When You Know Better

You should do better. That’s how the saying goes.

This is on the chalkboard at our gym:

I am a fairly intelligent person. I tend to err on the side of logic. I like when things add up, and if you can explain something to me logically, I can be all on board.

Except this “clean eating” situation.

It’s a combination of things. Laziness. Not liking to cook (which is not to be confused with not being able to cook, because I can. I’m not Rachel Ray, but I can). HH not eating meat, the teen being a meatatarian, and me somewhere in the middle. Getting used to parenting a newborn. Between food getting eaten before I can get to it (grrrrr. Whole other post entirely), and feeling like I don’t have enough time in the day, I am often grabbing convenience food or whatever I can get my hands on.

I cannot find the motivation from within to do better right now. I don’t know where it is. I also need to work on emotional eating. Frankly, the chocolate cookie makes me feel better about stuff.

I don’t know. I’m just…meh. So many folks I know are great examples of what I need to be doing. I watch them and applaud their efforts.

And then I don’t make any changes.

I will get there. At some point.

Do you eat “clean” or relatively “clean?”

Fitness Check In

Tried to do this. Annnnnnd, NO. If you don’t already have a good treadmill running base, this is not going to work. I made it through three of these intervals and that’s pretty much all I had. Not to mention, I could only do 7.0 and 7.5mph. LOL!

Last night was leg weights and this walking workout. The thing is – and maybe it’s just me – but I can’t walk like a normal person at 4.0 and 4.5. I tried walking at 4.0 and it killed my calves. Maybe it’s a gait issue (I pronate). I basically realized that at 4.5 I’m doing a slow trot, not a walk. But other than that, I enjoyed the workout and the changes in speed and incline kept me from getting bored.

I have really been focused on adding muscle to my frame. As such, the scale isn’t changing much. However, I can feel a difference in the way my clothes fit. I’ve gotten into some skirts I couldn’t fit in the fall. All the pants I bought in fall 2011 due to weight gain, are now loose in the butt area, and in the waist, too.

One of my friends is making a skirt for me, and she asked for my measurements. Soooooo not happy with the waist measurement. Hoping to see gradual changes. I think I’ll take my measurements once a month now. The scale is useful in telling me that SOMETHING is changing. I wish I had a reliable way to measure my body fat at home. My scale is supposed to do it, but I lost the directions years ago. I have no clue how to make it work. LOL

Eating? Sigh. In my logical mind, I know that going paleo would be great for my blood type and help with allergies, creaky joints, etc. HH is O+ as well, and if we both went paleo it might be easier. May be something to revisit as tri training starts this summer. I am proud to say that I have not bought any ice cream and I only had a little in my birthday as it came with the dessert Kenya and Kelley ordered for me. 🙂 Cheese, butter and sour cream? Still working on those. Paleo means no dairy…that might be pretty tough for me.

So, that’s where I’m at. Do you have fitness aspirations? How are you doing so far this year?

Little By Little

“Little by little does the trick.” ~Aesop

I have four pairs of these jeans. Before you go, “what is really wrong with her?” lemme explain why. LOL!

I bought these jeans a little over two years ago. They were on sale at Old Navy. Low rise, wide flare. I love a flare jean, although they tend to be a little snug at the waist/hips. I bought a dark rinse and a light rinse, and I got two in size 12 and two in size 10. I told myself – and the sales person – that I planned to lose weight, and I didn’t want to miss out on the jeans.

Because in my mind, I was about to kick butt in the gym and the weight/inches were coming off.

Yeah, well…NO.

I’ve been wearing the 12s, and the 10s have been in my bottom dresser drawer for 2 years. The tags are still on. I would pull them out, look at them, sigh, and put them back in the drawer. At one point, I actually gained more weight/inches, to the point that the 12s were getting snug. WTH? I made it back down to starting point, and the 12s have been my constant friend.

Until tonight.

THOSE JEANS PICTURED ABOVE ARE THE 10s, BABY!!!!

Something said, try to get a thigh in those tonight. Just do it. I even waited until HH left the room, that way if I couldn’t get them on, I could pretend like it never happened. LOL!

Now, don’t get me wrong, I almost had to grease myself down with shea butter to get into them (thank you, large thighs), but they are on, they are buttoned, and I can breathe.

I think in about 5-10 pounds, or a few inches (which I still haven’t gotten around to taking my measurements yet), I’ll be able to slip these on without having to tug so hard.

This is major for me. After months and months of feeling like I haven’t had any progress, I can get into these jeans.

Happy 38th Birthday to me – 8 days early! 🙂