You know what, kids? That’s okay. It’s okay to have an off week.  But today is a new day, and my mother is still kicking royal ass with her daily walks. This week, let’s get back on the horse. Walk, work out, eat well and remember how good it makes you feel. Blog and be honest…share your week, and be fine with rebalancing. And we’ll be just a little bit shamed that we’re being shown up by an overweight woman in her 60s.

Now, let’s see who did what…

Tracy has been working hard on replacing bad foods for good – specifically, soda pop for water, pudding for yogurt, and a good deal more. It sounds like an awful lot of excellent substitutions are going on in the McKibben house these days.

Favorite quote: “You’re supposed to have dessert with every meal, right?  I’ve eliminated the pudding in favor of Yoplait yogurts.  Calorie-wise, I’m not sure there’s much difference, but it seems like a good change to make.”

Yanni  substitutes fruit juice with green juice, and gives a rough recipe. That does sound interesting…and she an some excellent food substitution, too.

Favorite quote:  ”I’m not even sure why I even missed my run.  I wasn’t sick.  I had the time (well, at the time, it didn’t seem like I had the time to do it).   I guess, I wasn’t discipline enough.   I didn’t make it as priority.   There.  I said it.” [I absolutely love that..."I didnt make it a priority." We'd all say exactly the same. -ed.]

My co-host Sarah is also substituting water for pop, good food for bad, and muscle for fat! Attagirl…

Favorite quote: “ I’ve cut way back on the amount of pop I drink. Hardly ever do I have more than 2 cans a day. When I do, I feel like crap! “  [Me too! -ed.]

I also had a rough week of doing little good for myself. But I did a few good things, didn’t go off the deep end, and talked about my little food and drink tricks.

Favorite quote: “The trick, I think, is not to let bad weeks turn into bad months. That’s your life, right there.”

Keep an eye out on Sara’s blog for this week’s #GetHawt invitation. Good work, everyone…you’ve all done very well!

-Jen

This week has very much been a down week due largely to stress. I’m not getting enough sleep, I’m tense, and I’m eating more as a comfort measure. I’m also avoiding excercise – so far, only one short walk this week (about .75 miles) and ONE of my three pushup/situp sessions. I didn’t even chart my weight, so no screenshot this week. (!!!)  The good news is that I haven’t gone off the deep end – I’m mostly still eating well, and so I’m not gaining.

The trick, I think, is not to let bad weeks turn into bad months. That’s your life, right there.

Now the question at hand is substitution. What substitution works for me? Generally: water and coffee and tea instead of soda (soda makes me feel sick these days), more water or other drinks of choice instead of snacking, and going out walking (sometimes) instead of lying down on the couch.

Here’s what I did this week (including 200 Situps program and 100 pushups program week 3):

*sigh* This week is another week. Rebalancing time.

-Jen

If this is your first time in the Get Hawt roundup, check out the FAQ. What to do:

1. Blog.
2. Link back to this Get Hawt Friday #004 post.
3. Have your post up before end of day Friday February 3.

MAY THE HAWT BE WITH YOU!

-Jen

Last week I adjusted my expectations, and it immediately took some of the stress off. I also started doing 25 minutes of cardio per day for a week (a week is about as long as I can stick to a strict program of any kind), and I saw immediate results.

What works for me? Rebalancing using course correctors. As Adam Savage says, “Failure is always an option.” Sometimes I will pig out too often, skip logging what I eat…sometimes I’m not going to feel like really busting ass at exercising.  So I put myself into situations that regularly, and as a matter of habit, push me back on course after I’ve stepped off for a bit. My current course correctors are this weekly blog party (and weight chart), my accountability partner Sarah, and the 200 situps/100 pushups program.

Here’s what I did last week (including 200 Situps program and 100 pushups program week 3):

Of course, I made a chart of that, too:

Yay charts!

-Jen

This post is for GetHawt Week #005.

(I’ve also gotten the kids onto OK Go, most notably their video with the Muppets. “You’re not a dog.”)

Also, due to an ongoing and protracted Stealing Things Cold War at work, I’ve taken to locking my desk drawers. Only I forgot to put a key on both keychains I use, so I am locked away from my at-work coffee press. (Waahhh, me.)  SO this morning I Macguivered myself a solution: steep grounds in a cup for 2 minutes, pour through a coffee filter, drink YUM.

Did cardio Sun-Mon-Tue, had to take a break yesterday. Despite imbibing enough water and calories, my body was just way too dragged out yesterday.

We’re also working on a project this month, DBARoadmap.com. It’s going to be a purchaseable, downloadable seminar on how to become a DBA. It’s the first time we’ve done anything to monetize MidnightDBA, and I’m both terribly excited and a bit nervous. Initial interest is pretty damn big, though.

The kids are good, but I think we’re all getting tired of the school year. *I* get a break in a couple of weeks, when Sean and I head to Seattle for the MVP Summit (my mom and his will watch the kids that week, thank all the stars!).  And the kids have winter break coming up soonish…till then, onward!

For bonus awesomeness, check out OK Go’s other videos on YouTube, including this one that shows how incredibly hot the lead singer is.

-J

Yanni has had a phenomenal week, what with her Tinkerbell Half-Marathon superwoman run. Her kryptonite? Not having a SMART goal, and not allowing herself to have setbacks.  I could learn a thing or two from her…this was an inspiring read.

Favorite quote: “Telling myself that I need to lose 2lbs in 2 weeks is easier to attain rather than I need to lose 30lbs in 6 months.   Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.”

Wendy steps in with a quick note about how well she’s doing (showoff! ;), but notes that sitting in her desk all the long day is NOT working for her.

