PJ Weight: 159.4
Week Gain: +0.4
Cumulative Loss: -32.2
Seth Weight: 173.0
Week Loss: -1.4
Cumulative Loss: -26.1
Ah Thanksgiving - an inauspicious start to the second half of our year-long diet experiment. Well, for me it's inauspicious.
Seth, evidently, can eat his face off for a week and lose weight. Sigh. But yay for Seth. His loss this week brings our cumulative Team Mintz loss total to 58.3 pounds! That's certainly something to be thankful for.
All the sundry sweets and naughty nibbles of this past week weighed heavily on my scale this morning, but they weigh only lightly on my conscience. We had a lovely weekend away, and made some great memories, so I regret not a bit(e) of it.
We kind of blew the exercise routine. It was just too hectic to keep up while we were away, so we missed 3 days' worth of the program. (Hey - we did one day while we were away - we get a gold star for that!) But now that we're back home, we're back on track. I even had an easier time with the cardio program after having been off for a few days, so let's hear it for the accidental benefits of sloth! Yay!
In any case, I feel like this long Thanksgiving weekend was a great holiday from the diet, and it was a welcome break. Perhaps it's wrong to celebrate a half a year's dieting success with pecan pie, candied sweet potatoes, various fast food lunches, and chocolate & reeses chip cookies, but if that's wrong then I don't want to be right!
(In other unrelated news, I found the size 12 pants that I knew I owned but were mysteriously missing. And I found them just in time for me to be out of them and into my size 10's. Timing in life is everything. Sigh.)
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Week 25: Happy Thanksgiving
PJ Weight: 159.0
Week Gain: +0.2
Cumulative Loss: -32.6
Seth Weight: 174.4
Week Gain: +0.2
Cumulative Loss: -24.7
Happy Thanksgiving everybody.
We're making our preparations for our Thanksgiving feasting. We're planning on continuing exercising right through the holiday. No taking time off. As for diet... Well...
Erm...
We'll just see how that goes, shall we?
I'll try not to completely gorge myself on things that are unwholesomely awesome. But I make no guarantees.
Hear that? No Guarantees. At all.
As long as we're clear on that.
Our gains this week have to be some kind of weigh in day water phenomenon or something. Both of us were down a full pound yesterday, we didn't go overboard yesterday or anything, and this morning the scale decided to get cheeky with us. I hateses that scale. But the gains don't worry me too much.
The exercising is going well. So far we've seen progress. Seth was saying this morning that he's able to do a little more every time we go through the cardio workout, and I see the same is true for myself. We still have a long way to go, of course, but we see progress.
And I didn't mention it last week, but it really says something about you when you're doing an exercise video, and you turn to your exercise partner and say "Did he just say let's go to lunch? BEST WORKOUT VIDEO EVER."
No... that was "go do Lunges". Right. Sigh....
Week Gain: +0.2
Cumulative Loss: -32.6
Seth Weight: 174.4
Week Gain: +0.2
Cumulative Loss: -24.7
Happy Thanksgiving everybody.
We're making our preparations for our Thanksgiving feasting. We're planning on continuing exercising right through the holiday. No taking time off. As for diet... Well...
Erm...
We'll just see how that goes, shall we?
I'll try not to completely gorge myself on things that are unwholesomely awesome. But I make no guarantees.
Hear that? No Guarantees. At all.
As long as we're clear on that.
Our gains this week have to be some kind of weigh in day water phenomenon or something. Both of us were down a full pound yesterday, we didn't go overboard yesterday or anything, and this morning the scale decided to get cheeky with us. I hateses that scale. But the gains don't worry me too much.
The exercising is going well. So far we've seen progress. Seth was saying this morning that he's able to do a little more every time we go through the cardio workout, and I see the same is true for myself. We still have a long way to go, of course, but we see progress.
And I didn't mention it last week, but it really says something about you when you're doing an exercise video, and you turn to your exercise partner and say "Did he just say let's go to lunch? BEST WORKOUT VIDEO EVER."
