Commercial Perambulations: Or, a Walk at the Mall

So I have not joined the weekend walk session because they don't meet until 8am which for me falls unter the "too d!@# hot" catagory as well as the fact that the lakeside park area gets extremely crowded on the weekends with people much hardier than I.  As a self confessed loner, I HATE crowds.

But this weekend, the group decided to do their walk at a local mall.  I was up anyway so I figured what the heck.

I have occasionally heard of this recent phenomenon of "mall walking" but never really gave it much thought as I rarely spend much time in malls and prefer to do as much of my exercising as possible out of doors.

So, imagine my surprise when I show up at the mall to meet my group at 8:30 and, while it's not "crowded," there are many, many people circling the mall like planes in a flight pattern.

And it was cool (relatively speaking), and, unfortunatley, there was much to look at as we cruised around and around the .6 mile circuit.  Most of the stores hadn't opened yet, but there was plenty of window shopping.  Probably too much, as one woman told me her last mall walk ended up costing her $300!

I discovered I had to often resist slowing down and browsing the window displays.  As I try to be relatively frugal in my attempts at adult financial repsonsibility, I rarely go to malls and try to shop at stores for things I specifically need and keep my impuse spending to a minimum.  So, I found the vast array of wares for sale extremely tempting.  Thank God for my fellow walkers keeping me on the path at a brisk pace!

I hate to say, my physical issues were acting up that day and kept me from walking as far as I had hoped, I did manage to walk 3.25 miles at a better clip than I expected, thanks to the group leader who's legs are about twice the length of mine!

I wish I had a photo or two to share, but the mall prohibits photography wihtin and I do generally TRY to pay SOME respect to rules.

So, here's a picture from a recent outting to the local zoo.

I'm Feeling Better Now

"Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it." - Raymond Chandler 

I'm feeling better now after my partial melt down yesterday.  Today after my walk I weighed myself again and I'm 213.6.  Not as good as last week but confirms my weight is still just fluctuating and not on it's way back up.  Thank God!

I also increased my walking distance this morning from 3.8 miles to 4.5.  (You gotta love GPS)  I am also considering adding a 4th day of walking.  The Saturday group had previously been meeting at the same place by the lake as the weekday group, but not until 8am.  I don't blame them.  I'd want to sleep in at least a little bit on Satudays, but by 8am the sun is up and it is well on its way over 100 degrees.  I am determined to lose weight, but not THAT determined.  But it appears the group has moved indoors to a local mall this weekend, so I may join them.  And maybe if they've moved in for the duration of the summer, I may add that as a regular walking day. 

We all know that weight loss isn't easy.  If it were no one would be fat.  Yet, when we start a new diet or exercise program or whatever, we are disappointed when the weight doesn' t just fly right off.  Or at least, I am.  But it took the better part of 15 years to get where I am now.  It is going to take a while to get back where I was.  (I just pray it isn't ANOTHER 15 years!)

Frustration

"Despair and frustration will not shake our belief that the resistance is the only way of liberation." - Emile Lahud

Current Weight:  216.0 lbs
BMI: 39.5

Argh!  Ever since I started walking and trying to eat healthier, my weight just fluctuates up and down.  I think I'm losing weight and I get excited, and the next time I step on the scale, I'm back up again.  How does this happen?  I have been telling myself, it's ok, it's early days.  But how many months is early days?  I'm already four months into this endevour!  The only splurge I had this week was a soda.  ONE ROOT BEER.  That can't account for 3 1/2 pounds!

How do you keep from getting disheartened?  Its so easy to get frustrated and say, why am I putting all this effort into getting up at a god awful hour to go walking three times a week when I'm STILL going to gain weight?  Why am I spending all this time preparing healthy foods to take to work with me so I don't graze out of the vending machine?  Why not go out and devour a bucket of ice cream?  Eating healthy obviously doesn't do any good.

Ever since I have started exercising, I have not had a steady weight loss like other weight loss bloggers report.  I have been boucing up and down within several pounds.  I trying to be ok with that as long as the several pounds keeps dropping.  In the beginning it was between 215 and 220.  Currently, it seems to be 212 and 216.  (This is assuming that next time I get on the scale it's not more!)

But even if I acknowldge this mentally, it's hard to keep from getting frustrated every time the scale goes back up.  What should I do?  Reward myself each time I reach a new low weight?  What with?  Definitely not food!

Bibliophilia

"A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting."  - Henry David Thoreau

The temperature is supposed to be 108 today.  And unusually humid.  I hate the heat!  (So why am I living in Texas, right?)  In the Texas summer, I tend to move from air conditioner to air conditioner.  And as I have no place I need to be today...

Guilt free laziness. 

