+0.4 and none of my damn clothes fit!!

I tracked everything, exercised a lot, but....gained .4.  It's kind of frustrating when that happens.  Today I actually got up early and rode up Central Avenue with the group instead meeting them at the tail end of the ride.  I saw a number of people who I had not seen in awhile.  One woman said she hadn't seen me in a long time.  I told her I hadn't been doing much riding.  Her response was "I know. You've put all the weight back on."  Ouch, that was a kick in the proverbial balls.  I haven't put it all back on.  I managed to stay under 150, but I'm well over what I want to be.

The good things about this week: I rode my bike Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.  I did Tae Kwon Do on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.  Friday was the first meeting for bodan review class.  All talking and no doing.

The bad thing about this week: Not losing anything, and to make it worse gaining.  I guess I may have to horde my weekly allowance points, and not use so many every day.

Tuesday I leave for Korea.  I started packing today.  I couldn't find this one pair of capri pants that I was looking for, so I kept digging out others.  None of them fit.  Some I could get zipped and buttoned, but they were way too uncomfortable.  Others I couldn't even zip up.  It's really frustrating to have tons of clothes, and most of them don't fit.  I was even having trouble with some shirts that I bought two years ago.  Damn boobs have gotten too big, so the shirts don't fit well either.  I refuse to buy anything else.  I just will make do with what does fit. 

I did finally find the pants I was looking for.  They were stashed away in some bin that I had not looked in before.  I find it kind of embarrassing that I have so many clothes that I have to keep some of them in bins stashed in corners or under the bed.  But what makes it worse is so little of them fit right now.  I don't even know what to get rid of until I lose enough weight to figure out what will really fit.  I'm afraid the size 4 pants may never fit again, but I'd like to at least get into the 6s.

How will I fare with my weight on this vacation? Unclear.  Korean food is not my favorite cuisine.  On my last trip there were times when it was challenging to find something I liked besides rice.  However I can only take so much white rice before my insides are screaming for fiber.  Brown rice does not seem to exist there. Kimchi is most prevalent there.  I tried it, but too bitter or spicy.

 Jeonju Bipimbap - Traditional Korean meal

Wonderful vegetarian restaurant we went to.

It was hard to believe that some of the tofu items weren't really meat.

I finally got some broccoli!

Hopefully I can get through this trip without doing too much damage to the waistline. 

Alive and Kicking - Update

The weight loss journey has taken off in fits and sputters.  I'm like a car that needs a tune up before going a long road trip.  The short trips have had a few glitches in them.  Week 2 I had lost the big walloping .4 lbs.  Yes that's a decimal place in front of the 4.  That was despite being really good about tracking what I ate.   I think perhaps I need to fine tune exactly how many of my WA points  I use.  In the past I've tried to hardly use any of them, but then I'm eating in a manner that's unsustainable.  This time I decided I would use them, but I had to tweak things a bit.

 I attend meetings on Friday mornings.  I like this one particular leader and Friday morning is a convenient time to catch one of her meetings.  I was a little bummed by the minuscule weight loss, but I couldn't dwell on it because that weekend was our Tae Kwon Do school's black belt testing weekend.  Even though I wasn't testing for black belt, I still had my Bodan Keup 2 test to do.  Besides it was going to be a great weekend of training and testing.

I got through the weekend without too many food mishaps.  I tried to make good food choices as much as possible.  However the training and testing sessions were long and intense so I didn't feel bad about the piece of cake with Saturday night's dinner.  Here are a couple of pictures from the weekend.

Working on my side kick.

I'm standing on the bad leg!

Board breaking with my hand.

Graduation Day!

Me, Marguerite & Susan

Marguerite and I spent many hours training together last Fall getting ready for this big day.  However a trip down the front steps caused me to take a detour so my big day will come in November.  It was a great weekend, and gave me a chance to see what I'm going to have to do in the Fall.

Week 3 I was down 1.2 pounds so that was encouraging.  However 10 days of vacation wiped out that loss, and by the time I came back I was up 1.8 pounds.  After a few weeks of fiddling around, I got myself back on eTools and tracking again.  Last Friday I was down 3 pounds.  Hurray!

The other piece to this weight loss journey is making friends with my bike again.  I'm not ready to go hammer out those 50 mile rides of 4 years ago.  I'm going out 3 days a week and have gotten up to a longest ride of 23 miles.  The rides aren't very fast, but I'm doing them.  It's hard to get excited about riding without having some sort of competitive goal.  At the moment I have no interest in even trying to run again.  I don't know if I had someone to do it with whether that would help or not.  It probably would.  I don't enjoy training on my own.  I like being with people.  My rides coincide with meeting up with my old group for the last part of the ride when the pace has slowed down.

My club uniform is fitting a little tight at the moment.  My gut is sticking out, and I got those jelly rolls on the sides.  Sometimes I feel as though losing the weight isn't going to make them go away.  However if I can get rid of these 12 pounds it should help.  Maybe I need a "gut-be-gone" machine. 

