A Dumbbell In A Home Gym

This Entry Brought To You By The Number Two.

This entry marks both my 200th post in "A Dumbbell In A Home Gym" and the second anniversary of the blog itself.

I'm not a size 2 yet, but my weight doesn't start with a 2 anymore, so I'd say it's a fair trade.

So I bought that size 6 sundress thinking that it would be the perfect item to wear on a summer day when the heat and humidity were so thick that you could scrape them off your skin with a butter knife.

(But let's be honest -- even if the thing had been made out of hay, barbed wire, and bubble gum, I'd still have bought it for the size tag alone.)

Well, this weekend brought on two of those summer days; high heat, high humidity. I took the dress out of the closet with some trepidation, wondering if it would be one of those infuriating outfits that looked okay in the store but like hell at home. Or if it just plain wouldn't fit at all. Maybe the extreme cold that day (hard to believe now!) had addled my brain cells, and I'd hallucinated the whole thing.

But no; it looked fine. My husband seemed to like it a lot, which is funny; when I showed it to him originally he said "That's a ... *different* look for you," which I figured was his polite way of saying "Ew." Maybe he just meant "It isn't black? You bought a dress with colors? Whoa."

I'd forgotten how cleavagey it is, though, if I'd ever noticed to begin with.

But I wore it around all weekend. The tag didn't magically change sizes; the dress was about as comfortable as I'd hoped, and if it weren't for that cleavage business I'd probably have worn it to work today. It's that hot out.

I also spent the weekend perusing the Shape Ultimate Body Book. I know that hardcore weight and fitness junkies tend to wrinkle their muscular noses at anything involving Shape, but the book has a lot of good pointers for assessing your goals and getting yourself back on track if you've been in a slump. Whatever helps at this point, right?

Going Old School.

So I was checking out the thread on Big Fat Deal about the diet drug Alli. The brochure's claims that Alli might cause you to, um, excrete stuff that looks like "the oil on top of a pizza" did the seemingly impossible -- it utterly killed the queen-hell pizza craving I've had all month. Wow, Alli's already working for me and I haven't even taken it. That stuff rocks!

Everyone good and grossed out yet? Great!

On to less grody subjects: On Monday, I hoofed it over to Barnes & Noble and picked up my third copy of The Ultimate Workout Log. I love that book. I used this book faithfully during my first year and a half of regular exercising. I came within two weeks of completing the logs in the second book before deciding to forsake the paper journal for SparkPeople's workout logs.

Shame on me. There's something to be said for dancing with the one that brought you. Sometime this weekend, it occurred to me that I've been missing that book. I like all the handy little spaces to tick for cardio, yoga, weight, nutrition, and the overall daily rating. Yeah, it's decidedly low-tech compared to Internet fitness sites, but somehow it feels more personal, even if my handwriting is getting virtually unreadable.

And I'm hoping that using one of the same tools I used religiously at the beginning of all this will help me to regain some of that killer focus I had.

So far so good. Today got a rating of "5" on the old "scale from 1 to 5" system. It's been so horribly hot that I'm amazed I got my ass in gear to do anything, but I actually walked on the basement treadmill tonight. That's yet another relic of my fitness past, and something that's very worth reviving.

Chubby Bitch.

I'm in a bad mood. It's icy out. So I'm going to be cranky tonight.

Last weekend, in the spirit of staying focused on my goals, I picked up a copy of "Skinny Bitch," a book that bills itself as a tough love, no-nonsense dieting guide. It looked promising, but I decided to leaf through it before taking it to the register.

I think I'm officially getting old. The thing is, I like snark. Really, I do. If it's used with a subtle hand (as opposed to the sledgehammer "This sucks and that's stupid and lame and YOU'RE stupid and lame if you like it!" approach), it entertains me. And I'm certainly not one to grab the smelling salts and head for the nearest fainting couch if someone utters a naughty word in my general vicinity. Hell -- I've been known to cuss all over my general vicinity.

So I don't know why the ultra-snotty tone of the book put me off almost immediately. You might ask me what else I expected from a book titled "Skinny Bitch"; that's a fair question. Maybe it just sounded a little too much like the angry, negative voice in my head that berates me for being fat. "If you want to stop being a fat pig, stop eating shit!" Yeah, it's edgy. It's in my face. Whatever. It bugged me.

Even so, I stuck with the book through the usual litany of "Sugar is eeeevil and soda will kill you and diet soda will kill you too" warnings. Yawn. I already limit sugar and regular soda (but don't, and will not, cut them out entirely). While I confess to being uneasy about artificial sweeteners, there are times when I want something sweet and bubbly with my meal; Coke Zero fills that need without upping my calorie consumption. In general I try to stick to water and not overdo the carbonated stuff.

And then I got to this nugget of wisdom: "Coffee is for PUSSIES!"

'Scuse me? Okay, then -- scratch me between the ears and toss me a Pounce treat, because you'll take away my coffee when you pry it from my cold dead paws. Hissssssss! I didn't get to the reasoning behind that particular factoid, and I'm not interested. I've lost 100 pounds while drinking plenty of coffee. It's something I genuinely enjoy and it obviously isn't impeding my weight loss as long as I don't slug down a venti mocha latte with extra whipped cream every day. So I'm not about to give it up.

