Banded Girl

Okay, I think I’m finally caught up on comments, though I still owe a few people emails. I promise that I’ve not forgotten you!!

I’m trying to figure out how to work Bikram yoga into my schedule. Why yoga? I’ve always been interested in establishing a yoga routine; spending time meditating and stretching my body appeals to me, and it’s actually a great way to build muscle. I mean, have you seen Rodney Yee? Let me help:

This many ONLY practices yoga.

Okay, I know that building major muscle using yoga takes a lot of dedication and time. But really, so does building muscle using weights. (Rodney Yee is not a practitioner of Birkam, just so you know.)

So why Birkam? An hour and a half in a 100+ degree studio at 40% humidity honestly sounds tortuous. But I have read so many positive things from fellow bloggers about their hot yoga/Bikram practices. I’d at least like to give it a shot.

I just don’t see how I can make it happen, though. Currently, my weekday schedule looks like this (on a perfect day):

7:00 – Get ready for work
8:00 – Leave for work
9:00 – Arrive at work
5:00 – Leave for home
6:00 – Arrive home
7:00 – Dinner
9:00 – Exercise, then shower
11:00 – Bed

The latest nearby yoga studios offer classes is 6:00. The earliest? Well after I’m at work. Studios in between work and home have more diverse schedules, but higher price tags. Yoga right after work might not be a good idea, anyway, as I’m generally starving by 5:00.

There’s also Boy logistics. Our offices are close to one another, so we go to work together. What would he do for an hour and a half while I was doing yoga? He has no interest in joining me, which I completely understand. We could take two cars to work on yoga days, but that would mean that I wouldn’t be able to afford yoga because transportation costs would be higher. And most yoga studios are $150 or so a month.

Yeah. I don’t know.

Exercise has been going pretty well, though. I’m up to week .75 of C25k now and think I’ll be able to officially start week 1 on Wednesday. I’ve also been tacking on an extra half hour of walking after my C25k sessions. I’d just like to be able to do three days of yoga, three days of running each week.

How’s your exercise going?

I have some new clothes!!

I had to make a payment on my Lane Bryant credit card (hello 25% interest!!) over the weekend. When I went to the website, I noticed that they had a sale: 40% off of EVERYTHING (excluding Spanx).

Now, my bras have been too big for quite a while (you can tell in the Slimpressions video I posted in July) and I was looking forward to Labor Day sales this coming weekend so that I could maybe perhaps get a few that fit me a little better. This was my chance, and a week early!!

So I went to the nearest Lane Bryant on Sunday and asked for a tape measure.

I went from wearing a 46C before surgery to a 44B in January to a 40D now. I was swimming in the B cup, but now I need a D cup? Bra sizing is weird.

I got four of these bras. I also got two tunics (one black, one gray):

Long tunics!

and three lacy camis (one teal, one purple, one pink):

I got these to wear under the tunics.

and I ordered a pair of pants:

I haven't had khaki pants in years!

IN SIZE 14P because the 16A I tried on in the store was TOO BIG. And not just in the length sense!

SIZE 14!

All of the shirts I bought were size 14/16, which means that this may have been my last Lane Bryant purchase ever. Except for bras. I might still buy bras there.

HOLY SMOKES!

I haven’t really purchased any clothes since I was banded. I’ve bought a shirt or pair of jeans here and there, but I’ve mostly been wearing things that I had from my smaller days many years ago and really baggy shirts. Really, I’m still wearing tees that fit me pre-op.

It’s amazing how much more comfortable I am wearing a bra that fits. And, for the first time in a long time, I feel kind of cute. Kind of.

(Sorry I haven’t been blogging much lately. I was sick. I didn’t think I’d ever get better. Now I think I’m almost back to normal. Starting back on C25k tomorrow–is anyone still with me on this??)

Starting Weight: 298.2 pounds
Last Week’s Weight: 218.4 pounds
Today’s Weight: 215.2 pounds

Negative 3.2 pounds. Cool. Seven weeks to lose 15.4 pounds…

I’ve felt pretty poorly all week. Haven’t started the first “according to plan” week of Couch to 5k yet. Hopefully this weekend. How are you all doing with it?

