The bro has been found. It was in my laundry room all along.

Dub Dub Report

Here's an update on our little happy group travelling the Dub Dub Highway to weight loss....

Week One - 13 pounds gone
Week Two - 9.5 pounds gone
Week Three - 5.5 pounds gone

Not to shabby. A total of 28 pounds so far. We have lost a toddler! If you find him, keep him.
We don't want him back :-)

Of course, as SD put it, we are 4 pounds less each week so that means next week our total should be 1.5 pounds!

Week One was spectactular, but of course, that week I only accounted for .5 pound gone. No one would want me on their Biggest Loser Team :-(

My share so far has been 3.5 pounds. Two in the group have already managed to obtain their 5 lb. weight loss star sticker AND their 10 lb. weight loss ribbon. I am beside myself with jealousy. I can't hardly stand it, it is killing me. I WANT MY 5 lb. STAR STICKER!

I am particularly proud that we still managed to lose this week and it was a gastronomic holiday week! I was hoping we would crack the 30 pound barrier this week but I am confident it will fall next week. What is also nice is it is beginning to be visually obvious on some in our group that the weight is coming off. There's been of talk of new clothes.

Attending the WW meeting is a real exercise in behavioral diversity. To put it another way, there are some real characters there. My current favorite is 'Pick Up Guy'. We think he comes to try to pick up women. He always sits in the middle of the room, on the outside aisle, so he can turn and scan the whole room, making significant eye contact with anyone who isn't quick enough to avert her eyes. He NEVER faces forward to the front of the room, he always sits sideways, perpendicular to the speaker. He cornered Sue after one meeting but she must have froze him out successfully because he hasn't tried for her again. LOL

Spring Half Marathon? Maybe not!

I might just be a DNS* in April for the half. Momo's bro has gone missing. He cannot train throughout the winter without proper dog winter running attire. I am almost 100% certain it is at Bridget's house. I believe I took it over there in case Cosmo was taken along for a run, but she denies it. I kept asking and she got more and more aggravated with me that I believe if it does turn up at her house, she would throw it away rather than admit it was there.

*did not start, as opposed to DFL with is dead f*cking last which is only slightly better than DNF - did not finish.

If love died along with death, then this life wouldn't be so hard.

-wisdom posted on some usenet newsgroup at sometime or another

Wow

11/11 - last post??? Where have I been?

Trying to keep to WW, lose weight and stay supportive of the little group I am doing it with.
Dealing with the family and the holiday - including Thanksgiving in NYC. I just love that city.
Trying to be as good a friend as possible.
Trying to get my runs in (formal start of the half training is coming up soon.
Dealing with the seasonal job duty increase at the gym.
Spending way too much time at the coffee shop.
Starting some projects to give as holiday gifts.
blah, blah.....
Eh, no one is probably very interested LOL

I did come across this idea on The Lean Green Family and I have to say, it is just brilliant! It is one of those so simple, 'how could I not have thought of this?' ideas. Purchase and use the reusable, $1 shopping bags that everyone and their brother are now selling, as gift wrap. Score! I love it!

11/11/07

Happy Veteran's Day to my favorite (now thankfully, former) vet.....

Definitely a 'why the hell am I doing this?' kind of morning. Scale shows absolutely no movement in the last week. Yeah, yeah, I know, I shouldn't weight myself every morning.....

I have the metabolism of.......um.....I don't know. A sloth? Some creature that has a glacial metabolism. I once visited a doctor who told me to look on the bright side. Shipwrecked on an island with no food, I would probably survive the longest. Huh. Doesn't make me feel any better about myself.

Good news is I have been meticulous with tracking my food. There is no fudging, no cheating, nothing. I am hitting up 3 classes (2 core conditioning, one weight lifting) a week, in addition to my own cycle class and running. The bad news is I seem to be doing this just fine on about 1200 calories a day! One thing I do know is my diet is very heavy on the carbs. Of course. I eat a vegan diet. Very hard to do the atkins thing when you are a vegan. I do know my protein intake is low (at least according to American stats, I think using WHO I hit the minimums). So I am going to try to fit in 6 oz of tofu every day (roughly 20% of my points). Any other ideas of a protein I can use in place of an english muffin (whole wheat)?

Everyone else is doing great so far on the program. S and K showed up at my cycle class last night and did great. Especially K who was there for her very first time. S did fine managing the physical part of the class, I knew it wouldn't tax her much cardio wise but she was very uncomfortable with the seat. She will get used to it. At one point, she actually said she would rather go out for a three mile run than be cycling. Who would have thought? I remember when she started running and 1 mile, much less 3 seemed almost impossible and here she was throwing it out there as a more desirable and do-able activity than cycling!

