, more hospital visits, no sleep, snow storm, bad roads, ice, ice, and more damn ice.
I’ve taken to composing little ditties when I’m rushing through chores.
Hoses are heavy,
I know, not appropriate but that’s just what it is.
The worst part, I was out feeding horses last night in the snow at 10pm after another hospital visit and got a bloody nose. I hate bloody noses but it’s ten times worse when you’re out throwing hay. Hay sticks everywhere and throw in a little bit of blood and I had hay and blood all over me. I came in from chores last night and told Mike I got into a fight with the hay. I’m not exactly sure who won.
I’m ready for a quiet weekend but I don’t see that happening.
I’ve taken to composing little ditties when I’m rushing through chores.
Hoses are heavy,
I know, not appropriate but that’s just what it is.
The worst part, I was out feeding horses last night in the snow at 10pm after another hospital visit and got a bloody nose. I hate bloody noses but it’s ten times worse when you’re out throwing hay. Hay sticks everywhere and throw in a little bit of blood and I had hay and blood all over me. I came in from chores last night and told Mike I got into a fight with the hay. I’m not exactly sure who won.
I’m ready for a quiet weekend but I don’t see that happening.
What's the worst that could happen?
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My father has a motto: "What's the worst that could happen?" In college my friends decided that the worst possible scenario should always end with "And then you can never have sex again!" which requires quite a bit of creative thinking. And although it can be a little annoying when my dad says it, I find it a useful exercise to hypothesize about all the horrible situations that could happen and how I could handle them. (In fact my father and I did it just this morning when I found out that the building I live in is foreclosing and we decided that the worst would be if I had to move back in with them and commute 2.5 hours to school which would be logistically impossible because I don't have a car and I rarely leave the academic buildings to begin with...and that would most definitely result in the situation that my college friends foretold)
Anyway, L and A and I were all set to leave the ecovillage and head on to the beach (!!!). We had called a taxi to come at 7AM, figured out the bus and ferry schedule and gotten all packed. The taxi showed up! On time! And despite my bruised little bottom the ride was not too horrific. The taxi driver and I spoke briefly about the semantics of the words parque, plaza and cancha...after he corrected me several times when I told him to drop us off in the central plaza. (Evidently their soccer fields are called plazas, their plazas are called parks, and their stadia called canchas...they also give all directions using meters instead of blocks "de la esquina 500 metros" which made me feel like I had to triangulate everything or carry a surveyors tape).
We arrived at the parque and the girls ran for breakfast while I again guarded the bags and verified the bus schedule....we were an hour early. As I sat, I noticed that some buses arrived with standing room only which worried me because we had a lot of gear and I didn't want to stand for 2 hours. So we got on line early and got seats and set out....on the slowest and hottest bus known to man. About a half an hour out of town the bust stopped for the gazillionth time, but this time people were muttering "Puntarenas, puntarenas directo, hay que bajarse, Puntarenas." A quick survey revealed that the bus behind us was going directly to Puntarenas (our intermediate destination) so we quickly got our stuff and switched buses. I actually thanked my lucky stars because if we were in Bolivia people would have silently debarked just knowing that the other bus was better and having no need to state it to the hot and frustrated tourists. Although equally oven-like the new bus was indeed better, less crowded and much faster....and thus we arrived at noon to Puntarenas described by my trusty rough guide as the hottest place in all Costa Rica, fading and wilting in the sun. I had a general idea that the next ferry to Nicoya Peninsula (yet another intermediate destination) left in two hours but I was hoping that there might be an earlier boat so we rushed into a taxi to the other end of town. No luck. A two hour wait. We chilled in a lovely gulf-side restaurant in perhaps the only town in Costa Rica where it is not recommended that you drink the water. A declined to take this advice citing the fact that she's Indian.
I am a nervous traveler and one of my quirks, besides needing to be fed at regular intervals, is being early. When I get to the airport I like to go directly through security and to the gate and then go to eat or pee or whatever. The same with buses or ferries or any mode of transportation. I am irrationally afraid of being left behind. (This phobia is in the same category as being afraid of being locked in the bathroom. Both situations have happened to me numerous times...sometimes with one causing the other.) So even though we could see the ferry from the restaurant and knew that it wouldn't leave for a half hour I was still nervous because we weren't actually on it yet.
But we didn't miss the ferry and not one of my numerous forays to the bathroom resulted in being trapped. It was at this point that I realized how ridiculously bad I smelled, which A had said was her travel quirk. Besides also needing to know where she would be eating next, she detested smelly people. L declined to let us in on her weakness but I suspect it's control. We quickly deduced that she is a youngest child and must always get her way. Luckily A and I are middle children and are capable of compromise or alternatively joining forces to get our way. The ferry was actually quite nice, although slow like molasses, and we arrived at Paquera to be shepherded into a waiting bus. The ticket taker was the least pura-vida Tico we met the entire trip and he was in such a hurry that we finally just threw some money at him and got on the bus. We had to stand.
Even standing wasn't too too horrific. At least we were in the front where there was a breeze. And hanging on for dear life builds arm muscles. So at approximately 7PM we arrived at Montezuma our final beach-front destination. Hooray! I walked up to the hotel and the man at the desk opened with (in Spanish) "You're the three girls who reserved yesterday. Please don't yell at me."
He had given away our room! Despite his request, I started to yell (just a bit). "What do you mean you gave away our room? I reserved with a credit card! Why didn't anyone verify it on the phone! Are there any more rooms? Are any other hotels free? Are you fucking with me?" At this point, my brain busted and my Spanish completely failed me so L took up the charge, "Can we call your manager? Will you pay for the taxi to another hotel? You have the responsibility to make the customer satisfied! You can't just give away rooms!" This man was exasperatingly smug and just sat there as we fumed.
We calmed down a bit while talking to a shirtless American tourist named Michael (Michael was a good distraction but A said he wasn't suitable because he didn't have six-pack abs just a four pack and I said he wasn't suitable because he was an idiot.) and the receptionist eventually found another hotel for us (far far outside of town). He was not willing to pay for the taxi or the extra cost for the other hotel and he declined to call the manager saying that she would only yell at him and at some point he made some comment to the effect of "At least you guys speak Spanish" which caused another round of yelling and fuming.
We left our bags and went to dinner where we took photos of our comic distress and decided to construct an alternative narrative of our day...something about a yacht and catching seagulls with our bare hands and enjoying cocktails at sunset. We finally arrived at our new hotel; L remained exasperatingly optimistic and went night-swimming while A criticized everything about it before going to bed. I bridged the gap by criticizing before going to check out the beach.
Next up: socialism at its frustrating-ist and our own private beach
Anyway, L and A and I were all set to leave the ecovillage and head on to the beach (!!!). We had called a taxi to come at 7AM, figured out the bus and ferry schedule and gotten all packed. The taxi showed up! On time! And despite my bruised little bottom the ride was not too horrific. The taxi driver and I spoke briefly about the semantics of the words parque, plaza and cancha...after he corrected me several times when I told him to drop us off in the central plaza. (Evidently their soccer fields are called plazas, their plazas are called parks, and their stadia called canchas...they also give all directions using meters instead of blocks "de la esquina 500 metros" which made me feel like I had to triangulate everything or carry a surveyors tape).
We arrived at the parque and the girls ran for breakfast while I again guarded the bags and verified the bus schedule....we were an hour early. As I sat, I noticed that some buses arrived with standing room only which worried me because we had a lot of gear and I didn't want to stand for 2 hours. So we got on line early and got seats and set out....on the slowest and hottest bus known to man. About a half an hour out of town the bust stopped for the gazillionth time, but this time people were muttering "Puntarenas, puntarenas directo, hay que bajarse, Puntarenas." A quick survey revealed that the bus behind us was going directly to Puntarenas (our intermediate destination) so we quickly got our stuff and switched buses. I actually thanked my lucky stars because if we were in Bolivia people would have silently debarked just knowing that the other bus was better and having no need to state it to the hot and frustrated tourists. Although equally oven-like the new bus was indeed better, less crowded and much faster....and thus we arrived at noon to Puntarenas described by my trusty rough guide as the hottest place in all Costa Rica, fading and wilting in the sun. I had a general idea that the next ferry to Nicoya Peninsula (yet another intermediate destination) left in two hours but I was hoping that there might be an earlier boat so we rushed into a taxi to the other end of town. No luck. A two hour wait. We chilled in a lovely gulf-side restaurant in perhaps the only town in Costa Rica where it is not recommended that you drink the water. A declined to take this advice citing the fact that she's Indian.
I am a nervous traveler and one of my quirks, besides needing to be fed at regular intervals, is being early. When I get to the airport I like to go directly through security and to the gate and then go to eat or pee or whatever. The same with buses or ferries or any mode of transportation. I am irrationally afraid of being left behind. (This phobia is in the same category as being afraid of being locked in the bathroom. Both situations have happened to me numerous times...sometimes with one causing the other.) So even though we could see the ferry from the restaurant and knew that it wouldn't leave for a half hour I was still nervous because we weren't actually on it yet.
But we didn't miss the ferry and not one of my numerous forays to the bathroom resulted in being trapped. It was at this point that I realized how ridiculously bad I smelled, which A had said was her travel quirk. Besides also needing to know where she would be eating next, she detested smelly people. L declined to let us in on her weakness but I suspect it's control. We quickly deduced that she is a youngest child and must always get her way. Luckily A and I are middle children and are capable of compromise or alternatively joining forces to get our way. The ferry was actually quite nice, although slow like molasses, and we arrived at Paquera to be shepherded into a waiting bus. The ticket taker was the least pura-vida Tico we met the entire trip and he was in such a hurry that we finally just threw some money at him and got on the bus. We had to stand.
Even standing wasn't too too horrific. At least we were in the front where there was a breeze. And hanging on for dear life builds arm muscles. So at approximately 7PM we arrived at Montezuma our final beach-front destination. Hooray! I walked up to the hotel and the man at the desk opened with (in Spanish) "You're the three girls who reserved yesterday. Please don't yell at me."
He had given away our room! Despite his request, I started to yell (just a bit). "What do you mean you gave away our room? I reserved with a credit card! Why didn't anyone verify it on the phone! Are there any more rooms? Are any other hotels free? Are you fucking with me?" At this point, my brain busted and my Spanish completely failed me so L took up the charge, "Can we call your manager? Will you pay for the taxi to another hotel? You have the responsibility to make the customer satisfied! You can't just give away rooms!" This man was exasperatingly smug and just sat there as we fumed.
We calmed down a bit while talking to a shirtless American tourist named Michael (Michael was a good distraction but A said he wasn't suitable because he didn't have six-pack abs just a four pack and I said he wasn't suitable because he was an idiot.) and the receptionist eventually found another hotel for us (far far outside of town). He was not willing to pay for the taxi or the extra cost for the other hotel and he declined to call the manager saying that she would only yell at him and at some point he made some comment to the effect of "At least you guys speak Spanish" which caused another round of yelling and fuming.
We left our bags and went to dinner where we took photos of our comic distress and decided to construct an alternative narrative of our day...something about a yacht and catching seagulls with our bare hands and enjoying cocktails at sunset. We finally arrived at our new hotel; L remained exasperatingly optimistic and went night-swimming while A criticized everything about it before going to bed. I bridged the gap by criticizing before going to check out the beach.
 |
| The girls set out on a three hour cruise, a three hour cruise |
 |
| They are stranded on an island |
 |
| The girls despair |
 |
| But then with extreme facial expressions they realize their skill at catching their own food! |
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| Also somehow they can do cocktails |
Next up: socialism at its frustrating-ist and our own private beach
I don't want to be a shit-disturber, but really.....
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So......I have been struggling with something. I work for the Government of Canada. We have a policy that says that we are not to book meetings or do business with places that are inaccessible. Yet the department I work in consistently books some meetings (mostly for social reasons such as retirement or going away parties) at a nearby venue...an air force mess hall...that is completely inaccessible. Stairs to get in, and more stairs once you get in. I can't tell you the number of times over the years in which I have declined invitations to one event or another at this location, and explained why I cannot attend. Recently, I learned that a colleague had booked a work-related meeting at this venue. I thought, "I have to do, or say, something". I know that these incidents are never intentional. And the people booking the meetings probably never stop to think about what they are doing, and the attitudes they are reinforcing. They probably think, if they stop to think, well no-one coming to the meeting is disabled, so it's not really an issue. And I wonder how they would react if the same venue had a sign outside that said, "blacks not welcome", or "women not allowed", or "no Jews". Because a venue that is not accessible is saying that people like me are not welcome, that we are not valued, that we are not part of the community.
So I am going to raise this issue at our next management meeting. And I hope that my colleagues will agree that if someone discriminates against one of us, they discriminate against all of us. And maybe, if this venue loses a regular clientele, they will do something about their lack of access.
So I am going to raise this issue at our next management meeting. And I hope that my colleagues will agree that if someone discriminates against one of us, they discriminate against all of us. And maybe, if this venue loses a regular clientele, they will do something about their lack of access.
23 Şubat 2013 Cumartesi
Why don't they teach you to do things in gym?
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Gym sucked for me as a kid. I cannot even blame one school system or one gym teacher. They were all the same wherever we lived. I went to 3 grade schools, two junior highs and one high school. We would play these games and test on things, but we were rarely taught how to do anything. We were just expected to know how to do it.
