Real-World Weight Loss: Backsliding

 Well, it looks like I backslid this month.  It's mostly diet.  I've been hitting the sweets more, and with the coming of the cold weather, I'm wanting warm breakfasts like pancakes.  No excuse, of course, just something I need to be more aware of before I put things into my mouth.

	15-Jan	25-Oct		total loss
weight	169	146		23 lb dec
body fat	38.5	28.6		9.9 dec
chest	38.7	34.6		4.1 dec
bust	41.1	37.8		3.3 dec
waist	39	34.8		4.2dec
hips	42.8	38.1		4.7 dec
abs	42	38		4. dec
thigh	22	22.2		.2 inc
calf	15	14		1. dec
bicep	11.6	10.9		.7 inc
forearm	10	9.4		.6 dec
neck	15	13.9		1.1 dec
Total loss				23.5  inches

I can feel it in the fit of my pants, but I'm still better than when I started in January. So, I promise to get back onto healthier eating, but in the meantime, here's a little something I was inspired to write during Tabata week:

Caught in Tabata Class

To the tune of "Bad Romance":  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVnSV6jvraE

Oh, caught in Tabata class
Oh, caught in Tabata class

Moan, moan, moan and groan

Moanmoan, moan and groan

Moan, moan, moan and groan

Caught in Tabata class

Moan, moan, moan and groan

Moanmoan, moan and groan

Eight more sets to go

Caught in Tabata class

I know I’m chubby, I want to get thin
I want to tone my butt and stop jiggling
I need a gym
Gym, gym, gym, I need a gym

I’m tired of panting from climbing the stairs
There’s only eight of them, I keep drawing stares
This can’t go on
On, on, on, this can’t go on
(Gym, gym, gym, I need a gym)

You know the fat bugs me
And I want to be hunky
I need your class, Tabata class

For twenty second I can push myself hard
You and me caught in Tabata class
We rest ten second, then we do it again
You and me caught in Tabata class

Oh, caught in Tabata class
Oh, caught in Tabata class

Moan, moan, moan and groan

Moanmoan, moan and groan

Five more sets to go

Caught in Tabata class

I’m running hard now; you’re making me sweat
I’m lifting weights, gonna get stronger yet
I’m in the gym
Gym, gym, gym, I’m in the gym

Have I gone psycho? I think I see lines
There in my muscles, and it’s about time
I’m getting fit
Fit, fit, fit, I’m getting fit
(Gym, gym, gym, I’m in the gym)

Hey, I’m losing inches
with body fat shrinkage
('Cause I'm working out, baby)
But it still hurts me, this Tabata class

Oh, I’m so achy, tell me when does class end
You and me caught in Tabata class
But we keep running as we plot our revenge
You and me caught in Tabata class

Oh, caught in Tabata class
Oh, caught in Tabata class

Moan, moan, moan and groan

Moanmoan, moan and groan

Two more sets to go

Caught in Tabata class

Run, run, fitness, baby
Work it, move those feet, crazy
Lift, lift, fitness, baby
Pump it, lift those weights, crazy

Bend, bend, sit-ups, baby
Move it, twenty seconds, crazy
Exercising, baby
Later, get a donut, maybe

Burning calories, from beginning to end
Let’s cut the fat; it don’t wanna be friends
Gasping for breath, when does this session end
Ten second rest, then we’re staring again

(Oh, caught in Tabata class)

Let me just catch my breath
(Oh, caught in Tabata class)
I feel so close to death

Don’t like my jiggle!
(Oh, caught in Tabata class)
My fat just wiggles!

But when it’s over and I’m breathing again
You and me in a Tabata class

I’m sore but happy, and I’ll come back again
You and me in a Tabata class

(Oh, caught in Tabata class)
I skinny pants fit

(Oh, caught in Tabata class)
My new shape’s a hit

(Oh, caught in Tabata class)
So tired, I could spit

Moan, moan, moan and groan

Moanmoan, moan and groan

Moan, moan, moan and groan

Caught in Tabata class

 

Halloween Treat: Excerpt from FRIGHTLINER

 

The Friday night Reba walked out on Daniel, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and stars were scattered about like fat, yellow jewels, fighting with the nearly full moon for dominance over the blackness. It was the new pickup that did it. She’d worked overtime at the hospital--weeks and weeks of it--to make the down payment on a new trailer. And then he’d gone out and bought a new Chevy pickup! It was the last straw.

“I didn’t sign on that thing,” she told him as she packed. “You can pay for it yourself.”

