Fat Woman With A Band

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Weighing the Evidence on Exercise.

This week marks the end of training with Jackie. Very, very sad.

Jackie is off on her summer adventure on May 2nd, and when she returns in September she won’t be doing personal training.

It’s been an amazing time with her. I know that my fitness has improved since I began training with her in July. I’ve improved my stamina, my strength, lost weight, and lost inches. Of course, I still have lots of room for improvement.

Some sessions were depressingly difficult, where I felt I just couldn’t do what was asked in the way the exercise needed to be done. Jackie was always encouraging, always positive, always up beat. I’m not sure I ever got the “high” that some exercisers get, but the sense of accomplishment after completing a morning’s routine was huge.

Jackie has given me enough routines and ideas to keep me going for a long time. It’ll be really different doing them by myself, particularly staying motivated. I’m going to try, as I don’t want to lose the benefits I already accrued.

Thanks Jackie – you’re the best!

The word for me the last couple of weeks is “procrastinate.”

There’s tax stuff to do, there’s a FitBit to set up, and there’s some paperwork I need to get to. I haven’t done a darn thing.

I did, however, do another 10km walk and I’m happy to say I shaved six minutes off my time. My goal is to shave another six minutes, and then start to lengthen my long walks. I want to be able to do the 21km in less than 3hrs and 40min.

There are two experiences I have while I’m walking. One I can remedy fairly easily, and the other is tedious. I’ve found now that I have the energy to do the walk, that is I don’t seem to run out of steam before the end. But what I do find is that I get bored, and I just want to finish so I can do the next thing. This, I recognize, is my usual issue of not being in the moment. So with the walking I’ve been listening to podcasts like CBC’s Norah Young and Spark, NPR’s Terry Gross and Fresh Air, CBC’s Shelagh Rogers and The Next Chapter, NYT’s Freakonomics, TVOntario’s Jesse Brown and Search Engine, Spacing Radio, and various others. This definitely helps a lot.

The second experience is physical. I always seem to have something wrong – my hip hurts, my Achilles hurts, my foot hurts. Always something ‘effing thing. And always on my right side. It’s not a huge 10/10 of pain, usually a 2/10 or 3/10. I’d just prefer not to have it at all. I bought some compression tights on Friday and tried them out yesterday to see if they’d help with the right side pain. It could have been one of the reasons I managed to shave six minutes off my time. After walking, and this morning, my Achilles is 3/10. Not good. More stretching required.

I’ll get to my tasks this week. Really. Really. Really. Sh*t.

I wish I was saying last five pounds to lose. I’m not.

I’m saying the last five weeks of training with Jackie begins tomorrow. I’m doing four workouts a week – Day 1 and 3 work on the same body parts, and Day 2 and 4 work on the other body parts. For example, last week I worked on my legs on Monday and Wednesday, and on my arms on Tuesday and Thursday. I also participated in aquafit on Tuesday and Thursday, and did a little bit of walking on Monday and Friday.

This week I’ll be working my upper body on Monday and Wednesday, and legs on Tuesday and Thursday. I’ll be doing aquafit also, and walking. I’m hoping that we’ll have less rain this week so it’ll be more fun to walk.

The last exercise topic for this post is about the Scotiabank Marathon. I’ve signed up for the half-marathon. That’s 21 kilometers on Sunday, September 26. I know that I can walk it, but what I don’t know is if I can walk it while the course is officially open, that is 3 hours and 40 minutes. So the goal isn’t just to walk but to finish in that time.

I’m going to be doing as many training walks as I can, not all the same length as the half-marathon. For example, a walk from my place to the intersection of Bloor and Yonge is 10 kilometers. I’ll going to try to do that this week and get a time measurement. I think I can do that in just over 2 hours. Not bad, but not good enough. I have about six months to improve on that.

I’m finding easier to concentrate on the exercise part of my life rather than the diet part. I admit that I’m not doing as well as I should. I have to find the push to start cooking more at home again. I’m thinking about it a lot, I just haven’t done anything about it. Yet.

I’ve been pondering what to do next, that is what to do when I’ve reached my goal weight with this exercise regimen. I need to think about what kind of exercise I’ll do to help keep my weight in check, and not be “soul-sucking” using Jackie’s words.

