Welcome Back Fonda

I am an embarrassed creature by nature. From birthday cards to feminine hygiene products to exercise videos, I practice covert buying techniques. Face down on the counter, barcode up, double-bag and out. Sunglasses for bonus points.

Fortunately, this has waned over the years and I can jauntily buy Always and Hallmark cards with a certain je ne sais quois. The exception: exercise videos. It's one thing to get fit but an entirely different thing to do it with a Jane Fonda exercise video.

Back in 1995 I somehow overcame my embarrassment and invested in a bunch of Jane videos. To my surprise, Jane was someone to be admired – she inspired flouncing. And so I flounced for a few months until flouncing became sporadic and I lent Jane out to a friend. I never saw Jane again...until last weekend.

I was at Zellers when I spied Jane's complete Personal Trainer series for a fraction of the cost and on DVD. So I sucked up my pride and bought it. And I even bought it without buying a manly workout DVD to fool the cashier into thinking I was buying Jane for my husband and not myself.

Last night I finally popped in the DVD and was rather impressed at the picture quality. The 90s era fashion, hairstyles and musak were perfectly preserved. It was so well-preserved that my husband turned tail and hid in the office.

I may be an embarrassed creature by nature, but at least I can let it go at home. So, 12 years later, I resumed flouncing and was terrible at it. But, spastic coordination aside, at least it got me moving.

Welcome home, Jane. I missed you.

Sudsy Prune

Mini-goal achieved. I got in a whopping 11 activity points this week! That was a lot easier than I expected. I celebrated by having a nice long cocunut bubble bath.

What should my next feat be? I'll have to think about that. Bungy jumping is definitely out though.

And then there were six...

While we were at Tim Horton's last night (only 3 Timbits for me, thank you very much), my husband mentioned to our friends that we had signed up for a 10k. One offered right quick to be a walking buddy with us and that she knew great places to walk. Another said that we should make a team. I said, "why don't we all do it together?"

Strangely, they agreed. So two became six and we're all going to train together, too. Nothing like training buddies to keep you in line!

Third weigh-in

This morning I went to my third weigh-in. 1.2 lbs down! Whoo! I might not be like those people who proudly state that they've lost 7 pounds in one week, but at least I'm losing at a steady rate. Plus, I'm looking forward to NOT losing great handfuls of hair in three or four months like that last diet attempt. Who knew that losing weight so quickly means your hair might fall out in clumps down the road?

[Update]
Just because I can, I'm going to start adding one of those weight loss tickers to my weigh-in posts. I decided on this combo because I like the idea of a hula dancer battling her way through shoulder-high grass to victory. 184 isn't my ultimate goal weight; it's my 10% goal which seems much more attainable :)

Cornflakes ≠ KFC

In my quest to obtain the holy grail - crispy low-fat chicken - I discovered that cornflakes do not KFC make. Indeed, skinless chicken breaded with cornflakes tastes like....well, chicken and cornflakes. Crispy, yes. Crunchy tasty and flavourful? No.

I could spend time trying to tweak the recipe I used, but why should I? After receiving some advice from the boards, I've decided that the next time I hear "the call," I'll just plan to use some weekly allowance points to get the real deal.

The more I'm on WeightWatchers, the more I'm loving this plan. In my past diet attempts, I was always feeling restricted and guilty for craving "bad" things. With WeightWatcher's way of living, I can have those things, just in moderation and not all the time. So that bucket of KFC becomes one chicken wing and the cornflakes get to stay where they belong: in my cereal bowl.

Missing: One Scale

On any journey, it's a good idea to have someone who has your back. Someone who looks out for you. Someone who loves you for who you are. Someone who, when push comes to shove, will steal your scale when you're not looking.

Although the cardinal "No one reads your blog" rule still applies, husbands are apparently exempt. Mine laid out a careful trap to see if I was sneaking the scale out of the cupboard. I suspect he laid a hair across it or something equally sneaky to determine whether or not the scale had been disturbed. Busted.

After I returned home from work today, I found my scale mysteriously gone. Witherto? I'd like to think on a journey of its own.

Goals

I keep seeing this quote crop up quite a bit:

Goals don’t achieve themselves.

And it's got me thinking – goals don't set themselves either. If I don't set them to begin with, I'll never achieve them. It's too easy to say "I should really..." and then not follow through.

So this week, I'm going to start setting realistic mini-goals. My first mini-goal has been one I've kept in the back of my mind since yesterday morning: get 7 activity points this week. Easy enough right? Especially because right now I have 5 activity points under my belt already and will get at least one more this evening.

As part of setting goals, I'm going to set rewards, too. When I achieve my 7 points this week, I will buy a nice sudsing bath product from the Body Shop. I will bathe in aforementioned sudsing bath product until I am a sudsy prune.

Like exercise, goals ain't so bad if there's a loofah dangling in front of me.

“I’m sad that I’m flying”

I've really gotta ditch that scale. I had been feeling really great this week until I gave in to the little voice and hauled the scale out of the cupboard. Big mistake. Didn't see a number I liked. Since then I've been moping a bit.

Well not today, sister. Today I'm going to list all the things I've been doing awesome since starting WeightWatchers:

1. Drinking 6 glasses (or more) of water
2. Taking my multivitamin
3. Getting in two servings of milk
4. Eating more fruit and yes, even vegetables

See? What'd I tell you. You're doing awesome.

Kilates

Last night, I was so anxious to get going on some exercise video action I decided to break out the Pilates Weight-loss Workout for Dummies DVD I bought a year ago and never tried. I'm not sure what sort of dummies they tested this on but they're much smarter than me. I'm not the most coordinated person in the world so I wound up feeling like a fish trying to do yoga.

