Sucker's Remorse

They installed a salad bar at the grocery store across from my office a few weeks ago.  I often stop at the store before work because coming straight to the office from dropping The Boy off at school gets me here about 45 minutes early.  It's a good opportunity to pick up this or that without making myself late for anything else.  It seems that ANYTHING I add in to my schedule at this point is at the expense of someone or something else.

I've often wished that they would open the salad bar in the morning so that I could have a nice salad for lunch without actually having to venture out of my office at lunch time.  It's cold out and if I'm not writing this I'm reading others' blogs, exploring the Cheezburger network or participating in some other culturally and educationally bankrupt internet activity.

Well yesterday morning I stopped to pick up frozen lunches and milk to keep at work, and I noticed that the salad bar was open.  Yay!  They read my mind!  Wait, can they hear me thinking this??

But there were no tongs or spoons with which to move the veggies from their recessed, refrigerated, previously covered bins into my eagerly waiting plastic container. 

I went to the prepared foods counter which is near to the salad bar and said "Excuse me.  There are no tongs or anything" and was rewarded with a gruff "fine we'll take care of it" from the grocery store equivalent of your typical hairnet-equipped lunch lady.  I said thank you as sweetly as I knew how and I waited.  She lumbered into the back and loudly announced that there was a customer at the salad bar who needed tongs and spoons.  A sweet young gentleman came out, followed by the lunch lady, and apologized for not having readied the salad bar.  He said that it's not "technically open" and that he had only uncovered it so that he could empty out the previous day's leftovers and ready it for the scheduled opening at 10 am.  I thanked him and started to move along.

Then the lunch lady said "I can give you some tongs if you want".  I said "No, it's ok, thanks".  She says "You sure?  Here you go" and she's holding tongs out to me. 

I asked the nice young gentleman if the bar had been covered all night and he assured me that it had.

What could I do? (don't answer that).

So I took the tongs and started to assemble my salad.  Upon closer inspection it was clear that these really were last night's leftovers and, while they had been refrigerated and covered, they they were looking pretty sad.  I tried to pick and choose items that looked less than disgusting (because isn't "less than disgusting" what we all hope for in a meal?) and couldn't really put together a salad that I thought would seem even remotely edible four hours later.

But they were watching me.

I considered closing up the container, smiling and saying thank you, and then stashing it elsewhere in the store...but this would leave my mess for some other innocent store employee to clean up or, worse, would come to the attention of the lunch lady who would later stick pins into a fat, redheaded voodoo doll.

It took some serious screwing up of determination for me to sheepishly walk up to the counter and say "I'm really sorry.  It just doesn't look good so I'm going to pass.  Sorry...again.  Have a good day!"

My apologies, and my handing over of my partially made salad, were met with cold stares from both the previously polite young man and the lunch lady.

I slunk away in shame.

Given my reaction to this situation, it should come to no surprise that I fell for high pressure sales at the Personal Training Department at my gym.

Yes folks, I've seen the error of my ways and I will be cancelling my training contract this evening, 48 hours into the 72 hour window during which I can cancel without penalty.

Talking to The Boss yesterday, I told him that I signed up for 12 months but that Chris told me that I could cancel after two.  He urged me to take a very close look at my contract (which I totally should have done in the first place rather than being a trusting doofus) because, while it's a decent facility in a great location with reasonable membership prices, he has had less than positive experiences with regard to the integrity of the PT sales staff.

Sho'nuf, when I got home I pulled out my contract and I can cancel.....if I have a documented medical condition that prohibits me from exercising or if I move more than 25 miles from any Urban Active facility.

Shit.

So I sat down to pay bills and work on my budget and allocate to which debtors I want to divvy up my impending tax refund in the hopes that I'd discover a few thousand extra dollars stashed between the electric bill and gas bill, and I came to the conclusion that I had no business even committing to two months of this expense, much less twelve.  I have to cancel.  End of story.

So tonight I'll go over there with my contract in hand, try not to make eye contact, and tell them that I need to cancel. 

I'm sure I will involuntarily apologize profusely.  It's a form of tourettes I tellya.

I'm going to have to revamp my schedule but my plan is to attend two "Urban Iron" classes per week.  There's one at 10 am on Saturdays (admittedly FAR preferable to my 8:30 PT appointment) which will be no problem at all, but the other two are at 5:30 Monday and Wednesday.  Currently I work out on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so some shuffling will be required, which involves the schedules of The Man and The Ex, in order to get there either Monday or Wednesday.  

