Avoidance

November 29, 2011 By 9 Comments

So I joined a gym.

It’s a nice gym. Most gyms I’ve been to are at least somewhat dirty. They smell. They’re full of muscley preening look at me type people.

This one is different. It’s clean. It smells, well, rather neutral actually. But the towels they provide smell awesome. The showers are the two-stage kind they have in spas that have the little changing room in front of the shower stall, and the showers have shampoo and conditioner and shower gel. The locker room has hair dryers and lotion and Q-Tips and mouthwash. I go at 5 and it isn’t totally crowded. I’ve been twice this week and haven’t waited for cardio equipment either time. The crowd is a mix of all ages, and everyone is just doing their own thing.

But the best part? The sauna. I love a sauna. And this one works and everything. (the saunas at my last two gyms were hit and miss).

It’s gym nirvana.

And yet I sat in my car texting and tweeting in the parking garage for close to 45 minutes, avoiding going in.

Here we go again.

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Filed Under: photography, The Creative Side, The Quest for Fitness Tagged With: , , , , , ,

A Sparkly New Year is Here!

January 1, 2011 By 12 Comments

2010 in Review

I have no reason to include this photo in this particular post other than his awesomeness.

2010 was a year of change for me, and some of it has been really, really good.

We got our butts moving and made the change to a more healthy lifestyle, including a gradual switch to using more organic products than not.  We’ve been really successful with this one.  I’ve managed to lose and maintain the loss of 5o pounds, and I’m currently training for a triathlon.  I now swim, bike, and run at least 5 days of every week.  More importantly, we feel a lot better.  After detoxing our bodies from so many of the chemicals and preservatives, we really notice the difference if we try to go back to some of those foods.  I am so much stronger physically, and more emotionally even and balanced, than I was at this time last year.

We’ve started to make a financial paradigm shift in our household and so far it’s been reasonably successful.  We’ve cut out things like cable and a land line telephone that we don’t need and hardly used anyway.  Making the shift to organic foods and household products is definitely more expensive for us, but we have also worked to reduce waste.  We use up leftovers as much as possible, and try to buy only the produce we think we’ll use because that’s the biggest waste offender in our house.  It spoils so fast!  The other counterpoint to the cost of organic eating is the savings we make because we are less willing to eat out since we’re now at the point where we notice that the difference in how we feel is directly linked to how we eat.

While I didn’t stick with my Project 365 because I just couldn’t do that and the new fitness program, I do think I’ve made some improvements in my photography skills.  I still have a long way to go, but it’s something I really enjoy and I don’t mind putting in the work.

I had to have my knee fixed after I tore it trying to be all Billy Blanks with the kickboxing.  It’s all better now and I’ve learned that I have to keep it moving and stretched a lot or it starts to get angry again.  Who knew I’d have a Jillian Michaels knee that screamed at me every time I blew off exercise after knee surgery?  If you did know and didn’t tell me, you’re dead to me for FIVE WHOLE MINUTES!

We had a “homemade” Christmas this year with my family, and it was a lot of fun.  It will be even better next year because we didn’t give ourselves much of a head start this year.  Overall it was a great experience and one I hope we continue.  I love the idea of putting thought and effort into something that you make with your hands to give to those you love.  More on this later, including pictures.

There have been friends who have chosen to exit my life this year, and new friends that have warmed my heart with their generosity of love.  It’s always sad when people decide to distance themselves from you, even moreso when you don’t know why, but I do feel incredibly blessed in the friends that I have.  I am not someone who makes friends easily because I find it really difficult to open up to people, so I am especially grateful to have such great girlfriends who have really been there for me in some of my darkest times this year.  The magic of the internet has introduced me to so many wonderful people that I can’t name you all, but I hope you know who you are and how much you are loved.

What’s in Store for 2011?

I don’t do resolutions, I just set goals.  To me that seems different somehow and less destined for failure.

