A Dumbbell In A Home Gym

Summer Setbacks.

First things first: Thanks for all the kind comments from people who stopped by from various Kimkins-related blogs and forums. I hope that those of you who got ripped off find justice and that the next time I write about our "friend" Kimmer, it's to say that she's headed to jail at last.

(I also kinda hope that I get my very own email threat from a Kimmer acolyte, because wow -- if you needed any more proof that the ship is going down with a 16-ton weight tied to it, there you go.)

And as some of you discovered, the comment function on this blog appears to be going a bit screwy. For whatever reason, it may look to you as if your comment has posted with the name of the person who posted before you. I have no idea why it's happening; all my favorite Web hangouts seem to be going buggy this week. Maybe it's the full moon.

So I must admit that this summer was a complete and total failure from any kind of weight loss standpoint. As in "disaster". I went from trying to lose more pounds to desperately trying NOT to regain. My motivation to exercise went out the window. My motivation to not cram gooey pastries in my face in the afternoons followed it. I could feel some of my smaller outfits starting to pinch.

And I was falling into the trap of absolutely *hating* myself for all this. And that's the worst thing that could probably happen. First I'd hate myself for overeating and underexercising, and then I'd eat and laze around because I felt miserable and didn't know how else to comfort myself. But the indulgence wasn't at all comforting and made me feel even worse ... and so on.

And then all of a sudden, as the weather started getting cooler at last, everything started clicking back into place. I've been working out regularly without even setting a goal to do so; I just *want* to. I'm falling in love with weight lifting again.

The eating has its good days and bad days, but at all times I'm being much more mindful. I'm getting better at trying to strike a balance rather than just giving up if I have a "bad" lunch and pigging out for the rest of the day.

Sometimes I wonder if I have some kind of reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder -- while others are depressed in the winter due to the cold and the lack of sunlight, I find that I get listless and uninspired and just plain sullen in summer's oppressive heat.

I do know that fall is absolutely my favorite season. The smell of burning firewood on a chilly autumn night makes my heart sing, and riding my bike through the trail on a cool morning with the smell of the leaves around us is so pleasurable that it seems like cheating to consider it a workout.

I don't dislike summers as much as I used to when I was an obese hermit, but once the community pool has closed for the year, I just don't see the point of extreme heat anymore.

(Which sucks, because we've had a return to the 90s this week.)

Oh well. Favorite season = more reason to be outside and moving.

Hello, autumn. Feel free to linger a little longer than you usually do.

Kimkins: Caveat Freakin' Emptor.

As I've said before, I try to stay away from blogging about Internet trainwrecks. But sometimes, one of them gets under my skin and I have to say something. And this isn't even just an Internet trainwreck; it's a full-blown fraud, in my opinion. More after the jump, if you're interested. And believe me -- even though this entry is long, there's a lot I've left out.

Well, Phooey.

It seems as if just a couple of weeks ago at the most, I was writing this cheerful entry.

And today we visited the community pool for the last time this summer. Already. Damn.

I didn't get nearly enough time there this year; we had a spate of weekends that were either too cool or too stormy for a pool visit, and I didn't go much on weeknights because the pool was invariably taken up with swimming lessons or swim team practice. It seems I'm not going to get away from the swim teams or classes hogging the pools unless we get our own pool, and since our backyard is the size of a postage stamp, that ain't happening. Oh well.

You cannot accuse me of slacking off on the exercise this weekend. I got the afternoon off on Friday and promptly hopped on the subway to ride back to my old DC haunts and walk around Georgetown. I logged about 13,000 steps according to my pedometer.

Saturday morning was too cool to go swimming, so we went on the first bike ride I've been on in ages.

Man. Oh, man. That was painful. But it's something I really needed. As I was chugging along sucking wind and feeling my thighs burn, a voice in my head spoke up: "There's no faking it on the bike. If you get on this thing, you better be ready to work."

And for me, it's true. I suppose that for people who ride hundreds of miles in a weekend, they could do an "easy" 50-miler. I guess I could find a ride that's all downhill ... but then I'd have to ride all uphill on the way home. Which is pretty much what I do anyhow; I never realized until I got the bike that our house is at the highest point of our development. And boy, do I feel it when I'm churning my way home after a long ride.

I can half-ass it at the gym; I can lift weights I know are way too light, or I can just sit on the stationary bike with the difficulty set to the lowest level. As for swimming, I can cut the laps short, or just splash around and do handstands.

But I can't goof off on the bike; even when I'm doing a relatively easy ride on a mostly-flat part of our trail, I can really feel myself working. And again, there's that whole "The way home is uphill" thing.

Anyhow, we went to the rec center and lifted weights on Sunday, and this morning we went on another arduous, ass-kicking bike ride; by the end of it I was so exhausted that it took me two tries to raise my foot high enough to put the kickstand down.

And then we went to the pool this afternoon. I didn't do any real lap swimming, but I "jogged" up and down the length of the pool several times. Because I was determined to have some fun, I also went off the diving board, did handstands, and then simply floated on my back for a little while, enjoying the sun warming my poor sore body while the water buoyed me up.

I still smell like sunscreen and chlorine. I'm going to miss that smell. May 2008 seems like a long, long way off from here.