A fairytale in which I talk about myself in third person.

Once upon a time, there was a woman on a mission to lose a little weight and fit into her favorite black dress. She joined Weight Watchers and started off strong, losing 5 lbs and feeling good about it. Then, a disaster happened. Not a figurative disaster, but a real and true natural one that overflowed a river in a major American city and caused destruction across several states. The woman suddenly had to travel to a sort-of-faraway land (it felt farther away because people said “y’all” a lot) and help people recover from a flood. It was exciting because she’d always wanted to go and help, but it was a little bit scary at first. What would she see? Would she know what to do? Would she have to sleep on a cot? Would she be forced to eat weird things? To ease this anxiety, she decided on the flight there to cease Weight Watchers during her deployment and to just try and stay healthy. It was an amazing experience in every way. She met many wonderfully patient and funny and compassionate people who were either helping or being helped. And she stayed in a nice hotel and got to eat a lot of good Southern food. And though sniffles and sneezes surrounded her, she stayed germ-free. By the time she came back two weeks later, she had gained back all 5 of those lbs. She didn’t care. She went out and bought a sexy size 10 Calvin Klein dress at the Rack to wear to a wedding mere days after her return. She felt good and gave herself some time to process what she had seen and done and to spend lots of time on the couch snuggling with her lovely boyfriend. Then, finally, today, she went to the grocery store and filled her house with veggies and tiny pieces of chocolate and other yummy things. We’ll see, dear readers, if that 5 lbs survives for long without being banished to its evil fat-ass kingdom forever. The end.

A Closet Divided

Do you know women who get stressed out and lose weight? I’m not jealous of them. But I’m certainly not one of them.

I should have known how much this time of year sucks for accomplishing anything in my personal life. First of all, it’s been busy as hell at work (with a beautiful beast of a fundraiser that is a huge success and a giant time suck). And not to talk about the weather, but the wintry discontent zone between my birthday and now is when I tend to get a little, well, depressed. Every dip below 40 degrees yanks on my patience for sunshine and makes me want to hide beneath the covers. Like, all day hiding. Or, it makes me want to snuggle on the couch for 3 hours on end with boyfriend. That’s a way happier pursuit, but not an active one.

Needless to say, not much progress on the exercising front.

I flipped my closet today, stuffing the sweaters into boxes and bringing out the summer dresses and tank tops. Ugh. Most of them don’t fit. Not that I tried them on, I didn’t need to. At the end of last summer most of my clothes had gotten a little snug, so I just put them in the box and figured I’d deal with it in the spring. Well, here it is, and I’m not any smaller. Or healthier, which I guess is the real issue.

My mother would admit to you that her closet is divided into “skinny” and “not so skinny” clothes. This used to seem extreme to me, but now I know all about the fluctuating wardrobe. And I’m kind of pissed about it. I don’t want to have two (or three) sets of clothes. I love clothes, and I want to wear the cute ones, not the giant black pants that tent my ass beyond recognition but are acceptable for work.

Maybe I should stop complaining and go for a walk? Noted.

So I pulled out one particular black cocktail dress and put it on the wall. It doesn’t look like much just hanging there, but when I could squeeze into it, the results were pretty damn hot. I bought that dress in Spain, and I remember my friend Susan helping me barely eek the side zipper up my side. Perfect.

How long is it going to take me to get back into it? Not sure. But having it there is a reminder that half of my clothes are waiting for me to get my ass in gear.

Do you succumb to the skinny/not-so-skinny wardrobe?

Shamrock shake for lunch

And a healthy dinner. Probably.
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Jillian scares me

Here goes nothing. I can do anything for 20 minutes, right?
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Playing with posterous

Starbucks is not part of my healthy living plan. But it is helping my sanity.
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The Wagon

So I'm back in Chitown from a work/fun trip to Dallas. We stayed at a conference center where the rooms were pretty tiny (think cruise ship size) but the food was delicious and the buffet was open. Needless to say, I fell of the wagon. Hard. Into a pile of chocolate cake, pork tenderloin, margaritas and frozen yogurt. But I feel good--even if I piled on the calories, my body was ready to get back into the exercise groove. I went to yoga last night and felt rather smug about how deep I was sinking into my lunges and how very balanced I was. Not how you're supposed to feel in yoga, but whatever. I can save my centering and personal challenges for another day.

I promise to get one of those interviews up this week. Also, I'm having trouble commenting on your comments from my house, so I'll be doing that on lunchbreaks. Thanks for all your cheers and hellos! More soon.

Chitty Chitty Bangin' Bod

Bangin’ Body

After procrastinating about my resolution to try one of the scary cardio, non-yoga classes, finally today I went through with it. Left work a little early because my workout pants had somehow escaped my giant zebra purse/gymbag, and though I contemplated what might happen if I showed up to workout in just tights and a t-shirt, decided against it.

Did you hear it snowed in Chicago? Well it did. Kind of a lot. Not like the snow they get in DC, but enough that I was burning calories hustling through the muck on the 20 minute walk to the gym. And I was still late to a class entitled Bangin’ Body. Because who doesn’t want that, right?

The room was packed with girls in ponytails and their yogamats and bosu balls (thos half orbs of bounciness, really why weren’t these around when I was a kid?). Right away I noticed the teacher—a six foot tall Barbie in a hot pink tank top, perfect makeup and a flawlessly thin body. As I gaped at her and realized there were none of the magical bosu balls left, and for a second thought I’d gotten out of this. “Is the class full?” I asked her. “It’s crowded but we’ll make room” she told me. A girl pointed to a sliver of a spot front and center. Awesome. Same nice girl suggested maybe I grab a regular exercise ball to do sit-ups. Ok. Ready.

Holy bounciness, people. I do the elliptical, I do yoga. Sometimes I run after the Damen bus. But this woman immediately had us kicking and leaping and doing all sorts of things and I immediately realized that I wasn’t, uh, getting enough support. In the girl region. I found myself half clutching my boobs half running while I followed along. Soon enough I’d hurt too much to care about this anymore.

Lots of reps. I only have a set of 2 lb weights and 5lb weights. I’m goldilocks without the right chair, it’s just not working. the 2s make me look wimpy and the 5s make me want to die. I start to feel nauseated. Just when things are getting terrifying, nice girl gets nicer. Barbie asks everyone to start stepping up and down on the bosu ball (which I don’t have(, and this friendly neighbor offers to share. So not only do I run the risk of knocking noggins with her or falling over…I have to keep up with her. She steps up, I step up. Whoa. Is that my heart exploding? No. It’s not going to explode.

I can’t do everything yet. For whatever reason ab moves are particularly excruciating. It’s clearly amature time up here. But I made it. And at the end of the class, the nice girl asks if this was my first time in the class. Claro que sî, lady. She smiles and tells me to come back, it gets easier. I tell her I will.

There’s a difference between being determined and being committed. I’m not feeling a ton of determination right now. But I’m committed to this. And it helps that I’ve lost at least 4 lbs already. A pound per blog post? You'll be hearing from me more.

So, to stop the navel-gazing here, I want to interview some friends about how they’re being healthy, and how they’re not, and tell their stories here. Stay tuned. And let me know if you're interested.