Life is looking up and I'm feeling really good. Lately I've been walking at the park instead of doing my C25K. I've been walking at this park for 20+ years and always thought the trail was 3.2 miles. One of the nurses I work with told me that she thought it was 3.8. She was right! So my goal has been to walk that trail 2 times around and today I did it. I wasn't sure that I could walk 7.6 miles, but I did it.

I'm really happy about this because my friend who has been encouraging me on my journey wants to train for a 1/2 (walking) marathon. That means I'm over half done. Woo hoo! I know I have lots to do still, but it's a start.

Yesterday my brother asked if my son & I wanted to go to Hawaii again with his family. Hellz yeah we do!!! But I don't want to go looking like this so I have lots of work to do. Time to really step up my game. I don't want my 2011 pictures to look like the 2005 HI pictures. Those were just sad.

So this week was pretty successful. I lost 4.4 which is over my projected goal so I'm happy with that. Off to work so I can't write more or have the pleasure of reading any of your updates at the moment. Hope everyone is doing well.

I haven't done much of anything for myself since October of last year. I'm not sure what happened to my new lifestyle plan; I had been doing so well. But that is the past and this is now. I can only more forward from here. The good thing is that I have maintained for the most part. I've gained about 8 pounds back, but it's the physical endurance that has suffered the most.

I've reconnected with an old friend who gave me the kick in the pants that I needed to get moving. He's promised to be my cheerleader and for that, I am really grateful.
Lots of things have changed in my life this year both good and bad. I'm ready to makes those changes work to my benefit.

I've missed reading & commenting on everyone's blogs. Seriously, you all are very inspiring & motivating. I look forward to catching up with you guys soon. I doubt I will find the time to go back and read a year's worth of all the blogs I've missed since I follow so many, but I'm going to try my best.

February 22, 2010

So I obviously didn't do a great job at writing on my blog every few days as I intended. I'm struggling mentally and I don't know why. I'm so pissed at myself right now and I don't feel good physically. Without a doubt, it's 100% related to me not working out like I was. I've exercise a few times and there, but essentially you can say that I'm not working out right now. My food is sketchy at best.

Sometime in October something changed. I don't know what or why it happened, but I stopped working so hard like I had been. Part of me thinks that I'm afraid to reach my goals, not just my weight loss goals, but life goals in general. I feel like I'm "white knuckling" it through life at the moment. Why do I put up hurdles and block myself from the things that I really want in life?

I wish I knew. Lots of people have real reasons for using fat as their defense mechanism...being molested as a child, feeling abandoned, or whatever else. I don't think I have a legitimate reason other than I love food. That's just lame. When I eat bad food, why does my mind act like that's my last opportunity in life to ever eat that food again? I don't tell myself that...or at least I don't think I do.

Something is keeping me from my goals and I need to figure out why. It's driving me crazy. Why did I stop working my program? My program stopped working for me because I stopped working my program. That's the plain & simple fact. I haven't been to an OA meetings in eons. My C25K plan is somewhere in the ditch. I'm surely need to start over from week one or two now. Boo hiss.

I'm going to work on getting my head screwed on straight again & get back to work. I NEED to do this for myself if it's the last thing I do.

Ok, I have no idea why the picture is sideways when it wasn't when I saved it. Oh well.

December 22, 2009

Well I certainly didn't achieve the goals I set for myself at the beginning of this challenge. However, it's still a loss so I'm happy for that part.
Lots of things have been going on. I'm so happy it's Christmas time.

November 25, 2009

I've spent the last 5 days doing projects around the house in preparation for a house appraisal for my mortgage refinance. I'm waiting for the appraiser to get here now; he's late--15 minutes so far.
I've upgraded 2 bathroom vanity lights (think that's my 4 & 5th electrical jobs & the house hasn't burned down..yeah!), put a new faucet in my bathroom, painted my front door inside & out,the garage door trim, & 5 interior door. We bought 1200 pounds of top soil and spread that in the backyard where the deck used to be. We felt like our backs were breaking moving 30- 40lb bags of dirt around to the back yard. I've lost 31 pounds so a 40 pound bag of dirt isn't that much more. I struggled to move them. I can't imagine how great it will feel to get another 30 off and another. And last, but not least, we put up all the Christmas decorations.

