Daily Walking

I’ve thoroughly convinced (or so I think) my parents that exercising is the easiest lifestyle change in my mom’s efforts to lower her cholesterol. Every night this week, right after we get home from work, my parents and I have gone out and walked around our neighborhood for a good 30-40 minutes; the route we take is at least two miles long. I was initially afraid that my parents would think the walk was too time consuming and give up after one day, but the routine seems to be sticking.

My mom’s plan is to see how her diet and new exercise regimen will affect her cholesterol. In a few months, she will get another blood test and see if she really does need to take medication or not. I don’t think walking every day is going to be enough, but it’s a start.

Cholesterol

My mom found out that she has high cholesterol. She was borderline before, but her latest test results were quite a bit higher than expected. I think she has a predisposition to it (which might mean I do too?); my dad eats the same sorts of food (and likes red meat more than my mom does) but his cholesterol levels are normal. My parents already generally eat healthier than the average American family, but my mom’s diet is clearly not enough to keep her LDL levels down.

My mom’s doctor recommended a low dose of medication (I don’t know which one yet, it doesn’t really matter at this point) to help, but my mom is very hesitant to take medication for fear that she’ll become dependent on a drug (she doesn’t want to be “addicted” for the rest of her life). She insists that her diet is good enough. I think she’s in denial a little bit. While I understand my mom’s reluctance to take medication, I don’t necessarily want her to rule out the possibility that she might need it either.

I think the biggest and easiest thing to change in my mom’s lifestyle is her exercise routine, or rather, the lack thereof. We usually walk around in our backyard after dinner for 15-20 minutes and stroll around the mall for a few hours on weekends, but that’s the extent of her cardio activity (I’m not sure how much five minutes of qi gong in the morning counts). Most of my mom’s evening (besides cooking dinner) is spent sitting on the couch watching Chinese soap operas or Taiwanese news/politics on TV.

Thus, because I’m the “mini-doctor” in the family (I’m not the doctor in the family, which will be my brother in two years, but I’ve always been interested in taking care of everyday health issues), I’m trying to learn more about how to deal with high cholesterol and come up with an exercise plan to which my parents can actually stick. If I’m going to help my mom get into shape, I may as well help my dad too. Hopefully I can get myself back into shape in the process.

Forced Exercise

In an effort to get started on my New Year’s resolutions, I went to the gym over the weekend. As I expected, I wasn’t very into it. I did a little strength training, a little ab work, and then spent 20 minutes on an elliptical trainer.

I used to be really into working out. I would go four times a week and always try to beat my own record for how long I could stay on the elliptical trainer. This time, the 20 minutes I did felt forced and ultimately unproductive.

I’m pretty sure exercising at the gym is the kind of activity that is hard to get going, but once you get into it, you wonder how you did without it. Actually, many things are like that for me, such as watching Heroes, blogging, or eating sushi. Some things are linked with my fear of change and/or fear of trying new things, but that can of worms is for another day.

Anyway. I don’t know if there’s an easy way to get back into exercising, beyond regularly forcing myself to go to the gym. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of making excuses to not go (like getting home from work around 9pm, which is what I did today), but I shouldn’t make excuses every day.

Why does self-improvement have to be so difficult?

Not Quite Five Days

I got up really late today, partly because I was sore from going to the gym yesterday. When my muscles are sore, I don’t feel like moving to get out of bed. It was the good kind of sore, though, the kind you only get from exercising. It lets you know you did something productive for your body. No pain no gain, right?

Even with a late start, I decided to go to Starbucks (a different one from yesterday, just for a change of scenery) to study. At least I could get in a couple hours of studying out of the last day of my five day weekend. Or at least, so I thought.

Less than an hour after I started studying at Starbucks, my favorite team leader called me and asked if I could work a closing shift tonight. I didn’t have any plans with anyone else tonight, so I said yes. I read for another ten minutes (maybe less) before going home to change into my red and khaki outfit (I really should just wear it under my civilian clothes, like Superman).

So I guess my five day weekend was really only a four day weekend. But that’s pretty good already, anyway. Once I get a “real” job (and a “real” life), I won’t be seeing many more of those.

The Starbucks-Gym Combination

My last three days off from work were busy with friends. It was a great change of pace from my normal boring weekends. I really must hang out with my friends more often. Unfortunately, I didn’t have plans with anyone today.

