Tag Archives: weight loss goals

Joan Crawford Had Nothing To Do With It

Posted on March 29, 2019 by mohawkvalleygirl

I feel that I have a good excuse for making my Non-Sequitur Thursday post on Friday morning, and it’s not just, you know, non-sequitur.  I was late getting home, because I made three stops, then I had two rehearsals starting at 5 p.m.  So here is a Non-Sequitur Shout-Out post, because, as regular readers know, Mohawk Valley Girl loves local businesses.

First I had to pick up a prescription at the Medicine Shoppe in Ilion.  They are so nice there, and it is the sort of place where they recognize regular customers.  That stop did not take long.  Right across from the parking lot are Ilion Wine and Spirits.  I like to support them, because, in addition to being nice and a good liquor store, they support Ilion Little Theatre (where both my rehearsals were, incidentally).  Unfortunately, I did not have anything particular in mind so spent a few minutes wandering around before settling on a bottle of Barefoot Pinot Noir, a favorite of mine.  Then I stopped into Honey Brook Hobbies to get a treat for my husband.  I easily picked out a brownie with mini chocolate chips on top. I did NOT purchase one for myself, nor yet did I ask Steve for a bite.  Weight-loss goals, here I come!

I should perhaps mention that this will be another hasty post, because I have to sit, drink coffee, watch the news, and play solitaire before I have to get ready for work.  Otherwise I shall feel too flustered and be a danger to myself an others (that last was a self-dramatizing exaggeration, so don’t shake your finger at me) (you know who you are) (don’t shake your head either, although you may feel free to shake your bootie, I don’t mind that on a Friday) (oops, I just pointed out again that I am making my Thursday post late) (once again, I’d better quit while I’m ahead, if in fact I am).

 

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To Boil or Not to Boil?

Posted on February 22, 2019 by mohawkvalleygirl

It is time for my annual post in which I dither about whether or not to run the Boilermaker 15K in Utica, NY in July.  At least, I do not remember if I write a post like this EVERY year (regular readers will not be surprised I am too lazy to go back and check).  I certainly do not run the Boilermaker every year (those who do are welcome to feel smug about it; indeed, I admire their dedication).

Being me, I cannot just go ahead and make a decision of this magnitude.  It is a decision of magnitude, by the way.  For the next four and a half months (I just now counted on my fingers), I cannot slack off of running for a week here and there.  I’ll have to keep better track of how long I run and how quickly I build myself up.  Ten percent each week does add up, but I feel I must keep good track of how soon I’ll be running for how long.  I am constantly looking at calendars and doing the math.

One might argue (oh, who am I kidding?   There’s always one who WILL argue!) (you know who you are) that none of this matters a great deal.  People who do not run at all have been known to run the Boilermaker 15K successfully.  I can probably get by on sheer stubbornness.   Additionally, many people walk during the Boilermaker; I’ve seen them.  I would not bear that shame alone (and I daresay some of them do not even feel ashamed) (and who am I to judge?).

I will just explain to the ones who argue thusly, “Shut up!”  (That is a S. J. Perelman joke I often use).  I train for the Boilermaker because (1) It is fun for me.  I like to run, and I feel good about myself as I am building up and (2) I do not WANT to get by on stubbornness nor by walking part of the course.  Additionally, I do not want to feel all ate up after the run.  I want to drink a beer!  And hang out with some friends!

Hmmm… It begins to sound as if I have already made up my mind to run the Boilermaker.  Well, why not?  I’m in my mid-50’s.  How many chances do I have to be bad-ass?  It will be good for me to train for a 15K.  If I stop eating like a pig, I may even meet a few of my weight-loss goals.

Of course, the final decision will not be made today.  I will still have to register, and there is always a chance I will get shut out.  It is a very popular race.  But I thank my readers for allowing me to dither in this space.  If anybody has any input on the matter, please feel free to comment.

 

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What Weight Loss Goals?

Posted on December 11, 2018 by mohawkvalleygirl

I think it is time I admit to myself that I do not have weight loss goals, I have weight-loss daydreams.  Today at work, someone was selling candy bars for a kid’s sports team.  Obviously it is a good thing to support youth sports, and I am not one to just make a donation when a $2 donation will get me a candy bar.  Of course I took the candy bar!  Did I save it, or at least half of it for my skinny husband?  NO!

