The Diet Naked Blog

And today I exercised against my will

If I don't exercise first thing in the morning (no matter what time my day begins), I really do not want to exercise later.  I have to force myself.  It's too easy to just promise that "tomorrow" I will exercise again.

But tonight, I had one hour of time between taking my daughter to the pool and working and I climbed onto the exercise bike for thirty minutes on the interval setting. 

I'm glad I did, but I really did not want to.  So, hooray me.

That is all for tonight.  It's very late and I'm taking the kids back to the waterpark for a few hours in the morning. 

Now, that's hott!

The Seattle area has a reputation for rainy, cold weather. 

Today, though, was the hottest day ever in this area.  Ever.  It was 104 degrees, I'm told. 

I know that many people endure similar high temperatures, but we're just not used to it.  In fact, most homes in this area do not have air conditioning.  We do, though, which makes life bearable. 

Hey, that brings me to a weight related topic!  I knew that if I typed long enough, I'd come up with something relevant for this blog. 

When I am fat, I am hot!  And not "hott" in that Paris Hilton way.  No.  Hot in that sweaty, sticky, irritated way because fat insulates the body and holds in heat and warms up the fat person.  Have I mentioned how much I hate being hot?  When I lost all that weight, I was cold all the time.  It was quite glorious.  I look forward to freezing again all the time when I get this weight off again.

And now, back to my regularly scheduled life. 

My younger kids and I met my sister and her two kids at Wild Waves today--the hottest day of the year.  One hundred and four miserably hot degrees!  Okay, maybe not that hot in that specific spot--who knows?  But that's not the point.  The point was that it was hot and I was not "hott."  No, wait, that's not the point, either.

The point was that I got quite a lot of exercise walking from water-ride to water-ride with my six year old.  I have a strategy to deal with that waterpark--we have seasons passes and thus, experience--so even though there were ten trillion people at the park, we were still able to ride on water-rides and have pretty much as much fun as you are allowed to have at a waterpark on the hottest day of the whole entire world, I mean year.

So, I'm counting that as exercise.

I resisted eating Oreo cookies. 

So, congratulations to me. 

I hope you are staying cool and if your weather is unseasonably cool, I apologize for stealing your summer.  We'd give it back you to in exchange for some dreary, cool weather, if only we could.  And I do speak on behalf of everyone in Western Washington when I say that.

Day two, not that I'm going to count all the way to 36

Hey!  So, I did sixty-six percent good today.  I ate healthy foods in reasonable amounts and I am writing here in this pretty little blog.  However, I did not exercise.

You'd think that I would manage to follow my own rules on only the SECOND day of my 36 Day Shed, but here's why I could not, did not, and failed to exercise:

1)  Went to bed last night (after work and blogging) at 1 a.m.
2)  Woke at 8:30 a.m. to take son to doctor's appointment.
3)  After doctor, stopped by grocery store.  Urgent need for produce.
4)  Arrived home three minutes late for telephone conference for work.
5)  Worked five hours.
6)  Took son to football practice.
7)  Returned home, cooked dinner.  (For me?  Mushrooms, zucchini, three egg whites, an egg and an ounce of cheese.)   Cleaned produce, chopped cantaloupe, cleaned kitchen.
8)  Ate dinner.  Rested on bed for half an hour.  (That was my chance to sweat and I squandered it!)
9)  Worked four hours, from 8 p.m. to midnight.
10)  And here I am.  (It's 12:45 a.m.)

So, there you see.  I could have exercised, I suppose, but I did not.

Here are some things I also did not do:

1)  Eat a dozen donuts.
2)  Eat a whole box of crackers.
3)  Eat an entire jar of Nutella.
4)  Eat a gigantic combo pizza.
5)  Eat a family-size bag of peanut-butter M&Ms.

It's all perspective! 

Tomorrow, I'm going to Wild Waves with my kids where I will don my enormous swimsuit and invoke my Powers of Invisibility, a special skill I have developed as a fat woman to cope with appearing in public in a swimsuit.  I know!  I am very talented.

Day One: So far, so good

I started my day being annoyed.  You see, today was a "sleep-in" day, but my six year old failed to recognize the value of sleeping in and woke me up repeatedly.  By 9 a.m., I was awake for the day--groggy, but awake.  And irritable.

I did the very last thing I wanted to do after waking up. 

I put on some shorts, pulled the piles of clothes from my exercise bike and rode it for thirty minutes.  I dragged my 10 pound weights from beneath my bed and did some arm exercises.  I stretched and did a little ab work (I have absolutely no core strength--which is one reason my back aches a lot). 

I did all that because last night I declared the "36 Day Shed" in effect.  So, thank you, blog readers.  You kept me honest. 

After breakfast (oatmeal and blueberries), I realized that I could track my calories using my iPhone app ("Lose It").  It's really so painless that even though of us who hate to journal (HATE) find it inoffensive.  So, I tracked my calories all day and ate whole foods. 

(Here's what I ate: oatmeal, blueberries, lettuce, radishes, green onions, Costco-brand albacore tuna--the only tuna worth eating, if you ask me--pear vinaigrette, brown rice, steamed zucchini and mushrooms, chicken breast, 94% fat-free microwave popcorn, and raw almonds.) 

I just want to feel better.  Gaining so much weight in a year has made me so aware of just how heavy my body is to cart around.  I can't really reach my left foot.  I've lost mobility and I feel about a hundred years old. 

Also?  I want to look cuter.  I'm at the age where extra pounds add extra years and I'm at the age where extra years do not look cute.  Seriously.

Anyway, Day One, complete success.  Day Two, here I come!

Melodee's 36 Day Shed

Shed.  Sounds like a small building in your back yard, but I'm not talking about small buildings, although that's what I've come to resemble this past year.  I'm talking about shedding weight.  Again.

Quick!  What do Kirstie Alley, Maureen McCormick, and I have in common? 

I know.  Such an easy question.  We've all lost weight and gained it back.  Maybe you have, too.  The popular belief is that 95% of all diets fail . . . which, one can assume, means that 95% of people who lose weight will gain it back.  (I am not completely convinced of that, but that's another post.)

The relevant point here is that I have gained back weight.  And now I have to lose it again.  Here are just a few reasons:

1)  My clothes don't fit.
2)  I look bloaty and puffy and fat. 
3)  My lower back hurts.
4)  I am not fit.
5)  I can't get my rings off.
6)  I'm embarrassed to see old friends.

So, I'm embarking on my own "36 Day Shed" (apologies to Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred). 

I don't have a lot of spare time.  But here's my plan:

1)  Eat whole foods.
2)  Exercise every day.
3)  Blog every day.

The other day, I ran into an old friend.  She hugged me, then said, "Oh, your hair is so long!" and I know what she was really thinking was, "Oh, you are so fat!"  My husband laughed at me when I told him that, but it's true.  When I had lost a bunch of weight, people remarked on my weight and appearance all the time.  I know that if they noticed my weight loss, they certainly notice my weight gain now . . . except it's not socially acceptable to say, "Oh, wow, you've gained so much weight!  How did you do it?" 

(Here's how I did it:  I ate a lot of ice cream and french fries.  Also?  I kept planning a new "Start my diet" date and every time I did, I prepared for it by overeating--my Last Supper, so to speak.  If you do this week after week, you can easily put on weight.  Just so you know.  Better not to plan a new diet than to plan a new diet, overeat in preparation and then fail.  You'll just end up fatter, like me.  It's ridiculous.)

Anyway, tomorrow's the big day.  (Oh, and why "36 Day Shed"?  That's because it's 36 days until September 1.) 

Time to shed weight. Again.