Mondays. Sigh.

The most important thing I learned at work today is that I'm not just another cog in the machine, I'm the least important cog in the machine.  I don't matter at all.

Hopefully I'll feel better after running this afternoon.  I remembered my MP3 player today (yay!) so I'll have something to occupy myself with while I run.

This new year of being a perfect person isn't going so well.  The house is much messier than I would like, although the bills are getting paid and I'm doing a good job sticking to my eating plan.  I haven't weighed myself since Thursday, when I'd lost a half pound after a week of dieting.  I'm supposed to have lost at least one pound by today.  I hope that's the case.

On Star Trek, exercise, and heat

I was lucky enough to see the new Star Trek movie at the IMAX theater near here this weekend. It's a new IMAX theater, and I'd never been to it before, but I have to say the screen seemed awfully small. I assumed it's because I was sitting a bit farther back than I was used to for an IMAX, but as it turns out, IMAX has started making movies that are MUCH smaller than the traditional IMAX format, yet promoting them in the same way. I can assure you, despite the fact that it was an awesome movie, I felt a bit ripped off. But still, it's a great movie. It's not exactly pure Star Trek (and I'm a proud Trekkie), and there were a few too many gratuitous fight and chase scenes, but definitely worth seeing at least once, if not more.

I'm finally getting back into the hang of exercise, and I'm finding that it makes me a much happier person. Despite the fact that it's been over 100 degrees recently, I managed to get outside this evening and go for a short run. A VERY short and pathetic run. I only made it 1.5 miles, and I barely ran more than half of it, but to be fair, I haven't exercised much lately, and my legs are incredibly sore from gardening on Saturday. I'd still like to get in shape and lose weight by midsummer.

In order to accomplish my lofty goals, I've finally set up an exercise plan consisting of running 3 days a week, spinning once a week, swimming once a week, and hopefully a bike ride on the weekend. Also, it would be good to fit some climbing and yoga in there, but I'm not going to push too hard just yet, especially on the yoga (since I am incredibly unflexible). I'll keep you posted, and tomorrow I should know approximately how many pounds I really need to try to lose, but I'm guessing it will be 10 to 15. I'd like to lose a pound a week, and drop 10 pounds by the end of July, but that might be asking a bit much. I'll just take it week by week and see how it goes...

Monday morning procrastination

I don't really feel like figuring out what to wear to work today just yet. Usually, I'm lucky if I look somewhat presentable and I match, but sometime even that is a huge chore. Sometimes I wish someone would nominate me for "What Not To Wear" but I don't think I look quite that bad.

Last night was my book club meeting, and we had such a fabulous potluck while we discussed "In Defense of Food". Before I read that book, I thought I had decent eating habits. Now I know better. While I still think I make better choices than the vast majority of Americans, I still have a long way to go.

Attempting to lose some weight does make things more difficult, though. For lunch this week, I will be eating roasted brussels sprouts with garlic, with a break on Wednesday for some Chipotle (not my choice, but it's my friend's favorite, so I told her I'd give it another chance). Dinners will consist of boiled purple potatoes with cottage cheese. For breakfast I'll have my usual multi-grain english muffin with flax seed, along with some honey dew melon, and I have apples for an afternoon snack. I haven't made it to the gym in a while, so I'll likely go tonight, and see how I'm progressing in my weight loss plan.

On a random side note, I'm feeling like my hair is getting out of control. After I cut it short, I stopped blow-drying it, and it often dried decently, with a nice amount of curl, but now it's getting longer and that technique isn't working so well, so I've been blow-drying it to keep it under control. Unfortunately, that makes the horrible layers that my last hairdresser added rather pronounced, so I may have to go for my yearly haircut a bit early (and to someone else). And I was really hoping to grow it out and donate it again. Sigh.

Tipping the scales

On the topic of healthy living and weight control, I’d like to start out by saying that I’m not really fat. I’m in the normal weight range for my height and I have a healthy BMI, although I’m closer to obese in both of those categories than I would like. While my friends like to tell me that I’m skinny (even though most of them are even skinnier), when I can barely squeeze into my “fat jeans” and when I have a nice roll of stomach fat appear whenever I sit down, I know it’s time to do something about the condition I’m in. I’m not a huge person, but it’s possible to by skinny and fat at the same time, and I’m heading in that direction very rapidly. My goal now is to lose up to 10 pounds in the next four weeks while getting in better shape on my 10K training program that I am currently (and shamelessly) ignoring.

So this week I intend to eat bulgur-lentil soup for lunch every day and Brussels sprouts with a bit of homemade mayo for dinner. My breakfast consists of a multi-grain english muffin with flax, topped with a bit of non-hyrogenated margarine (although I'll be switching to butter soon - more about that in a later post), plus some calcium chews, a few small pieces of fruit throughout the day, and a cup of low-sodium V8 and some peanut butter for an afternoon snack.

For exercise, I’ll rock-climb tonight, run tomorrow, and hopefully fit some exercise in on Wednesday and Thursday, which may not happen because of classes. On Friday I’ll go rock-climbing and/or running depending on what I get done the rest of the week. That’s my plan for now. Next week, it will be bean soup for lunch and purple potatoes with cottage cheese for dinner. Yum!