Also, every one of these schools we had to fitness tests. Those wonderful Presidential Fitness Tests. Man, how I hated them. They would be sprung on us from out of the blue. Situps, pushups, flex-arm hang (for girls), rope climbing, 12 minute run or one mile run - depending on the school, and a flexibility test on a box. I might be missing some. I cannot remember. I was so glad that in high school that all stopped. Basically in high school all we did was play volleyball or indoor softball with that super huge softball. At least we were moving and we weren't graded on our physical abilities.
The worst for me was junior high, 7-9th grade. I sucked at most things in the gym. The only units I wouldn't get a just barely passing mark was swimming and social dance where I would get an A. For volleyball I would get a B. In gymastics - D, Fitness tests - overall D. Basketball - C. My average grade in gym 7-9th grade was a C/D. Pathetic and it made me feel awful about myself.
In gym we were graded on what skills we could do. So, since I took years of swimming lessons, I could do well in swimming as I was one of the best swimmers. I wasn't a fast swimmer, but I was a competent swimmer. Social dance was a joke and as long as you could move, you would get a good mark. Thank goodness for that. I did learn a few things in Volleyball, but could have learned more. I was absolutely pathetic in the rest. My gut would sink when we had fitness tests and gymastics especially.
I mean seriously, who can do gymastics if they've never done them before? We would get an A for being able to do certain advanced skills, but no one TAUGHT us how to go about doing those skills. We would rotate from station to station and just try to do the things they told us to do. Sometimes a peer would try to show us how to do something, but how well can a 13 year old teach another 13 year old?
But the worst of all were the physical fitness tests. They were the worst because not only did we get graded on them, they weren't very anonymous and if you didn't do well on them, you really felt like a fat, lazy, slob.
This is how it went for me. Keep in mind that this was 30 years ago and I still remember the tests and how I did on them. Left a lasting impression of my ineptitude, wouldn't you say? The only thing I was good at was pushups and I have no idea why I could do those and nothing else:
Running - D (as I couldn't run a mile in 12 minutes)
Pushups - A (being able to do 50 girly pushups was an A)
Situps - D (I don't remember the number, but I think you needed to do 100 in a given time frame. I could do 60.)
Flex-arm Hang - D (I couldn't hold myself up nearly at all.)
Rope Climb - D (I couldn't pull myself up even an inch.)
Flexibility Box - D (You needed to be able to touch your toes to get a C - even at age 13 I couldn't touch my toes).
Now, I wasn't a heavy 13-15 year old. I was just not physical fit. I wasn't in any sports. I didn't 'do' anything outside of gym. I wasn't from a physical fit and active family. So, how could I be strong and athletic? And I wasn't alone. There were a lot of kids like me - especially girls.
But the bigger question was - we had gym every other day all school year long for 50 minutes. Let's say 35 of those minutes were actually time in the gym doing something. Why didn't I get more fit? What were we doing that allowed me to stay so unfit?
And why didn't a gym teacher ever talk about pacing yourself when running and what they meant and how to go about it? They would just say, "Run around the gym 5 times." What is the point of gym if it wasn't to learn new skills?
I wasn't trying to get out of doing active things in gym. They were just hard for me and being an early teen I was very self conscious of the fact that I sucked in all things sports-like. I would just try to be inconspicuous.
I asked the teachers then as I ask now, "Why did they grade on what skills you could do?" Wouldn't it be better to grade on improvement of skills? Wouldn't that have taught me the power I have in myself to improve my fitness instead of showing me that I sucked at sports/fitness?
Even with this Biggest Winner event I'm doing with the fitness centers, we take these tests and at the end we take them all again to compare - so we can SEE how we have improved and hopefully it will push us to keep trying to improve.
How great would it have been if one single gym teacher in 13 years of gym would have taught me to enjoy doing physical things? Where would I have been if one teacher would have taught me that I too could run? or taught me that progress is the most important? That anyone could get an A on the physical fitness tests if they were just given the means and the time to learn those skills? All I got was a teacher that just thought I was pathetic - you could see it in their faces. As well, they couldn't "get" me. They were athletes and probably naturally athletically inclined. They didn't know how to break it down to the basics as they never needed to have it broken down that completely.
So, one thing we are trying to teach our kids as they too are not natural athletes, is that being active is just a part of life. You don't need to be fast or the best at it to be beneficial. Movement is for health, not for getting an award or for winning. And if it means breaking it down into minute steps (which it does for both my kids - especially the oldest), then so be it. He's learning and that's more than I ever got.
It wasn't until I was married and I was trying to run with my husband that I learned about pacing. He told me quite simply, "If you can't talk while you are running, then you are running too fast. SLOW DOWN." And voila - all of a sudden I could run farther than I ever ran before with those simple words only. How hard would it have been for a teacher to say that? but they never did. I thought I needed to run as fast as the good runners. All that led to was me needing to stop - panting and feeling pathetic. Shaking my head at the way things were done and wishing I could undo them.
Also, every one of these schools we had to fitness tests. Those wonderful Presidential Fitness Tests. Man, how I hated them. They would be sprung on us from out of the blue. Situps, pushups, flex-arm hang (for girls), rope climbing, 12 minute run or one mile run - depending on the school, and a flexibility test on a box. I might be missing some. I cannot remember. I was so glad that in high school that all stopped. Basically in high school all we did was play volleyball or indoor softball with that super huge softball. At least we were moving and we weren't graded on our physical abilities.
The worst for me was junior high, 7-9th grade. I sucked at most things in the gym. The only units I wouldn't get a just barely passing mark was swimming and social dance where I would get an A. For volleyball I would get a B. In gymastics - D, Fitness tests - overall D. Basketball - C. My average grade in gym 7-9th grade was a C/D. Pathetic and it made me feel awful about myself.
In gym we were graded on what skills we could do. So, since I took years of swimming lessons, I could do well in swimming as I was one of the best swimmers. I wasn't a fast swimmer, but I was a competent swimmer. Social dance was a joke and as long as you could move, you would get a good mark. Thank goodness for that. I did learn a few things in Volleyball, but could have learned more. I was absolutely pathetic in the rest. My gut would sink when we had fitness tests and gymastics especially.
I mean seriously, who can do gymastics if they've never done them before? We would get an A for being able to do certain advanced skills, but no one TAUGHT us how to go about doing those skills. We would rotate from station to station and just try to do the things they told us to do. Sometimes a peer would try to show us how to do something, but how well can a 13 year old teach another 13 year old?
But the worst of all were the physical fitness tests. They were the worst because not only did we get graded on them, they weren't very anonymous and if you didn't do well on them, you really felt like a fat, lazy, slob.
This is how it went for me. Keep in mind that this was 30 years ago and I still remember the tests and how I did on them. Left a lasting impression of my ineptitude, wouldn't you say? The only thing I was good at was pushups and I have no idea why I could do those and nothing else:
Running - D (as I couldn't run a mile in 12 minutes)
Pushups - A (being able to do 50 girly pushups was an A)
Situps - D (I don't remember the number, but I think you needed to do 100 in a given time frame. I could do 60.)
Flex-arm Hang - D (I couldn't hold myself up nearly at all.)
Rope Climb - D (I couldn't pull myself up even an inch.)
Flexibility Box - D (You needed to be able to touch your toes to get a C - even at age 13 I couldn't touch my toes).
Now, I wasn't a heavy 13-15 year old. I was just not physical fit. I wasn't in any sports. I didn't 'do' anything outside of gym. I wasn't from a physical fit and active family. So, how could I be strong and athletic? And I wasn't alone. There were a lot of kids like me - especially girls.
But the bigger question was - we had gym every other day all school year long for 50 minutes. Let's say 35 of those minutes were actually time in the gym doing something. Why didn't I get more fit? What were we doing that allowed me to stay so unfit?
And why didn't a gym teacher ever talk about pacing yourself when running and what they meant and how to go about it? They would just say, "Run around the gym 5 times." What is the point of gym if it wasn't to learn new skills?
I wasn't trying to get out of doing active things in gym. They were just hard for me and being an early teen I was very self conscious of the fact that I sucked in all things sports-like. I would just try to be inconspicuous.
I asked the teachers then as I ask now, "Why did they grade on what skills you could do?" Wouldn't it be better to grade on improvement of skills? Wouldn't that have taught me the power I have in myself to improve my fitness instead of showing me that I sucked at sports/fitness?
Even with this Biggest Winner event I'm doing with the fitness centers, we take these tests and at the end we take them all again to compare - so we can SEE how we have improved and hopefully it will push us to keep trying to improve.
How great would it have been if one single gym teacher in 13 years of gym would have taught me to enjoy doing physical things? Where would I have been if one teacher would have taught me that I too could run? or taught me that progress is the most important? That anyone could get an A on the physical fitness tests if they were just given the means and the time to learn those skills? All I got was a teacher that just thought I was pathetic - you could see it in their faces. As well, they couldn't "get" me. They were athletes and probably naturally athletically inclined. They didn't know how to break it down to the basics as they never needed to have it broken down that completely.
So, one thing we are trying to teach our kids as they too are not natural athletes, is that being active is just a part of life. You don't need to be fast or the best at it to be beneficial. Movement is for health, not for getting an award or for winning. And if it means breaking it down into minute steps (which it does for both my kids - especially the oldest), then so be it. He's learning and that's more than I ever got.
It wasn't until I was married and I was trying to run with my husband that I learned about pacing. He told me quite simply, "If you can't talk while you are running, then you are running too fast. SLOW DOWN." And voila - all of a sudden I could run farther than I ever ran before with those simple words only. How hard would it have been for a teacher to say that? but they never did. I thought I needed to run as fast as the good runners. All that led to was me needing to stop - panting and feeling pathetic. Shaking my head at the way things were done and wishing I could undo them.
So, I've been trying to ignore this knee pain...
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but, it's getting worse. Or, I should say, every time I stop babying it, it gets worse. This past week I rested my knee on Saturday and Sunday. By Monday it felt a lot better and I had a good workout without aggravating it. (It's been hurting a bit for a couple weeks). I took Tuesday off and then I exercised Wednesday (twice), Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I had planned on working out today, but I'm really hobbling. I think doing squats on Saturday really aggravated it (again).
The pain is on the outer left knee in the back. It's quite isolated, it's a 3" long patch running along the outer back knee. Right now stairs are really painful as is standing up or sitting down. It's much worse this evening than it was this morning. It didn't bug me at all yesterday.
This is the second time it's gotten to this level of OUCH, but both times it was several hours (like over 24 hours) after working out. So, what's with that?
I have plans of working out tomorrow with the personal trainer and then doing spinning on Tuesday, with the PT again on Wednesday and perhaps weight lifting later in the day, and then aerobics on Thursday and Friday. Break days are typically Sundays.
But what the heck do I do with this darn knee pain? If it hurt me while I exercised, I would know to stop, but it doesn't start hurting until afterwards - quite a bit afterwards. I'm thinking it might be a type of tendonitis? And from what I can see from my amateur sleuthing is that perhaps it's actually the SAME problem I have with my shoulder - the biceps head. Good freaking grief! ugh!
Well, I'll see how it feels tomorrow. I finally broke down and took some ibuprofen as I had to take the stairs one at a time to keep from bending the left knee to minimize the pain.
I was pain free and injury free for nearly 18 months. What's with this now? My shoulder still gives me some discomfort (and probably always will) and now this freaking knee!
The pain is on the outer left knee in the back. It's quite isolated, it's a 3" long patch running along the outer back knee. Right now stairs are really painful as is standing up or sitting down. It's much worse this evening than it was this morning. It didn't bug me at all yesterday.
This is the second time it's gotten to this level of OUCH, but both times it was several hours (like over 24 hours) after working out. So, what's with that?
I have plans of working out tomorrow with the personal trainer and then doing spinning on Tuesday, with the PT again on Wednesday and perhaps weight lifting later in the day, and then aerobics on Thursday and Friday. Break days are typically Sundays.
But what the heck do I do with this darn knee pain? If it hurt me while I exercised, I would know to stop, but it doesn't start hurting until afterwards - quite a bit afterwards. I'm thinking it might be a type of tendonitis? And from what I can see from my amateur sleuthing is that perhaps it's actually the SAME problem I have with my shoulder - the biceps head. Good freaking grief! ugh!
Well, I'll see how it feels tomorrow. I finally broke down and took some ibuprofen as I had to take the stairs one at a time to keep from bending the left knee to minimize the pain.
I was pain free and injury free for nearly 18 months. What's with this now? My shoulder still gives me some discomfort (and probably always will) and now this freaking knee!
I'm feeling tired
To contact us Click HERE
This big push of more exercise and less caloric intake is beginning to affect my energy level. I'm tired.
Yesterday around noon I took a quick nap (20 minutes) and I still slept 8 hours last night. This morning, after an 8 hour sleep, I just feel drained.
I hope I'm not getting sick, but I have no signs of getting sick - just lethargy.
But it makes sense. I'm eating 1300-1500 calories a day and exercise 5-6 times a week and when I exercise, I give it my all. My body is running at a big deficit and all the reserves are getting used up (probably are used up) and my body is burning fat (and muscle - though I'm trying to prevent as much muscle loss as possible with strength training and exercise).
This competition is only 2 more weeks, so I can keep it up as I'm not doing anything extreme. I'm only eating a tad less than I normally would and only working out at most one extra day a week than usually. It's just not how the body likes to work. It doesn't like to dip into reserves. It doesn't want to burn the stored fat, so it tries to slow everything else down so that it doesn't have to burn fat.
