How to Exercise & Eat Healthfully over Summer Vacation

I haven’t blogged in over a week because I’ve been cementing my healthy goals into my summer routine. Many of us moms with school-age children operate on an entirely different schedule in the summer. Those bits of time we’ve carved for ourselves when the kids are in school have vanished and now new challenges threaten to sidetrack our health program.

For me summer means moving to a shoreline cottage with habits of ice cream runs and fried clam dinners. This year I knew I had to change those habits. 

Preparation:  Mental preparation is a tool that should never be underestimated.  I began planning for my new routine by identifing my challenges:

• ·         No Gym nearby
• ·         My usual walk/run spots would be unavailable and I have yet to find comparable parks nearby (specifically ones where I can let my dog run off-leash on trails with me).
• ·         How to break the cycle of eating more because “I’m on vacation” and because “every year we eat…”

Create Solutions:

• ·         No Gym? My husband foraged through our sons’ weight sets and created 2 dumbbells for me (they are now 12# each, and I have four 5# rings I can add.  In addition I brought with me a Kettlebell that adjusts to various weights and my yoga mat.
• ·         Walk/Run?  I need to get out every day to a State Park which I have easy access to; I’ve realized it’s time to separate dog walks from my runs.
• ·         Eating more on “vacation mode?” Setup a kitchen full of healthy food and stay committed. I’ve finally (at age 51) realized that I can buy sweets that I don’t crave for my children.  I always took pleasure in sharing special treats with them that we both enjoyed. 
  

Practice:

As soon as I unpacked on my first Saturday I ran through my arms strength training routine with my weights.  I’ve done it 3 times in the past week and I’m committed to making it a habit.

My location is set on the CT shoreline with beautiful views! I need to be out running and enjoying my setting. It’s become habit to walk my dog first (warm-up), then bring him home and leave for my walk/run. Although I hope his endurance returns in the cooler weather, for now 1 mile in the morning and another in the evening are enough for him.

I’ve researched some local gyms and may be using a “trial week” at a few if I feel that will help my goals. For now I feel the weights and runs are giving me what I need in exercise.  I’ve also participated in a weekly outdoor yoga class.

Healthy nutrition is the toughest challenge for me. I’ve setup a good routine but will continue to focus on creating healthy meals. My difficulty lies in those extra events that crop up: Lobsterfest this weekend! So I just take it one day at a time and be the best I can be. Since I want my 11 year old to enjoy vacation mode, the house is loaded up with a bag of Gummy Bears and Ice Cream treats (frozen cones, popsicles) neither of which tempts me in the least.  If I’m desperate, I’ll take a spoonful of Peanut Butter over Gummy bears or a popsicle.

And did I mention?  I don’t have a SCALE here!!!  Yes, I brought down a food scale (I’m not crazy) but no scale to weigh myself. I’m not sure how that will work, but on Thursday I’ll be where there is a scale and be able to tell if I’ve finally jumped off the plateau that has been frustrating me.

What If....I'm the Last Fatty Standing

You know that feeling of seeing someone you haven’t seen in a long time and they’ve lost tons of weight but you haven’t.  You’re happy for them and want to know how they did it, but part of you feels a rock in your stomach as you realize you’re the last one in this group of friends who is shopping in the plus sized section.  Days like today I like to look for that rock and remember the feeling.  I don’t want to be the last one.  I saw a photo of someone I haven’t seen in a while and that was my thought – she’s lost all the weight, we’re no longer the chubby buddies complaining together about ill-fitting bras and worrying about having to get on a scale before getting on an airplane.  Turns out it was just a very complimentary photo, but I still look to embrace that feeling because it motivates me.

As I pounded away on the Elliptical Crosstrainer today I imagined going to a party, reunion, etc. and everyone is normal weight but me.  That’s scary stuff.  What if…school resumes and I’m the last plus-size mom at pickup in September?

(I realize this is a very shallow post – no, I don’t dwell on comparisons of myself to others!  But sometimes these thoughts enter my mind and if I can use them for motivation, what’s the harm?)

