Category: fitness

Another first

by Karen, posted in fitness, health, local fun, Midlife Crisis, no fear, the beach, Turning 50

When I turned 50 this year, I decided to try to do things for the first time, since this is my first year in a new decade. Today, I went swimming at the beach all by myself.

This is no small undertaking, to which anyone who wears glasses and is severely myopic will attest. The problem is this: what to do with the glasses? Leave them on, and risk losing them to the ocean, or leave them in a bag with your stuff on your chair, and risk losing yourself?

If I go swimming at the beach with others (who, you know, can see), they can guide me back to our place in the sand, no problem. When faced with the prospect of trying to find my way back without guidance, I have always balked, then caved. In other words, I’ve never done it.

Until today. I brought my red canvas bag, hoping that I would be able to detect the bright color, if nothing else, when it was time to leave the water and find my stuff. I put my chair right at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the parking lot. I walked in a straight line to the ocean, which was at medium-low (not low-low) tide, so I didn’t have to go too far to get back to square one. I hoped for the best.

My Plan B was this: to depend on the kindness of strangers. “Excuse me, but I’m lost…” wouldn’t sound very convincing coming from the mouth of a 50-year-old, so I fervently hoped I wouldn’t have to go this route.

I am happy to report that I didn’t! I swam in the ocean for 20 minutes, came out (just to prove to myself that I could find my stuff–and to get away from the teenage boy who wouldn’t stop taunting his sister with talk about the sharks getting us), then went back in for another 20 minutes.

Life was good today.

Get out of your rut

by Karen, posted in Date night, fitness, local fun, Marriage, Midlife Crisis, no fear, relationships, Turning 50

In the interest of getting out of my rut, my husband and I went away…to the other side of town.

One of the perks was that the facility had a pool. No big whoop for me, because I don’t much like chlorinated pools. My husband does though, so even though it was late (9:30pm is late when you are usually in bed by then), and even though it was freezing out, and even though it was snowing out, and even though we had to walk outside (the equivalent of about 3 blocks, maybe, but still) to get to said pool, and even though I had to put on a bathing suit in February…I went with him.

I took swimming lessons when I was 12, but it never clicked for me. I was always awkward in the water, so do not consider myself a swimmer.

My husband is a great swimmer.

I had planned to sit on the side of the pool and watch him, but he convinced me to swim a little…and guess what?  

I swam the length of the pool 3 times! I enjoyed it! I wanted to stay longer! I didn’t even mind the walk back to the room!

Go figure. Maybe there are things that you can do but haven’t you haven’t tried because you keep telling yourself that you can’t.

What if you can?

Heavy sigh

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, fitness, health, Someone's gotta say it

I watched a Dr. Oz episode that I taped last week, just for something mindless to do for an hour. I usually tape them every week, read what the topic is, then delete them without watching them. This time there was one I wanted to watch…something about losing weight and maybe becoming a millionaire…great! Sign me up for that, right?

So I watched that program describing Dr. Oz’s Transformation Nation. I was motivated! He’s partnering with Weight Watchers and the program is FREE. I went to the website last night to check it out. It’s actually very similar to the Weight Watchers online program, except that it calculates calories instead of PointsPlus. So, after about 3 hours of completing quizzes, entering lab data, and logging food and activities for the day, I was set to go. I uploaded my picture and started Day 1 of my Oz-blog.

Life was good…until this morning.

When I (still motivated, after getting on the scale and finding I’d lost a little over a pound) tried to log in to set up my food plan for the day, and found it that none of the info had been saved. The website didn’t recognize my email address.

Is all lost?? Is it true that you get what you pay for?? Should I just suck it up and pay Weight Watchers Online to build on what I started yesterday?

I hope not. In the meantime, while I wait to hear back from Dr. Oz’s customer support, I will try to stay motivated.

P.S. I’m not very optimistic about that.

*NOTE: Weight Watchers is currently waiving the joining fee “for a limited time”.

The honeymoon is over

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, fitness, health, local fun

Well, the vacation may have just started but….the party? It’s definitely over. What am I talking about?

I got off the scale a minute ago. It wasn’t pretty.

After I got over being mad at myself (you know, for getting on it in the first place) I decided to (try to) get real. I did a quick review of what I ate yesterday (vacation day 1; ice cream twice?? And one of those times I used it to dress up an enormous and amazingly good piece of strawberry rhubarb pie).