I made a point not to visit Target today. Instead, I went to Starbucks for a couple hours and read one of the texts for the actuarial exams. My usual Starbucks was being renovated, so I had to find another Starbucks in the nearby area. It wasn’t hard.

Afterwards, I went to the gym for the first time since sometime in February (at least I think it was February; I haven’t mentioned going to gym on this blog since early January). I forgot how relaxing the gym is. I did a medium workout to gauge how my body and muscles have changed over the last few months. I was afraid that a lot of my weight loss was from muscle loss, but I still seem to be able to do everything that I could do from when I went to the gym regularly.

I’ve lost about twenty pounds since I started working at Target. I’m five or six pounds less than my “ideal weight,” which I thought was impossible to reach six months ago! Many of my friends have commented on how skinny I am. One of them is jealous that I weigh less than him. Whenever I go out to eat with him, he tries to buy me dessert!

The actual number of pounds I weigh is mostly just a number, not an indication of my health. I already know I’m healthy (knock on wood). Even still, I don’t want to gain weight from gaining muscle. Now that I’m skinny, I don’t want my weight to go back up, even if it’s in a good way (I know, I’m crazy).

Anyway, going to the gym was fun, except that my iPod nano was out of battery from lack of use. I used to listen to my nano every day, but I rarely use it now because I don’t listen to it at work. The battery can’t even hold a charge as long anymore. My (2nd generation blue) nano was a birthday present from six of my graduate school friends in 2006, so it has a lot of sentimental value.

The Starbucks-gym combination was what I did for the three months before working at Target, and it’s how I passed the first actuarial exam. Maybe it’s time to go back to what works.

I Need A Hobby

I’m definitely a workaholic. Because I love my job so much, most of my fun and excitement these days comes from work. I’m losing the balance between work and life outside work. Even on my days off, the only thing I can think of doing (unless my college friends are free to hang out, which is rare) is to go shopping at Target, which is a lot like working. Basically, I need a hobby.

Throughout high school, college, and graduate school, I sang in a choir. With my erratic work schedule, it’s hard to schedule a fixed time every week to sing in a choir. Not only that, but I don’t really know of any decent choirs in my neighborhood (albeit I haven’t looked that hard).

Video games are a good distraction, but I haven’t been into playing them lately. I currently don’t own any games for my Playstation 3, and buying games is really expensive. My brother has our Wii right now (we share everything), but I didn’t play it very often when I did have it. Also, getting lost in a game for hours at a time can get tedious and boring, but playing for only an hour doesn’t seem worth it either.

I wouldn’t consider exercise as a hobby (it’s more of a necessary part of staying healthy), but I used to go to the gym a lot. Now that I run around all day for work, I don’t feel like exercising on my day off. It’s not like I need to lose more weight anyway; I weigh 40 pounds less now than when I was at my heaviest.

The one hobby I can think of (besides shopping) is to make my digital pictures into prints and make photo albums. But every time I vaguely choose which pictures to print, I second guess myself and end up not printing any of them. My indecisiveness strikes again.

Anyway. I have the next two days off. I haven’t had an entire weekend off since I started working at Target. I’m hanging out with my sister on Sunday (because her birthday is coming up), but that still leaves all of tomorrow with no agenda.

Weight Management

I’m trying to eat less to keep my weight at a stable (lower) level. I don’t want to gain back the weight I lost after my wisdom teeth were pulled. I’m eating smaller portions, and I’m cutting my intake of white rice to almost nothing. If the taste of white rice isn’t worth the calories and nutrients I get from it, then why eat it? I’m starting to use the same logic when it comes to desserts and general portion control. I mostly eat white rice with my dinner now just to make my parents happy.

Because I’m eating less and trying to keep my weight down, my dad thinks I’m going to become anorexic. He keeps mentioning how Karen Carpenter (of The Carpenters) died from anorexia. He always talks about how good of a singer she was and how stupid she was for starving herself. My dad clearly doesn’t know how anorexia works.

I’m currently 24 pounds less than when I was fat and only 1 pound over my high school weight (when I graduated). I wasn’t really fat, but I ate (mass quantities of) fast food at least once a day for about two years during college. I was definitely overweight, but maybe not obese. I could eat more than my friends who are a good eight inches taller than me. Two super sized combos from McDonald’s was a normal dinner. It was awesome. Good times had by all. I still don’t know how I didn’t have high cholesterol or high blood pressure.

