The Listmaker

On the phone with MSF last night, I heard myself proclaiming with conviction, and not for the first time in the last 10 days, how this December, much more than in Decembers past, I was looking forward to the month ending and January beginning with its Automatic Restart Button, and even though it is already the 3rd of the month it was this morning I awoke with a grand sense of to-do lists to make:  a list of what I was going to accomplish today, which includes making a list of what to accomplish both this week and in January (with its super-romantic goals such as getting caught up on filing old paperwork for a minimum of 90 minutes per day) as well as list of how I need to advise Claudia (and myself) in preparation for the marathon (yes!) we are running in Stockholm together in June,  followed by a list of my exercise and eating routines for the week and month, which includes scheduling what yoga classes I can get to and finding a weight-lifting class (after 4-month hiatus) that I can commit to once a week and seeing if I can't keep up my 20-miles-a-week running pace, along with reminders about multivitamins and 8 glasses of water a day (because I've forgotten) and smiley-faced checkmarks to reward for every day I stay on the January Chocolate Moratorium bandwagon.

For a girl who didn't make any resolutions this week, I'm both overwhelmed and strangely comforted to have all these things to do. 

Verdict: have more sex

I'm tracking calories these days on weightwatchers.com.  Those of you familiar with Weight Watchers know that certain foods have certain point values -- which can be countered by certain physical activities with certain point values. Sometimes finding these point values involves research.

Today, while doing a Google to see what kind of calories a person can burn playing the piano (this site says 170 an hour), I accidentally typed into the search engine

"How many calories do you burn having sex?"

(Come on. Don't tell me you haven't wondered the same thing. Every time.)

Of course, such a number is going to be a moving target based on body types and types of actual movement, but I get the sense there is no way to calculate a good answer. The only close results seemed to be user-provided-content answer sites ... super reliable as they are. Like this example:

"About 4 and 5 calories per minute, but obviously it varies by how vigorous the sex is!"

I think this one from Yahoo! content was not really meant to be tongue-in-cheek, what with the scientific research seemingly involved:

"... the average person, according to webmd, is only capable of having actual "intercourse" for about ten minutes. Foreplay, for this same individual, usually lasts twenty minutes. So the total calorie burn while having sex should be around 30 minutes, especially if it happens every night. So ten minutes worth of sexual intercourse should burn around 58 calories while twenty minutes of foreplay should burn around 50 calories. So 30 minutes of sex for the average person should burn around 108 calories.

"I decided to find out how many calories I would burn just sitting on the couch so that I could see how many extra calories I would burn by having sex. Sitting on the couch, according to http://www.healthstatus.com/ for the average person burns around 120 calories an hour. So thirty minutes of sitting on the couch would burn 60 calories, while 30 minutes of having sex would burn 108 calories. So the total amount of extra calories I would burn by having sex every day is 48."

(A statement both sobering, depressing, and relieving, if true, considering how much I sit on my couch.)

However, if you really want to get an accurate reading, do visit this site, which breaks it down into extremely specific movements and situations, for example:

By Location (ex. on bar stool = 20; in rear of Honda Civic = 38;)
By Noise (ex. low growling = 8; urgent begging = 22)
By Possible Side Effects (ex. sliding around = 9; whiplash - 27)
By Position (ex. standing, partners equal height = 18; woman 1-foot taller than man = 90)

Among many, many others, many much more graphic.  Read on only if you really want to know.

(And if you do, that's OK. I kind of did.)

Bikini Challenge BV: Whew

On Memorial Day afternoon I biked over to the Savin Hill hood of Dorchester for a picnic at the home of my friends Eric & LaToya.

I know several superb chefs in Boston and have eaten many platefuls of their superb grub in my time here.  And maybe I was just super hungry on Monday, but Eric & LaToya's BBQ spread wins my heart:

Chicken legs fired up crusty with tangy sauce and char residue.  Back ribs even tangier and crustier.  Corn cobs done just enough al dente that they don't stick in the teeth.  One potato salad done South Carolina and the second potato salad done Trinidadian, with peas and carrots.  Tiramisu (yes, tiramisu).  Chocolate cake.  A second helping of chicken, slathered with sauce.

