Walking in Prince Edward Island (with photos)

The Nerd and I are on holidays this week visiting family in Prince Edward Island.  We drove out with our looms over a couple of days (it turns out PEI is quite a hike from Toronto), and arrived Sunday morning on the Island.  It was a Very Long Drive.

I always find holidays to be somewhat stressful in part because my routine gets shot all to hell - - staying with family means no gym full of equipment near to hand and lots of meals out.  A fun time is had by all - - and don't get me wrong, the Nerd and I are having a fabulous time - - but the lack of routines can be challenging.  For example, 2 days of road food and all the Tim Hortons cookies we can eat (which is a lot) can really mess up good eating habits. 

Nature's awesome majesty

But we are here safe and sound on the Island and after a Sunday afternoon of more poor food choices we have gotten back into the swing of things with a modified healthy plan of activity.  We are trying to replace our usual workouts with nice walks through the area.  We are paying attention to what we are eating and drinking.  We are volunteering to cook our usual repertoire of healthy balanced meals rather than eating out for every meal.  Every little bit helps.

Confederation Trail map

One of the fun things we did today was walk part of the Confederation Trail.  The Confederation Trail is not unlike Toronto's Beltline Trail in that it is a multi-use trail installed where a railway once passed.   Used as a walking and cycling trail in the summer, the 410 km of crushed gravel path is used as a snowmobile trail in the winter.   The Trail extends from one end of Prince Edward Island to the other and makes for a simply wonderful walk.  The Nerd and I spent more than an hour exploring part of the Trail this morning for our morning constitutional and the entire time we saw two people - - in stark contrast to the Beltline with its traffic jams of runners, walkers, and people walking dogs and pushing strollers. 

View on the Trail.  Notice the complete absence of people.

We ended up walking 4.92 miles or 7 km this morning, which means we really walked about 3.5 km along the Trail (out and back), leaving a mere 406.5 km of Trail left to explore.  We're probably not going to finish walking the entire Trail on this visit (!).   

Aside from the legions of mosquitoes which made walking almost unbearable at times, the walk was peaceful and lovely.  The Nerd and I really enjoyed the walk and are definitely going to walk more portions of the Trail tomorrow...after bringing more bug spray with us for safety. 

We did a lot of sightseeing today including visiting a couple of local Island distilleries (that make Shine as well as a variety of spirits) and stopping for ice cream in downtown Souris (the local small town).

I can imagine you saying to yourself: "Ice cream?  Again?  But what about eating healthy?".  My response is my usual "It's all part of my balanced day that includes an hour of hiking to ensure that we have burned enough calories to let us have ice cream, silly".  Because hey, ice cream makes a long walk in the woods surrounded by mosquitoes totally worth it. I regret nothing.  Ice cream is delicious.

A Challenging Week, but another NSV...

This week for some reason I went a bit off the rails with snacking, something I haven't done in quite a while.  But all is not lost - I had another NSV this week, so there's that!

I have noticed that I am more prone to do things like this - - engage in a minor blowout - - after hitting new milestones.  Last week I lost another pound to bring my total weight lost to 140.9 pounds, with the 180s (pounds, that is) only a hop, skip and a jump away.  It is only natural that I would find chocolate damn near irresistible under these circumstances, of course.  Sheesh - self-sabotage much?

The weekend started off positively enough, at a dinner party with friends after a 3-hour visit to the Metro Toronto Zoo.  It has been more than 10 years since I have been to the Zoo and it was a lot of fun.  With my improved fitness levels it was actually a pleasant enough walk around the various exhibits looking at the animals, rather than the grim death march that it would have been for me before I started working out. 

Echidna, Snow Leopard, Giant Panda and Red Panda [clockwise from top]

It was actually quite neat to see some of the animals out and about, especially ones known for hiding (like the Echidna) or sleeping (like the pandas and snow leopard).   I really enjoyed seeing all the exhibits we could, even though it was still a bit nippy out.  I was generally comfortable, but my hands got cold whenever I stopped to take photos, which was often.  My only regret is that we did not get to see the tigers, rhinos or giraffes, because by the time we reached those exhibits it was closing time and the animals had been taken off display for the evening. 
 
Trouble started at the dinner where I ate more than I intended, in part because our hosts had clearly gone to a lot of trouble to choose foods that the Nerd and I could eat.  Honestly, though, I just took a day off from good eating discipline. 

The trouble for me is that a day off is never just a single day off...it usually turns into two or three.  And so it was for me this week - - a couple of days of snacking, followed by an unplanned rest day, just in case the snacking wasn't sabotage enough. 

The good news though is that once I shook my head and got back into my routine it was easy enough to get back on track.  Mr. Fitness came to kick my ass on Thursday and we had a great session.  I learned how to do a clean and jerk, something I worked on again in my weekend weight session. Plus, we had fun passing and slamming a medicine ball around. 

Even better, the Nerd has figured out how to help me with food.  I have previously really struggled when my target daily calories has hit 1450 or lower, because many of our Jamie Oliver meals, although balanced and delicious, top out at 700+ calories.  This makes it almost impossible to eat under my target calories in a day and requires me to eat back some of my exercise calories.

This is always risky because estimates of calories burned are notoriously inaccurate, even with the heart rate monitor or pedometer, so I seldom eat back the full calories my workouts allegedly give me.

This week, coincident with me getting back on track (yet again!), the Nerd suggested arranging our meals into smaller portions.  Instead of making a recipe that serves 4 and portioning it into 4 servings, we are portioning it into 6 servings.  Bingo - instant calorie reduction, with a barely noticeable reduction in portion size.  We top up the meals with extra vegetables for bulk, and even with reducing the carbs in most meals I haven't felt deprived in the least. 

The combination of getting the snacking back under control, continuing my ass kicking workouts, and eating more manageable portions has brought be almost within spitting distance of last week's low weight, even after losing my mind with snacking this week.  I'll take that.

The food thing has always been (and I suspect will always be) my Achilles heel.  But I feel more optimistic about my ability to work with my nutrition plan now that we are consciously managing down our portion sizes.  This strategy should easily work until my calorie target gets down to 1,300 calories per day, which won't be a while yet.  Importantly, I don't feel so helpless to hit my calorie targets - - it feels like I can still eat reasonably and stay within my target numbers with our new portioning plan.  And that is a very good thing.

Now on to the NSV. 

I ordered some new workout clothes from Old Navy last week because I have been spending more time living in yoga pants and sports bras at home because of my 6x/wk workouts.  Girlie needs clothes to properly sweat in, after all. 

Along with the yoga pants and workout shirts I ordered a pair of button fly "boyfriend" jeans in size 14.  Given my - ahem - badonkadonk I expected that these would be aspirational jeans that would fit me in a month or so. 

For shits and giggles I put them on yesterday, just to see how far I was from fitting into them.  Yeah, so they were loose. (!!)  Now I understand that each pair of jeans is like a precious snowflake, and each style and manufacturer fits a little bit differently, so a size 14 in one style for one brand will not fit like a size 14 in another style or brand.  But the fact remains that I have a pair of button fly jeans that are size 14 that fit this girl, and that makes me very happy.