No... that was "go do Lunges". Right. Sigh....
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Week 24
PJ Weight: 158.8
Week Loss: -1.2
Cumulative Loss: -32.8
Seth Weight: 174.2
Week Gain: +0.4
Cumulative Loss: -24.9
First off: A rant
The folks who say "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels" are eating the wrong things.
Losing weight and looking nice and being trim and fit and healthy are all wonderful things. But I like to eat. I love it. I love to eat large quantities of food that is terrible for me. I revel in it. Small quantities of delicious but unhealthy foods are a tease, and large quantities of healthy foods are just plain depressing.
I miss eating.
The thought of making a lifelong commitment to constant dieting and exercise - making them a permanent part of my life - makes me sad, almost depressed. I hate dieting. I hate exercising. I like eating. I like relaxing with a good book. And while the angel on my shoulder says "If you stay trim and exercise a lot you'll live longer", the fellow on my other shoulder says "If you have to watch what you eat all the time and exercise all the time, what's the point of living?"
So our compromise is this year-long commitment. It's a good chunk of time. It's long enough to make a very real difference in our physical well-being, but not an unmanageable amount of time that's too big to get our heads around. We're hoping that the weight will take some time coming back. I'm not going to be going out once our year is up and eating a full pound of pasta with bacon and cream sauce for every meal (mmm....carbonara...), but we won't be as strict, and eventually the weight *will* come back. Maybe we'll say "if our scales are up by over x pounds, we go back on a diet". Maybe we'll try to follow some kind of maintenance program. But we'll see.
I just wanted to get that off my chest. I don't like this. I've never liked it. It's very likely that I never WILL like it.
But I'm doing it.
Which brings me to:
Power 90 - Days 1, 2 and 3
We started our exercise program first thing Monday morning. We're rising an extra hour or so early, going downstairs, and flailing about in front of the little TV we've put down there.
The dogs don't think much of the whole thing. They came down with us and spent the workouts trying to lick me while I was doing push-ups, and watched us in confusion the rest of the time.
So far, these are my impressions of the Power 90 workouts - Phase I/II
Circuit training - Or "Sculpt" as they call it - This was the first workout we did. I did it with 3 pound weights, and Seth tried the resistance band that came with the DVD package the first time through. He found the resistance band somewhat difficult to work with, and possibly too heavy for our current level, so this morning he went with hand weights. The hand weights seemed much easier to handle for both of us. I purposefully used light weights, so I could concentrate on trying to learn the exercises and get the forms correct before I start piling on resistance.
The exercise coach Tony is a lot more mellow than I expected him to be. He's still depressingly chipper, but not nearly as overwhelmingly in-your-face enthusiastic as I was dreading he might be. I can more or less handle this level of chipper at 6AM, even if Seth & I do snark back at him. He doesn't seem to mind our snark.
The exercises were straightforward and relatively easy to follow. You stretch, go through a set of exercises for each muscle group, stretch and then do another set of slightly different exercises for each muscle group, stretch, do a third modified set of exercises, and end. It took about 40 minutes.
Mostly it made me sore in the legs. While I can use light hand weights, there's no real way to lessen the impact of lunges on your legs other than to do less of them.
Cardio/Abs - Also known as "Sweat" and "Ab ripper 100". This was our Day 2 routine.
Again, it wasn't obnoxious. Well - not as obnoxious as it could have been. Getting up an hour early to go jump around like an idiot is obnoxious in and of itself. Tony didn't make it worse. I found myself doing a whole lot of walking in place while he and his helpers jumped around like loonies. Something tells me it will be a while before we work our way up to the Phase 3/4 workouts.
There was stretching, a warm up with some yoga moves, and then the main workout consisting of some marching in place, a bunch of jumping jack style exercises, some kickboxing-esque stuff, and some boxing maneuvers. Then it's down to the floor for 100 crunches at varying degrees of sadism.
Total time - about 40 minutes again.