But after I went to graduate school, I realized I couldn’t keep up that lifestyle forever. That’s when I started losing weight and eating healthier. I never thought I would ever exercise at a gym, but now I try to go four times a week. I used to love eating until I was completely stuffed, but now I try not to be full, just satisfied.

Ever since I started my weight loss, my target weight has always been my high school weight, and I’m now only within a pound of that goal. But according to this diet calculator, my “ideal weight” is 14 pounds less than my target (15 pounds less than my current weight). What does “ideal” even mean? Zero body fat? A swimmer’s body? Even swimmers have body fat (more than runners apparently).

The “ideal weight” is tempting to try and achieve, but that might be excessive. My dad would probably put me in an anorexia rehabilitation center before I ever became close to losing that much weight.

Halloween Stress

My studying isn’t going very well. I can’t seem to do a lot of the practice exam questions. Some are more complicated than I think, but others are easier than I think. I’m really worried that I won’t be ready for the exam, which makes me overthink the questions even more.

The gym was good though. I went back to my regular routine. Today was the first time I went back into the steam room since my wisdom teeth extraction (I can’t believe I’m still talking about that). I didn’t want to attempt the steam room on Monday since I was too tired, so it was nice to go back today. It was nice to sweat out some of the stress from studying.

In other news, my online dating guy and I had tentatively set our first meeting/date to be Friday, but he had to reschedule. We’re still going to meet, but I don’t know when yet. I’ve been trying not to get my hopes up over this date/meeting. All weekend I was thinking about the meeting/date and worrying about whether to tell my parents about it or not. But eventually, I calmed down and decided to keep things quiet until I know for sure if there’s more to this online dating guy than just a first date/meeting. There’s no reason to cause a ruckus over a first date, especially with someone I’ve never met.

My parents are pretty funny. They make a point not to do anything for Halloween. They make sure not to turn on the porch light and try not to have any lights visible from the front of the house so the trick or treaters won’t know anyone is home. I think my dad finds trick or treaters annoying. I don’t do anything for Halloween either, but I still find it amusing that my parents would go out of their way not to celebrate Halloween.

Returning To Normal

I went back to the gym for the first time since my wisdom teeth were pulled. It’s only been a little over a week, but I became tired more quickly than usual. I’ll have to ease myself back into exercising. One good thing, though, is that I lost weight! I’ve been eating much less this last week, so I ended up losing four pounds! The challenge now is revving up my exercise, and maybe also my food intake, while still maintaining the lower weight.

I still can’t eat quite normally yet, but I’m getting there. My teeth are still a bit sensitive, even though my wounds are healed and there’s no more blood. I’m still eating somewhat softer foods and taking smaller bites, but I’m off the ice cream and pudding diet. Food still gets trapped in the gaping holes, too, so I have to rinse out my mouth a few times after I eat anything. I’ll probably have to continue doing that for a few more weeks.

Besides going back to the gym, I also went back to Starbucks to study for my exam. It’s pretty hard getting back into studying at the same level, much like exercising. I still remember all the formulas I need, but the practice exam questions seemed more difficult than usual. Hopefully things will return to normal (or better than normal) soon.

Joanie Dodds Is My Top Model

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I really don’t think I’m going to be able to post something every day. My mind just blanks out whenever I try to write anything. Luckily, complaining about how hard it is to post every day counts as a post.

My mini coffee maker is fantastic. It’s so easy to set up, even easier to clean, and it’s the cutest little appliance I’ve ever owned. I haven’t used the programming feature too much, but I’m sure it will be essential when/if I get a job and start waking up earlier. I’ve seen coffee makers that are $300, and mine was less than $20! I love having two mugs of coffee in the morning.

In other news, I spent forty minutes on the elliptical trainer at the gym today. I’m usually on the elliptical trainer for twenty, occasionally thirty minutes. I did extra today partly because I didn’t go to the gym yesterday but mostly because America’s Next Top Model was on the TV in front of my machine. It was a rerun from Cycle 6, which is the only cycle I really followed (so clearly I had to watch it again). It was the episode where Joanie takes the best picture and Jade is stupid and annoying to everyone. Oh wait, that’s every episode! Really though, it was “The Girl Who Kissed A Male Model,” if you’re actually interested.

Clearly my watching Top Model paid off, because after my workout I weighed the lightest I’ve been since I moved back home after graduate school! I’m still a few pounds over my target weight, but it’s still a good accomplishment. Maybe I should start scheduling my workouts around ANTM.

Yay Joanie!