Sadly, I cannot wear these magical jeans to the office because they are distressed with holes in the knees (not appropriate for the Pop Factory's dress code, natch), but they are great kicking around jeans for weekends.  Also, super comfortable.  Added bonus - - I love button fly jeans. 

So this week has had a little bit of everything.  Some social activities, some good workouts, some bad eating, some food epiphanies, and some clothing wins.  All in all, a good week.

Tomorrow night the Nerd and I are having dinner with my old landlords, so I will have to do some menu planning tonight so that I keep more or less on track at the restaurant. 

Exhausted

This new heart-rate based workout is a killer.  It is apparently much more intense than that candy-ass (!) workout I had previously been doing, because I have been positively dragging ass all week.  By this morning I could barely get myself out of bed, although some of that may have had to do with the ride-along with a merchandiser I did yesterday, putting product on shelves for 8 hours. 

Amusingly, I wore my Polar H7 heart rate monitor yesterday while merchandising, just to see how hard I was working.  Which was, it turns out, barely at all - - my average heart rate for the 4 hours until my phone died was 84 beats a minute, which qualifies as "awake" but is not anything near a workout. 

It felt like a workout, though, what with stomping around on concrete grocery store floors in my steel-toed boots for 8 hours.  My legs ached from all the walking so that it was hard to fall asleep last night, even though I was exhausted. 

I had to actually have a nap this afternoon because I was falling asleep on my feet this morning at shopping and coffee with the Matriarch, and even after my nap it was all I could do to finish the 60 minutes on the elliptical at a decent heart rate.  I was able to keep an average heart rate of 132 bpm for the workout (mostly zone 2 with a little zone 3), which, although not the most intense workout I have ever done, feels like about the most I could have survived today.  And even after dinner I am still feeling my legs.  They're not painful, exactly, but I am noticing that they are there, which is a strange feeling.

I am hoping that next week is a bit better, and that my body will get used to this new and improved workout so that I do not feel exhausted all the time.  When I am tired I want to snack and sleep, and while one of those impulses is good, the other is counterproductive. 

This is what 12.5 miles looks like...

This morning was our last "official" long training walk for the upcoming Weekend to End Women's Cancers charity walk, in that all the training walks from now until September 6 will be shorter than 12.5 miles.  Today was 12.5 miles and tomorrow will be 8.5 miles - - together they amount to pretty much what we will be walking in one day at the event.  Next week are a couple of 6 milers on the weekend, and then it's down to 1.5 mile walks and 3 mile walks as we taper down.  It will be back to the elliptical for sure. 

This morning we left at our customary ungodly hour (we were on the road before 5 am), and we headed east along Queen Street, but instead of following Queen until the Neville Park Loop and coming back by way of the waterfront trail like we did last weekend, we went up Kingston Road to Victoria Park avenue (the old border between Toronto/East York and Scarborough), and then headed up Victoria Park to the Danforth, which we took all the way back to our stomping ground. 

I must confess that I struggled more with this walk than I did with the walk last weekend, mainly because I was trying to push the pace more this week.  And it worked - - we shaved a whole 15 minutes off our walk time for the distance, going down from 3 hr 40 min to 3 hr 25 min this morning over the same distance.  That's a full 15 minutes we did not need to walk compared to last week, which is great.

But the pace was probably an issue, because I was much more tired and sore at the tail end of this walk than I was last week, and I am sure the fact that we were pushing the pace even on the long uphill stretch up Kingston Road had something to do with it.

Nevertheless, we were able to finish the 12.5 miles in much better form than the first time we tried that distance to be sure, and I am feeling pretty good about our chances on the day of the walk. 

All these steps are doing wonders for my Fitbit rankings.  Month to date August I am ranked #60 among 1,100 Redditors who Fitbit, which puts me in the top 5-10% of that group.  Yay!

And did I mention that all this walking is good for weight loss?  Even with rehydrating throughout the walk I was down another pound this morning, for a total of 15.6 pounds lost since I started the new job and recommitted myself to my workout and eating plan.  Sweet. 

I am still above my lowest previous weight, of course, but every additional pound lost puts some distance between me and the dreaded 200 pound mark.  I now have 33 pounds to go until my goal weight, which sounds like a much more reasonable number than it feels like some mornings. 

Today the Nerd and I are going to bake some "proof of concept" Share a Coke (R) gingerbread cookies for the charity bakesale my company is having on Tuesday.  After the cookies, perhaps a much deserved nap.  I love weekends since starting my new job.

132.3 pounds down - and another size

It's the beginning of a new month and you know what that means - - summary time!

As you know I have been working out and trying to eat better for about the last two months or so (coincidentally right around the time that I started my fabulous new job).  At the end of June I saw some positive results, but July was really the first full month back on the program.  The program is a bit different than before - - with the training we have been doing for the Weekend to End Women's Cancers 32 km charity walk on September 6, my workouts have shifted from mostly elliptical workouts with some weights to mostly walking outside, with weights and elliptical thrown in on non-walking days. 

I could tell I was doing a lot of walking, because I finished the month at #65 on the total list of steps taken for the Redditors who Fitbit group, out of more than 1,000 people.  That's right, yours truly was in the top 10% of all Redditors who Fitbit according to my steps taken.  Go me!  If you want to friend me on Fitbit I am user #22LQKV.

I was very curious to see the results of all that walking, and the results are now in. 

As for my weight, I lost 12 pounds in July, for a total of 132.3 pounds lost overall.  I am still chipping away at the weight that I had gained as a result of my uncontrolled emotional binge eating during my job search and job change, but I am very happy with my progress now that I have gotten back into my healthy routine.

Put simply, all of the emotional eating and slacking off put me behind by about a full year in that I was around my current weight about this time last year.  And you know what?  That's OK.  I am not in a time-limited contest to beat anyone to a healthy weight, and as long as I am making progress in either my eating habits or my workouts I am not going to beat myself up for past poor decisions.

It's not that the past is past, it's that belabouring past errors doesn't accomplish anything and it only serves to frustrate me in the here and now.  Instead of focusing on that big leap from 185 pounds to 213+ pounds and how fast I can get back down to 185, I am focusing on the steady whittling down from 213+ pounds to where I am now, at 201.6 pounds.   I am not as focused this year about how quickly I can lose the weight since I have found that for me, that leads to unhealthy obsessiveness and general discontent about how slowly the weight comes off.  Rather, I try and make better decisions each day and look to see the weight come off in its own time.  Very zen of me, I know.  I am more and less successful at this kind of laissez-faire attitude depending on the day, but overall I am better at being patient than I was last year, so I will take this as a win.

This time around I try and celebrate the wins more and don't obsess over the minor gains if I am generally sticking to my plan.  As a result, my attitude is much more positive overall, and I feel better about myself and am generally very content with my renewed progress to date.

The measurements show the progress I have made since my May-June reboot (all measurements in inches):

I am not as focused on hitting a particular size as I am to see the positive changes in my body, however going down a size or two, as I have, is still very motivating.  Everything is coming down with the walks, except my calves.  Sheesh - - my Little Lulu cankles are destined to stay with me forever, alas. 