Weight Watchers, be damned.

So you understand my justifiable fear of stepping on the scale yesterday.  Fear enough that I succumbed to the old tactic, just prior to weigh-in, of running several miles in humid temperatures to sweat out every ounce of excess water.

Which is why I was relieved to see another 3 pounds gone, the magic 130 barrier hurdled.

May 4 Poundage: CXXXVII
May 26 Poundage: CXXXI
June 2 Poundage: CXXVIII
June 20 Goal Poundage: CXXI
(Poundage to go: VII)

Whew.

Upon reflection, I shouldn't be as surprised as I am.   For the purposes of this blog, I just tallied this week's physical activity.   (OK, Weight Watchers, you do not be damned, since you help me track these things.)

Admittedly substantial:

Running:  6 runs totalling 30 miles
Biking:   2x everyday, totalling 100 miles
Walking:  5 jaunts totalling 10.6 miles
Elliptical machine:  90 minutes
Yoga: 1 Vinyasa Power Class
Weightlifting/core strength:  4 sessions totalling 120 minutes

So it figures that if I can maintain this routine for the next 2 weeks and don't have to contend with the food baby that comes via Eric & LaToya's BBQ skills ....

.... time to order the bikini?

Bikini Challenge BV: Off wagon (and back on)

Once again,
relief,
that after a week of pure decadence,
the scale
(while not moving down)
did not move back up.

May 4 Poundage: CXXXVII
May 26 Poundage: CXXXI
June 20 Goal Poundage: CXXI
(Poundage to go: X)

Not always a fan of
staying status quo,
but when one reintroduces
Kashi GoLean (by the box)
and
chips and salsa (by the double basket)
and
strawberry pound cake (with homemade whipped cream)
into the
Weight Watchers plan,
one expects consequences.

Back on the wagon
I go.

Post #553

Tuesday, May 4 came and went.

Gov. Patrick lifted the Great Boston Boil-Water Order of 2010.

Pamela Anderson was kicked off Dancing With the Stars.

The Times Square bomber was arrested.

I was working the first day of work after a 3-day weekend in Minnesota, and if I look back at my work e-mail from that day .... well, the day pretty much happened to suck lumps of used cat litter.

I recall being ridiculously tired.

To boot, I was feeling particularly lumpy that day after having eaten 8 servings of Reeses Pieces on the plane-ride home the night before, and thusly wrote a post about needing to achieve washboard abs while wearing a plaid Victoria's Secret bikini 6 weeks hence, and further declaring that Weight Watchers was going to start. Right. That. Moment.

It's unfortunate that in this world drama and world of self-drama, I skipped right over the most narcissistic reason I should have been writing that day.  Namely, what I had written in Post #277 365 days prior ..... and Post #1 730 days prior to that.

Yes.  I forgot my own 2-year anniversary of this blog.

In fact, I forgot it for 2 weeks. 

And only remembered it today at, seriously, about 2 p.m., while plowing down the Comm Ave Mall on my daily 2-Weight Watchers-Activity-Points power walk.

Maybe this is all a good excuse to drop everything and go for a beer.

Bikini Challenge BV: First Weigh-In

Oy. 

Today is one of the stressful work days.  The kind where you sit and stare at the floor and have to decide between 3 equally unappealing courses of action to rectify a dire situation.

Happily, I can think about last night, when I finished the elliptical and yoga and bike activity for the evening and stepped on the scale to discover the following:

Original Poundage:  
CXXXVII

May 12 Poundage: 
CXXXII

June 20 Goal Poundage: 
CXXI

(Poundage to go:  XI)

Something is working.

Energized

Last weekend I spent a couple days in Minnesota with my parents.

