Tuesday, December 28, 2010

4 More Days

The fitness challenge begins in 4 short days.  I have to say that I'm glad I have been preparing for this for a couple of weeks.  It has enabled me to lift the required amount before even starting.  I lifted 31,875 at the gym today.  Doing that 3x/week has me very close to the 100,000 required.  Yay, me!  It's the pushups that are going to kill me.  Seriously!  I may have a heart attack during them.  Ah, I guess what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. 

Now, obviously I haven't been talking about food addiction too much because I'm just getting back here, but it certainly is background radiation.  The benefit of working out so damned hard is that I don't want to go ruin it with a milk shake or chocolate.  Eventually, I hope that the working out gets rid of the will to come back home and go to sleep.  That's a product of depression, which could be caused by my weight.  Time will tell.  I recently tried an SSRI again and promptly came right off of it due to headaches and sexual side effects.  I don't think that will ever be a solution for me, so I have to deal with it in different ways.  But I digress.  The food addiction is coming into play more because I had all the fluid taken out of my band.  I was having huge issues with GERD and had to have it all taken out until it resolves.  If it doesn't resolve I will likely have to have it taken out.  Personally, I am enjoying eating meals again without having chest pain.  It's made me less inclined to eat unhealthy foods as well.  One would have thought I'd make a beeline for a cheeseburger after and it's been over a week with no urge to do so.  Again, time will tell how this all plays out.

On Saturday, the 1st day of the challenge, I will post a pic of my virtual model.  On April 7, when the challenge is over, I will post another.  Should be interesting.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Getting Prepared

Well, I've been off the wagon for some time.  I'm getting ready to do a fitness challenge.  I'm dragging my husband along, too.  I use the word dragging because he is sluggish to the idea, when I'm pumped.  You see, one of my husband's problems is blaming HIS weight on ME.  He doesn't do it intentionally, but he certainly deflects enough to attempt to make me feel bad for it so he doesn't have to.  I have a hard enough time carrying my own weight, pun fully intended.  Anyway, I'm frustrated and almost wish I hadn't enlisted him.  It's like trying to kick depression when you're walking around one of those "dark cloud" people.  You know who I'm talking about.  Glass 3/4 empty people.  But, I want to have a place where I can log my work.  So, I'm back here.  The challenge begins on the 1st of the year (2011).  This is NOT a new year's resolution, though.  This is an attempt to get more physically fit.

The challenge requires:

Walking: 12,000 steps daily. I must wear a pedometer at all times and it's electronically capable of downloading info directly to the computer.

Calories:  Maintain calorie consumption at 500 calories below metabolic baseline daily.  Right now that means that my calorie intake should be around 2000 - 2500 calories per day.

Situps: 100 daily. Will do different stomach muscle exercises each day to give adequate rest in between.

Pushups: 100 daily. This may kill me.  No, really.

Resistance: 100,000 pounds weekly (I lifted 20,000 on Thurs.). I will work my way up to 3 sets of my circuit instead of the two now and add weight where I am not as challenged.  If I do that 3 times per week, that should be 100,000 pounds lifted.

Weekly challenges: varied and must be presented with photographic proof (yes, really).  The first challenge is a local 5k run and 2k fun walk.  I'll be doing the fun walk.  There's a clue that the next one will be bowling.  I went bowling with my brother and nephews a couple of years ago and did horribly, so I doubt I'll be getting many points for that, but it should be fun.

There is absolutely no way you could come out of this in the same or worse health.  This is quite an adjustment from the norm for me.

My mantra:
Breathe deep.  Drink lots of water.  Have fun!