“No problem, Babe,” he answered right back. But she knew he was bluffing. He didn’t really think she’d stay away for good. They’d only been married two years and mostly they still liked each other pretty much.

And, she told herself, as she drove off in her beat-up Honda, he was probably right. She might come back. But not right off.

She stopped at a diner and called her sister in El Paso. Told Melanie she was on her way, invited herself for the weekend. She didn’t want to give up her job as an aide. Not for Daniel’s sake.

It was some drive from Roswell, where she had lived these past two years, and she was too mad to check the gas tank. She was thinking about her things she had packed--more than one weekend’s worth--and what Daniel was doing right now--probably drinking and driving around in the new pickup. Maybe he’d get a DUI. She thought about that, smiling a fierce little smile and, about six miles from Carlesbad, she ran out of gas.

She said a word her mother wouldn’t have liked, and coasted the car to the side of the road. She checked her cell phone, found it dead, too, and said a few more words.  She’d have to wait for a cop or something, she guessed, and reached back to make sure all the doors were locked.

But no cop came. The moon shone steady and without concern and, no doubt, the constellations moved on their busy way across the sky, but only a couple cars went by and nobody stopped. She wasn’t sure she wanted them to.

She was just resolving to get a car charger for her cell phone as soon as she got to her sister’s when a semi pulled up behind her. Weird. She hadn’t seen the lights in her mirror, hadn’t heard a thing. But it had lights. She saw them for a moment before they were turned off.

Her father had been a truck driver and she had no illusions about knights of the road stuff. He had beat her mom, cussed at the neighbors and finally jackknifed a semi in the middle of Atlanta, killing himself and doing in a load of chickens along with a sports car and part of a street sign.

Still, maybe this guy would be okay. After all, he worked for a company and he would want to keep his job. He wouldn’t try anything funny--or if he did, it would be the sort of funny stuff she could handle. In fact, she thought, maybe a bit of funny stuff was just what she needed. She waited for her rescuer to get out of the truck.

But nothing happened. The semi sat there, seemingly parked for the night, lights off, black against the radiant sky, like a big rectangle cut out of the world.

She grew more and more impatient. If only someone else would drive along! But no one did and she was growing downright chilly in her shorts and belly shirt. It’d been hot earlier that day and she’d been--well, that didn’t much matter now. At least Daniel’d gotten a hint of what he’d be missing out on. Tentatively, she opened her door, wincing as the dome light came on. Surely the driver could see it from the truck. He would know that someone was in the car.

Of course that was why he had not come out to check on her, she thought with a surge of relief. He probably thought it was an abandoned car. But now--she stepped out onto the gravel, hearing for the first time how loud the crickets sang. She smelled the strong scent of the cooling air. Too early for snow. Too warm, still anyway, though she cursed herself for not thinking to put on jeans before making her big exit. She peered at the cab, but nothing moved.

“Hello!” she called, moving closer. She could not make out a logo on the truck. It was dark, dark paint. She had an impression that the shape was--not wrong exactly, but not usual. It was an older model, she decided. An old truck.

She had reached the door.

“Anyone there?” she called, hesitating to step up and look inside. What if something had happened to the driver? What if he were dead? What if she opened the door and a body spilled out onto the road?

But that was silly. He had just pulled up. Probably he was rummaging around in his berth for some tools.

But what if he was dead? What if she took hold of the door and--and what if he was right there, watching her?

She had almost decided to go back to her own car. But the thought of the semi parked behind her, silently cutting its chunk from the sky, was in some strange way even more frightening than opening the door. She reached up for the handle and pulled herself up level with the window.

The handle turned in her hand.

It was then she knew she had done the wrong thing. If only someone else had come--she prayed for someone else. A cop. Even a car full of good old boys. Anyone.

The crickets fairly screamed their shrill and mindless song, the scent of the Russian knapweed was overpowering. But it wasn’t strong enough to hide another smell, a dark earthy smell. A smell of death mellowed by long usage.     

The door opened.

Reba froze, clutching the handle, balancing there with the driver’s seat in front of her. She tried to speak, to call, but nothing would come out. She hung there, thinking of death, while the night passed and the stars moved and the moon looked in over her shoulder. Finally, she climbed into the truck.

“Daniel,” she whimpered. She was ready to forgive the new pickup, but it was too late. Something moved in the back and she turned in the driver’s seat and saw a pale face, caught in the moonlight, eyes gleaming. She had an impression of lank hair, grizzled beard. And then two hands reached up to take her shoulders and she saw the mouth open.