Getting the Black Belt Express Back on Track (knock on wood)

In September I wrote a post about my so called wake up call.  I had great intentions of getting back into some kind of cycling shape, and trying to even start running again, albeit very slowly.  I had just taken my first Bodan test for 3 Keup on September 22nd.  This was the first step on the journey to black belt which was supposed to culminate in next weekend's retreat and testing.  Part of my preparation for becoming a black belt would be to lose weight and get my endurance back.

In that post I wrote about Tae Kwon Do and how far I had come from my very rocky beginnings.  I ended the paragraph with the following; "Now I am just below black belt, and barring horrendous injury, I will attain that rank next June."  I hadn't given much thought to that sentence.  In fact I had forgotten that I had even written it until looking at the post yesterday.  How prophetic that line ended out being.  I didn't really think anything would happen.   I do get concerned at times about my cranky knees, but I try to listen to my body and not overdo things.  I've made adjustments in certain things I do at Tae Kwon Do to accommodate the knees.

Unfortunately I had a moment of not being able to talk and walk down stairs at the same time.  December 19th I took a fall that would change my entire winter.   Goodbye mandatory Friday night Bodan review classes.  Hello crutches, wheelchair rides, and temporary handicap parking permits.  This was not exactly what I had in mind for Christmas. I didn't expect to be spending the day before Christmas having John pushing me in a wheelchair around a museum in Albany.


So much for our post Christmas trip to Chicago.  There was no way I was getting on an airplane unable to put any weight on my left leg.  The one bright spot in having to cancel our flights was not having to deal with airport security the day after the underwear bomber try to blow up a plane on Christmas day.

One would think having chess to fall back on would help keep me occupied in my temporary disabled state. However I quickly learned that one can't take the simple things for granted.  No longer could I simply get on a train to go play chess in New York City.  I needed someone to take me there.

I was hoping I'd be out of the cast by the time I went to Bermuda.  That did not happen.  February ocean swimming in Bermuda got replaced by wrapping my cast in a garbage bag and wading in up to my ankles. At least I got to make the trip.  If you're wondering; being on an airplane in a cast sucks. The usual swelling that occurs on a flight is more noticeable when one has a leg wrapped in a fiberglass cast that doesn't give.

I did go do an occasional Tae Kwon Do class, cast and all.  The masters helped me modify the workout in such a way that I could participate in class.  Kicking drills I would do sitting or kneeling on the mat.  I practiced my poomses without the kicks.  At least this way I was able to retain the steps.

Fast forward to March when my physical therapy began.  I like to work with physical therapists who understand what I'm trying to do and where I want to go.  So who better to help a martial artist then a physical therapist who is third degree degree black belt?  She gave me a rehab program that focused on balance, coordination and building strength in my calves.   These were all things that would help get me back to my old routine.

The interesting thing that has occurred is my balance is better then it was before the accident.  I figured it would take a few months before I would be ready to test for my Bodan 2 Keup test.  I was very surprised when Master Kim told me I would test this month.  I'm debating as to whether I want to test at the retreat or on the regular test day.  They are having color belt and tape tests at the retreat along with the black belt test.  I have mixed feelings about doing it at the retreat.  It would be rather bittersweet considering that I was supposed to be testing for black belt next weekend.  On the other hand it would be nice to show everyone that I'm back. 

Come the fall hopefully there will be a black belt with my name on it. However it's going to be a leaner and stronger woman standing before Grandmaster Kim to receive her belt.  I've returned to Weight Watchers.  I went to my first meeting on Friday.  It's the first time I've been back since 2008.  I've had a lot of success with the program when I've been faithful about tracking what I'm eating and going to meetings.  When I try to wing it, it just doesn't work.  I need the structure of paying close attention to what and how much I'm eating. I signed up for the monthly pass which includes e-tools.  This way I can track everything online.  The computer geek in me likes the bells and whistles of electronic tracking.

The other step to becoming more fit is getting back on my bicycle.  In this past week I've gotten out and met some of guys to catch the last part of the unemployment ride.  I will gradually increase the length of my ride with them until I reach the point that I can do the ride from start to finish.  In this picture I'm standing with three of the most remarkable guys I know, John, Otto and Denis.  Otto is in his 70s. John and Denis in their 60s. 

All three of them have had their share of cycling accidents, broken bones, and other assorted mishaps, but they just keep coming back for more. Unlike me who wimps out when the weather gets cold, they're out riding through the winter.  I'm not ever sure I'll stop being a weather wimp, but I want to be riding in my 60s, 70s and beyond.

This is the start.  Will I become a triathlete again?  I don't know the answer to that one yet.  I'm starting with the bike.  I'll see if I can actually start to run again.  I have many things going on, and I need to ease back into this carefully so that I don't hurt myself.