You Are SUCH a Loser

Spread the word to anyone else who wants to participate in the Stimpsons' Biggest Loser. I'll send a point chart via email to everyone so you can track your progress.

We'll start on Monday, February 23 and go from Monday through Sunday every week.

After weighing in on Sundays, email me your weekly results (see chart when it comes in your email) and I'll keep a running total of everyone's progress.

Write your $25 check to me and mail it to me, postmarked no later than March 1. Does that work for everyone? (If you need my address, request it in the comments section below and I'll email it to you.)

When I send you the progress chart (in the next day or two), you can send me, via return email, your current weight and your weight loss goal, i.e., how many pounds you want to lose by June 7.

I made some additional comments on one or two of my previous three posts, but right now I can't remember which ones, so if you have time, there's a little additional information there.

Any suggestions or ideas, let me know.

Current participants: Megara, JanaBrookes, Nicea, Annie, Shawn, Jaime Escalante (points only, not weight), Amanda,The Professor (weight only, not points), Kevin, James in Pink, Princess Consuela, Banana Hammock, Sherry Carpet, COY, and B-Hal.

Did I miss anyone? Jenica, if you see this, tell your dad. He might want to play, too. Jana, would your mom want in? Or your dad? (I know your dad already walks half way around California every day anyway, doesn't he?) I wonder if The Professor wants to do this. Hmmm. I'll ask him. He's returning from Notre Dame tonight to celebrate George Washington's birthday this weekend.

Remember, you set your own weight loss goal. Every pound lost makes YOU a bigger

L-O-S-E-R.

Not to brag, but I've lost 6.75* pounds in two weeks. I won't mention weight loss again. I promise. Unless you ask. But aren't you more motivated now?

*The bad news is that it doesn't show yet.

Annie's Reunion Idea

What would all of you family members think about the idea presented in Annie's comment posted to my previous post (Evolution and Resurrection) and explained by me after hers?

Evolution and Resurrection

A few days ago, Megara recommended a series of exercise videos she thought I might enjoy. This got me thinking, because it's Sunday today, about Sunday sorts of things like evolution and resurrection.

Well, not The Resurrection, per se. More like resurrected things.

Like these weights I asked a loved one to give me for Christmas a few years ago. I'd like to resurrect them.

You never want to give your spouse this kind of gift for Christmas unless they specifically ask for it.

Most people only make this mistake once.

I haven't found my weights yet, but I did dig up my Jane Fonda Workout tape.

"Are you ready to do The Workout?"

Yes, Jane. Hit it.

We were friends.

If you wanted to look like her you wore the whole outfit: leg warmers, footless colored tights, striped leotard with babydoll sleeves. I did. Wear the outfit, I mean. Except, my hair color was the only part of me that ever really looked like her.

I still have the outfit if you ever want to borrow it.

My next get-in-shape era included a set of 7 Winsor Pilates tapes that began with The Basics.


If you preferred, you could start with The 20-Minute Workout and move on to The Bun and Thigh Workout or

The Ab Sculpting Workout,

or The Upper Body Sculpting Workout.

It was a beautiful thing, pilates on tape.

You never had to leave home and you could exercise in your Skivvies, but I never did.

Wear Skivvies, I mean.

I'm not that kind of girl. I wore my Jane Fonda suit.

I bought all of these pilates videos, oh, maybe ten (or seventeen ) years ago and have yet to try the Accelerated Body Sculpting one:

Well, I suppose, to be absolutely honest with you, I should disclose that I don't remember doing any of the videos except The Basics. And maybe the 20-Minute Workout.

It would be fair to say that Advanced Body Slimming would be over my head at this point:

A person can get super deals on these if she's really looking.

I'm always so motivated to exercise when I'm out looking.

Like when I got this video at Costco:

This is its PG-rated video cover. The one I actually bought was more like R-rated so I hid it from my husband because I didn't want him making any comparisons. Not that he would. But still.

I have always tried to err on the side of caution.

I don't remember ever doing Buns and Abs of Steel either, but I did run across this Simply Pilates multipack a year or two later. It came with 26 flash cards, a dvd and a booklet.

I was taken in by the flashcards. Flashcards call my name.

Because they know I'm a teacher.

Maybe I'll open them tomorrow and see what they look like.

My most recent purchase was this 3 in 1 Exercise Ball: The Complete Collection.

I actually bought it right after Christmas and my husband found it in my car about 10 days ago.

I had been wondering for some time what was in that pile in the back seat.

Apparently he didn't want it in there when we picked up our friends to take them to dinner. Apparently.

In fairness to myself in my latest efforts to get fit, I did lose 1.5 pounds in my first week, and I'll be weighing in at school again on Tuesday to see how my second week went.

And walking on this every day.
Which brings us to the current evolution of my ever-endangered, precariously-perched-on-the-edge-of-extinction workout routine.

