Jeep Diet, Update

Hey all.  Well, it's been about two months since I announced I was going on the Jeep Diet, and it's been six weeks since I started it in earnest. 

The first few weeks I spent logging everything I ate, but not changing anything*.  I did this to get a grip on what I was actually consuming on a daily basis so I could understand better what I needed to change.  As expected, my daily calorie intake wasn't substantially huge.  But my fat and sodium were higher than I'd like and my protein was sort of low.  Additionally, the number of minutes I was averaging daily with exercise was pretty pathetic.  It's not that I never exercised, just that I did it so inconsistently that the workouts I did were reduced in efficiency by the number of days in between them. 

In May, specifically on May 5th, I started in earnest trying to change my diet and exercise.  I started going to the gym or working out at home more consistently.  I made better choices in what I was eating.  I didn't give up any one particular or group of foods.  I just made a different choice sometimes (and greatly reduced the "white group" as previously discussed here ).  I continued to keep track of all of my numbers just to see what would happen.  At the end of May, I calculated out the average daily numbers for both April and May.

Here's how they looked in April (4/17-4/30):

Calories:  1634
Carbs:  147
Fat:  78
Protein:  81
Sodium:  2081
Exercise:  11 mins

Here's how they looked in May:

Calories:  1449
Carbs:  169
Fat:  51
Protein:  88
Sodium:  1560
Exercise:  24 mins

Obviously the average calories consumed didn't drop that much, but the fat was cut by 35% and the sodium by 25%.  Exercise was easily doubled.  The result so far is that I've lost ten pounds.

Here's how it looks so far in June (6/1-6/15):

Calories:  1452
Carbs:  150
Fat:  59
Protein:  81
Sodium:  1615
Exercise:  41 mins

So, looking at my numbers so far for June, I can see that while I'm doing fine on my calories, the fat is creeping up, as is the sodium.  It's not by much, but I think I need to adjust it right now in order to stay where I want to be.  The increased exercise is a good thing.  I'd like to see it hit a solid 45 minutes daily but since it's already almost quadrupled from April, I won't complain too loudly.  And while I know it will get harder as I get closer to my goal, I think with a few minor tweaks I will continue making progress.

*Keep in mind that while I wasn't making better choices consciously, I do believe that the mere act of writing down what I eat makes me subconsciously better behaved so my best guess is that the numbers are slightly skewed to the good.

Where did the time go?

It looks like I somehow missed the month of May, hmm, wonder where I put it?  Ah well, I guess I needed a break from my ever so busy life of loafing around reading the internet.  That's not entirely true, I've also been reading a big stack of library books.  And working out at the gym.  And making trips to California to visit friends.  So yeah, pretty busy.  Much too busy to check in with my blog.  So how about that eclipse?  That was something right?  Yeah, couldn't look at it.  I started thinking about the viewing possibilities about two hours ahead of time.  Evidently most people planned better and bought up all the special glasses.  We improvised and did the pinhole thing to project it onto a piece of poster-board.  I tried to take some pics with my pinhole camera but have yet to drop them in chemicals to see if I got anything.  Probably not, I think I left the shutter open for too long. 


Our gardens are going gangbusters.  I'm getting at least a dozen cherry tomatoes every day, usually much more.  The biggest issue with them is that I didn't cage them so I had to leave the chicken wire up around the garden to keep them upright.  Which means I am either reaching over the top or scrounging around underneath with my face pressed into the wire.  It's a look.

Here's a picture of the first real day of cherry tomato harvesting:

The strawberries finally started producing as well and when I can get them ahead of the birds they are quite good.  We've gotten two (tiny) raspberries that Mister C said were "okay".  The lone blackberry wasn't as good.  I have eight sugar babies (mini watermelons) that are about the size of softballs and several smaller ones.  I'm really excited about those, cannot wait for them to be ready!  The cantaloupe vines are taking over more than their half of the garden they're in.  I have to keep untangling their spindly runners from my strawberries to prevent strangulation.  I am finally starting to see little bulb like things that I think are future cantaloupe.  Another one I am really excited about.  The cucumbers have four little (about two inches) babies starting to grow.  And the grapevine is all the way up the trellis and heading for the overhang.  So, gardens are going pretty well and we've learned a ton.  Next year the tomatoes will be caged and the cantaloupe will have their own garden.

On other healthy fronts (see how my segues have improved in my absence?) I've been working out.  I work out no less than five times a week, usually at the gym, but sometimes I do it at home.   Mostly I do it at the gym though.  And I've been logging everything I eat for the last month.  That was sort of eye opening.  Not in a good way either.  Anyway, through the magical pill of diet and exercise I've managed to lose nine pounds since May 5th.  So, about 19% of my total goal and just under 5% lost off my starting weight.  And I'm starting to look a little better in my Jeep, so that's a positive.