She screamed at last, drowning the noise of the crickets, drowning the beating of her heart, the wrenching sounds of her own dislocating joints as something drank its fill, savaging its prey, ripping--

When she knew she was dying, she ceased to scream. For one awful moment, she looked into eternity and then, remembering some scraps of childhood religion, she tried to pray. With a final snarling rip, the thing tore out her throat and cast her body out onto the road.

2.99 on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/FRIGHTLINER-Colleen-Drippe-ebook/dp/B00506U7WA

If Mary Poppins Arrived During the Zombie Apocalypse

I think she'd sing a song something like this:

(Sung to "A Spoonful of Sugar")

(spoken)

In each undead we must put down

An element of fun is found

You find the fun and whack!

The undead don’t come back

(sung)

Those who spurned the undertaker

We will send to meet their maker.

A lark!  A spree!  It’s very clear to see that

A shovelfull of kickass makes the zombie hoard go down

The zombie hoard go down, the zombie hoard go down

Just a shovelfull of kickass makes the zombie hoard go down

In a most exciting way!

A man who’s defending his nest

As very little time to rest

While taking out the shambling undead.

Though he’s knee-deep in their gore

He’s ready to take on more.

He knows to stop would be death of Pop

And

A shovelfull of kickass makes the zombie hoard go down

The zombie hoard go down, the zombie hoard go down

Just a shovelfull of kickass makes the zombie hoard go down

In a most exciting way!

(Interlude, courtesy of Walking Dead—much gunfire and people screaming as they do something stupid and pay fatally for it)

Intrepid moms that fetch the food

From the ransacked grocery stores

Always go well-armed and cautiously

‘Cause as they’re filling up their packs

A zombie could sneak ‘hind their backs

And hence (Look out)

They find (Oh, no!)

Double shots work fine

Aaaaaaahhhhhh!  Whew!

‘cause

A shovelfull of kickass makes the zombie hoard go down

The zombie hoard go down, the zombie hoard go down

Just a shovelfull of kickass makes the zombie hoard go down

In a most exciting way!

Facebook Pages for the Zombie Lover

Facebook and Zombies!  No, I don't mean that undead state we achieve while clicking on "likes" while viewing photos of people's lunches or yet another video of sleeping walruses.  I'm talking about facebook pages where you can get your fill of zombie art and literature, jokes, and even serious science.  It's not just girl zombie authors who get a little...obsessed?...about their topic, after all.  These guys are serious--and a lot of fun:

ZNN:  ZNN stands for Zombie Newz Network. Where you can find like minded people who love zombie culture! Survival to funny pictures we're you're one stop shop!  Lots of pictures, survival tips, weapons of choice.  I'm always amused when it pops up on my news feed.

Zombies:  Visit us @ www.Zombies.ws - Zombify Yourself @ www.ZombieMe.com - Add or promote your own products @ www.Zombies.ws/z/promotion This site is more entertainment oriented--books and movies, products and comics.

Zombie Research Society:  Show your support for the Zombie Research Society, because what you don't know can eat you! www.ZombieResearchSociety.com This page supports a company that sells, yep, ZRS stuff.  (If you want to trick out your car with stickers for zombie hunting, they have them.)  You can count on this page for zombie videos, pictures, etc., and they have contests and give-aways of their merchandise as well.

Carter Reid:  Carter is a zombie artist and cartoonist and has a bizarre sense of humor, as you might expect.  I enjoy his status updates, and he reminds you when his latest Zombie Nation cartoon is up.

Surviving the Coming Zombie Apocalypse - Catastrophes and Human Behavior: 
Zombies invade Michigan State University in the groundbreaking course “Surviving the Coming Zombie Apocalypse – Catastrophes and Human Behavior"  Yep, it's a college course about zombies!  Well, not quite.  It's more about how humans behave in a crisis.  However, the students post videos about their own survival experiences.

So, if you don't have enough to waste your time (did I say that out loud?), check out these sites. 

 

Posting this old picture of my study

It's an awful mess, which is the point.  I'm using it as to illustrate a lesson I'm doing in Housekeeping for Writers at the MuseOnline Writers' Conference.  Too bad you aren't there to learn how to not let it get so bad!  But take heart, the conference is scheduled for next year, and I'm doing this workshop again.  Want to register?  Go to http://www.themuseonlinewritersconference.comif you want more details, or go to http://is.gd/tmowcf and register on the forums, then take the poll to get registered for 2014.  (It's a simple click on "please register me.")

