And the Shrinks Keep on Coming!

Yup, that's right! Last Wednesday was weigh-in day, and a momentus one at that... but I got so busy that I forgot to post! Last Wednesday I hit the 30 pounds lost mark! YAY! *the crowd goes wild* I am now at the weight I was back in August of 2007 when I first started going to health coaching sessions at the clinic in my office.

So today (being Wednesday) was another weigh-in day, but today was also a measuring day. I stepped on that scale and was completely shocked by what I saw: A great big, digital 234! That's three whole pounds down from last week! That brings the total loss since September of 2011 to 33 pounds. And six of the seven measurements were down as well, from .25 of an inch to a whole inch (my arms and quads).

YIPPEE!!!!

So when last I wrote it was just over a month ago (sorry! I didn't realize how much time had actually passed), and there have been some other changes than just my inches and mass. I feel as though I am in the midst of a paradigm shift where food is concerned. Don't get me wrong - I'm still completely obsessed with food. But I feel like my obsession is more on how I can create yummy yet healthy foods. It's more about eating to live (and give my body the right foods so I can use them the best) and less about living to eat.

I have found a new website for recipes and ideas: Foodgawker. It's like Pinterest, but with food! I find it amazing. There are so many ideas there and more are posted at least once a day. I also find a lot of international foods (sometimes the recipes are written in foreign languages. Thank goodness for Google Translate!) which I absolutely love to try. And I still find myself looking up a lot of the sweets, but when I look at them now I try to find healthy substitutions where I can, like applesauce for oil, etc.

Also, another triumph (though seemilngly small on the surface) is my personal NO MORE SODA campaign.  I have a strange relationship with the bubbly, often times sickly sweet beverage. I used to like drinking soda... a lot. I mean, I could but away a 24 pack of Coca~Cola in a day! But now I find that I'm not such a fan. And yet I will drink can after can if it is available, each can tasting worse and worse, but I still keep chugging away. So Sunday night I made a promise to myself and the Universe. I will not drink another soda (unless it's splashed in a Rum & Coke or some other delicious adult beverage). I don't like the taste anymore and it's SO not good for you. I think I just kept drinking because it was a mental habit/addiction. But so far, so good. I am 2 days soda sober. I CAN DO EET!

Weigh In and Uh Oh

Well, yesterday was another weigh in, and it was good! I have gotten below 240! I stepped on that scale and it said "239". HOORAY. Yesterday was also a measurement day, and I'm happy to say (sans my quads, which are three inches bigger, but they're leaner. THANK YOU SPIN CLASS!) that everything has gone down. Bicep, abs, waist, hips, calves, and yes - even the girls have shrunk a couple inches! (HALLELUJAH to that! For those who don't know, I've been extremely busty my whole life).

Anywhoo.

So it was a pretty good day all over yesterday. I made it to spin and it was a great class. I stayed WELL below my 1600-1800 calorie (finished the day at about 1450). It was nice. Today, however, was less nice. Today was my department's Summertime Potluck. Yeah, I'm sure a lot of you can already guess where this is headed.

That was the first plate I had. Then I had a second plate just like that one... with the addition of a pulled pork sandwich. And a chocolate chip cookie. le sigh. I had known that today was the potluck, so I had a light breakfast and planned a light dinner. I had hoped to stay below the 1600-1800 calories, but alas, I'm at just about 1800. I guess that's better than a 2400+ calorie day like I used to have. I'll get over it, but right now I feel like stewing. :)

Things are going well enough, just still not as fast as I would like. But I guess I just have to accept that and work with what I have! :)

Round and Round She Goes...

...where she'll stop, nobody knows!

So I haven't written in a while, and I apologize for that. I have no excuse as to why besides I just didn't think about it. So here's the haps:
I had another weigh-in day (this past Wednesday) and I was down one more pound. YAY! Of course, me being me, it's just not coming off fast enough. I have to keep reminding myself that with how I am eating (better than I used to, but not as good and disciplined as I could be) and how I am only exercising three days a week... one pound per week is pretty good! Now, you would think that seeing a steady - albeit slow - decline in pounds and inches would keep me up and motivated and maybe even inspiried to get a bit strickter with myself.

Kind of.

This past Thursday I had a bad day. There are a lot of things going on in my and my family's lives right now that are stressing me out a bit, and apparently Thursday it all came to a head (mentally, anyway). I was feeling very restricted in every aspect, very boxed in. So I said (almost out loud), "EFF IT!" and I ate however and whatever I wanted to. The day had started out fine enough... except the knowledge floating around in my head that I had consumed a cheeseburger and 10 chicken nuggets from BK the night before as a "midnight snack". First boo. So I had my regular apple and two pieces of light wheat toast with "butter", and a poor man's mocha (coffee, no sugar added cocoa packet, a couple tsp of cream). As lunch grew closer, that's when I started having a real mental war and the feelings of uber-restriction started seeping in. Lunch was two beef hotdogs in natural casing; complete with buns, ketchup, and diced onions. Then I had a bowl of tortilla chips, two cans of Dr. Pepper, and a whole wheat tortilla filled with two slices of pepperjack cheese, canned chicken, and black olive slices. Dinner was three bowls of macaroni noodles (regular, not whole wheat like usual) with butter and Parmesan. I think there may have been a piece or two of chocolate involved, and maybe some milk. I went to bed that night feeling just awful and mad at myself.