I am pleased to see the measurements come down to a proper size 14, which is well within the zone of being able to shop anywhere I want.  I suspect that my body is actually built to be a natural 14, even though according to my measurements I have gone down to a 12 or even a 10 in some styles (last year, before eating my way back to a 16-18).  Right now I am not going to fuss too much about the sizes and just pay attention to my body and try and wear things that are comfortable regardless of their size.  I tend to favour slightly larger size shorts, jeans and skirts, given that I have a decent badonkadonk, while I can wear smaller sweaters now that the girls are smaller.  Yes, I understand that the previous sentence is full of colourful metaphors for various parts of my anatomy - - deal with it. 

The Nerd and I went down to Columbus Ohio this weekend to visit his parents in their new home.  I spent a lot of time trying to be sensible in the face of all the delicious food - - his family has a delightful tradition of pre-dinner cocktails (complete with snacks) and it is all too easy to eat 300-400 calories just in rye and crackers and cheese and hummus and veggies before the meal even starts.  Yum!  I also tried to make a point of drinking lots of water, since I find that generally American food is higher in sodium than the Nerd and I are used to consuming in the average day.

On a side note, I discovered that I am a rye snob, because our "well" rye at home is Crown Royal, while our "nice" rye is s special edition Crown Royal.  Apparently normal people consider Crown Royal to be their upmarket rye, so it turns out that I have been very spoiled in the Canadian Whiskey department. 

Although the Nerd's mom does engage in short post-meal walks, they are nothing like the multi-mile marches that the Nerd and I have been doing as part of training for our big walk.  But at least it was some physical activity while we were visiting, which is better than sitting on my butt for the entire time.  I remember when I couldn't keep up with the Nerd's parents on their walks, and now I find them to be more of a stroll than a proper walk - - how times have changed!  All in all, it was a wonderful visit and I can't wait to go back.

Speaking of training walks, here is a map of where we have been walking so far, with the coloured lines indicating our walks:

A few points of note regarding the above map.  First, the big triangle is not where the Nerd and I discovered the power of flight, but it is where the GPS extrapolated the subway ride we took from Lawrence West subway station back downtown to finish off one of our walks. 

We also did one walk in which we drove out to the Leslie and Lawrence East area to walk through one of Toronto's many park systems.  You can see this 3.75 mile loop (for 7.5 miles total) all by itself in the top right hand side of the map.  Interestingly, we did another 5.5 mile walk up the Don Valley trail (for an 11 mile round trip) last weekend, and we almost met up with the southern end of our previous park walk.  Perhaps next weekend we will close the loop, as we have a 12.5 mile walk on the schedule for Saturday morning. 

On an personal note, I felt absolutely fine after our 11 mile walk - - a little tired, but in no obvious discomfort.  This is a big improvement over our last 12.5 mile walks and shows the benefit of doing the training plan the right way around. (!)




Finally, I am not sure if I have officially debuted my haircut, which I got just before the third interview for my current job.  I decided that growing out curly hair is just too frustrating, so I went short, as can be seen in this photo of me and my sister from her birthday in June:

I'm the one on the right

When telling each other about the dresses we were wearing we initially thought we had brought the same dress for dinner out, but we were both simply au courant with the current black and white trend.   

August has more of the same on tap - - the Nerd and I will continue our training walks, and expect to walk around 26 miles a week for the next couple of weeks, in preparation for the big charity walk at the beginning of September.  I will try and keep integrating free weights into my workouts 2-3 times a week, keeping the recent additions of reverse crunches and standing calf raises.  And of course, there's the old standby of the elliptical for those days when walks are not planned. 

159 miles down, plus a day at the races

Another week down, another 5 training walks and 26 miles in the books, for a total of 159.2 miles walked in total so far.  To put that in perspective if I walked 159 miles from Toronto I would have walked all the way to Bothwell, Ontario, a 2 and a half hour drive along the way to London.  Never heard of Bothwell, have you?  Neither have I.  But I do know that it is 159 miles from Toronto. 

All this walking is having a good effect - - I am down 2.1 pounds from last week.  This brings me back into overweight territory from obese, a huge improvement from where I re-started at the beginning of June.  I am 10.7 pounds down from my re-start, and on the way to my previous low.  Ever so slowly, of course, but that's the way these things work. 

In an interesting testament to the depression and work stress that I had been going through at my old job, my weight now, 7 weeks after recommitting to working out and eating properly, is right back to around what I was a year ago at this time. 

I can look at this in a couple of ways.  I can get all depressed about all the time I have lost and wasted over the past year just to end up in the same place that I was a year ago.  Or I can take the fact that I am fighting my way back as a positive thing.  All of my good habits that I have developed over the past couple of years, and my increasing levels of fitness are allowing me to take back control of my weight even though I let it get out of control.  I refuse to give up all the progress that I have made over the past 2 and a half years, even though I have slipped back behind some of the goals I had achieved.  And it is happening slowly, to be sure, but I am winning back those goals one by one again. 

Since I recommitted myself to working out and eating well 7 weeks ago I have broken into the light-heavyweight class, and, this week, I made it back into the overweight category (from being obese).  Next on the list is to break the 200 pound mark again, and then it will be to break 190 pounds.  From that, it will be just a hop and a skip to my previous low weight.

I know that a huge percentage of people gain the weight back within a year after they lose a large amount of weight.  I certainly did the first time I lost weight - - within a couple of years I was well on my way to my new highest weight of all time. 

This time, I like to focus on the fact that when my weight started creeping back up once my job situation resolved itself I took back control over my eating.  7 weeks in, I am feeling almost back to my old healthy self, and I love it.  It is still one day at a time, but those days get easier and easier. 

On a completely unrelated point, a couple of weekends ago the Nerd and I went to the races, which was the genesis of the hat post a couple of posts back.  Due to popular demand, here are some pictures from the event:

We were in the last row of our section, so the Very Large Hat did not block anyone's view, thank goodness.  It was very windy at the race, so the hat did go airborne once, I have to admit.  That being said, it was the perfect hat for the event, and overall we both had a great time. 

Walking training update - 133.2 miles down

This week was a relatively easy week (!) in that we only had 16.5 miles on the schedule with a 5 miler on Monday, 4 miles on Wednesday, and 7.5 miles this morning.  Monday's walk was hellishly uncomfortable due to groin and foot pain combined with crowded sidewalks.  But Wednesday's walk and this morning's walk were both very nice now that I have tried to slow down a bit and take it a bit easier on the groin.  Yes, the irony of having a sports injury is not lost on me.

All this walking is having a couple of result.  First is that I am actually in the top 100 out of 921 Redditors who also Fitbit, at #71.    So far in July I have taken more than 160,000 steps, which is pretty neat considering how few steps I ever took before I started working out (less than 2,000 a day). 

The other fortunate side effect is that I am back to losing weight.  Although I am still (far) above my lowest from last summer, I have lost 8.6 pounds since I recommitted myself last month to working out and eating healthy and reducing snacking.  The food side of things is really the bigger key to success, but I have been diligently working out and trying to keep my activity levels up as well, much more so than I had been doing previously. 

If I can keep focused on taking things one day at a time and avoid seriously injuring myself in the next few months, I may even get back to where I had been.  The big picture is still too far away to really look at since I still have 40 pounds to lose, but  pretty soon I will be able to re-start that countdown to my final goal.