So speaking of the Jeep (damn these segues just keep coming!) I still have the doors and hard top off and am driving around with just the bikini top on.  It was 111 degrees today.  Sitting at stop lights is kind of like sitting in a convection oven, the heat comes from all sides.  But you know what?  I don't even mind for the most part.  So long as I'm moving, it's fine.  And, I don't have to deal with it being 150 degrees when I get back to my car and it's been sitting in a parking lot for an hour.  Whatever the temp is outside, it is inside.  I also think it makes me more appreciative of air conditioning when I am in it.  And also, the disbelieving look on people's faces when I pull up next to them is awesome.  So for today, the doors and hard top stay off and I'll put up with the heat.

I'm all out of segues.  And I'm all out of updates.  I'll try really hard to be more on top of this blog in the future.  And I promise I'll get some more pictures in the next post.   

Update post

Wow, look at me not posting for most of March! I guess this just became an update post...

My father in law spent the better part of March here at our home in Arizona. He and my mother in law had planned to spend a week at the very beginning of March but then he decided to try a laser spine surgery. While she went home, he ended up staying for three weeks. At first I was a little concerned about having him (or anyone) in my house for that long. Turns out my fears were unfounded. He and I had a really nice time together. Since he's a photographer (and a Realtor) and an avid people watcher, we had a lot in common. We managed to go out shooting pictures one day and would have liked to have done more but it just didn't seem to work. We enjoyed our days drinking coffee and talking on the patio. Just my kind of company. I was surprisingly sad to see him go when he finally did leave.

The Flockers are no longer at our property. They are now residing at Mamoo and Papa's acreage where they enjoy several snacks a day (instead of just one), bedtime stories and constant supervision by Mamoo. One of those things is a fib, I'm not saying which one. So basically one of our neighbors had a problem with the racket the girls were making on a daily basis. The singing about laying an egg routine was one particularly annoying factor apparently. So I begged Mamoo to please take them to her home so we didn't have to give them away. Eventually she and Papa gave in and said they would take them on. Mister C and I loaded up the coop in our neighbor's pickup truck (why yes, it was the same neighbor that complained, why do you ask?) and loaded the girls up in a kennel in the back of the jeep, and headed three miles over to my folks place.

Unfortunately, since they had been free-ranging for a majority of their day at our house, they were less than thrilled at being more cooped up (literally) in their new locale. You see, Mamoo and Papa live on a acreage that is in a little bit more natural setting that our home. They have coyotes running through their property regularly and hawks circling overhead daily. So the girls couldn't just be running around loose unsupervised. Additionally, while our yard is small, we have a substantial number of trees, shrubs and plants. If a hawk did fly over, the girls would dive under the nearest plant and get out of sight. While my folks property is about seven times larger than ours, they only have a few trees that are fairly far apart, and a couple of shrub-like plants. The girls would be sitting ducks, sort of.

Last week I started searching in earnest for fencing to put around the coop so they could be loose safely during the day. I tried Craigslist with no luck and finally decided I needed to buy new. I priced out Home Depot for their fencing and then decided to try Lowes. Lowes had a ten by ten dog kennel that was six feet tall. And it was going to cost me about 1/2 the price of the same sized fencing at Home Depot. Additionally, since this was a kennel and not a fence, there was no holes to be dug for the support poles. Perfect. So I got the go-ahead from Mister C to make the purchase and Papa and I went back after he got off work to pick it up. In the meantime, Mister C had suggested using the block wall surrounding my folks place as two sides and expanding the kennel from ten by ten to twenty by twenty. Good call Mister C! Papa and I put everything together and released the Flockers, who proceeded to get even dirtier than normal taking a sand bath in their new expanded space. I haven't spoken to my folks yet but I think I'm going to try and get a few plants in the fenced in area for my girls to chew on. I'll just casually sneak them in under the cover of darkness and claim ignorance when they ask me about it.

Moving on.

Everything is leafing out in my yard. My strawberries, blackberries, raspberries and blueberries are really putting out leaves and looking good. My grapevines both look really healthy and are growing daily. The cherry tomatoes have a bunch of green babies all over them and the peppers are starting to get little peppers. We have sprouts of cantaloupe, watermelon and cucumbers starting as well. The orange tree is finally finished flowering and if even half of the currently pea-sized fruit makes it to fruition it will be a banner year for oranges. I still haven't plucked the last of the lemons off the tree yet and Mister C is working his way through the grapefruit (which I don't love). Yeah, it's looking like there's going to be some awesome fresh food in our backyard this year.

And lastly, I am now on the "Jeep Diet". What the heck is that you might ask. Well, that's when your charming husband removes the doors from your jeep and you realize that all the world can now see exactly how much extra weight you're carrying so you decide to start keeping track of your food and trying to exercise. Miserable man.

Stupid, condescending Wii

I got owned by my Wii today.