I’ve been pondering doing a half-marathon walk. I know I can do the walk, but whether I can do it in a quasi-competitive way is another thing. Also, I wonder how you train for that, and then which marathon would I do? I think I’ll percolate on this for a bit. One of my first thoughts about this is that I’d need to train by walking – no duh! – but winter is just about to begin for us and I seriously dislilke winter weather and walking on the icy, snowy, slushy, yucky streets. Treadmill? That kinda invokes the soul-sucking analogy for me.

Anyway, as I say, I’ll percolate on this for a bit.

The weight loss is trickling along, just about what’s to be expected. I have about 29 pounds to go ’til goal. I really hope that it won’t take 29 weeks to do that, but it’s feeling like it might. Now THAT feels soul-sucking.

Carrying on.

Often when we’re learning something new we think of the process as following a steadily climbing curve, which at some point begins to decrease – the bell curve. As time increases our learning may get more difficult to begin with and then begin to drop off as we’ve “learned it all.”

In the past week I’ve been thinking of my progress curve as it relates to fitness. I don’t feel my progress has followed a standard bell shaped learning curve. Rather it feels like improving my fitness level can best be shown as a series of steps. It feels like I just arrived on the top of one of these steps or the tread after a very, very long riser.

Though my workouts haven’t been easy, I feel like I’m recovering faster between sets of exercises, and I’m able to get to the next exercise a bit faster. It’s not consistent, but I feel I’m making progress.

Also on my regular walking route around my place I used to do it in about 1 1/2 hours, with the last 30 minutes a bit of a struggle. I walked this route the last couple of days – I powered my way through it in about 1 hour and 10 minutes. I was able to sustain a faster pace, and I wasn’t dragging my butt at the end.

And I lost another two pounds. A grand week, all in all.

I’m into my third week with Jackie, a personal trainer. I’ve had four sessions with her, and did three sessions by myself last week as I was away. I finish out this week with another session by myself.

The most obvious signs of the workouts, so far, are my skinned knees. After the first session I had skinned elbows and I still can’t do the exercise that caused the boo-boo because my wound hasn’t healed. I got the skinned knees today as I did three sets of push-ups on the carpet rather than the mat.

I also got a two new workout shirts and a pair of shorts. I’m such a jock-wannabee.

I’m pretty much doing some activity six mornings out of seven. I’m grateful I don’t have to work full-time as I don’t know how I’d do all this stuff if I was employed.

I’m also grateful it’s just a couple of skinned knees.

I’m exercising, and I’m kinda liking it. Really.

I’m not liking the hurting part, but I’m liking the feeling of accomplishment. I’m liking the feeling of knowing I’m working towards my goal. I’m liking working with Jackie, a personal trainer.

Jackie has put together a three part plan, with each part comprised of approximately six weeks of exercise focussing on a specific goal. The first part is conditioning, the next strength, and the last pure hell. Alright, maybe not pure hell, but sounding challengin.

The odd thing is, I’m up for it. Moreover, I’m even looking forward to it. Weird. Very weird.

Can a leopard change its spots? Apparently.

It’s very interesting how much time I have on my hands now that I’m not spending so much time eating, going to eat, preparing food, and shopping for food.

I’m in my last week of being able to eat volumes of food. I haven’t been, but at this point it’s sheer willpower that is stopping me. I’ve very much looking forward to getting my first fill so that I’ll feel a restriction. And, if it all goes according to plan, I’ll also feel full on minimal amounts of food, for a longer period of time.

My incisions have healed very well, I think. The knot I felt at the port site also seems to have decreased – it’s not sore or uncomfortable anymore.

I’m also down one size. Pants I haven’t been able to wear since sometime in the summer fit again.

I went over to the “Y” today to check it out and see the schedule for aquafit. I’m going to start soon, probably once or twice this week, and then try to go at three times per week.

As for what’s going on in my head. I’m pretty much focused on “not eating”, “not eating”, “not eating.” That’s a bit too simplistic. I’m trying to eat smartly, that is, sparingly but with food high in protein. I’ve been sticking to tofu, tuna, eggs, and cottage cheese primarily, with a bit of chicken. And “not eating” is way too tiring.

And that reminds me. I met with a woman last week who had this surgery a number of years ago. I wanted to hear her experiences with the band, and how and what she ate. I very much appreciated her comments and insight. I was happy to hear that one of the food products that she consumed in quantity was soy milk. I’ve been drinking soy milk for more than a year, so I’m happy to keep on with it in my diet.

See? All good.