Darn stinking body! I wish I could send it a message that in fact we are not in a food shortage, it's just that it's storing TOO MUCH FAT and I want to decrease the stores, but promise not to let it get too hungry.
I really don't understand how anyone could do this long term and decrease caloric intake even more. I could never be anorexic. I cannot stand being hungry and I don't like feeling lethargic. Eat under 1200 calories a day? I can't even do it for a day, let alone weeks on end!
And today is weigh in day. I drank lemon water all afternoon and stayed away from carbs for dinner last night. I lost a pound of the water weight I was holding, but I still won't see a loss for this week and might even have a slight gain. As usual. Two weeks of loss. Two weeks of holding steady on the scale.
Update: I did see 3/4s of a pound lost on the scale. I think that's because I was still "whooshing" before weigh-in last week as the scale is definitely higher for me at home than it was last Friday (before TTOM and the great stall-out arrived).
Yesterday around noon I took a quick nap (20 minutes) and I still slept 8 hours last night. This morning, after an 8 hour sleep, I just feel drained.
I hope I'm not getting sick, but I have no signs of getting sick - just lethargy.
But it makes sense. I'm eating 1300-1500 calories a day and exercise 5-6 times a week and when I exercise, I give it my all. My body is running at a big deficit and all the reserves are getting used up (probably are used up) and my body is burning fat (and muscle - though I'm trying to prevent as much muscle loss as possible with strength training and exercise).
This competition is only 2 more weeks, so I can keep it up as I'm not doing anything extreme. I'm only eating a tad less than I normally would and only working out at most one extra day a week than usually. It's just not how the body likes to work. It doesn't like to dip into reserves. It doesn't want to burn the stored fat, so it tries to slow everything else down so that it doesn't have to burn fat.
Darn stinking body! I wish I could send it a message that in fact we are not in a food shortage, it's just that it's storing TOO MUCH FAT and I want to decrease the stores, but promise not to let it get too hungry.
I really don't understand how anyone could do this long term and decrease caloric intake even more. I could never be anorexic. I cannot stand being hungry and I don't like feeling lethargic. Eat under 1200 calories a day? I can't even do it for a day, let alone weeks on end!
And today is weigh in day. I drank lemon water all afternoon and stayed away from carbs for dinner last night. I lost a pound of the water weight I was holding, but I still won't see a loss for this week and might even have a slight gain. As usual. Two weeks of loss. Two weeks of holding steady on the scale.
Update: I did see 3/4s of a pound lost on the scale. I think that's because I was still "whooshing" before weigh-in last week as the scale is definitely higher for me at home than it was last Friday (before TTOM and the great stall-out arrived).
Valentine's today and 3 great things that happened!
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First, Happy Valentine's Day everyone. I was one to hate Valentine's Day in junior high, high school and college. Like really, really hate it. It was a day that could really shake your confidence in yourself. At least it did for me. Those flower sales in high school? Where friends would buy for friends? I would be so worried I would get ONE yellow flower (which meant the school bought you a flower so that you wouldn't be without a flower. That was worse than getting no flowers!) Now, that never happened to me, I always got a few flowers, but not the mounds of them so many people got. Boyfriend? I never had a boyfriend over Valentine's - ever. Not that I dated much, because I didn't, but man that holiday can bite.
So, it's ironic that Valentine's Day came to mean so much to me (and my husband). He and I started dating in January (long distance). It was the Valentine's Day weekend that I went to visit him, the first time we were together as a couple. It was so romantic and so wonderful and just happened to be over Valentine's Day. So, every Valentine's Day we have a special anniversary, making it our second biggest day of the year (after our marriage anniversary). Though, because it is such a huge holiday for couples, we usually go out a week or so later to avoid the crowds.
But, onto the 3 great things. One, while I was working with the personal trainer, she commented on seeing my hip bones poking up when we were working on the exercise balls. If you can see hip bones jutting up while working out, that means I can't have tons of flab covering them (and I don't).
Second, while I was at my son's school for his conference (which was excellent, btw), I ran into the two music teachers who are really good friends. I've been noticing they've been slowly shrinking the whole last year. I told them they looked great. The one teacher said, "Well, thanks! Between us we've lost 200 pounds. It was you who inspired us to just do it. We've been doing Weight Watchers."
Wow, me? I inspired them? That's awesome! And they do look great and you can tell they feel better too!
Then, a weird thing happened. I was catching up on Facebook after conferences, making dinner, making Valentine's cards with my younger son and Valentine's cookies. I was scrolling through and I see a photo from the gym's fitness page. It said something like, "Dawn is celebrating in her BodyPump class the Raven's Super Bowl win." I thought, "Wait, I was in that class!" And then I realize that this photo I'm staring at has my derriere as the central focus! It wasn't until I recognized my husband off to the side that I fully realized that in fact it was my backside.
It's not how I imagined I looked from any angle. Does anyone look at themselves from the backside in a full squat?
My next thought was, "Dang, I don't look half bad! I look strong, not fat!"
And then it started to sink in even more. My end weight, my goal weight, needs to be more flexible. I am healthy and look fine now. I still want to lose 10 more pounds, but that's it. At 175, after really evaluating everything, I'm calling it goal. Anything I can achieve below that is icing. I will continue to work on my fitness and eating a better diet, but I am not going to push hard to get to 160. I think I would like to make 165-175 my buffer zone. Ten pounds might be a lot for most people, but if I shoot for 170, that gives me 5 pounds of water weight to mess with. I can get that in one day depending on diet and hormones and pee it off the next day.
I don't need to achieve some perfection. I need to achieve fit and healthy.
So, it's ironic that Valentine's Day came to mean so much to me (and my husband). He and I started dating in January (long distance). It was the Valentine's Day weekend that I went to visit him, the first time we were together as a couple. It was so romantic and so wonderful and just happened to be over Valentine's Day. So, every Valentine's Day we have a special anniversary, making it our second biggest day of the year (after our marriage anniversary). Though, because it is such a huge holiday for couples, we usually go out a week or so later to avoid the crowds.
But, onto the 3 great things. One, while I was working with the personal trainer, she commented on seeing my hip bones poking up when we were working on the exercise balls. If you can see hip bones jutting up while working out, that means I can't have tons of flab covering them (and I don't).
Second, while I was at my son's school for his conference (which was excellent, btw), I ran into the two music teachers who are really good friends. I've been noticing they've been slowly shrinking the whole last year. I told them they looked great. The one teacher said, "Well, thanks! Between us we've lost 200 pounds. It was you who inspired us to just do it. We've been doing Weight Watchers."
Wow, me? I inspired them? That's awesome! And they do look great and you can tell they feel better too!
Then, a weird thing happened. I was catching up on Facebook after conferences, making dinner, making Valentine's cards with my younger son and Valentine's cookies. I was scrolling through and I see a photo from the gym's fitness page. It said something like, "Dawn is celebrating in her BodyPump class the Raven's Super Bowl win." I thought, "Wait, I was in that class!" And then I realize that this photo I'm staring at has my derriere as the central focus! It wasn't until I recognized my husband off to the side that I fully realized that in fact it was my backside.
It's not how I imagined I looked from any angle. Does anyone look at themselves from the backside in a full squat?
My next thought was, "Dang, I don't look half bad! I look strong, not fat!"
And then it started to sink in even more. My end weight, my goal weight, needs to be more flexible. I am healthy and look fine now. I still want to lose 10 more pounds, but that's it. At 175, after really evaluating everything, I'm calling it goal. Anything I can achieve below that is icing. I will continue to work on my fitness and eating a better diet, but I am not going to push hard to get to 160. I think I would like to make 165-175 my buffer zone. Ten pounds might be a lot for most people, but if I shoot for 170, that gives me 5 pounds of water weight to mess with. I can get that in one day depending on diet and hormones and pee it off the next day.
I don't need to achieve some perfection. I need to achieve fit and healthy.
What's the worst that could happen?
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My father has a motto: "What's the worst that could happen?" In college my friends decided that the worst possible scenario should always end with "And then you can never have sex again!" which requires quite a bit of creative thinking. And although it can be a little annoying when my dad says it, I find it a useful exercise to hypothesize about all the horrible situations that could happen and how I could handle them. (In fact my father and I did it just this morning when I found out that the building I live in is foreclosing and we decided that the worst would be if I had to move back in with them and commute 2.5 hours to school which would be logistically impossible because I don't have a car and I rarely leave the academic buildings to begin with...and that would most definitely result in the situation that my college friends foretold)
Anyway, L and A and I were all set to leave the ecovillage and head on to the beach (!!!). We had called a taxi to come at 7AM, figured out the bus and ferry schedule and gotten all packed. The taxi showed up! On time! And despite my bruised little bottom the ride was not too horrific. The taxi driver and I spoke briefly about the semantics of the words parque, plaza and cancha...after he corrected me several times when I told him to drop us off in the central plaza. (Evidently their soccer fields are called plazas, their plazas are called parks, and their stadia called canchas...they also give all directions using meters instead of blocks "de la esquina 500 metros" which made me feel like I had to triangulate everything or carry a surveyors tape).
We arrived at the parque and the girls ran for breakfast while I again guarded the bags and verified the bus schedule....we were an hour early. As I sat, I noticed that some buses arrived with standing room only which worried me because we had a lot of gear and I didn't want to stand for 2 hours. So we got on line early and got seats and set out....on the slowest and hottest bus known to man. About a half an hour out of town the bust stopped for the gazillionth time, but this time people were muttering "Puntarenas, puntarenas directo, hay que bajarse, Puntarenas." A quick survey revealed that the bus behind us was going directly to Puntarenas (our intermediate destination) so we quickly got our stuff and switched buses. I actually thanked my lucky stars because if we were in Bolivia people would have silently debarked just knowing that the other bus was better and having no need to state it to the hot and frustrated tourists. Although equally oven-like the new bus was indeed better, less crowded and much faster....and thus we arrived at noon to Puntarenas described by my trusty rough guide as the hottest place in all Costa Rica, fading and wilting in the sun. I had a general idea that the next ferry to Nicoya Peninsula (yet another intermediate destination) left in two hours but I was hoping that there might be an earlier boat so we rushed into a taxi to the other end of town. No luck. A two hour wait. We chilled in a lovely gulf-side restaurant in perhaps the only town in Costa Rica where it is not recommended that you drink the water. A declined to take this advice citing the fact that she's Indian.
I am a nervous traveler and one of my quirks, besides needing to be fed at regular intervals, is being early. When I get to the airport I like to go directly through security and to the gate and then go to eat or pee or whatever. The same with buses or ferries or any mode of transportation. I am irrationally afraid of being left behind. (This phobia is in the same category as being afraid of being locked in the bathroom. Both situations have happened to me numerous times...sometimes with one causing the other.) So even though we could see the ferry from the restaurant and knew that it wouldn't leave for a half hour I was still nervous because we weren't actually on it yet.
But we didn't miss the ferry and not one of my numerous forays to the bathroom resulted in being trapped. It was at this point that I realized how ridiculously bad I smelled, which A had said was her travel quirk. Besides also needing to know where she would be eating next, she detested smelly people. L declined to let us in on her weakness but I suspect it's control. We quickly deduced that she is a youngest child and must always get her way. Luckily A and I are middle children and are capable of compromise or alternatively joining forces to get our way. The ferry was actually quite nice, although slow like molasses, and we arrived at Paquera to be shepherded into a waiting bus. The ticket taker was the least pura-vida Tico we met the entire trip and he was in such a hurry that we finally just threw some money at him and got on the bus. We had to stand.
Even standing wasn't too too horrific. At least we were in the front where there was a breeze. And hanging on for dear life builds arm muscles. So at approximately 7PM we arrived at Montezuma our final beach-front destination. Hooray! I walked up to the hotel and the man at the desk opened with (in Spanish) "You're the three girls who reserved yesterday. Please don't yell at me."
He had given away our room! Despite his request, I started to yell (just a bit). "What do you mean you gave away our room? I reserved with a credit card! Why didn't anyone verify it on the phone! Are there any more rooms? Are any other hotels free? Are you fucking with me?" At this point, my brain busted and my Spanish completely failed me so L took up the charge, "Can we call your manager? Will you pay for the taxi to another hotel? You have the responsibility to make the customer satisfied! You can't just give away rooms!" This man was exasperatingly smug and just sat there as we fumed.
We calmed down a bit while talking to a shirtless American tourist named Michael (Michael was a good distraction but A said he wasn't suitable because he didn't have six-pack abs just a four pack and I said he wasn't suitable because he was an idiot.) and the receptionist eventually found another hotel for us (far far outside of town). He was not willing to pay for the taxi or the extra cost for the other hotel and he declined to call the manager saying that she would only yell at him and at some point he made some comment to the effect of "At least you guys speak Spanish" which caused another round of yelling and fuming.
We left our bags and went to dinner where we took photos of our comic distress and decided to construct an alternative narrative of our day...something about a yacht and catching seagulls with our bare hands and enjoying cocktails at sunset. We finally arrived at our new hotel; L remained exasperatingly optimistic and went night-swimming while A criticized everything about it before going to bed. I bridged the gap by criticizing before going to check out the beach.
