Post dinner ride!

It was such a nice day that I wanted to get on the bike and ride. Normally I do the gym on Thursdays, but since it is supposed to be rainy tomorrow, I decided to take a solo bike ride after dinner and save the gym for Friday. It’s really starting to feel like spring now. Things are greening up!

Bike path start. I hopped on and off the path tonight.

This light took forever, so I took a picture while waiting for it to turn. Just so you all can wait with me.

Yay!

You can see the cement plant in the background of this photo.

The sun came back out about half way through my ride, which was nice. I was beginning to wonder if the rain was going to come early.

The trees are finally budding out. This is the more wooded part of the bike path (duh).

An ice cream shop right on the path. I didn’t stop there, though 😀

More picture taking while riding!

I passed by Covet House, too.

One of these days I will get up the nerve to ask to see their house!

Nice evening ride!

It felt good to be outside and not bundled up for a change!

Sharing my Photo A Day picture here today. The prompt is Something Blue:

I had this drink at a restaurant some time last year and I loved the color of the bottle, so I kept it. 😀

Dealing with the stress

Happy Wednesday (or Thursday if that is when you read this). Bagel day!

For those of you wondering, that is a red velvet muffin that John is eating for breakfast. One of his favorites.

So, regarding the post title – On my goal of not stressing on the house front and getting a new attitude as part of my May goals, I need to do this with work as well. 75% of the time my job is just fine. I do my work, I get paid, I don’t hear too much from the company and all is well. The other 25% of the time (which currently we are in the midst of), it is very stressful. There is too much work. The clients are complaining and threatening to leave, which leads to my company sending out threatening emails or just yelling at us. General group emails because they don’t check to see who is doing the work. These emails sometimes include a statement that says “Thank you to those who do the work. You know who you are” – like it makes it any better to read that. 🙄 My life feels slightly upside down right now since there is a lot of uncertainty. We don’t know when we will be moving. I don’t know how secure my job is. We have other life plans that are basically on hold until the move happens. It’s just stressful. But, it will get better. I know that. It’s just dealing with it currently. I have been fatigued and exhausted because I have been working extra (no over time pay, you just make your regular line rate) and the stress makes you tired. One of the pitfalls of working at home is that you can’t leave your work behind LOL! Oh well. I am thinking a weekend getaway for my birthday weekend next month will be on the agenda.

Moving on from that stress stuff – I have a new foundling item. You all know I love a good bargain. I was out walking the other day and came upon a pile of stuff with a ‘free’ sign on it. Most of it was plumbing stuff, but there was also a metal bucket, which is perfect for a planter! I think it must have been used for that as is has a hole in the bottom already. It’s very heavy and probably very old.

It has little tiny peg feet on it, so maybe was used as a cooking pot at some point. Anyway, I scooped that little treasure up and now need to buy some plants to put in there.

The garden is really perking up now. The early tulips are now blooming, so Friday will be an actual What’s Blooming post with real blooms!

This is the Monte Carlo double tulip. It doesn’t even look like a tulip, does it? I’ll save the rest for Friday!

Pixie always helps me destress, when she isn’t running around all freaked out.

She was vulturing for my lap. I have been keeping her off of it when I am working more right now because I just want to plow through work and she isn’t happy about that LOL!

I am working on some new creative projects around the house to relax and enjoy. May as well not hold off on those. I’ll be painting furniture, doing more Mercury glass stuff like this:

Like I really need another hobby 😀

AIM: Is Vanity Fair?

Vanity. How much of a role does this play in weight loss and maintenance. And is it needed?

A definition of vanity is this from Dictionary.com:

Excessive pride in one’s appearance, qualities, abilities, achievements, etc.

Vanity really has a negative connotation now, although it didn’t always used to be the case. Now we think of vanity pretty much as one of the 7 deadly sins, as in pride. When you lose weight or maintain, is there any shame in feeling pride for your accomplishments? Does pride itself help keep you on track? And where does pride cross the line to vanity? I don’t know any answers to these questions. These are what I was asking myself when doing this post. I don’t even know if I have a cohesive opinion on it LOL!