Bob and Kat retired in January 2008 and moved from North Dakota to a middle-class Minneapolis exurb, Buffalo, a couple summers ago.  I've gone to see them 4 or 5 times since, and admit that it was on this most recent visit that, in my opinion, they've finally settled into the groove of the thing.  A personal friendship with nearly every person at their church.  Serious mileage on the sedans they drive to see my nephew, my sisters, my Grandma, their old ND friends in neighboring towns, and theater and concerts downtown. 

Enough to do but not too much to do. Comfort with not doing too much.

(I came up for breakfast at 7:30 Sunday morning to find them sitting across from each other at the kitchen table, coffee mugs in hand, eating cereal with sliced bananas, Star Tribune spread between, not talking.  Serenity personified.)

Of particular pride to all who know Dad is his gig singing baritone with the Apollo Male Chorus -- one of the oldest continually performing men's groups in the US.  For someone relaxing, he spends a lot of time memorizing music.  Wicked fun to see him looking sharp Sunday afternoon in concert, here (below, in white beard) belting out "Oh, Susannah!"

Maybe they were just glad to see me and their mood reflected it.  But I thought Bob and Kat seemed as well as I've seen them in years.  When I saw my sister, Missy, the next day, I asked if she agreed ... and she did.  She reminded me that 6 weeks ago, Dad joined a YMCA and, since then, has been going to Silver Sneakers exercise classes and walking the treadmill 20 minutes at a pop. Hates to miss a class if he can help it.

"I really think that exercise has given him new energy," she said.  "Think of how that feels when you're really active and you feel good about yourself."

Dad has for the last 2 years been more sedentary than not.  This is a good thing. I have faith in Missy's theory.

I also like how it feels to be energized. Yet, I've been so tired since the early part of April that I haven't felt that good about myself.  (And obviously haven't felt like blogging, as you might tell.)  I miss that energy. I miss feeling good.

The Budapest Challenge unveiled on Tuesday is my effort to jump start myself back from (my self-defined) energy oblivion.  Weight-loss edicts of that magnitude force me to stop eating peanut butter by the half-jar and get out and move, no matter what.  Really wanting to look good in a bikini not just for y'all, but for me (it does indeed feel good to rock the 2-piece at the beach) is more incentive. 

Part of my strategy is, indeed, re-enrolling in Weight Watchers for portion control.  Second part is biking a minimum 5 miles a day (easy enough when I make it my commute). Yoga in my living room is on tap to start after Mother's Day.  Running several times a week will continue.  And yesterday I began the daily noon-hour half-hour power walk.  (3 WW exercise points!)

Today I did just that, heading out onto Stuart Street and around the Common and back down Comm Ave's grand boulevard to Dartmouth Street.  Awesome.  At 3:30 p.m. it was 75, breezy, and partly cloudy.  The Public Garden ripe with tulips. Pedestrians strolling, not striding, around me.  Sun on my bare shoulders.  Legs .... energized.  As was I, who got back to the office and ripped off my last 2 hours of Schwab paperwork like it was breathing.

Hopefully, this energy is the start of a trend. 

Thanks, Dad, for the inspiration.

Bikini Challenge BV: Encore Begins

It's that time again.

Time for a self-improvement exercise, that old chestnut of a pick-me-up.

There's a young man from Brooklyn, an interesting political consultant sort, with whom I infrequently chat. When we do, we quite often talk about The Bikini Shot.  I sent it to him long ago.  Didn't realize he would be quite so obsessed with toned abdominal muscles on women and use gratuitous (and in my current state, wickedly inaccurate) adjectives to fawn what he imagines mine look like.   The times we've discussed possibly meeting, my thoughts are dominated not about how much fun that would be ... but rather, that I'd have to work out with Jillian Michaels videos for 2 weeks before so as to not embarrass myself.

Well, I'll say right now I'm not doing this for the young man.