I cannot wait until Tuesday night because I think Sue and S will show some real results with their weigh in. I just hope I haven't gained.....

blah

Ran the neighborhood - I am so not impressed with myself. 3.94 miles in 47 minutes. In my defense:
It is cold
It is windy
It actually snowed a little
Cosmo was out of sorts. He was very distracted and didn't settle down until almost the mile point. We stopped for several sniff and pace around breaks, one actual pee break and one actual poop break. I didn't stop my watch for any of these and that surely added a couple of minutes.

First WW meeting

After the 5 pm core conditioning class - which kicked my ass. No, I mean, seriously, it kicked my ass. I felt like the biggest wussy having to stop in the middle of repetitions. It was one of the hardest classes I have ever taken. I actually felt a little nauseous at points. But I digress.....after the class, I saw them setting up for the WW meeting and I went over to introduce myself to the women.

It was obvious I was a Y instructor (I am sure the red YMCA instructor jacket gave it away). I told the woman I was signing up and that probably 3 or 4 more new people would be signing up with me too. She gets a whole new happy look on her face (cha-ching) and then it is quickly replaced with a worried look. She gazes at me, looks me up and down and then says,

"Are you sure you are appropriate for our program? The minimum weight loss needed to qualify is 5 pounds."

In my mind, I immediately saw her bathed in angelic light and heard the choirs.

In reality, I quickly assured her that 5 lbs was a mere drop in the bucket compared to what I need to lose. She continued to have a doubtful and skeptical look on her face (Bless her!). I could tell that my red instructor jacket was blinding her to my chubby truth and that she needed some serious convincing.

The only way to really show her the ugly truth was.....well, to show her the ugly truth. I lifted my jacket and shirt and proceeded to grab my midsection with both hands and make a 'doughnut' of all my pale, flabby fat. And for good measure, I waggled and jiggled my gut and repeatedly said, 'See? See? Can you see all of this?"

A look of horror came over her face which was quickly replaced by a sick look. She dropped her eyes, looked away and said, "Be back here in half an hour to sign up."

Oh, and to complete my humiliation for the evening? Their scale there weighed me the same as the recently-returned-to-the-store scale of doom.

Oh, for the love of......

Fall marathon season in full swing? Well, then it must be time for the inevitable articles to start popping up ..... link

It's as predictable as turning the clocks back.......

Found this

I came across it somehow. Cosmo tested out at 10 human years younger than his actual age :-)

http://www.dogage.com/reg/regassess.aspx

You have to sign in and answer lots of questions. I think I could have gotten him younger but the food questions don't really work for raw feeding and we were subtracted because he doesn't get the yearly vacs anymore.

Anyone run with a cell phone?

Met Sue, SD, KF and BS today at the west trail. Was planning to run 4. SD was injured for a while so her distances are down. She was going to run a mile and walk some. Sue and BS took off while KF and I hung with SD. It was a cold, crisp morning and Momo was wearing his rainbow bro:

SD started having breathing trouble at about .5 mile. A couple of times we walked for a few seconds while she tried to catch her breath. We hit the mile at about 13 minutes, she said she was going to walk another quarter and then turn around. She seemed ok so KF and I picked it up in a futile attempt to catch Sue and BS. We got to about 100 or so feet of them at the 1.5 mile turnaround.

On the way back, we just couldn't close the distance. We passed SD walking - still seemed good. When Sue and BS finished, they walked back. Right behind them, KF and I started to walk back when we finished. All of a sudden, Sue passes us at a run, saying she has to get SD's inhaler (she took two hits off of it before running but then left it in her car). KF went on to meet and stay with SD and I started back towards the car at a slow jog to meet up with Sue. My thinking was that the two of us sprinting half the distance each would be faster than one of us sprinting it all. I caught up with her in the parking lot, passed over Momo and took the inhaler and sprinted back to SD. All the time, I am wishing some of the faster people we know would come along. But it was just us. A couple of hits off of the inhaler and she was just fine. I certainly felt I could use a hit or two myself. I have run with my cell phone a few times before but didn't have it today. It all ended well today but no one really wants to depend upon my sprinting ability in the midst of an asthma attack.

On a different note, we have all decided to do weight watchers. Sue needs something easy and managable because her life is crazy, SD and KF I just plain need something. I have been pretty careful counting calories but my progress has slowed and it looks like I am stalled at 10 pounds gone. We start this Tuesday. I have an 'old school' scale but today, I wanted to up the ante so we got a fancy schmancy, bells and whistles scale. Tests for hydration and body fat,all with nice big digital numbers down to .2 pounds. Got it home, stepped on it.....it weighs 7 to 10 pounds heavier than the old school scale. I know it is just a number and the real number you want is just the difference but it still sent me to bed curled in a fetal position. Which scale is right? The husb maintains the old school scale matches the doctor scale at work so it is more accurate. Needless to say, bells and whistle scale is going right back to the store tomorrow. I can tell you right now if the WW scale at Tuesday's meeting weighs like that new scale, I will probably have an emotional meltdown right there in public. It's stupid, I know.