Next up: socialism at its frustrating-ist and our own private beach
Anyway, L and A and I were all set to leave the ecovillage and head on to the beach (!!!). We had called a taxi to come at 7AM, figured out the bus and ferry schedule and gotten all packed. The taxi showed up! On time! And despite my bruised little bottom the ride was not too horrific. The taxi driver and I spoke briefly about the semantics of the words parque, plaza and cancha...after he corrected me several times when I told him to drop us off in the central plaza. (Evidently their soccer fields are called plazas, their plazas are called parks, and their stadia called canchas...they also give all directions using meters instead of blocks "de la esquina 500 metros" which made me feel like I had to triangulate everything or carry a surveyors tape).
We arrived at the parque and the girls ran for breakfast while I again guarded the bags and verified the bus schedule....we were an hour early. As I sat, I noticed that some buses arrived with standing room only which worried me because we had a lot of gear and I didn't want to stand for 2 hours. So we got on line early and got seats and set out....on the slowest and hottest bus known to man. About a half an hour out of town the bust stopped for the gazillionth time, but this time people were muttering "Puntarenas, puntarenas directo, hay que bajarse, Puntarenas." A quick survey revealed that the bus behind us was going directly to Puntarenas (our intermediate destination) so we quickly got our stuff and switched buses. I actually thanked my lucky stars because if we were in Bolivia people would have silently debarked just knowing that the other bus was better and having no need to state it to the hot and frustrated tourists. Although equally oven-like the new bus was indeed better, less crowded and much faster....and thus we arrived at noon to Puntarenas described by my trusty rough guide as the hottest place in all Costa Rica, fading and wilting in the sun. I had a general idea that the next ferry to Nicoya Peninsula (yet another intermediate destination) left in two hours but I was hoping that there might be an earlier boat so we rushed into a taxi to the other end of town. No luck. A two hour wait. We chilled in a lovely gulf-side restaurant in perhaps the only town in Costa Rica where it is not recommended that you drink the water. A declined to take this advice citing the fact that she's Indian.
I am a nervous traveler and one of my quirks, besides needing to be fed at regular intervals, is being early. When I get to the airport I like to go directly through security and to the gate and then go to eat or pee or whatever. The same with buses or ferries or any mode of transportation. I am irrationally afraid of being left behind. (This phobia is in the same category as being afraid of being locked in the bathroom. Both situations have happened to me numerous times...sometimes with one causing the other.) So even though we could see the ferry from the restaurant and knew that it wouldn't leave for a half hour I was still nervous because we weren't actually on it yet.
But we didn't miss the ferry and not one of my numerous forays to the bathroom resulted in being trapped. It was at this point that I realized how ridiculously bad I smelled, which A had said was her travel quirk. Besides also needing to know where she would be eating next, she detested smelly people. L declined to let us in on her weakness but I suspect it's control. We quickly deduced that she is a youngest child and must always get her way. Luckily A and I are middle children and are capable of compromise or alternatively joining forces to get our way. The ferry was actually quite nice, although slow like molasses, and we arrived at Paquera to be shepherded into a waiting bus. The ticket taker was the least pura-vida Tico we met the entire trip and he was in such a hurry that we finally just threw some money at him and got on the bus. We had to stand.
Even standing wasn't too too horrific. At least we were in the front where there was a breeze. And hanging on for dear life builds arm muscles. So at approximately 7PM we arrived at Montezuma our final beach-front destination. Hooray! I walked up to the hotel and the man at the desk opened with (in Spanish) "You're the three girls who reserved yesterday. Please don't yell at me."
He had given away our room! Despite his request, I started to yell (just a bit). "What do you mean you gave away our room? I reserved with a credit card! Why didn't anyone verify it on the phone! Are there any more rooms? Are any other hotels free? Are you fucking with me?" At this point, my brain busted and my Spanish completely failed me so L took up the charge, "Can we call your manager? Will you pay for the taxi to another hotel? You have the responsibility to make the customer satisfied! You can't just give away rooms!" This man was exasperatingly smug and just sat there as we fumed.
We calmed down a bit while talking to a shirtless American tourist named Michael (Michael was a good distraction but A said he wasn't suitable because he didn't have six-pack abs just a four pack and I said he wasn't suitable because he was an idiot.) and the receptionist eventually found another hotel for us (far far outside of town). He was not willing to pay for the taxi or the extra cost for the other hotel and he declined to call the manager saying that she would only yell at him and at some point he made some comment to the effect of "At least you guys speak Spanish" which caused another round of yelling and fuming.
We left our bags and went to dinner where we took photos of our comic distress and decided to construct an alternative narrative of our day...something about a yacht and catching seagulls with our bare hands and enjoying cocktails at sunset. We finally arrived at our new hotel; L remained exasperatingly optimistic and went night-swimming while A criticized everything about it before going to bed. I bridged the gap by criticizing before going to check out the beach.
|
| The girls set out on a three hour cruise, a three hour cruise |
|
| They are stranded on an island |
|
| The girls despair |
|
| But then with extreme facial expressions they realize their skill at catching their own food! |
|
| Also somehow they can do cocktails |
Next up: socialism at its frustrating-ist and our own private beach
22 Şubat 2013 Cuma
So, I've been trying to ignore this knee pain...
To contact us Click HERE
but, it's getting worse. Or, I should say, every time I stop babying it, it gets worse. This past week I rested my knee on Saturday and Sunday. By Monday it felt a lot better and I had a good workout without aggravating it. (It's been hurting a bit for a couple weeks). I took Tuesday off and then I exercised Wednesday (twice), Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I had planned on working out today, but I'm really hobbling. I think doing squats on Saturday really aggravated it (again).
The pain is on the outer left knee in the back. It's quite isolated, it's a 3" long patch running along the outer back knee. Right now stairs are really painful as is standing up or sitting down. It's much worse this evening than it was this morning. It didn't bug me at all yesterday.
This is the second time it's gotten to this level of OUCH, but both times it was several hours (like over 24 hours) after working out. So, what's with that?
I have plans of working out tomorrow with the personal trainer and then doing spinning on Tuesday, with the PT again on Wednesday and perhaps weight lifting later in the day, and then aerobics on Thursday and Friday. Break days are typically Sundays.
But what the heck do I do with this darn knee pain? If it hurt me while I exercised, I would know to stop, but it doesn't start hurting until afterwards - quite a bit afterwards. I'm thinking it might be a type of tendonitis? And from what I can see from my amateur sleuthing is that perhaps it's actually the SAME problem I have with my shoulder - the biceps head. Good freaking grief! ugh!
Well, I'll see how it feels tomorrow. I finally broke down and took some ibuprofen as I had to take the stairs one at a time to keep from bending the left knee to minimize the pain.
I was pain free and injury free for nearly 18 months. What's with this now? My shoulder still gives me some discomfort (and probably always will) and now this freaking knee!
The pain is on the outer left knee in the back. It's quite isolated, it's a 3" long patch running along the outer back knee. Right now stairs are really painful as is standing up or sitting down. It's much worse this evening than it was this morning. It didn't bug me at all yesterday.
This is the second time it's gotten to this level of OUCH, but both times it was several hours (like over 24 hours) after working out. So, what's with that?
I have plans of working out tomorrow with the personal trainer and then doing spinning on Tuesday, with the PT again on Wednesday and perhaps weight lifting later in the day, and then aerobics on Thursday and Friday. Break days are typically Sundays.
But what the heck do I do with this darn knee pain? If it hurt me while I exercised, I would know to stop, but it doesn't start hurting until afterwards - quite a bit afterwards. I'm thinking it might be a type of tendonitis? And from what I can see from my amateur sleuthing is that perhaps it's actually the SAME problem I have with my shoulder - the biceps head. Good freaking grief! ugh!
Well, I'll see how it feels tomorrow. I finally broke down and took some ibuprofen as I had to take the stairs one at a time to keep from bending the left knee to minimize the pain.
I was pain free and injury free for nearly 18 months. What's with this now? My shoulder still gives me some discomfort (and probably always will) and now this freaking knee!
I'm feeling tired
To contact us Click HERE
This big push of more exercise and less caloric intake is beginning to affect my energy level. I'm tired.
Yesterday around noon I took a quick nap (20 minutes) and I still slept 8 hours last night. This morning, after an 8 hour sleep, I just feel drained.
I hope I'm not getting sick, but I have no signs of getting sick - just lethargy.
But it makes sense. I'm eating 1300-1500 calories a day and exercise 5-6 times a week and when I exercise, I give it my all. My body is running at a big deficit and all the reserves are getting used up (probably are used up) and my body is burning fat (and muscle - though I'm trying to prevent as much muscle loss as possible with strength training and exercise).
This competition is only 2 more weeks, so I can keep it up as I'm not doing anything extreme. I'm only eating a tad less than I normally would and only working out at most one extra day a week than usually. It's just not how the body likes to work. It doesn't like to dip into reserves. It doesn't want to burn the stored fat, so it tries to slow everything else down so that it doesn't have to burn fat.
Darn stinking body! I wish I could send it a message that in fact we are not in a food shortage, it's just that it's storing TOO MUCH FAT and I want to decrease the stores, but promise not to let it get too hungry.
I really don't understand how anyone could do this long term and decrease caloric intake even more. I could never be anorexic. I cannot stand being hungry and I don't like feeling lethargic. Eat under 1200 calories a day? I can't even do it for a day, let alone weeks on end!
And today is weigh in day. I drank lemon water all afternoon and stayed away from carbs for dinner last night. I lost a pound of the water weight I was holding, but I still won't see a loss for this week and might even have a slight gain. As usual. Two weeks of loss. Two weeks of holding steady on the scale.
Update: I did see 3/4s of a pound lost on the scale. I think that's because I was still "whooshing" before weigh-in last week as the scale is definitely higher for me at home than it was last Friday (before TTOM and the great stall-out arrived).
Yesterday around noon I took a quick nap (20 minutes) and I still slept 8 hours last night. This morning, after an 8 hour sleep, I just feel drained.
I hope I'm not getting sick, but I have no signs of getting sick - just lethargy.
But it makes sense. I'm eating 1300-1500 calories a day and exercise 5-6 times a week and when I exercise, I give it my all. My body is running at a big deficit and all the reserves are getting used up (probably are used up) and my body is burning fat (and muscle - though I'm trying to prevent as much muscle loss as possible with strength training and exercise).
This competition is only 2 more weeks, so I can keep it up as I'm not doing anything extreme. I'm only eating a tad less than I normally would and only working out at most one extra day a week than usually. It's just not how the body likes to work. It doesn't like to dip into reserves. It doesn't want to burn the stored fat, so it tries to slow everything else down so that it doesn't have to burn fat.
Darn stinking body! I wish I could send it a message that in fact we are not in a food shortage, it's just that it's storing TOO MUCH FAT and I want to decrease the stores, but promise not to let it get too hungry.
I really don't understand how anyone could do this long term and decrease caloric intake even more. I could never be anorexic. I cannot stand being hungry and I don't like feeling lethargic. Eat under 1200 calories a day? I can't even do it for a day, let alone weeks on end!
And today is weigh in day. I drank lemon water all afternoon and stayed away from carbs for dinner last night. I lost a pound of the water weight I was holding, but I still won't see a loss for this week and might even have a slight gain. As usual. Two weeks of loss. Two weeks of holding steady on the scale.
Update: I did see 3/4s of a pound lost on the scale. I think that's because I was still "whooshing" before weigh-in last week as the scale is definitely higher for me at home than it was last Friday (before TTOM and the great stall-out arrived).
Valentine's today and 3 great things that happened!
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First, Happy Valentine's Day everyone. I was one to hate Valentine's Day in junior high, high school and college. Like really, really hate it. It was a day that could really shake your confidence in yourself. At least it did for me. Those flower sales in high school? Where friends would buy for friends? I would be so worried I would get ONE yellow flower (which meant the school bought you a flower so that you wouldn't be without a flower. That was worse than getting no flowers!) Now, that never happened to me, I always got a few flowers, but not the mounds of them so many people got. Boyfriend? I never had a boyfriend over Valentine's - ever. Not that I dated much, because I didn't, but man that holiday can bite.
So, it's ironic that Valentine's Day came to mean so much to me (and my husband). He and I started dating in January (long distance). It was the Valentine's Day weekend that I went to visit him, the first time we were together as a couple. It was so romantic and so wonderful and just happened to be over Valentine's Day. So, every Valentine's Day we have a special anniversary, making it our second biggest day of the year (after our marriage anniversary). Though, because it is such a huge holiday for couples, we usually go out a week or so later to avoid the crowds.
But, onto the 3 great things. One, while I was working with the personal trainer, she commented on seeing my hip bones poking up when we were working on the exercise balls. If you can see hip bones jutting up while working out, that means I can't have tons of flab covering them (and I don't).
Second, while I was at my son's school for his conference (which was excellent, btw), I ran into the two music teachers who are really good friends. I've been noticing they've been slowly shrinking the whole last year. I told them they looked great. The one teacher said, "Well, thanks! Between us we've lost 200 pounds. It was you who inspired us to just do it. We've been doing Weight Watchers."
Wow, me? I inspired them? That's awesome! And they do look great and you can tell they feel better too!
Then, a weird thing happened. I was catching up on Facebook after conferences, making dinner, making Valentine's cards with my younger son and Valentine's cookies. I was scrolling through and I see a photo from the gym's fitness page. It said something like, "Dawn is celebrating in her BodyPump class the Raven's Super Bowl win." I thought, "Wait, I was in that class!" And then I realize that this photo I'm staring at has my derriere as the central focus! It wasn't until I recognized my husband off to the side that I fully realized that in fact it was my backside.
