Category: Fight with fat

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The results are out…

Measurement time at the gym. It’s like an exam that I want to put away, always.
I’ve lost some weight I know … but they have something called the ‘body composition analysis’ which tells you whether you’re losing weight the right way.

So well.. I was okay on the weight loss front but along with the fat I’ve lost muscle mass … not good at all. It’s inevitable, say gym veterans. But I’m not too happy.. I really need to do this the proper, healthy way. So no more climbing mindlessly on that treadmill/cycle and staying there for ever. Less cardio more weights, pronounced the trainer. More proteins in my diet too. Soy Milk.. yuk plus I HATE weights.

Bone density is down too.. another no no… Calcium supplements on the way.

And the final verdict.. my metabolic age is 50 years… yikes. I need to get younger. But that’s the best part.. you can get younger… yay.

Last word: I’m behind my November target by a few 100 gms. Hope to make it up this month. Walk walk walk. .. eat right, eat right, eat right.

Last last word: Made laddoos today, Naisha’s farmaish. Imagine spending an hour rolling that ghee-sugar-steeped mixture into laddoos and NOT popping a single one in your mouth. Nope that’s not what I did… I did not ‘not pop’.

PS: Can’t get the ‘Kolaveri’ song out of my head. Heard it anyone?

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Over the weekend

It’s shaking, it’s shaking.. Hrit’s tooth is shaking… another right of passage… he’s growing up. That was the highlight of the weekend. Needless to say he was thrilled while Naisha has been checking hers by the minute without much luck. For once Hrit beat her to it, which is fair considering she turned, sat up, walked and talked before him.

On the weight loss front…
I begged and begged and begged the trainers to get the weighing machine functional. One of them got fed up enough to say he’d fix it up by Monday. “Pukka?” asked I, “Yes”, said the poor cornered man. “Promise?” said I, “Promise.” said he. “Gentleman’s promise?” said I. “Done” said he and made his escape while I bit back the “Fairy God promise?” hovering on my tongue. That’s what comes of living with two kids.

Anyway.. as a result of the impending examination at the weighing scales I planned some extra bit of exercise over the weekend since I’d not been a good girl with my diet (as usual). I thought I’d go for a power walk on Saturday evening but I got stuck with the kids’ homework. It wasn’t much but they need a lot of persuasion.
Oh well.. I’ll go at night, thought I. And it decided to rain complete with magnificent thunder and lightening bang at 9.

A determined me.. set the alarm for Sunday morning. I do surprise myself sometimes — my Sunday morning sleep is completely, totally sacrosanct. However, much before the alarm rang Hrit woke me up with a, “Mama potty.” Now my kids might not take my permission for anything else but for this one thing they ALWAYS, ALWAYS need permission. Naisha will run in from play jumping from foot to foot shouting urgently, “mama potty, mama potty” till I say “go go go run”. It’s been months since they’ve become independent in this department so it’s a wholly pointless exercise. Can I possibly say No? Anyway “Go,” I mumbled trying to get back to sleep. (All those who’ve been envious of my kids early sleeping… this is the price I pay). By the time the alarm rang Hrit was in no mood to let me go and Naisha was stirring too.

I had to content myself with a short walk along with the kids, which I must admit might not count on the weighing scales but was completely worth it. Hrit came along sporting his pirate mask over his glasses while Naisha tucked a flower in her ponytail and carried a Hannah Montana wallet… some sight that must have been. But once you’re a mum… such things cease to matter.

Pune weather never disappoints and the mornings are unusually pleasant. Even though we dodged drains and potholes the breeze was cool and the perfume of Champa and Harshringar was still in the air. Naisha exclaimed at the carpet of flowers under trees yet undisturbed by traffic while Hrit picked fights with every dog we met along the way. Great fun.

The power walk was postponed to the evening. Then The Husband sat down to watch ZNMD and I really couldn’t resist the temptation to join him even though I’d seen the film. Finally after 9 I got my walk done and now I’m set to climb onto that machine provided the trainer keeps his gentleman’s promise.

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Save my pizza

I need to launch a save-my-pizza drive because my weight loss programme seems to be slipping away. Just when I became consistent at the gym it decides to go for a face lift, the gym I mean. Apparently there are plans to include a spa. Who needs a spa for godssake? Give me simple machines any day.