Training update - 5 weeks down, 9 weeks to go

The walking training continues apace (see what I did there?) and I am finally starting to see some improvements.

It has been 5 weeks of walking training, and in that time the Nerd and I have walked 116.9 miles around Toronto.  I started out barely able to keep a 3 mph pace, and now we are regularly busting out a pace of 4 mph even at distance.  Where a 3 mile walk used to be a challenge that I had to work up to, that's now an "easy" walk that we can knock out before work without too much of an effort.  This morning we walked 8 miles with lots of hills, something that would once have knocked me out for the day.  This morning we got home from our walk, showered, and then headed out on the road to walk to a local diner for breakfast - - walking, naturally.  Then more walking to get the Nerd some clothes for the races tomorrow. 

For the longest time I felt like I was not making any progress, but as you can see in the above chart, progress has definitely been made.  My earliest paces were averaging about 3 mph or a little more, around a mile in 20-22 minutes.  Not bad, but not fast.

As you can see, over time the pace has steadily increased.  My most recent walks I was averaging around 4 mph, at a mile in 14-15 minutes.  That's 5 minutes shaved off my previous best mile time.

Last October I walked 5 km for charity with my office team.  It took me about 54 minutes to walk the 3.1 mile course, or thereabouts, which was a minute off my previous personal best time for that distance.  This morning the Nerd and I walked 8 miles at an average pace of 15:36/mile - - at this pace I would have finished that 5 km race in 47 minutes or so, or 7 full minutes lower than my fastest time last year.  Although I don't see the progress from day to day, when I look at the longer term trends or compare my progress year on year, I can really see a difference.

I am not a super fast walker yet, by any means.  Last weekend we were easily smoked by an 80-year old man who was trying to catch up with his friends, and earlier this week a tiny little woman easily kept ahead of us no matter how fast I tried to push the pace.  The reality is that I am a big girl moving a lot of mass, so I will never be a speed demon.  Plus, I have that bouncy walk thing going on that is hugely inefficient.  Ah well, I am getting stronger, more speedy, and have better endurance and faster recovery with every walk, so I embrace the progress that I see.

One of the women I work with keeps asking me if the weight is falling off me with all the walking.  I can honestly say "no".  I am not snacking, and I am trying to keep my calories in a good range, and I an exercising (either walking or elliptical or weights, or a combination of all three) 6 days a week, but despite how challenging I find the walks, it looks like walking is just an easier workout for me than pure elliptical training.  My weight is not plateauing yet, but those last 42 pounds are coming off verrrryyyyy slowly, grim death marches notwithstanding.

Very pleased with the progress so far...one step at a time!

I never thought I could do it ... but I did!

I walked 12.7 miles in a single sitting today, over almost 4 hours. 

The Nerd and I walked from our downtown apartment along the waterfront past the boardwalk all the way to the Humber River, and then came back along King Street through the theatre district and the financial centre back home. 

As you know I am training for this charity walk in the beginning of September.  The walk will require that I walk between 30 and 32 km in a single day.  There is no time limit, of course, but the laws of physics apply, so the faster one walks, the faster one finishes. 

I went from not being able to walk half a block without having to stop (before I began working out) to my current fitness level where a three mile walk (about an hour's walking) is no problem at all.  Last weekend the Nerd and I did two training walks, one 6.5 miles, and one 7 miles, and I could handle each with little difficulty.  I got a little tired near the end of each walk, but overall I felt pretty good. 

But today's training plan called for a 12.5 mile walk.  That's more than double my longest planned walk from last weekend, and easily the longest that I had ever walked in my entire life.  Not cumulatively, of course (although it certainly felt like it).
 

Mile 1

The day was a perfect one for walking, 20 degrees with a light breeze off the lake to keep us moving.  When we turned for home along King Street we lost the breeze, but gained some nice sunshine.

I was feeling fine up until around mile 8 (which, to be clear, is still to that point the longest that I had ever walked in a single stretch in my life).  Then my hip flexor started to ache on the right side, my feet started to hurt, and my back started to tighten up - - it was as if my entire lower body decided that it had had enough walking, all at once.  Two and a half years ago I would have felt like this just crossing the street, and now it takes 8 miles for it to happen - - things are definitely looking up!

So I have to say that I wanted to stop walking pretty much the entire last 4 and a half miles.  Every step hurt, and I must have looked like a zombie lurching down the street at some points.  I took a  couple of short breaks just to try and ease up on the legs a bit, but I did not stop.  I walked and I walked and I walked and then I finished.  12.7 miles all in all, in 3:54:53. 

I did not stop and I did achieve my training objective for today of walking 12.5 miles.  And although my legs are on fire and my feet are sore and it will take a bloody act of will to get out of bed to do it all over again tomorrow, I am very proud of myself for pushing through and doing the full distance.

I know that it will get easier over time, and pretty soon 10 miles will feel like nothing (at least I fervently hope so).  I walk 4 times a week, and week by week I will get stronger and stronger.  This is literally the worst that I should feel during my training, because this is the toughest fitness:distance ratio in the entire training plan. 

So I have taken a few Advil, and the Nerd and I are going to have a drink on the roof and look at the lake and relax and congratulate ourselves on our walk.  I think a little self-congratulations are in order here. 

A death in the family and a walk in my future

At the beginning of the month a much beloved family member passed away quietly.  Yes, at long last, my long suffering Fitbit finally synced its last step and went to that great pedometer garden in the sky. 

I knew something was wrong when I couldn't get the little guy to sync.  The Fitbit kept counting my steps, but the steps weren't being recorded anywhere.  I tried all the fixes - - resetting the unit, re-installing the Fitbit connect, syncing through Linux...nothing worked.  Finally I broke down and reached out to Fitbit support, who were characteristically amazing.  Within 48 hours a new Fitbit was on its way to me, and the Nerd now has my old, non-syncing Fitbit for experimental purposes (this brings his total number of Fitbits to 5 - - 1 Zip, 2 Ultras and 2 Ones...not that he has a problem or anything). 

Anyhoo, all of my tracking numbers for June are off because it looks like I have been barely walking at all because I have no steps recorded at all for the entire first week and a half of June, when in fact I was walking a lot more than usual.  Grrrr....!

Which brings me to the walking more than usual.  I am training for the 32 km walk this September as part of the Weekend to End Women's Cancers.  Yes, I was somewhat peer-pressured into it by my new boss in that he invited all of our department to join him in the walk and I wanted to be part of the team.  But it's also a great opportunity to force myself to do some different things, especially since I haven't really incorporated long distance walking into my usual routine. 

I started training last week and walked 3 miles on Tuesday, 2 miles on Thursday, 6 miles on Saturday and 7 miles on Sunday.  Sadly, none of these workouts was captured on my Fitbit, so it looks like I was one giant couch potato last week from a step-counting point of view. 