(and don’t get on me because I used the term “fatty” – everyone has their words of preference for unpleasant things; I have absolutely no problem with the word fat and I’m using it to describe MYSELF.  I would never use it to describe another person – then I go for the gentler adjectives or just describe th

e person as being “my size”). 

Wearing Shorts and other Mini Motivators

Celebrate the small victories because the big ones are few and far between. I'm on a VERY LONG journey to a healthy weight, if I didn't take time to recognize my small steps of progress I would quit.  Who's making 2017 a journey to fitness year and what are your victories?  These are mine:

Mini-Motivator #1: White Shorts

I’m sitting here comfortably wearing a pair of white shorts that last summer were impossible to zip up and the summer before (when I bought them) were “stuffed sausage” tight. The scale didn’t bring me a broken plateau yet but I know the inches are decreasing.  Everyone said to measure my inches when I began, I didn’t – did NOT want to know how high that tape measure would go.  Kind of wish I did, but I can tell by the way my clothing feels.

Mini-Motivator #2: Five Minute Pause

Today, once again, I found myself gladly making that turn into the gym parking lot, but then just sitting in my vehicle.  I pulled my phone out and took my first look of the day at email and Facebook.  Once I saw a post from the #GoRedGetFit group I clicked on the group and read lots of motivation.  Then I proceeded into the gym wondering if it was wrong that I took a few minutes in the car.  I’ve actually noticed other people in the gym parking lot that seem to do the same.  I concluded that as long as my pause doesn’t last more than 5 minutes, reading motivation helps me continue and it would be an OK habit to continue.

Mini-Motivator #3: Rediscovered Abs

For those reading who haven’t tipped the scales as much as I have, let me inform you that there comes a time when you can no longer “hold in” your stomach.  You make the crunch motion but nothing really changes externally or internally.  And the middle & upper abs?  I’m not sure how long its been since I felt those babies.  In the past few months I noticed while running that I could effectively contract my stomach (lower abs)! That was enlightening for me.  This week I’ve located my middle & upper abs!  I can feel all 3 sections contract as I work them.  It’s thrilling!  Feeling that really motivates me to continue ab work, which luckily I can do every day at the gym!

Today I completed my arms/hips workout + 20 mins on the Elliptical. Between sets I did various ab work on the exercise ball or floor.  Thanks to the other lady in the room doing her routine, she gave me lots of ideas. 

Later I took Otis on a 2 mile walk.  

P.S. yesterday I DID take the walk (it was drizzly but I took these nice photos)  and ended the day with over 18,000 steps!

Back in the Game, Baby! Mini Blog Post ~ 6 June 2017

Hit the gym this morning with nothing but my phone’s access to limitless exercise suggestions.  Queried some balance ball exercises and tried a bunch out. The following 2 images were the most helpful.  Some proved impossible for me, but I tried out about a dozen. 

Then found 2 abdominal resistance machines to do (the basic ab cruncher and the twister one). Finally headed upstairs for 35 mins on the Elliptical crosstrainer.  While at the gym, I had a friend cancel our scheduled 9:30 walk, but I hope to get out there a little later (it’s raining) for at least 2 miles.

Came home and made my standard Quaker quick steel cut oatmeal w/1 diced apple & cinnamon, but forgot my almond slivers so I’ll add them to my salad at lunch.

Below is my standard Monday/Wednesday/Friday routine:

My strength training routine: everything is 20 reps, beginning at 10 lbs. weights (transitioning to 150

·         Biceps

o   Trad. Curls

o   Hammer Curls

o   Wide Curls

·         Triceps

o   Standing Kickbacks

o   DB Close Grip Press

o   Lying Extensions

During my 90 sec. breaks I fill in with Lunges, Yoga Warrior Poses, abdominal crunches on an exercise ball and other stretches.

·         Hips

o   Hip Adductor resistance machine @ 140 lbs.

o   Hip Abductor resistance machine @ 140 lbs.

I run through the entire workout twice and then do the Biceps & Triceps a 3^rd time.

Reward at the end is a CandleStick pose on the foam roller.

