One step forward, two steps back

Training... 

Sometimes I feel like "training" for me is an impossible thing.  I take one step forward and two steps back.  It's not that I can't get to the gym, it's that my stupid body decides working out is a brutally painful thing.  Now, I can work out through an fair amount of "this hurts" and even more "this sucks" but there comes a point that you know continuing is just going to cause an injury and you have to stop.  So, I stopped, took a couple of days off and then my allergies kicked in.  So for the past two days I'm been coughing and sneezing and wheezing.

It sounds like I'm making excuses not to work out, doesn't it?  I'm not though!  This is frustrating the heck out of me. I need to get back to the gym and I've just been plain unwell.  This sucks.

The "Diet"...

Last week without wine was tough.  I discovered that I had been using it to squash my cravings for something sweet.  I bought some Crystal Light Peach Bellini, and have been drinking it in a wine glass to try and fool myself.  It's sorta working.  Sunday I went crazy and finished off the 1/2 bottle of Beringer White Zin I had left from my first Sunday.  My cravings haven't been as bad this week, but I must admit I'm feeling more stressed out.

In other efforts to make myself feel younger...

I've started wearing make-up again.  It's been a good 10 years since I've worn make-up on a daily basis and truth be told the concept was a little frightening.  I'm having fun though and this morning I'm considering subscribing to one of those beauty box sample services.   I registered with "Beauty Army" and filled out my profile, I clinked the button for it to generate the perfect samples for me... and .... nothing.   Really Beauty Army?  Not helpful.  I'm already on to finding a different box.

*UPDATE* I switched browsers and got Beauty Army to work!  Squeee!



Life Milestones...

Tori, my oldest child, turned 20 years old today.  She's such an amazing young woman and one of my very best friends.  I love the person that she's become, but I don't know where the time has gone.

Wine Math...

I know I mentioned it yesterday, but it's really bothering me.  I've been pretty unhappy about my weight gain last year, largely because I couldn't quite figure out where it was coming from.  I had maintained my weight for quite some years without real effort.  However, over the last year (as I've also mentioned) I have considerably increased my wine consumption.  Last night, as I sat down to enjoy my "reward" glass of wine, I decided to do some basic math to see if it could have actually been the wine that's added the pounds. 
Okay let's do some math.  These numbers are estimates, I haven't actually kept track of how much wine I've been drinking.  But I went from maybe buying a bottle every other month, to buying 5-8 bottles a month.

2 Glasses (300 about calories) of wine a night roughly 5 days a week = an extra 1500 calories.  That's like a whole extra days worth of food a week without any nutritional benefit.

We'll guess I did that maybe 40 weeks out of the last year x1500 = 60,000 calories

Roughly 4082 calories = 1 pound, means that the wine can account for about 14.5 pounds of my gain.

Take into consideration that I've been exercising less, and I think that is a pretty fair look at what's happened without too much detail on the rest of my diet.

However, that's great news!  Because that means that with an increase in my exercise and a decrease in my wine consumption I can at the very least stop the gain right away.  Stopping the mystery gain is a first step in getting back to being comfortable with my weight.

Three simple changes...

I spent the day downtown Chicago with my girls yesterday, and today I feel like a truck has hit me.  My pain levels are through the roof!  Seriously having Fibromyalgia SUCKS!  But... so does being old and fat.  How on earth am I going to make it through Disney in June?  I need to make some changes in my routine.  I've gained a bunch a weight over the past year and I just need to get this under control or I have no hope at all of doing that 1/2 Marathon next year.  

Okay... here's my plan as it stands...

1) My wine consumption needs to go WAY down.  The only major changes that have occurred since I started putting on this weight is that I am drinking a LOT more wine.   Empty calories that I do not need. Wine is getting relegated to a once a week treat. 

2) I need to cut pork and red meat out of my diet.  Last time I did that I managed to lose a ton of weight without really trying.  Seriously it melted off of me.  I'm crossing my fingers that will be the case again.

3) If Tori and I don't get back to the gym consistantly there is no way we're going to be able to run the Princess next year.  Now, honestly I'd rather try for the 10K bu I really want a pretty Princess Medal.  We know that if we don't go together we don't get a work out in.  We're going to have to suck it up and starting going to the gym after I pick her up from work at night.  We HATE working out at night, but this is the only way that we're going to get this done. We're going to shoot for 3x's a week like in Jeff Galloway's Marathon Training Plan.

Three fairly small, fairly simple changes.  Hopefully ones that are going to make a BIG difference.