This week I did another 3 mile walk on Tuesday and the Nerd and I just got back from a 3.5 mile walk tonight.  This weekend may kill me, however - - my training plan calls for a horrifying 12.5 mile walk on Saturday and an 8.5 mile walk on Sunday.  Next week will be easier, but I will be walking for 4 hours straight on Saturday, something I have seldom done (and by seldom, I mean that I have walked that distance precisely once).  I have to confess that I am not looking forward to it, but I am looking forward to the results and to seeing how my fitness increases over time.  It's that thought alone that keeps me pushing to do the training walks.  Well, the thought of my increasing fitness plus the desire not to look like a complete fool in front of 100 people from my new office.  See kids, peer pressure can be a good thing!

Tonight I voted in our provincial election, and I am somewhat distracted by my iPad flashing up to the minute results.  I won't tell you who I voted for, but this particular election was literally too close to call as late as yesterday, and the vote differential now, just after polls have closed, is still a statistical dead heat.  I much prefer a blowout in these kinds of situations, and watching the results trickling in when the numbers are so close is causing me anxiety.  Might be a good time to simply crawl into bed and wait for the election to be over.  I voted though, which is critical, because: i) it's important to exercise your right to vote; and ii) you can't complain if you don't vote. 

So, all in all it was a good week.  I am settling into my new job (which I lovelovelove).  I am two weeks into the new "suck it up and get back on the program" routine, which is gradually paying dividends.  I am two weeks into walking training for the September mega-walk.  And I have a brand new Fitbit, which is not a bad thing.  The little fella keeps me honest, anyways.

Coming back online, slowly

Photo by drinks machine, licensed CC-BY-NC-ND

Long time, no write.

For the past few months my workouts have been inconsistent (especially for me), and I have been using work stress and emotional stress as excuses to Eat All The Things.  Some days I couldn't even bring myself to log my food - - who can tell how many calories I was getting from a restaurant poutine, after all? 

That shit stops now.  Well, to be more accurate, that shit stopped this week.  I took myself in hand and started back with the intensive workouts and getting back to my healthy eating routine. 

I still need to lose weight, so adopting an easier workout routine that is more of a maintenance program (which I had rationalized as more sustainable than the hard workouts I had previously done) just doesn't make sense.  So now I am back to 90 minutes of kicking my own ass on the weights, treadmill, and elliptical, 6 days a week.  It's only day 4 of the new-and-improved world order, but it's amazing how easy it is to slip back into a healthy routine after having been so diligent at it for more than 2 years, even after a break.  In a strange way my healthy lifestyle is starting to feel more comfortable to me than the lazy ass binge eating lifestyle I used to adopt.  And only 2 and a half years later! 

Of course my complete abandonment of healthy eating has had its sequellae - - I gained back weight, and a lot of it.  Not that I look like Jabba the Hut or anything, but I have noticed that my clothing is tight, and that is just Not On.  I didn't go out and get all these new clothes just to eat my way out of them after a month, no sir. 

So how did I get here?  Simple - I gave myself permission to indulge myself, using my stress and depression about work as excuses.  Frankly, I feel much better about myself and my life when I eat well and do a hard workout, so abandoning those good habits only contributed to my feelings of depression.  And once you start feeling bad because you're eating like crap, it's ever so easy to eat more to try and feel better ... except, of course, that this never works.  The only thing that works is to fix the thing that isn't working and to stick to the good habits that I know make me healthier.

So I took control of the work situation, and I will have more news on that score in 2-4 weeks or so.  I've still got a ton of work to do on that front, but I recently received some very good news that has given me hope for the future with respect to work, which is wonderful.  I'm not out of the woods yet, but soon, hopefully. 

The Nerd and I are also working at fixing up the apartment to make it more livable.  We are both clearing out a lot of deadwood (I mean, do I really need to keep 30 years of old cards from strangers?) and we have donated a bunch of unwanted furniture to charity.  This gives us more room to move, and more room for books, to be perfectly honest.  Since "books" is kind of the decorating theme for the Palatial Estate, this works well.  As the place shapes up, my mood improves even more.  I hate living in disarray, and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel with this side project as well. 

So the workouts - what's new and different and what have I learned?  I learned that 46 year old knees do not take kindly to running when I have never run before, and I have had to dial back on the C25K training I was doing.  I sort of wrecked my right knee and aggravated an old groin injury, and in the interests of my health I have changed up the running to merely walking on the treadmill at a reasonable pace.

The weights are effective, so I have not changed anything up there, other than to kick things up a notch with an additional set.  I am currently doing 4 sets of 10 for 9 different exercises, and I will likely keep things at this level for another week or so.

The elliptical is still my best calorie burner and step driver, so I now do 90 minutes on the elliptical on non-weight days.  It kicks my ass every time, but it's totally worth it.  On weight days I do 10 minutes on the treadmill and 35 minutes on the elliptical for a total workout of about 90 minutes, and it feels good. 

No more light workouts for the time being - - they are fine for maintenance, which will be wonderful when I reach my goal.  That's a loooonnnngggg way in the future, however.  For now I need to suck it up, buttercup, and focus on bringing on the sweat 6 days a week for 90 minutes each morning.  So that's what I will do.

As for the food, it's back to first principles.  No more illicit snacking.  No more donuts, unlogged chocolate or cupcakes, no more poutine or grilled cheese, no more nachos or rice krispie square bars.  What do I eat?  The Nerd's delicious cooking, of course, with his balanced and nutritious meals.  I am trying to keep my daily calories under 1,700-1,800, and although I don't succeed every day, it's something to shoot for.  I know that this calorie target gives me enough room to eat enough delicious food to be satisfied, but not so much food that I risk going over the edge again.

I know that eating sensibly, working out to challenge myself, and avoiding snacking results in weight loss, and soon I will be back in my old weight neighbourhood.  I have lost some ground, but I will be back again.  I'm stubborn that way. 

Aerobic fitness - check; core strength - doing good; upper body strength - help! I have Tyrannosaurus Rex arms!

I have survived two weeks of New Rules of Lifting for Women, and definitely feel the burn in my arms and core. 

I am still enjoying the workouts, and find some of them to be super fun, like the prone jackknifes on the swiss ball.  The new workout equipment is getting used, which really, is half the battle, isn't it?  The workouts are generally enjoyable as well as challenging, and I can't wait to get through the first 6 weeks to see how I have progressed.  1/3 of the way down, 2/3 of the way to go!

I took a look this week at where I stack up on various criteria.  Thanks to the elliptical, my cardio is good, and I have a lot of endurance with a nice low resting heart rate.  That's a good thing. 

I am also getting good core strength, which is really a good thing.  Situps are no problem for me, and the work I am doing with the swiss ball is really paying off. 

So how about that upper body strength? 

Yeah ... not so much.  I can do a whole bunch of incline push-ups, but my attempts at a real push-up end in a tangle of limbs.  I don't think it counts as "half a push-up" when you collapse on the floor in an uncontrolled fall.  Arnold Schwarzenegger, I am not. 

My feeble little T-Rex arms are gradually getting stronger, but it's such a slow process.  I want to be able to do 7-14 standard push-ups, and right now I can do precisely ... well, zero. 

I also need to work on learning how to run.  I tried to run, briefly, the last time I was in Columbus, and it did not go well.  Nothing felt natural, and I was certain that my gait was completely wrong.  A gazelle, I am not. 

In time, though, I want to be able to run 2.5 km in 14:26 - 16:25 minutes.  Why?  Running is a criterion for many things, and it is just a plain good thing to be able to do. 