We will continue on our healthy path.  I’d like to lose another 50 lbs, but more importantly I want to feel like an athlete.  I want to finish a triathlon.  I want it so much I don’t think I can explain it, or even why except that I like to challenge myself with things that are hard and, for me, a sprint distance triathlon is hard.  I will move onward and upward from there.  I’d also like to participate in some road races this year – definitely a few 5K races but I want to move on up to 10K pretty soon.  It will take work, but I think I can do it as long as my  crankenknee holds out.

I’m also going to continue to work on my photography skills.  I really love it, and it suits me more than other modes of artistic expression I’ve taken on in the past.  It fits into my lifestyle better.  Cakes take over my whole world – figuratively and literally – when I work on them, so while I love making them for people I love they are a huge undertaking when you are working on them from a very small home kitchen.

I’m attending BlogHer ’11!  I am stepping way outside my comfort zone but I feel pretty good about it, especially since I get to spend time with my childhood best friend.  Neither one of us is going to tell you how long ago that was.  If you’re going I hope you don’t mind if I attach myself to your leg so I’m not awkwardly trying to look all nonchalant.  Because I totally will not be.  Nonchalant, that is.

I will do more sewing this year.  I enjoyed using my sewing machine to make gifts this year and I want to use it more.  I need to be comfortable enough that the enjoyment starts to outweigh the frustration, because right now it’s too far in the opposite direction.

This space is going to get a total makeover, maybe even including an new URL (don’t worry I will notify you well in advance!) because I have completely outgrown the floatingprincess/princess buttercream persona and I’m ready for some change.  I just have no idea what that is yet, so stay tuned.

There are more changes coming our way this year, because what is life without change?  I’d much rather slap 2011 on the ass on 12/31 and say what a great ride it was than float along the status quo.

Have a happy New Year everyone!

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Filed Under: This Crazy Life Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

35 Days

April 25, 2010 By 24 Comments

It’s been 35 days since I started my fitness program, and I’m not going to lie – it has been hard.  It has also been rewarding.  I feel better.

I like being in control of what I eat and how I move.  Well, I’ve always been in control, I know that.  But I haven’t exercised that control for a long time and it feels good to do so now.

I like getting up from the table feeling satisfied and yet not weighed down by the amount of food I’ve eaten.

I like knowing I’m eating foods that will fuel my body instead of putting it into a coma.

I like that I can now do 50 minutes on the elliptical in a row, when I could only do 20 minutes when I started – and even that 2o minutes was a real push.

I like that I had to buy new weights because mine became too light.

I like that my stomach doesn’t hurt from all the soda I used to drink.

I haven’t had any alcohol in 35 days and I no longer miss it.

I haven’t strayed from my plan, though I have made modifications.

I like all of that, and yet it’s still hard.  I don’t expect that’s going to change, and that’s ok.  I’m not afraid of the hard stuff.

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Things I Love – Fitness Edition

April 4, 2010 By 2 Comments

There are a lot of things I hate about this getting fit business, like getting up before the butt-crack of dawn, pain, all the planning involved, aches, giving up diet coke…did I mention aches and pains?  But there are also things I love about it and I have to focus on the love part in order to get through the day, so here you go:

