The timing didn't present itself for a daytime walk today, and the King is on the other side of the continental US, so going kidless is out of the question.  I guess I will be hitting the exercise bike again this evening.  I did remember that I have an old-fashioned Nordic-Trak hidden away upstairs.  I may drag that out if I get bored with the bike.

I was thinking last night that 30 minutes of exercise a day may not be enough for what I'm trying to accomplish.  Perhaps I should up it to an hour?  When you watch these "Greatest Loser" style makeover shows, they have those people working out hours and hours per day.  While I'm psyched for that now, I'm not sure that's sustainable for me.  I guess that's one of those things you just have to handle one day at a time, crossing the bridge when you get to it.  Anyhow, 30 minutes is probably more of a maintenance minimum and I need to "up" the momentum.  I know myself all too well and when things move along slowly, I may throw up my hands in a moment of weakness.  So today, my message to myself is that ANYTHING is doable for such a short time as 9 months. 

I guess that will be my Wednesday mantra...

Exercise today:  30 minutes on the stationary bike.  It went so fast, I actually worried that my timer might be broken. 

As I sat on my stationary bike late last night, I found myself looking for some perspective.  I've never been more "squishy" and while I'm usually pretty good at denying it to myself (I picture myself as I was years ago, not as I am now), it is hard to miss when exercising!  One of the many advantages of exercising, probably. 

I was contemplating how quickly time passes, the older I get.  I mean, Baby was just born yesterday (6/1/06), but somehow, he's going to be 18 months old on Saturday.  In his short life, there have been not one but TWO 9-month periods of time elapse.  At 2 pounds a week, 9 months is all I needed to reach my goal weight.  Why didn't I do it?  I could have done it twice already!  If I don't put the legwork in now, I will most certainly regret it even more in 9 more months.

Another way to look at it is in years off my life.  Maybe this is a skewed approach, but Oldest Son is 11-going-on-12.  My serious weight problems started after he came, although I had begun to get fluffy when I first moved to Southern California and worked such long hours and didn't think it was safe to run after dark (I used to run on my lunch hour when I lived here in Paradise).  But my life became even more sedentary when I stopped working/commuting, post-baby.  So, if I can stay on task, I'll weigh what I weighed when I got pregnant with OS in 1995 on June 20th.  It won't make me 12 years younger, but still!   The irony is not lost on me, though.  I would have never dreamed then that the weight I was so ashamed of would become a "goal weight" many years in the future!  But those negative thoughts are not helpful, albeit abundant at a time when you're taking a good hard look at yourself. 

Today's Xercise:  40 minute walk through hill and dale with my kids, plus baby in the bionic backpack.  Seriously, this thing rocks!

For my journey to a healthy weight, I'll be using lots of visual aids.  My goal is 75 pounds.  The projected date of the met-the-goal party is Friday, August 15th.  (Please do NOT do the math backwards and calculate how much I weigh now!) 

75 pounds is a lot of weight.  It is about 10 pounds less than middle son, wow.  And a projected 39 weeks to meet my goal is a long time, too.  But I have to spend that 39 weeks one way or the other, right?  I can spend it getting fatter, staying the same, or improving my odds at a healthy, long life with a longer list of fun activities to choose from.  I'll choose the latter. 

That is such an enormous amount of time and weight that one really can be overwhelmed with it and retire to a bag of Fire-flavored Cheetos at the very prospect.  Like most truly fat people are, though, I'm an expert on dieting and have a simple database to combat that.  I designed it several years ago when I was really going strong.  It shows incremental progress toward goal with weekly (Friday) weigh-ins.  I may only lose 1 lb. in a given week where I expected to lose an average of 2 per week overall, but I'll still be able to see I'm creeping toward goal.  When I'm down because my size 2x jeans are still too tight, I'll be able to look forward on my database to the week of February 1st, when I will weigh what I did before the first of my latest pregnancies.  Or, check out my birthday and see that I'll weigh an amount last seen 10 years ago in Winston-Salem when I was able to run (I love to run, go figure!). 

In my own cyber scrapbook designed to psych me up, I have a collection of photos of myself at various weights.  Please don't think me narcissistic when I post one or two here.  Some are anything BUT complimentary. 