Every day that I've been working in the house, I've burned a minimum of 3,300 calories. I haven't exercised in the true sense of a workout, but I've gotten lots of exercise & drank tons of water.

I'm taking today off from any activity. I'm working 12 hours tonight. Tomorrow I will resume with the workouts & use my new hanging crunch rack. I like it. I'm not able to use the pull-up bar because my ceiling is too low. The bar is right at the rafters. Oh well....in my dream house it will be perfect :o)

Hope everyone has a Happy & Safe Thanksgiving.

November 19, 2009

Yesterday I finally hit the 30 pound loss mark. It seems like it's taken forever since I was stagnate for almost 2 months. I've had a NSV as well. I purchased several shirts from Old Navy that were only XL & even a pair of workout/yoga pants and they fit. I also ordered a sweater from Lands End that was an XL & that fits too. I'm excited to wear ANY piece of clothing that isn't 2X.

I may have to put the assembly of my new equipment on hold until the weekend. I am in the process of refinancing my house (didn't realize I had a 7 yr balloon loan---seriously I have no recollection of that & my signature isn't on the copies I have of the paperwork; I think I was tricked). Anyhoo, the appraiser called about 4 times yesterday to set up a time to come out. I have a small list of things I want to get done before that happens so I'm blowing him off until this afternoon & hoping to not get the house appraised until Wednesday or next Friday.

You can do hanging crunches, pull-ups, dips, and push ups (not that you need anything to do push ups, but...)
I've used one of these before and got quick & great ab results.

November 17, 09

My new piece of exercise equipment just arrive. Woo hoo. I can't wait to put it together tomorrow and get busy using it. But for now, it's off to work...no time to enjoy it.

November 1, 2009

Halloween was just another day at my house. My son is too old for trick-or-treating so there was no costuming shopping this year. I worked Thursday night which was T-or-T night so I didn't even have to buy candy. Honestly it worked out well for the ol' diet that way.
Yesterday I stopped over at my parents' house and invited my mom to go walking with me. She was in the living room with all the suitcases and snorkeling equipment spread out all over the room. They're going to Aruba in 3 weeks. I'm so damned jealous. I LOVE Aruba and can't wait to go back. Brent & I went in 2006 and had a fabulous time. We scuba dived and it was the first time for both of us.

Anyway back to current reality...
We went to the middle school by my mom's house. There were a group of teen boys playing flag football, but I did my walk/run anyway. I guess I just don't care anymore. If my fat jiggles, it jiggles. It'll keep on jiggling until I run it all off. We only walked for 30 minutes. My mom's joints were hurting so I took her home. It was probably just her excuse to get back to packing for vacation.
What I noticed about my running yesterday is that I don't have the endurance that I should or expect that I will if I'm not hydrated. When I got home from work Friday morning, I stayed awake for an hour or so & then slept until 530pm. I got up and did some housework and laundry, but didn't drink much and ended up going back to bed around 2am. By Saturday morning, the scales said my water weight was down to 36%. I think that's the lowest it's been since I bought that scale.
I could definitely tell when I ran too. It was almost as if my muscles were all stuck together. I didn't complete a single interval yesterday. I felt like a failure. It's a great reminder to stay hydrated. It's amazing how dehydrated the body can be yet our mouths don't feel thirsty.
Time to get in a quick workout and then get ready to go visit Brent. I'm praying that I'm down to my last 3 visits in that dump. Court is on the 12th.