Walking is also another good thing to do, and I want to ramp up my walking from 5 km to 13 km at a stretch.  Again, just because it's good to push these things. 

Tomorrow is a plain elliptical day, and then Sunday is a rest day (yay!).  Then it's back to the weights on Monday. 

I signed up for my first 5K this week...

This week one of my co-workers posted an invitation for people in the firm to join the company team for the Run for the Cure, a race to raise funds to combat breast cancer. 

Most years I would receive this invitation and I would politely decline, but I would sponsor my friends on the team with donations.  It's always easier to pay someone else to do something than to do it yourself, after all.  Pay someone to run for me?  Perfect!

And let's face it - - most years I would not have been able to participate even if I had wanted to - - my body could not handle walking 50 metres, let alone 5,000 metres.  My office is about 550 metres from my apartment (3 short city blocks), and at my heaviest I could not walk that distance without stopping at least once to stretch out my back.  My back muscles would seize up before I had even gone a block, causing me to limp and one of my legs to drag.  Attractive, I know.

But that was before I began working out.  It has been a long time now that I have been able to handle the walk to work with ease, and walking is now part of my regular routine.  I assume that I can walk places, and so I do.  Go to the mall?  No problem.  It's faster, cheaper, and less hassle to walk (as compared to taking the subway one or two stops).  I love the fact that I no longer do frantic calculations in my head to figure out what is the closest I can take transit or a car to a particular place - - if it's nearby, I'll just walk.  No math required.

As for longer distances, I vividly recall planning for a 1.7 km walk from a restaurant to a friend's house last August.  I was easily able to handle the walk, but it was my first significant walk of any measurable distance, and I had been worried that I would not be able to keep up with the others who were walking with us.  I had to talk myself into going, and reassuring myself by telling myself that I could easily handle 550 metres, so I could certainly handle 1,700 metres.  As it happened, not only was I able to keep up, I was not the slowest, which was eye opening for me. 

From that time I have walked increasing distances, to the point where the Nerd and I have repeatedly done 6 mile walks around town.  5 km no longer scares me - - I look at it as a fun challenge.  Walk for an hour?  No problem! 

So this invitation to participate on the firm team for the Run to end Breast Cancer came at an opportune time.  I am fitter than I have been in more than a decade, I am not embarrassed to be seen out in the streets wearing my workout gear (thank you Old Navy Compression leggings!), and I even own a pair of proper running shoes for the first time in my life. 

The walk route is very pretty, too, which is a bonus.  It starts right around the legislature buildings, south around Queens Park, then back up past the University of Toronto campus which has some beautiful old buildings, then up to Bloor Street and across to St. George and down to College Street to Kings College Circle.  Interesting trivia, the course takes me past my law school, my MBA school, and Convocation Hall, where I attended the convocations for each of my graduate degrees. 

The only real question is whether I will walk the course, or whether I will run it.  I can already walk it comfortably, so no incremental training is required.  I have never run as an adult, though, so if I want to run the course I should probably do a C25K program.  I have heard so many people rave about running, but I also have the world's most terrible knees, and I have real concerns about their ability to handle the pounding of running to any significant extent.  After all, most people my age are winding down their running careers because their knees are shot - - it's hardly the time to pick up running. 

But I really want to run the course.  The main reason is that I get done faster, and to my mind, 30 minutes of exercise is better than 60 minutes, any day.  Yes, I am exactly that lazy (!)  Maybe it will be OK to do one little 5K.  I'm sure my knees could handle that, decrepit though they are. 

The other reason I want to run the course is that my friends who will be on the same team will mostly be running, and I want to keep up with them.  If I walk, I will be walking alone (yes, alone with thousands of other Torontonians), which strikes me as less fun somehow. 

I don't know which way I am going to jump yet, but I am registered, so there's no turning back now.  Wish me luck!  (well, wish me luck eventually, because the race is not until the week before Canadian Thanksgiving)

Walking a mile or 6...

This holiday weekend the Nerd asked me if I wanted to go for a walk, given that it was a beautiful day.  My initial impulse was to say no, but on reflection, I thought it would be nice to actually get out and go for a stroll, to take advantage of the day off.

We decided to walk up Yonge Street to Bloor, and then over to Avenue Road by the university, and back home.  Halfway there, the Nerd suggested that instead of turning for home at Avenue Road, we should continue westbound until Spadina, and stop at Greg's Ice Cream. 

For those of you who do not live in Toronto, Greg's is a Toronto institution.  Previously located near the University of Toronto on Bloor Street West at Avenue Road, a few years ago Greg's moved to Bloor and Spadina, in a little hole in the wall by the Jewish Community Centre.  It's still near the university, just near the western edge of it, rather than the central portion.  Greg's serves some of the best ice cream in the city.  There are more than 100 flavours of Greg’s Ice Cream, but there’s one recipe the ice cream maker is particularly known for - -  roasted marshmallow.

At any rate, it was a nice day for a walk, and it was fun to walk the 3 miles over to Greg's.  I was having visions of Greg's roasted marshmallow ice cream (which every sensible person agrees is the best flavour). 

Alas, it was not to be.  Greg's was closed for the holiday.  Too bad, so sad.  So the Nerd and I enjoyed a tea in the sun whilst watching an outdoor salsa dancing class before turning for home. 

It was a very nice walk, and after all was said and done, we did 6.4 miles in about 2 hours.  A nice stroll. 

That evening and the next day my hip flexor on the one side was very sore, which made certain things (like going up stairs, or lifting my leg to get into bed) very uncomfortable.  Fortunately, I didn't notice any problems with the elliptical, so I was able to do my new-usual Saturday workout of 55 minutes on the elliptical without missing a day.

I was pleasantly happy to discover that this morning my leg (including the hip flexor) felt fine - - as good as new.  So no lasting damage was done by our enthusiastic walk.  I felt so good that I walked home from a friend's house this afternoon rather than taking a cab as I usually do, so I got to do another couple of miles today (only 1.5 of which I tracked). 

I love that my increasing fitness levels are allowing me the option of going on these walks, and using my own power to get places.  Toronto is a great walking city, after all, and it's nice to be able to take advantage of it.  I also like the savings that comes with walking, as opposed to cabbing it everywhere - - that adds up quickly!

Catastrophe! The Fitbit went swimming...unintentionally

I have been pretty good in the year that I have owned my little Fitbit.  I have remembered to wear it almost every day, and up until this morning, it never went swimming in the laundry.

You will note that I said "until this morning".  Well, consider my streak as a responsible Fitbit owner at an end.  This morning I did a quick 30 minutes on the elliptical just to give myself room for guacamole this evening (yum!), and I was wearing my Fitbit on my sports bra, as is my custom.  The Nerd started a load of laundry just as I was finishing up, and I rushed to give him my workout clothes, and tossed him everything so that I could catch the load that was just going into the washer.  Unbeknown to me, the Fitbit was included in that bundle, and into the wash it went.  I realized what I had done very quickly, but not before the cycle had begun and the Fitbit was swimming in a pool of gently agitating water. 

