August 23, 2010

I seem to be neglecting this blog! Once again it's been nearly two weeks since I posted. But there are a couple of reasons for that, and at least one is a good one. My days are almost exactly alike, day in and day out, while I'm here in Lakewood. So here's the journal part: Woke up, walked two miles, kissed Budd goodbye for work, played on the computer all day, cooked lunch for myself and dinner for both of us, sat down to cross-stitch and watch tv all evening. Not so interesting, is it? So that's the good reason. More about the other reason in a minute.

A friend of mine periodically posts entries from her grandmother's journal on Facebook, and they sound like that. 'Did the work, went for a ride...' I always wonder what work she is talking about--housework? or something else? It's a mystery.

Anyway, it just isn't as much of an adventure, living in a big city. Unless you count the times when our psychotic GPS has a meltdown and tries to run us around in circles for no apparent reason. I tell Budd it's because he made her (we call it Bigmouth, and it's a she) have a nervous breakdown by refusing to follow her directions. But it's more likely to be some kind of glitch in the communication with the satellite. One time, driving back from Phoenix to Ajo, she told me to turn left right in the middle of a long stretch of highway with no crossroads in sight.

Back to the reasons for my neglect... I've been spending a lot of time at SparkPeople.com. I mean a LOT of time. Social media is wonderful for keeping up with friends and family every day online, but it can become very addictive. I've always had trouble tearing myself away from the fascination of exchanging ideas with people I would never meet in the course of my normal life, and with the normal life more or less on hold it's even more of a problem. Only in the sense, though, that while I'm playing on the computer, I'm not moving. Not such a good weight-loss plan.

I got a new toy yesterday to help with the weight loss, though. It's called a BodyBugg. I had forgotten I wanted one of these, but seeing something on SP about one, it all came back to me. It's a device that is worn on the upper arm to track the calories you burn, using a sophisticated four-part measurement system and algorithms to calculate it. Clinical trials show it to be more than 90% accurate, and it gets better as it gathers more data. Simple physics tells us that weight loss is a matter of calories in vs. calories out, and that it takes a deficit of 3500 calories to lose a pound. That's why these ads that claim you can lose a pound a day or more are just silly. Only someone who would require more than 3500 calories a day to maintain their weight and could manage to somehow cut out that many could lose a pound a day.

I first saw the BB when a friend of the family came over after my not having seen her for quite a few months--maybe almost a year. She was almost literally half the size I had known her to be from the time we met! I couldn't stop being amazed at the transformation, and of course I asked her what she had been doing. It turned out that she had been creating that calorie deficit with a combination of eating smaller portions and just moving more. Not even necessarily exercise--one thing she did was sit on her stability ball to watch tv, and if she needed to burn a few extra calories, she just bounced on it instead of sitting relatively still. I say relatively because sitting on a stabilty ball requires constant micro-adjustments in the muscles to stay balanced, so even just sitting still on one burns more calories than sitting in a chair. She showed me her BodyBugg, and I looked it up, but it was beyond my means at the time so I tucked it away in my brain for later and lost the note, lol.

Back to this past week, when I saw the post and remembered that I wanted one, I decided to look online for a used one, and was able to find one at a reasonable price. I was a little disappointed to learn that I'd have to subscribe to a paid website to use it, but I've decided my health is worth the price. So my piggy bank is now broken, but I'm excited to see exactly what my calorie deficit is per day, or if there even is one. I have to assume there is because I've lost two pounds in the last five days, which is well above my goal. The coolest thing is that I haven't been hungry. Actually, I'm hungry right now, but I have a scheduled snack coming up. Watermelon, yum! I may add a bit of cheese, too, as I have some unspent fat calories to spare. Will have to see how far over the carb limit that puts me. I've taken to balancing all that on a weekly basis, since sometimes I am under and sometimes over on certain of the macronutrients (fancy new word that I saw on SP today and think means carbs, fats and proteins).

Since my ultimate goal to lose is over 60 pounds, I have some interim ones, including being able to get back into my winter clothes this year. Since right after Easter, when I was at my heaviest, I've lost 8 pounds, most of them in the last month. I should be on track for getting into this winter's clothes, and maybe those from the winter before last that I couldn't wear last year. By next winter, though, I'll need a new wardrobe, as I'll be smaller than I've been in 25 years--since shortly after the girls were born. And I owe it all to Kathy Dempsey, who told me about SparkPeople.

We're on the home stretch for the Lakewood assignment. Budd intended to talk to his boss today about taking Friday as a travel day, so we will have time to get to Salt Lake and pick up some things we want from the utility trailer for Canyon de Chelly and then get back there for his one-month assignment. I made a happy discovery that, since he can install the DSL modem, we won't have to pay another large installation fee to get our DSL back. That means I can go back to tutor.com just in time for the start of school rush, as well as stay on track with my weight loss. I've already used the Google Maps mileage calculator to lay out my daily walk around the campground, but hope to get into the canyon itself for a hike to White House this time. Never thought I'd be this excited to go back and live in that little duplex, but after a month in less than 350 square feet, it will seem big! And we're excited to see friends we made there.