Comfortable couch, ice cold drink, an air conditioner.  And a stack of books.  What more could a woman want?  (Maybe a cool breeze and a hammock, or a storm and a cozy fire - sigh, one make's do with what one has)

On days like this, I love to revisit some of my favorite books.  Sometimes I'll pick one book to re-read, but often, I prefer to browse through and dip into many books to read and enjoy favorite passages and illustrations.

Today I've chosen to indulge in a stack of interior design and sensual living books.  Big coffee table books with lots of gorgeous photographs.

Todays pile consists of:

MaryJane's Outpost
by MaryJane Butters

InterCourses: An Aphrodisiac Cookbook
by Martha Hopkins and Randall Lockridge

Jane Seymour's Guide to Romantic Living
by Jane Seymour

New England Style
by Anna Kasabian

Villa Decor: Decidedly French and Italian Style
by Betty Lou Phillips

Victoria: Bedrooms:
Private Worlds and Places to Dream

Walden Pond
Photographs by Bonnie McGrath
Refelctions by Henry David Thoreau

Curl Up and Dye

"The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries or the way she combs her hair." - Audrey Hepburn

Feminine Goal #2:  Dye my hair.

When I was a child, my hair was wavy.  Every year, it got curlier, but no one seemed to have any idea how to care for curly hair.  The result?  Knots.  Painful knots that the horrible brush I had couldn't work through.  The knots often turned to mats and the mats would eventually have to be cut out.  Mortifying to a pre-teen girl.

As an adult, I finally got sick of dealing with dry, frizzy hair.

So I started having my hair flat ironed.  Finally, the straight hair I always wished I had and I could actually run my fingers through it!  But going to the hairdresser week after week began to wear.  Next, I tried doing it myself.  Burned fingers and singed hair ensued.  Screw that.

The other problem is gray.  It started (mildly) in high school and expanded but now seems to have contained itself to my temples.

When it was flat ironed, the gray looked kind of cool - like Rogue from the X-Men.

 (too bad I don't have her body!)

Post flat ironing: good bye Rogue.  Hello, Bride of Frankenstein!

Then I found salvation.

Curly Girl: The Handbook by Lorrainne Massey was a revelation.  Everything I learned about hair care was wrong.  Almost over night, I went from a dry, frizzy mop to healthy, flowing curls.

This is where the hair dye comes in.

My hair is now healthy.  People now tell me they are jealous of the long ringlets flowing down my back..  THAT never happened before I found this book.  I absolutely LOVE it.

But its still gray at the temples.  I don't know if it makes me LOOK old, but when I look in the mirror, it definitely makes me FEEL old.

So, thats my next goal - to start dying my hair.  I don't have a hairdresser in my area that knows how to work with curly hair, so I'm going to do it myself, for now.  But I may look into having it done.  A little pampering is good for the soul.

Wednesday Again

A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. - Emo Philips

Current Weight: 212.6 lbs
BMI: 38.9

At least the scale has finally begun going in the right direction. 

I've decided to post my BMI as well as my weight.  Weight equals the product of mass and force due to gravity.  Since I have no current plans to move to Mars, I can't really do anything about gravity.  So, mass it is.  "They" say a healthy BMI is 18.5 to 25.  Didn't I say something about getting rid of weight charts?  Sigh.

I got my new laptop mostly configured now.  Enough that I can get some work done. 

I really liked my netbook.  It was small, light weight, and ran Windows XP and all my software.  The only downside was the screen was too small for easily editing photos in Adobe Lightroom.  Unfortunately, netbooks seem to be going away, replaced by the tablet.  Current tablet technology doesn't quite do it for me.

So, I have my new laptop.  It's heavier, bulkier, and it runs Windows 7 (Yuck).  The sales guy was trying to sell me their exteded warranty and used "you'll get Windows 8 for free when it comes out" as an incentive.  I didn't want Windows 7, I sure don't want Windows 8!  But that's a whole other story.

The new laptop does have one GREAT feature.  A decent sized screen.  I can now happily edit my photos and actually see what I am doing!

I was writing a post when my netbook crashed about the texas summer heat.  About how so many parts of the country were suffering through unusually high temperatures.  Luckily, Texas this year, while HOT, wasn't as continually record breaking as it was last year.  And I wanted to share some coooool thoughts.

Rocky  Mountain Springtime



Technical Difficulties

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.  - Arthur C. Clarke

My computer crashed last night, right in the middle of writing a post, actually.  I'm in the process of setting up a new computer and recovering data.  I remember when getting a new computer was exciting.  Now, it just seems like work.  It takes days to set one up to my liking and restoring data from backups.  Anyway, I should be back up and running shortly.