Be Active

Here it is, Monday again.  and my self weigh-in was discouraging this morning.  I know that I didn't amp up the activities over the weekend, but at my age, toting laundry to and fro, digging up dead cacti in the garden and painting the trim on the back of the house was active!

What I find hardest in all of this "road to better health" (because calling it a *diet* sounds temporary!) is finding my balance between eating, work and exercising vs the things I enjoy doing, like photography, trivia games and genealogy research.

Being balanced is necessary, otherwise I will get bored with the "better health" part.  And letting loose with fav foods and no exercise would not be a good thing!   So I struggle from day to day finding ways to do the little things I enjoy, along with the other things I need to do.   I've found that breaking up my exercise routine, dashing next door to 24-Hour fitness on my lunch hour to get in a 30-minute cardio session breaks up my day.  I force myself to stop back in after work because I leave my gym back in the locker.  hahaha  But once I get there and changed, it's not so bad.  I can work on extra cardio, or split it up with some cardio and strength training.


I had higher hopes of the weight just melting off as I increased my activity, but I think I'm building some muscle, and that weighs more than fat.  *sigh*  I know its only a couple of pounds, but it's still making me a little crazy.





However, I broke another record today!

According to FitBit, I earned an

Urban Foot Badge = 15,000 steps+

Sweeeeeet!   Personal Best!






Thank goodness it's Monday = Antiques Roadshow .....
Is it bedtime yet?????  I'm ready!!!  lol )

Parenting and a GOAL!

Being a parent isn't an easy job.  Being a parent of a special needs child is even more difficult.  But when they're adults, and still special needs, well, that takes a different kind of patience.

My son is visually impaired, has been since birth. His measurable vision is 20/200 , there aren't lenses strong enough to correct that.  Add to it, he has nystagmus, where the eyes wiggle back and forth involuntarily, which makes it take longer to focus.

As an adult, he has learned to deal with his limitations.  But he still has issues as well.  He gets overly frustrated when things go awry.  Today, his checkbook balance was overdrawn.  And it makes him very upset when it happens.  It doesn't happen often, thank goodness.

His gas powered bicycle broke a drive chain coming home from work Monday night.  In his angst and frustrated state, he ordered one online and used his debit card instead of a credit card.  Ooops.  He thought he could beat it to the bank to make a cash deposit, but nope, things go through really quick being online.  Then the part he ordered, the chain is too short.  Needless to say, he's extremely frustrated and upset, and when he doesn't know how to handle it, he tends to do things .......

He used to just shoot up the yard with his paintball gun, but he sold those.  Tonight I came home and found he'd been throwing the hatchet into the trunk of the palm tree. Now she's scarred, he will have to look at that every time he's in the backyard and know he did it.  I'm sad for him, but don't know of any way I can help him get over that.  He lets his frustrations mount when I'm not home, and lets loose.  If I'm around, he can usually just talk about it, and I can soothe it over, offer solutions.

Yep, not easy being the parent of an adult special needs kid!

On a good note:  Total steps today 13,752 a new personal best!
I also got in some weight machines as well...
and reached my goal 30 mins = 2.0 miles!
Yep, that took a little extra oomph
that I wasn't sure I had in me,
as I'm a little bit sore in the leg muscles!

That calls for a reward..... any suggestions?????
(chocolate comes to mind... lol )
256#

Pat on the Back

Tuesday's Laments ... For some reason all day, I thought it was Wednesday -- wishful thinking for the weekend to get here faster???   hehehe Maybe so.  But probably more related to my lack of quality sleep time.  With a very windy storm that blew through the Valley, the evening/night wasn't very quiet, and poor Sadie had to wake up and bark at every little noise.  Of course, when she wakes up, I wake up.  I had dozed off just past 8pm.  by 11:15, I had been up with her 5 different times. I finally dragged her into my son's room and said "YOU take care of her, I'm trying to sleep!"   About an hour later, she was back in my bed, and snoozing the rest of the night away.  I think.  I dunno, I was sound asleep myself.  hehehee

Gym time ... was a success in my book!  I hopped on the treadmill and set it to the preprogrammed "interval" setting, which changes the speed and the incline every 2 minutes.  I set it for a 3.0 incline at 4.0mph, and 4.2mph on the flat.  When I had extra energy, I would manually up the speed on the flat to 5.0 and run for a minute or so. 