It's not how I imagined I looked from any angle. Does anyone look at themselves from the backside in a full squat?
My next thought was, "Dang, I don't look half bad! I look strong, not fat!"
And then it started to sink in even more. My end weight, my goal weight, needs to be more flexible. I am healthy and look fine now. I still want to lose 10 more pounds, but that's it. At 175, after really evaluating everything, I'm calling it goal. Anything I can achieve below that is icing. I will continue to work on my fitness and eating a better diet, but I am not going to push hard to get to 160. I think I would like to make 165-175 my buffer zone. Ten pounds might be a lot for most people, but if I shoot for 170, that gives me 5 pounds of water weight to mess with. I can get that in one day depending on diet and hormones and pee it off the next day.
I don't need to achieve some perfection. I need to achieve fit and healthy.
So, it's ironic that Valentine's Day came to mean so much to me (and my husband). He and I started dating in January (long distance). It was the Valentine's Day weekend that I went to visit him, the first time we were together as a couple. It was so romantic and so wonderful and just happened to be over Valentine's Day. So, every Valentine's Day we have a special anniversary, making it our second biggest day of the year (after our marriage anniversary). Though, because it is such a huge holiday for couples, we usually go out a week or so later to avoid the crowds.
But, onto the 3 great things. One, while I was working with the personal trainer, she commented on seeing my hip bones poking up when we were working on the exercise balls. If you can see hip bones jutting up while working out, that means I can't have tons of flab covering them (and I don't).
Second, while I was at my son's school for his conference (which was excellent, btw), I ran into the two music teachers who are really good friends. I've been noticing they've been slowly shrinking the whole last year. I told them they looked great. The one teacher said, "Well, thanks! Between us we've lost 200 pounds. It was you who inspired us to just do it. We've been doing Weight Watchers."
Wow, me? I inspired them? That's awesome! And they do look great and you can tell they feel better too!
Then, a weird thing happened. I was catching up on Facebook after conferences, making dinner, making Valentine's cards with my younger son and Valentine's cookies. I was scrolling through and I see a photo from the gym's fitness page. It said something like, "Dawn is celebrating in her BodyPump class the Raven's Super Bowl win." I thought, "Wait, I was in that class!" And then I realize that this photo I'm staring at has my derriere as the central focus! It wasn't until I recognized my husband off to the side that I fully realized that in fact it was my backside.
It's not how I imagined I looked from any angle. Does anyone look at themselves from the backside in a full squat?
My next thought was, "Dang, I don't look half bad! I look strong, not fat!"
And then it started to sink in even more. My end weight, my goal weight, needs to be more flexible. I am healthy and look fine now. I still want to lose 10 more pounds, but that's it. At 175, after really evaluating everything, I'm calling it goal. Anything I can achieve below that is icing. I will continue to work on my fitness and eating a better diet, but I am not going to push hard to get to 160. I think I would like to make 165-175 my buffer zone. Ten pounds might be a lot for most people, but if I shoot for 170, that gives me 5 pounds of water weight to mess with. I can get that in one day depending on diet and hormones and pee it off the next day.
I don't need to achieve some perfection. I need to achieve fit and healthy.
Not related to weight - but living with the in-law woes!
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Oh my freaking goodness.... I think my head might explode!
So... today my mother in law was supposed to have oral surgery - like completely under with IV to do a bone graft to prepare for an implant (long story of why it all needs to be done). That appt. was at 2 pm and would take until 4:30 pm. She's been a nervous wreck about it. We all are completely aware of it. It's a big deal.
But... she never plans or thinks anything through, ever. So, I made sure that my schedule was clear this afternoon so I could pick her up if needed as she just assumed she could drive home after being under anesthesia. Hello? She's a doctor and she's been under anesthesia many times. It takes her awhile to come out of it and to function. Drive home? Ummm....
AND I went to the store to get the makings for chicken soup, got a couple bottles of Kefir, some cottage cheese, and more milk to make some pudding (Oetker brand). She, of course, hadn't thought about how eating might be difficult, of course. In the past, what would happen is that AFTER the fact, she would get all irritated that I didn't have stuff all ready for her... because, you know, I'm always supposed to have soup in the freezer and soft foods available - like she always did. Yes, when she lived alone and no one else would eat the stuff set aside.
So, I start the soup and I'm halfway through the pudding and in walks my mother in law at 4:15 pm. Saying, "whoo-whoo" all cheery like. What?
Seems that at noon, while I was at the grocery store, her dentist's office called to tell her that the dentist was getting sick and he had to cancel. It's rescheduled for next week.
Now, I got home at 1 pm. I thought it was odd she was gone as she tends to get so nervous before any procedure (as would most people, including me), but then, she likes to be everywhere super early, so I thought maybe she just went in early. Well... I guess not!
She never called me to tell me it was cancelled. She didn't call anyone, including my husband. She didn't even leave a note at home. For real? She was supposed to have major oral surgery. A surgery she has been talking about for a month and she didn't think to tell anyone at home it was cancelled?
I think this pretty much proves, beyond a doubt, that she is incredibly self-centered.
So... I now have a huge pot of chicken soup on the stove. Which I will try to save a bunch of it for next week, I guess. Too bad my freezer is full already. And, I have three kinds of puddings made (as I knew the kids would want some too) and way too much kefir and cottage cheese, but that, at least, will still be good next week if she doesn't eat it all, but I'm sure she will. So, again next week we go through this all again.
The funniest part of it all? Three weeks ago my dentist cancelled due to the flu. I went in last week to start a crown (wearing a temporary) and to get a filling. Next Thursday I go in to get the crown, fill another tooth and get a tooth extraction. (Yes, my teeth suck!) This is the same day of my mother in law's new surgery. So, I guess we'll both be needing softer foods next week, but guess who's the one who needs to prepare for it all? Me, of course.
But good grief. I think I should get a saint award for not losing it today! At least she realized that yes, she should have called. She forgets that there is such thing as a phone... and um, pen and paper? And I think she thinks that her life doesn't affect anyone else's in the household. For real? That's the only explanation I can come up with that could explain how it didn't enter her brain that she should have let someone know of the surgery being cancelled. UGH!!!!
Oh my freaking goodness.... I think my head might explode!
So... today my mother in law was supposed to have oral surgery - like completely under with IV to do a bone graft to prepare for an implant (long story of why it all needs to be done). That appt. was at 2 pm and would take until 4:30 pm. She's been a nervous wreck about it. We all are completely aware of it. It's a big deal.
But... she never plans or thinks anything through, ever. So, I made sure that my schedule was clear this afternoon so I could pick her up if needed as she just assumed she could drive home after being under anesthesia. Hello? She's a doctor and she's been under anesthesia many times. It takes her awhile to come out of it and to function. Drive home? Ummm....
AND I went to the store to get the makings for chicken soup, got a couple bottles of Kefir, some cottage cheese, and more milk to make some pudding (Oetker brand). She, of course, hadn't thought about how eating might be difficult, of course. In the past, what would happen is that AFTER the fact, she would get all irritated that I didn't have stuff all ready for her... because, you know, I'm always supposed to have soup in the freezer and soft foods available - like she always did. Yes, when she lived alone and no one else would eat the stuff set aside.
So, I start the soup and I'm halfway through the pudding and in walks my mother in law at 4:15 pm. Saying, "whoo-whoo" all cheery like. What?
Seems that at noon, while I was at the grocery store, her dentist's office called to tell her that the dentist was getting sick and he had to cancel. It's rescheduled for next week.
Now, I got home at 1 pm. I thought it was odd she was gone as she tends to get so nervous before any procedure (as would most people, including me), but then, she likes to be everywhere super early, so I thought maybe she just went in early. Well... I guess not!
She never called me to tell me it was cancelled. She didn't call anyone, including my husband. She didn't even leave a note at home. For real? She was supposed to have major oral surgery. A surgery she has been talking about for a month and she didn't think to tell anyone at home it was cancelled?
I think this pretty much proves, beyond a doubt, that she is incredibly self-centered.
So... I now have a huge pot of chicken soup on the stove. Which I will try to save a bunch of it for next week, I guess. Too bad my freezer is full already. And, I have three kinds of puddings made (as I knew the kids would want some too) and way too much kefir and cottage cheese, but that, at least, will still be good next week if she doesn't eat it all, but I'm sure she will. So, again next week we go through this all again.
The funniest part of it all? Three weeks ago my dentist cancelled due to the flu. I went in last week to start a crown (wearing a temporary) and to get a filling. Next Thursday I go in to get the crown, fill another tooth and get a tooth extraction. (Yes, my teeth suck!) This is the same day of my mother in law's new surgery. So, I guess we'll both be needing softer foods next week, but guess who's the one who needs to prepare for it all? Me, of course.
But good grief. I think I should get a saint award for not losing it today! At least she realized that yes, she should have called. She forgets that there is such thing as a phone... and um, pen and paper? And I think she thinks that her life doesn't affect anyone else's in the household. For real? That's the only explanation I can come up with that could explain how it didn't enter her brain that she should have let someone know of the surgery being cancelled. UGH!!!!
What is the biggest issue? Obesity? or Lack of Fitness?
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We all know that being overweight is bad for you. Your blood pressure goes up. Your cholesterol creeps up. You might start to have problems with your blood sugar levels. Plus, it's hard on your joints, affects your sleep, energy level, etc.
But which is it that is causing all that? The extra weight? or the lack of fitness which almost always accompanies obesity?
I keep seeing all this stuff about American's diet. Too much of this. Too much of that. Portions are huge. Food is too dense in calories, etc. It's all true. I'm not denying that, but...
Why do we not see much more about moving more? Getting off our butts? Why aren't there more recesses added to a kid's school day versus the fights over their school lunches? Or better gym programs? Or, here's a novel idea - Free physical activities for kids - free ballet, free soccer, free swim lessons, etc. Right now, all of that comes out of the parent's pockets to have their kids move/exercise.
Kids need to move. It would reduce the ADHD problems in schools too. Yet... recesses are getting shorter and school days are getting longer. Kids sit all day long. No one runs around the neighborhood any more. Hardly anyone walks or bikes to school any more either.
Skip to adulthood. Again, why do we always think about "I need to lose weight." "I'm getting fat." And not, "Man, I need to get in shape!" Sure, some people realize they need to work on their fitness, but most of the time people want to exercise to lose weight. If they didn't need to lose weight, they probably wouldn't think about fitness. The main reason they are exercising is to lose weight, not to get fit. Though, once they start getting fit, they might start to realize the benefits of it.
Why is that? Exercising regularly reduces stress, helps you sleep better, gives you energy AND it can reduce your blood pressure, reduce your cholesterol and help with your blood sugar levels. It can stave off all kinds of ills like osteoporosis.
Yet... even as adults we hear - eat low fat. Eat low sugar. Eat less. Ok. I can get on board with eat less, but why not start with - move more.
I look around me. I see a lot of thin people but are they healthy just because they are thin? Maybe. Maybe not. Will they be healthy well into their 80s? Maybe. Maybe not. My money is on the thinner person who is active. Then I would bet on the overweight person who is physically active and then the thinner, non-active person and all bets are off with an overweight, inactive person. As a former member on a weight loss forum I frequent was told by his cardiologist, "Look around you X. How many old fat men do you see?"
And I can ask myself too as I look around my community. There are a lot of octogenarians in my area. A lot of them are really, really healthy. Want to know what else? They are also very, very active - golfing, walking, gardening, even tennis. Their inactive peers are in nursing homes or retirement homes, fading away.
My personal belief is that the biggest issue is fitness. And shock if you are more fit, you can control your weight better too!
Now how to convince everyone of that?
But which is it that is causing all that? The extra weight? or the lack of fitness which almost always accompanies obesity?
I keep seeing all this stuff about American's diet. Too much of this. Too much of that. Portions are huge. Food is too dense in calories, etc. It's all true. I'm not denying that, but...
Why do we not see much more about moving more? Getting off our butts? Why aren't there more recesses added to a kid's school day versus the fights over their school lunches? Or better gym programs? Or, here's a novel idea - Free physical activities for kids - free ballet, free soccer, free swim lessons, etc. Right now, all of that comes out of the parent's pockets to have their kids move/exercise.
Kids need to move. It would reduce the ADHD problems in schools too. Yet... recesses are getting shorter and school days are getting longer. Kids sit all day long. No one runs around the neighborhood any more. Hardly anyone walks or bikes to school any more either.
Skip to adulthood. Again, why do we always think about "I need to lose weight." "I'm getting fat." And not, "Man, I need to get in shape!" Sure, some people realize they need to work on their fitness, but most of the time people want to exercise to lose weight. If they didn't need to lose weight, they probably wouldn't think about fitness. The main reason they are exercising is to lose weight, not to get fit. Though, once they start getting fit, they might start to realize the benefits of it.
Why is that? Exercising regularly reduces stress, helps you sleep better, gives you energy AND it can reduce your blood pressure, reduce your cholesterol and help with your blood sugar levels. It can stave off all kinds of ills like osteoporosis.
Yet... even as adults we hear - eat low fat. Eat low sugar. Eat less. Ok. I can get on board with eat less, but why not start with - move more.