Today's photo is of me at my goal weight, which is still 20 pounds North of what I'm "supposed" to weigh.  Sometime, I'll dig up a photo of me at my "normal" weight.  But it is nice to look and remember that I once rode all over the Greek Island of Santorini in my bathing suit and thought nothing of it -- or at least until the King stopped the bike and we realized I had left an "imprint" of myself! 

 If any of you would like to join me, let me know and I'll send you a copy of my handy-dandy database and we'll change our lives together!

 Exercise today:  30 minutes on the stationary bike.

The Monday after Thanksgiving, with its highly unsatisfying weigh-in, brings on a revival of my Team X efforts and a renewed commitment to the South Beach Diet. 

I lost 25 pounds in an effort sparked some three years ago.  Sadly, 1.5 pregnancies later, while I weigh about 20 pounds less than my all-time high, I'm about 20 pounds MORE than when I stopped adhering to the SBD after learning I was preggers.  Doctor's advice, although on reflection, I'd probably do more  research before following it.  OTOH, I was sick as a dog and STILL can't eat whole grain tortillas because of a bad experience!

So, while Tim told me months ago he was going to have me deleted from the Team X experience (just as I was on the cusp of giving up the effort to ski behind his boat, I might add!), he can consider me a new participant.

My challenges remain:  1.) The King travels for a living.  And we like living.  So, I'm often on my own with kids during the week, including one very active toddler with a death wish.  2.) It is winter, and the weather is often gray and yucky and not conducive to doing outdoorsy things.  I have a secret weapon in the form of a fabulous clothes holder/hanger that sits in my bedroom, unused.  3.) The baby has a 2 hour nap each day.  Daily, I struggle with how I spend that time.  Do I use it to teach my older children the more difficult subjects that they cannot do independently?  Do I take a shower?  Do I make lunch?  Do I exercise?  So, I may have to establish a certain time in the evening wherein my older children routinely watch the baby in the other room, while I hit my stationary bike for 30 minutes.  If it is pretty, we can load up baby in the backpack and take a walk together.  My kids need to join Team X also!

So, off I go... again!

Got my xercise in early today -- left the house at 10:30 (hey, that's early for me!) with 30-pound backpack (including baby), 53-pound dog, iPod Nano and 1 bottled water.  It took me 30 minutes and boy, was I struggling to get back up the hill at the end!!!  Has to have burned some calories...

Today, I both saw the sky and got a good bit of walking by taking a family trip to the Zoo!  We hadn't been since before the baby was born, and it was so fun to watch him watching the animals, cower in the petting zoo, playing in the sand box, and wading in the water feature.  Normally, we waste our Sundays either on doing chores or just on thinking about doing chores, so this was a great improvement as a conscious choice. 

On the 12th, we picked up our new dog, which has been a wonderful incentive to get outside.  (If you, um, don't go outside with a big dog, the results are fairly ugly!)  I've enjoyed everything that goes with that so much -- it is a shame I don't make the effort it takes to do the things I love without turning it into a dire necessity.  Does that mean I'm the sort of person who is a better candidate for a bariatric surgery than a diet?? 

I have had a couple of days, though, that I haven't done the level of exercise our X365 initiative called for, though, so I would welcome an official team activity -- although I know I'm not as fit as the rest of the team.  Ideas?

Tonight, Middle Son joined me for my walk, which lasted about 30 minutes.  We started off late; right around 8:45 p.m.  The sky was amazing -- pink clouds against the darkening sky and the post-rain Smoky Mountain mist floating speedily across it all like an airbrush, blurring the edges like the background in my favorite Fraginard.  I was so glad I went. 

Note the coral-colored slipper jauntily flying through the air!  This painting has so much attitude.  I want to BE her.

When we reached the top of a particularly steep hill at today's turnaround point, my 8-year pecked me on the shoulder and said just like this, no kidding:  "Perhaps we should stop here for a moment and take the opportunity to enjoy this view."  I scarcely suppressed a giggle at his formal vocabulary.  But stop we did, and we were richly rewarded by a late sunset view of the valley on one side and ridge top on the other.  We were so glad we took the time to go outside to become part of the nature we were viewing.  When we returned home, he said, "Mommy, I'm so glad I decided to go for a walk with you.  For one, I got to have some Special Mommy Time.  Second, I think the exercise was good for me."