I thought, this is OK, because I am going running after work.  Shortly after I thought that, my legs informed me that I was not.  “We are going home and sitting on the couch like sensible people,” my body told me.  I did not have the oomph to argue.  It is Monday, after all.

If this wasn’t bad enough, Steven did not feel like the leftover pasta sauce I had suggested for dinner.  Oh, that is not the bad part.  The bad part is when he made a sensible alternative suggestion, I said, “Wouldn’t you like to send out for wings and antipasto?”  As a matter of fact, sending out for antipasto is not such a bad idea.  For one reason, it means I will have leftover salad for my lunch tomorrow.  For the chicken wings, I make no apology, but merely offer, in my defense, YUM!

Steven called Salvatore’s in Herkimer.  We got wings Siciliano, which are kind of a combination of medium sauce, garlic butter, and bleu cheese.  I repeat, yum.

On the brighter side, instead of a Monstrous Monday, I am giving a shout-out to a local business.  Salvatore’s is located at 650 1/2 W. German St., Herkimer, NY, phone number 315-866-2600.  For more intormation, you can visit their website at http://www.salvatores-herkimer.com.

And I can always go running tomorrow.

 

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I’ll Be Lame for the Concert!

Posted on May 12, 2018 by mohawkvalleygirl

I pause in my gyrations of trying to get ready for An Evening with America to make a Flustered Friday post. If I have time.  I may start it now and finish it after the concert.  I am pausing not so much because I am dedicated to making my blog post right this minute (I AM dedicated to making my post, of course, just not necessarily right this minute), but for the sake of sitting in front of a fan and cooling off for a minute before I attack the wardrobe problem again.

As I have often observed, it is not easy being me.  My weight loss goals seem further away than ever — and I thought I was being so GOOD this week: no candy, no cookies, no ice cream! A lovely blouse I purchased recently, after trying it on to be sure it is not too tight in my upper arms, turns out to be, you guessed it, too tight in my upper arms.  As well as elsewhere.  I bought it recently, and according to the scale I have not gained weight since then, but….  Maybe my scale needs new batteries.

To make matters worse, I started hot flashing.  I can’t wear leggings!  I can’t wear a camisole under that white shirt!  I can’t wear that black top!  I can’t wear anything!  AAAAAAUUUUUGGGGHHHH!  Oh, OK, I did not scream.  I just came downstairs to, as I said, cool off.  Sitting still in front of a fan is quite effective for that.  I highly recommend it.

I see I am over 250 words.  That, by my convoluted rules for myself, is respectable, especially for a Lame Friday Post.  I hope your weekend is beginning more smoothly than mine.  I shall post further updates as events warrant.

 

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Waiting for Brownies on Pi Day

Posted on March 15, 2018 by mohawkvalleygirl

OK, a title is all I really have so far.  It is quite true: I am sitting here on my couch just beginning to smell the delicious chocolate aroma.  Mmmmm….. This is why I may never meet my weight loss goals.  But never mind that.  Let me get on with making my Wuss-out Wednesday post.

When did 3/14 become Pi Day?  Math geeks will tell me that 3.14 has always been pi, and I seem to remember that from junior high. But when did it become something we celebrate?  Mind you, I’m not complaining.  I like math and I like pie.  I can’t always do the math, and I do not know how to make a pie, but that is not uncommon.  I wanted to buy a pie today but couldn’t find one (I didn’t look very hard, thinking about those weight-loss goals I mentioned earlier).  I impulse purchased a brownie mix, thinking to keep in reserve in case of emergency.

Turns out we don’t need an emergency to make brownies in this house.  Ooh, the timer just beeped, and Steven went into the kitchen to get the brownies out of the oven.  I think we must let them cool somewhat, which will give me time to finish my blog post.  I really thought I was going to get back into making good posts, you know, about Mohawk Valley adventures and stuff.  I may begin to do that tomorrow.

Or tomorrow I may write a post about how it is the Ides of March.  As classical scholars know, Julius Caesar had a problem on that day.  I may mark the day, but I can pretty much guarantee I will not be eating a Caesar Salad.

 

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Slogging Toward My Goals

Posted on April 6, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

I finally went running this afternoon.  It’s only been two days, but it felt like longer.  I promised myself that after this week, I will run more often.  My promise alternated with feelings of “I never want to run again!”  You’ll have that on occasion.  The best thing to do, I’ve found, is to keep running as best you can.  Sometimes that’s what you have to do when you’re making a blog post, too.