We'll be on the road this upcoming weekend, so won't post until after we are there and settled in. Bye 'til then.

August 9, 2010

It's a cloudy morning in here, near Denver, CO. A little humid, but it has to be a lot humid and quite hot before that bothers me. I was out for my walk between 6:20 and 7:00 a.m. today, and loved that the sun wasn't in my eyes on the eastward loop. I've been walking in a nice park about 4 days a week, and this morning am up to a 2 mile distance in that 40 minutes, which includes 5 minutes of warm up and cool down pace, then some moderately high intensity in between for half an hour. I've been following a workout routine found on my new favorite website, SparkPeople.com, that increases either the length of time or the number of days walked week-over-week to build stamina and respiratory function. Maybe I'll even get back to my college level of a 15-minute mile!

Other than track calories (fun for me) while figuring out what I can cook with a two-burner cooktop and a microwave, that my husband will eat and buying organic as much as possible now, there's not a lot to do here without a car. This blog has become blah! On a positive note, I've lost 3 pounds, which is a little faster than the goal I set. I'm sure it won't go perfectly at one pound per week, but if I average that, I'll reach my ideal weight in just over a year. However, a couple or three more pounds will put me back in last year's cool/cold weather clothes, which is perfect timing. Hopefully I won't have to buy new clothes until next fall, as I have wardrobes with at least two smaller sizes in storage. And the NewDressADay blog for inspiration if I have to take some in.

Last Wednesday I had a nice surprise as I checked my Facebook newsfeed. My friend Kathy had updated her city to Denver the previous night, so I quickly looked her up in the chat window, and sure enough she was online and still here, with no plans until evening. We made plans to have lunch, and ended up back here at the hotel for a nice long visit, just the two of us, which is a real luxury. Kathy is my ex-husband's wife, but our friendship has long surpassed that connection. We laugh about his quirks together when he isn't here--not in a mean way of course. Budd and I have been married almost 32 years, so hearing news of Jim is like hearing about an old friend, all bitterness water under the bridge. Jim recently had eye surgery to correct a macular hole, and won't be able to travel anywhere that requires him to be above 7000 feet until it is fully healed. Since the passes between their home in SW Colorado and here sometimes exceed 10,000 ft, he wasn't along for this trip, which she made to pick up her son and his girlfriend at the airport. It was great catching up.

Sunday found us at Budd's cousin's house again for hamburgers, though this time I insisted that Budd be able to drive home and that we leave before dark. The last trip home from there, with me driving on an unfamiliar network of highways after dark, was hair-raising. While we were visiting, for some reason I mentioned seeing Kathy, and Co followed up with a question about how I knew someone from Delaware (Kathy's home). I discovered, or maybe re-discovered, that she and Troy had lived with Jim during our divorce and right afterward (this is a side effect of having lived in a small town--this all occurred in Moab, UT where Budd, Troy and I all grew up). They hadn't heard about him in years, and were interested in his doings. Then Troy told me it was Jim who had set him on the path that became his 30-year engineering career. Troy, like my grandfather, is a self-educated engineer, which is very unusual in these days. Based on Budd's recent job-hunting experience, 30 years of experience isn't as valued as a college degree. Anyway, I must remember to tell Kathy to pass that on to Jim. I'm sure it will please him.

I finally have my Wii Fit back on duty. This was the result of having to move within the hotel. We had someone above us in the first room who dropped things on the floor every night from about 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. The first night, we thought it was kids jumping off the furniture, except that it went on awfully late. Then we were told it was a single occupant. He must have been dribbling his bowling ball! After a couple of days and several complaints, a room on the top (third) floor was found for us. Unfortunately, the third floor is mostly smoking rooms, so the halls are smoky, but this room is fine. Here we found a VCR/DVD combination with inputs for another device. After Budd researched the universal remote and reprogrammed it correctly, Wii worked! That gives me the ability to get some movement in during the day after my walks. With normal housework, I do fine, but in this tiny space, all I do is load the dishwasher once a day and sit the rest of the day either cross-stitching or reading. By the evening, I feel like I've been on a plane or in a car all day.

Budd got his next assignment pinned down and travel orders cut. We are here through the 28th of August, then go to Canyon de Chelly again for the whole month of September. I'm lobbying to go get the trailer with household goods so we can at least have tv, but that hasn't been decided yet. The AO has kept our old place empty, so we'll be back in the same place we started, and if we don't go get our own stuff they will make bedding and kitchenware available. She asked Budd what we'd require, and he gave her a list that included a hot tub and swimming pool. She said she didn't think the hot tub would be possible. Wonder if that means the swimming pool will? ;)

Must remember to stock up on more used paperback books before we go.