Initially it flashed the time when I pressed its button, suggesting that the little guy may not be entirely dead.  So right now it is safely nestled in a box of basmati rice, hopefully drying out from its trip to the washer. 

I checked the Fitbit community forums, and it looks like Fitbits often take trips through the washer, and many of them survive after drying out in rice for 24 hours or so.  I will just have to give the little guy some time to recover from his traumatic ordeal.  Yes, I anthropomorphize my Fitbit, what of it? 

I am a little resentful of the Fitbit's recovery time, because the Nerd and I plan to walk up to the big Loblaws store on Carlton to get spices, and now this trek will be unrecorded on the Fitbit.  But I will track it with Runkeeper so that I at least have some record of the walk.  Nature abhors an uncredited walk...!

I am a poorly adjusted bipedal hominid

I remember reading one of Stephen Jay Gould's essays on life, the universe and everything, and he was discussing our present bipedal form, and how as humans we generally suck at bipedalism (compared to other animals).  As Wikipedia notes:

     Even with much anatomical modification, some features of the human skeleton remain poorly adapted to bipedalism, leading to negative implications prevalent in humans today. The lower back and knee joints are plagued by osteological malfunction, lower back pain being a leading cause of lost working days, because the joints support more weight. Arthritis has been a problem since hominids became bipedal: scientists have discovered its traces in the vertebrae of prehistoric hunter-gatherers. Physical constraints have made it difficult to modify the joints for further stability while maintaining efficiency of locomotion.

I was never more reminded of this than this weekend when I hurt my lower back - - what a typically bipedal hominid thing to do!  There I was, standing there, minding my own business when BLAMMO!  my back went out.

Saturday and Sunday were painful, but Monday was especially bad - - with all the water I drink in a day, sitting still is just not an option, and every time I got out of my chair to walk it was agony.  That is, until I wised up and took 3 extra strength Advils.  Once the pain was down to a dull ache, I could function again.

This morning my back is still sore, but I definitely see progress from yesterday and the day before.  And I will make a point of remembering that painkillers were invented for a reason - to stop my incessant whining - so I should stop trying to be a hero and take something when the discomfort is starting to impinge on my ability to function.

I predict tomorrow I will feel 100% better, at least according to my mother's scale of things.  For her, every day is 100% better than the last.  She's an incurable optimist, my mother.  A stoic with a high pain threshold, and an optimist at the same time, she possesses the perfect combination of traits to get over physical issues, and I am happy to have inherited these qualities from her.  Yay, mitochondrial DNA-linked traits!

On the good side, my back has not affected my ability to sweat on the elliptical machine, which is good.  I would hate to give back all my hard work due to inactivity.  As it is, the weight is trending in a very nice direction (i.e. downwards), and I just need to keep it up.  I'll just keep putting one foot in front of the other until I don't notice my lower back any more...

Walking and wins

Photo courtesy Bradley Buhro, licensed CC-BY-NC-SA

Saturday I had the usual routine of coffee and grocery shopping with my mom at McEwan's (a premium grocery store in North York with amazing service), and then grocery shopping (for the bulk of the food) with the Nerd at the St. Lawrence Market.

I had planned to go for a walk after shopping and before lunch, but it was 3pm before we finished lunch as coffee ran a little long this morning.  One thing led to another and before I knew it, it was getting into the early evening, and no walk was in sight.

I had suggested to the Nerd that we go for a walk a few times today, and got a non-committal response each time.  I suspect he is starting to realize that these grim death marches are becoming a trend, and perhaps he is regretting his early enthusiasm for walks.

I finally decided to go myself if the Nerd would not accompany me, and headed out alone around 7:30 pm - - in time for a perfect sunset, and then a nice walk alone in the increasingly dark streets.  That latter part was not so fun, as inevitably in downtown Toronto there are certain blocks or areas that are less comfortable to walk past, either because of the number or type of people hanging out on the street.  But I am a big girl (no kidding), and I was walking at a good clip, and I appeared to be aware of my surroundings, so I was not bothered by anyone.

I tried a new app for the first time on this walk, the BeatBurn Treadmill app.  You may remember that I use the BeatBurn Elliptical app 6 days a week during my elliptical exercises.  The concept behind both apps is the same: the app adjusts the beat of your personal music to hit a specific cadence, and varies that beat/cadence throughout the workout.  On the elliptical machine this is accomplished by varying the intensity on the machine and your strides per minute.  On the treadmill app the intensity is varied purely modifying the walking pace.

Overall, I enjoyed using the app for the walk.  I would have enjoyed it more if it were light out and not so scary on the street, but the fact that I was walking at night was not the app's fault.  I found the variety in the music to be quite stimulating, and I did not get bored with the pace on the walk.  I also found that walking in time to the music helped me keep pressing the pace, avoiding my tendency to slow down over time.

I was surprised that I was so keen to walk, especially since I ended up walking alone.  It can't be because I get to eat more when I work out ... well, not only that, at any rate.  I think it is because I am committed to adding walks to my routine, and I am also committed to doing something active every day.  Going for a walk is a simple fix to a workout problem - - it's free, and can be as intense (or not) as you wish.

I still find walking challenging, because I have an unusually bouncy stride and cannot for the life of me hit a 4 mph pace.  But distance is not a problem any more, nor is time.  I walked for around 50 minutes, and could easily have gone longer if I did not need to get home for dinner.  My legs still feel achy when I get home and have sat for a while, but the next morning there are no sequelae from the walk - - no muscle soreness, no joint pain, no sore feet - - which is great.

I hope that the more walks I do, the better I will be able to dial up the pace.  I would love to walk 5 km in under 60 minutes (or preferably much less).  This is not because I would like to be a competitive walker, but rather, because I hate the idea of doing anything for 60 minutes that doesn't involve words like "snuggle" or "nap", or "tasting menu".

Photo courtesy Alien Skyy, licensed CC-BY-SA

As for wins, aside from the win of being motivated enough to go for a walk on my nominal "rest" day, I noticed today for the first time that I am having an easier time getting out of chairs. 

I have a couple of very comfy chairs in the living room, which by their nature are difficult from which to escape.

In the past, before I started working out, I would have to lever myself out of the chairs with great effort.  My knees would be very sore and weak, and there was no question of simply standing up - - getting to an upright position almost required a winch and a crane, and was a major undertaking.  Getting out of the chair was so challenging that most evenings, once I was in the chair, it was more practical to just accept that I was there for the duration.

A few weeks ago (or maybe even a couple of months ago), I noticed that it was somewhat easier to get out of the chair, in that it was easier for me to bend over and put my computer lapboard on the ottoman to permit me to lever myself out of the chair.  The simple fact was that having lost around 5" on my stomach, there was less of me in the way impeding bending at the waist.

Today I noticed that, although I am still levering myself out of chairs, the effort required is much less.  I am not leaping out of chairs like a springbok, by any means, but I am noticing that it requires much less effort to lever myself out of chairs than it did before.

I expect this means that my legs are getting stronger with all the exercise that I am doing.  After all, all those elliptical workouts and walks must be good for something, right?  Regardless, being able to get out of chairs with (slightly more) grace and dignity is a win, and I will take it. 

I'm Melting...!