Mini-Blog Post ~ 5 June 2017 (This one’s not “mini” but they will be the rest of the week)

In an effort to overcome my now 3 MONTH  plateau weight I’m going to be posting on FB daily and blogging more.  My posts may be annoying to some (you can hide them) but many have told me they are inspiring to them.  Most of all they must be inspiring to ME because as I posted a bit less, my plateau set in.

Of course I can rationalize it all: I’ve spent these 3 months cementing my new weight, which is still 25 lbs less than when I began. Muscle weighs more than fat. I have been exercising and adding new routines.  In addition to my walk/runs which still are usually between 2-3 miles a day, I’ve added Yoga a couple times a week and strength training my arms at the gym 3 times a week.Blah, blah, blah - I need to step it up!  My goal is to become a person who easily has 2-3 exercise “events” per day rather than my old philosophy of “one and done.” At this point 3 events leave me exhausted and useless; 2 events I still feel spent, but can recover and show a little productivity.

(Isn't that image below cute?  It's not me, but could be: the chubby chick with the weights! The other morning at the gym I was probably the only chubby one there which honestly doesn't bother me. But another chubby lady came in for the tour and sales pitch about the gym. I bet she was really happy to see me there! Maybe I should get a kickback if she joins.  Despite the motivation inherent seeing fit people exercising it's just so nice to see someone who is in your same struggle).

Also, after giving away 7 pair of pants that were too big (WOO! HOO!), the size I’m wearing now tend to be a little baggy in the butt and incredibly long. It sounds strange because I haven’t decreased in height or weight but as I’m toning; my pants aren’t all stretched around me so tightly they hike up. At home I’ll just roll up my jeans so I don’t trip over them. The problem is the waist fits nicely, but they’re just too long and I don’t have any more to downsize into. So I’m definitely adding a couple new pairs of pants on my “Mission Slim” weight loss/reward tracker.

So I’m determined that this week will set me in the right direction! I know how to maintain, but I MUST increase exercise and STICK to my diet goals so the scale begins to decrease again.

Stresses:

• Daughter home from college - she is totally a health nut, but I’ve indulged in lunches with her and other not-so-healthy choices. She’s young & fit, one diner lunch won’t affect her, but that one lunch derails my whole week.

• Summer Free for All – I’ve built a nice structure/schedule which helps me stay on track. I’m home with my youngest this summer while 2 other kids will be in and out working various jobs and basically making sure every day is an entirely  unpredictable. I have a hard time with this type of flux.

Challenge:

My challenge this month is to really get my diet in line with my goals. I know that eating between 1650-1850 calories works for me to lose weight at my activity level.  I recently saw that weight loss is 30% exercise and 70% diet....hmmmm....I need to meditate on THAT when the leftovers are calling to me.

Today I hit the gym this morning for arms/hips then grabbed a protein shake breakfast and went to yoga.  Maya’s Monday/Friday classes are always a good challenge for me. I’ve been working on getting into my lunges more quickly, but Pigeon is still too scary for my knees.

Came home at 11 and ate a big salad and a leftover veggie eggroll (only 100 calories according to my tracker)…but the leftover lo mein kept calling to me until I had some!  We had Chinese Take-Out for my son’s birthday on Saturday, so it’s not a usual dinner. I’m over it – moving on and eating better is all I can do.  Scallops and Broccoli Noodles are for dinner. I’ll go very light on the noodles for my plate.

(If I had the expertise or time, I'd put an arrow just slightly in front of the first girl, showing where I am in the journey).

If You Want to Be Serious About the New Feminism...

We’ve all seen the social media memes about women raising each other up rather than putting each other down. This morning at the gym while watching The Today Show a very famous woman was being interviewed whose initials are J.L.;) .  Apparently she is producing and judging a new Dance show. As the closed captions streamed by I read “busiest woman in television” and later “when she’s not making the rest of us look bad…”  (the two female interviewers were laughing) What?! Is this now how a major network morning program passive-aggressively puts down a successful woman?

Ladies if you’re going to post the memes, then you need to talk the talk also. I don’t follow celebrities but do know that J.L. is very successful. So why are these women implying that her success would “make them look bad.” Perhaps it’s supposed to be a joke, but in these days when people are going through sensitivity training for numerous issues, shouldn’t we be a little more careful in how we “raise up...don't tear down” other women?