I look around me. I see a lot of thin people but are they healthy just because they are thin? Maybe. Maybe not. Will they be healthy well into their 80s? Maybe. Maybe not. My money is on the thinner person who is active. Then I would bet on the overweight person who is physically active and then the thinner, non-active person and all bets are off with an overweight, inactive person. As a former member on a weight loss forum I frequent was told by his cardiologist, "Look around you X. How many old fat men do you see?"
And I can ask myself too as I look around my community. There are a lot of octogenarians in my area. A lot of them are really, really healthy. Want to know what else? They are also very, very active - golfing, walking, gardening, even tennis. Their inactive peers are in nursing homes or retirement homes, fading away.
My personal belief is that the biggest issue is fitness. And shock if you are more fit, you can control your weight better too!
Now how to convince everyone of that?
21 Şubat 2013 Perşembe
I don't want to be a shit-disturber, but really.....
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So......I have been struggling with something. I work for the Government of Canada. We have a policy that says that we are not to book meetings or do business with places that are inaccessible. Yet the department I work in consistently books some meetings (mostly for social reasons such as retirement or going away parties) at a nearby venue...an air force mess hall...that is completely inaccessible. Stairs to get in, and more stairs once you get in. I can't tell you the number of times over the years in which I have declined invitations to one event or another at this location, and explained why I cannot attend. Recently, I learned that a colleague had booked a work-related meeting at this venue. I thought, "I have to do, or say, something". I know that these incidents are never intentional. And the people booking the meetings probably never stop to think about what they are doing, and the attitudes they are reinforcing. They probably think, if they stop to think, well no-one coming to the meeting is disabled, so it's not really an issue. And I wonder how they would react if the same venue had a sign outside that said, "blacks not welcome", or "women not allowed", or "no Jews". Because a venue that is not accessible is saying that people like me are not welcome, that we are not valued, that we are not part of the community.
So I am going to raise this issue at our next management meeting. And I hope that my colleagues will agree that if someone discriminates against one of us, they discriminate against all of us. And maybe, if this venue loses a regular clientele, they will do something about their lack of access.
So I am going to raise this issue at our next management meeting. And I hope that my colleagues will agree that if someone discriminates against one of us, they discriminate against all of us. And maybe, if this venue loses a regular clientele, they will do something about their lack of access.
Why don't they teach you to do things in gym?
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Gym sucked for me as a kid. I cannot even blame one school system or one gym teacher. They were all the same wherever we lived. I went to 3 grade schools, two junior highs and one high school. We would play these games and test on things, but we were rarely taught how to do anything. We were just expected to know how to do it.
Also, every one of these schools we had to fitness tests. Those wonderful Presidential Fitness Tests. Man, how I hated them. They would be sprung on us from out of the blue. Situps, pushups, flex-arm hang (for girls), rope climbing, 12 minute run or one mile run - depending on the school, and a flexibility test on a box. I might be missing some. I cannot remember. I was so glad that in high school that all stopped. Basically in high school all we did was play volleyball or indoor softball with that super huge softball. At least we were moving and we weren't graded on our physical abilities.
The worst for me was junior high, 7-9th grade. I sucked at most things in the gym. The only units I wouldn't get a just barely passing mark was swimming and social dance where I would get an A. For volleyball I would get a B. In gymastics - D, Fitness tests - overall D. Basketball - C. My average grade in gym 7-9th grade was a C/D. Pathetic and it made me feel awful about myself.
In gym we were graded on what skills we could do. So, since I took years of swimming lessons, I could do well in swimming as I was one of the best swimmers. I wasn't a fast swimmer, but I was a competent swimmer. Social dance was a joke and as long as you could move, you would get a good mark. Thank goodness for that. I did learn a few things in Volleyball, but could have learned more. I was absolutely pathetic in the rest. My gut would sink when we had fitness tests and gymastics especially.
I mean seriously, who can do gymastics if they've never done them before? We would get an A for being able to do certain advanced skills, but no one TAUGHT us how to go about doing those skills. We would rotate from station to station and just try to do the things they told us to do. Sometimes a peer would try to show us how to do something, but how well can a 13 year old teach another 13 year old?
But the worst of all were the physical fitness tests. They were the worst because not only did we get graded on them, they weren't very anonymous and if you didn't do well on them, you really felt like a fat, lazy, slob.
This is how it went for me. Keep in mind that this was 30 years ago and I still remember the tests and how I did on them. Left a lasting impression of my ineptitude, wouldn't you say? The only thing I was good at was pushups and I have no idea why I could do those and nothing else:
Running - D (as I couldn't run a mile in 12 minutes)
Pushups - A (being able to do 50 girly pushups was an A)
Situps - D (I don't remember the number, but I think you needed to do 100 in a given time frame. I could do 60.)
Flex-arm Hang - D (I couldn't hold myself up nearly at all.)
Rope Climb - D (I couldn't pull myself up even an inch.)
Flexibility Box - D (You needed to be able to touch your toes to get a C - even at age 13 I couldn't touch my toes).
Now, I wasn't a heavy 13-15 year old. I was just not physical fit. I wasn't in any sports. I didn't 'do' anything outside of gym. I wasn't from a physical fit and active family. So, how could I be strong and athletic? And I wasn't alone. There were a lot of kids like me - especially girls.
But the bigger question was - we had gym every other day all school year long for 50 minutes. Let's say 35 of those minutes were actually time in the gym doing something. Why didn't I get more fit? What were we doing that allowed me to stay so unfit?
And why didn't a gym teacher ever talk about pacing yourself when running and what they meant and how to go about it? They would just say, "Run around the gym 5 times." What is the point of gym if it wasn't to learn new skills?
I wasn't trying to get out of doing active things in gym. They were just hard for me and being an early teen I was very self conscious of the fact that I sucked in all things sports-like. I would just try to be inconspicuous.
I asked the teachers then as I ask now, "Why did they grade on what skills you could do?" Wouldn't it be better to grade on improvement of skills? Wouldn't that have taught me the power I have in myself to improve my fitness instead of showing me that I sucked at sports/fitness?
Even with this Biggest Winner event I'm doing with the fitness centers, we take these tests and at the end we take them all again to compare - so we can SEE how we have improved and hopefully it will push us to keep trying to improve.
How great would it have been if one single gym teacher in 13 years of gym would have taught me to enjoy doing physical things? Where would I have been if one teacher would have taught me that I too could run? or taught me that progress is the most important? That anyone could get an A on the physical fitness tests if they were just given the means and the time to learn those skills? All I got was a teacher that just thought I was pathetic - you could see it in their faces. As well, they couldn't "get" me. They were athletes and probably naturally athletically inclined. They didn't know how to break it down to the basics as they never needed to have it broken down that completely.
So, one thing we are trying to teach our kids as they too are not natural athletes, is that being active is just a part of life. You don't need to be fast or the best at it to be beneficial. Movement is for health, not for getting an award or for winning. And if it means breaking it down into minute steps (which it does for both my kids - especially the oldest), then so be it. He's learning and that's more than I ever got.
It wasn't until I was married and I was trying to run with my husband that I learned about pacing. He told me quite simply, "If you can't talk while you are running, then you are running too fast. SLOW DOWN." And voila - all of a sudden I could run farther than I ever ran before with those simple words only. How hard would it have been for a teacher to say that? but they never did. I thought I needed to run as fast as the good runners. All that led to was me needing to stop - panting and feeling pathetic. Shaking my head at the way things were done and wishing I could undo them.
Also, every one of these schools we had to fitness tests. Those wonderful Presidential Fitness Tests. Man, how I hated them. They would be sprung on us from out of the blue. Situps, pushups, flex-arm hang (for girls), rope climbing, 12 minute run or one mile run - depending on the school, and a flexibility test on a box. I might be missing some. I cannot remember. I was so glad that in high school that all stopped. Basically in high school all we did was play volleyball or indoor softball with that super huge softball. At least we were moving and we weren't graded on our physical abilities.
The worst for me was junior high, 7-9th grade. I sucked at most things in the gym. The only units I wouldn't get a just barely passing mark was swimming and social dance where I would get an A. For volleyball I would get a B. In gymastics - D, Fitness tests - overall D. Basketball - C. My average grade in gym 7-9th grade was a C/D. Pathetic and it made me feel awful about myself.
In gym we were graded on what skills we could do. So, since I took years of swimming lessons, I could do well in swimming as I was one of the best swimmers. I wasn't a fast swimmer, but I was a competent swimmer. Social dance was a joke and as long as you could move, you would get a good mark. Thank goodness for that. I did learn a few things in Volleyball, but could have learned more. I was absolutely pathetic in the rest. My gut would sink when we had fitness tests and gymastics especially.
I mean seriously, who can do gymastics if they've never done them before? We would get an A for being able to do certain advanced skills, but no one TAUGHT us how to go about doing those skills. We would rotate from station to station and just try to do the things they told us to do. Sometimes a peer would try to show us how to do something, but how well can a 13 year old teach another 13 year old?
But the worst of all were the physical fitness tests. They were the worst because not only did we get graded on them, they weren't very anonymous and if you didn't do well on them, you really felt like a fat, lazy, slob.
This is how it went for me. Keep in mind that this was 30 years ago and I still remember the tests and how I did on them. Left a lasting impression of my ineptitude, wouldn't you say? The only thing I was good at was pushups and I have no idea why I could do those and nothing else:
Running - D (as I couldn't run a mile in 12 minutes)
Pushups - A (being able to do 50 girly pushups was an A)
Situps - D (I don't remember the number, but I think you needed to do 100 in a given time frame. I could do 60.)
Flex-arm Hang - D (I couldn't hold myself up nearly at all.)
Rope Climb - D (I couldn't pull myself up even an inch.)
Flexibility Box - D (You needed to be able to touch your toes to get a C - even at age 13 I couldn't touch my toes).
Now, I wasn't a heavy 13-15 year old. I was just not physical fit. I wasn't in any sports. I didn't 'do' anything outside of gym. I wasn't from a physical fit and active family. So, how could I be strong and athletic? And I wasn't alone. There were a lot of kids like me - especially girls.
But the bigger question was - we had gym every other day all school year long for 50 minutes. Let's say 35 of those minutes were actually time in the gym doing something. Why didn't I get more fit? What were we doing that allowed me to stay so unfit?
And why didn't a gym teacher ever talk about pacing yourself when running and what they meant and how to go about it? They would just say, "Run around the gym 5 times." What is the point of gym if it wasn't to learn new skills?
I wasn't trying to get out of doing active things in gym. They were just hard for me and being an early teen I was very self conscious of the fact that I sucked in all things sports-like. I would just try to be inconspicuous.
I asked the teachers then as I ask now, "Why did they grade on what skills you could do?" Wouldn't it be better to grade on improvement of skills? Wouldn't that have taught me the power I have in myself to improve my fitness instead of showing me that I sucked at sports/fitness?
Even with this Biggest Winner event I'm doing with the fitness centers, we take these tests and at the end we take them all again to compare - so we can SEE how we have improved and hopefully it will push us to keep trying to improve.
How great would it have been if one single gym teacher in 13 years of gym would have taught me to enjoy doing physical things? Where would I have been if one teacher would have taught me that I too could run? or taught me that progress is the most important? That anyone could get an A on the physical fitness tests if they were just given the means and the time to learn those skills? All I got was a teacher that just thought I was pathetic - you could see it in their faces. As well, they couldn't "get" me. They were athletes and probably naturally athletically inclined. They didn't know how to break it down to the basics as they never needed to have it broken down that completely.
So, one thing we are trying to teach our kids as they too are not natural athletes, is that being active is just a part of life. You don't need to be fast or the best at it to be beneficial. Movement is for health, not for getting an award or for winning. And if it means breaking it down into minute steps (which it does for both my kids - especially the oldest), then so be it. He's learning and that's more than I ever got.
It wasn't until I was married and I was trying to run with my husband that I learned about pacing. He told me quite simply, "If you can't talk while you are running, then you are running too fast. SLOW DOWN." And voila - all of a sudden I could run farther than I ever ran before with those simple words only. How hard would it have been for a teacher to say that? but they never did. I thought I needed to run as fast as the good runners. All that led to was me needing to stop - panting and feeling pathetic. Shaking my head at the way things were done and wishing I could undo them.
So, I've been trying to ignore this knee pain...
To contact us Click HERE
but, it's getting worse. Or, I should say, every time I stop babying it, it gets worse. This past week I rested my knee on Saturday and Sunday. By Monday it felt a lot better and I had a good workout without aggravating it. (It's been hurting a bit for a couple weeks). I took Tuesday off and then I exercised Wednesday (twice), Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I had planned on working out today, but I'm really hobbling. I think doing squats on Saturday really aggravated it (again).
The pain is on the outer left knee in the back. It's quite isolated, it's a 3" long patch running along the outer back knee. Right now stairs are really painful as is standing up or sitting down. It's much worse this evening than it was this morning. It didn't bug me at all yesterday.
This is the second time it's gotten to this level of OUCH, but both times it was several hours (like over 24 hours) after working out. So, what's with that?
I have plans of working out tomorrow with the personal trainer and then doing spinning on Tuesday, with the PT again on Wednesday and perhaps weight lifting later in the day, and then aerobics on Thursday and Friday. Break days are typically Sundays.
But what the heck do I do with this darn knee pain? If it hurt me while I exercised, I would know to stop, but it doesn't start hurting until afterwards - quite a bit afterwards. I'm thinking it might be a type of tendonitis? And from what I can see from my amateur sleuthing is that perhaps it's actually the SAME problem I have with my shoulder - the biceps head. Good freaking grief! ugh!