One of my colleagues at school is using the following exercise plan. I think he found it on the internet. If I can't find my weights, I think this will be a good alternative:

Begin by standing on a comfortable surface, where you have plenty of room at each side. With a 5-lb. potato bag in each hand, extend your arms straight out from your sides and hold them there as long as you can. Try to reach a full minute, and then relax. Each day you'll find that you can hold this position for just a bit longer. After a couple of weeks, move up to 10-lb. potato bags. Then try 50-lb. potato bags and eventually try to get to where you can lift a 100-lb. potato bag in each hand and hold your arms straight for more than a full minute. (I'm at this level.) After you feel confident at that level, put a potato in each bag.

This concludes my Sabbath thoughts on evolution and resurrection. Thanks for reading.

Happy Love Day

I don't really want the entire world to know it, but I am in a total funk today. Lucky for me, the whole world doesn't read this.

There is so much I could do. I just can't make myself do any of it, so I'm about to go out of my ever-revving mind.

One more TV program and I'll go nuts.

Another sound from the radio (music, talk show, news, WHATEVER) and I might hurt somebody.

I could grade papers. I could clean my office, rearrange my closet, or, heaven forbid, I could even do laundry! Now there's a novel idea.

There is an entire boatload of messy drawers that need attention. I could even take down my Christmas tree.

I know, I know. It's freaking February 14 and my Christmas tree is still up. But it looks good in there, so it may stay up until Independence Day. So there.

Normally when I'm in a funk, I'd go eat something. But I'm doing The Biggest Loser at my school, and I need to lose 15 pounds by the end of May by eating healthier and exercising. If I don't make my goal, I'll lose my $25 "deposit."

I know, $25 isn't that much, and I told my colleagues at work that I could probably just walk away from $25 if a cookie or a capuccino Heath Bar blizzard tempted me. Or both. They suggested that I put in $100. But I'm not. So I can't even go eat something.

Besides, the two valentine cookies I ate yesterday were probably what put me in this funk in the first place. One small one and one big one. Cookies, not funks. Did you know that 1/4 of one of those Grandmother's valentine sugar cookies with frosting is 1 serving? ONE FOURTH!? That's just wrong. And did you know that 1 serving = 110 calories? Yeah, I ate all 4 servings, which equals 1 valentine cookie. Because I don't do wrong things. So go ahead and do the rest of the math.

I already exercised this morning. Twice. Well, not two separate times, but twice as long as usual. According to my calorie counter, I burned off a whole 2 servings of that cookie.

I guess I need to ramp it up a bit.

Don't even remind me about the second, but smaller, cookie.

I thought endorphines were supposed to raise your spirits. Oh, yeah. That was a long time ago. This morning. Before the funk.

So, maybe I should go do something nice for someone.

Yeah.

Probably.

I should.

I wonder what's on HGTV right now.

22 - Revisited three days later in an attempt to add some pictures that went on all kooky so I tried to delete them but deleted the whole post by

mistake so I had to try to recreate the post. (Did you know there is a limit to the number of characters you can put in a title?)

Dateline February 2.

To all you new mommies and daddies out there who are posting your babies' pictures, and to everyone else who knows her, I just want to announce that my baby turned 22 today. Not 22 weeks. Not 22 months. But 22 years! And she still likes to sit on my lap.

If it weren't for her, I'd be baby hungry, too.

She had a rocky start. The docs said that all she had was a heartbeat, so the stork team was standing by when she made her entrance into the world. She had to stay at the hospital for a whole week before we could bring her home, but she's never been back. And now she wants to be a nurse.

She makes me laugh.

She calls me all the time just to check up on me.

She likes to shop. Sometimes she calls me to ask if I want to give her purchases to her for her birthday. Or Christmas. Or Tuesday.

She has many, many friends whom she treats like members of our family. I know because it's usually just family members who walk into their parents' bedroom late at night, right? Well, sometimes I'd wake up and there would be my baby and her high school friends looking down at me. In my PJ's. Right there in my bed. Snoring, no doubt. And probably with drool on my face. But it's all okay now because they're in college and they don't do that any more.

She still treats them like members of the family.

Like one time when she was on a trip to CA, she left her Jeep in our garage. I was home alone. I heard our garage door open, then I heard her Jeep start up. The next thing I heard was the garage door closing again. It's a mystery, I thought to myself. So this time I called her. The Jeep came right back. I insisted that she insist. It was one of those family members I hadn't given birth to.

Last October when the Professor and I took her to St. George with us, she let her roommate, a.k.a., Another Person to Whom I Did Not Give Birth, borrow her car for the weekend. It wasn't a very bad accident. But there were repairs required. On our insurance.

She is sooooo much fun to know. And to be around.

She's a wonderful daughter and I love her.

Happy Birthday, Manda Suzi! And many more.