Mini-Review: Konig's Fire by Marc Schooley

I've been invited to do a blog hop next week, so instead of posting some of my writing today, I'm sharing a review of this awesome book. Great for Halloween reading.

 

Summary:  They Called Me Nebuchadnezzar

The Nazis have established a torture center in a mine at the heart of a Romanian forest. Here they interrogate prisoners and, sometimes, throw them into the furnace at the heart of the mine.

Only now, the primeval forest is rising against them, unleashing a preternatural army to besiege the great iron gate of the mine. The fearsome guards become terrified prisoners and the furnace itself burns with hungry anger against them.

Sascha König, a man they called Nebuchadnezzar, is their only hope. He is master of the furnace. All along, he has been Hitler’s ardent servant. But now...König is wrestling with demons of his own, and the Master of all fires is calling him to Himself through the haunting eyes of a little gypsy girl König did not save.

Purchase on Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/Königs-Fire-ebook/dp/B0047DW6EE

Mini-Review: A great read for Halloween because it is creepy in the extreme.  Marc has woven a chilling tale where evil is physically manifested in  the natural world.  Horror worthy of a Stephen King novel mix with the real horrors of a Nazi concentration camp.  Nonetheless, there is an underlying theme of redemption which grows with the story.  Be warned: the protagonist is not immediately likeable, or his own redemption quick and easy.  That was part of the draw for me, although my husband tired quickly of Konig's cowardice.  I say stick with it; the payoff at the end is worth it.

Cargo: a Zombie Short Film

This is an awesome film on YouTube, a great take on zombies and survival.  I love the father's foresight!  I could totally see my husband coming up with this, too.

Excerpt form Mind Over Psyche: Inside a Psychic Malestrom

I realized that the excerpts I've shared so far have been kind of ordinary, especially for a book that's about psychics, so today for the Mind Over Psyche tour, I present you a snippet from when Deryl and Tasmae are caught in the stored memories of Guardianju, Tasmae's insane predecessor of 5000 years ago.  Tasmae's being forced by events to experience these memories, and she's not handleing it well.  Deryl has dived in (kind of literally) to help her.

In the waking world, his body lay frozen, his mind shorted out, overloaded by the pandemonium of images assailing his mind. In the world of the Remembrance, he struggled and thrashed and could not stop screaming.

He felt himself being torn apart from the inside. Fire blazed across his back and legs. His blood pooled, threatening to burst his veins and his skin. He tumbled helplessly through a hurricane of pain, in too much torment to notice his fall until he smacked hard against something like water or quicksand—and like water or quicksand, it pulled him under.

Mental anguish replaced the physical torture as the “sea” morphed into a mass of lost psyches. They bumped and swirled against him, tried to press themselves upon him, into him. Snatches of memories, most of them painful, flooded his mind. They pulled him down. He fought them psychically as he fought physically to reach the surface. He’d rather face the agony of the surface than the insanity of the sea.

He was losing. Thoughts tangled around him, too many, too strong. He was going to die there, drowning in a strange sea that was half psyche, buried by the painful experiences of others. His thrashing grew more violent, but he knew he couldn’t fight them.

Then stop fighting, a memory of Joshua called faintly. Defense! Get your shields in close and strong!

Desperately, Deryl tried to imagine his ragged shields pulling in, knitting themselves close and tight, strong as armor. The psyches faded only slightly, but it was enough. The sea became water again.

He broke the surface, gasping and trembling, tread water, and forced his mind to think coherently as he sought his bearings.

The world reflected the turmoil he felt. Above, the sky glowed red shot through with black. Cruel-looking blue lightning arched from cloud to cloud, though he could not hear the thunder over the blaring wind. The sea churned about him, and the rain fell in cold sheets. Two large stars fought to shine through the darkness, yet oddly, the planet between them flared, clearly visible. Barin.

A wave forced water into his mouth and nose. He sputtered, felt the world gray. Pain wracked him.

Where was Tasmae? What was this—a kind of memory? Could Gardianju have really experienced this? No wonder Tasmae—

“Tasmae!” he called, his words immediately ripped away by the wind. His telepathic call fared better; he could almost feel the psyches below him pounce upon it like sharks feeding. Buffeted among them was a dark shape, nearly a psychic null point.

“Taz!” All his fear and pain suddenly vanished in the need to get to her, and he plunged in again to pull her from the depths.