Even still, I got an Activity Point out of it and, when my husband came home, I was in for an unexpected and highly entertaining treat. I told him that I thought he'd enjoy Pilates, so right there and then he started doing the workout. Bear in mind my husband has a black belt in Karate. It started out fine (and somewhat amusing to see him have difficulties with a number of the moves like I did) and then he started adding in Karate poses and kicks.

So Pilates quickly became Kilates and I giggled myself silly watching him flounce around the living room. Yes, maybe exercise doesn't suck. Especially when it's entertaining to watch!

That'll do

I finally got out for a 10 minute walk around the block during lunch. I borrowed my coworker's snazzy wood-handled umbrella which made for a really nice outing in the rain. I think I might consider getting a similar one as a "5 lbs lost" treat.

Knowing why I had been neglecting my lunch hour walk really helped me getting out there. Since starting the plan, I bring my own lunches now. And because I bring my own lunches, I actually sit in the breakroom to eat instead of at my desk. Plus, a little part of me was saying "Now that you're eating healthy it's not as important to get out for a walk." Bzzzzt. Wrongo. They really ought to outlaw little voices that dole out bad advice.

So today I decided that instead of eating lunch and reading the newspaper for the rest of my break, I'd go out for a walk as soon as I finished eating. That worked well, but I think next time I might walk first then eat. A cup of soup in the belly makes for a heavy walk.

Non-scale Victory

I confess, I'm a scale addict. I'll weigh myself every morning. Even though I know I shouldn't, have read that I shouldn't, have experienced that mysterious weight gain/loss within only a matter of hours....I still weigh myself constantly. Sometimes more than once a day, especially if it's close to weigh-in.

Well, this morning I resisted the urge. That's gotta be a non-scale victory without question ;)

In other news, I ordered a 3-pack "Walk Away the Pounds" DVD after reading a number of good reviews on the WeightWatchers.ca boards. Guilty me...it's one of those things that you see infomercials for. True, I didn't know that until I found the product on Amazon.ca, but I ordered it anyways. I try to avoid "as seen on TV" products but confess sometimes it's a guilty pleasure to fall for the pitch.

Two weeks in

Today was my second weigh-in and thus two weeks on the program. I really didn't think I would lose any weight because my week had been difficult in the beginning and a bit difficult (read: Chinese New Year treat temptation) in the end.

However, I'm down an additional 1.6 lbs now :)

Owl in the Night

Tonight, my husband and I went for our first training walk. It felt really great. As we were walking, we noticed a large bird shaped shadow perched atop an evergreen tree. When we got closer we realized that the shadow was owl-shaped. Sure enough, when we got as close as we could get and I made a noise, its head swiveled around and gave us an inscrutable owl-y stare before flying off into the night.

My husband and I have never seen an owl in real life. Growing up in the woods as I did, I would always hear a lone owl hooting into the night but had never actually caught glimpse of that lonely soul.

Maybe exercise doesn't suck.

Ten year 10k

Yesterday afternoon I signed my husband and I up to walk a 10k in April. The last time we did this 10k was exactly ten years ago! It was such a wonderful feeling of accomplishment getting across that line after training for months that I want to capture that feeling again. I hope I'm not going through a mid-30s crisis! Regardless, it will be good to start training as it'll fit well with this whole getting healthy and exercise thing.

Plan-wise, things have been going pretty good. I had a rough couple of days earlier this week – I was feeling ill on Monday and consequently didn't eat enough points for that day. The following day was tough because I couldn't seem to do much progress on the "health checks" (6 glasses of water, 2 servings of milk, 5 servings vegetables/fruits, etc. etc. etc.).

But, I've been doing pretty good since then. Next we'll see if I can manage to start walking on my lunch hour again!

First Weigh-in

Today was my first weigh-in after starting Weight Watchers again. I'm down 1.8 lbs!

Fortune Cookie

After starting this endeavor, it occured to me that my small victories (I ate a carrot stick!) might not be all that often or, dare I say it, interesting. Most things that I think of are quickly swept away by the mental image of a No One Cares About Your Blog t-shirt. However, I think I'll just blather on as no one is really reading this anyways. Blog t-shirts be damned and all that.

Tonight I'm feeling pretty good. We ate out at a Chinese restaurant and I did pretty well not ordering fried favourites and in general controlling my portions. I even managed to eat some snowpeas! I had to dip into my Weekly Allowance points to do it, but I guess that's what they're there for. I'm a bit horrified to learn just how many points fried rice is. Maybe I'll close my eyes the next time I eat it.

Hello World

One of the first things my teacher taught us in HTML 101 was how to make a "Hello World" web page. Although I've come a long ways since those days, I cannot help but think of it as I write this, my first ever blog post.

So who am I? Why should you care? Well...I've no idea what to tell you. Except perhaps tell you who I am and why I've made this blog.

In short: I'm overweight and technologically saavy. It's a dangerous combination. Read on for more boring details.

After years of weight gain and two diet attempts, I'm at it again. How'd I get here? I love food. I hate vegetables. I'm not so hot at exercising. Add to that a prescription medication that has weight gain as a side affect and well, I can't say that I'm surprised at how things turned out.

What's different this time? I want a family. My weight is a very large obstacle to that. Plus, I really really really hate shopping at Penningtons.

Well, why a blog? After joining Weight Watchers (for the second time) last Saturday, I discovered the web page of a lady named Crispy. Crispy cataloged all of her small victories on her weight loss journey. It was so inspiring, I read every single one of them in one sitting. And then I started to think, "Hey, you should do the same!"

So here it is. The start of a journal about small victories on the way to my ultimate weight loss goal.

Hello World, I'm TinyTrim. Now pass me some doughnuts carrot sticks.