Well, I'll see how it feels tomorrow. I finally broke down and took some ibuprofen as I had to take the stairs one at a time to keep from bending the left knee to minimize the pain.
I was pain free and injury free for nearly 18 months. What's with this now? My shoulder still gives me some discomfort (and probably always will) and now this freaking knee!
The pain is on the outer left knee in the back. It's quite isolated, it's a 3" long patch running along the outer back knee. Right now stairs are really painful as is standing up or sitting down. It's much worse this evening than it was this morning. It didn't bug me at all yesterday.
This is the second time it's gotten to this level of OUCH, but both times it was several hours (like over 24 hours) after working out. So, what's with that?
I have plans of working out tomorrow with the personal trainer and then doing spinning on Tuesday, with the PT again on Wednesday and perhaps weight lifting later in the day, and then aerobics on Thursday and Friday. Break days are typically Sundays.
But what the heck do I do with this darn knee pain? If it hurt me while I exercised, I would know to stop, but it doesn't start hurting until afterwards - quite a bit afterwards. I'm thinking it might be a type of tendonitis? And from what I can see from my amateur sleuthing is that perhaps it's actually the SAME problem I have with my shoulder - the biceps head. Good freaking grief! ugh!
Well, I'll see how it feels tomorrow. I finally broke down and took some ibuprofen as I had to take the stairs one at a time to keep from bending the left knee to minimize the pain.
I was pain free and injury free for nearly 18 months. What's with this now? My shoulder still gives me some discomfort (and probably always will) and now this freaking knee!
I'm feeling tired
To contact us Click HERE
This big push of more exercise and less caloric intake is beginning to affect my energy level. I'm tired.
Yesterday around noon I took a quick nap (20 minutes) and I still slept 8 hours last night. This morning, after an 8 hour sleep, I just feel drained.
I hope I'm not getting sick, but I have no signs of getting sick - just lethargy.
But it makes sense. I'm eating 1300-1500 calories a day and exercise 5-6 times a week and when I exercise, I give it my all. My body is running at a big deficit and all the reserves are getting used up (probably are used up) and my body is burning fat (and muscle - though I'm trying to prevent as much muscle loss as possible with strength training and exercise).
This competition is only 2 more weeks, so I can keep it up as I'm not doing anything extreme. I'm only eating a tad less than I normally would and only working out at most one extra day a week than usually. It's just not how the body likes to work. It doesn't like to dip into reserves. It doesn't want to burn the stored fat, so it tries to slow everything else down so that it doesn't have to burn fat.
Darn stinking body! I wish I could send it a message that in fact we are not in a food shortage, it's just that it's storing TOO MUCH FAT and I want to decrease the stores, but promise not to let it get too hungry.
I really don't understand how anyone could do this long term and decrease caloric intake even more. I could never be anorexic. I cannot stand being hungry and I don't like feeling lethargic. Eat under 1200 calories a day? I can't even do it for a day, let alone weeks on end!
And today is weigh in day. I drank lemon water all afternoon and stayed away from carbs for dinner last night. I lost a pound of the water weight I was holding, but I still won't see a loss for this week and might even have a slight gain. As usual. Two weeks of loss. Two weeks of holding steady on the scale.
Update: I did see 3/4s of a pound lost on the scale. I think that's because I was still "whooshing" before weigh-in last week as the scale is definitely higher for me at home than it was last Friday (before TTOM and the great stall-out arrived).
Yesterday around noon I took a quick nap (20 minutes) and I still slept 8 hours last night. This morning, after an 8 hour sleep, I just feel drained.
I hope I'm not getting sick, but I have no signs of getting sick - just lethargy.
But it makes sense. I'm eating 1300-1500 calories a day and exercise 5-6 times a week and when I exercise, I give it my all. My body is running at a big deficit and all the reserves are getting used up (probably are used up) and my body is burning fat (and muscle - though I'm trying to prevent as much muscle loss as possible with strength training and exercise).
This competition is only 2 more weeks, so I can keep it up as I'm not doing anything extreme. I'm only eating a tad less than I normally would and only working out at most one extra day a week than usually. It's just not how the body likes to work. It doesn't like to dip into reserves. It doesn't want to burn the stored fat, so it tries to slow everything else down so that it doesn't have to burn fat.
Darn stinking body! I wish I could send it a message that in fact we are not in a food shortage, it's just that it's storing TOO MUCH FAT and I want to decrease the stores, but promise not to let it get too hungry.
I really don't understand how anyone could do this long term and decrease caloric intake even more. I could never be anorexic. I cannot stand being hungry and I don't like feeling lethargic. Eat under 1200 calories a day? I can't even do it for a day, let alone weeks on end!
And today is weigh in day. I drank lemon water all afternoon and stayed away from carbs for dinner last night. I lost a pound of the water weight I was holding, but I still won't see a loss for this week and might even have a slight gain. As usual. Two weeks of loss. Two weeks of holding steady on the scale.
Update: I did see 3/4s of a pound lost on the scale. I think that's because I was still "whooshing" before weigh-in last week as the scale is definitely higher for me at home than it was last Friday (before TTOM and the great stall-out arrived).
Valentine's today and 3 great things that happened!
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First, Happy Valentine's Day everyone. I was one to hate Valentine's Day in junior high, high school and college. Like really, really hate it. It was a day that could really shake your confidence in yourself. At least it did for me. Those flower sales in high school? Where friends would buy for friends? I would be so worried I would get ONE yellow flower (which meant the school bought you a flower so that you wouldn't be without a flower. That was worse than getting no flowers!) Now, that never happened to me, I always got a few flowers, but not the mounds of them so many people got. Boyfriend? I never had a boyfriend over Valentine's - ever. Not that I dated much, because I didn't, but man that holiday can bite.
So, it's ironic that Valentine's Day came to mean so much to me (and my husband). He and I started dating in January (long distance). It was the Valentine's Day weekend that I went to visit him, the first time we were together as a couple. It was so romantic and so wonderful and just happened to be over Valentine's Day. So, every Valentine's Day we have a special anniversary, making it our second biggest day of the year (after our marriage anniversary). Though, because it is such a huge holiday for couples, we usually go out a week or so later to avoid the crowds.
But, onto the 3 great things. One, while I was working with the personal trainer, she commented on seeing my hip bones poking up when we were working on the exercise balls. If you can see hip bones jutting up while working out, that means I can't have tons of flab covering them (and I don't).
Second, while I was at my son's school for his conference (which was excellent, btw), I ran into the two music teachers who are really good friends. I've been noticing they've been slowly shrinking the whole last year. I told them they looked great. The one teacher said, "Well, thanks! Between us we've lost 200 pounds. It was you who inspired us to just do it. We've been doing Weight Watchers."
Wow, me? I inspired them? That's awesome! And they do look great and you can tell they feel better too!
Then, a weird thing happened. I was catching up on Facebook after conferences, making dinner, making Valentine's cards with my younger son and Valentine's cookies. I was scrolling through and I see a photo from the gym's fitness page. It said something like, "Dawn is celebrating in her BodyPump class the Raven's Super Bowl win." I thought, "Wait, I was in that class!" And then I realize that this photo I'm staring at has my derriere as the central focus! It wasn't until I recognized my husband off to the side that I fully realized that in fact it was my backside.
It's not how I imagined I looked from any angle. Does anyone look at themselves from the backside in a full squat?
My next thought was, "Dang, I don't look half bad! I look strong, not fat!"
And then it started to sink in even more. My end weight, my goal weight, needs to be more flexible. I am healthy and look fine now. I still want to lose 10 more pounds, but that's it. At 175, after really evaluating everything, I'm calling it goal. Anything I can achieve below that is icing. I will continue to work on my fitness and eating a better diet, but I am not going to push hard to get to 160. I think I would like to make 165-175 my buffer zone. Ten pounds might be a lot for most people, but if I shoot for 170, that gives me 5 pounds of water weight to mess with. I can get that in one day depending on diet and hormones and pee it off the next day.
I don't need to achieve some perfection. I need to achieve fit and healthy.
So, it's ironic that Valentine's Day came to mean so much to me (and my husband). He and I started dating in January (long distance). It was the Valentine's Day weekend that I went to visit him, the first time we were together as a couple. It was so romantic and so wonderful and just happened to be over Valentine's Day. So, every Valentine's Day we have a special anniversary, making it our second biggest day of the year (after our marriage anniversary). Though, because it is such a huge holiday for couples, we usually go out a week or so later to avoid the crowds.
But, onto the 3 great things. One, while I was working with the personal trainer, she commented on seeing my hip bones poking up when we were working on the exercise balls. If you can see hip bones jutting up while working out, that means I can't have tons of flab covering them (and I don't).
Second, while I was at my son's school for his conference (which was excellent, btw), I ran into the two music teachers who are really good friends. I've been noticing they've been slowly shrinking the whole last year. I told them they looked great. The one teacher said, "Well, thanks! Between us we've lost 200 pounds. It was you who inspired us to just do it. We've been doing Weight Watchers."
Wow, me? I inspired them? That's awesome! And they do look great and you can tell they feel better too!
Then, a weird thing happened. I was catching up on Facebook after conferences, making dinner, making Valentine's cards with my younger son and Valentine's cookies. I was scrolling through and I see a photo from the gym's fitness page. It said something like, "Dawn is celebrating in her BodyPump class the Raven's Super Bowl win." I thought, "Wait, I was in that class!" And then I realize that this photo I'm staring at has my derriere as the central focus! It wasn't until I recognized my husband off to the side that I fully realized that in fact it was my backside.
It's not how I imagined I looked from any angle. Does anyone look at themselves from the backside in a full squat?
My next thought was, "Dang, I don't look half bad! I look strong, not fat!"
And then it started to sink in even more. My end weight, my goal weight, needs to be more flexible. I am healthy and look fine now. I still want to lose 10 more pounds, but that's it. At 175, after really evaluating everything, I'm calling it goal. Anything I can achieve below that is icing. I will continue to work on my fitness and eating a better diet, but I am not going to push hard to get to 160. I think I would like to make 165-175 my buffer zone. Ten pounds might be a lot for most people, but if I shoot for 170, that gives me 5 pounds of water weight to mess with. I can get that in one day depending on diet and hormones and pee it off the next day.
I don't need to achieve some perfection. I need to achieve fit and healthy.
20 Şubat 2013 Çarşamba
Why don't they teach you to do things in gym?
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Gym sucked for me as a kid. I cannot even blame one school system or one gym teacher. They were all the same wherever we lived. I went to 3 grade schools, two junior highs and one high school. We would play these games and test on things, but we were rarely taught how to do anything. We were just expected to know how to do it.
Also, every one of these schools we had to fitness tests. Those wonderful Presidential Fitness Tests. Man, how I hated them. They would be sprung on us from out of the blue. Situps, pushups, flex-arm hang (for girls), rope climbing, 12 minute run or one mile run - depending on the school, and a flexibility test on a box. I might be missing some. I cannot remember. I was so glad that in high school that all stopped. Basically in high school all we did was play volleyball or indoor softball with that super huge softball. At least we were moving and we weren't graded on our physical abilities.
The worst for me was junior high, 7-9th grade. I sucked at most things in the gym. The only units I wouldn't get a just barely passing mark was swimming and social dance where I would get an A. For volleyball I would get a B. In gymastics - D, Fitness tests - overall D. Basketball - C. My average grade in gym 7-9th grade was a C/D. Pathetic and it made me feel awful about myself.
In gym we were graded on what skills we could do. So, since I took years of swimming lessons, I could do well in swimming as I was one of the best swimmers. I wasn't a fast swimmer, but I was a competent swimmer. Social dance was a joke and as long as you could move, you would get a good mark. Thank goodness for that. I did learn a few things in Volleyball, but could have learned more. I was absolutely pathetic in the rest. My gut would sink when we had fitness tests and gymastics especially.
I mean seriously, who can do gymastics if they've never done them before? We would get an A for being able to do certain advanced skills, but no one TAUGHT us how to go about doing those skills. We would rotate from station to station and just try to do the things they told us to do. Sometimes a peer would try to show us how to do something, but how well can a 13 year old teach another 13 year old?
But the worst of all were the physical fitness tests. They were the worst because not only did we get graded on them, they weren't very anonymous and if you didn't do well on them, you really felt like a fat, lazy, slob.
This is how it went for me. Keep in mind that this was 30 years ago and I still remember the tests and how I did on them. Left a lasting impression of my ineptitude, wouldn't you say? The only thing I was good at was pushups and I have no idea why I could do those and nothing else:
Running - D (as I couldn't run a mile in 12 minutes)
Pushups - A (being able to do 50 girly pushups was an A)
Situps - D (I don't remember the number, but I think you needed to do 100 in a given time frame. I could do 60.)
Flex-arm Hang - D (I couldn't hold myself up nearly at all.)
Rope Climb - D (I couldn't pull myself up even an inch.)
Flexibility Box - D (You needed to be able to touch your toes to get a C - even at age 13 I couldn't touch my toes).
Now, I wasn't a heavy 13-15 year old. I was just not physical fit. I wasn't in any sports. I didn't 'do' anything outside of gym. I wasn't from a physical fit and active family. So, how could I be strong and athletic? And I wasn't alone. There were a lot of kids like me - especially girls.
