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.