I Need a Superhero

It's obvious who the villains are:

Fatman (AKA The Capered Crusader, The Dark Chocolate Knight)
Fatwoman (think of an overweight Pfeifer or Halle Berry with pointy ears)
The Nibbler (nibble me this, dieter)
The Choker (big grin)
Cravin'
Wonder what I ate Woman

(This is Fatman)


(This is Wonder what I ate Woman)


You get the drift. But I need the fat fighting superhero. The one that makes me want jumping jacks instead of flapjacks.

This super hero has to be a girl and has to be active.

I'm thinking along the lines of Fit Girl



Fighting fat and chopping vegetables, she has the skill and weapons for both.

She'll make fat free swiss out of your gouda intentions.

Like a Big, Frosted Cupcake

-Drag queens could get a few tips from those aunts.
-Oh, my God. Look at me. I'm just covered!
-Like a big, frosted cupcake. -I know, it's like...
-Come on, help me with the veil
(from My Big Fat Greek Wedding)

I made cupcakes yesterday, big fancy frosted ones. And I licked the bowls. But if you check out my nutrition tracker, I counted it. I figured out what a cupcake was in batter land, and that's what I had.

Here I am ready to begin, butter and all...


I made two batches, banana, and dark chocolate. These are obviously the chocolate ones...


Then came the fun frosting part...



I'll let myself eat one after dinner, but honestly after all that work, I wouldn't care if I never touched buttercream icing again.

Happy Easter!

Cracking the G00se Egg

This sign post represents my losses for the past two weeks...



..and yes, it seems like I've been here for a couple million years.

Where's here? It's that place where I was doing really well, then things stop, then they start slipping backwards, and then I stop.

So, before I started slipping backwards this time, I thought I would analyze what's going on. Well, with the tools here on Sparkpeople, that was...



Too easy. I went to enter my breakfast in the nutrition tracker. Since I eat the same thing for breakfast every morning, I hit the back button to just copy yesterday's breakfast to today and...g00se egg. It wasn't there.

So I hit the back button again, to Thursday, and...g00se egg. It wasn't there either.

I haven't been tracking anything for a couple of days, and didn't even notice it. Then I realized that the water bottle on the edge of my sink, the one I use to make sure I drink lots of water, hasn't been touched in days.

That explains a lot. Actually, that explains everything.

SparkGuy, thanks for making it easy!

You Want me to do What for How Long?!

One day, a few years ago, I signed up to run a marathon...in Paris. Yes, bribery is a good thing. I took a whole three minutes to think about it before committing to the 16 week training program. I don't like to run. I wasn't running at all when I started. I've never run again.


(I'm second from the right)

When I finished the marathon, after 5.5 hours, and right before I drank the first bottle of champagne and ate the little quiches someone brought to me at the finish line from our little neighborhood bakery, I thought to myself: there aren't that many things in life that I ENJOY doing that I would be willing to do for over five hours...(in fact I think you are supposed to contact your physician if you have that much fun for that long). I just did something I hate doing for five hours! Man, am I glad I'm done, and wasn't that fun!

I've resisted starting the new "exercise program" that I should have started with my "nutrition program". There are so many things I'd rather do...like read a bunch of articles, or send emails to the Done birthday girls, or get ready for work, I have shoes to pick out after all...

I just got the two Sparkpeople DVD's that have a bunch of 10 minute workouts on them. (Well, they lie because they make you do a little warmup and a little cool down with the 10 minutes in between, but who's counting other than moi).

I started wondering how many things I didn't like to do, but could stand doing for 10 minutes.



* Folding fitted sheets (I gave this up for Lent)
* Paying bills that can't be automated or paid online
* Cleaning up after a good party
* Grooming a muddy horse
* Flossing
* Changing someone else's baby's diaper
* Wait in line
* Have my legs waxed

You know what? I could do any of the above things for 10 minutes and wouldn't like it. But those 10 minute cardio blast videos with coach Nicole aren't that bad...I actually kinda liked them, the two I did yesterday and today.