  • I love the feeling of accomplishment/self-satisfaction that goes along with sticking to your guns and not wavering from the program, even when it’s really hard.
  • I love working up a sweat.  I don’t know what it is, but I love that moment when I’ve worked up enough of a sweat that it trickles down my face, down my neck, and onto my chest (no, this isn’t porn – stop that brown chicken/brown cow music right now!).  I guess it’s a sign that I’m really working hard and it makes me push even harder. (hey!  Still not porn here – stop that!)
  • You know that moment when you’re at 17:45 on the elliptical (or treadmill) and you think you can’t possibly make it to 20:00 minutes because you’re going to die right now and your legs are going to fall off and really, please God, just make it stop?  And you keep going anyway and get to 20:00 minutes…and then push on to 25:00 minutes just because WTF was with that whining back there at 17:45 anyway?  I love that.
  • I love pushing through barriers.  I love it when I can add 5 or 10 minutes to a workout that I couldn’t do the day before, or finding out I can do exercises I couldn’t do before.
  • I love buying new, heavier weights because it means the ones I have are now too easy for me.
  • I love that I can lift a lot of weight.  A lot of girls don’t dig on lifting weights because they’re afraid of looking bulky.  I know that’s not going to happen because girls just don’t have enough testosterone to build bulky muscles without chemical help.  Muscle burns calories so more is better than less.
  • I love calluses, blisters, and scraped and bruised knuckles on my hands.  They mean I’ve been working hard, and I’m proud of these hands that can do so much.  When we were kettlebelling together a friend told me “blisters are your bitch hands dying,” and I’ve never forgotten that.  Whether it’s from kettlebells or boxing, my hands are definitely not pretty or girly-looking, but they are most definitely functional.
  • I love not being full to the point of feeling like I’m going to burst.  Ever since I stopped with the sodas that “I’m full” mechanism has turned back on in my stomach and I can once again regulate how much I eat.  It feels great to not have that awful bloated, overly full feeling.
  • I love the way my legs feel the rest of the day after a morning elliptical workout.
  • I love to hate my elliptical machine.  I’m glad I got off the fence and spent the money on it last Christmas.  My gimp foot appreciates that I’m not trying to use the treadmill, and it actually feels a lot better than it has in a long time.  I really waffled over that decision because it was not cheap and I was afraid it would sit unused, but it has been worth every single penny.

So there you have it, my list of things I love about getting fit that doesn’t have anything to do with losing weight.  It helps to remember these things when I am so tired I can barely lift my head off the pillow in the morning.

What do you love about getting fit?

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Just Do It

September 23, 2009 By 2 Comments

I need to re-adjust my schedule and find time to fit in exercise because, oddly enough, the sitting on the couch physical fitness program isn’t working for me.

In the interest of getting back in the saddle, I bought a couple of workout dvds and some new hand weights this weekend.  Because everyone knows that newer stuff is more inspiring than the old stuff, even if the old stuff is perfectly good except that maybe the ends periodically unscrew themselves from my dumbbells and fall off.  On my foot.

All that new stuff?  Is still in the Jeep.

That’s the problem with trying to economize and do my working out at home.  I can always find something I’d rather do at home than working out.  Quite honestly, I’d rather scrub bathrooms than work out at home most days, and I detest scrubbing bathrooms with a fiery passion reserved only for mushrooms.

Which, if you think about it, are kind of related.

Back in the day I always had more success when I went to a gym, because I had a destination with a purpose, and the sole purpose was exercise.  There really isn’t anything else to do at a gym but exercise.  Well, I know that people go to the gym to “see and be seen” but that’s not me.  When I go to the gym I prefer to not be seen.

It helped when I had a trainer, because then I had an appointment.  I had someone on the other end expecting me to be there.  Someone who wouldn’t let me half-ass my workout because I just wasn’t feeling it that day.  Sometimes I think that’s the real value of a trainer, the idea that you have to be there because of someone else, and that you have to perform better than you might on your own because that person is watching you and calling you on your bullshit.  They make you do things that you don’t think you can do, until suddenly you’re doing it.  That is the awesomesauce about trainers.

I’m on the fence right now about re-joining a gym, for several reasons:

  • It’s expensive, of course.  I could use that money to pay off some bills instead of spending it on a gym membership.
  • I have equipment at home.  I have a treadmill and kettlebells and weights and videos and yoga mats and balls and a Wii Fit and and and and…  I have the tools.
  • I’m not considering a trainer again because that’s just TOO much.  Plus I wouldn’t really want a different trainer than before, but I don’t want to go back to my old trainer and have him give me crap about re-gaining weight.  Because he would.  He’s a mouthy one.  And my trainer doesn’t work at the gym anymore, he’d have to train me at home, and he’d whine a LOT about how far it is to drive to my home.  Fucker.
  • What if I don’t use it?