Have I mentioned....shit?

Tonight after I weasel out of my contract I'm going to try to do the full circuit (I at least learned that strength training is as important as cardio) and then spend as much time as possible on the elliptical with my e-book.

Right now I'm reading "The Pleasure of My Company" by Steve Martin.  I've seen Steve Martin books at the bookstore and thought, isn't that funny, an author with the same name as the commedian.  Did you know it's the same guy??  This book is VERY strange...it's about a guy with...I guess he has OCD.  It's very strange on the heels of Portia de Rossi's book.  A bit too mujch mental illness in my reading lately I guess.  But I'm a couple hundred pages in so I may as well continue and just make sure the next book I read is a nice, healthy murder mystery.

One thing that happens when we reach 40 or so years of age is that post-exercise pain takes longer to set in.  Where I used to be sore the day after a workout, now it takes 48 hours.  Today my legs are SCREAMING.  And I wonder if it's the workout or the voodoo doll.

Today's Lunch:  Amy's Macaroni and Soy Cheese.  The best part is the over-cooked burned on crunchy cheese around the edges.  I wonder what would happen if I cooked it like five times as long as it calls for?  Would it become one chunk of the yummy crunchy cheese? 

Clearly Dimentia is Setting In

Within the past couple of months I've taken several steps toward creating a healthier me.  While I haven't really consciously tried to make this into fitness blog (which would be about like Charlie Sheen starting a sanity blog), it has sort of turned into a fitness blog on it's own just because I lack the imagination required to write about anything other than my daily life, and right now my daily life is very fitness-centric.

I'm done fighting it.  I guess this is just me for right now.

So I've been using the BodyBugg for a bit over a week now and I LOVE it.  It beats the heck out of logging individual exercises in FatSecret.  BodyBugg's food database sucks so I'm just using The Bugg to calculate exercise calories, which I key into FatSecret in a lump sum adjustment to see my net deficit.  

If BodyBugg is to be believed, and I don't know that it has any motivation to lie to me, FatSecret has been drastically over-estimating my metabolism.  This was initially a bit disheartening, but knowledge is power and all that rot.

I broke up with The Y and joined Urban Active Fitness.  The Big Girl Gym suits me SO much better than the family atmosphere of the Y.  I have no patience for little kids, which is why I no longer have one, and I have enough trouble dealing with my own teenager, I don't want to deal with everyone elses.  Granted I've only been there twice, but I don't dread going and that's a big plus.

In fact, and trust me what I'm about to say is so unbelievable to me that I haven't ruled out early onset dimentia, but I actually WANT to go work out.  If I could do it right this very second I would.  If I could go after work today, I would.  If I could go any time before tomorrow evening, when I actually CAN go, I would.  This whole business of being a parent and a productive member of society is getting in the way of what, admittedly, might become an unhealthy obsession if left unchecked.  I guess that's good, right?

I first visited my new gym on Sunday.  I did the upper body portion of one of the many sets of circuit training machines, followed by 45 minutes on the elliptical.  I honestly wanted to go longer on the ET.  I could have happily gone a full hour or more, reading and sweating facing out over the parking lot.  But The Man and The Girl were wandering the adjacent shopping area while I worked out and I didn't want to leave them waiting an inconsiderate amount of time.  So I stopped, showered, and met them at Barnes & Noble where I was greeeted with "That was fast".  Sigh.

Monday I couldn't go, but I met with two separate personal trainers yesterday after work.  The first, who I'll call Chris (because that's his name) had me fill out some paperwork, asked me about a million questions, then handed me over to the most adorable little (but fit) gay man I've ever met.  My fitness level was assessed (I'm pretty sure they had to create a new category for me on their assessment paperwork), I was put through a workout that included lunges, lifting and throwing a 20 lb bag of sand, squats while lifting free weights and a sad attempt at crunches while perched atop a spongy flat-bottomed ball type dealio.  During the beginning of the workout I wanted the trainer to be my new BFF.  I imagined we could do lunch, go shoe shopping, maybe take in a musical.  By the end I just wanted to throw him out a window but lacked the strength.

