Category Archives: shape magazine

A wee bit of lifting

Thank you all so much for your comments on my Shape Magazine debut!  If it inspired even just one person to never give up, that would make me so happy!  It really is worth all the effort.

Since I didn’t post any food or other doin’s yesterday, I thought I would let you know how the first foray back to the iron went.  Mornings are the hardest time for me right now.  I am not sure why, but maybe I am just super stiff after the night of basically sleeping in one position.  I cannot sleep on my stomach or side yet (my 2 normal sleep positions).  So, I am pretty stiff and sore in the mornings, particularly my hip.  I was a little limpy at the gym, which was noticed by people (I got sternly warned not to over do it 🙂 )  There are certain moves that I cannot do currently, which include  weighted squats, lunges, full dead lifts, and floor work like push ups and planks.  Those hurt too much, plus I have a little weakness in my knee.  No pull ups, either, as I have to jump up to the bar and drop off of it.  Not chancing that yet.  I am not going to risk reinjuring myself, so don’t worry about that.  My body certainly does tell me, as well.

I rode the recumbent bike for 10 minutes to warm up.  I was going about 7 miles an hour.  This is my first cardio I have done in almost 2 weeks!  It was a little sore, but not painful, so I was pretty happy.  That means regular biking is not far off in the future!

The lifting:

  • Straight-leg deadlift: 3 sets of 10 with 45# bar
  • Arnold Press:  3 sets of 10 with 15# DBs
  • YTWL: 3 sets of 4 (each letter) with 8# DBs
  • Nosebreakers:  3 sets of 10 with 30# bar
  • Bent over row:  3 sets of 8 with 25# DBs
  • Barbell chest press:  3 sets of 10 with 55# bar

Then I did 10 more minutes on the recumbent bike.  That was enough for a first try.  It just felt so good to get back to it, even if it was light and somewhat limited.  At 2 weeks out from the herniated disk, I think I am doing pretty well.

Now back to today!  Breakfast was a fab combo of pumpkin custard oats topped with a few dried cranberries, toasted pecans, and maple cream.

Dang, that was a good bowl of oats.

I got to work early and fast today!  Lots to do, so I put my head down and started busting out lines.  I stopped for a babybel snack.

I am going to actually post yesterday’s lunch, because it was so good (today was yogurt and cereal combo, btw).  I had seen some sweet omelets on the net, and I cannot remember the original blog this was on.

I mixed 1/2 scoop of strawberry protein powder with 2 liquid egg whites and 1 whole egg, plus some cinnamon and blended in the magic bullet.  Then I cooked it like an omelet and sandwiched in a laughing cow wedge and blueberry sauce

D-licious.  Who knew sweet eggs could be so good?  Note to self:  Spray pan with nonstick spray next time….

I finished up work early today, so I went over to the rental house and started some clean up.  I am able to walk around without crutches now – yay!  The closing should happen on this house on Monday, and you had better believe we are going out for a nice dinner to celebrate!

Came back to make some dinner. Everybody say ‘stir fry’!

I am liking the broccoli slaw.  It’s fun and easy, plus it has some nice color.  With precooked brown rice chicken and I had a 10 minute dinner.  I had a kiwi, too, instead of strawberries so my dinner was color coordinated 😀

Headed out to pick up a few things for the rental house:

Hopefully the last money I ever spend on this particular property…..

My sister was also in town tonight, so we met at Starbucks!

I had a tall skim latte:

Plus a bite of oatmeal cookie.  These actually are really good.

Just to show I am not the only ham in the family:

13 years of marriage, people….  At least he bakes good bread 😉

I also got a package today from the Ginger People – I won a drawing and they sent an amazing amount of stuff to me.

I am actually going to review this stuff because it is amazingly good and unusual!

Tomorrow is another lifting day and bagel time!

Question:  Have you ever had a sweet egg dish?

Hello Shape Magazine!

