Well, *I've* given up on bowling

I have to go in for 3 games every Saturday, because I play with a few of the members of my Scrabble club, but other than that I've given up. It's just too damn frustrating!

Time to find another winter activity - preferably one that doesn't cost me $7 each time I do it.

Ideally I'd like to go to a mall and walk around briskly for half an hour to 45 minutes, but I live 10 miles away from the nearest mall and with the price of gas...I don't want to do that every day...

I am thinking of investing in a heavy bag to hang in my garage. I don't intend to become a boxer or even a kickboxer, but you can certainly get a good workout punching and kicking the thing...

If I get it, I could defray the cost by having my clients use it - having them sign a waiver in case they break a wrist or foot while punching/kicking it...

But I think I'd prefer one that actually hangs from the ceiling.

I'll have to think about it...

Attitude is everything

I don't need to tell you that attitude is everything.  If you're happy or cheerful, you have a tendency to eat til you're full, and feel quite comfortable in feeling a few hunger pangs - assuaged perhaps by a couple of carrots - before you go to bed.

If you're sad or depressed, you think, why bother, and you chow down on that comfort food.

It's important, therefore, that you realize why you should lose weight. It shouldn't be because you want to look attractive to someone else. You lose a boyfriend or can't find a boyfriend and you start eating to feel better since "no one cares." But if you're doing it for your own health and well-being, then just because you don't have a boyfriend doesn't matter. You're doing it for yourself.

Of course there's plenty of other reasons to be depressed - your work is getting on your nerves, you've lost your job, etc... and at those times you need to cheer yourself up somehow.

I always find that going for a bike ride and expending energy cheers me up. You could also put a punching bag in your basement and pound all your frustration out on that (MUCH better than taking it out on an innocent person) and so on.

What you want to get away from is using food for comfort. Or if you do use it for comfort, just a little bit at a time! No pigging out on two candy bars - stick with one a day, at the most!

WInter blahs

Winter has just started, but it's never too early to warn you about winter blahs.

With winter - depending on where you are in the world, of course - we get a preponderance of gray days. Stressful driving and walking conditions abound.

And with stress and depression (for those that get overly tired with a lack of sunlight - and that's a documented medical condition) comes eating - comfort food.

So that's something to watch for during these winter months. Chances are you're exercising less and eating more, perhaps not even being aware of it.

Be aware of it.

Try to make a conscious effort to get out and walk for half an hour (or go to a gym and get on a treadmill) or if you've got a flight of stairs in your house, run up and down that for a steady 20 minutes (listening to music or TV the while...)

Check out this article on Seasonal Depression
http://my.clevelandclinic.org/disorders/seasonal_affective_disorder_sad/hic_what_is_seasonal_depression.aspx

Dress for the weather

When I used to live in Minneapolis, MN (several years ago) I was always surprised to see folks - usually guys, in particular UPS drivers! - walking around in 10 -20 degree weather, wearing shorts.

And of course here in Cheyenne, WY, at least last year, the "in" thing for teens was not to wear coats during winter time, so every time I walked into my local Walmart, hunched up in a warm jacket and swearing at the incessant wind that brought down the windchill to 20 degrees below what it would be otherwise, I'd just laugh and shake my head at these teenagers walking in all hunched up against the wind in a simple shirt. They could not possibly have been comfortable... (any more than they could be comfortable with jeans belted below their butts) but that's the style and so that's what they do.

Point is, when you're young you may think you can get away with that stuff...but it will come back to bite you when you're old and the first fingers of arthtitis start to clench over your joints...

So when you go outside, if you live somewhere where it gets cold, make sure to dress warmly, regardless of what the fashionistas tell you!

The old chiche - if you dont' have your health you don't have anything - is very true...but it's particularly true the older you get!

Even Those Who Know Better Can Sometimes Fail...

For the last week it's been too cold to be outside doing any biking.

I've been with my clients on a regular basis of course, helping them with their workouts and sharing lifetime-eating advice, then I come home... and have been pigging out myself.

Family issues - my brother lost his job and came here (we've got a spare bedroom used for guests and my brother, who loses his job every couple of years - he's in a volatile field) and various other things...

End result I've been eating way too much comfort food and not working out, biking or doing anything physical at all.

Well, my brother just got hired, and will be out of the house by Wednesday. I like to think that I'd've stopped this wallowing in the fleshpots on my own today anyway, but the fact that my brother will be out of my hair has certainly helped.

I've gained a pound...I'm not too worried about it.

I'll make a conscious effort to run up and down my stairs steadily for twenty minutes or so, starting today, and make sure I take smaller portions (but not too small) and after a couple of weeks I'll have lost that pound and get my fitness level back up to where it should be...

WInter is a time for maintaining

If you've been following my program successful - and if you've been following my program you have been successful ;)   you might be a bit bummed now that winter is coming.

Unless you live in an area that stays warm all the time, or unless you love to cross-country ski, chances are you're going to have to curtail your outdoor activities.

And that's going to slow down your weight loss.

I don't recommend cutting your eating any more - that will ensure you continue to lose weight, but it will also cause you to be more hungry, and increase you chances of breaking off your weight loss regime and pigging out.