Out of the mouth of babes.

Since the Xercise365 initiative was supposed to start on July 1st, why am I posting on the 10th??

Predictably, I've been out of town -- but I'm pleased to say that the program was actually on my mind.  On June 30th, we arrived at our hotel in Carolina Beach and didn't move the car until we left there on July 3rd.  We walked everywhere.  Everywhere to eat or shop, we walked.  And, much to the pleasure of our children, we walked on the beach each night to watch the waves, rough-house, and even engaged in footraces after much trash-talking. 

Does walking everywhere count as exercise?  It sure does in my book, since many a day passes by where I literally never leave the confines of the house all day.  Isn't that horrible?  Never check out the new blooms, see what has sprouted in my pot-gardens (um, I didn't mean that the way it came out; perhaps "container-garden" is a better descriptor), never see the sky.

Exercise was hit and miss once we arrived at our destination in Raleigh.  We spent a good part of every day out in our friend's garden or on the veranda, but I didn't take a real walk again until the 7th.  I spent all day every day trying to keep my baby from destroying the house we were visiting or sneaking up the stairs one of the 800,000,000 times one of the other kids left the stairwell door open. 

Still, the time spent with friends was truly rejuvenating and I returned home on the 8th ready to hit it hard.  Until I stepped out of the van and realized I'd been hit hard by a stomach bug, along with Oldest Son, who spent the rest of the evening barfing.  Charming, I know. 

So that brings us to today.  I'm pleased to say that I found myself making a wise choice in the Xercise department.  When your baby FINALLY goes down for its nap, there is this conflict going on in every mom's mind:  "Do I spend this time taking a shower? (Since I haven't had one in 2 days.)"  "Should I put in a load of laundry?"  "Should I finally unload the dishwasher (impossible with baby toddling around trying to grab all the knives)?"  Today, showerless, with heaps of laundry and dishes laying everywhere, I headed out for a walk once baby went to sleep.  I had a dinner engagement tonight, and knew that would be my only chance. 

I hooked myself up to the ole iPod and off Teddy and I went.  (Teddy is my silky terrier -- not much protection from bears and coyotes, but perhaps the old joke about only needing to run faster than your companion when faced by wild animals rings true...)  I love my road.  It is just like Cades Cove Loop road, except it has neither pavement nor cars full of people from up North sitting empty in the middle of the road with the doors wide open while said northerners are standing in the middle of the field taking pictures of deer.  The only problem is that, no matter what direction you come to my house from, you really have to walk up a steep hill.  Thus my nom de plume:  Queenofthehill.  Well, hopefully that little issue of geography will have me meeting my goals in no time.  Teddy and I did only about a mile loop (albeit straight up and down), but it was wonderful to be in nature and U2 worked its magic on me.  It seemed effortless.

Until next time...

I signed up some time ago to join Tim in a new initiative called Xercise365.  Tia has joined up as well, with an emphasis on getting out and seeing the sky every single day.  Very cool.  I'm guessing that getting a little daylight will do me every bit as much good as the exercise itself. 

My motivation was to get in shape and change the course of what has become a very sedentary life.  Long ago, I was a runner and took great pleasure from the competition.  Less long ago, I was a ski instructor.  Before that, I guided youth on 4-day canoe trips through the boundary waters, teaching teamwork, dedication, with the emphasis on the Christian walk as a college student.  Those are still the accomplishments that I cherish the most -- other than my children, of couse.  So why not pull myself back in line with what I value physically and see what follows?  I'm hoping to become a better mom, a better wife, and who knows, maybe I'll even have more fun and last longer. 

My exercise program is not as ambitious as Tim's, and will be done in conjunction with the South Beach Diet.  (If anyone's interested in that, here's a link to a yahoogroup that will help you do it for free and easier than trying to decipher a whole book when you finally feel stirred to action.)  I plan on a 2 pound per week average weight loss and hope to have lost some 70 pounds by next April.  A weakness of mine is to be an "all or nothing" type, though, and I so I will have to strive not to be derailed by the occasional hiccup.  Dealing with failure by "getting back on the horse" will be part of my program.

And we're OFF!