A Dumbbell In A Home Gym

Very Late Friday Roundup.

Couple things:

1. I'm very flattered that my blog is listed as one of the Nursing Online Education Database's Top 100 Health and Wellness Blogs. This is a pretty comprehensive listing and covers a full spectrum of health, diet, and fitness sites. It's worth checking out.

And I found their description of my site very cool in an offbeat sort of way: "She definitely has some strong opinions about diets and about exercise, and you can take them or leave them. But, she has a certain charm that seems almost unavoidable." Yeah, you -- just TRY to avoid my charm. I dare you.

2. If it's October, someone in my family must be getting married. (And here I thought my husband and I were being all unusual by getting married in October. I said that to the lady who did my hair for last year's family wedding, and I swear that every hairdresser in the salon cracked up simultaneously.) I'm not a bridesmaid this time, but I think I found a smokin' hot dress to wear anyhow. It's a little black cocktail dress and it's tight where I'm tight and loose and flowy where I'm loose and flowy; I can't ask for better than that. If I can pin down my husband and his camera, I'll try to get a nice full-body shot of it to replace the October 2006 picture on my About page. It's way past time for a new photo there.

3. There were a couple of intriguing developments on the Kimkins front this week. First of all, a Los Angeles TV station did an excellent two-part series on Kimkins. Aside from calling Kimmer "The Kimmer" (which I found kind of awesome), the station really nailed the story. You can view both segments by following the links here, if you're interested. The first part features a particularly entertaining clip of "The Kimmer" skedaddling like a scared kitten when she's confronted by the reporter and a phalanx of TV cameras.

And if you ever wondered if all those success stories that appeared on the Kimkins site were genuine, the answer is largely a big fat NYET! Although a few were legit, it turns out that a staggering number of those "after" photos were ganked from various Russian mail-order bride sites (the pictures in that link are merely the tip of the ripped-off Russian iceberg), including the very picture that Kimmer sent to Woman's World magazine as her own "after" shot. (Edited to add: Oh, snap. The Low Carb Friends just found a match for Kimmer's infamous red dress "after" photo, the one that triggered my suspicions in the first place.)

After a week of stellar publicity like that, Kimmer sent out an email to members claiming that Kimkins is now under new ownership. There's no word yet on who the lucky new chump bagman owner is; this is quite possibly another steaming load that's meant to get the pressure off Kimmer. Time will tell; I can't believe how much this mess has snowballed since I started following it.

Have a great weekend, all.

Back On The Wagon.

That picture has nothing to do with this entry; I just like it. It was taken a couple of weeks ago. That was a good weekend.

Today's weight, and my official weight for August: 164.5.

Could it be? Am I going to spend a lot less time in the sixties than I did in the seventies? That'd make me very happy indeed.

This is definitely one of my least-deserved weight losses. Last week was a double whammy of PMS and a stressful family situation. My mindful eating went right out the window, to be replaced by "Me want food. Want food NOW. What me cram in piehole next?"

For everything that went right this month, I have to give some credit to SparkPeople (and thanks to Nicole for first writing about it). I like having the ability to track calories, exercise, daily goals, and even water-drinking in one place. Even though my recent calorie consumption has been way over the cutoff that SparkPeople set for my daily goal, my calories burned via exercise have also been considerably over my weekly goal. That's probably what saved me this month.

The nutrition articles that SparkPeople sends every day don't tell me anything I didn't know and the food tracker isn't all that extensive (and it's fairly US-centric), but I've picked up some cool strength-training exercises from them. And I like the daily racking-up of SparkPoints; it's silly, but it's got my interest anyhow. On the whole, the site has definitely helped me to get focused and motivated again.

I had a brilliant swim on Saturday morning; save for one quick break to chug down some Gatorade, I did laps for pretty much an hour straight. I must be fitter than I think I am because even after I quit for good I felt as if I could have kept going, although my legs and arms started tiring out by the end.

Then I came home and watched a swimming competition on TV. I wish I knew how to do the butterfly stroke; that's the only stroke I was never taught and I love watching it. It looks so powerful. I've tried to do one, or what I think looks like one, but I've come to call my rendition the "Drowning Butterfly"; my arms don't even clear the water the way they're supposed to when the butterfly is performed by swimmers who know what the hell they're doing. I'm surprised the lifeguards don't fall out of their chairs laughing at me. Good thing that I'm mostly over this whole "Fear of looking like an idiot in public" business.

Apropos of nothing, I'm so glad I'm not Michael Phelps. I suppose the six Olympic golds and the attendant fame and fortune might be nice, but yesterday the commentators were behaving like he'd wasted everyone's time if he didn't set a new world record every time he swam. Never mind if he'd won the competition by a mile. Sheesh. No pressure there.

Finally, to start off the workweek with a laugh, check out Matt Dinniman's "The top ten stupidest 'As Seen on TV' products." Not surprisingly, stupid weight loss and fitness aids are represented pretty well on the list. My personal favorite? The vomit-scented plastic you're supposed to sniff in a very desperate attempt to kill your appetite.

Gross. (And that thing sold for $49.95!? Sweet merciful crap -- I need to quit my job and get to inventing!)

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.)

Blogs That Make Stuff Come Out My Nose.

Because I've been such a sour little pickle for most of the week, here's something that might amuse you even if you're neither fat nor a cyclist: Fat Cyclist: An Open Letter to Assos.

I've been pondering that "What the hell is a Luxury Body?" question ever since I read this. In that context, it makes me think of those overstuffed, puffy leather seats in fancy cars. And then I think "Hey! I'm overstuffed and puffy too!"

So that tears it -- from now on, I'm not fat. I just have a Luxury Body, thank you very much.