/BG communicating in sentence fragments

That’s right. Week .5. I’m modifying the plan to suit my needs. Instead of jogging for 60 seconds, walking for 90, I’m jogging for 30 seconds, walking for 2 mins. Next week might be Week 1 or it might be Week .75, wherein I jog for 45 seconds, walk for 105. We’ll see :)

I walked at 3.3 miles per hour and jogged at 4.5 miles per hour. The pace seemed comfortable and I even went up to 4.7 MPH on the last jogging interval. I took heart when I wanted to jog for longer than 30 seconds, which happened a few times. I limited it, though. I need to ease into it!

How’s everyone else doing?

I look a lot worse than I felt.

These are my initial impressions, a mere 30 minutes after I gave up on my first day of Couch to 5k:

• This is hard.
• There’s no way I can do a half marathon in six months.
• There’s no way I can do a half marathon in six years.
• I’m going to be sick.
• I need to use my inhaler.
• I’m so tired I couldn’t spell inhaler on my own. Thanks, Spellcheck!
• Seriously? Am I going to have asthma problems?

I know, it’s really pessimistic. But that first attempt was BAD, ya’ll. BAD. I’m fairly certain that I’m going to have to repeat week one. But, on the bright side, I managed to do four of eight running sessions before I thought I was going to keel over. That’s good, right? AND, I calibrated the distance tracker on my heart rate monitor before I started the C25k workout. So I was already a little fatigued. AND I was running at 4.4 miles per hour at one point AND I sustained the pace for a minute. Should probably slow that down, actually.

Really, I know it’s okay. I just don’t feel like it’s okay. Mainly because I kind of feel like I’m gong to be sick still.

Oh, and I forgot to actually tell my heart rate monitor I was starting, so I don’t have the data for this workout. I did see that my poor little heart was going at about 160 beats per minute at one point. Whatever that means :D

This is an excellent video showing proper running form. There’s no audio:

And here are some stretches to do after you run, even if you don’t run a marathon:

Here’s the plan for the first week of Couch to 5k, taken directly from Cool Running’s C25k section:

Brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes.

Don’t forget to do a 5 minute cool down walk and to stretch when you’re done!

A few days ago, a group of us on Twitter decided to start doing Couch to 5K (C25K) next week. Do you want to join us? Here are the details!

Couch to 5K is a nine week program designed to help people who aren’t runners become runners. The program was designed by Josh Clark and has helped numerous people get on the path to running–if you’re active in any sort of weight loss community, you’ve probably at least heard of it. The complete plan can be found on Cool Running’s C25K page; I’m just going to post one week at a time so we don’t get so overwhelmed!

Some details:

This isn’t a competition.

This is a chance for us to get up and get moving with the support of other people doing the same thing. There’s no prize at the end besides better cardiovascular health.

You don’t have to run or jog.

If you can’t or don’t want to run or jog, do different walking intensities. Sure, it would take you longer to do 5K than someone running, but that isn’t the point.

Go by time, not distance.

Cool Running has the plan laid out by both time and distance. The way you do it is really up to you, but I’m going to go by duration rather than distance because I’m going to train on a treadmill, where measuring 200 yards is difficult (200 yards is .11363636 miles, for the record).

It’s okay to repeat weeks.

If you don’t feel ready to move on to the next week, that’s okay. Just repeat the week you’re on until you think you can safely continue with the next part of the plan. I can almost promise you that I’m going to have to repeat at least one week one time!

Don’t do more than three sessions a week.

That’s right. Easing into a running program will help prevent injury. If you want to exercise the other four days each week, do strength training or light cardio. Give your body a chance to recover and strengthen itself.

This is a gateway to running and/or more intense exercise.

At least for me! I’m still planning on running a half marathon on February 27. I don’t know how I’ll get the money to go to Florida, but I’m going to do it.

Proceed at your own risk.

I’m not a doctor or a trainer. Fact check and make sure I’m giving good information on here and let me know if I get something wrong. Ultimately, this is your responsibility!

I’m going to make some posts over the next few days about running gear, but really all you need is a good pair of shoes. See my next post for more information.

My weeks are going to go from Monday to Sunday–that way I have the weekend to make up for a missed day if I need to. I think it would be fun to post progress pics of some kind; maybe a pic of the treadmill console or your Nike+ screen or whatever when you’re done. You could send the pictures to me and I would post them once a week. I don’t know; just a thought :)

So, leave a comment and let us know if you’re going to join! I’ll post week one’s details here on Saturday or Sunday.