Whatever happened to...

Whatever happened to frozen yogurt stores?? Remember in the 1980s and early 1990s when they were on every freakin' corner? Sort of like...hmmm, what has replaced them....Starbucks?

You could step right up and for a few dollars get a fat free and/or sugar free swirly creamy cold cup of yumminess. Some places even had mix-ins like nuts, etc. You could make it a lunch, most certainly. But now?? Nada. Where I live in the Seattle area, they must hate yogurt. There is Cold Stone, there is still Baskin Robbins, etc., but what about all the yogurt places? Where can I get some fat free sugar free yogurty goodness?

Still hating exercise...help!

So what is it with me and the exercise? I hate it. When I blog, which I've been avoiding lately due to the following, I sit at my desk and face my dusty eliptical machine. A machine I despise. I do not just dislike it, oh no, it goes much deeper. I loathe it as much as I loathe the IRS right now (and don't even get me started on that one).

At any rate, I know know know for a fact that I better get on the exercise bandwagon soon if I want to be losing actual fat and not muscle and if I want the changes I've been making to be permanent. At least I got my mind in sort of the right place, right? Now if I can get my ass in the right place, namely a gym of some sort. Much to my dismay, my doctor informs me that shopping does NOT count as cardio.

I'd love to hear from some of you that have successfully turned that corner of hating exercise and now liking it. What are your secrets?

I swear if I don't find some sort of motivation soon, I'm thiiiiiiiis close to trying to fashion a homemade liposuction machine out of our Dyson vacuum. I hear it never loses suction.

The nerd in me....

So we finally found and bought a Nintendo Wii a few weeks back. And for someone totally NOT into video games, I'm finding it very entertaining! Now I can see why all the kids get into the video games so much. I basically haven't played video games since I was about 12, and even then, the only games we had were Frogger (awesome!) and a game that you had to name the State Capitols. How freakin' tricky to try to make me learn through a game, eh?

Anyway, as I mentioned in an earlier post my main reason for wanting a Wii was to use this as a fun family tool to play active games together. Plus, I can't wait for the Nintendo Fit to come out, which is an interactive exercise device. My husband's main interest in buying one was a) it is a gadget and b) all the cool kids at work have one! :)

The Wii comes packaged with a set of games called Wii Sports, which includes boxing, baseball, bowling, golf, etc. My husband and I tried the boxing first. Interestingly enough it was a tad satisfying to whack him a bit. You make up little characters for yourself called Nintendo Miis, which look more or less like yourself. I'm thinking I could get a lot more satisfaction out of creating little figures that look like people I strongly dislike and then beating them up. Would that be wrong?

Dressing Room Kindness

Finally! A kind word in the dressing room!

Imagine your next time in the dressing room getting undressed while busily averting your eyes from the mirror so you don't catch a glimpse of your pasty white thighs illuminated by the oh-so-freakishly-unflattering green fluorescent lighting. Now imagine looking up and seeing a brightly colored sign with the words "Look at yourself, you're gorgeous!!" or "You're overflowing with beauty!" or "Worry about the size of your heart, not the size of your body." That might just make my day!

The Emerging Womens Project has created an initiative called The Dressing Room Project, which in addition to sponsoring the cards posted in dressing rooms, hosts workshops which "help teenage girls learn to focus on their positive qualities, expand their definition of 'beautiful,' value uniqueness in themselves and others and become more critical thinkers regarding media." Awesome idea.

Check out their website to donate or learn how you could help promote the Dressing Room Project in your area!

Wii Wii Wii all the way home!

Ok, I am SO getting one of these when it comes out. I'm not normally excited about video game thingies....well, not like a guy or anything, but this is exciting! Anything that makes working out even the slightest bit fun gets my vote!

Check out this new video promo for the Nintendo Wii Fit. Oh yeah, they don't know when this module is coming out or how much it will cost. And oh yeah, I can't even buy a regular Wii anywhere in the Seattle area even though Nintendo headquarters are only maybe 10 miles from my house! But I'm still psyched!

New look for my new outlook

Today I welcome a bit of a new look for the old blog. Gone are the dots, which were starting to look like big funky freckles or something. Today the background is a soothing green, which reminds me of, well, something soothing.

Speaking of soothing, today it is supposed to reach 100 degrees here in the Seattle area, which is basically the complete opposite of soothing. This kind of weather is uncommon here, thank goodness. I went for a 1 hour walk last night in 90 degree heat and I think I melted just a lil bit. It makes me wanna go run across the front lawn through the sprinklers in my underwear. Since my neighbors are trying to sell their house, I will refrain. :)

2.5 months in the life of THE Sugar Plump Fairy!

Oooo this is going to be exciting!! I bet you can't wait to know what The S.P.F. has been up to, right? Well, hopefully it won't be too much of a snooze-fest. :) Thanks to those who emailed me recently and encouraged me to keep up my ranting....err...I mean, blogging. I was shocked that anyone noticed I was gone! You like me, you really like me!

So, as many of you may remember, earlier this year I was all about the low-carb way of life. I would have felt better about myself if I did hits of crack (do you hit crack or smoke it? I dunno) than to have a piece of toast. "Carbs bad," was my mantra. I even hit the point of desperation and eagerly signed up for a much-publicized ultra-low-carb and ultra-low-calorie online diet plan (that shall remain nameless), which with approximately 600 calories a day took away the minuscule shred of energy I had left. I think that was my "rock bottom" of sensibility.

While I fully appreciate a low-carb diet works for many, it did not work for me. Sure I could lose weight, but it wasn't a lifestyle, it was a DIET. And for me, "diet" is a worse four-letter word than "carb." It has to be about changing my lifestyle. I had to fully wrap my head around weight loss that was going to be sensible and get rid of my decade long hope of some "magic pill" or easy way to lose the weight.

What I've now realized the "magic bullet" is....get this.....eating less and moving more. But wait, you say. Is that all there is to it? Basically.....ummm....yep. Portions have got to be lowered, exercise has got to be increased and sensible choices have got to be made. Sure the pounds won't drop off at a rate of 5 per week (like I always figured SHOULD be the case when I dieted), but they will drop, and your health and energy will increase. Who would have guessed?

Oh, so here is the other component. Feed your mind. Learn what you can about nutrition and exercise and how both feed your body and learn what your emotional trip is that let you get overweight in the first place. There are so many good books out there. The two that have been the most helpful to me have been "Taming Your Feast Beast," which refers to that beastly inner voice that derails you or leads you to sabotage yourself. Another helpful book is Bob Greene's "Live Your Best Life," which is sensible when it comes to portion control, exercise, etc. The dude doesn't sugar coat things. I've also re-discovered Weight Watchers, which has helped me simplify things in relation to portion control. While you can eat M&M's every day on WW if you wish, my focus has been on nutrition. The biggest changes to my diet from the low-carb days are lots of fiber-laden grains, fruit and vegetables, and reducing the fat intake!

So where am I now? Well as of today I've lost 22 pounds in 2007. Twelve have been lost by following my new lifestyle for the past month or two, while a net of ten had been lost by doing low carb on and off for five months. In the last two I've not been "on" and "off" a diet plan, I've been living.

So hopefully my change in paths will be encouraging and not disappointing to those that were missing my insights. Stay tuned for further adventures and a new blog design!

The S.P.F.