You're the best one to know you own abilities - will you continue to be able to get outside, or go to a gym wit a track or pool, and continue to get aerobic exercise. (Weight training exercise can  be done winter or summer, of course.)

If necessary, look on the winter months as maintenance months. Your goal will simply be to not gain any weight. If you lose any weight - that's a bonus.

Once spring comes around - or any warm winter days! - you can get out for a quick bike ride or job.

Calorie Awareness

A couple of days ago I expressed surprise that only 60% of women polled put ice cream on their brownie. However, it's true that if you are going to have a brownie, and you're trying to lose weight (as opposed to maintaining weight) - you should not add that extra icecream.

A few years ago, I worked as an editor on a book that a researcher had done about food studies among college students. A majority of students actually believed thtat if they had salad with their hamburger or other meal...the salad had no calories.

They believed that if they had ice cream, the hot fudge and nuts they put on it added no extra calories.

And in all cases, it seemed, these people believed that if they ate something "healthy" along with the hamburger, pizza or what have you, the entire meal had less calories than if they'd just eaten the hamburger or pizza alone.

In truth, of course, the opposite is true. Every single piece of food you eat has some calories, and there is no food that is a "fat burner", burning it off quicker than would be the case if you didn't eat that particualar food (along with everything else you ate that day).

Moderating your portions means just that. If you're going to eat peanut butter cookies for dessert, for example, dont' add chocolate chips to them and expect to only consume peanut-butter cookie calories. You've got to add in those chocolate chip calories as well.

When you're maintaining your weight, that's fine - when you're trying to lose weight - don't do it!

Winter is Here Again, Oh Lord

It snowed here in Cheyenne a couple of days ago.

As I've blogged many times before, I am not a winter person. Nevertheless, I've got to work out, however. I don't really want to spend the money to go to a gym, nor do I want to spend the gas money it would take me to drive into town every day and walk briskly around a mall.

Solution - my flight of stairs.

It's not a big flight of stairs - only 12 steps, but I'll be running up and down it for 20 minutes at a time starting tomorrow.

I'll have music going, so it won't be too boring.

Take every day a few ounces at a time

For the first two weeks of your weight loss program, you won't lose any weight. You have to increase your exercise - biking or walking at least 20 minutes a day and working out with weights three times a week, and cut back on your eating - by cutting out all desserts after 8 o'clock, and eating the same meals, but smaller portions. After a couple of weeks, you'll reach a caloric imbalance, and you'll start to lose weight - a few ounces at a time. Over the course of another week, you'll lose probably a pound (if you're over 40/45), or two pounds (if you're in your 20s - young people's metabolisms typically slow down after a certain age). After you've lost about five pounds and can actually see a difference in your scale, you'll believe in the system, and want to continue it. At this point, however, you may think, "Well, what I'm doing is working so well that if I start skipping lunch, it will work even better." Not so. Remember what I've always said - it may be counter-intuitive - but it will take you longer to lose weight if you don't eat than if you do. You want to have breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. In this way, your body won't feel as if it's in starvation mode, and slow down its metabolism on its own. Instead, it will burn calories as normal, and you will lose weight.

Don't forget the stairs...

I've had a month of good weather here in Cheyenne, and so I've been out on my bike...biking about 5 miles a day (which is really nothing, except that even with good weather, the wind is always against me at some point, so I get the calorie burn of riding 7 or 8 miles a day, I'm sure!)

But now it's getting cooler...and here in Cheyenne when winter comes, the wind reeeeaaaaally comes. It's non stop at the best of times, but really fierce during winter.

So I've been cautioning all my clients who've also taken up biking...if it's too unpleasant to ride during the upcoming winter months, they've got to keep their cardio/whole body exercise going. For myself, I've got a flight of steps that I'll be running up and down about 30 times a day (there's only about 10 steps).

A couple of clients have invested in stationary bike machines, one bought a Step Up - basically a long plastic plank suspended on a couple of plastic planks.

This might seem kind of boring, but if you put it in front of your TV and step to music, or watch an exciting TV show, it should be just fine.

It's too bad that I like Subway sandwiches...

Because otherwise I'd boycott this restaurant chain.

Their ads, which have been running for several months, show normally-weighted people sitting around, taking a bite out of a hamburger or something, then their buttons pop off their shirts or the benches they're sitting on break in two, etc.

Yeah, they kind of take it "over the top" which is supposed to be funny, but really when you look at it it's a form of "fat shaming."

But the stupidest thing about it is the people they show are not in the least bit overweight! So what's the subtle message here - that if you aren't skin and bones you're too fat?

Another thing they do is show a subway sandwich in all its glory - with the cheese and the sauce and so on... but if you pay attention to the calories - they give the calories for sandwiches without the cheese and the sauces. So the ads try to trick you. After all, without cheese and sauce, any sandwich would taste pretty dry.

But...I like Subway's food. I usually get a chicken breast sandwich with cheddar cheese, lettuce, a little bit of onion, a lot of black olives, and one swipe of Southwestern sauce.  Delish.