catheroominations

Remember the Newhart, Cheers, or Seinfeld drinking games? You watch the show and when a specific event happens, you drink. Sometimes, like if George and Kramer had sex, you’d drink everything in the house. Well this game is exactly like that, but different.
If you watch The Biggest Loser on NBC on Tuesday nights, and you think you never have time to work out, this game is great for you. To make it fit you, I’m only including the number of reps for each exercise. You can choose to focus on upper body(bicep curls, tricep dips, pushups, tricep extensions, chest flyes, etc.), lower body (lunges, squats, hip raises, yadda yadda), abs (crunches, reverse crunches, oblique crunches, bicycles, whatever suits your fancy), or cardio (jumping jacks, jump ropes, butt kickers, and so on) You can make this as easy or as hard as you want. I encourage you to push yourself for maximum benefit. If you’re already exercising and something in the “What they do” column happens, no need to interrupt what you’re doing, just tack it on to the total number of reps. Quite possibly you could be doing 100 crunches at once, if Bob goes berserk twice in one episode.

Don’t worry if you don’t have weights, you can use cans of food, or bottles of water, or (I guess) bottles or cans of beer. You might want to wear shoes for the cardio exercises, if you have any knee, foot, or ankle issues. They’ll provide support to your joints, and could help keep you on your feet, and not on your butt, if you have hardwood floors and are wearing only socks.

During a two-hour show, you could probably get at least a 30-minute workout from this. This idea was inspired by Jillian Michaels because she kicks my butt all over my living room for 30 minutes every morning, and so I feel really guilty just sitting here watching her on TV during the show. It’s like she’s looking at me, calling me lazy. I can’t take it!

If you do the workout during the show, be sure to check back in afterward and let me know how you felt when you were done. And please leave suggestions in the comments. Have fun!

Maybe this can masquerade as a Grace in Small Things post. Let’s see if I can squeak out five things here. It is my 50th Grace in Small Things, so I should make it a good one, huh?

1. My weight loss journey is at a dead end. I cannot get out of the range I have been in since Christmas. Last week I ate way too much crap food, but I did work out FIVE TIMES during the week. This is unheard of lately. The result on the scale was a gain of .2 pounds. While I’m not upset with the gain, had I been eating thoughtfully and healthfully(?) I could have had a nice loss. BAH! So, I’m going to start a challenge hosted by The Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans. Starting tomorrow I will pop my nearly never-used DVD of Jillian Michaels’ 30-Day Shred into my DVD player and let her torture me every single day for 30 days. I thought about not mentioning this here, but by doing so, I’m hoping to be more motivated to commit it. See, I am a people pleaser and if I tell you I’m going to do something, I do not want to disappoint you by not doing it. What I’m really saying is that when I am sore from the strenuous workouts, I’m blaming you guys. OK?
2. Also, because of my serious need for extra motivation in the weight loss journey that never ends, I am enlisting your help. This story showed up in my Google Reader last week. This guy lost more than 50 lbs in 10 weeks, and one thing that helped him was soliciting comments from his readers. For every comment he received, he worked out for one minute. This is where you come in. I am going to exercise one minute for every person who comments on this post (and subsequent posts). Before I work out, I will check how many comments I have to my latest post and do one minute of crunches, pushups, walking, weights, whatever per comment. This does NOT mean that you can leave multiple comments to one post. You can comment as much as you want, but the way it works is one minute of exercise per commenter. No fair turning your 10-word sentence into 10 comments of one word each. Remember that I am doing the 30-Day Shred, so I will probably be able to kick your ass if you pull some crap like that. Also, having shredded, you might not recognize me sneaking up behind you and might mistake me for some hot chick with great highlights. (Lately I have been getting lots of comments on the color of my hair.) For this to work, and for me to get a proper amount of exercise, you need to comment. Don’t worry about being witty, or funny, or anything. If you usually delurk, say so. (Hi, delurkers! Thanks for coming!) Just please help me get my ass in gear. Please. I don’t ask for much, but right now I could really use some help.
3. Along with the exercise, I am also joining The Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans in their current challenge Shrink Into Summer and will be telling you every week how much I weigh at my weekly weigh-ins. My weigh in day at Weight Watchers is Saturday, so come back and see how I am doing. I can’t believe I am going to tell you all how much I weigh every week, but if that isn’t motivation to get my act together again, I don’t know what is! But if I tell you my weight, you’d better leave a comment. You can’t just be all voyeuristic and not say something to add to my exercise minutes. Deal? Deal.
4. A co-worker and I are starting a weight loss challenge in our office. I am a very competitive person and I fully expect to win this challenge. This is a sneaky way of motivating myself, under the guise of helping my colleagues and friends shed some unwanted pounds. I’m sneaky like that! We’re setting up an internal website where folks can get recipes, menu ideas and tips on exercise and healthy lifestyles. I’ll be sure to post some of the tidbits here, and if any of you have something to share, please do. Your helpful hint will also count for one more minute of exercise for me.
5. On a completely different topic, I signed up for a writing class so I can get some help on how best to tell the story I have to tell. I’m looking forward to learning some new skills, and am even excited about letting perfect strangers read my work and tear it to shreds. If I ever do write a book, perfect strangers (and probably several imperfect ones) will be reading what I wrote and I won’t get to hear if they think it sucks. So I’d rather hear it before I go through the trouble and sweat of writing the thing. And I’m going to have to grow a thick skin and get used to rejection if I ever plan to farm a book out to publishers or editors. Not that any of my classmates will think my work sucks. Because it so doesn’t. It’s completely awesome and fantastic. Of course it is.