After my assessment and workout I was sat back down with Chris, who explained to me why I need to do this type of workout rather than the machines and cardio to which I've become accustomed.  The first problem is that I've become accustomed to them, and apparently my body is smart enough to get used to stuff and stop being impressed with my efforts, therefore not rewarding me with the desired results. 

Second, and I suppose this makes sense, if I concentrate primarily on cardio, I burn lots of calories for that 45 minutes or so and then my metabolism quickly goes back to normal.  If I concentrate on building muscle, I burn calories while I'm doing it (BodyBugg said I burned FAR more calories per minute doing lunges and throwing that stupid sandbag than I do on the ET) but also there's the whole muscle is metabolically more active thing to deal with.

Chris says I can realistically expect to gain a pound of lean muscle per month, which will burn an additional 50 calories per day when at rest.  This doesn't sound like much but if I do this for 10 months, that means I'll be burning 500 extra calories per day when at rest...and that translates to a pound of fat loss per week.

Am I ready to give up my ET?  No.  And that came as a HUGE shock to me.  I actually ENJOY my time on the elliptical.  I LIKE to sweat and zone out and read. 

What the hell is happening to me??  I smell toast.

Chris assures me that I'll still be able to cardio train, but (here we go), if I sign up for one of their training packages they will customize my workout with exactly the right amount of strength training combined with the right amount of cardio to attain the results I want.

I was actually relieved that he didn't tell me I couldn't use the ET any more.  I'm not kidding.  Stop laughing I'm serious!

Well the bottom line is that the switch from the Y to Urban Active, just membership-wise, cut my bill by 60%.  I bought the absolute least expensive bare minimum training package they offer, which is one session per week, and now I'm paying QUADRUPLE what I was paying at the Y.

QUAD-EFFING-DRUPLE.   This shit better work.

I'm not committed for more than two months.  I guess at that point I'll decide if it's worth it.

But here's the thing.  And I know this is going to sound like the sales pitch brainwashing me but this is math that I did on my own.  Even if I stick with it for a full year, if there were a surgery that could get me into shape I would GLADLY plunk down what this will cost me for a full year to attain that goal.  It's a miniscule fraction of what one would pay for bariatric surgery or even a tummy tuck (not that I've considered that, just saying).  So, other than the fact that I may not be able to pay for heat or food, why am I freaking the crap out about spending this money on myself? 

Sigh.

So Saturday morning I have an 8:30 am appointment with a woman who will teach me how to become the new, strong, confident me. 

All I know is that I'm more excited about getting healthy than I've been in a long time and I'm trying really hard to imagine myself staying this excited rather than repeatedly telling myself that I'll muck this up like I always do so why get my hopes up? 

This is something I've never tried before, maybe that's why I have renewed hope. 

I remember when I was probably three or four years old my dad dug a ditch across our back yard to run a gas line to the grill.   I clearly remember standing on one side of this gap, which couldn't have been more than 2 feet wide, crying because I couldn't get back to the house.  Neighborhood kids jumped over it without hesitation.  Adults stepped over.  I just couldn't bring myself to do it no matter how much encouragement was thrown my way.

Fast forward about 20 years and I was going fishing with The Ex.  There was a pond near our house that had a creek running along side of it, and the way to get to the best fishihng spot was to walk between the creek and pond, along a strip of solid yet somewhat uneven ground that was probably 3 feet wide.  I couldn't do it.  He said I could, I just lacked the confidence.  I said "Ok, I'll meet you in the car".

Last summer The Man, The Girl and I drove to Mohican state park with some of The Inlaws.  This was presented to me as "Let's go to Mohican".  Half way there I found out that a more accurate presentation would have been "Let's go HIKING at Mohican", which would have caused me to laugh and stay home.
The couple we went with consisted of a pregnant woman and a man carrying a toddler in a carrier on his back, so even though they are both young and fit I knew it couldn't been too dangerous, steep or physically challening.  What I didn't count on was a trail that runs along a river, trees and rocks on one side, water on the other, uneven path between.  I had a full blown panic attack, unable to go forward or back, sobbing and humiliated as children and even people much older than me went around me.  The Man walked me back to the car and we waited in strained silence, punctuated by my repeated apologies, for the rest of the group to return, at which point I had to endure a couple hour drive back home in my humiliation.