Well – the May issue of Shape magazine came out and I am on page 122!

It is so weird to see me in print!  I talked about this in February when we did the photo shoot.

One thing that I love, love, love is that the cover model of this issue is Ellen DeGeneres!

I am so glad (and my Mom mentioned this as well) that it wasn’t some fitness model, but a real down-to-earth person.  Maybe Ellen will read my blurb and have me on her show (I’ll bring you, MizFit!) :mrgreen:

I am so thrilled to be in this magazine, and when they contacted me about possibly doing a story, I was about busting at the seams.  And this was back in October of 2009!  I gave them all the info they asked for and didn’t hear back, so I assumed they didn’t think it was worth following up on, but then I got another email and a phone call right after the cruise in Feb to firm it up.

Since this is all about me, here are some more gratuitous behind the scenes shots of that day that I have been waiting to show you.  Diane can vouch for the dozens of photos they take to choose just one for the magazine.

My sister shot all the photos and video of this, so thank you Colleen!

Getting prepped with makeup by Allie.


(Love that posture 🙄  )

Thanks to Allie and Sara for making me look so good!

This was the shot I was hoping a little that would get used with me actually curling the bigger dumbbell, but I like the one that was chosen.

We did a variety of moves.

Lots of thinking about what different positions to try.  I keep eyeing Sara’s camera 😀

This is Mike (?), the lighting guru.


I was getting a little tired at the end of smiling so much, so I got a little silly. Note how little weight is on this!

The story actually came out pretty accurate, although there are a few things that aren’t quite right, but close enough (I have never worked out in a basement and I cook a lot of chicken in advance, not brown rice!).   One thing that did bother me was the the cover of the magazine has a blurb that says ” weight loss made easy” and my header under it.  My story is anything but easy!   I was a little surprised that there was almost no talk about lifting, because we talked about that at length (you all know how excited I get about it) and no talk of the triathlon, which we also talked about at length.

One reason why I am glad to be included in this is to show a real un-retouched photo of a woman who lost weight and works out, and yet is not stick thin.  You don’t have to look like supermodel to be fit and healthy, and you don’t have to be at a certain weight goal to celebrate your achievements thus far!

2010 has certainly had a lot of things going on for me!

Fly by day.

Where did the day go?  Ever have days like that?  Woke up to a drizzly, gray day today.    I even had trouble deciding what to have for breakfast, so I pretty much had the same banana custard oats I had yesterday!

We then hit the farmers market so I could pick up some more parsnips and I am going to try beets this week!  White ones, though – not red.

Then we went and did work at my rental house.  The tenant left, so we are doing the little fixups before closing in about 9 day (fingers crossed!).  I still need to get it cleaner.  People are just dirty….

Came home to lunch of baked clam strips and a granny smith apple!

Then we went back to the house for  a little bit and did more work before deciding we needed some coffee!  It seems like we go out for coffee a lot, but we really don’t spend much money on other things.  We never go to the movies or other entertainment stuff, so coffee it is!

Yum:

John and I split this cookie, too.

And lookie what is in the background.  Might be the May edition of Shape magazine…..  (separate post coming up!)

By the time we got back home, it was about dinner time.  I reheated some coconut curry that John made, although I put broccoli in it while John had his with rice.  Need to work on getting that boy to eat broccoli!

He just sauteed chicken with curry powder, and then added some lite coconut milk and cashews.  Easy and tasty!

2 presents arrived by mail today.  One was for me:

The other was a present I bought John for taking such good care of me while I  recover from my herniated disk.

He’s been really wanting to bake good bread and home and has been going hit or miss, so I got him this book.

Movie night tonight from Netflix.  And probably some chocolate.  All this moving around today has exhausted me, which is a weird feeling.  I cannot wait to be back to normal (or what passes as normal around here, anyway!)

Guess I will end the randomness of today’s post. It’s kind of like how the day went 😀

Question:  Are you a bread baker?