Favorite quote: “One really cool thing I’ve decided: there is no spoon. Oh, wait, I mean: there is no elevator. “

Sarah‘s big weaknesses are post-workout celebration carbs, and soda pop. (You’re singing my song, girl.) She also had a kickass week – look at all of us with our kickass weeks! – and started the 100 pushups program.

Favorite quote: “Here’s what’s not working: “I just did 92 crunches, that means I can eat some pizza rolls, right?””

TSQL Princess is carrying around a little person-to-be, and so she’s on a slightly different “diet”: adding 300 calories daily (which I bet is a little difficult, with the nausea). Logging food in Loseit.com doesn’t work for her. Hey, it’s not everybody’s cup of tea!

Favorite quote: “I’m sure a lot of people are with me on this one but they really shouldn’t call it “morning” sickness. For me, it’s more like “all-effin-day-long” sickness.”

Stacia has some of the same issues: her negative internal monologue, water intake, and not scheduling excercise.

Favorite quote: “I need to remember this is not a sprint. As I get closer to my ideal weight, it’s going to be harder to lose the weight. Intellectual me understands that. Emotional me needs a gentle reminder from time to time.”

This week I discovered that I’d set my expectations too high, and that was blinding me to the progress I’m actually making. Adjustments ensued. I also reviewed what IS working for me.

Favorite quote: “You’ve been focused so much on the day-to-day weight that you forgot something important: Meanings hide, even in the hard numbers.”

Keep an eye out on Sara’s blog for this week’s #GetHawt invitation.  Good work, everyone…you’ve all done very well!

-Jen

Week before last I got frustrated. Last week I got disheartened. Things just don’t seem to be working… the chart, the diet changes, the weekly excercise. It’s very disturbing to see the weight line on my graph go boing-boing-boing between 160 and 165, and it doesn’t seem like I’m making any progress.

Then I added a trend line* to my graph. (It’s a bit hard to see, but it’s the light gray, gently sloping line.)

I am making progress.  It’s a lot more gradual than I’d like, but then again, I’m not going balls-to-the-wall with the diet or the workouts. The title of the damn POST is “Pragmatic Laziness”.

So what’s not working for me? It’s not the charts, the diet, or the workouts…it’s my expectations. Way back in December when I wrote my Prequel to an Effort, I analyzed the problem, my strengths, and how to apply the latter to the former. Six weeks later I’ve nearly forgotten. Time for a self-pep talk:

Jen, you track obsessively, and you rebalance based off of that. That’s good!  You’ve been focused so much on the day-to-day weight that you forgot something important: Meanings hide, even in the hard numbers.  Keep on obsessively tracking and rebalancing, keep on trying things, but keep an eye on reality. You’re trending downward, and that’s good. Now, go adjust your expectations, and keep on doing what you’re doing.

So there it is. I need to change the chart to have a more gradual weight loss line. To put it in perspective, I’d originally graphed a 3 month weight loss from 165 to 137#. 28 pounds in 3 months, over 2# a week. Um, yeah, perhaps I’ve set the bar a tad frakking high for myself, considering the moderate effort.  From my Prequel blog:

I was a little bit more aggresive with my chart than Phil was. Instead of a daily .1% daily decrease, I used .2%. In my case, that works out to about 0.3 #/day (~2#/week). 

I’m resetting the chart** so that the daily weight loss percentage is 0.10%…that’s still a bit aggressive, but it puts me at a goal of 151# (no more than 157#) by March 18. The chart, adjusted:

Here’s what I did last week (including 200 Situps program and 100 pushups program week 2):

A final, quick note on things that still are working:

• Planning out what to eat for the day. See this Health article – “I plan most of my meals in advance to make the healthiest choices possible.”
• Eggs, soup, coffee and tea. Lots of all of those.
• Teaming up with Sarah S. We’re still nudging each other every day, commiserating about various things, offering advice. On more than one occasion I went and did my workouts because I didn’t want to have to report back that I’d done nothing.

Thanks for coming with me on this….comments and critiques welcome.

-Jen

* If you’re using my graph and want to add a trend line, in Excel right-click your weight line (the purple one) and select “Add Trendline”. From there you can pick the line color…leave the selection at “Linear”.
** I reset the chart by playing with the target weight (cel B4, “Goal weight in 3 months”) until the Daily Weight Loss % (cel B10) read 0.10%.
**I hereby declare that I coined the term kidmergency. (I refuse to Google the term. I’ll ignore you if you do.) It’s not a real emergency, but it is to the kid…

And by the way, I hereby declare that OK Go is everything that is right with the internet.

And he’s up there, what’s that ? Hawaiian noises ?
Bangin’ on the bongoes like a chimpanzee.
Oh that ain’t workin’…that’s the way you do it…
- Dire Straits, Money for Nothing

Welcome again to GET HAWT FRIDAY!  Jump in any time, the water’s fine.

That ain't workin'

Last week’s invitation and roundup features the diet and fitness tools of our lives, and before that we covered partners and goals.  THIS week I’m thinking about what doesn’t work. I mean, losing weight and fitness are as “easy” as eating better and working out more…so why is the weight-loss industry so big and complicated?  Because it’s not that easy.  Some things – like starvation diets – universally DO NOT WORK. So we develop strategies and use tools and work within our means to meet our goals. Some of those strategies are good, and some (necessarily) fall by the wayside.

In short: What hasn’t worked well for you?

If this is your first time in the Get Hawt roundup, check out the FAQ.  What to do:

1. Blog.
2. Link back to this Get Hawt Friday #004 post.
3. Have your post up before end of day Friday February 3.

MAY THE HAWT BE WITH YOU!

-Jen

LOSING WEIGHT HAS NEVER BEEN SO EASY!!?!