Anyway, so now one half of the gym has been broken down and is being reconstructed while we workout in the other half. There’s cement everywhere. The changing rooms and washrooms are not there at all. It’s been a week now, since the exercise room has been shutdown. That means no aerobics, no abs, no yoga. More bad news — no ACs, no fans. With this hot and humid weather, there are days I walk out of the gym only because I’m embarrassingly drenched — oh I sweat like a horse and the exercise makes it worse.

I made my way so very reluctantly to the gym this Saturday only to find none of the cross trainers or the treadmills functional. Power Cut. Aaaaaarrrrrgh! No cardio then! How long can one do weights!

However, the worst bit is that the weighing machine has been kept away. Checking my weight every day is my biggest motivator, no matter what the verdict. I HATE not knowing how much I weigh each day. It’s been almost a week since I checked and that makes me feel like I’m fighting in the dark. I don’t know how hard to exercise. I begged the trainer to please please plug in the machine and he had the nerve to say, “Madam do din mein weight nahin badhta.” Really? I could do it in two hours.

I’ve been trying to figure out my weight on the age-old machine we have at home but it’s no use. Here I am counting grams and this battered old thing thinks nothing of missing the mark by a few kgs.

Then there are the construction workers. It’s kind of ironical to be struggling to lose weight (piled on through years of over-indulgence) while they’re struggling for their daily survival. The women, specially, stare unabashedly, looking puzzled and amused. I bet they’re thinking, “Come lift some buckets of cement instead of those silly dumbells.” They make me feel self-conscious/guilty… certainly uncomfortable.

The walks are faltering too what with The Husband coming home late. Even though the kids crash by 9 I’m pacing around all dressed up waiting for him to get home so I can go for the walk. By the time he gets home I’ve lost steam.

I can feel that pizza slipping away.

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Getting back, catching up

The thing with staying away from your blog for too long is that you accumulate so much backlog. It’s almost like it was at work. What’s worse, when I do get back everything goes backwards. As in I begin writing with the most recent stuff because that’s top of my mind and then go back upto the time when I last wrote. That makes for a bad read. All topsy turvy. The solution is of course to be regular.
I have so many blogs to read and so much to write. How much can really happen in twenty days!

In a capsule then..
We went to bid farewell to Ganapati. This is something one must see to believe… the celebration, the drumbeats, the crowd and above all the Ganapati’s arriving in cars, in trucks, atop tempos,.. an amazing sight. Then Hrit Naisha had a World Fiesta at their school and much grief that caused me, but more on that later. They’ve been unusually trying these past few days and I’ve all but jumped down from my ninth floor home. On a happy note – I read some great books. And of course there is the weight loss that is slowly turning into an obsession.

First the weight loss. Yesterday was a landmark day because The Husband noticed, yes really he noticed. “You’ve lost a bit,” said he casually as I was ‘booting’ up after putting the kids to sleep for my nine O’ clock walk. “A bit” when I’ve lost almost 6 kgs and have been bragging about it all the time. But that’s the thing with The Husband… he won’t say it till he sees it. Which is why I NEVER EVER ask him the question I ALWAYS want to ask him, “Am I looking fat?” No point. He’ll say exactly what the mirror says.. and I know that already Thank You.

I’ve been supplementing the gym with short/long walks as and when I can. Being a stay-at-home mum does have its perks. It’s really not as tough to find time as a working mum. I’ve come to enjoy, really enjoy, the walks any day more than the gym. There’s the seductive Pune breeze, for starters, that seems to actually call out as soon as one steps out.

Best pals

Then I flicked The Husband’s ear phones and loaded some tracks on my mobile all on my own, despite being severely technologically challenged. So now I have the Senoritas, Darlings and Chamak Challos for company (Somehow the cheesiest of songs sound the best while I’m exercising) plus people in the society don’t expect me to stop and make small talk.. a smile, a wave and I’m on my way. What’s better I can go easy at the gym.

Control nahin hota
The eating, by the way, is progressing almost normally. The Husband went to Chennai and came back with a box of Mysore Pak from Sri Krishna. Someone, pretty aptly described it as a ‘ghee saturated sweet’. I dug in mercilessly.