I'm looking forward to a different route to walk for a while and maybe being able to get into the canyon, although if the rains continue as they have been going , it may still be flooded. They had flash floods that filled the entire wash last week, along with tornadoes! I never heard of a tornado touching down in Arizona before. I'm certainly enjoying the rapidly-cycling weather here, as we're in a pattern where most mornings and early afternoons are sunny, with clouds building up during the afternoon. Most of the rain passes east of us, from south to north, though we can see dark clouds to the west also. I think we may be in the rain shadow of the mountains just to the west. But watching it in the distance is fun. Tornadoes, though, are a different matter. We didn't experience very many close touchdowns during my Texas childhood, and what we did experience was enough to last me a lifetime. Though I'm fascinated by the mechanism and somewhat by the people who chase them for a hobby or for scientific research, I'd just as soon stay miles away from any of them and just watch on tv.

August 1, 2010

Today is a lazy Sunday morning. Letting Budd sleep because we visited with his cousin Troy and wife Co (short for Colleen) last night and the boys, well, shall we say they reverted to their younger days? Budd can drink prodigious quantities without noticeable effect, other than that he tends to enjoy his own jokes more than usual. But after only a couple of beers, Troy was red in the face and beginning to stagger. Since we were safe at their home, it was rather funny to watch. I guess he doesn't get that much practice.

Back in the day, when we all lived in Moab, I never warmed up to Co much...just didn't have that much in common other than our guys being cousins and good friends. Catching up in the kitchen while the guys were outside, I heard of her long struggle with a very rare illness called Cushings. Cushings disease occurs when the body is subjected to an excess of the hormone cortisol--the stress hormone--for long periods, either because of an abnormality of the pituitary gland or because of medical diagnosis of the hormone to treat other illnesses. Co's was the result of a tumor on the pituitary gland, but the symptoms were so many and varied that for years her insistence that something was wrong was dismissed as hypochondria. Among the affected areas were thyroid, pancreas and devastating loss of muscle function. The miracle was that she finally researched her symptoms enough to diagnose the illness herself, have it confirmed by tests and an MRI that discovered the tumor, which was removed. I was reminded of how our family always teases my daughter about her hypochondria--which she admits--only to learn that she does indeed have thyroid problems that cause many of her symptoms. Like they say, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean someone isn't trying to kill you.

Not much else going on right now. I'm going to have to either keep the car more often so I can get out of this room or learn to love the sun in the park. My goal to walk in the cool of the morning makes the scheduling for keeping the car difficult...if I take the time to drive Budd to work, the sun is already high by the time I get back. I may try getting up before he does and getting that walk in before time to take him. But first, a new pair of walking shoes. And a bandaid for the blister from the current ones.

My weight loss and fitness program is going well--at least the calorie and fitness part. I'm going to have to go in search of a scale for a weigh-in because I can't hook up the Wii here--no inputs on the TV. I can't have lost much as one of my newer shirts is still too tight. But it's early days yet. This is a year-long project, both due to the amount I need to lose and my past experience with diets and yo-yo weight fluctuations. Diets make you fat, only lifestyle changes work. So I HAVE to get a long-term exercise program going, stay aware of what portions constitute a reasonable calorie consumption, and reduce my sodium intake. The calculators say that it will take just over a year to lose to my ideal weight, by which time all these new habits should be old ones.

Still no solid news on the job front, but we do know that Canyon de Chelly wants him back for at least two weeks, so we're good for a while. I look forward to being there in early September, with the hope that I'll finally get into the canyon. By then I may even have the stamina for the White House trail, 2.5 miles round trip with quite a climb on the back side. If I can do that, maybe I'll be able to make it up to Timpanogos cave when we get back there. That one is 3 miles round trip, with an 1100 ft. climb going. But pictures I've seen of the cave make me think it's worth the trip!

We finally got rain in our location on Friday, after a week of afternoon thunderstorms all around us teasing me. As we enjoyed a delicious Mexican dinner (yes, I abstained from the chips and salsa and took half the portion home to remain under my calorie limit) it began to sprinkle and then pour in earnest. Walking in it back to the car wasn't as fun as I had imagined, but it still made me inordinately happy to see rain. My apologies to everyone on the NW side of Denver who have been getting more than they wanted, and especially to my cousin in Kentucky. Ajo may have permanently damaged my psyche, but I've always enjoyed rainy days.

Only hardship here so far is that Budd and I are sharing a computer, and we really don't do well at that. We both want it all the time. I'm lucky I get it all day while he's at work. But for now, he requires it for a job application, so I must sign off. Hasta la vista.