It was one of those days I spent reminding myself that I was going to run after work.  I try to do this in hopes that I’ll just get home, get dressed and go before I have a chance to talk myself out of it.  It didn’t work.  I got home moaning that I did not want to run.  I got dressed for it and got out of the house anyways.  According to  my thermostat, the temperature was 46 degrees.  The last time I ran in 46 degree weather, I rethought my cut-off of 45 degrees for shorts and short-sleeves.  I went upstairs to put on leggings.  Then I got a hot flash and put on the knee-length shorts that were handily on the drying bars.  I kept on the extra large short-sleeved t-shirt I had been wearing all day.  A headband would cover my ears and/or absorb my forehead sweat.

Earlier today, I had occasion to ask if “slog” was really a word, as in, “I am just slogging through this day.”  My co-workers said it was.  I just now looked it up in my dictionary and, sure enough, it is.  So there I was slogging through my run.  That was OK, though, I told myself, it is all part of getting into shape.  I distracted myself by noticing some flowers in somebody’s lawn.  Very nice.  The first one’s I’ve seen this year.  Most of the snow and mud were gone from the sidewalk, so that was nice, too.  I kept going as best as I could.

I said to myself that each step was a step was bringing me closer to my goals.  Closer to my Boilermaker 15K goals.  Closer to my weight-loss goals.  Closer to the end of the run when I would have a nice glass of wine with my husband.  Hey, you take what motivation you can and, you should pardon the expression, run with it.

It was really not a bad run, for being kind of a slog.  I was happy with myself for doing it.  I’m also happy I got a blog post written.  Perhaps not as good of a blog post as others, but you’ll have that.  For a Wuss-out Wednesday, it’ll do.

 

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A Lean, Mean Something or Other

Posted on April 3, 2017 by mohawkvalleygirl

Did anybody think I was so busy with theatrical murder that I was forgetting my Boilermaker ambitions?  Say it ain’t so!  Last week was not the best I’ve had (this is using a Sunday through Saturday week as opposed to a Monday through Sunday week, as some see it) (ooh, that could be a whole other blog post, where the week starts and ends, help me remember that, will you?).  However (are you still with me after those long parenthetical comments?), one can improve.  So I had a good run today, and now I’m going to write a Running Commentary post about it.

I waited to run till almost 11:30, because it was cold this morning.  It was not too cold to run, but I also wanted to hang out with my husband, go to the grocery store, maybe do the dishes…  Of course this would give me plenty of opportunity to talk myself out of running at all, but I managed to avoid that disaster.  As a matter of fact, it was easier to get myself to run than it was to do the dishes, and there weren’t that many dishes.  I was just not in the mood to do the dishes.

Once the dishes were done, though, and I took another Facebook break (that is what I do on Sundays: get a little bit done, look at Facebook, repeat), I got dressed and went.  It was 46 degrees, one degree above my cut-off for shorts and short sleeves, so I thought, Score!  I still put on a wide headband to cover my ears.  I placed my sweatshirt and water bottle in a handy spot for my cool-down walk and took off.

The first thing I did was to re-think my cut-off temperature for shorts and short sleeves.  That wind was cold!  But there was nothing to do but keep running and hope for a hot flash.  It was a sunny day with some clouds (I don’t want to say “partly cloudy” because it really did seem more sun than cloud).  When the sun came out fully and the wind died down, I felt some warmth.  The sidewalks were almost completely bare, so I appreciated that.

I wished my running time were long enough to run up the hill to Herkimer College (formerly HCCC) (pronounced H-triple-C).  I wanted to feel bad-ass, and it was such a bright day the view would have been awesome.  I tried to mentally calculate when I would be running long enough to make it up and back, but I couldn’t do the math.  I went up the hill by Valley Health instead.  That turned out to be challenging enough for me.  I was out of breath by the time I reached the top and turned left. As I noted the sidewalk still rising at a lesser angle, my in-head narration was interrupted by my realization that I did not know the name of the street I was on.  There was a street sign.  Exchange Avenue.  As I continued to run, I pondered what could be the difference between a street and an avenue and how they decide which gets named what.

