Friday Physical #1

I am going to try to keep myself accountable here on this blog each Friday by chronicling my journey into ATTEMPTED PHYSICAL FITNESS.

I am going to be 30 next year, and over the last TEN years (since my surgery) I have watched my weight creep up and now I am uncomfortable with myself. Not necessarily in a bad way or a vain way, but in an actual physical way – I don’t feel healthy a lot of the time.

This isn’t about numbers or buying into the skinny-is-better culture. I’ll never be skinny. My (let’s face it) Germanic bone structure is such that I will never be dainty. But I think I have the ability to be:

AVERAGE!

Ultimately my goal over the next six months to a year, is to lose enough weight to fit into a size 14. It’s a realistic goal. I don’t know how much weight that will take. Ten years ago, post tumor, I was a size 16. So, I am doing what I should have done then and get into shape. It will be harder now, of course. I’m not 19 anymore.

And that’s what this is about. I don’t really care about size or numbers (for the most part), but I DO care about being strong and feeling healthy.

And I really like fashion and want to fit into all those goddamned things I see at Anthropologie. I must confess, this is one of the more upper most reasons for wanting to do this.

But there are other more legitimate reasons as well:

1. My family tends towards high blood pressure.
2. My family now has the threat of Alzheimers – and I want to be as healthy as possible to try to avoid that.
3. I am tired A LOT, and I think not being in shape has to do with that.
4. I want to hike the Lafayette Reservoir rim, which is 7 miles. And I don’t think I can physically do that yet. I have plenty of endurance but there’s a lot of up and down hill climbing.
5. Someday I would like to hike Halfdome without dying.
6. Did I mention I like hiking? (I know, right, wtf, who am I??)
7. I think if I lose weight and work on my center of balance with the Wii Fit I will be less clumsy*.

Shallow but still legitimate reasons I want to do this:

1. See above re: Anthopologie. 😛
2. They stopped making my favorite jeans, goddamnit.
3. A lot of knitting patterns are not sized for me, and it would be nice to make something according to pattern without having to do dreaded MATH.
4. You’d use less yarn, too.
5. My ass. Jesus Christ.

Ways in which I plan on accomplishing this:

1. Use the Wii Fit at least 4 times a week for 30-60 minutes. This means on Mon/Tues/Thurs/Fri, and weekends if I feel like it (I usually go to the res on the weekends for a 3-mi walk). This means Wednesday is the only day off I get, which works because Wednesday seems to be the night that my board meetings are – I don’t get home from work until around 9 pm on those days, so after a long day like that I don’t want to do much of anything except watch TV. On Wednesdays I don’t have a meeting I go to Jason’s for dinner.
2. Eat more fruits and vegetables (seems simple, but this will be hard.)
3. Do more “natural” cooking – less out of cans and freezer stuff and more stuff I cook from natural ingredients.
4. Learn to cook (hahaha) things that involve more vegetables and less gravy.
5. Go low carb again. I liked no-carb (after the initial horror of the first three days) but with low carb you have more options to eat. Plus, an excuse to learn how to cook all those delicious meats I love to eat but have never learned to cook (steak, lamb, etc.)
6. Get a couple vegetarian or vegan cookbooks and try out some of those recipes. I figure this would be a good way to get vegetables in me in a tasty manner. I am by no means a vegetarian however because I delight in the delicious flesh of beasts.
7. Eat breakfast.
8. Actually try out EA Active which is compatible with the Wii Fit board and also I have owned since June and never used. *ahem*

So, there you have it. Each Friday I am going to try to remember to post how my week went.

This week I did the Wii Fit Plus every day but Wednesday. I’m enjoying the new features to Plus, which I picked up at SUPER WALMART (land of a thousand dreams – which does not exist in the stupid San Francisco Bay Area… WHY DO I LIVE HERE, THERE IS NO SUPER WALMART) when I was down in the Los Angeles last weekend. If you already have the Wii Fit, I recommend this upgrade a lot, with the ability to customize workouts, and the new games are fun – especially (*nerd alert*) the Rhythm Kung Fu and marching band drum major one (and that’s a workout!). Old faves include the Advanced Step and Boxing.

So that’s what I am going to do. And I’m document the ups and downs here, every Friday.

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*On Tuesday I tripped on nothing and borked my arm against a weird metal wall at the library. There was a strip of metal sticking out on the perpendicular along the length of the wall and I of course tripped right into the pointy end. I was wearing a sweater, and underneath the sweater, the metal piece severely bruised my arm and shaved off a layer of skin. I really think that if I hadn’t been wearing the sweater (which, btw, survived this unscathed, not sure how) it would have cut me rather deeply and I would have had to get another tetanus shot. As it is, it fucking hurts. I’m not mad at the library, but that could poke somebody’s eye out! I’m sending a letter this weekend because they need to know about this potential liability issue and get it fixed! I don’t want the library to get sued, you know?