But the bigger question was - we had gym every other day all school year long for 50 minutes. Let's say 35 of those minutes were actually time in the gym doing something. Why didn't I get more fit? What were we doing that allowed me to stay so unfit?
And why didn't a gym teacher ever talk about pacing yourself when running and what they meant and how to go about it? They would just say, "Run around the gym 5 times." What is the point of gym if it wasn't to learn new skills?
I wasn't trying to get out of doing active things in gym. They were just hard for me and being an early teen I was very self conscious of the fact that I sucked in all things sports-like. I would just try to be inconspicuous.
I asked the teachers then as I ask now, "Why did they grade on what skills you could do?" Wouldn't it be better to grade on improvement of skills? Wouldn't that have taught me the power I have in myself to improve my fitness instead of showing me that I sucked at sports/fitness?
Even with this Biggest Winner event I'm doing with the fitness centers, we take these tests and at the end we take them all again to compare - so we can SEE how we have improved and hopefully it will push us to keep trying to improve.
How great would it have been if one single gym teacher in 13 years of gym would have taught me to enjoy doing physical things? Where would I have been if one teacher would have taught me that I too could run? or taught me that progress is the most important? That anyone could get an A on the physical fitness tests if they were just given the means and the time to learn those skills? All I got was a teacher that just thought I was pathetic - you could see it in their faces. As well, they couldn't "get" me. They were athletes and probably naturally athletically inclined. They didn't know how to break it down to the basics as they never needed to have it broken down that completely.
So, one thing we are trying to teach our kids as they too are not natural athletes, is that being active is just a part of life. You don't need to be fast or the best at it to be beneficial. Movement is for health, not for getting an award or for winning. And if it means breaking it down into minute steps (which it does for both my kids - especially the oldest), then so be it. He's learning and that's more than I ever got.
It wasn't until I was married and I was trying to run with my husband that I learned about pacing. He told me quite simply, "If you can't talk while you are running, then you are running too fast. SLOW DOWN." And voila - all of a sudden I could run farther than I ever ran before with those simple words only. How hard would it have been for a teacher to say that? but they never did. I thought I needed to run as fast as the good runners. All that led to was me needing to stop - panting and feeling pathetic. Shaking my head at the way things were done and wishing I could undo them.
Also, every one of these schools we had to fitness tests. Those wonderful Presidential Fitness Tests. Man, how I hated them. They would be sprung on us from out of the blue. Situps, pushups, flex-arm hang (for girls), rope climbing, 12 minute run or one mile run - depending on the school, and a flexibility test on a box. I might be missing some. I cannot remember. I was so glad that in high school that all stopped. Basically in high school all we did was play volleyball or indoor softball with that super huge softball. At least we were moving and we weren't graded on our physical abilities.
The worst for me was junior high, 7-9th grade. I sucked at most things in the gym. The only units I wouldn't get a just barely passing mark was swimming and social dance where I would get an A. For volleyball I would get a B. In gymastics - D, Fitness tests - overall D. Basketball - C. My average grade in gym 7-9th grade was a C/D. Pathetic and it made me feel awful about myself.
In gym we were graded on what skills we could do. So, since I took years of swimming lessons, I could do well in swimming as I was one of the best swimmers. I wasn't a fast swimmer, but I was a competent swimmer. Social dance was a joke and as long as you could move, you would get a good mark. Thank goodness for that. I did learn a few things in Volleyball, but could have learned more. I was absolutely pathetic in the rest. My gut would sink when we had fitness tests and gymastics especially.
I mean seriously, who can do gymastics if they've never done them before? We would get an A for being able to do certain advanced skills, but no one TAUGHT us how to go about doing those skills. We would rotate from station to station and just try to do the things they told us to do. Sometimes a peer would try to show us how to do something, but how well can a 13 year old teach another 13 year old?
But the worst of all were the physical fitness tests. They were the worst because not only did we get graded on them, they weren't very anonymous and if you didn't do well on them, you really felt like a fat, lazy, slob.
This is how it went for me. Keep in mind that this was 30 years ago and I still remember the tests and how I did on them. Left a lasting impression of my ineptitude, wouldn't you say? The only thing I was good at was pushups and I have no idea why I could do those and nothing else:
Running - D (as I couldn't run a mile in 12 minutes)
Pushups - A (being able to do 50 girly pushups was an A)
Situps - D (I don't remember the number, but I think you needed to do 100 in a given time frame. I could do 60.)
Flex-arm Hang - D (I couldn't hold myself up nearly at all.)
Rope Climb - D (I couldn't pull myself up even an inch.)
Flexibility Box - D (You needed to be able to touch your toes to get a C - even at age 13 I couldn't touch my toes).
Now, I wasn't a heavy 13-15 year old. I was just not physical fit. I wasn't in any sports. I didn't 'do' anything outside of gym. I wasn't from a physical fit and active family. So, how could I be strong and athletic? And I wasn't alone. There were a lot of kids like me - especially girls.
But the bigger question was - we had gym every other day all school year long for 50 minutes. Let's say 35 of those minutes were actually time in the gym doing something. Why didn't I get more fit? What were we doing that allowed me to stay so unfit?
And why didn't a gym teacher ever talk about pacing yourself when running and what they meant and how to go about it? They would just say, "Run around the gym 5 times." What is the point of gym if it wasn't to learn new skills?
I wasn't trying to get out of doing active things in gym. They were just hard for me and being an early teen I was very self conscious of the fact that I sucked in all things sports-like. I would just try to be inconspicuous.
I asked the teachers then as I ask now, "Why did they grade on what skills you could do?" Wouldn't it be better to grade on improvement of skills? Wouldn't that have taught me the power I have in myself to improve my fitness instead of showing me that I sucked at sports/fitness?
Even with this Biggest Winner event I'm doing with the fitness centers, we take these tests and at the end we take them all again to compare - so we can SEE how we have improved and hopefully it will push us to keep trying to improve.
How great would it have been if one single gym teacher in 13 years of gym would have taught me to enjoy doing physical things? Where would I have been if one teacher would have taught me that I too could run? or taught me that progress is the most important? That anyone could get an A on the physical fitness tests if they were just given the means and the time to learn those skills? All I got was a teacher that just thought I was pathetic - you could see it in their faces. As well, they couldn't "get" me. They were athletes and probably naturally athletically inclined. They didn't know how to break it down to the basics as they never needed to have it broken down that completely.
So, one thing we are trying to teach our kids as they too are not natural athletes, is that being active is just a part of life. You don't need to be fast or the best at it to be beneficial. Movement is for health, not for getting an award or for winning. And if it means breaking it down into minute steps (which it does for both my kids - especially the oldest), then so be it. He's learning and that's more than I ever got.
It wasn't until I was married and I was trying to run with my husband that I learned about pacing. He told me quite simply, "If you can't talk while you are running, then you are running too fast. SLOW DOWN." And voila - all of a sudden I could run farther than I ever ran before with those simple words only. How hard would it have been for a teacher to say that? but they never did. I thought I needed to run as fast as the good runners. All that led to was me needing to stop - panting and feeling pathetic. Shaking my head at the way things were done and wishing I could undo them.
So, I've been trying to ignore this knee pain...
To contact us Click HERE
but, it's getting worse. Or, I should say, every time I stop babying it, it gets worse. This past week I rested my knee on Saturday and Sunday. By Monday it felt a lot better and I had a good workout without aggravating it. (It's been hurting a bit for a couple weeks). I took Tuesday off and then I exercised Wednesday (twice), Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I had planned on working out today, but I'm really hobbling. I think doing squats on Saturday really aggravated it (again).
The pain is on the outer left knee in the back. It's quite isolated, it's a 3" long patch running along the outer back knee. Right now stairs are really painful as is standing up or sitting down. It's much worse this evening than it was this morning. It didn't bug me at all yesterday.
This is the second time it's gotten to this level of OUCH, but both times it was several hours (like over 24 hours) after working out. So, what's with that?
I have plans of working out tomorrow with the personal trainer and then doing spinning on Tuesday, with the PT again on Wednesday and perhaps weight lifting later in the day, and then aerobics on Thursday and Friday. Break days are typically Sundays.
But what the heck do I do with this darn knee pain? If it hurt me while I exercised, I would know to stop, but it doesn't start hurting until afterwards - quite a bit afterwards. I'm thinking it might be a type of tendonitis? And from what I can see from my amateur sleuthing is that perhaps it's actually the SAME problem I have with my shoulder - the biceps head. Good freaking grief! ugh!
Well, I'll see how it feels tomorrow. I finally broke down and took some ibuprofen as I had to take the stairs one at a time to keep from bending the left knee to minimize the pain.
I was pain free and injury free for nearly 18 months. What's with this now? My shoulder still gives me some discomfort (and probably always will) and now this freaking knee!
The pain is on the outer left knee in the back. It's quite isolated, it's a 3" long patch running along the outer back knee. Right now stairs are really painful as is standing up or sitting down. It's much worse this evening than it was this morning. It didn't bug me at all yesterday.
This is the second time it's gotten to this level of OUCH, but both times it was several hours (like over 24 hours) after working out. So, what's with that?
I have plans of working out tomorrow with the personal trainer and then doing spinning on Tuesday, with the PT again on Wednesday and perhaps weight lifting later in the day, and then aerobics on Thursday and Friday. Break days are typically Sundays.
But what the heck do I do with this darn knee pain? If it hurt me while I exercised, I would know to stop, but it doesn't start hurting until afterwards - quite a bit afterwards. I'm thinking it might be a type of tendonitis? And from what I can see from my amateur sleuthing is that perhaps it's actually the SAME problem I have with my shoulder - the biceps head. Good freaking grief! ugh!
Well, I'll see how it feels tomorrow. I finally broke down and took some ibuprofen as I had to take the stairs one at a time to keep from bending the left knee to minimize the pain.
I was pain free and injury free for nearly 18 months. What's with this now? My shoulder still gives me some discomfort (and probably always will) and now this freaking knee!
I'm feeling tired
To contact us Click HERE
This big push of more exercise and less caloric intake is beginning to affect my energy level. I'm tired.
Yesterday around noon I took a quick nap (20 minutes) and I still slept 8 hours last night. This morning, after an 8 hour sleep, I just feel drained.
I hope I'm not getting sick, but I have no signs of getting sick - just lethargy.
But it makes sense. I'm eating 1300-1500 calories a day and exercise 5-6 times a week and when I exercise, I give it my all. My body is running at a big deficit and all the reserves are getting used up (probably are used up) and my body is burning fat (and muscle - though I'm trying to prevent as much muscle loss as possible with strength training and exercise).
This competition is only 2 more weeks, so I can keep it up as I'm not doing anything extreme. I'm only eating a tad less than I normally would and only working out at most one extra day a week than usually. It's just not how the body likes to work. It doesn't like to dip into reserves. It doesn't want to burn the stored fat, so it tries to slow everything else down so that it doesn't have to burn fat.
Darn stinking body! I wish I could send it a message that in fact we are not in a food shortage, it's just that it's storing TOO MUCH FAT and I want to decrease the stores, but promise not to let it get too hungry.
I really don't understand how anyone could do this long term and decrease caloric intake even more. I could never be anorexic. I cannot stand being hungry and I don't like feeling lethargic. Eat under 1200 calories a day? I can't even do it for a day, let alone weeks on end!
And today is weigh in day. I drank lemon water all afternoon and stayed away from carbs for dinner last night. I lost a pound of the water weight I was holding, but I still won't see a loss for this week and might even have a slight gain. As usual. Two weeks of loss. Two weeks of holding steady on the scale.
Update: I did see 3/4s of a pound lost on the scale. I think that's because I was still "whooshing" before weigh-in last week as the scale is definitely higher for me at home than it was last Friday (before TTOM and the great stall-out arrived).
Yesterday around noon I took a quick nap (20 minutes) and I still slept 8 hours last night. This morning, after an 8 hour sleep, I just feel drained.
I hope I'm not getting sick, but I have no signs of getting sick - just lethargy.
But it makes sense. I'm eating 1300-1500 calories a day and exercise 5-6 times a week and when I exercise, I give it my all. My body is running at a big deficit and all the reserves are getting used up (probably are used up) and my body is burning fat (and muscle - though I'm trying to prevent as much muscle loss as possible with strength training and exercise).
This competition is only 2 more weeks, so I can keep it up as I'm not doing anything extreme. I'm only eating a tad less than I normally would and only working out at most one extra day a week than usually. It's just not how the body likes to work. It doesn't like to dip into reserves. It doesn't want to burn the stored fat, so it tries to slow everything else down so that it doesn't have to burn fat.
Darn stinking body! I wish I could send it a message that in fact we are not in a food shortage, it's just that it's storing TOO MUCH FAT and I want to decrease the stores, but promise not to let it get too hungry.
I really don't understand how anyone could do this long term and decrease caloric intake even more. I could never be anorexic. I cannot stand being hungry and I don't like feeling lethargic. Eat under 1200 calories a day? I can't even do it for a day, let alone weeks on end!
And today is weigh in day. I drank lemon water all afternoon and stayed away from carbs for dinner last night. I lost a pound of the water weight I was holding, but I still won't see a loss for this week and might even have a slight gain. As usual. Two weeks of loss. Two weeks of holding steady on the scale.
Update: I did see 3/4s of a pound lost on the scale. I think that's because I was still "whooshing" before weigh-in last week as the scale is definitely higher for me at home than it was last Friday (before TTOM and the great stall-out arrived).
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