Then he dropped in at Kayani Bakery the other day and got home with a huge pack of Shrewsberry biscuits and two cakes. Two, when he’s diabetic and I’m trying to lose weight. And it was a weekend. Why why why would he do that???? Had I not known him better I’d have thought he was trying to sabotage my weight loss. But The Husband wouldn’t bother.. he’s the most non-hidden-agenda-person I’ve ever seen. Anyway, I got through the biscuits in about three days. No one makes it like Kayani.

However, I neutralised it all with exercise. Isn’t that great? The gym closed for two days for some restructuring which is how I got back to the comp.

The target now is another five kgs till my birthday in December which I shall celebrate with a Cheese Burst Pizza and a bottle of Sprite. That should keep me going.

Afterthought: I have become my own Chinese Mum .

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Eid, Ganapati and some weightloss

The kids had two days of holidays for Eid and Ganesh Chaturthi, The Husband was working both days. I thought I’d take a break. For once I’d drop the Scheduler Mom attitude, let the kids be… not worry about whether they were having their daal, roti, subzi… not worry about how much television they were watching… or how long they were at the neighbour’s… that was the plan.
I thought I’d not bother with the festivals, either. Eid used to be special in Lucknow .. but we were not in Lucknow. Our only Muslim friend here, who’s son is also Hrit’s best buddy, had gone home to Kerala for the celebration so we were just not excited.
However, one can’t really live in India and not bother about festivals. First I got a call from my mother. Here’s how that went…
Ma: So what are you doing for Eid? Are you making Seviyan?
Me: Nope
Ma: Why not?
Me: I just didn’t feel like it.
Ma: Arre, why aren’t you celebrating? How can you not involve the children in Eid celebrations? You should dress them up, take them out, tell them why it’s celebrated.
That’s when I wished I could tune her out. But there’s something about my mum. I just can’t tune her out. Everyone else I can.. I’m actually quite good at it. I can read amidst the kids’ ruckus, turn a deaf ear to The Husband, tune out to colleagues’ wives chatter, make PC with all and sundry without bothering my brains but my mum.. she’s a different story. Oh I’ll oppose what she says when I don’t quite agree.. but I’ll always have a niggling doubt that she’s right. She often is… but that’s not the point. The point is that small ‘niggle’ will niggle and niggle and grow and grow till I find myself galvanised into doing exactly what she wanted me to. Humph! So much for turning into a grown up, mature, independent individual.
But I deviate.. on with the conversation…
Me (putting up the token protest and trying to go on the offensive): I’m not sure of the story myself. You never told us, did you? You never dressed us up either.
Ma: Well you were in Lucknow. You were part of that culture.. you got to soak it all up automatically but your kids need to be told about it all. Look up the story on the Net, get out the kurta pajama and chaniya cholis. And I did dress you up once.
Well she did.. but that wasn’t on Eid and she DID NOT tell us the story.
Not that it mattered because by evening I was running around buying seviyans and milk, then surfing the Net, then digging out the kids’ clothes. Then The Husband came and said we were to go to wish a friend Eid. The kids’ got to flaunt their clothes and I got to eat the most delicious Sheer Khurma (that had simmered all night on a sigri… yum!). My seviyans turned out quite delicious too or maybe the neighbours were being polite. But then The Husband said so too and he NEVER tries to be polite so my Eid was pretty much perfect.
Then came Ganapati. Thank God Mum knows nothing about it (There’s no Ganesh Chaturthi up North) and just as I was thinking of a lazy day the SIL called. She was bringing Ganapati home and we were invited. And so I ran from the gym, ran to pick some prasad so I could make my own petitions to the Lord, dressed up the kids and it was puja time. We drove through the roads teaming with drummers even as loudspeakers boomed bhajans in Marathi, waded through the crowds to pick up the idol, watched the SIL set it up, decorated it with flowers and thermacol, then put together the hundred other things needed for the puja, sang the aarti while the kids alternately clapped and fought for the bell. Finally we sat down to a hot lunch of chhole, bhature, kheer… really there’s nothing like being with friends and family.
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And here’s my high five moment. I kicked off the four kgs I’d picked up In Lucknow during the vacations. Now I can look forward to some real weightloss. Since I’d set August as the deadline I’m pretty bang on with my target. Even the modaks I had recently haven’t pushed up the scales so I’m pretty chuffed. Wish me more luck guys.
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