I'm finally off my plateau after a month. I'm down to 243.8. I thought it was never going to move. I toyed with 244, 245, 246 for all of October. I'm glad things are moving in the right direction again.
The C25K is going fairly well. Saturday morning I went to the school and walked/ran for 55 minutes. It has been rainy here for about a week. There were TONS of worms on the track. I'm sure there are worm guts stuck in the cracks of my shoes. I'm not sure how many worm lives I ended on Saturday, but I'm feeling pretty darn good.

October 23, 2009

Watch this video. It's a great reminder of all we have & all we're capable of achieving. Tomorrow will come regardless of whether we're doing something to improve our lives or not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8ZuKF3dxCY

I know that I've wasted way too many years being lazy & abusing this body that God gave to me. Time to get busy doing the work that is needed to be the best me I can be.

October 20, 09

Yesterday morning I headed over to the high school to squeeze in my C25K run in the dark before the kids started arriving at school. It was 630 and v-e-r-y chilly outside. I only wore a thin hoodie over my t-shirt. I ran/walked almost the entire time with my hands pulled inside the sleeves.

I started out the walking segment completely freezing my butt off. The running interval came & I started to run. For some reason, it wasn't that hard today. I could have gone longer. How could my body do every running segment yesterday, yet on Friday I'm not even sure I completed a single segment. Friday was like running with the cinder blocks on my feet; yesterday I think I could have run an entire 5K. Totally weird. It it just my imagination or is running in the cold temperatures easier on the breathing than running in warmer weather?

I think it was all mental. While I was running, I was thinking about Jeannie & Chuck and Brent & me. I want to have a long relationship and be healthy so I just focused on that. The run seemed almost effortless. Yowzie!! I can't believe what seemed impossible on Friday was so different yesterday. Is this whole healthy lifestyle thing really mind over matter? The mind is a very powerful thing.

Tomorrow we shall see how it goes with week 4/day 3.

October 16, 2009

Today I got up early and went to the park in the dark & did my day 1 of week 4. I'm not going to lie; it was hard. I knew it would be. Just like my feeling of never having mastered week 1, but moved on to week 2, I felt the same way about week 3. I don't think I ever ran every second of each interval in week 3...ever. But here I am moving on anyway. I think it's the only way I'll be able to overcome my mental block of thinking that I can't do this. I think I only 100% completed one interval of running today.

It's hard, but I have to do this!

The scales have been stagnate for a couple of weeks. I need to get my fire back. I'm feeling blah and have been for a couple of weeks.

October 13, 2009

I'm back from my weekend in TN. We had a good time. For some reason though, I couldn't sleep the entire time I was there which made me miserable. I've never had that problem at my in-laws. The in-laws about had a heart attack because my FIL's 2 older sons from out west came in to surprise him. My FIL has been bitching to me about how these 2 sons treat him so badly and never come to see them, don't call to check on them, never email etc. They just showed up. Big WOW! I've been with Brent for 4 years & have never met or spoken to either of them.
So anyway, it was a nice turn out for the party. It was a combined birthday party & Oktoberfest...beer brats, hot German potato salad, German beers, sauerkraut balls. All the food was good. I stuck with water all weekend since I don't drink beer.

Almost every single time I've gone down there, I say that I'm going to work out, go for a walk or something. I NEVER do. EXCEPT, this time I did. I was awake waaaay too early on Saturday morning. I got dressed & headed outside to do my C25K run. I was proud of myself for actually doing it. Honestly, I figured that I would make some excuse up in my mind & just not do it. It was nice though. The air was cool & crisp so I barely got overly hot. Got to see some deer playing in a field; actually they scared the daylights out of me because I didn't see them until they started running.
But back to reality. I'm not sure where my head has been the past week. I think I've been mentally overwhelmed with everything that's going on in my life. I was too exhausted to exercise early last week. That day turned into the next and then the next. WTF??!!! Seriously, I'm so pissed at myself. I haven't logged my food either. I will say that the food thing is getting much easier though. I don't crave the junk food like I have in the past. Despite not exercising, I pretty much stayed on task with the food. I think it's almost become ingrained in me because I feel so much better by eating right. My guts used to just KILL; now I'm feeling good in that department. I haven't overeaten, but I have had a few things that I know I wouldn't have eaten if I was being strict with myself.

