Funny Too

Sorry about the quality of the image, but it was the best I could do. If you can't read it without your eyes buggling out, it says: Wishes - When you wish upon a star, your dreams can come true.  Unless it's really a meteor hurtling to the Earth which will destroy all life.  Then you're pretty much hosed, no matter what you wish for.  Unless it's death by meteor.

Yeah, yeah.  Meteors burn up in the atmosphere, and it's meteorites that crash, but let's not nit pick.  And don't even get me started on comets.  Seriously.  LOL

(Available for purchase - along with other fun demotivational posters - at Despair.com.)

Funny

'Nuff said.

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Happy Bunny Day!

Wherever you are and whatever you're doing... 

Have a Happy Bunny Day!

GH - Less Calories In, More Calories Out

Sorry.  I know I said the next post would be about exercise, but last night it occurred to me that I skipped a step in this whole Getting Healthy epic adventure.  Before the exercise and even before deciding what you're going to eat, you need to know how your body in particular works so you can do this more efficiently.  That was the first step in my adventure.

Last year when I was still trying to lose weight by eating less and sitting on my butt, I found this awesome site: Calorie Count at About.com.  They have a tremendous food database where you can find out the nutritional value of just about any food.  They also have a great section where you can figure out how many calories you burn doing just about anything - including chores.  I just hadn't put the two things together to work toward my success.

After I signed up, I got this awesome 'home page' where it showed me how many calories I burn just every day by just existing.  Sedentary me, at my starting weight, burns about 1800 calories a day.  1800 calories a day just lying around breathing.  Add in a little exercise, and I burn 200 more calories.  It wasn't until this past January that the little light went off over my head.  I really do have to exercise if I want to lose weight.

Huzzah.

Anyway, if you're putting together a plan to get healthier and losing weight is a part of that, you really need to know where you are when you start and where you need to be to reach your goal.  My goal?  To reach 140 pounds.  According to the personalized goal thingie, if I eat around 1500 calories a day and continue with light exercise, I should be 140 by mid-September.  :shrug:  Works for me.

Less calories in, more calories out.  According to everything I've read - from health professionals - that's the best way to lose weight and keep it off.  And as anyone who's tried dieting knows, keeping it off is the hardest part.

Now, you might think to yourself - "I can't wait that long.  Swimsuit season is coming up."  Well... Sorry.  I look like I'm pregnant in a bathing suit (my niece's baby-bump is smaller than my belly and she's due in July), and I guess this summer isn't going to be any different.  I used to have an hourglass figure, and now it's like my hourglass had angioplasty.  :sigh:  I'd like to fit back into that velvet sheath dress I have without looking like a snake after a large meal - if ya know what I mean.


Sorry to tell you (and almost as sorry to hear it myself), there's no quick way to health.  Sure, you could eat next to nothing, exercise like a freak, and drop the pounds - but they'll come slithering back.  And if you're really unlucky, you'll shoot right past your original weight toward a new high in poundage.  None of us wants that.  Eat less than you burn - but keep it safe.  For us gals, that means eating more than 1200 calories a day.  Personally, I've been trying to keep my intake between 1300-1400 a day and no more than 1500 on a oops day.

Eight pounds lighter as of this morning.  That's since the beginning of the year, but slow and steady does win the race.

Next up on the GH schedule, Exercise.  (Really.  I mean it this time.)

Disclaimer: I am not a health professional.  I don't do this for a living.  I don't have any medical training or experience - except what life has made me experience and what I've learned from being around the dieting world for... god, 27 years now.  (When my older sister first started dieting.)  I'm just talking and passing along what seems to be working for me - at this point in my life.  Please check with a health professional before starting any rigorous diet program.  Knowledge is power.  Get powerful and then get healthy.

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Weekly Update

Sorry I took so long writing a more positive post.  I didn't spend the whole day steaming.  I didn't even spend the whole morning steaming.  Get it out and then let it go - that's my motto.  (Not that it doesn't irritate me anew every time I look at it.  Hubby bent it back, but it's still squonky.)  Plus, I called Mom.  No matter how bad my mood is, she always seems to cajole me out of it - without even trying.  Almost 40, and yes, I still need my mom.  Always will.  ;o)

Anyway, it's been a slow week for the most part.  After I finished the last round of edits, I took the week off...  Well, kinda.  The day after I finished, I started working on the plot for a sequel.  I made myself put that down, though.  I'm still not quite ready to be back in that world.  Instead, I started work on an old idea.  I started this one last year... or maybe the year before...  (after a while, they all blur together).  A few weeks ago I had an epiphany about this project and now I'm ready to hit it with guns ablazin'. 

You see, I was trying to write this idea as a YA and I was having problems getting into the head of a teenage girl.  Hard to believe since I spend most of my time with one.  LOL  Once I shifted the age of the MC, the plot started to fall into place.  Yesterday I broke my word about taking a week off and started plotting for this.  For those of you who've been around a while, you may remember seeing a word-meter called EQ.  Well, that's the one and I'm getting excited about the story again.  Yay me.

