Happy New Year, final Hot 100 Update

Happy New Year!  As an optimist, I always love that clean slate, full-of-promise feeling that comes with a brand new year.  I have not made resolutions or goals set down on paper yet, but this, for sure, is going to be the year I reach and stay at my goal weight (and maybe work on the procrastination issue!).  Last year had some ups and downs, but I weigh 20 pounds less today than I did one year ago.  That's progress.

After my gym workout on Thursday night, I swam.  I was able to add one more lap (both ways!) to my workout.  Yay.  Swimming does NOT come naturally to me.  I had a shoulder injury more than 10 years ago and think that some of the aches I've had recently are probably due to the swimming motions that involve that shoulder.  I'm taking it easy and a little bit at a time.  I was pleased to win a "sneak-race" with the man in the next lane.  [Sneak Race = spotting and racing someone who doesn't know s/he is in the race.]

J, trying to hold both his and E's new balls.  Note E's French braids.

We had the kids over last night so that the grands could open gifts.  Yes, yes, this is the Xmas I'm really behind.  They loved it anyway, perhaps moreso in spreading out the presents over a longer time.  Little J's favorites were a ball and a sweater with a big red fire engine on the front.  E loved her pink sweater with hearts and her new snow boots that light up when she steps.

For dinner I made an old fashioned roasted chicken (5 lb chicken, rub w/ olive oil & salt & pepper, roast in 500 degree oven for 1 hour--perfect every time), mashed potatoes, peas & corn, and, my new favorite, baked apples  (I've made these EVERY day since we returned).  We ended up not having dessert because the kids were very anxious to open their presents.  I confess, DH & I had WW latte bars after they left.

Capital Crescent Trail

Today DH and I are going to go on a long bikeride on the Crescent Trail.  Our temps are getting up to the mid 50s and we wanted to start the year off right and get some mileage in, too.

I'm back in the saddle with the new WW PointsPlus program.  A few small veerings off-course, but I just track them and use my generous allotment of weekly points.  Interestingly, my WW leader said that during her 2 month long trial of this program, before it was presented to us, she NEVER gave back any of her alloted points and still lost 4 pounds.  (remember, she was already at her goal weight).

My Hot 100 Update:  I did not reach my goal weight by today, but I am content that I did the best I could under trying circumstances.  I did firmly establish the 6/7 workouts per week plan--this feels just right to me.  Also, I think I have the chocolate under control. One ounce of dark chocolate per day, and I seem to be able to keep the remainder in the cupboard until it's needed.  Yay.  Thank you Steve for organizing this and keeping me accountable over the past few months.  I'll be back next year with a maintenance goal.

New thought.  Does anyone here have a Kindle?  I'm considering getting one.  We gave our daughter, Laura, one for Christmas.  I didn't realize it played games (scrabble, etc) until recently.  The other option is an iPad.  Ideas?  Comments?

Have a great day and a Very Happy New Year.

(my little bike rider next to my signature is from Andrew and is used with his blessing--thanks, Andrew)

Plan B

The exercise schedule in my head called for a long run this weekend.  However, my two littlest toes on my right foot have been getting a little too close and I have a very painful corn that's developed between the toes.  Painful as in it hurts to walk without a layer of silicon between the toes.  Painful as in no way I was going to wear anything but roomy clunky shoes to church this morning.  Painful as in running hurts and would most likely exacerbate the problem with my toes.  You might have noticed in the upper right of my sidebar, that my little Nike+ running avatar is dissing me.  :D I may start wearing it when I walk with DH at night, just so it gets some action.

Not exercising is not an option.  I did kettle bells last night [only 1 more session until my guaranteed results!!] Today, I needed some good cardio.  Biking to the rescue!  I so enjoyed my long ride with Sharon on Thursday that I've decided to explore some more of the great biking trails in this area and expand my repertoire of biking routes.

Today I went the other direction on the Mount Vernon Bike Path, towards Alexandria.  Another glorious day.  I set off about 2:30 without a distance or time goal in mind.  I decided I'd just bike and turn around when I felt like it.  The first part of the path is very familiar to me as I usually do my running on that path.  The bike took me further, though, and I saw some beautiful neighborhoods and areas of my city that I'd never seen.  I ended up riding about 20 miles in two hours.  My little toes felt just fine.