So that's my goal for the day. Get my head out of my ass & back on track. I need to get dressed & get to the track to do my run before the kids arrive at school & see a fat girl running. Eeks.
Have a good day everyone.

Hello GAG team, I'm leaving today to go out of state for my F-I-L's 70th birthday celebration. I'll catch up with you all Monday. They live in the sticks so I'm not even going to bother taking my computer since I can never get any sort of connection there. I know, I know. I'm already having separation anxiety.

Have a great weekend.

Oct 6, 09

So apparently my body didn't read the post where I wrote that the weight lifting weight can hang around until weigh-in day & then get lost. I gained 1.4 this week. Grrr! Seriously, I don't understand how this is physically possible, but it is what it is. Two days after the workout I was seeing a gain of 6 pounds. WTF is that all about?

Guess I need to just work harder & keep plugging away at it. Eventually it HAS to fall off.
Gotta go. Time to get ready for work and my cat is gnawing at my arm. I've put him on a diet too. Guess he's hungry too. He's nipping at the tender skin on the back of my arm behind my elbow...little turd.

October 4, 09







Here are some pictures from today. The first two are of my basement mini-gym. The next picture is of my October workout schedule. I put that one in the basement so I know what I'm doing every day and I also keep a paper version in my room. Since I'm combining 2 programs I decided it was best to write it all down. I'm totally a list-maker kind of person and if it's written down I'm more likely to do it. Last week I didn't miss any workouts.

And as the inquiring mind of Fat Free Me requested, the last picture is a weight belt update. The buckle actually touches now. Wooo Hooo. Just a few more inches and I should be able to wear it again.

As for my food, I'm eating between 1300-1600 calories/day. I don't think I'm going into starvation mode especially since I've changed up my eating plan. I'm now eating 5-6 small meals a day. This morning when I weighed myself the scale is on it's way down again. I think it was all the weight lifting thing.

Thanks everybody for checking in on me.

Oct 3, 2009

Thursday I did my BFL lower body weight lifting work out. I think I mentioned before that I have had delusional thoughts that under all this fat that my leg muscles are still strong. Yeah...not so much. In high school, I could squat 450 lbs on the stationary squat machine. Thursday I couldn't even complete 60 lunges with 10 lb weight in my hands. Like a complete bonehead I did the weights before my cardio...big mistake. The BFL program is only 20 minutes of interval cardio and I wanted to cry the last 5 minutes.
I can only recall being this sore one other time in my life. That time my brother killed me on the leg press machine at the gym. The day after that I had to scoot down the steps on my butt because my legs were too sore to support my weight to make the bending motion necessary to complete a step. It was very sad. I don't work out with my brother anymore.
I'm normally not sore on the day of working out, but Thursday I was and lucky me, I worked Thursday night. Oh what a joy to run up and down the hall to tend to the call lights that went off a bazillion times that night. I swear people in a hospitals NEVER sleep. Seriously, you really need a pack up Nutter Butter cookies at 3am?? Anyhoo, Friday was absolutely miserable in the leg pain department. I almost fell off the toilet at work when I tried to stand up to pull my pants up. That could have turned ugly in a second.
Today I'm feeling much better. I'm comfortably sore which is acceptable. Tonight is my C25K running night and upper body weights. It's already 9pm. I better get crack-a-lackin'.

Oh, and on the weight issue, my weight has gone up even more..5-6 pound gain since Thursday. I know this is physically impossible to be true because I haven't even eaten enough calories for this to be possible. It better be inflammation or water weight from lifting weights.
Has anyone experienced this issue when starting a weight lifting program? My quadriceps feel like rocks, but I KNOW I didn't gain muscle like that overnight. Input? Suggestions? Advice? Anybody? Anybody?