And "Skinny Bitch" went back on the shelf. Apologies if you've read that book and enjoyed it, but wow -- I can't remember the last time the first few pages of a book managed to turn me off so completely.

I just peeked at the Amazon reviews and found several readers claiming that the book is actually a pitch for veganism, which means that I probably wouldn't have gotten much of value from the Skinny Bitches even if they weren't calling me a pussy for all that coffee drinking. I respect and admire people who can stick to a vegan diet, but it's just not for me.

As long as I'm being all grumpy about diet books, is anyone else ODing on books with titles based on the "_____ Women Don't Get _____" theme? I'm tempted to pitch a book titled "All Women Everywhere Get Old And Die -- Shut Up, Already." Sheesh.

Sorry for the grouchiness tonight. Have a cat picture:

"Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think."

I mentioned that I was reading "You: On A Diet," and I promise that I'll write a review of it as soon as I finish it.

However, I must apologize for being a tease, because "Y:OAD" got superseded by a different book: "Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think," by Brian Wansink, Ph.D. The book arrived from Amazon on Friday night; I started leafing through the beginning, plummeted right down the rabbit hole, and have now read the entire book twice.

Go get this book. Really. It's quite possibly the most fascinating eating-related book I've ever read. Wansink must have one of the most interesting jobs in the world; he and his colleagues observe people in all kinds of different situations to see what kind of factors play a part in what, how much, and why people eat. (And, frequently, overeat.)

He's passed out tubs of superstale popcorn to moviegoers to see if they'll eat the stuff even if it tastes like Styrofoam packing peanuts. (They will.) He's sponsored Superbowl parties to see if people will eat more chicken wings if waiters clear away the dishes instead of leaving visible piles of bones on the table. (Yup.) He's even rigged up "bottomless" soup bowls to see if people eat more soup if they don't get the visual cue of seeing the soup level go down. (They sure do. And a side story about what happened when one guy attempted to pick up his rigged soup bowl so he could slurp out of it is hilarious.)

This stuff is going to sound like a no-brainer; I suspect that anyone reading this blog already knows damn well that hunger is often the least important factor in our food choices. But having it all demonstrated so conclusively is something else again. It's made me think a lot about my own eating and how it's influenced by other factors. I know I've said it before, but I consider myself incredibly lucky that my husband has gone along with me on every step of this journey. As a person who's very susceptible to what others around me are eating and doing (or not doing, in the case of exercise), I honestly don't know how people manage to lose weight in households where they're the only ones eating healthfully and working out.

Wansink concludes each chapter with tips designed to control mindless eating, all taken from his studies and observations. The tips aren't exactly earth-shattering (serve yourself on smaller plates; dish yourself an actual serving size of something instead of chowing straight from a box or a bag), but understanding exactly why they work goes a long way towards persuading me to give them another try.

And this isn't a dry scientific-style text; Wansink is funny and even a bit snarky on occasion, so the book is a very lively, enjoyable read. I highly recommend it.

And by the way, I do believe that "Start reading more weight loss and fitness stuff and *thinking* like I did in 2005" is shaping up to be the best damn idea I've had in eons. In just the last few days since I started doing this again, my eating has improved by several orders of magnitude. I've started employing the same portion control strategies I did back then. I'm leaving more food on my plate. I'm being much, much more meticulous about stopping to ask myself if I've had enough to eat. I think I'm finally getting back that focus I had in the beginning. About time.

Scarred-sdale.

I wrote a while ago about being put on the Pritikin Diet as a preteen -- it
was during a summer break from school and I was either 12 or 13.

Well, I was wrong about part of that; I was actually on the Scarsdale Diet. I knew Pritikin didn't sound right, but neither did Scarsdale; I assumed that my morbid teenage self would have remembered if I'd been on a diet created by a doctor who ended up being gunned down by his girlfriend.

But we were at a big used book sale this weekend and I hunted through the enormous piles of old diet books, hoping that I could find something that might jar my memory. Leafing through a Scarsdale paperback did the trick. I remembered a lot of the advice and the anecdotes, and his obsession with protein bread was the dead giveaway.

I couldn't bring myself to buy the book. Having such a thing in the house would have felt as if I were bringing in a jar containing a pickled Evil Eye. Bad luck. Bad karma. Bad everything. But I skimmed the book enough to remember the salient points. (You can see actual menus here.)

I am absolutely astonished that I managed to stay on that dreadful thing long enough to lose 20 pounds. Shit -- I can't believe I stayed on it long enough to lose 20 ounces. You were only supposed to do the diet itself for 14 days, followed by some sort of maintenance plan. But 14 days would seem like an eternity when this was breakfast and lunch on a typical day for the diet: A grapefruit half for breakfast. Tuna salad (which was water-packed canned tuna with cucumbers and carrots; no fatty dressing!) and more grapefruit or melon for lunch.

