The Zone

So I have been re-reading Oprah Winfrey's book Make the Connection. I bought it a LOOOONNNNG time ago at the dollar store in Florida and thoroughly enjoyed it. (The treasures one can find at the dollar store!) I recently picked it up again after I was out of things to read around the house and started working my way through all of the chapters and information again. I have to say that I really, really like this book. And timing wise, it has found it's way into my life again at the PERFECT time! My workouts have been stalled out and I have slowly over the course of this year watched my scale inch up and inch up and inch up....and you know the saying...give her an inch and she'll take a mile? Well my butt and gut are approaching the mile wide zone these days. And despite longer runs and more classes at the gym, it doesn't seem to be moving anything at all for me. And so I have been reading these pages with a fresh new outlook and it makes more sense to me right now as I approach the ripe old age of 37 here in two weeks than it ever has before. One of the chapters in particular that never really clicked with me is TOTALLY clicking with me right now. It talks about exercising in "the zone". Basically, it says you can exercise all day long and while you might burn calories, if you aren't doing that exercise in "the zone" then you are not doing a single thing to rev up your metabolism and help yourself. You are just burning calories. And that you can get TONS more benefit from working out for 20 minutes in the zone over working out 40 or 60 minutes not in the zone. The more I have thought about this and examined my life I think old Bob Greene just might have a real point there. I exercise all the time. And have now for years. This is not new. I am very faithful to my gym schedule. I run 5 to 6 miles at a time at least a couple of times a week. We eat reasonably. Not perfectly. But reasonably. I don't have a sweet tooth and I rarely crave things like potato chips. Despite all of this, I have watched the scale climb this year. And now half of my closet doesn't fit. My friend Wendy has always said 5 pounds is no biggie and nothing to complain about. But for me it's a whole size up in my clothes and it's a HUGE difference. It's the difference between bikini and no bikini. It's almost the difference between bikini and "Stay off the beach, lest someone try to shove the whale back in the water!" It has been very frustrating the past year watching all of this, knowing that I have not made any detrimental changes to my diet and have only stepped up my efforts to improve the situation...all to no avail. And so today, I had my first day of working "in the zone". I was BARELY able to hang on to it for the required 20 minutes...which according to ole Bob is a good thing, I ran 7.5 minute miles for 15 of the twenty minutes. Then I had to back it down to an 8 minute mile (which, incidentally, is the same pace that Oprah herself works out at). I did last the 20 minutes and I was SO tired when it was all over. I kept running it through my mind that Bob said that most people don't have to work as hard as Oprah does to boost her metabolism. Then immediately I just figured that me...being me...would be the exception to that rule and would have to work every bit as hard as Oprah does. So as soon as I could begin to catch my breath after that I ran up and down my stairs 10 times at top speed...just for good measure. Oscar was very supportive of this particular phase of my exercise routine and accompanied me up and down each and every pass! We were both tired at the end. We will see if the saying "less is more" really is true! I can say that I am definitely feeling that 30 minutes on the treadmill WAY more than I usually feel the full hour. And I am tired and my butt and hamstrings are just singing to me as I sit here typing this. Time will tell! We shall see.

On another note. I am going to see my sister on Friday for a second attempt at "Sister's Weekend". At least...that is the plan. The ticket has been purchased and all the appropriate people have been put into place to help chaufer the kids to and from their various destinations. But sometimes I just have to wonder if we really just aren't meant to have our sister's weekend there in the tar heel state! As of this morning, Charlotte is due to be slammed by Hurricane Hannah sometime between Friday and Saturday afternoon and my arrival is sceduled for SMACK in the middle of that! In addition to that, Hurricane Ike is hot on Hannah's trail. So this could end up being a very interesting weekend for sure! I gave my older sister a hard time earlier when we booked our flights because she didn't want to fly "steerage" (as she so sweetly described it....MOOOOOO" with me. Seems she's a bit on the spoiled side and likes the bigger seats, extra leg room and a hit of champagne before takeoff! Anyway. I tried guilting her into flying with me by telling her how sad she would be if my plane crashed and she knew that I spent those very last few seconds of my life all alone and scared on that plane with noone's hand to hold or be able to talk with. She said if my plane went down she'd just be even more glad she wasn't on it. So much for my guilt trip attempt! However....if my plane goes down in Hurricane Hannah, I think it will definitely always be in the back of her mind that she let me fly all alone when she COULD have come right along with me. ESPECIALLY since she ended up booking her own flight in STEERAGE anyway! So...it's a great time for all of you to lift up your prayers for a MAJOR shift in the winds so that Hurricane Hannah will blow HARD west and aim for...I don't know...Texas maybe...or Louisiana (sorry about that) or even Alabama would work well for me this this weekend. Chris tells me not to worry about it. That the worst possible thing that could happen is that I would spend three days sitting stuck in an airport somewhere. Nice. very nice. And so...back to the praying! Pray it up....Hannah neads a hard westward movement! Many thanks in advance!