I'll need a thicker mat for the crunches. The foam mats we have on our concrete basement floor are fine for most of the exercises we've attempted thus far, but I found the pressure on my back painful and want a bit more cushioning. I'll see if my old yoga mat will do the trick. If not, perhaps I'll have to pick up another yoga mat and double-layer them.
The way the program works, you alternate Circuit training and Cardio/Abs every day for 6 days, and rest on the 7th day. We'll be doing the same workouts until we've progressed enough to move on to the more advanced of the DVD's (phase 3-4).
Week Loss: -1.2
Cumulative Loss: -32.8
Seth Weight: 174.2
Week Gain: +0.4
Cumulative Loss: -24.9
First off: A rant
The folks who say "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels" are eating the wrong things.
Losing weight and looking nice and being trim and fit and healthy are all wonderful things. But I like to eat. I love it. I love to eat large quantities of food that is terrible for me. I revel in it. Small quantities of delicious but unhealthy foods are a tease, and large quantities of healthy foods are just plain depressing.
I miss eating.
The thought of making a lifelong commitment to constant dieting and exercise - making them a permanent part of my life - makes me sad, almost depressed. I hate dieting. I hate exercising. I like eating. I like relaxing with a good book. And while the angel on my shoulder says "If you stay trim and exercise a lot you'll live longer", the fellow on my other shoulder says "If you have to watch what you eat all the time and exercise all the time, what's the point of living?"
So our compromise is this year-long commitment. It's a good chunk of time. It's long enough to make a very real difference in our physical well-being, but not an unmanageable amount of time that's too big to get our heads around. We're hoping that the weight will take some time coming back. I'm not going to be going out once our year is up and eating a full pound of pasta with bacon and cream sauce for every meal (mmm....carbonara...), but we won't be as strict, and eventually the weight *will* come back. Maybe we'll say "if our scales are up by over x pounds, we go back on a diet". Maybe we'll try to follow some kind of maintenance program. But we'll see.
I just wanted to get that off my chest. I don't like this. I've never liked it. It's very likely that I never WILL like it.
But I'm doing it.
Which brings me to:
Power 90 - Days 1, 2 and 3
We started our exercise program first thing Monday morning. We're rising an extra hour or so early, going downstairs, and flailing about in front of the little TV we've put down there.
The dogs don't think much of the whole thing. They came down with us and spent the workouts trying to lick me while I was doing push-ups, and watched us in confusion the rest of the time.
So far, these are my impressions of the Power 90 workouts - Phase I/II
Circuit training - Or "Sculpt" as they call it - This was the first workout we did. I did it with 3 pound weights, and Seth tried the resistance band that came with the DVD package the first time through. He found the resistance band somewhat difficult to work with, and possibly too heavy for our current level, so this morning he went with hand weights. The hand weights seemed much easier to handle for both of us. I purposefully used light weights, so I could concentrate on trying to learn the exercises and get the forms correct before I start piling on resistance.
The exercise coach Tony is a lot more mellow than I expected him to be. He's still depressingly chipper, but not nearly as overwhelmingly in-your-face enthusiastic as I was dreading he might be. I can more or less handle this level of chipper at 6AM, even if Seth & I do snark back at him. He doesn't seem to mind our snark.
The exercises were straightforward and relatively easy to follow. You stretch, go through a set of exercises for each muscle group, stretch and then do another set of slightly different exercises for each muscle group, stretch, do a third modified set of exercises, and end. It took about 40 minutes.
Mostly it made me sore in the legs. While I can use light hand weights, there's no real way to lessen the impact of lunges on your legs other than to do less of them.
Cardio/Abs - Also known as "Sweat" and "Ab ripper 100". This was our Day 2 routine.
Again, it wasn't obnoxious. Well - not as obnoxious as it could have been. Getting up an hour early to go jump around like an idiot is obnoxious in and of itself. Tony didn't make it worse. I found myself doing a whole lot of walking in place while he and his helpers jumped around like loonies. Something tells me it will be a while before we work our way up to the Phase 3/4 workouts.