The depths were not so eager to release her, and they had had longer to ensnare her. Tendrils of thought, like seaweed, clung to her body, but unlike seaweed, these thoughts had weight and a kind of intelligence. They dragged her down and him with them. No matter how he struggled, he could not pull her to the surface.

Even if he could, what then? They were trapped. There was no way out of Gardianju’s memories.

No way out but through.

Swallowing his fear, he stopped struggling and allowed himself to be pulled down, and as he did, the memories of Gardianju the Miscria insinuated themselves into him until he could no longer tell the difference between her, Tasmae, or himself.

Purchase links for Mind Over Psyche: 

Epub: https://www.getonic.com/EmbedStore/76200/1734

Kindle: https://www.getonic.com/EmbedStore/76202/3746

Print: www.amazon.com/Mind-Over-Psyche-Karina-Fabian/dp/1897492685

Real-World Weight Loss: Month Nine!

I can hardly believe that I've been going to the gym faithfully for nine months now.  That's the amount of time it takes to grow a baby!  Alas, I haven't' lost a pregnancy's worth of weight, but baby days are over, and middle-age weight is make of sterner stuff!

The thing I love most about circuit torture is it never stays the same.  One minute cardio, one minute weights, mixes for floor, free weights, nautalis.  Some weeks, we have weight vests; some days, we do Tabata.  In nine months, I've not seen the same routine twice.  Today was Aggression Release Friday.  Ryion had set up the punching stations I've been wondering about for months. We punched one and kicked another.  Plus, we did punches with weights, and did slam ball (in which you hold a sand-filled ball over your head and slam it to the ground.  Sand-filled balls do not normally bounce, so the fun is to see how high you can make it rebound.)  We also had the inclined sit-up station.  We needed something to feel aggressive about, after all.

Hit me, baby!  I love the abuse!

It's been a long time since I punched anything.  The first time, I apologized, but by the end, I was getting into it.  "You want a piece of me?"

Yeah, sometimes, I get odd looks in the gym.  Why do you ask?

Anyway, considering that this month, I had a 2-week break with no exrcise and not-so great food, I did pretty well.  I've stayed under 145, though not lost more, and you can see my stomach has gotten a little paunchier than last month.  That's okay, though.  It's slow progress but steady overall.  Today, I pulled out a shirt that was tight last winter and it fits great!

Love that the extra chin is going away!

Will admit to having been fine with a bigger butt.  Want the waist to go away!
Lately, I've started replacing some of the cardio with abs.

	15-Jan	18-Sep		total loss
weight	169	143.6		25.4 lb dec
body fat	38.5	26.7		11.8 dec
chest	38.7	34.5		4.2 dec
bust	41.1	37.4		3.7 dec
waist	39	33.6		5.4dec
hips	42.8	37.9		4.9 dec
abs	42	36.9		5.1 dec
thigh	22	20.6		1.4 inc
calf	15	14.4		.6 dec
bicep	11.6	11		.6 inc
forearm	10	9.5		.5 dec
neck	15	14.2		.8 dec
Total loss				27.2 inches

Mini-Review: Caleb

Summary:  Educated as a companion to a rich white boy in Boston and promised freedom, Caleb was instead sold down South into the hard life of a field slave. Bought by a new master after five years, he uses his brains to jump from the cotton fields to a soft job and gain the trust of his master, but will settle for nothing less than freedom. As the Civil War threatens, he uses his fists to fight his way out of slavery. After a perilous trip north, he joins the Union army and sets off on the adventure that will bring him face to face with his former master on the field of battle.

Caleb is a historical novel that chronicles one man's fight against adversity, daring to succeed in the face of insurmountable odds and terrible hardship.

Review:  This is an interesting Civil-War-era novel form the point of view of a Northern slave sold south, where he gains his freedom, goes back north, and joins the army just as the war starts.  I found the perspective refreshing, as the characters were realistic in their complexity.  They Southern slave owner whips Caleb for refusing to talk, yet helps him buy back his freedom, coming up with a plan where Caleb can earn the money.  Some slaves preferred the security of their own slavery on the plantation to the unknowns of freedom.  In the North, some jobs and bosses were on par or worse than those of the slave-held in the South, which is what leads Caleb to the army rather than any desire to "free his Black brothers."  My only complain is that words the end, especially, things come too easily to Caleb.  He worked hard and was smart, but it was all a little to pat.  Nonetheless, a good read.

Purchase on Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Caleb-A-Historical-Novel-ebook/dp/B00COH20K0