But

  • There’s the destination thing.  That’s a big deal for me.
  • I hate when the people at home watch me work out.  This is not a spectator sport but I don’t have a private place to work out at home.  Oddly, enough I don’t mind that other people can watch me at the gym, mostly because I know they’re not really watching me.
  • There’s infinite variety at the gym.  I can change things up frequently a little easier at the gym because there is such an abundance of equipment and different classes to take.
  • They have a pool, and I kind of want to try the water aerobics.
  • There’s a sauna.  I loooooooove the sauna!
  • Alone time!  Even if hub goes to the gym with me, he’s never with me.  I plug in my headphones and I am my own island.  I don’t care how much I sweat, or what I look like, or who is next to me on the treadmill.  It’s my own time in my own brain, and I work out a lot of stuff in my head at the gym.  I love that.

The big thing, though?  The thing that’s really stopping me from biting the bullet and spending the money?  My foot is not healed.  (I know, you’re sick of hearing about it but this time it’s relevant and it’s a real consideration) It’s still pretty sore most of the time and I’ve stopped thinking that it’s going to get better.  Am I really going to be able to suck it up and ignore it?  Because that gets really hard sometimes.  I can do it for a long time, until suddenly I can’t.  Only this time at the end of that period where I stop sucking it up I’ll still have an expensive gym membership that I’m no longer using because I’m a wuss.  So there’s that.

I think in the end I’m going to chose the gym because I need to.  I’m not working out at home, that’s been proven.  I appear to need a place to go.  Whether I can do it on my own, without a trainer, remains to be seen.  I am awesome when I’m being pushed, but not always when it’s just up to me.

I know, I need to be like Nike and Just Do It.  I waffle on these decisions for way too long.

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Take the Jiggle Out of My Wiggle!

October 18, 2008 By 2 Comments

I’m having a bad day.  I can feel the plague coming on (thanks hubs!) so I’m crankier than usual, which might explain my almost meltdown at the store today.

See, we have this shiny new store in town that has all the exercise and sports equipment known to man.  They have thousands of square feet of bicycles, kayaks, snowboards, guns, and clothes…acres of clothes.  They have clothes for every type of sport you can think of.

Unless you need clothes of the X variety.  You know what I mean – plus sizes.  That dirty word.  Sizes that are apparently unwelcome or undesired in a store that is all about everything fitness.  I even asked, and the little blond salesgirl looked at me like I asked for the square root of pi.

Clearly fat people never work out.

Either that, or no one wants to see fat people work out and the powers that be have decided that the way to guarantee they never have to see fat people working out is to make sure we have nothing to wear.

There are, of course, websites where you can find clothes but you can’t try something on from a website.  You can’t fondle the material to find out if it’s well-made or crap.  And it’s bloody expensive!  $60 for a pair of shorts?  Seriously?  Then there’s the waiting for the mail, the trying on, and the returning.  It’s a whole hell of a lot of work for something that isn’t really all that fun in the first place.

You would think with all the talk of obesity in America that making attractive, well-made, and affordable fitness clothing in plus sizes would be a cash cow.  I don’t have numbers because I’m too lazy to look them up, but think of the percentage of our society that is overweight.  Think of the untapped market out there!  Who wants to go to the gym in ratty old t-shirts and sweats?  Not me – cuteness counts baby!  Then there’s the jiggle factor.  Think of the support clothing that could be invented to keep the jiggle out of my wiggle when I’m on the elliptical.  Who wants to be treading the road to nowhere with the thighs jiggling all over the place?  No one needs that!  There is a giant gaping hole in the market of fitness clothing and someone should fill it now.

Instead they treat us like we don’t exist.

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