Let’s face it, most of us start our weight loss journeys with the hope of looking good at the end. It’s human to want that. However, we don’t always have a realistic vision of what we will look like, particularly after losing a very large amount of weight. You just aren’t going to look like a size 0 model that never had a weight problem. Sometimes I think that makes people give up after a while. They figure if you aren’t going to look spectacular and head turning when you are finished, why bother doing all that hard work (because it is really hard work). Is that vanity getting in the way of the goal? Probably. While I was losing, I was thrilled at how I was looking and fitting into regular clothes rather than plus size clothes made me feel proud and vain, I am sure. That does drive the motivation to keep going. I find after staying the same size for a couple of years now that the excitement of all that has worn off and as I settled into a body that hasn’t changed much in a couple years it doesn’t feel like something prideful anymore.

Is it fair to judge someone who is vain about their appearance even though being vain actually gives them the ability to stay that way? I don’t think so.

Vanity doesn’t have to be just about looks, either. I take a lot of pride in being strong. I am strong and I love it. I love being at the gym and pushing a new lifting goal and it makes me want to strut around. It’s powerful, prideful and something I work hard on achieving. It’s funny, though – I’ll be feeling that and then a young tiny thing will come bopping through the gym in front of me and I can feel that pride deflate like an old balloon. Then I just get back to lifting because I know how much better life I will be as I age strong. Reality checks -they sure are good for you sometimes.

**I also noted the other definitions of vanity when I checked the dictionary and noted this: Vanity is also: “Something worthless, trivial, or pointless.” Hmmm… interesting, no?

Ask us anything!

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Make sure you read more at my fellow AIMers’ blogs for their thoughts on this topic!

Lynn @ Lynn’s Weigh

Debby @ Debby Weighs in

Shelley @ My Journey to Fit

Cammy @ The Tippy Toe Diet

AIM: Adventures in Maintenance is Lynn, Lori, Debby, Shelley, and Cammy, former weight-loss bloggers who now write about life in maintenance. We formed AIM to work together to turn up the volume on the issues facing people in weight maintenance. We publish a post on the same topic on the first Monday of each month. Let us know if there is a topic you would like us to address!

First Lake Ride of the Year!

Finally! We made it to Lake George. The weather looked a little iffy, but we decided just to go and deal with it if it rained 🙂

The temps were supposed to hit 60 and there was very little wind, so good enough! Showers were predicted for later, so we left in the late morning.

Path riding Woo Hoo!

It was a good day to be out.

I told myself since this was the first lake ride of the year with all of the hills, it was okay if I had to stop. Turns out I didn’t need to. I went slow and steady up the hills and we made it to the peak!

It had been several hours since breakfast, so I had this juice, which had come in a food sample pack.

It was only 60 calories and really a small portion for all that packaging.

Finally seeing the lake on the bikes for the first time since the fall!

It’s very quiet at the lake right now as many shops are not open and there aren’t many tourists. Some shops are open, though. Like the Silver Mine and peace shop:

Rastafarian snowman??

We were hungry for lunch and stopped at the Bank Cafe, which used to be an actual bank. I had some lobster bisque for lunch, which was yummy!

We walked around after that looking at the few shops that were open and enjoying being outside!

My husband…

I told him to look scared, but he just looks like he is on his cell phone.

We decided to have afternoon coffee back in Glens Falls, so it was time to hit the hills on the way back. We stopped at the marsh for a break:

We saw lots of red winged blackbirds staking out their territory, too! Spring is finally here.

Bikes racked in Glens Falls:

We stopped at Spot Coffee, which is our go-to spot now for weekend and evening coffee as they are open late!

I had a pumpkin apple muffin with coffee. I realized I hadn’t really had enough calories since we had already ridden about 25 miles by this point.

It was nice to sit and chat and relax. I need to do more of that with how stressful work has been lately. However, we weren’t sure if it was going to rain or not, so it was time to head home.

I wanted to see if I could take a picture with my phone while riding. Don’t try this at home, kids!

It worked! I probably don’t need to know this. 😀

Home and feeling good!