Pie a la mode

Steps:

  1. Start counting (ugh) Weight Watchers points again. I never did pony up the cash to re-join so that I could learn the new Points Plus system, so either I rejoin (joining fee is no longer being waived, of course) or use the old system as best as I can remember it from 4 years ago. UPDATE: Just saw an ad in the WW magazine that starting 8/28 they will be waiving that $29.95  joining fee again (for Weight Watchers Online, at least)…guess I got a week’s reprieve!
  2. Go back to getting up early and walking for 30 minutes every morning (maybe I’ll wait till after my vacation to start this one, since I’ll already be up early every day at 5:45AM when school resumes August 30). I stopped doing this after a particularly vicious horse fly attack.
  3. Stop wearing my cupcake necklace for a while . Hmmmm…I wonder if they make a carrot stick necklace?? Just in case there’s something to “the power of suggestion”.
  4. Drink more water, yada yada.

Note: It’s going to be a bumpy road; I still have 2/3 1/3 of that pie left.

The day I ate whatever I wanted: Part 2 B (the day of)

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, fitness, Life in the cube, local fun, Midlife Crisis, restaurants, yoga
Chocolate Croissant from Standard Baking Co.

My friend Susan told me to have a: “Happy Birthday!!! Enjoy the whole day and do what YOU want!!”

My response: “Well, since I’m working it will be hard to DO whatever I want, but instead I’m going to EAT whatever I want!”

🙂

So here goes: Day 2B of “The day I ate whatever I wanted”…I’m starting to fear that this is a slippery slope…better reign it in after today. This is what I did on the actual day.

I decided not to go to the gym so that I could sleep an extra hour. Good decision. I decided not to do any laundry and not to stop to gas up the car. Those things could wait. My mantra for the day: “If it’s not ‘all about me’, I’m not doing it.”

Breakfast: Decided to wait until I got to Portland then sprinted over to the Standard Baking Company (no website, unbelievably) to get a chocolate croissant. Monument Square was packed with dressed up, suited up people at 8am; usually it’s a ghost town on the weekend at that hour. I heard there was some sort of a convention going on which almost made me late for work (reference: “sprinted” to the bakery!).

Note: Around noon I started rethinking the whole shorts thing;  may not have been the best idea…it barely made it out of the 50’s in Portland.

I continued to go where the whim took me. I didn’t follow any plan at all. I had two days to celebrate: the day before my birthday with my husband (which was awesome), and the birthday itself, which was kind of the icing on the (cup)cake after Friday.

For lunch, Micucci’s Pizza was a no-brainer. I was in luck too; they were just putting out the slabs of pizza when I ran up the stairs and grabbed one out from under the noses of the slower people assembling boxes to my right. When I ran down to pay I got to say “Hi” to the baker, Stephen Lanzalotta (author of  The Diet Code), who was just putting out the fresh cannoli…I resisted, since I had a piece of tiramisu from my son and a chocolate coconut cupcake from Two Fat Cats waiting for me for later on. A colleague at work, Laurie, handed me a chocolate shortbread cookie chaser after lunch, which enabled me to save the cupcake for later.

🙂

Had to miss my regular yoga class (with Kristen of Windsong Yoga)  in the morning so I was thrilled when a colleague Mary Ann said “Hey, want to do this yoga dvd with me at 2:00PM?”  I just happened to have my mat in the trunk, so that’s what we did.

To balance it all out, I ate half the Micucci’s slab for lunch then had the other half with a salad (with greens from the garden) for supper, followed by the cupcake and my favorite  (which is unfortunately seasonal) Keurig coffee that I saved from Christmas: Spicy Eggnog.

When I got home from work at 8:30PM I had a surprise waiting for me: gifts from the kids:

  1. An adapter that allows me to play my MP3 in the car from my son Anthony that I’ve been wanting forever and
  2. A handmade card with 3 dark chocolate covered cherries from my daughter Izzy.

What can I say? My kids know what I like. 🙂 My husband gave me my gift The Day Prior, but actually started it last fall. He got all of the raised beds ready for my fruit and vegetable gardens (not to mention most of the actual planting and watering thereof), and he bought many more lilac bushes for me (my favorite flower) and scattered them around the yard.  He knows what I like too. :D.

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This was the best birthday week ever.

Spring garden, part 1: the herbs

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, fitness, gardening, health
Chives

In honor of National Herb Week (first week of May) we’re starting to get our herb garden into shape for this year. A quick tour of the raised bed revealed a nice surprise: some of last years perennial herbs have greened up already and are looking pretty edible.

