And what have you done?

I really hate that John Lennon Christmas song. "And so this is Christmas and what have you done? Another year over and a new one just begun." Makes me feel like I've accomplished nothing! As usual. But as Ben Davis reminds us, it's striving for perfection that makes us great.

I've been beating myself up a bit for still being a disorganized mess and for letting my running slip, but you know what? A year ago, I didn't even run. At all. A year ago, I didn't roller skate. A year ago, I was getting over a long illness. A year ago, I only had one niece. In the past year, I've found a love for roller derby, reconnected with some great friends and made new ones.

2011 has been a pretty good year.

For 2012, I recommit to this blog. I will try to get a handle on this organization business. I'll add more workouts to my week, starting with the roller derby workout challenge. I'll try not to neglect my husband and dogs (too much). And I'll try to clean up my eating. Oh yeah, and maybe find some time for writing.

Ready to lace up your skates?

Shoemaker's kids and writer's blogs

I'll get back into this. Promise to myself.

Progress report: XBX

Day 3 of XBX. I'm on Chart One, Level 2. There's 4 charts and 48 levels. For my age group, the goal is Chart 3, Level 26.  Will I push past my goal? I don't know. But it would take me until mid-September to do it if I kept up with daily exercise.

Today, I had help from both dogs. It adds extra work. Chloe, the crazy lab mix, was sleeping peacefully. So I took my chance to work out undisturbed. Buster, the old guy, came wiggling over, gave me a couple of pokes while I was lying on the floor. That didn't get the expected response, so he poked the sleeping dog. She can go from dead sleep to full riot in a micro-second. So a dog rumble interrupted the sit-ups portion of the workout. Instead, I got to wave my arms and yell. Does that count?

I also got up at a decent time and made hot cereal for breakfast. Early rising and cooking don't mix. I put pepper in the cereal. Spicy. It took a bit for me to figure out why my hot cereal smelled like pepper, but I was able to put it together enough to scoop the pepper out and put lots of pumpkin pie spice in to mask it. I tried Sunny Boy cereal. It's like a kinder, gentler Red River cereal. And full of fibre.

My other challenge is to get to work earlier so I can leave earlier. Today, I managed to make breakfast, workout, walk the dogs, select a reasonably good-looking outfit and get to work early! Victory in our time.

However, I didn't pack lunch and ended up with repulsive egg salad sandwich from the caf at work. The bagel was stale and the toppings kept sliding off. I broke the pop ban too. Ah well. Can't win them all.

Blog I love: Already Pretty

I love this blog: Already Pretty.

Sally McGraw, the author, is a "blogger, freelance journalist, communications professional, style and body-image expert." Her posts are not only full of beautiful clothes, but her wonderfully sane advice about body-image. It's a fashion site that inspires rather than depresses. She celebrates wearing what flatters you, what expresses your personality and what makes you happy. She encourages readers to take pleasure in their bodies.

A recent post, Change Your Style, Change Your Life, talks about how small changes, like a new style of shoe, can be a beginning to more profound changes in your life. As Sally writes:

After years of attempting to change my body through crash diets, I finally realized that my body was what it was and I might as well work with it. My exploration of personal style made me more aware of my body and my health, showed me that there isn’t a single type of gorgeous body, provided me with a previously untapped outlet for artistic and creative expression, led me to blog which rekindled my love of writing, introduced me to a huge new world of stylistic thinkers and influencers, provided me with several new streams of income, unlocked untold amounts of personal confidence, and connected me to YOU.

In the past, I didn't change for me, I changed for others. When I was in my teens, I saw diet and exercise as a way to make my body more acceptable. Happiness was thinness. But even when I was thin and fit, I couldn't enjoy it. I felt incomplete. Now, I wish I could shake that kid who could bike for hours and who had tight abs and tell her, "Enjoy it! In a few years, your body will start betraying you. You will feel pain that you can't imagine. Fatigue that you never thought possible. You are healthy and beautiful." Hindsight is 20-20. I was into fashion then, but again, it was about making myself palatable to other people, not to celebrate how dressing well made me feel.

Now, I'm coming to eating right, exercising and dressing well from a different place. I want my body to be  strong because I need the strength to fight. I want to eat right because I feel good when I do. If my pants get looser, well, that's a side benefit.  I only want to lose weight to take a burden off my joints, heart and lungs. And I'm having fun with clothes. It's a way to express myself creatively.

Already Pretty came along at a great time for me. I can't even remember how I found it, but it's the main blog I read. Sal has created a snark-free oasis in a world that gets a little snarkier every day.  I'll still read my celebrity gossip, but I'm more reflective about the destructive messages I see online every day.