There was stretching, a warm up with some yoga moves, and then the main workout consisting of some marching in place, a bunch of jumping jack style exercises, some kickboxing-esque stuff, and some boxing maneuvers. Then it's down to the floor for 100 crunches at varying degrees of sadism.
Total time - about 40 minutes again.
I'll need a thicker mat for the crunches. The foam mats we have on our concrete basement floor are fine for most of the exercises we've attempted thus far, but I found the pressure on my back painful and want a bit more cushioning. I'll see if my old yoga mat will do the trick. If not, perhaps I'll have to pick up another yoga mat and double-layer them.
The way the program works, you alternate Circuit training and Cardio/Abs every day for 6 days, and rest on the 7th day. We'll be doing the same workouts until we've progressed enough to move on to the more advanced of the DVD's (phase 3-4).
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Week 23
PJ Weight: 160.0
Week Gain: +0.4
Cumulative Loss: -31.6
Seth Weight: 173.8
Week Loss: 0.0
Cumulative Loss: -25.3
Plateau is one of the ugliest words in the English language.
If you look at my losses for the last several months (in 4-week chunks), you can really see a trend:
July/August: -6.4
Aug/Sept: -3.4
Sept/Oct: -3.6
Oct/Nov: -1.2
All this tells me is that I've now gotten down to the point where my body fights me to keep every ounce. I suppose it's good that we start exercising on Monday, though I'm really not looking forward to it.
There was a period a number of years ago when I exercised religiously for perhaps a span of 2 years. It felt good to be fit and healthy, but I never developed any liking for exercise. It's a sweaty, uncomfortable, unpleasant business, and I don't enjoy it. I doubt I ever will. But I'll do it for these three coming months.
So this is my plan: Power90 is a 90 day program, and our workout challenge is a 90-day commitment. With the exception of the Thanksgiving holiday (when we'll be traveling Weds - Sunday), we'll try hard to stick to the 6-day-a-week routine.
If the baby wakes in the middle of the night and keeps us up, or we catch a nasty cold, or have some other compelling reason not to wake up at a ghastly AM hour and exercise, then we won't do it. And that's that. I'm committing to TRY this, and do as many days as possible. One day at a time. I don't plan on guilting myself for missed days.
Tune in next week for the first exciting episode of THE SORE AND THE HELPLESS, when it'll hurt to walk, and washing my hair will be rather more than my shoulder muscles can stand. At least, that's the prediction. (I'll try to ease into this so the prediction doesn't come to pass...)
Week Gain: +0.4
Cumulative Loss: -31.6
Seth Weight: 173.8
Week Loss: 0.0
Cumulative Loss: -25.3
Plateau is one of the ugliest words in the English language.
If you look at my losses for the last several months (in 4-week chunks), you can really see a trend:
July/August: -6.4
Aug/Sept: -3.4
Sept/Oct: -3.6
Oct/Nov: -1.2
All this tells me is that I've now gotten down to the point where my body fights me to keep every ounce. I suppose it's good that we start exercising on Monday, though I'm really not looking forward to it.
There was a period a number of years ago when I exercised religiously for perhaps a span of 2 years. It felt good to be fit and healthy, but I never developed any liking for exercise. It's a sweaty, uncomfortable, unpleasant business, and I don't enjoy it. I doubt I ever will. But I'll do it for these three coming months.
So this is my plan: Power90 is a 90 day program, and our workout challenge is a 90-day commitment. With the exception of the Thanksgiving holiday (when we'll be traveling Weds - Sunday), we'll try hard to stick to the 6-day-a-week routine.
If the baby wakes in the middle of the night and keeps us up, or we catch a nasty cold, or have some other compelling reason not to wake up at a ghastly AM hour and exercise, then we won't do it. And that's that. I'm committing to TRY this, and do as many days as possible. One day at a time. I don't plan on guilting myself for missed days.