The first ones I noticed were the chives. As Stephen King says in the story “A Good Marriage” in his book Full Dark, No Stars, they are “upright and sniffin’ the air”. 🙂 Makes you want to cook something, doesn’t it?

The lemon thyme is just as beautiful, but currently is pretty flush with the ground so is not as readily visible. One of the prettiest plants in there right now is the lamb’s ears. Just one is up right now…so my husband asked me if it could hear me okay since it had only one ear…ha ha.

There were a few varieties of strawberries tucked in there last year, and I can see they are starting to send out some shoots; more shoots means more strawberries for me. Yay!

I’ve already got my annual rosemary plant waiting to go into the garden, but it’s not looking too healthy (as of this writing) so I’m hoping she hangs in there for a few more weeks on the kitchen counter.

Any of you have herb gardens? What are you growing this year?

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Addendum: Rosemary is dead. Oh well. Off to buy a new one!

Write it down, make it happen

by Karen, posted in books, Date night, family, fitness, health, Life in the cube, Midlife Crisis, no fear, Someone's gotta say it, tweens, writing, yoga

Okay, it’s a book (not mine!) title. It occurred to me to apply the philosophy of: “If you build it, they will come” espoused by James Earl Jones and put into force by Kevin Costner in the Field of Dreams movie which coincidently (?!) contained a female lead character named “Karen” (not sure how she spelled it!) played by Amy Madigan.

I decided to build my perfect work day.

  1. Get up–not too early.
  2. Get some exercise. I like Stephen King’s idea from his book On Writing where he would take writing breaks and jump on the treadmill that was next to his writing desk (if memory serves). A little bit of yoga couldn’t hurt…
  3. Get some coffee–oh wait! That should be first!
  4. Get some breakfast (ABO…or “Anything But Oatmeal” :)).
  5. Write until noonish.
  6. Get some lunch.
  7. Check email, blogs, FB (you know, all the usual time-sucking suspects) etc.
  8. Read until 4pm. This is when I get to make a small dent in my pile of books, magazines that I am dying to read but have no time to.
  9. Get some more exercise…go for a walk? At the beach! Look for sea glass, sand dollars, unusual rocks and shells. Sigh. Life is Good.
  10. Watch DVD’s or preferred TV series of the moment (The Good Wife, Survivor, Breaking Bad) with my husband.

What does a perfect day for you look like? Quick! Go right it down; then maybe you can figure out a way to make it happen! 🙂

Clearing Clutter for Clarity, continued

by Karen, posted in fitness, Midlife Crisis

I have unsubscribed from many of the automatic emails that I’ve been getting. You know, the ones from stores that promise to send you exclusive coupons if you sign up? Well, what I’ve found that (for me)  what that leads to is the clutter of the (nearly daily) emails from them in my inbox, which I have to read and then make decisions about. Usually, there will actually be a coupon that looks pretty good to me, sparking that well-worn refrain in my mind of “Hey, I might need that!” which leads me to print it out.

Seems harmless enough, right?  But now that coupon will be added to the glut of other coupons that I already have stuffed in my pocket-book: more physical clutter. Then, I will carry it around for a long time, usually for so long that I forget that I have it. If I should happen to recall it when I am at the store (which rarely happens; I’m much more likely to recall after I’ve left the store), the there are so many other coupons in there that I am unable to locate it in a timely manner.

Is it in my wallet? Is it in the special coupon holder that I keep to file these things in an organized way so that I can find them quickly (like, when there is a long line of unsympathetic shoppers waiting behind me)? Is it stuck in the front zipper compartment of my bag? Could I have left it in the car? At that point, I”ll usually give up, shrug, and just pay full price. And then when I get home, there it is (of course): right there on the kitchen island where I left it, where I’d be sure to see it before I left the house.

So today, I’m exercising my will power by not cutting out any coupons from the Sunday paper. Hey, at least I’m doing some sort of exercising today!

At least it’s not too strenuous.

🙂

Pause and reflect

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, fitness, friends, health, local fun, Midlife Crisis, Someone's gotta say it

Spring has sprung me–and as they say, better late than never. My cocoon of too much food and too little exercise has cracked open. What I’ve learned this winter is this: the more I eat, the more I want to eat, and the less I exercise, the less I want to exercise.