I woke up Friday and almost didn't make it to Spin. I woke up in time, sure, but the mental war was still waging. I was tired, I was still upset with my behavior the previous day, and I still had some "eff it" in me. But finally I kicked my own butt and went to Spin. Let me tell you - it was like peddling through molasses in January! I was so tired, so sluggish, my breathing was harder than it usually is... and I'm sure it was all a result of the stupidity of food intake from Thursday. There was even a point when class was about half over and I thought to myself, "Okay. It's 6:20 now, I'm going to leave just a little early. At 6:30. I just can't do it this morning." I got so far as to slow my cadence down to bring my heart rate down... and then I said to myself (outloud, hilariously, but the music was so loud and the instructor was telling us our next moves so I don't think anyone actually heard me), "JUST F***ING STAY, DANGIT!" And I did! I stuck out the whole hour and felt a bit better for it.

The day started out well enough again. Apple, toast, low-fat cottage cheese, and water comprised my breakfast. I planned ahead for another hotdog for lunch (cuz they were GOOOOD) and that was all I had. It was a half day for me at work because my 5-year old son "graduated" preschool that afternoon. My husband, my son, and my sick daughter (just a cold, but she didn't want to go to school so we didn't make her) picked me up and we took the Mister to class. Then we ran a couple errands - one of which being Buck-a-Burger Day at Whole Foods Market! We ended up getting 6 beef & cheddar burgers and munched on all the yummy samples that Whole Foods always has around the store. Nothing too concequential to the calorie budget. Then it started happening again. We went home and had one of those burgers. It was delicious. But that meant that my dinner should be small, to counter act, yeah? Yeah no. I had two bowls of Chocolatey Dino Bites cereal with skim milk and two glasses of orange juice. Then we had large bowls of brown rice and mixed veggies for a "midnight snack"... and I had another bowl of cereal. sigh.

So I guess I start over AGAIN today. I've had an alright breakfast... and today lends itself less to crazy eating as it is pretty busy. I've worked one job this morning already, and am currently at the other. After here I'll dash home, get myself and the girl child ready, and have Daddy and Brudder drop us off at her school to meet up with the rest of her Daisy troop. We're going to a day camp today! YAY! When we get back from that, The boys will pick us up and we're heading to my friend's tattoo shop: Outta Place Tattoos. Tomorrow should be mellow and hopefully low on the calorie scale!

I can do this, right?

Weigh In Day

I realized today that I have never spoken about my weigh in days, so here is what we shall call the first! As I've mentioned before, we have a clinic in my office building. This is where I do my weigh ins. There's also a scale at the gym, but I avoid that so I can keep consistency in my weigh ins.

So this morning I went, thinking that I was going to have a gain. Over the weekend I hadn't been that strict with my food and I definitely didn't workout. WARNING: Guy readers cover your eyes here. Today was also Day 1 of THOSE times, so... imagine my surprise when I stepped on that scale and it said I'd lost 1.5 pounds! YES!

I don't know if it was the work I put in Monday, Tuesday, and this morning, but rejoice! I've managed to stay between 1400 - 1600 calories the past three days; and I went to Zumba Monday morning, lifted Tuesday night, and went to spin this morning. I haven't had a soda in two days, which is huge for me. Usually I'll have one purely out of habit. I'll purchase it, I'll crack it open, and after that first delicious sip I decide I really didn't want it. Yet, I still drink the whole thing. That's why I think my "addiction" to soda is much more mental than physical.

Any road - I have filled myself with a lot of hope these last few days, and I really feel like I can accomplish this goal. Dig it.

Yay... I Think?

Tonight was a mash-up of pitiful and excellent.

Tonight was the first Tuesday night in a long time that I went to the gym to lift. I'm trying to do a regiment of MWF: cardio in the AM, TTh: lifting in the PM, Sa: more cardio or more lifting, or both. Su: REST! Tonight - surprisingly without any kind of internal argument - I went for my first night of lifting. It was a chest and bicep night. No joke, I was there for 15 minutes and had done 3 chest exercises, 1 tricep exercise, and 1 ab exercise.

And I didn't know what else to do beyond that.

Normally I don't care what other people are thinking of me... or what I'm thinking they're thinking of me. Tonight I kind of did. I felt like I was just walking around the gym, looking like a deer in headlights. I felt like all the buff people were watching me walk around and thinking, "What the hell is she doing here?" or "She doesn't even know what she's doing!", etc, etc ad nauseum.

