Russia1513's Blog

...but I DID lose one pound!  So I"m down to 153.

 BAd news...  Lately, I"m just not in the mood to exercise when I get home. So one of two things is going to happen.  Either I"m going to stop at the gym every night (instead of every other night),before I leave the building, or I'll just slow down on exercise and do the gym on gym nights, and rest on home nights and leave it open to exercise if I am so moved to, and stay within my cals.  Either way it's do-able.  I still have 100 cals to eat today and I have not exercised yet..

I don't know how, but I thought I was 151.  How does that happen?  I made sure the scale was calibrated properly.  I got on and off 3TIMES to make sure because I was so surprised, then I got back on a half hour later, and I'm still at 154 :((  I don't understand how that can be.  I"m bummed

I love it. 

I found some little miniature chocolate bars in the break room, had ONE for dessert.  Not 20 minutes after I got BACK, someone came by our area with a cart lathered in huge fresh chocolate chip cookies. 

And I didn't have one.  :))))    Both co-workers dove in, but I said to myself "Nope.  Not necessary.  I had mine, I'm happy."   And off went the cart, squeeking down the hall.

I have been trying to do yoga at least once a week, but I really have to admit, I'm a little confused.  Something tells me that there's a philosophy to go with the action that I'm probably missing.  I'm the kind of person who likes to learn new things, but I only educate myself on subjects that are specific to my issues - like when we discovered ADHD in my son 14 years ago, I educated myself.

It sure is relaxing.  I just got done with a half hour guided routine online (VeohTV).  There are certain poses I love, that are easy for me to accomplish, and I feel the effects immediately.  The problem with some poses is that I'm so naturally flexible that I'm not sure if I'm doing them right, because they feel NORMAL to me - I feel no particular effect.  Other poses, such as the one where you're on one knee with one leg out in front of you and twisted into a prayer pose?...that one actually hurts my ribcage.  "Open your chest" they chant.  How is my chest supposed to OPEN when my ribcage is crushed into my thigh and is threatening to shatter??  Even lifting my ribs off my thigh and making sure my back is straight doesn't seem to alleviate that excruciating pain.  And we're supposed to breathe in and out long and slow, meditatively??  Are they crazy??  Other poses hurt my hip socket.

Not to mention the issue with balance.  As a former gymnastic enthusiast (from, like, when I was 16!) and having gotten my flexibility and balance from that, that particular pose (among others I"m sure) is actually what I would call dangerous!  Ultimately, there are poses I know I will never do, because if I accidentally hurt myself doing them, I will be the loser.

If someone who is using advanced yoga reads this, my question is -- would it be better to simply learn a series of simple positions that don't challenge me too much and utilize them to maintain flexibility and a little bit of balance, and create my own personalized routine?  What I've been doing is relying on simple video routines, parts of which I can't participate in because of the complexity involved.  When I have to stop because a pose is intricate or undoable, it breaks my meditative environment, and I feel frustrated and blocked.  Is it normal for a person my age (45) with the issues I have (one shoulder weaker than normal and slightly tricky knees x2) to be limited in yoga?  I"m just trying to judge how much I should partake.  There are already fitness areas I can't participate in that limit me (video/dvd workouts due to lack of privacy and availability of tv, jogging, p90x), and yoga is one of those things I COULD do, but it's frustrating cuz some of it actually hurts and is dangerous for me.  And I can't take classes because I don't have money for them.  Sigh....

Any helpful advice would help.  Feel free to write.  Thanks

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!  I got through Halloween without stuffing 10 peices of candy in my mouth!!  I bought a SMALL bag of ButterFinger Crisp (a little less sugar in those) and a bag of carmels (the icky kind), and all I took was one of the Butterfingers.

That's it.  The candy was gone in about 20 minutes from the trick-or-treaters, and we shut the door and turned off the light.  Gone, baby, gone!

On a sour note, I was doing my weight routine and I got pains in my chest during my lateral oblique work, (at it's worst).  It's subsided for now, but that's scary.  Because I know I don't have any history of heart disease, I wonder if I might have an aortic/abdominal aneurysm.  They're very common, but tend to run in the family, and to date, I have not heard of anyone in my family having it.  I hope it's a gas bubble and nothing more.  The last thing I need right now is a major illness.  I"m a failure as a bread-winner - I barely earn over $12 an hour and probably never will do more than a 3.25% cost-of-living increase yearly if I stay in the job I'm in now.  A catastrophic illness would bankrupt me for sure.

Two years ago, I was struggling with what to wear because everything was getting too small.  Now, I'm struggling with what to wear because everything is getting too big.  I know, I know, what a horrible dilemma, huh?  But seriously.  I buy my things by fit.  I don't care what the label says, because everything we buy was made somewhere else, and every country in the world has it's own ideal 'fit' according to their population.   Back when I was still a 16, I bought a pair of Express stretch dress pants (used from a thrift store) in size 12.  They fit well.  Now, the darn things are fallin' off me!  Same with the new Kmart Dickies I bought for work in size 12.  Darn things are starting to droop, sag, and gap.  I have a bunch of REALLY CUTE dress pants that I'm putting in the 'Salvation Army' pile!!  :(((   So now that I've lost 7 of the 11 pairs I had,  and the capris that fit me over the summer that I CAN'T wear because of the temp drop (and they won't fit next summer, God willing), and 2 of the 3 blazers I have that don't fit me, and at least 4 of the 7 good blouses I have don't fit me, I'm going to have to go back to the thrift stores and shop for things that fit.  grrrrrr....!!  I literally cannot put together an outfit that looks nice because it's saggy!  Garrrrrr!!1

Another lb gone!!   Down to 154!!