My wake up call? Well, that’s just it; it hasn’t been just one thing.  I had 4 this week:

  1. My husband said that the way I can always be go-go-going and doing so much and having so much energy have so many projects going was something he loved about me when he first met me. Now? Not so much.
  2. My yoga teacher said: “Are your pants on backwards? That little white triangle thing is usually in the front, isn’t it? Well, it’s on your butt right now!”
  3. Those shorts that were loose last spring have not one iota of extra room in them now. Not. One. Iota.
  4. When I unexpectedly had some unstructured time, there were so many things I wanted to do that I wasted some of the time because I couldn’t decide what to do!

I decided first to pause and reflect…this lasted about 30 seconds. Through my indecision I was conscious enough to note that it was 61 degrees out and sunny, and the huge snow banks had (finally! finally!) melted so that it was safe to walk my neighborhood streets again (read: drivers could see me). Before I did what I do best–that is, talk myself out of exercising, I grabbed my jacket, shoes and keys and headed out.

When I got back, I realized that it was time to eat something…not because it was suppertime (although it was: 5:10PM), but because I was really hungry. Usually I have others to cook for and feed, but tonight it was all up to me; I had only myself to please~”Party for one!” as my friend Denise would say.  I had a greek yogurt doctored up with frozen blueberries, flax meal, and cinnamon and a big cup of ice water. After I finished, I checked in: yep, still hungry. I slathered a slice of my homemade bread with almond butter and honey. Yum!

Then I wrote this blog post. I wrote a book review. I made and froze some lentil soup for work lunches this week. I edited several pages of  my book.

Sometimes by pausing, you get more done than if you just pushed full steam ahead.

P.S. This is my 200th post!!!! Yay!!!!

Kennebunk Winterfest with tweens

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, fitness, friends, local fun, restaurants, tweens

The Kennebunk 2011 Winterfest was yesterday in (you guessed it) Kennebunk, Maine. It was great that it wasn’t February 25th, since we got (yet another unwelcome) snowstorm. It was fun, but would have been more so if it had been about 10 degrees warmer (I’m just sayin’).

It kicked off with a pancake breakfast at Duffy’s for $5.99 per person (the money went towards supporting the Winterfest event) which included a drink and 2 enormous pancakes. I didn’t photograph them because they weren’t anything special…they were too big, too thick, too pale, too insubstantial…a disappointment really. When we were leaving I saw some smaller, thinner, better browned pancakes coming out of the kitchen, but it was too late for us. I mentioned to the server that maybe the kid portions should have been one pancake if they were going to make them that ginormous; maybe they listened? It was also a little bit disconcerting that the food arrived so quickly. In one case, I saw people’s pancakes arrive after they had barely sat down and they hadn’t even gotten their drinks. I also felt like they were rushing to get us out, but wasn’t sure why.

Next year, I will go to Perfecto’s Caffe on Main Street in Kennebunk for breakfast instead.

Then next stop was the Kennebunk Town Hall where a craft show was held from 9am-2pm. There was a big crowd here (even Elvis made an appearance!)  Dory’s Dogs was there making Nutella and Banana Crepes to die for. I took a bite and died right there. They were amazing. I couldn’t get a picture because my hands were covered with Nutella…I wasn’t worthy.

The kids had the option of making some glass bead projects, but those were not cheap. The key rings were the least expensive project at $3, then there were earrings, bracelets, and other projects, some costing as much as $15. The two women running the craft were awesome: funny, patient, helpful. The kids loved it.

Next: the scavenger hunt. They were given “clue bags” and had to go around to area businesses to get the different parts of the snowman and then assemble it at the end to get the chance to win a DQ  or a toy store gift certificate (we’re still waiting for the call that we won…). This is where it would have been very helpful if it was a) warmer…it was in the low 20’s) and b) did not span the construction zone at the bridge or c) include the Mail It Unlimited Store that was way out of the way from the general location of all of the other participating stores. There was a shuttle, but there were supposed to be two (if found out later that one broke down). The one that was running was never at a stop when we needed it, and it was so cold that it was better to keep moving.

After some compromising (that involved driving to the last two stops that were past the construction area) we finished the hunt and headed for the Soup Contest. This was awesome. You paid your $3 and then sampled coups from 18 different pots and then voted for your favorite. It was tough; some of them were excellent, but some were decidedly not. After telling them that they should have had separate categories for cream soups and broth soups, I picked the Farmer’s Chicken Soup to win, and Izzy picked the Hot Sour Soup to win. My runner-up was the Roasted Chestnut with Sage and Creme Fraiche. This year, they didn’t disclose which local business made which soups (as they had done last year) so we were voting blind.

Overall, it was a great day: good food (except for the pancakes), good exercise to work it off, good fun with tweens.

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