Ride stats:

Total miles: 33

Average speed: 12 mph

Top speed: 28.1 mph

Calories burned: 1178

This was the longest ride of the year so far. My legs felt pretty good, actually. All that lifting has been good for the muscles even though I haven’t ridden as much this year. Not terribly tired and my sit bones were good as well, although I don’t know if I would have wanted to go 10 more miles.

May Goals

April showers bring May flowers, right? My garden is a few weeks behind where it was last year. A cold and rainy April didn’t help that along. I hope May is a little more promising.

Here are the big plans for May! 😀

1. Continue with Female Body Breakthrough and continue my 45-60 minutes a day of exercise. This is very good for me to keep doing and really is what I should be doing.

2. Eat with my guidelines of 6 eats per day with protein for all meals and snacks. Something has to give if I keep doing the right things, right? Hello??

3. Make some doctor appointments this month. I am overdue for some appointments, so this will make me accountable to get them scheduled.

4. Clean more windows. Only 14 more to go. Seriously. It’s not that hard. Just need to do it.

5. Participate in Photo a Day. I will be doing this on FB rather than posting them all on the blog since I don’t blog every day, but I will put some on here.

6. Attitude adjustment. I need to work harder on dealing with the Longest House Closing Ever with a better attitude. I think it comes down to control. I am a control freak and not having any control really, really chaps my hide.

I am going to try to enjoy more things this month, too, and do little projects that I want and stop waiting until we move to do them.

Bring on the May!

April Goal Wrap Up!

One third of 2014 is done already. Can you believe that? Vroom…

April was a busy month. Work has gotten hellishly busy. It’s funny – last year at this time it was the same way. It’s cyclical, but my company can’t seem to stay ahead of it and now is the time morale sinks. I feel like I need another vacation, even though I had one in February.

So, here were the goals to work for in April:

1. 60 minutes of exercise a day. I pretty much rocked this goal. There were a couple days were I did 45 minutes, but all other days were 60 with more on biking days. Whenever I make an exercise goal, I pretty much always meet it.

2. Clean the windows! Well, we have 17 windows and 3 got done. At this rate, they will be all clean by September LOL! This will be going on the May goal list.

3. Figure out my eating plan. I started doing lower carb a few days a week and I added a morning snack so I have 6 eats per day in a calorie controlled context. This was added after reading Yoni Freedhoff’s book (which again I will review at some point, probably next week). No difference in my weight or clothing this month, which I have to admit is slightly annoying since I am working really hard.

4. Experiment with my sourdough starter. I made sourdough crepes again and a wonderful loaf of bread early in the month. I have the starter out now proofing to make crumpets, but have just been either too busy or too tired this week to get it done. I blame work for that one.

So, not too bad on the goals. At least the important ones for health were there. The windows won’t hurt anybody if they are dirty and no birds should fly into them when they are dirty 😉

Female Body Breakthrough stage 3

I am all out of order posting these, but that’s okay! This is workout A of Stage 3. I just started it on Thursday, but still hadn’t posted the wrap up of stage 2 and I talked about stage B on Saturday. Make sense? No? It doesn’t matter. This is the other workout for stage 3. I can’t believe I am on the third stage of this, but I started in mid February!

Workout A

Exercise	Set/rep/weight Week 1
Plank on stability ball	3 sets of 60 second holds
Ball crunches	3 sets of 10
Deadlift (my old friend!)	3 sets of 6 at 65#
Military Press	3 sets of 6 with 20# DBs
Forward and back step over	3 sets of 15 each leg with bodyweight
Incline dumbbell chest press	3 sets of 15 with 15# DBs
Bridge on stability ball	3 sets of 15
Single point Dumbbell Row	3 sets of 15 with 15# DB

Again, I had to modify a couple of these. This phase included the Russian twist again, which I don’t do because of my back, so I subbed in the ball crunches. Let me tell you – doing a plank with your forearms on a stability ball is killer!

The forward and back step over is pretty challenging. Basically, you have one leg on a step and then have one leg on the ground behind you. Bring your leg up and over the step going into a forward lunge on the other side. Then take the same leg back over. Lots of balance required. Here is a video link to show what it looks like. I can’t embed this for some reason.

The bridge on the stability ball was supposed to be single leg, but I just couldn’t do it. It hurt, so I went back to double leg and did the required number. I take my hat off to anyone who can do them single leg.