Let me back up. Waaaaay back up. All the way to two Christmases ago when Mister C got me a Wii Fit. It's a pretty fun little piece of equipment and fyi: I ROCK at boxing. Not bragging people, just telling the truth. Just ask Mister C. In fact, just mention to Mister C that you heard he likes to box with his wife and watch the twinge of fear cross his face. It's no holds barred my friends, and I take no prisoners.

Anyway. I did the whole body fit test when I got it and put in my goals and time-line and all that. I used it a few times. Then, like anything else to do with fitness right after January 1st, I never touched it again. Well, that's not entirely true. I'm pretty sure I had to move it out of the way several times to get the RockBand equipment out. But otherwise, not so much.

Fast forward to today. I decide I want to be reassessed by my Wii-Fit to see what kind of progress I've made since the last time I used it. First things first, I had to re-read all of the directions to figure out how to make it work again. Then, I had to change out the batteries because they were dead. Finally, after messing around with it for fifteen minutes, it was ready to use. It made me wait a few seconds and then told me to step up.

And then, it chastised me. It was all "It has been 353 days since you've used your Wii-Fit." It mentioned that I had lost 23.4 pounds since the last time and dropped (barely) into the healthy BMI range. Then, it said "Better late than never." Are you kidding me? What the heck? Who knew the Wii-Fit was a sarcastic trainer?

After the trauma of the body check, I decided to do some working out. I did some boxing (of course!) and a few strength exercises. Then I thought I would try some balance exercises. So I picked the snowboard slalom first. I royally suck at that. And I do mean royally. I think I missed 99% of the flags every time I went down the course. I couldn't control the board, I ended up in the fence every time. So after running the course eight times I decided that maybe snowboard slalom wasn't for me. I decided I would try the skiing slalom. At least for that I would be facing forward, certainly I could manage that much.

I did do better at the skiing than the snowboarding. But I still sucked. I did the skiing course about a dozen times and did improve substantially. It still felt really weird and my stupid Mii just refused to do what I thought I was telling it to do. I tried the ski jump a few times and did pretty good at that. Then I tried the tightrope walking, but gave up after falling off five times in a row.

At this point I was getting sort of discouraged. I mean every time I finished something it was telling me that I was "unbalanced" or at "amateur" level. It sucked. So I looked at my options and figured I would try some aerobic activity before I gave up completely.

I clicked through to the very basic, beginner level aerobic set. I started it up and tried following along. I thought I was doing pretty well but it kept telling me I wasn't following. It told me if I couldn't figure out the steps, maybe I should watch the other characters feet and try to follow that. I tried that and it still wasn't working. What the hell? I was so aggravated I was ready to sell the stupid thing on Craigslist.

So I started really watching the footprints on the screen as I was stepping up. They just wouldn't line up. And then it hit me. I stepped off. Made an adjustment. Then got back on. And suddenly all was right with the world. I'd had the stupid Wii board facing the wrong direction the whole time.

Wii: 1
Ditzy brunette: 0

And so it begins

I hit a weight loss plateau yesterday. I do my weigh ins on Tuesdays and this week? I didn't lose an ounce. So today I did what I said I would do once I hit my first plateau, I exercised. I know, I'll give you a minute to recover from the shock.

I headed out to the nearby mini-mountain and started walking the trail backwards. That is to say, starting at what is usually the end for me, not me physically walking backwards. Although come to think of it that would probably be really effective for working out my legs. If I didn't kill myself in the process.

Anyway, I did the trail backwards and then (since I was so intent on WORKING OUT!!!) I decided to run the downhill portions. Which worked great. Except for those first fifty steps wherein I was forced to channel a thug as I constantly had to pull up my pants to prevent a wardrobe malfunction. Once I realized there was no way I could make any kind of progress while my pants insisted on heading for lower altitude, I pulled off the trail and tied the heck out of the drawstring to make them stay put. Then started again. After I got around the whole trail (with the exception of the highest peak part, I'm not a complete idiot), I decided to walk the steps.

There's an outdoor theater type thing where Easter sunrise service is held for some church and it's right at the bottom of the mountain. There are about ten tiers of stone and concrete slab seating. So I started at the bottom and walked up, walked a few feet sideways and then walked down again. I did this across the whole seating area. This took about fifteen minutes and really works out the thighs. I know this because I believe I could smell them burning up. Although that also could have just been friction.

Then, because I have no sense at all, I decided I still needed "more". So I put my jacket (which I totally didn't need) and my water into my car and started walking on the park road that leads to another parking lot. When I got there, I ran back to my car. And then I drove home. As a side note, it is somewhat difficult to drive a standard when your legs start really shaking.

Keeping in mind that my normal level of exertion is somewhere between "none" and "seriously? I have to walk all the way to the fridge myself?" my suspicion is that I'm going to be feeling this tomorrow. If you don't hear from me, it's most likely because I can't crawl to my computer.