Hey, don’t forget to comment. <\whoring for comments>

Updated to clarify one commenter = one minute of exercise. Thanks for your help!

I’m not good at making decisions. So I need you to help me. This Saturday I have a Team In Training run and I don’t know how far I should run. This is my last long run before I go into taper mode for my Disneyland Half Marathon (13.1 miles). Two weeks ago, I ran 12 miles and loved it. Like that run, his weekend’s location is supposed to be tough, which means it’s “worth more” in miles. For example, if I run 10, it’s more like running 11 or 12 because of the steep inclines and rugged terrain.

Please exercise your right to vote and tell me what I should do. Thank you for your support.

I received my timing chip for the Disneyland Half Marathon recently and I’m really getting excited to run 13.1 miles through the Happiest Place on Earth, and down the streets of Anaheim. Also, Disney just released the waivers all runners need to sign and bring with them to the Health Expo of Half Marathon Weekend in order to pick up their goodie bags and race bibs. I cannot wait for this race! Mostly because, hello! Disneyland! But also, because it will be my second half marathon, and will offer plenty of scenery and fun stuff to look at to keep me distracted from the fact that I am running my second half marathon. Hopefully there will not be rain, or wind, and I know we won’t be running down Highway 101 in San Francisco for this one, like we did on my last attempt at a half marathon. One thing I am slightly concerned about is the heat. Last year’s Disneyland Half Marathon was torture because of an extreme heatwave in Southern California. And by extreme I mean it reached 108 degrees in the afternoon, and got up to 90 degrees at the time most people finished the run at 9 am.

This race starts at 6 AM. Yes, SIX O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING. Hotel shuttles to the start begin at 3 am. That’s NIGHT, not morning! I don’t even care that I have to get up in the middle of the night, because I am so looking forward to this race. I hear it starts with fireworks before we head off towards California Adventure, and on to Frontierland, Tomorrowland, Adventureland, and Fantasyland (and through Cinderella’s castle!), and throughout this, characters will appear in their running attire for photo ops. Once we’re out of the park we’ll head over to the Honda Center (home of the Anaheim Ducks), and then through Angels Stadium where I get to run across home plate, then run back through California Adventure and Downtown Disney, ending at the ESPN Zone where I will receive my medal. (And you all know how I feel about medals!)