All of this fear comes from the certainty that I will fall if I don't have something to hold on to, becasue my balance is horrible.  I felt like such an idiot yesterday trying to do lunges.  "Hands on hips, head up, focus on the exit sign".  He may as well have asked me to levatate.  I kept having to stop and put my hands out to keep from falling over on my side like a fainting goat.  They assure me that my balance issues are caused by a lack of core strength, and they're going to help me fix this.

This boggles my mind.....the idea that my uncoordination, something that I've always seen as being as much a part of me as my love of animals and my hatred of eggplant can somehow be changed my, of all things, physical exericise.  Apparently exercise isn't just for trying to make my fants fit.  Who knew?

Or maybe I'm just a big ol'chicken and all the crunches in the world won't change it.  But I'll look better during my sniveling, humiliating panic attack, and that's something, isn't it?

Today's lunch:  Kashi Pesto Pasta Primavera.   I'm not a big Kashi fan.  It's all generally too 'twigs and bark' for me, but this is actually pretty good.  Too bad I can never bring it to work again.  WAY too much garlic smell. 

Y Me

I have fallen out of love with my gym.  This is really REALLY not a good thing.  You have to understand that my default setting is sitting with my feet up, McDonald's Carmel Frappe in one hand, slice of pizza in the other.  If my gym were a place full of music and sunshine, constantly pumped full of the smell of fresh brewed coffee and staffed by muscular, shirtless men who wanted nothing more than to rub my feet one minute for each I spend on the friggin' elliptical trainer I would STILL find every possible excuse not to go.  I have never experienced the fabled "runner's high" (to be fair, I haven't run since 1974), I don't notice any discernable stress reduction from working out, and the only positive feelings I have post-exercise come from the blessed knowledge that I won't have to do it again for roughly 47 hours.

I've had gym memberships in the past, and the biggest problem (other than, you know, hating it) was caused by me comparing myself to the other members.  The muscular men are not a plus if they're not there to rub  my feet.  The 22 year girl wearing skin tight bike shorts and a sports bra is just lucky that I lack the upper body strength to chuck a freeweight at her.  I'm wearing a sports bra too...but I'm required by law to wear a giant t-shirt over mine and I'm sweating like a pig while she flits about, barely perspiring.  I hate her.

So when I toured the Y, one of the first things I noticed in the exercise area was that it was full of MY PEOPLE.  They are overweight.  They have gray hair (not that I do...as far as you know).  They sweat and they struggle and they are NOT in-shape, but they're trying to be.  Sure, there are a few Sports Bra Bunnies, but they're the minority and I LOVE that.  I don't feel like the fat, old chick in the exercise equivalent to a singles bar, I feel like this is MY gym and I belong.

Sadly, I only feel this way IN the exercise room.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I go to the gym after work.  I get there about 5:30, when every single person in the Greater Cleveland Area goes to the Y to get their kid from day care.  I search for a parking spot within the same zip code.  Yes, I understand that I'm there to exericise and I should be happy to park as far as possible from the door, but the fact is that the distance walked TO the Y from the car is typically only about 1/10th of the distance that will be required to walk from the Y to the car after the workout.  It's a mystery of physics.

So after ten minutes of driving around, cursing, and trying not to plow any loose children over with my car (hold their hands for God's sake!!!) I trudge in to the Y.

I wait in line at the desk to get my card scanned, behind the lady trying to sign up for "Parent's Night Out" next month, behind the man trying to sign his son up for swimming lessons, behind all the other poor SOB's who just want to burn some calories.

Once I'm able to check in I head down the hall, pretty pink gym bag over my arm, water bottle in hand, trudging past the Family Changing Rooms, past the Girl's locker room, and I open the door to the Women's locker room, which proudly displays a sign that says that anyone under 15 should use the Girls locker room or Family Changing rooms and another sign asking members to refrain from using cell phones anywhere in the facility.

Once I get into the locker room, the next order of business is to find an empty locker.  There is usually ONE, and it's located between the 12 year old who is talking on the phone and waiting for swim team practice to start and the harried mother trying to get her twin toddlers ready for swimming lessons.

Even though I'm not the fattest or oldest person there, I'm still not comfortable changing clothes litterally elbow to elbow with other people, so I retreat to the bathroom to switch from office wear to workout clothes.  Come back out and lock up my stuff.

I have to go back through the day care crowd to go up to the exercise room, where I force myself through an hour of sweating and trying not to look at the clock. 