I'm still taking encouragement from my physicsdiet.com charts.  Losing slowly, but losing.  Oh, I was able to finally wear the green dress (size 10P) that I bought at the beginning of September.  Here's my chart from Aug 31 to today.  [you can click on the chart to enlarge the picture]

What do YOU do when your exercise plan doesn't work out?  Do you have a Plan B?

Quick Update

Hi all,

Another wonderful day.  We changed our plans a bit and instead of biking today, we hiked in Sky Meadows State Park.  An overcast morning opened up to a beautiful sunny fall afternoon.  I took some great pix, but forgot to pack my download cord.  We're enjoying a very nice B&B in Leesburg and tomorrow morning Sharon and I will bike on the W&OD (Washington and Old Dominion) bike trail back towards home (~30 miles).  DH, still sporting a whole arm cast will drive home and meet us at trail's end (or earlier if we call him).

I did not go to my WI today as we were running late AND I didn't get in my last chance run.  I thought about going to the meeting here tomorrow, but it's after our B&B breakfast.  I don't want to hop on the scale right after breakfast AND we want to get a relatively early start.  I think I'll just skip this week.  I can't share any new pix, but I'll leave you with today's physicsdiet chart--showing lots of green.

Happy trails to YOU, too.

Joie de Vivre

E=Joie de Vivre

Little E will begin a two-day-a week preschool next week. I think she's a tiny bit anxious, but mostly she's very happy and excited about it. I took this picture yesterday when I had the children outside.  The weather was beautiful.  E was pulling a mostly deflated, red Trader Joe's balloon on a long red ribbon round and round the big garden bed.  J, who took his first steps only weeks ago was toddling as fast as he could after her, trying to get the balloon. They were both laughing and giggling. I aspire to E's joie de vivre.  Joyful is good.

I had a great ride this morning. I rode from home to Mount Vernon along the Mount Vernon Bike Trail.  The last mile or so has a few serious hills, but I was able to ride all the way.  I have a membership card to Mt Vernon and, after locking my bike, I took a nice walk through the grounds. I've been in the house recently, so this time, taking advantage of the great weather, I spent my time in the gardens.  I started back and was amused to see that going the other direction bicyclists are advised to dismount because of the steep downhill.  No.Way!  I earned that downhill part. :D  I turned off the trail to make my way home through a park and some pretty neighborhoods.  I went 17+ miles overall.  It felt great.  Oh, and I wore my snazzy bike shoes with no problems.


Tomorrow I want to get in a long-ish run in the morning. Then, at 11, I'm going to try out a yoga for beginners class. I have done some yoga with my Wii, but think I could benefit from a real live teacher.  The class is free with our gym membership. DH was going to come too, but he's doing pro-bono legal work through a DC  church.

I've started logging my daily weight on physics diet. You may know that I weigh myself every morning and record the weight in my journal.  Minor ups and downs are normal, but I'd read about averaging the weights to get a moving average that shows you more accurately how you're doing. Here's my graph for the past 10 days or so.  You can see clearly the red parts that represent our days on our Bike Holiday.  Red is not good. Those are days when my weight is above the projected loss trend.  The green parts are days when I'm at or below the trend for weight loss. Green is good. I look forward to accumulating lots of green chart territory ahead. Interestingly, your individual weight doesn't have to be lower than the previous day's weight to be in the green territory. 


Hope your weekend is filled with joy!

Bike Holiday, Continued

Church of the Holy Trinity, Oxford, Maryland

Gosh, today is even more beautiful than yesterday, if that's possible.  The high temperature reached the mid 70s.  It's sunny, with a slight breeze, and beautiful wispy clouds in the bright blue sky.  We got up in time to get to early church.  This beautiful little church is a short, 10 minute walk from our accommodations.  The bright sunshine showed off the pretty blue rose window to best advantage.    When we're traveling we usually go the the nearest church that best suits our schedule.  [I think I read that that's what Billy Graham and his wife did when they were traveling and it has worked well and taken us to some wonderful places over the years.]  Anyway, today we hit the jackpot.  Great message, good music, welcoming congregation.

We had another great breakfast.  This time I got fried eggs, easy over, wheat toast and coffee.  I considered getting my usual cereal, but their cereals were all sugared and I haven't had a fried egg in ages, anyway.

We took advantage of the great weather to get in another bike ride.