So, if you find yourself at Disneyland during Labor Day weekend, look for me!

By the way, I’m attempting NaBloPoMo this month. It’s going to be an eventful one, so I should have plenty of blog fodder. The theme this month is HOT, hence my reference to the hellacious (hellatious?) weather at last year’s Disneyland Half Marathon. Subtle, no?

But I didn’t.

I was up at 5:30 to eat my pre-run carbs, pack the 3 G’s (GU, Garmin, and Gatorade), and get dressed for the run. I met my carpool buddy with 5 minutes to spare, and we left on time for the 1-hour ride over the hill. My carpooler was planning a longer run than I was, and she needed to start her run at 8 am. Since I was only doing 8 miles, my run would start 30 minutes later. I checked in for 8 miles and lined up for my 8:30 start, looking for my usual running buddies in the crowd.

I didn’t find any of my similarly-paced-half-marathon-training buddies and feared I would have to run solo, unable to keep up with the faster-paced marathon-training runners. But I plodded along, at a 4:1 ratio (4 minutes of running, 1 minute of walking), trying to keep up with the gang. Eventually I dropped back and began to run at more comfortable pace. I wanted to take it easy, knowing that the last time I ran here sucked Armenian yak.

Recently, I haven’t logged many longish runs. In fact, the last time I ran more than 6 miles was back in June, so I knew 8 would be a chore. I kept my thoughts positive, convincing myself that even though my last run here was utterly craptastic, I’d erase those bad memories with good ones today. I ran down the dirt trail lined by redwood trees. The air was clean and my lungs were thankful to be out of the city.

I met someone from my pace group at the water stop, about 2 miles in. She had actually started her run with my carpooler’s group at 8, but accidentally took a detour, and wound up at the beloved water stop the same time as I did. We started chatting, and she asked if I would run with her because we go at about the same pace. She was planning on running 12 miles, but she said she’d stick with me until my 4-mile turnaround point and then she’d keep going ahead. I was happy to have a running companion even if it was for only a couple of miles because it is so much more enjoyable with someone to talk to. And it was. We run well together. She’s chatty and so am I so the time went by quickly. I was having an awesomely good run. It was, in fact, easy. I felt great, and because I was enjoying myself so much, I noticed this time that the scenery was gorgeous.

We reached the 4-mile mark in no time and it seemed effortless. This was my turnaround point for the 8-mile loop. But I told my running mate that I would go to the 5-mile turnaround and increase my run 10 miles. What the hell? Ten, schmen. That’s just 2 more than 8…I could do it.

As we approached the 5-mile turnaround, most runners flew past it to go all the way to the 6-mile turnaround that boasted a beautiful waterfall. I wondered if there really was a waterfall, or if it was all a ruse by the TNT coaches to get us to go an extra 2 miles. Even at the 5-mile mark, I still felt great. I thought about those people I am running for and thought about what they endure when going through treatments. They don’t have the luxury of getting up and going for a run while suffering from extreme fatigue, nausea, and pain. They fight and go through hell until they reach their goal – a cure. And if they’re to do 12 months of chemo, they don’t say, “Oh, I think I’ll just do 8 months and then stop.” They go all the way. I could not complain about having to run. I chose to do this running business. Cancer patients did not choose to get cancer. Cancer chose them. (And cancer is an asshole.) And knowing I’d be logging 10 anyway…well…what’s 2 more? “Sure, I’ll go 12 with you!” I told my running buddy. And so I went.

So, yeah. I did not run 8 miles yesterday. I ran 12. And this was the payoff, courtesy of Mother Nature:

keep reading I was supposed to run 8 miles yesterday.

But not for health reasons. See for yourself:

It’s 11 pm. I am tired. Tired because I took my first Zumba class tonight, followed by Pilates. Because I am hard core like that. Or an idiot. We’ll see tomorrow if I am able to get up out of bed. Since I am too exhausted to write, here’s a photo I took for today’s 7 Days submission (click the link to the Flickr group in my sidebar to see some awesome shots from others).