But I am going to lose 15 pounds by Monday, June 21 ... before I get on a plane to Budapest for a 2-week vacation.

I haven't figured out exactly how yet.  Although I have figured out that Weight Watchers will be involved. Maybe Jillian Michaels, too.  Possibly my faded, still-valid swim passes to the Chinatown YMCA.  Yoga. A 10K, or 2.  Spray-tanner.  Most definitely some more hours of sleep than I've been getting the last 2 weeks. And hopefully less hip flesh. And much less peanut butter straight from the jar than I've been slurping down daily the last 2 months.

So, here's my weight as of today:  CXXXVI.

The weight I will be:  CXXI.

Here's the suit in question.

In which I will be photographed on the banks of the Charles River in sun or in rain on Sunday, June 20.

And here, imagine if you will, the electronic tear-stains from thoughts of foregoing peanut butter for 6 weeks.

Budapest Version of the Bikini Challenge, begin!


(Plan details, as they say in my line of work, TBD. But definite. Soon.)

Contents ...

... of my backpack this afternoon.

For no real reason ... except, of course, if it's true that the contents of a woman's bag say something about her state of mind.


RE: Consumption

1 Poland Spring 1L plastic bottle, empty, on 7th use.

1 package Eclipse gum, unchewed.

1 piece of Eclipse gum, chewed, covered in crumpled foil.

3 Dunkin' Donuts straw wrappers.

1 sandwich bag of uncooked Quaker Old-Fashioned oats (which, incidentally, I couldn't manage to find at 8:30 this morning despite a diligent search, after which I then had to eat my yogurt, unhappily, plain).

RE: Health and/or lack thereof

5 swim passes to the Wang YMCA of Chinatown, pre-paid, unusued, issued 1/12/09.

1 pair Asics 2140s, including Tuesday's socks stuffed there-in.

1 folded printout from sportsinjuryclinic.net outlining strengthening exercises for groin strain.

1 CVS ibuprofen bottle, empty.

1 Contour Pak cold therapy gel pak (unfrozen, limp), 1 green TheraBand Exercise Band (knotted, also limp) 1 golf ball, 1 crumpled set of instructions for "The Stick" (a "toothbrush for muscles"), 1 "The Stick."

1 Miles for Miracles bound "Run Manual," also containing the following loose material: 1 special offer to rejoin WeightWatchers, 1 Healthworks Focus Training Schedule, 1 sketch of a left foot by the prescriber and constructor of my orthotic, 1 business card from said orthotic-maker.

1 pair yoga top and pants, used, inside out.

1 bra, brown, which I forgot to put back on after today's yoga class.

RE: Mindful Miscellany

The New Yorker (May 4, 2009), folded in half, featuring on its cover, appropriately, a braless, airplaning, zaftig woman with curly hair.

1 Barnes & Noble Gift Card, $15, from my friend Lisa, issued (I'm guessing) for Christmas 2007.

RE: Mindless Miscellany

1 pencil, 1 yellow highlighter, 1 pen cap, 9 pens.

2 chapsticks, 1 lipstick.

3 dimes, loose.

1 book of checks, no cover, no ledger.

1 sunglasses case (thank God) with sunglasses inside.

1 AAA window sticker.

1 parking ticket, issued for blocking an auto-body detailer's driveway, unpaid.

1 envelope, unopened, from the City of Boston re: several other parking tickets, also unpaid.

35 red x-marks

Everything I've learned about organization, I learned from the 1980 movie Nine to Five.

You know, the film where the three ladies from Consolidated take down their "sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot" of a boss Franklin Hart (Dabney Coleman, natch!)....in part by harnessing him to a garage door opener in his bedroom until the invoices from Ajax warehouse arrive in the mail. (Four to six weeks, this takes back in 1980s office land.)