This route is 38+ miles as mapped, but I didn't want to tempt fate (or annoy my muscles) by pushing it quite so hard, so we cut out the the first segment and all but one of the side trips for a ~26 mile ride.  We started about 12:30 and rode for about 2 1/2 hours.  We only stopped about three times, for water/snack breaks.  There were beautiful water views and, again, very nice wide bike lanes and roads frequently signed to remind drivers that they need to "share the road."  I neglected to bring the charger for my camera batteries, but I took a few pix with my phone.  I've had the phone for a few years, but have never purchased the software necessary to transfer the pix from the phone to my computer.  You may (or may not) see the pix later.

Smith Island Cake

We did not reprise yesterday's visit to the Highland Creamery, although DH just came to find me (in the wi-fi-friendly part of the Inn) and see if I wanted to go.  Undecided.  He's reading the sports section of the paper.  We'll probably just take a walk and skip the ice cream.  Desert is included with our dinner . . . .   In the comments to my last post, Debby mentioned gaining 10 pounds once while at a vacation spot with menus such as they have here.  I'm hoping not.  I brought the scale along [you KNOW I always travel with my scale, daily weigher that I am] and seem to be doing okay.  I'm trying to order wisely, enjoy what they have, and follow Sarah's plan of "renoncement"--tasting, but not eating every single bite of everything on my plate.  DH was willing to make the sacrifice and finish half of my Smith Island cake last night. LOL

Karen, you asked where this place is. Click on the Bike Map link in yesterday's post for some very good maps of the area.  I think you can click on the individual maps to enlarge.  Basically, it's in Talbot County, Maryland, on the eastern shore. This is on the Chesapeake Bay side, not the Atlantic Ocean side.  The inn where we stayed is the Robert Morris Inn in Oxford, Maryland.

We're off to take a walk.

Bike Holiday

The gracious front veranda of the Robert Morris Inn

We're here.  Earl caused gray skies and choppy water yesterday, but today it's sunny and beautiful as you can see from the picture I just took.  We took a short ride to look around around town when we got in--and ended up going about 12.5 miles.  VERY flat--I love it.  So far, I've only found one thing I forgot to pack---my new snazzy shoes that fit into my snazzy bike pedals.  Oh well, at least I chose the pedals that work for regular and snazzy shoes.  It wasn't a problem riding, altho DH lobbied hard to buy me a new pair here. (do you suppose I'm too slow for him?)

After a wonderful dinner  and a good night's sleep we got up bright and early, dressed for our ride, and went to enjoy the breakfast included in the price of our room.  The menu was extensive and it was a bit hard to resist the temptation to overindulge in the bounty on hand (Belgian waffles, blueberry pecan muffins, Scottish oats, scones, granola, eggs, fruit platters,  pancakes,  etc.).  DH,  ever mindful of the economics of the situation, sampled two or three of the offerings, but I got by with scrambled eggs and 7 grain toast.

The local tourist board published  a wonderful  Bicycle Map featuring six great rides.  We chose the Oxford/St. Michaels ride for today which is supposed to be one of the top 25 cycling routes in the country (according to somebody or other's list). It was great.  It was almost completely flat (SCORE!). It was also about twice as long as I've ever biked in one day, let alone one ride.  The day was bright, sunny and fairly windy.  We set off slathered with sunblock and fully equipped--helmets, bike gloves,  biking sun glasses, front and rear lights, snacks (water, almonds and dried apricots), cell phone, cash for the ferry and misc. expenses, bike locks, and written route directions in case my memory failed. (Everything except my snazzy bike shoes.).

The first part of our trip was a 20 minute ferry ride an a tiny ferry said to be the oldest still operating private ferry in the country.  A lot of the riding was on quiet country roads--no bike lanes, but very little traffic.

The parts that were on more major roads all had well signed, wide bike lanes.  I never felt like things were unsafe (and that had been one of my concerns when thinking about this trip).  It was fun crossing all the various waterways.  The wind was great when is was pushing us along, not so much when it was a headwind--the sharp-eyed among you may have noticed the flag on the ferry stretched out to its full size.  I felt great the entire ride, but will admit to being tired and ready to stop by the time we got back to Oxford.  Our last stop was at the Highland Creamery, where I indulged in a raspberry sorbet (AND a large cold water).

It's coming up time for dinner.  We reserved an early time tonight because we're off to a jazz concert in Easton this evening. Hope you all are having a great week end as well. I'll be back to read about what you've been up to on Monday.