The rest of my visit is pretty much the same as my pre-workout routine...lots of "excuse me" and "pardon me, can I get through?".  Lots of interrupting tweens as they talk about who broke up with who.  I get my stuff from my locker, shower, get dressed in the shower because at least I can turn around without bumping into an 8th grader.  If I'm lucky enough to get access to a blow dryer that isn't being played with by a 3 year old I dry my hair.  By this time I'm just FREAKING TIRED....from the workout, from the schlepping, from the crowd.   I load my bag (which somehow weighs twice what it did on the way in) up on my shoulder, I fight my way back through the day care area, walk the six miles out to my car, and all I want to do is go home and ingest the quickest, preferably edible thing I can find.  By this point it's dark, usually between 7 and 7:30, but people are still picking up their kids, and they are still running to and fro, willy-nilly.  It sounds cute, but it's not.

So....maybe it's time to go back to the Big Girl gym.  Tomorrow I'm spending my lunch break visitng Urban Active here by my office.  I know there will be more Sports Bra Bunnies than there are people like me, but there will be fewer swim diapers and teenagers.

When did I become so crotchety?  I mean I DO like kids.  Even teenagers.  But I think again it comes down to the fact that this is my least favorite part of the day and any additional irritation is going to just put me over the edge. 

I wonder if they give foot rubs at Urban Active?

Today's Lunch: Amy's Garden Vegetable Lasagna.  Not one of my favorites, yet I keep buying it.  Hmm.

Bugging Me

I had such productive plans for this morning.  The UPS guy brought my BodyBugg yesterday, so last night I broke out the user's manual hoping to get it all set up and, of course, it had to charge for 3 hours before I could do anything.  The manual said to hook it up to my computer using the provided USB cable, so I naively did exactly that, and I snuggled into bed with a good book. 

Oh...the book.  Thursday night I finished What The Night Knows by Dean Koontz, which The Man bought me in hard cover.  I really love anything Dean Koontz writes, and this book was no exception, but ever since I got the Tablet/E-Reader dealio I've been just wishing I could get done with it so I could get my first eBook.

So last night I got Someone Will be With You Shortly by Lisa Kogan from Amazon for my Cruz.  I've been a subscriber to O Magazine for years and Lisa's column has always been my favorite part of the every issue.  I've been looking SO SO forward to reading her book since it came out nearly a year ago, but neither Barnes & Noble nor Borders carries it in-store.  Bastards.

Anyway, my plan for this morning was to get up at the crack of 8, register my Bugg, pair it to my phone, strap it to my flabby upper arm, throw the Cruz in the gym bag and head for the Y.

But when I tried to mess with the Bugg, the battery was still dead! Boo, hiss.

It seems that the crucial piece of missing information in the extremely short and not-so-informative User's Guide is that simply plugging it in is not sufficient to begin charging.  Yesterday when I plugged it in nothing happened.  No flashing, no lights, no "Greetings Fatass. Thank you for plugging me in, I will charge my battery now".  Nothing.  But now that it's registered and the software is on my computer it is flashing red, indicating that the battery is critically low. Crap.  It's supposed to take three hours to charge and will flash green when it's done.  After that I'll still need to pair it with my phone before I can use it.  Since I have to have both dogs at the vets in 3 hours there is no chance of wearing it to the gym today.

Of course I could still GO to the gym...but yesterday I took the morning off work and did a fairly thorough cleaning of my kitchen and downstairs bath (I'm a wild woman, huh?).  To be clear, I LOATHE cleaning, but it does feel really, really good to walk through those two nicely clean rooms.  So I think I'll take advantage of what history tells us will be a short-lived burst of motivation and clean the living room and this disgusting office rather than going to the gym today.  Oh it would be SO nice if I could accurately calculate the calories I burn while I clean....if only there was a gadget that would do that....sigh.

Ooh ooh...it's flashing yellow now instead of red.  This is progress.

Since my dirty breakfast plate is still sitting here (I told you my office is disgusting) I can call this a Blog Over Breakfast and tell you that I had a sandwich consisting of two deliciously fried eggs, a piece of mild cheddar cheese, exactly one serving of olive oil mayonnaise on two pieces of whole wheat toast, with ten grapes.  Clearly I was planning to burn off some serious calories at the gym.