I could do the single point dumbbell row, though. It’s great balance practice. I decided to see if I could take a picture while doing it 😀

I didn’t do the actual row while taking the picture, but this was a challenge in itself LOL! Good thing no one else was in the room with me.

To top it all off – The Finisher (said in sinister voice) for this one is a burpee/squat pyramid, which is about as fun as it sounds. You do this:

1 squat/3 burpees
2 squats/6 burpees
3 squats/9 burpees
4 squats/12 burpees
3 squats/9 burpees
2 squats/6 burpees
1 squat/3 burpees

If I wasn’t tired after the lifting part (which I was), that burpee set toasted my legs. Not sure which finisher I like the least, the leg matrix or the burpee pyramid. 🙄

Recipe: Peanut Butter Protein Bars

Finally getting around to making some of the pins I have! I love Pinterest and pin way more than I actually do. Anyway, I have been eating more protein bars lately and decided to make more of my own. This recipe is based on Sahar’s from Fat Fighter TV with a couple modifications.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of natural peanut butter (smooth or crunchy)
5 tablespoons of honey (100 grams)
45 grams of whey protein (I used unflavored whey protein isolate) – approximately 1/2 cup
2 tablespoons (26 grams) ground flax seed.
40 grams of rolled oats – approximately 1/4 cup

These are so easy to make, too. It takes 15 minutes. In a small bowl, add the honey and peanut butter.

Microwave for 30 second to one minute so the mixture becomes more liquid. Stir well. I needed a minute because we keep the peanut butter in the fridge.

In a larger bowl, add the protein powder and flax meal and mix.

Then add the peanut butter and honey mixture:

Mix well and then add the oats:

This will be a stiff batter, so keep mixing until all ingredients are thoroughly incorporated.

I then weighed the dough and decided how many calories I wanted each bar, which was approximately 200 (like a normal protein bar). That meant I needed to divide my dough by 7, which was about 45 grams per bar.

Then roll into ball shapes.

I also formed one ball into a bar shape, but didn’t bother with the others. Lazy, I guess. You can do whatever shape you want – even a pyramid!

Verdict? These are pretty tasty! Almost like a peanut butter fudge. Now, these are caloric like a protein bar, so use them wisely. These are perfect for my evening snack.

Nutrition info dividing recipe into 7 bars:

211 calories per bar, 20 grams of carbs, 10 grams of fat, 11 grams of protein, 2 grams of fiber. Your mileage may vary depending on the type of protein powder you use. This is a good base recipe to do other flavors or use other nut butters.

Lifting and blooms!

This was one of those weekends I got a lot of things done. The weather wasn’t great, so biking just wasn’t in the cards. It was raining on Saturday, so I worked out at the gym. Of course, it cleared up in the afternoon after I toasted my legs 🙄 On Sunday, it seemed like it was getting clear and I went out on the bike and it started raining on me. So, I turned around and figured since it was cold and windy to boot, I just would exercise inside.

Here was my workout on Saturday. This is one of the workouts from stage 3 of Female Body Breakthrough.

Workout B

Exercise	Set/rep/weight Week 1
Prone Cobra	3 sets of 60 second holds
Front Squat	3 sets of 6 with 20# bar
Chinups	3 sets of 6 with assistance
Stiff-legged deadlift	3 sets of 15 with 55# bar
Dumbbell Push Press	3 sets of 13 with 15# DBs
Barbell Split Squat	3 sets of 10 with 45# bar
Split Stance Single-arm cable row	3 sets of 15 each arm at 20#

This is actually workout B. I will post workout A on Tuesday. I overestimated the weights on this workout. When you do higher reps, you need lower weights and the push press was really hard to get 15 reps (which I didn’t quite get). So, I probably won’t be increasing weights much in this series as I need to make sure all 3 sets are good and clean.

This stage also includes a finisher after each strength workout. It’s called a finisher because it is supposed to finish you off, which it does. For workout B, you do a leg matrix. Also know as 2 Minutes of Hell.