Maybe I'll do another one tomorrow...instead of folding the sheets. (The housekeeper can just pull those suckers straight out the dryer.)

But don't count on a marathon movie run of Coach Nicole's greatest hips...

I'm Awesome and, by the way, It's All About Me!

I'm stuck at an 11 pound loss. The good news is I haven't gained anything back. The bad news is that I am now about a week off from my goal.

So what's going on?
I feel like I have not been vigilant. I looked back and there were several days when I didn't record everything. Do I think that if I don't write it down that my body won't know it went in my mouth? What's up?

I think I just have to pay attention again. I got distracted. I got busy with other things. Those other things were important, but not more important than ME! I have to be the most important thing (health-wise) for the next few months for this to work.



So just in case you were wondering , it IS all about me. I'm awesome! I am so awesome that I'm jealous of myself, 'cause it's all about me!

Genuineness Only Thrives in the Dark Like Celery (AHuxley)

Last night I realized I had developed a passion for celery. The crunch of it after a frustrating day...my jaws craved it.


(this man has passion for...celery)

Guided by my cajun yearning for spicy Tony Chachare seasoning, celery provides the trasportation from the salt box to my mouth; like a petite pale green pirogue, it holds the spices as they glide into my mouth. Then the CRUNCH followed by fiery flavor.



This just happened recently, overnight, literally overnight. One day there was a ton of celery waiting for the opportunity to wilt in the fridge then last night I couldn't get enough of it. I'm craving it now as I write.

Something has/is happening to me. My tastes are changing, and I like it.

Left Something Behind at the Horse Show

2.2 pounds got left behind somewhere at the horse show. I have some ideas about where they may have gone.

Saturday was a cold, misting, sometimes rainy, gusty winds day. I went for a nice ride in the morning to get my mare and my own brain reacquainted with the arenas. We had a nice quiet ride.

In the afternoon, I started warming up before my test (white breeches alert) when the german cowboy rode his stallion into the warm up arena. My mare who is experiencing midlife crisis and is hearing her biological clock ticking loudly at her own stables that don't do foals or stallions, decided to play hard to get and hard to stay on. It was a handsome stallion, but explosive canter departs are not my idea of a good warm up before a dressage test.

(certainly, this is what she was trying to do)

Against the recommendation of my trainer, I decided to enter the arena and ride my test anyway. Winds were gusting, and the tent flaps were flapping, and the the tent poles were being raised and pounding the ground behind us. It wasn't the best test, very stiff and tight, but I kept her on the pattern and we stayed in our arena. Our exit from the grounds was again explosive when the tents almost blew over. I dismounted and walked her up the hill to the stalls (look, exercise!!!!)

So even though things were different, difficult, and distracting, I stayed on course. Hmmm. I think I can extrapolate that lesson to something related to my eating and exercise habits...

I was mostly concerned this weekend that I would lose my nice pattern of eating, spending time on SparkPeople for motivation, and logging my food. I did bring my regular breakfast and tons of good veggies and fruit to snack on. I forbid myself to eat cheese and crackers which is our normal show grounds fare. I did drink all the champagne I wanted, but I filled up on celery, carrots, and hummus first.

I was so physically busy with riding, grooming, tacking up, cleaning tack, video taping other rides, that I really didn't think too much about eating and I kept moving.

So I think it is my job that makes me fat. My work is intellectually intense, but doesn't require much movement other than my fingers across the keyboard and electrical impulses between neurons and sparks jumping over synapses in my brain. I could stop being an engineer and business COO, but after seeing my riding scores this weekend, I think I'll keep my day job.

The 2.2 pounds I lost were significant. Well, the 3.2 ounces (the .2 pounds) were the significant part. They put me down a notch in the first digit of my weight!

This Alice is in Onederland, and will be chasing the 65 pound jabberwock the rest of the way home.