Tag: 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.

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 A (the day prior)

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, friends, Life in the cube

Since my actual birthday fell on a day I had to work (and I had no way to get out of it!), my husband and I celebrated the day prior.  The weather forecast called for a bleak, cold, rainy day. Does the weather influence what you eat? It certainly does me, so I had made a pretty extensive list of ideas for meals  (as well as where to go for them!) and decided to see how the day actually turned out weather-wise before making any definite plans.

Well, the weather forecast was (as usual!) completely wrong. It was warm, sunny, beautiful. A day for eating outside, moving around, enjoying the sun. Based on that, here’s what we did.

First, split a bagel with peanut butter (him), almond butter (me), and honey. Went to gym. Ugh. Glad to get that out of the way. Similarly, got a few chores done (laundry, food shopping) so we had the rest of the day for ourselves.

For once, I had a coupon to use when I wanted to use it: we split a large coffee coolata with whipped cream from Dunkin Donuts. Next we went plant shopping for the vegetable garden.  We stopped at Riverside  in North Berwick and Gray’s in Wells. We bought some tomato plants, zucchini, summer squash, eggplant, watermelon, peppers.

With lunch in mind, we headed down Route One to Kittery. We decided to have a grazing day: stop at a bunch of places and eat a lot of food. First we went to Terra Cotta (no website) in Kittery. Everything there always looks so good that it’s hard to choose what to order…we settled on a Meatball and Ricotta Stromboli and a pasta salad, with one triple chocolate chunk cookie for dessert and ate it outside on their little patio.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Next we looped back on Route One to Bob’s Clam Hut for fried clams. We briefly considered whether or not to order them crunchy or Bob’s way with a softer batter. We agreed on crunchy and it was a great decision.  Then we took the long way back along the coast to see the ocean (sigh; love the ocean).

Then we went to When Pigs Fly to buy a loaf of brown sugar cinnamon bread which we had a hunk of for an afternoon snack with some coffee.  Almost as good as my own bread. 🙂

Then home to get the seedlings in the ground. For supper, we decided to go to Big Daddy’s (no website) in Wells and have ice cream cones. I got what I always get, Kahlua Fudge Brownie, and it was as good as it always is. Bill got Coconut and Izzy got Maine Blueberry (in a wafer cone) and we switched cones periodically so we all got to try all 3 flavors.

Ice cream cones: they’re not just for breakfast anymore…

🙂

One of the Best Christmases ever

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, family, Holidays, italian, quest for the best, tweens
Our tree!

I originally thought that this would be one of the worst Christmases ever.  It had three strikes against it before it even started:

  1. I had to work late and wouldn’t get home until 8:20PM Christmas Eve.
  2. My husband had to work early Christmas Day, leaving at 5:10 AM, and would be gone the entire day and night.
  3. My son had to work Christmas Day as well. He was home in the morning, which was nice, but then couldn’t come with us to have dinner with relatives.

We tried to make the best of it. The kids each opened a couple of gifts with Dad on Christmas Eve while I listened in from work over the phone. My husband and I had a little time to exchange our gifts Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning, after Bill went to work, I stayed up and baked some bread and then put our traditional Christmas morning breakfast (cinnamon buns) into the oven. We opened up the gifts, then got ready for our (mostly separate) day.

We stopped to see Grammy and Papa before heading to my brother’s house for Christmas dinner…which may well have been one of the Best Christmas Dinners of all time. We played Wii games between dinner and dessert, rationalizing that we’d have more room for tiramisu (was that wrong?).

Then we brought some dinner to my son and his girlfriend Lauren at work. Unfortunately, we didn’t get there until 6:30PM…oh well. The food was worth the wait! My sister-in-law Andrea is an excellent cook!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Conscious eating (WF&G week 2)

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, books, education, family, health

There I was,  in week 2. Here is what I’ve learned:  conscious eating is hard. Applying those 7 principles is hard.

 Regarding principle #3:  It is very hard to not do another blessed thing when you are eating, ever. Plus, I totally miss reading while I’m eating if I am eating alone. Regarding principle #2:  It also is hard for me to always sit down while eating. I sit down for 10 hours (plus commuting time) every day that I go to work, so I always stand while I am eating on my lunch breaks.  Regarding principle #4: It’s not always possible to tell if it’s my body or my mind that wants the tiramisu.

I know now why author Geneen Roth gives workshops about how to eat consciously: I’m guessing that few, if any, people would stick with it if they didn’t have the structure imposed upon them by another (structure that they had to pay for; money motivates).

I briefly entertained the idea of applying the “80/20” rule to conscious eating, but decided that it sort of demeaned it. I mean, I could have lived with it if I eliminated numbers 2, 3 and 4….

So, bottom line is this: week 2 was a bust.

do the thing you think you cannot

by Karen, posted in family, no fear

when i was invited to go indoor rock climbing by a friend, my immediate (inward) response was  “no freakin’ way!”, followed by a polite “no, thank you,” expressed outwardly.  then, one of my favorite quotes came to mind: “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.”~ Eleanor Roosevelt. i kept thinking about this quote and began thinking about the rock wall and “do the thing you cannot do” became an edict. i went. i did the thing. it was awesome. only 2 really scary moments 1.looking down from the top of the first scaled wall (they don’t say “don’t look down!” for nothing) and 2. when it’s time to come down, you let go and push away from the wall, and …dangle for a moment. really.

the bottom line? it was a blast (notice word choice is consistent with my inner 12 year old).

http://www.merockgym.com