Garbage That GOO!

3 compliant days

Another good day. I felt twitchy like a racehorse when I got to water aerobics. I had to rein myself back a little during warm up, because I felt like going full out. Which isn't a good idea for me until I am warmed up.

I blame it on all the good nutrition!

If anything, I managed to make it tougher today than I did Wednesday. Heart rate in the higher part of my aerobic zone and I kept it there for 46 minutes. No stumble out of the pool today, though I nearly bit the dust stepping into the hot tub in the locker room. Those new leg exercises remain tough. But, I felt noticeably stronger on one leg exercise that we HAVE been doing for a while. We call it ballet leg. You stand on one leg. You lift the other leg up, so the thigh is about parallel with the pool bottom, turn it out to the side, straighten it and power it down through the water. Repeat. I was like rock solid, which has to mean some core improvement, because it's hard to do that move with power on every move and stay still in the water without hopping about!

That was a nice feeling and I will take any improvement.

Beware temptation

Though I've not been recording weight daily here, the scale has been steadily dropping since my rather bad eating/meal skipping days earlier in the week. Monday my weight was 232 pounds, today it was 228.6. OK, so most of it was no doubt water loss, yet, it's weight off my feet.

There's a lesson in this... I need to be compliant that 90% of the time. The trouble is that I can put together a string of great compliant days and then I cave to the lure of convenience and easy food or meal skipping and make no progress. It's often not even the food I crave so much, it's just getting to eat without putting any blasted effort in.

OR, I start to think that one little candy bar, or bag of chips won't matter. At age 42 during my last serious weight loss attempt, I actually got away with that kind of stuff occasionally and STILL lost 62 pounds in a year. But it has become clear to me this past year that at age 50 and with a foot problem, I cannot get away with much. That doesn't mean I won't have my 10% meals, but it means I really need to watch portions on the treats when I do. And pick the treat that will satisfy me most at the time.

Now the funny thing in all of this is that a good friend of mine read my blog yesterday and she made a comment in a private email to me that "All that restraint had a horrible effect on me-- I went and ate about half of a large bag of plantain chips. Now I feel slightly ill." I suspect she was joking, at least somewhat.

Mind you, my friend does NOT have a weight problem. She then gave me an excellent tip on using kale in smoothies. If only I could find decent kale in the local stores! She had had a kale and blackberry smoothie. I'm envious.

So what's funny?

What's funny is, I don't feel like I *am* exercising a lot of restraint right now! And I'm worried that it is wrong. As this was a workout day, my breakfast omelet was enormous, just packed full of veggies. Nor was I stinting on egg whites... there were 6 of them!

My second meal, a smoothie, was not small either, it filled a glass and a half, though the blender does stir in a fair amount of air which increases volume. Third meal, a single serving of oatmeal, plus banana, blueberries, walnuts topped with milk and whey protein. That filled up a two cup bowl nicely. Fourth meal, a plate covered, mounded high with 4 oz. chicken breast, spinach and veggie salad dressed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I haven't had dinner yet, that will be a little more modest, but certainly not sparse. And I'll probably have a small bed time snack after that!

Which makes me wonder if I should be more restrained with my veggies, but then again, the scale is saying good things the past couple days and I have been feeling GREAT!

Calorie wise, the meals today have ranged between 300-455 calories. The high calories were the post workout meal. I'm aiming towards 2200 calories today.

The only bad side to feeling my oats? I have to watch out for my feet. But I did, instead of doing side leaps in the pool, which sometimes does bother my arches, I did power grapevine through the water, being careful not to slip on the lane line tiles.

To good health! It's time to fix dinner!

A good workout or two.

Whew. Keeping up with the blog is a bit more demanding than I thought! But I best catch up now or just let it go.

I had a killer water aerobics workout on Wednesday.

Seriously. I was pushing the whole time... and my heart rate was up in the low to mid-130s, which is pretty good, as generally, heart rate tends to measure lower in water than on land. Of course, I also find that my cheap heart rate monitor that I use for the pool does not work quite as well in the pool as it does on dry land. This is apparently normal due to the way pool chemistry can affect the signal. But it tends to drop out if my heart rate gets too low and sometimes it just doesn't register at all. But it was working quite well Wednesday!

I know water aerobics sounds like a wussy old lady option for exercise, but you can make it tough!

Fortunately, the instructor, Julie, likes to hustle, so that helps keep me going at it. She says "Go faster!" to the class and I do. During one move, what she calls "little runs", you move your feet in a small jogging motion, but as fast as you possibly can while rolling your arms with hands cupped as fast as you can. This REALLY gets your heart pumping! She said I was turning a little red in the face at one point! Didn't surprise me, because I was tiring, but I was also giving it my all.

If you power every move through the water, you get a LOT of resistance! I think of it as cardio on steroids! At least that's how it feels to me. Anyway, she tried some new leg exercises on us and wow, more taxing than they looked! I was starting to shoot some dagger glances her way before we were done with those. By the end of class, my legs felt like jelly. I even stumbled getting out of the pool!

Wednesday eating was fine and all compliant. I won't detail the meals here, because I'm tired, but I eat a lot of similar stuff day to day anyway. I did have a post workout drink of water and whey protein right after water aerobics to hold me while I did a few errands. When I got home, I had a carb meal of steel cut oatmeal with half a frozen banana, some walnuts and topped with low carb milk mixed with chocolate whey protein. Very yummy!

Thursday recap...

Well, I woke up sore in every muscle from Wednesday. Even so, for some reason I felt fine and after breakfast, was actually abnormally keen on getting my Nordic Track workout done. I did that right before my second meal and managed 25 minutes/1.8 miles. Though, my feet are feeling it a bit, so perhaps I shouldn't push for longer times yet. I'll see how it goes. It's a good exercise for me, because there is virtually no impact.

Average heart rate 135, maximum 147. Average speed 4.41 mph. Well, better than my walking speed would be (3 mph), but nothing to brag on. Hope to improve.

Thursday eating was fine.

All 5 meals eaten, all compliant, I drank more than a gallon of water and green tea today. I was feeling a little pushed on time, so I did have two protein smoothies whereas normally, I like to only do a smoothie once a day. They are quick and easy... sometimes that's a nice break.

One meal was one of my "emergency fast food" fixes. I.E. big pile of spinach, topped with a red onion slice, two cans of sardines in tomato basil sauce and sliced peperoncini pickles on top. The only issue there was that I had to shut myself in my office to eat it in peace. Luna went WILD when she smelled the sardines and kept trying to get at them. When shut out, she sat outside the door and howled! I guess there's a reason I don't break out the sardines too often!

Time to get to bed and rest up for water aerobics!