84 Days

Halloo fellow Shrinkeroos!

We have achieved a loss of 79 lbs since we started, almost a pound a day. It's also what this load o' bull weighed at birth.

When I look at our stats, all I can say is what a fairy godmotherly weird set of stats. To wit:

• Chickie, Deborah, and eb are all tied for total loss and percent of goal.
• Ginamonster lost her entire amount of weight for the year this week.
• LJS is solid as a rock, so steady that I wonder if she isn't a robot.
• NCP has beaten her goal twice so far.
• Renn is winning the percentage of goal for those of us still under 100%.
• I'm starting to think I could maybe stay under 1/8 ton for good.
• Tiff is catching up, and has matched NCP for total loss!
• Poor Utenzi has gone underground (according to the chart), and hopefully will pull back up into positive territory before long.

Here be the nummers:

Shrinklet	Change this week		Total Change		% of Goal
Chickie	-4		-14		35.0%
db grin	-3		-9		30.0%
Deborah	0		-14		35.0%
eb	-1		-14		35.0%
Ginamonster	-8		-8		40.0%
LJS	0		-1		10.0%
NCP	-1		-5		125.0%
Renn	2		-11		57.9%
Tiff	-4		-5		20.0%
Utenzi	3		2		-15.4%
Group Totals	-16		-79		32.8%

Resolve, renewal and rejoice!

Four-score and three days ago, I proposed to lose 10 pounds by May 17th. It was a noble goal, a noble purpose and a challenge.

I find myself at an impasse with my incorrigible sweet tooth. Not more than 10 hours after resolving to swear off the sweets, I found myself tempted by the goodly goodness of a homemade piece of baklava. I ate the symbolic apple and since then, I have been its slave. (It doesn't help that I made two cheesecakes last weekend for a friend's birthday. They WERE tasty!)

Now that I am less than 8 weeks away from my goal, I am renewing my resolve. To start, I reminded myself of how far I've come and what I can accomplish when I set my mind to it. I visited an online BMI calculator.
First input: Current weight, height. OK! Normal!
Second input: Old weight, same height. Wow! I was overweight!
Upon seeing the improvement in BMI between 2004 and now, I feel glad that I accomplished my goals. And I am reminded that, yes, I can lose weight. It is all within me to do so! I can really meet my weight goal, especially now that I am increasing my mileage and have renewed resolve.

I am thusly armed against the slings and arrows of delectable decadence. I can resist the call of the sweets, at least during the week. :) So, fellow Shrinking Piggies, I will need all the help I can get!

My rejoice? Well, it is spring...mostly! And I am running outside and enjoying the beautiful cool (but not too cold) Michigan weather. The grass is starting to grow, everyday I see new daffodil and crocus leaves emerging from the ground. A world is out there, and I need to explore it.

Week 11 Report

The news is in! Here, let me show you it.

The tote board is going backwards, with a group gain of 4 lbs. As with any group endeavor, some are doing better this week than others. Congratulations are in order for losers Renn, NCP, and Deborah - steady as she goes!

This week's picture struck me unusually. While I have no idea who made illustration or when, it follows the original gruesome tale of the Three Little Pigs: Unable to blow down the brick house, the wolf tries to get to them via the chimney. The pigs, having lost 2 houses already, know ye olde wolf is serious about eating them, so they light a fire under him, much to his doom.

I happily call myself a Shrinking Piggy, lightheartedly trotting along the wooded path - failing to take my lifelong struggle with extra weight as though it were a wolf out to destroy me for good. It doesn't want to make things inconvenient, be a foil for my comic antics, or follow me around like a hungry puppy. It wants to devour me. Things look different after they're devoured, no? I'd rather remain quite uneaten and healthy, thank you.

As we reach our halfway point, let's evaluate how we're doing. For those of us with such tendencies: No need for doom and gloom, self-flagellation, or apology - we're in this voluntarily and for our own joy.

Now, off the soapbox and on with the numbers:

Shrinklet	Change this week		Total Change		% of Goal
Chickie	0		-10		25.0%
db grin	0		-6		20.0%
Deborah	-2		-14		35.0%
eb	0		-13		32.5%
Ginamonster	4		0		0.0%
LJS	0		-1		10.0%
NCP	-1		-4		100.0%
Renn	-1		-13		68.4%
Tiff	3		-1		4.0%
Utenzi	1		-1		7.7%
Group Totals	4		-63		26.1%

On Hold

While we wait for the last 2 piggies to weigh in, please speculate on where they might be and what they might be doing.

Also, why not speculate on what YOU are doing? I miss the days of lots-o-posts and comments.

Progress

As you may have read elsewhere, I've decided to do the 100 push-up and 200 sit-up challenge thingies, because what else is a menopausal woman to do to lose weight besides power-wishing? Exactly.

These silly challenges? SEEM TO BE WORKING!!! I am happy to report that as of just now (and man, how I did NOT want to do them), I am able to do the following:

- 31 girlie (on da knees) pushups in sets of 4, 6, 4, 4, and 'max,' or in today's case 15.

- 114 crunches, in sets of 21, 24, 18, 18, and 'max,' or in today's case 33.

The progress I've made thus far in both these challenges is tremendous. A couple of weeks ago I would never have thought that I could gut out that many on either set of max'es, and so am understandably HEARTENED to find out that indeed this old body can learn new tricks.

If you're interested, here are the sites:

100 pushups
200 situps

As a comparison, my starting stats were as follows: week 3 column 1 for situps, and at week 1 column 1 for pushups. A sad little start, indeed. There's every chance you could kick my wobbly white butt without even trying.

Just don't wait too long to try to kick that butt, because once I finish each challenge, I think I'll go back and make it harder....hands BEHIND the head for crunches, and 'real' (on da toes) pushups. 4 more weeks of this torture and I'll start all over again. By summer I might be able to wear a 2-piece bathing suit, and maybe even a sleeveless top.

Hey - I can dream big.