Another week down, another 0.5 pounds down.  There are a couple of wins there.  First, I was still able to lose weight from my last official weigh in on Friday last despite the infamous "sausage cassoulet affair" (see previous post).  Second, I broke 50 pounds lost, for a total of 50.1 pounds lost overall.  Yay, me!

On the one hand, I (and my mother) am thrilled that I have lost 50 pounds.  On the other hand, I still have that amount again, twice, still to lose.  More, actually, since I need to lose about another 120 pounds or so.  Ack.  When I think about it like that, it sounds like a really big number.  Better not to think of that.  Let's think about wins, so as not to become utterly discouraged.

One win this week is that I have really been tracking my carbs, and I actually had 2 normal fasting blood sugar readings this week.  Down from my all-time high of 3 normal readings in a week, but way up from last week's result of zero normal values.  I will take the wins where I get them, thank you very much.  2 normal results is a third of the way to all normal results - - baby steps, people.  One day at a time.

The other win is that I finally broke out some of my size 22 clothes, which is the size that I now am, compared to size 26, which is where I started.  On Friday I wore a pair of size 22 jeans into the office, and although they were tight (not grotesquely so, just not loose), they fit, and I got compliments on how good I looked.  :-)  Today I looked through my clothing archive (carefully organized under improvised garbage bag garment bags, grouped by size) for my size 22 clothes.  Apparently I blew through that size pretty fast (at least according to my mother), which suggests that I held on to the size 20 clothes much longer than I should have, because I was almost ready for size 24 by the time I transitioned into size 22.  The net result that I had very few size 22 clothes compared to other sizes.

The archive for size 22 was somewhat sparse.  A skirt, a scarf, and one jacket.  That will not hold me for long, that's for sure.  The jacket, however, is a nice green tweed, that I bought as a casual Friday jacket for use with jeans.  I tried it on and could do it up for the first time in literally years, and it looked nice.  Because it was the same size as me, the shoulders actually came around the same width as my actual shoulders, instead of looking like massive 1980s-era shoulder pads.  Sweet.

And I got compliments with the jacket.  I wore it shopping today and my mom loved it (she remembered the last time I wore it, years ago), and one of our friends commented how much she loved the jacket when we met them for dinner tonight.  Double sweet.  :-)

Photo courtesy PhotOZraphy, licensed CC-BY-SA-ND

I discovered one thing about my twisted psyche today, however, which is that I am not comfortable wearing clothes that fit.  Strange, no?  I am so used to wearing clothes that are too big, literally overflowing off of me, that I can use them almost like a cape or protective layer, hiding how my body really looks.  When you wear clothes that fit, your actual size is obvious - - the clothes highlight your form.  I am still uncomfortable in how I look (relative to the general population), so that wearing size-appropriate clothing makes me uncomfortable.  I can't hide in it like I could hide in my old black size 26 suit jackets.  In time this will be self-repairing.  Either my current clothing will become too loose, in which case I can use it as a shield, or I will become more comfortable with my form, and I won't mind if my clothes fit. 

I found it interesting that I only discovered this when putting on the jacket that fit well.  Strange how one's mind works. 

Another win (yes, I know, I said there were two wins when actually there are 3.  You should know by now that there are always 3 things with me, just like the Spanish Inquisition) is that the Nerd and I went for a 3.3 mile walk this afternoon, uninterrupted by breaks. This walk felt pretty good, and it took under an hour to do, which is my fastest time yet for that distance.  A couple of months ago I would not have even thought I could walk a couple of kilometers, let alone three+ miles. 

I am enjoying the feeling of being able to walk places in the city.  Today we walked up to Dundas Street, then back down to Front Street and over to Sherbourne Street.  I was actually surprised when we reached Dundas, because the street appeared much quicker than I expected - - after all, it's 2 subway stops north, which is a Long Way.  Well, maybe the old me would have not been able to walk that distance, but the new me actually suggested the walk, and enjoyed seeing the sights. 

The fact that I was able to eat extra food at the Mexican restaurant this evening because of the calories expended on the walk was just a bonus, I swear [grin].

Onward and downward!

I may not see it ... but my Fitbit does

As you know, I began officially working out at the end of January, 2012.  Before that, and in fact, as early as November, 2011, I was watching what I ate (although not, apparently, watching it very closely).  Trying to manage my food consumption alone led to some minor weight loss, but it took adding exercise to really see the pounds start to come off.

I, like most people, look at myself in the mirror every day.  Changes are happening to my body, but I don't really see them until I compare two photographs, side by side.  It's just that all the changes are so incredibly gradual, that I don't notice them from day to day.


But my little Fitbit sees the changes, too, and tells me so.  Let's look at my very first weekly report from Fitbit (at right).  I walked a whopping total of 13,209 steps that week, for an average of 1,887 steps per day, and a total of 5.94 miles for the entire week. 

Thinking back to this timeframe, at my heaviest, I simply couldn't walk more than a half a block without extreme discomfort in my back, and without my asthma kicking in to make me sound like a freight train.  Not to mention the ever-so-attractive bright pink face.  And that is from walking half a block.

I couldn't walk to the office (a 3 block trip) without stopping at least once to stretch out my back, and I would do whatever I could to avoid walking at all, it was so uncomfortable.  I spent $12 each week on transit to the office, and $50 per week on cabs home from the office.  All because I. Could. Not. Walk. 

Let's compare, shall we, to one of my recent tracking reports (not last week's because Fitbit decided not to track an entire day's worth of steps for some reason, but that's another story). 

A couple of weeks ago I walked more than 48 thousand steps, covering more than 23 miles.  Not only can I walk to the office without discomfort, but I recently went on a 4.4 mile walk, for "fun".  I would never have even thought that I could do such a thing, when I started this workout kick. 

Last week I walked to the office and home again every day (except for Friday evening, when I took a cab to meet a friend uptown for dinner).  I then had a long walk on Saturday afternoon, home from Yonge and Bloor, and I had the monster of all walks (for me) on Sunday, at Tommy Thompson Park. 

The Nerd has noticed that I walk faster, when I walk places, and that we do not need to stop when he walks me to the office in the morning.  He also notices that we go on walks together at least 2-3 times per week, where in the past I would have done everything in my power to avoid walking anywhere.  And there's also the money saved in transit and cabs - - a not immaterial thing in this economy, when times are tight.  And there's also the attitude shift.  Before (in the "dark times" before working out), my default was to take transit everywhere.  Toronto is blessed with a pretty good transit system downtown, and I am smack dab in the center of it.  Over time, however, I have noticed that I find waiting for the streetcar to be more of a pain than it is worth, especially when I know it will be packed and uncomfortable.  I am finding it just easier and nicer to walk to work, and many times I will arrive before the streetcar would have dropped me off.  That change in my mindset is a huge thing, and is the thing that will help me keep with these good walking habits more than anything else. 

I don't notice these differences, because they sneak up on me so gradually.  I can't tell you the first time I was able to walk to work without significant discomfort.  I can't tell you when my wheezing started to get better.  And I can't tell you when I first thought it was easier to walk to work than to wait for the streetcar.  But I can tell you that all of a sudden I am noticing that I can do things that I could never do before. 

And that's a good thing. 

I can't wait to see the story the numbers tell 6 months or a year from now.