Back to XBX and my co-pilot

Last time I tried XBX, I really screwed it up. Instead of doing the required number of repetitions in 2 minutes, I did as many reps as I possibly could in 2 minutes! No wonder I couldn't walk. The number of reps in the lower levels are really, really low. But that makes sense because the program's designed to ease you in.

I also had help. Here's my gym partner.

Chloe actually tried to contain herself, but by the time I got to the end where you run in place and hop, she couldn't take it anymore. Her little brain exploded. Movement! On the floor! Jumping! So I followed up by wrestling with her for a little bit.

She also helped me re-organize my kitchen cupboards.

A couple summers ago, I tried a gluten-free diet to see if that helped with symptoms from my chronic illness. Not so much and the diet itself is a real pain in the ass. People who must follow this diet have my respect and sympathy. As part of the diet, I had bought different types of flours for making bread. These bins were just taking up space in my hutch. So I dumped them out. Chloe thought that was great. All the flour made a tasty dust in the air.

Later, she helped me with all my bags from the Bulk Barn. I've been lax about labelling things as I buy them there. So I had mysterious bags and jars of powders and seeds. Most I ended up throwing out. Some I poured into jars. Chloe cleaned up any spills. She likes dry red lentils and various spices.

Today's plan: keep going on the kitchen reorganization and keep up the XBX.

Holy roller

 Went roller skating for the first time in many years. The boots were these horrible, dirt-brown things with tattered work boot laces. Tasty. I really tried not to think about the legions of feet that had slipped into those before. The rink was littered with kids, which added obstacles, I guess. A good workout though.

One of the girls from my stitch n bitch is in derby and she invited me out. Yeah, I want to do this. I think fitness is easier when there's a purpose. And I mean a purpose beyond getting a bikini body.

Cold turkey coke zero

Apparently, diet pop causes strokes. So that's out. Probably for the best since I was up to a full bottle of Coke Zero a day. And regular pop has, I don't know, 12 teaspoons of sugar. Imagine mixing that with water! Yeah, so no pop.

Changing scope

I've been thinking about this for awhile. I don't want to just exercise and eat right, I also want to shape up other parts of my life. I procrastinate, a lot. It really interferes with getting things done. And it influences all parts of my life. So, I'd like to work on that. And I want to be neater. I'm so messy, it's embarrassing. How can a grown person live like this? And then there's finishing at least some of the projects I start. Like a book or a novel or a scarf.

 So in this blog, I'm going to write about these challenges. And I'll include pictures. Maybe the Hawthorne Effect will take over and I'll behave well because I'm being watched. Do you need readers for this to work?

As for XBX, I'll get back on that horse tomorrow!  It was 2 weeks before I could walk normally. And why did that happen? Because I didn't read the damn instructions!

XBX kicked my ass

I'm a slug. I did day one of XBX yesterday. Felt pretty easy. Woke up this morning with hamstrings so tight, I can hardly move my legs.


So even though I should do it daily, I'm not doing it today.

My program of choice

So, how am I getting fit?

To this point, I've been a bit of an exercise equipment hoarder. I'm one of those people. The hope-springs-eternal-if-only-I-had-the-right-equipment-I'd-be-fit-people. Or I fall back to my tried and true program of hand weights and a whole lot of dog walking. Which has worked in the past, but I clearly need something I can stick to.

Then I saw this on Slate. Sarah Wildman describes watching her dad follow JP Muller's program. This is a century old fitness program that will look very familiar to anyone who had a gym teacher that loved a good old-fashioned round of calisthenics. Wildman's video of her father is pretty compelling evidence.

I'm not using this program. It reminded me, though, of the calisthenics my grandfather did every day. And he was quite fit into his 70s.

From my grandfather, my mind jumped to my aunt. When I was little, my aunt worked out according to the Royal Canadian Air Force program. For men, this is the 5BX or five basic exercises program. Wikipedia has an article about it, of course. I remembered that my aunt was very fit then.

I found the women's program called XBX. You might get lucky and find a copy at a used bookstore. But there's various versions online.

There's 10 exercises. You progress through 4 levels following charts. The charts lay out how many days you spend at each level. Apparently, it should take only 12 minutes a day.

I'll begin tomorrow at the easiest level and give a full report on my daily progress.

How opening a jar opened my eyes

First post and I'm not exercising yet. That will come. And like the true procrastinator I am, I say that will come tomorrow.

First, I wanted to talk about how I got here. I opened a jar. Of peanut butter. Last week, I took a jar of peanut butter out of my suitcase (I'd been in another city and taken the pb on the plane with me). I tried to open the jar. It resisted. I insisted. Finally, I had to get a knife out and pry the lid. And there was a distinct sucking noise. The jar had vacuum sealed on the plane.

I sprained my wrist opening a jar.

I need to get fit. I'm only 32 and I sprained my g.d. wrist opening a jar.