Personal Best:  4.0miles in 58:44

At Lunch ... I was sitting off by myself, not really paying much attention until one of the guys came in and started chuckling as he played a song on his phone... it was "Love Child" .. and he says "Now I'm starting to show my age..."  and of course, this version is some kind of 80s rocking version, which he said was done by some "Pajama Party" ??  I googled, couldn't find it.  I believe it was done in the 80's by Expose`.  But I didn't take the time to peruse the entire Google catalog of "love child" postings (there are too many!).  But what would he have said if I told him that hit was an original by Diana Ross and the Supremes back in 1968... ?    hehehe  Now I'm showing MY age!

Honorable Mention ... Yesterday at the gym, I'm doin' my thing, and working some weight machines, and a lil old guy says "You're really working hard at this!"  I smiled, he kept prattling, "I see you here every day, I see you working with a trainer... you must be proud of yourself!"  I smiled again and said, "I am!"  And its true, I -am- proud of myself and my accomplishments.  I've improved my health and well being by doing my thing at the gym.  Even if it doesn't show on the scale (the way I want it to), its still effective.  I bought me some new jammies one size smaller -- and I can wear them :)  Now that's enough to make this Gal smile!

Speedy Gal

It's Happy Dance Time!!  wow... what a day at the gym (work -- eh, the usual stuff).  I went to the gym thinking I need to do a little extra cardio today.  I hadn't worked on it in a big way in a while, so I hopped on the treadmill and started cranking out the miles.  I kept it at 4mph minimum, and kept raising the incline every minute until I hit the 4 mark, then back down every minute.  I repeated this process for the first two miles.  This "High Intensity" works up a good sweat, and cranks out the calorie burn. I made 2 miles in 30 minutes.  And I thought to myself "wouldn't 4 miles in 60 minutes be great?"   But I've never been able to maintain that speed for such a long time, getting winded about the 45 minute mark was normal for me. 

For the second two miles, I left the incline off and concentrated on speed, and making it to my goal.  I kept hitting my mp3 player to skip to tunes that matched the pace of my feet.  Oh yeah.... feel the burn!  If a new song was cranking, I'd push the speed up to 5mph and run for a minute or two.   Down to the wire and I was worried about reaching the 4 mile mark by 60 minutes, so the last tenth of a mile, I cranked it up to 5.2mph and pushed it to the limit ----     4 miles in 58 minutes!!!

Good golly, I wanted to shout and dance right then and there....
but couldn't, as I needed time to catch my breath.  lol

I have always said its the little things, the little steps, that lead to bigger and better things.  2 years ago when I walked into the gym, I couldn't go more than 3mph for 20 mins, then 30 mins ..... No way did I ever think I would be running on the treadmill.  But here I am, a lot of little steps and some hard work, and I can do it.... With little steps, little goals, you make progress every day.   4 more pounds to go and I'll have lost 40  pounds. I look at the numbers and try to remember the last time I was this light.  Before 1998.  That's a long time ago. 

I'm determined that I'll never go back.  Over the weekend, I tossed out all the old panties that just don't fit any more.  I mean, you know its bad when you pull them up over your thighs into place, and there's so much more room that they'll reach up and over your waist -- or more!!  I can't help but wonder if I tugged and pulled in the right direction, could I get them up and over my chest, so it would look like I'm wearing a one-piece swimsuit?? hahahahahahhaa

Happy Tuesday, ya'll !

Day 2

Boy.  Its a relief to finally be home!  Long shift today trying to get everything done -- how come it always seems when you know there's going to be extra work, even more seems to come out of the woodwork that needs to be taken care of??? 

To top it off, all the exercises Russell put me through yesterday bothered my "physiology" -- I seemed to be having some kind of lactic acid leftovers or something and was queasy all day.  I finally started feeling better around 2pm.  Russell's advice when that happens?  Eat a banana, eat a healthy dinner, and drink lots of water.  (I added in "take two aspirin" hehehehe)

For my workout today, it was the elliptical machine.  And for some reason, I felt great doing it, cranking out those strides. 

I had a Personal Best moment:  2 miles in 27:45 minutes....

gotta love some cardio!