Tune in next week for the first exciting episode of THE SORE AND THE HELPLESS, when it'll hurt to walk, and washing my hair will be rather more than my shoulder muscles can stand. At least, that's the prediction. (I'll try to ease into this so the prediction doesn't come to pass...)
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Week 22
PJ Weight: 159.6
Week Loss: -1.4
Cumulative Loss: -32.0
Seth Weight: 173.8
Week Gain: +0.2
Cumulative Loss: -25.3
I survived Halloween week with a hearty loss to show for it - I've finally made it down into the 150's. Unfortunately Seth had a not quite as great week, but he had a 2 pound loss last week, so it evens out. I had one of those weeks the week before last. They happen. I'M STILL VERY PROUD OF YOU, SETH!
My Halloween strategy was this: I get 5 pieces of candy on Halloween, and I set aside points for all the leftover candy I consume. No sitting down to a stack of candies this year. (There's nothing quite like eating yourself sick on your favorite candies, and swearing that you never, ever want to see another Reeses' Piece or Snickers bar as long as you live. I missed that this year. Alas.)
But I had a plan and I stuck to it, so yay, gold star for me.
The exciting news of the day: Today I wore size 10 pants to work!
Everybody at the office is calling me Skinny Minnie, and I got a whole bunch of compliments. My personal favorite was that I look like I'm a size 6 (thanks Jen). Knowing that I've lost enough to really be noticeable is really a wonderful motivator, so I appreciate all of the positive comments.
We also took the plunge and ordered our Power90 exercise DVD's, so that's a thing and it's happening. We joined an old-friend-I-rediscovered-on-Facebook's team beachbody challenge, which means there will be a few of us doing programs at the same time, sharing experiences and giving support and the like. And it's nominally possible we'll win stuff. (But as I never win anything, this will not happen.)
The challenge starts up on November 15th, so we'll be starting 2 weeks earlier than we'd originally planned. I'll have to cherish "sleeping in" til 7am each and every day until then. We're going to have to rise and shine pretty early to fit in the workouts before I go to work.
With that thought in mind, I'll now scuttle off to bed to appreciate said sleep.
Have a great week!
Week Loss: -1.4
Cumulative Loss: -32.0
Seth Weight: 173.8
Week Gain: +0.2
Cumulative Loss: -25.3
I survived Halloween week with a hearty loss to show for it - I've finally made it down into the 150's. Unfortunately Seth had a not quite as great week, but he had a 2 pound loss last week, so it evens out. I had one of those weeks the week before last. They happen. I'M STILL VERY PROUD OF YOU, SETH!
My Halloween strategy was this: I get 5 pieces of candy on Halloween, and I set aside points for all the leftover candy I consume. No sitting down to a stack of candies this year. (There's nothing quite like eating yourself sick on your favorite candies, and swearing that you never, ever want to see another Reeses' Piece or Snickers bar as long as you live. I missed that this year. Alas.)
But I had a plan and I stuck to it, so yay, gold star for me.
The exciting news of the day: Today I wore size 10 pants to work!
Everybody at the office is calling me Skinny Minnie, and I got a whole bunch of compliments. My personal favorite was that I look like I'm a size 6 (thanks Jen). Knowing that I've lost enough to really be noticeable is really a wonderful motivator, so I appreciate all of the positive comments.
We also took the plunge and ordered our Power90 exercise DVD's, so that's a thing and it's happening. We joined an old-friend-I-rediscovered-on-Facebook's team beachbody challenge, which means there will be a few of us doing programs at the same time, sharing experiences and giving support and the like. And it's nominally possible we'll win stuff. (But as I never win anything, this will not happen.)
The challenge starts up on November 15th, so we'll be starting 2 weeks earlier than we'd originally planned. I'll have to cherish "sleeping in" til 7am each and every day until then. We're going to have to rise and shine pretty early to fit in the workouts before I go to work.
With that thought in mind, I'll now scuttle off to bed to appreciate said sleep.
Have a great week!
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