Good god. According to FitDay, that is a hair over 300 calories to get me through most of the day. (And that was a generous day with an actual protein item for lunch -- sometimes lunch was "unlimited fruit salad". God.) Almost no fat and relatively little protein; I must have been hungry all the time. I eat way more than that at breakfast alone these days. How the hell was I not chewing my frigging arm off? It's a good thing I didn't do this diet during the school season; I'd never have been able to concentrate in class, and I'd likely have assaulted the kitchen workers for an extra helping of Gray Meat Surprise or whatever they were dishing out that day.

Oh, and exercise? Schmexercise! That was dealt with in one paltry sentence out of the whole dang paperback. He advised walking for about two miles a day. Now, that's certainly not bad advice, but that's also it for any talk of exercise. Which is just as well; I highly doubt I'd have had the energy to pursue a regular fitness program anyhow, what with the insanely low calorie intake.

The book assured me that over 90% of people who lost weight on Scarsdale kept it off. Hmmm. The percentage in our household (me and my mother, who was also doing the diet) was more like 0%. It figures we'd go and blow the curve.

To the best of my knowledge this was the first -- and only -- structured fad diet I ever followed. But it definitely served as a prototype for all the other dieting attempts I made up until this most recent one. Cut out just about all fat. Eat tiny portions and never, ever snack. When you get hungry, berate yourself for being a pig. I mean, really ... you had all that fruit salad for lunch -- how could you possibly be hungry? When you fall off the wagon after a few days of extreme calorie deprivation, judge yourself to be a hopeless failure.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Sigh.

Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired.

The stomach upset has long since passed, but I've been feeling horribly weak and tired for the last couple of days. I can't tell you how unbelievably frustrating this is. On Saturday I did a very simple, very slow 20-minute walk on the treadmill followed by a super-easy yoga DVD. That was enough to completely wipe me out for the rest of the day. It is unseasonably warm and gorgeous out today and I'd love to hit the trail for a walk or a bike ride, but I don't dare. Not if a wimpy treadmill walk was enough to knock me out yesterday.

I hate this. At a time when I really wanted to start upping the ante in my workouts, I'm finding myself scrambling to catch up instead. I feel like my muscles are melting. I've had some dark thoughts lately -- "Is this it? Is this how my mojo's going to desert me? Is this the part when Nicole finally turns back to the Dark Side and starts eating like a pig and living on the couch again?" -- but no. I'll get back to where I was.

(And the eating hasn't been bad. Even without tracking my calories, I've found I'm not going over what I'd probably eat on an average day whenever I do a spot-check in FitDay.)

To keep this entry from becoming a total whineorama, here are a few things I've discovered that you might like:

--Eating Mindfully, by Susan Albers. One of the biggest struggles I've faced in the past year has been trying to clear my mind of all the old negative thought patterns regarding food and eating, and I imagine a heck of a lot of you are in the same boat.

I don't agree with everything in this book. One of her tips is to avoid caffeine; that ain't happening, sports fans. To steal from that Meat Loaf song, "I would do anything for my body -- but I won't do that!" She's also an advocate of "No dieting ever again," which I also reject; I don't hate myself or find myself loathsome anymore (most days), but I'm still obese and that's absolutely not acceptable to me. I no longer harbor any delusions of being a size 2, but I do want to be at a healthy, sustainable weight. I do not believe that 180-something is it.

But the book does a great job of explaining and reinforcing a lot of what I've tried to do: trying to stop judging oneself relentlessly over every morsel of food; trying to really pay attention to how you feel during and after a meal; trying to openly address your feelings instead of whacking them away with a baseball bat or smothering them in Tostitos and CheezyGoo, and working hard to change that internal soundtrack that constantly tells you you're a fat pig. It's worth a read, I think. (One caveat: It is based heavily on Buddhist teachings; if that bothers you, this probably isn't a good choice for you.)

--Dance Dance Revolution! After trying the video dance machine at Dave and Buster's on my birthday, I tracked down a game for the Xbox and bought it for myself as a belated Christmas present. If you've never played, the game comes with a giant pad festooned with arrows; you hop on the pad and try to match your steps to the arrow cues on the screen. Hilarity ensues. The game has enough older songs (like "Rock Lobster" and "Whip It") to keep an aging Generation X-er like myself happy. I still suck rocks at any level other than "Klutzy Beginner," but it's a fun way to get my heart rate up a little.

Funnier still, my husband, who could not be forced onto a real dance floor with a rocket launcher, likes it too. Before we both got sick, we were playing at least two sessions a day. He gets grumpy when I tease him about liking dancing ("It's JUST a game!"), but I'm sure that by the end of the year we'll be hitting all the local dance spots and putting Uma Thurman and John Travolta to shame. Yup.

I'd never use this as my only form of exercise, but I've been thinking that it might be just the ticket to get me down into the basement on nights when it's cold and I'm lazy and I just don't wanna move.

--If you're looking for a good new read, go visit Kristin. I find myself nodding vigorously at every new entry of hers. (Particularly this one.)