SlimStacey

What's the 411?

"What's the 411, hun?/Yo, I got it goin' on...."  Mary J. Blige, "What's the 411?"

I know, I know.  Some blogger I am.  I haven't blogged in, like, 7 days and that's a no-no.  But I took a one week vacation, and that included from blogging.  I stayed unplugged as much as possible and communed with my spouse and son, so...oh, yeah, I know...aw, that's sweet!

Wanna know what's sweeter?  I may not have lost another pound yet, but I have been getting, well...tighter.  And there's nothing wrong with that!  My workouts have not been on a daily basis, I'll admit, but I've still been doing them...and trust me, shoveling out my deck from two feet of snow so it wouldn't collapse...that counted as an hour's workout for certain!  Seriously, people have heart attacks cleaning off driveways, decks and porches...and there I am, sweating and panting out steam as though I were in competition with a freight train running by.  My face was beet red, my pulse was through the roof, and yet, like a good little Energizer Bunny I kept going and going and going....

But, hey, I kept hydrated with water and kept to the task until it was done.  And that, combined with other aerobic/anaerobic workouts have been whittling away the hidden Jell-O hidden in my thighs and belly.  Has it sucked?  Oh my good sweet God in Heaven, YES!  But do I enjoy seeing my waistline again?  YES! 

The proof is in the pudding:  somehow, even though I'm stuck between 158 and 159 on the scale, my size 12 pants and XL tops are too big...but, unfortunately, my size 10s and L tops are kinda still a bit small. 

I went to the mall the other day to meet up with a friend, and my voluminous sweater and silk shell underneath were sagging and bagging; I looked like a burlap sack with hair.  But the other way to go was to wear one size almost-too-small and a shirt that hugged one two many fleshy waves, as though I were trying to channel a stuffed sausage.  Nope.  I do honestly believe I selected the lesser of two evils, there.  Still, I felt ludicrous.  

And speaking of the mall, I suppose I should celebrate eating out and not pigging out.  I mean, I wasn't a perfect angel...I had guacamole, chips and water.  That's it.  No salsa.  No sour cream.  No soda...gosh, I haven't had a soda in freaking a long, long time (and I've kept that five pounds I dropped off the first week I cut it out of my diet for a long, long time, so I should just be grateful, now that I think of it).  Did I want dessert?  Oh, please!  You betcha!  Did I get any?  Nope. 

So, do I like what's going on with my body?  So far, so good.  I got a long way to get to diesel, but I'm chipping off the goop from my frame one day at a time.  It's not like it's bikini season tomorrow.  So I can just settle on down and work out...and see if I dare sport a bikini at the next fire department annual picnic.  (Although, so as not to stun/blind onlookers, I do solemnly swear that should I do so, I will be at my goal weight or no more than 5 pounds over, and toned...or else). 

So...that's the 411.  Don't worry.  I should be back to posting on a daily to near-daily basis starting today.

 

 

Another New Milestone

"We've come a long long way together/Through the hard times and the good/I have to have to celebrate you baby/I have to praise you like I should"  Fatboy Slim--"Praise You"

Well, I've finally drug my chubby butt to the unfinished basement to complete an hour's worth of workout.  I worked out to one of the zillion "The Firm" DVDs (note:  this is NOT a paid plug).  There's no point to me joining a club...money's kinda tight these days.  I simply dusted off the DVD cover (sighing at the thickness of said dust) and put it in the player. 

During the warmup, I thought, Well, gee, this is totally do-able.  I don't know why I didn't try to graduate from 10 minutes to 60 sooner.  Really, I was just kind of babying myself, wasn't I?

And then...

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, this is getting hard! 

My face turned cherry red and one point, and I was huffing and puffing like a steam engine traveling uphill in Fodor. 

I'm not going to be able to finish!

And, yes, I did finish.  I also felt like I had to be hauled by my chubby ass to the emergency room for a steady supply of oxygen.  I felt drained, was slippery with sweat, and just flat-out nasty. 

But hey, it's the first hourlong workout I've completed in a year.