My goal for the run was 31 minutes, that is, 10 percent longer than I ran last weekend.  My body vacillated between “I can rock this” and “Can we stop now?” I kept going for my full 31 minutes.  As I walked my cool-down, my legs felt wonderful, as if they would soon be capable of carrying me for miles. I told myself I was going to be in great shape for the Boilermaker 15K.  And if I continue to eat sensibly, running will help me attain my weight-loss goals.  I will be a mean, lean, not very fast running machine!

 

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Another Thunky Run

Posted on September 27, 2016 by mohawkvalleygirl

I was less than half a block into tonight’s run when I thought of that title and by the end of the run, I had no reason to change it.  Regular readers may recall that I used the non(according to my computer)word “thunky” to describe my last run, which was on Saturday.  And how’s this for a Freudian typo:  I first put “less than half a blog”?  At least “blog” is recognized as a word.

Once again, I almost talked myself out of running and once again, I got into my running clothes and out the door.  For one reason, I have rehearsal for Splitting Issues (the play Steven and I are in) tomorrow so I may not have time to run.  For another reason, I need some help reaching my weight-loss goals.

Now, I know what is said by weight-loss experts:  eating less is the key to weight-loss.  Moving more has WAY less effect.  Well, if all you look at is the numbers, that is true.  However, I maintain that the number of calories burned while actually exercising are only part of the story.  To encourage myself to keep thunking along, I once again re-iterated what I think of as the exponential effects of exercise (hmmm, maybe that would have been a better title; for one reason, it has the charm of alliteration) .

Exercise kicks up your metabolism.  Depending on the length and intensity of your workout, for a certain amount of time afterwards, you burn more calories than you were burning before you worked out.  I like to make use of this effect by walking a cool-down turn around the block.  Nine or ten more minutes of extra burn!  Additionally, exercise can increase the amount of muscle in your body.  Muscle burns more calories at rest than does fat.  Moreover, muscle looks better.  Even if I have not lost much weight, I can present a more toned appearance.

Even more important are the psychological benefits of exercise.  After even a bad run, I feel good about myself for having done it.  I feel stronger, healthier, and perhaps more inclined to make healthy choices when I eat.  The anti-depressant effects of exercise are well documented.  Less depressed means less likely to self-medicate with fattening food.

Fortified by these encouraging thoughts, I thunked along for 25 minutes.  When I wasn’t giving myself a pep talk, I enjoyed looking at people’s fall and Halloween decorations.  Steven and I must get going on our own decorating.  I think we should go to, for example, Pumpkin Junction in Sauquoit to get some new decorations.  That would make a dandy blog post.

 

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Comfort Food at Froggy’s

Posted on June 8, 2016 by mohawkvalleygirl

When Steven and I wanted to grab a quick bit in Ilion today, we thought of Froggy’s Take-Out.  I was glad we did, because we hadn’t been there yet this year.  It is a little, seasonal place located on a busy corner.  We pulled into the parking lot and walked up to the order window, following the sign that said “Enter.”

We actually have never taken out at Froggy’s.  We sit at the picnic tables under a tent in the parking lot.  They are large, highly polished, green tables.  I like looking around at other Ilion businesses and all the traffic.  Lots of people drive through Ilion at four in the afternoon!

I was immediately interested in two large pieces of chocolate cake under a glass. However, we were there for dinner not dessert. The lady working made a spirited attempt to get us to buy one or both of them to take with us, but I remembered my weight-loss goals.  We both ordered cheeseburgers deluxe, which means mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato and onion.  Perhaps this was not the most diet-friendly fare, but at least it was not deep fried (one of my favorite flavors).  What really made my meal bad for my waistline was the chocolate shake.  Don’t judge.

As usual when I have a cheeseburger and chocolate shake, I reminded Steven that this was Shelley Winters’ favorite comfort food.  It was a good meal.  Steven, who had ordered coffee, helped me finish the chocolate shake.  As we sat and ate, we looked at some pictures depicting other menu selections.  Hoffman hot dog, grilled chicken sandwich, deep-fried oreo cookies, root-beer float… we may need to make several more trips to Froggy’s.

Froggy’s Take-Out is located at 4 West Clark St., Ilion, NY, next to Heads R Turning Spa and Salon.  Phone number is 315-894-1400.  You can Like them on Facebook and sign up for coupons as www.FroggysTakeOut.com.

 

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