20 bodyweight squats
20 alternating lunges
20 jump lunges
20 jump squats

Now I can’t do the plyometrics ones, so I just repeat the lunges and squats. My legs were on FIRE! Oh my gosh. I forgot how hard this matrix is.

I took my sweaty self to the coffee shop after that to relax and read.

I *finally* have my first blooms in the garden! The early tulips are blooming, which are actually late LOL.

I also bought some pansies and put them in one of my freshly painted containers.

I cleaned up the ‘new’ china cabinet with some Method wood polish and put my great grandmother’s china in it.

The plants are on top temporarily since someone decided to start eating them after we moved the bookcase that was in this spot with the plant on it. You can see her ear in this shot at the bottom. She was quite upset that I put the plants up that high.

John came back a little earlier on Sunday to take me out to dinner. I miss him when he goes away (pretty much every other weekend) so I was really glad he came back early!

Hmmm. that plate doesn’t look all that good, but it was tasty. John ordered haystack fries with his sandwich not know that meant with buffalo sauce on them, which he doesn’t like (I know!!). So, I swapped them out and ate them.

I can’t believe the weekend is done already. We need to make 2 day work weeks and 5 day weekends!

FBB Stage 2 Workout B done!

Wrap up of Stage 2 workout B! I started off my day with some pumpkin oat bran with egg whites and topped with a teaspoon of butter and brown sugar. This was tasty. We still have really cold mornings around here. I am so sick of being cold!

I ate my morning snack just before I left to work out. I never know what my work schedule will be like and I am happy when I can take the morning workout time.

Of course, Pixie had to see what I was doing and get her big feet in there.

Here was the progress of Stage 2, workout B over the last 4 weeks.

Exercise	Set/rep/weight Week 1	Set/rep/weight Week 4
1a. Reverse Cable Wood Chop (low to high)	3 sets of 8 each side at 20#	3 sets of 8 at 30#
1b. Jackknife on stability ball	3 sets of 8	3 sets of 8 – no falling!
2a. Step Ups	3 sets of 8 each leg with 25# kettle bells	3 sets of 8 each leg with 30# kettle bells
2b. T Pushups	3 sets of 4 each side	3 sets of 4 each side
3a. Pliet Squats	3 sets of 8 with 25# kettle bell	3 sets of 8 with 30# kettle bell
3b. Alternating lateral raise	3 sets of 8 each arm with 8# DBs	3 sets of 8 each arm with 10# DBs
4a. Reverse Row	3 sets of 8	3 sets of 8
4b. Supine Hip Extension to Leg Curl (SHELC)	3 sets of 8	3 sets of 8

No as much increase in weight, but what doesn’t show is how much easier each set became. Where I was struggling to eke out reps was much better towards the end. Definitely feeling strong. Not any smaller, but such is life, right?

My legs do a lot of work for me!

You can kind of see the difference in the size of my thighs in this photo. That is how much my quad has atrophied. Strong leg, weak leg. It’s more obvious when the muscles are pumped up from lifting.

Lunch when I got home:

I’m in a rut – sing it with me!

Remember that china cabinet we bought over the weekend? It was time to pick it up. I had to have my dad take me over because he has a truck. The cabinet wouldn’t fit in the Prius. Boo. Now, I didn’t want my dad to do any lifting, so I had him park and wait and went in to see if the owner would help get the cabinet out to the vehicle. Then he asks if my husband was here to help. 🙄 I said, “No, I lift and I can do it.” It was more awkward than heavy. Then he says “Well, you won’t need a workout today”. Ha- I already had one! He was very nice, though, and I certainly will be going back there to look for other furniture. AFTER WE MOVE!

I was late for latte time because of that and got it made as soon as I got home.

Note the new cabinet behind me, without its drawer. 😀 Just plunked it down because I had to get back to work.

Dinner time was a chicken apple sausage for something different. No rut here!

We got the cabinet in place while dinner was cooking. I love it.

It needs a good polish. There are only a couple of flaws in it. Some of the veneer has come off the trim in the door, but with a little bit of stain and polish, it will barely show. I hate the fact that this will have to be moved again, but I think it’s worth it.

Now to finish up work and scrounge up an evening snack!

Finding Radiance

Trying to live a fit life loving food, cycling, gardening and everything in between!