I have a friend who owns her own gym/personal trainer business, is a certified nutritionist and cave woman. I ask her a LOT of questions... but lately I feel really bad about doing so. I mean, that's her livlihood, savvy? I'm starting to feel like I'm abusing our friendship with my quest for knowledge. So I'm trying to search stuff out on my own on the big 'ol interwebs. It's not going so well so far. I know it's best to do a push/pull split, but I don't know what exercises are for each muscle group. I don't know how many to do of each - more in the sense of number of exercises, not sets and reps. I don't know what to eat before lifting... there's just so much knowledge to glean, I feel my head might explode before I figure it all out!

BUT (now on to the excellent part): I WENT TO THE GYM AGAIN! That is huge! Like I mentioned earlier, there wasn't even any internal argument about going like there usually is. Could the habit be breaking? Could I be on my way to (eventual) Bufftown? Gods, I hope so.

I'm Back! ...

I'm back in the saddle again! (Thank you, Aerosmith!) Yup, I feel like I'm back. I woke up and went to work this morning (side note: I typically have Mondays off work and then do 10 hour days the rest of the week. In order to keep my regiment of MWF am cardio, I need to work 2-2.5 hours Monday mornings, and I haven't been doing that the last few weeks), then I went to Zumba. I LOVE ZUMBA!

Okay, let's back up a little bit. I realize that I haven't really given too much of a back story for my weight loss goals. I'm not sure about others, but I don't remember my weight being a part of my thought process until my first midwife appointment after discovering that I was pregnant with my daughter back around February of 2005. I was talking about this with my friend a few weeks ago, and it actually surprised me. No matter how hard I try, I truly cannot remember a time before that first midwife appointment where weight and/or exercise entered my mind. That first weigh in had me at 218 lbs. To date, that is the lightest I've been. I only gained 15 lbs with that pregnancy. All I wanted to eat was turkey tacos, fresh fruit and vegetables, and real fruit lime popsicles. I did the same thing when I was pregnant with my son. I don't remember my base weight, but I only gained 15 lbs. I wanted the same things, but add potato chips to that. I was a GSTL (front-end manager) at Target for both pregnancies, and I think that helped with my 15 lb. gain. I was walking about 3 miles per day, 6 days per week. Then, in November of 2006 I changed companies and got a desk job at the home offices for Regis Corporation. While it is a great company to work for, I believe it was the beginning of the end for me.

I had never had an office job prior to Regis. So going from 3 mile walks each shift to sitting on me arse for 8-10 hours per day... yeah, you can put 2 and 2 together. sigh.

ANYWAY - I started becoming really aware of my health in August of 2007. Around that time my office built a clinic inside it. They offer health coaching/personal training sessions. Last September, as some of my readers may remember, they held a Biggest Loser type competition where I really kicked myself into gear (lost 22 lbs!) and I have been going to the gym and tracking my food every day (mostly) since. Every day is still a battle in the war. Sometimes I win, other times I lose. But I always get back up the next day and at least start out well.

This week I plan to hit the gym 6 days out of 7 like I used to. Wish me luck! 

And Again... and Again... and Again...

So here we are again. 9:45 on Sunday night. Today was a bad day for food, again. I honestly don't know what I am doing anymore. It seems like, for whatever reason (that I haven't figured out yet), I keep screwing myself over. I weigh in on Wednesday mornings, usually. I'll go in, I'll step on that scale, and I'll be elated that I've lost a pound or two! Then, to reward and celebrate myself, what do I do? Oh, I go and eat three fun-sized Snickers. Or I have a can of soda, or four pieces of oatmeal toast with whipped butter and strawberry jam... I mean, really? Yes. Let's work REALLY hard for a few days, have some great results, and then totally smash it into the ground. What the hell is going on??? This is so frustrating. It's not like I don't WANT to lose weight. I've been jumping lifestyle labels lately, too. I was considering going back to my ovo-lacto vegetarianism. Then I proclaimed my jump to pescetarianism. Then I thought about being just a plain old carnivore. That last one really turned me off, though. I'm totally grossed out by most red meat and pork, lately. It's hard to figure out how to exist, sometimes. I mean; you read so much online, you read so much in books, you hear so many things rumor... I really want to try to live by listening to my body. But obviously, my body is a bit confused at times. I've fallen and I can't seem to get up. I'm trying to pick myself back up, but damn if it isn't a battle all in it's own. I struggle with wanting the weight to jump off at the speed of light, but it doesn't happen like that. It's a long, arduous war filled with many, many smaller battles. On a positive note to pick up this melancholy post: Last week I DID make it to all three of my morning classes at the gym, which hasn't happened since the Biggest Loser competition at my work the end of last year. I plan to repeat that performance for this last week of April, then pick it up a bit in May, adding three lifting days and a little more cardio. I'll just keep trying again... and again... and again...