I recently personally experienced how saying something incredibly innocuous online quickly turned into an assault on my good name. In my case I agreed with a Facebook Group poster that the addition of a chain budget store was a disappointing approval made by our shoreline town which is mostly quaint shops with a large summer tourist influx. Suddenly I was a “rich” person who didn’t want to allow poor people a place to shop.  The post was eventually removed because one of the budget store lovers (perhaps a champion for the poor) let loose some choice words for anyone who opposed the store.  After that Saturday morning laugh, I knew it was time for a break from the internet. 

Another incident in distant internet history was of a woman posing in a bathing suit with her family of young boys. The youngest was an 8 month old infant. I found her line “What’s your excuse?” a reminder not to let the excuse of young children keep me from taking care of my health. Apparently this picture was “mean” according to the trolls because it made other woman feel bad that they couldn’t lose the baby weight that quickly. People are different. As someone whose body never looked like this woman’s, before or after pregnancy (or even at 20 years old, haha) I was flabbergasted that my sisterhood of women would be so judgmental. 

So let J.L. be happy in her success!  Let thin momma have a fun photo session with her kids!  And for the love of gosh-darn, let me express an opinion without assuming anything beyond the actual words I typed.

And for the record, I would rather promote that we ALL build each other up rather than tearing each other down. Men and women work together in American Society of 2017.

Another Note: I've never liked labels of any type and am even hesitant to use the term "feminism" since it connotes such a wide variety of characteristics to different people.  So I'm using this definition, and no other!

New feminism is a philosophy which emphasizes a belief in an integral complementarity of men and women, rather than the superiority of men over women or women over men

Remember Long Distance Charges? Calling Cards? And the Futuristic Idea of Telephones with Video?

People of my generation often comment about the amazing advancements we’ve seen. Communication progress has astounded our wildest dreams. When I was in middle school the year 2000 seemed so far away! And by then we would surely all be using the metric system.  In high school the idea of a telephone with a TV screen attached so you could see the person you were talking with seemed the ultimate futuristic gadget. We pictured it in the kitchen right next to the wall phone; of course it had a cord connecting the handset. The biggest concern was that one would need to be “ready” – meaning, well dressed with hair brushed to use this type of telephone.

Now I video chat often and post pictures of myself without a thought to the status of my hair (sometimes I care, but when enjoying NYC with my daughters or hoping to inspire others with my running pictures, it’s “messy hair, don’t care.”)

Skype is the first video chat service I recall and I’ve used it to talk to the girl we sponsored  in Ukraine. When my oldest spent a semester in Rome, Italy our T-Mobile service allowed for unlimited text & data, but a small charge for talk.  We started with Facetime, but found better reception using Google Hangouts.  It truly is amazing to think when I was in college, someone overseas for a semester had to WRITE LETTERS and then wait for weeks for a response.  Kids, we did have telephones and could make a call, but there was this thing called “long distance” charges that were cost prohibitive until the 1980s.  Calls just one state over incurred charges pretty high. Even in-state calls outside of your immediate surrounding towns cost money.  This is why companies began using 800 numbers – so you could call them for free.

My son resides in the largest dormitory in the world, Bancroft Hall on the U.S. Naval Academy.  Located on a secured military base (although Navy folk call them “yards”), the hall is built like fortress thus restricting data signals.  Initially he would go outside to telephone (located on the water, lots of wind noise), but then found he could use OoVoo from his laptop (wired) for the weekly calls home.  The calls often last a half hour or more as he gets comfortable on his end, and I and other family members hangout around my laptop.  Both parties may open another window and look things up to share or just multitask. Last year’s roommates would notice the parents and say hello or wave from the background, Twice this year I’ve been on a video chat call and his roommate has started undressing in the background. I have to start waving wildly at the camera and yell “someone’s changing!”  Everyone has a good laugh and boy, have we come a long way from that kitchen wall phone with the long cord.

(Since my heart healthy lifestyle is plodding along s….l….o…..w…..l……y, albeit successfully I need to find more to blog about. My head fills with ideas while I’m on my daily walk/run, but when I sit down to write, all ideas have vacated the chamber.)