For dramatic purposes, Violet, DoraLee and Judy (l-to-r, above) keep track of how long they must incarcerate the odious Mr. Hart. So they create a wall-sized flip-chart calendar. During several musical montages, they mark off each day with a red "X", interspersed with various scenes of Consolidated's ever-improving atmosphere.....flowers placed on desks, daycare centers opening, punch-clock eliminated, company alcoholics going sober, orange paint going up in the locker room.

It seemed to work. In the end, Violet takes over the company and Mr. Hart gets sent to the jungles of Brazil, never to be heard from again.

I thought of that last night as I created the same for myself....to mark off each of the 35 days until marathon training begins on December 15. A calendar showing: what days I'm going to go to the gym, so I don't slack off. What exactly I'm going to eat each day, including a multivitamin. What time I'm going to make myself go to sleep (i.e., pre-midnight), no matter what juicy gossip is linked to politico.com or how much I want to play Scramble on Facebook.

After last week's string of 3 a.m. nod-offs and Reese Pieces binges (two), it was time to tame my inner Mr. Hart.

Faithful readers, I know this isn't as sexy as anonymous Craigslist chatting with casual dates. But there is an old trope about how it is easier to go on vacation when your house is in order. My house has been out of order for some time.

Stats: 10/28/08

(With grateful attribution to Miss Bridget Jones.)

4.15 hours slept.

8:22 a.m., got out of bed.

10.35 hours worked.

889.35 points risen by the Dow Jones Index.

2 clients who closed their accounts anyway.

154 openings (give or take 10) of the Politico.com website.

142 realizations, to the point of near-nausea, of how much I want the presidential election to be finished.

1 rainbow over the Back Bay.

4.93 miles of running, in the rain, after work.

15 minutes of nap, in the Healthworks sauna, first.

19 Weight Watchers points consumed after 10 p.m., justified by hunger from the 4.93-mile run....

15 points over today's allotment. (Including total annihilation of)

1 box of GoLean cereal, bought 24 hours ago.

42 minutes to write this blog entry.

28 minutes longer than it should due to wicked-slow wireless connection.

5th night straight the laundry was supposed to get finished.

But didn't.

7 days that I haven't replied to the CFO.

28 times today I've thought I should write.

26 times I decided I don't care enough anymore to write.

2 times I wanted to write him but realized I was too tired.

1 mini-nap while sitting at the kitchen table in the last 42 minutes.

10 chastisements in the last 42 minutes for blogging and eating GoLean cereal instead of going to bed.

Bedtime: 12:53 a.m.

(3 hours later than desired).

So here is the entry where I start sounding like a middle-aged woman...

I wrote on Tuesday that this is the week I'm done with the sometime-attentions of the CFO. To top it, life has been subsumed with the details of helping with Obama campaign data entry, church music, and a car making a funny noise. So I haven't yet re-jiggered my match.com profile or left any nights open in the next 2 weeks for dating quests of any sort, even if any were in the works.

Meanwhile, I've gone back to that thing where can I consume a whole box of Kashi GoLean in a sitting and 2 oversized (2!) Milka candy bars in one afternoon. Blech. For me to leave the sole focus of this blog as "dating" is inappropriate for the moment. Not only do I not feel like dating this week (resentment at my erstwhile suitor), but that much sugar in the system has contributed to both fatigue and weight gain that doesn't do much for my self-confidence.

So yesterday, instead, I signed up for:

1) Weight Watchers. (Amen!)

2) The 2009 Boston Marathon, again agreeing to raise money for Children's Hospital Boston. Training will start in December. (Running 30 miles a week and sub-zero long runs every Saturday morning...double Amen!)

So certainly dieting and running is not nearly as sexy as banter with random Craigslist dudes who may or may not be married. But I've found in the past that when my physical well-being is at its peak, so is the libido.....and the happiness of self that is more attractive than anything.

As for the accountibility that came with agreeing to blog about my love life, so I hope I will have the same accountibility to better myself on a couple other levels. Not the daily ups and downs but I will definitely tell if I get off track.

Game on!