Forget the fact that I felt like a moron because I didn't have the routine memorized, I dropped barbells from slippery fingers and practically tripped over my two feet.  You can also forget the fact that I certainly couldn't do any of the advanced moves that some of the way-too-perfect chicks were doing...or the fact that I thought I'd pass out and collapse from climbing up two steps, one sitting on top of the next, a foot in the air total, with a barbell on one shoulder and an exercise stability pole in the other.

Because personally, I just want to bask in the goodness.  And that's what you should do, too, when you finally face down that first workout in a long time...or ever.  Did you finish the workout?  Who cares if you were daggone ugly by the time you completed it...the question is, did you finish it?  I DID!  Do you feel, after the wave of exhaustion passes, the exhileration of the endorphin high kicking in?  I DID!  Yes, it's true, I'm still as bumpy and lumpy as I've been over the past few years.

But it's also true that this is one major step in the right direction of burning all that goo off and letting Slim Stacey out of the overglorified foam rubber layer that's currently obscuring her!  So I'll give myself the praise that I so well deserve...and steel myself for facing down that DVD player tomorrow, and the million excuses that will flood my brain, begging and pleading for me to do anything other than suffer and sweat again.  If you haven't joined me yet, now's the time!  :)

 

A New Milestone

"Still looking for that blue jean, baby queen/Prettiest girl I ever seen/See her shake on the movie screen Jimmy Dean"  --Def Leppard, "Rock On"

Not to be a spoilsport or anything but it totally ROCKS to look down at the scale today and realize that, despite my not eating the very, very best during the last 24 hours snowed in like, oh, everyone else in the Northeast, I have gotten out of the goddamn 160's!  Friggin YEAH, baby!  159...I'll take it!  Exercising 10 minutes a day certainly helps (and yes, I count digging out my back deck and front porch as exercise, especially when you add in the ice factor).  Drinking mostly water helps, too.  Have I done too much more?  Nope, not yet.

But trust me, in order to get to the 140's (i.e., ditching the next ten pounds) calls for drastic effort on my part.  I've just turned 40 last October, so my body is going to not exactly snap to attention like it used to.  That's okay.  I'm going to have to snap it harder, that's all....

Enter more exercise!

Yep, I'm going to have to turn up the heat on the caloric burn.  No choice, really.  I'm tired of looking all bumpy and lumpy, like someone aught to spray some yellow lines on my body a la speed bumps.  I'm tired of looking lumpier than the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man or as creepy looking as Zuul (hello, Ghostbusters).  I still have more waves than a damn ocean...and reducing my caloric intake will certainly help, but it ain't gonna be like...POOF!  Slim and trim. Dude, there's more cakes going on in my frame than Dunkin' Hines.  You get the picture. 

Oh, don't worry.  I'm going to bitch and moan and tell you the real truth as I start to really up the ante.  If you want comic relief, I'm guaranteeing you, you'll get it.  No one can poke fun at themselves like me.  But there's another reason why you might want to continue following my journey back to 140 or maybe less (I don't even care if it's less at that point; at 140 pounds I actually fit into some size 6 stuff, but mostly size 8, and if size 8 was good enough for Marilyn Monroe, well hot DAMN it's good enough for moi).

If I can whittle off 5 pounds at a time by getting rid of soda/coffee/frappes/mochas, and another 5 pounds just by dropping snacks and exercising an embarassing 10 minutes a day, what the heck about yourselves?  Are we talking a lot of effort to drop 10 pounds?  NOPE.  So I'm living proof that you can be lazy as all get out and still make progress.  So put me to shame and join in on the quest for Slim You.

Slim Stacey was a former local model at age 16.  Slim Stacey knows that there's about 10 to 15 more pounds to go and a whole lotta tightening to get anywhere near where she used to be.  But Slim Stacey's inside this Big Ol' Stacey waiting to get out and shine again.  Slim Stacey can be sophisticated at 40+.  Not like, wearing all granny clothes and orthotics like some people do when they hit the big four-oh.  No, Slim Stacey will be Sophisticated Slim Stacey, who doesn't mind that she can still rock a bikini at 40.  (I mean, at least I won't cause people to spontaneously upchuck lunch at the pool or anything). 

So, Slim Stacey's got her work cut out for her.  Won't you join me? 

Come on...we can bitch about how much it hurts together!