So, it's back into the speculative fiction fray again.  I loved writing the paranormal - DLN - and I can't wait to play in that world some more, but I think my real first love is in speculative.  Maybe one will sell and start a stampede for the others.  Time will tell.  Until then, I'll just keep writing.

Other than that, I've read a few books this week.  I just finished the last book from my Whatcha Readin'? post.  I still have one book left in my TBR pile, but it's an epic fantasy and I'm just not in the mood.  Maybe I'll hit a couple Erle Stanley Gardner mysteries or pick up an old Piers Anthony.  Heh, I could even go totally weird and read a non-fiction - ya know, just for kicks.

What have you been up to lately?

And to everyone who was so supportive this morning...  Your words really helped.  Thanks, guys.

Mini-Rant

What is it inside certain people that would make them decide that instead of just walking by a car they would stop and bend the antenna sideways?  Seriously.  I suppose I should be glad that they didn't steal it again.  Instead I'm just irritated that I now have a bent antenna.  They probably bent it because they couldn't steal it.  (I had the guys at the car parts place install it really really tight this time.)  :steam:

I'll be back later with a better post.  I just felt the need to vent, and since no one out there seems to care (lord knows the police have better things to do than investigate my antenna troubles), I thought I'd share with my friends in here.

We now return you to your Good Friday festivities. 

(BTW, who's bright idea was it to hold Good Friday the day after April Fools?  And no, this post isn't a belated prank.  I think the prank was my busted antenna.)

Getting Healthier - Oops, I Ate it Again

Anyone who's ever tried to eat right hasn't done it all right every single day.  Life intrudes, stuff happens, the holidays attack.  In a few days time, Easter will hit and along with it the bags of jelly beans and the chocolate bunnies and the :drool: Cadbury Eggs.  I'm guessing we're all going to fall off the 'eating healthy' wagon at least a little bit.

Which bring me around to the topic of today's post - those little 'oops' moments.  Personally, I've had a few of those just this past week alone.  Stupid me bought brownie mix a few weeks ago.  What can I say, I had a chocolate craving.  When I got home, though, I was so guilty about even buying it, it sat in the cupboard - staring at me every time I reached for the canned fruit.

This past weekend I fell off the wagon and had Daughter make the brownies, and I've been noshing on them ever since.  A good sized brownie with a cup of ice cream and a squirt of chocolate sauce is about 560 calories.  :thud:  Yeah, I know.  Bad bad bad girl.

Except you can't think of it that way.  If I start berating myself for eating a brownie, pretty soon I'll just give up on the idea of dieting altogether.  Why bother watching the rest of my food this week, since I already screwed up.  I'll just start over next week.  Right?

Wrong.  If you fall off, get right back on.  Admit you made a mistake, and do the best you can to rectify it.  Eat your brownie and relish every morsel.  Then eat a salad for dinner.  Or, if you're like me and ate the brownie after dinner, eat a big bowl of fruit for breakfast.  Don't whip yourself over your mistake - it never helps anyway.  (Like the time I sent a query but forgot to change the address from the agent I'd sent to last... I screwed up.  Stuff happens.  Get over it and move on.)

This weekend, though, isn't about 'Oops' moments.  It's a holiday.  Give yourself permission to enjoy a little more than usual.  I don't mean stuff yourself until you're uncomfortable.  But for godsakes, have a piece of pie.  No one is going to keel over if you do - including yourself.  Eating a chocolate bunny doesn't make you evil.  It doesn't even really make you bad.  If you spend your whole day worrying about every little calorie, you're not going to enjoy yourself, and then you'll regret your crappy holiday experience - which will make you feel bad.  I don't know about you, but when I feel bad, I eat.  Where's the logic in denying yourself then?

Now, having given myself permission to eat without guilt this Sunday, I'm still going to take it easy.  One piece of ham, instead of three.  A small helping of potatoes.  I'll eat more corn.  I'm even playing with the idea of making a fat-free, sugar-free dream pie.  All the flavor, almost no guilt.  And Monday, I'll be back on track.  (I'll also be exercising more to burn those extra calories.)  Oh, and with regards to the chocolate?  If I only eat a small piece once a day, that stuff should last me a whole lot longer. 

Guilt can be a great motivator.  But it can also be anti-motivating.  Don't let guilt over one mistake ruin your chance at being a healthy, happy person.  Don't be like the t-shirt (image courtesy of Zazzle - buy the t-shirt here).  Don't let overeating make you feel hollow inside.

Enjoy your holiday, everyone.  Personally, I can't wait for that ham.  I love ham... with candied pineapple... and mashed potatoes... and rolls...

Pardon me while I go inhale a cup of fruit and some rice cakes in preparation for the feast.  =o)

Next up for Getting Healthier: Exercise.  (Especially necessary after all that stuff I'm probably going to eat this weekend.)


(Sorry about the irritating Britney Spears reference, but it just seemed to work for today's post.)

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