Course, it helps to take a laxative and void just prior to weighing, but it's nice to know my 'true' weight!!  lol

But seriously, I think taking this weight training thing seriously is what's going to charge up my metabolism, and perhaps is  what has produced the loss.  I'm also going to ignore the scale more often than not, because I think getting on it daily really hasn't done much good.  At this point, I only look every other day, but I want to get to the point where I"m only looking once a week.  I'd like to concentrate more on making sure I weight train 2x a week.  I might even go a third day, but isolate my upper body, because it's taking me LONGER to increase the amount of weight I use for it.  I know that's common because I"m female and it takes longer for girls to build that muscle up, and it's the weakest in the body.  So my week will typically look like this:

Monday: cardio only - at home,

Tuesday: weights upper and lower bod and 25 mins of cardio -at the gym,

Wednesday, cardio only - at home,

Thursday: cardio plus upper body weight training - at the gym,

Friday: cardio only - at home,

Saturday: weights upper and lower bod and 25 mins of cardio - at the gym,

Sunday: cardio only - at home,

Monday: cardio plus upper body weight training  - at the gym,

Tuesday: cardio only - at home. 

And so on.  Because I'm weight training every fourth day, there's a day in the middle somewhere that I can spare a few minutes to do some extra upper body training at the gym without compromising my health.  On those days I do cardio at home, I'm also using my hand weights for my arms, which I have to try to remember is conditioning those muscles.  Within the next week, I will have graduated from 3 lb weights to 5lb weights every time I do a cardio workout. 

All this change is going to ramp up my metabolism and weight loss, so I have to make sure I'm eating more.  There's only one problem with this - if I'm building muscle because of my weight training work, and I have to eat more, that means it's going to COST more, which is going to become a problem unless Ed goes back to work soon.  See, fresh salad fixings are not cheap right now because of the economy, and I've had to cut back on them.  Where before I was buying a bag each of baby field greens and spinach, and cherry tomatoes, and lots of fruit, I've had to cut the fruit by a third, and the leafy greens by half.  The cherry tomatoes are not safe in my fridge because my fridge is F$%ked up - the thermostat is keeping things too cold and is freezing things kept in the back, so I lost half a bag of tomatoes last week. :(( 

My only defense is frozen veggies, which keep better and are actually fresher and more reliable, but I can't freeze tomatoes, and it's only a matter of time before the cost of frozen goes up too, judging by our economy and our family budget right now, not to mention lack of variety!   I"m going to have to look into adding more beans into my diet (toot fruit, dontcha just love it) in order to keep up with the demands of my body.

....wait a minute.

They say that every thing passes.  My favorite saying in the world is "This,too, shall pass."     Because it's true.   Like New England weather, if you wait a minute, it'll change.

Yesterday, I didn't feel like exercising -- at 11am, when I had this thought, it was "Oh, lord I am NOT feeling like exercising tonight..."     So my inner voice, which I have trained with a whip and chair says to me "And you know this, how?  Who the hell are you to be deciding at this time of day what you're gonna feel like in 6 hours???  Shut UP."

And sure enough, by the time I got home, made myself dinner and sat for a few minutes, I felt okay about getting into my gym clothes and hitting my tready.  And NOT ONLY did I work it, I pushed in an extra 10 minutes on top of it.

You know what irks me so bad?  Being right.

I tried not to lose hope when Ed lost his job.  I try to be a loving, supportive mate, and help look for positions I know he'll either LOVE to do or he qualifies for.

TWO WEEKS ago, right after he got fired, I found an ad on Careerbuilder for a decal installer at a trucking company.  THE ONE PERFECT opportunity for  him to get in on the ground floor doing shop work, putting company decals on the sides of tractor cabs and trailers.  Remove old, worn decal, wash, repair, and install new decal.  $10 an hour.  Easy huh?  With a sure opportunity to be moved into some kind of permanent position.  With benefits.

 Which will make him possibly FINALLY stop hounding me to move to Utopia.

Do you think he jumped right on it and chased after it?

Nope.

He waits two weeks.

When he finally gets around to making the call he needs to make, the guy isn't available to talk.

Why?

Because the guy is busy hiring two  (NOT ONE-TWO)  guys for the job.
Ed finally gets ahold of him to find this info out.
Talk about a *^$%#@* /  CLUSTER *&^k.

It makes me want to literally slap the shite out of Ed.  This job was unfilled for two weeks.  Two weeks Ed could have used  to chase, call, represent, and he WAITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And lost the opportunity.  A$$! 

And do you think that Ed heard me when I said "See what happens when you sit on your a$$ for two weeks chasing other CRAP jobs???  That job COULD HAVE BEEN YOURS!! But you waited too long, AS USUAL."
Always a f*cking day late and a dollar short.

I hate to vent like this, but he SO SO pisses me off because he NEVER listens til it's too damn late, because there's never anything he doesn't know, and he's never wrong, and it's never his fault, and everyone's out to get him!!  What do you do with a person like that; and it's not like I can IGNORE him like he was just an everyday Joe off the street that I could merely walk away from, I live with him, and depend on him.