About time!

Wow, I knew it had been a long time since I'd posted something, but I didn't think it had been over a month! I was going to say that not a lot has been happening, and that's why I haven't posted, but I guess that's not entirely true!

I've been sticking to my workouts and eating right, but the scale hasn't been changing too much. Normally that would really piss me off, but honestly, I'm at a really good place right now. I'm hovering right around 155-158 and am really comfortable with that number. I'm not saying I'm done trying to lose, but I'm not going to beat myself up if I go a few weeks without seeing that number drop. Last month brought a lot of challenges (hello state fair!) so I'm proud to just be able to say that I didn't gain anything. I also just got back from a 5 day vacation, which is usually trouble for me, but I went into it with a plan that I was going to try to keep breakfasts and lunches about the same as they would be at home, try not to snack more than I needed to, and go on long walks every day. I'm proud to say that I took a 1 hour walk every day, and watched what I ate, while still letting myself enjoy "vacation food". I weighed about a pound more this morning than I did the morning that I left, and for me, that's a success! I'm also proud that I got right back into the swing of things and went to the gym this morning.

The major success I'm celebrating right now is that, even though the scale hasn't changed much in the past month or so, my body definitely has. I had to go shopping for new work pants a couple of weeks ago and have now started buying (almost exclusively) a size 10. I seriously don't ever remember being a size 10. Never. Even in high school I was a size 12/14. So that's way awesome!

My main goal going forward is to keep up with my work outs, and possibly add some in. I've started to try and take walks with Nic and the dog at night when there's nothing good on tv. I figure I'd rather be out being active than sitting on the couch watching something I really could care less about.

Great week!

I had a really good week this week. I stayed on track with my eating, worked out EVERY SINGLE DAY, and just had an overall good attitude! I'm back down to the lowest weight I ever remember seeing on a scale, and I had one of the best runs ever today.

The work week was pretty uneventful, but I did good. This weekend was awesome. For the first time in a LONG time, we went into the weekend with no plans. It's so much easier for me to stay on track eating wise when I have no plans because I'm more likely to eat at home, which I did this weekend for every meal except dinner Saturday night (ate healthy though).

Sunday I got up and did my 5k...it started off HORRIBLE! I had aweful side aches on BOTH SIDES, they hurt so bad I was only able to run for 2 minutes at a time. I kept telling myself that the goal was to finish, not to keep beating my best time. After about 15 minutes of 2 minute walk/2 minute run, I finally started feeling better. Now, before this weekend the longest amount of time I'd run straight for was 8 minutes, but today, I finished out the 5k and ran the last 14 minutes straight. I left the gym on such a high, it felt awesome! I ended up about even with my best time yet (33/34 minutes). After the gym we went out on a friend's boat for the rest of the day and I avoided alcohol, and bad food (with the exception of a handful of chips).

I hope I can keep this up because it feels awesome!

Lifestyle

I've been thinking about this post all morning and I'm still not sure what direction to take it in. This last week has been a roller coaster in terms of the scale, and my mind frame. My "weigh in day" on my bodybugg site is Wednesdays. Last Wednesday I was on top of the world...the scale read 156.8 that morning. HOLY. COW. Now, normally my brain would start trying to rationalize and say things like "well, it's just luck", or "the scale must be wrong". But that day, I owned it, I knew I had been on the right track from what the scale had said earlier in the week. However, every day since then, the number on the scale continued to rise. Today I'm back at 160.something (I don't remember what exactly). On one hand I'm bummed out. My mini goal on bodybugg right now is 155 by August 8th. And I so know that I could have done it, but now I'm not so sure. I'm not going to make any excuses, I just haven't been eating great. I haven't been eating horribly, but I haven't been making as good of choices as I could. But, at the same time, I'm still proud of where I am.

I realized this morning that this is my lifestyle now. It's no longer a "diet" or routine that I'm on just to lose the weight. It truly is my lifestyle now. And that's awesome. I'm used to going to the gym, I'm used to eating healthy food. Are there mornings when I wake up and don't want to go to the gym? Sure, this morning was one of them. I had a fight with myself for about 10 minutes, go back to bed or go to the gym? I compromised with myself and took the dog on a walk. And that's ok, even though this was supposed to be a weight training day and not a cardio day. Honestly, I'm sick of last months workouts and I haven't gotten my new ones for this month yet so instead of going to the gym and half assing it (which is totally what I would have done) I got myself (and the dog) moving for a half hour instead of laying in bed doing nothing. Are there days when I want to eat like shit? DUH!!!! And sometimes I allow myself to, because I know now that one meal, or even one day of eating bad isn't going to hurt as long as I get back on track!

So, no matter what the scale says on "weigh in day" tomorrow, I'm still proud of myself, and I know that eventually, the scale will say 155. If it's by August 8th that's awesome, if it's not until September 8th, that's awesome too! Because I'm doing something good for myself either way.

Being In Control

I’ve always known this about myself, but the other morning in the shower (this is where I do much of my deep thinking, lol) I was thinking about how when I’m in control of my weight (diet, exercise regimen, etc…) I’m also more in control of other aspects of my life.
I’m a much more organized person when I’m living my healthier lifestyle. Part of it, I think, stems from having to be more organized. For example, when I go to the gym 5-6 days per week I have to have a schedule: I have to get up earlier, I have to carve out time in my weekends. The house has become MUCH more organized lately. I’ve come up with a cleaning/laundry routine that is actually really easy for me to stick to, and I actually LIKE cleaning the house. I feel like I’ve accomplished something.
I also notice that when I’m being healthy, I care more about myself in general. I wear make up to work every day (not true when I was living my unhealthy ways), I wear cuter clothes (fun!).
I guess this kind of goes along with my post not too long ago about other ways of measuring success and I definitely feel like this is one of the things on that list for me!
In other news, I’ve been doing good weight wise. I logged my weight/measurements on the bodybugg site today and I had lost 0.8 pounds since last Wednesday and my waist measurement (which is the one I really care about the most) along with a couple other ones have gone down too!
My foot is getting better but still has an open cut on it, so I still haven’t been able to really do any cardio since a week and a half ago. I’ve been taking walks with the dog to try to make up for it a little, but I feel like when I finally can start running again I’m going to have lost all of the progress I’d made! I’m really hoping that, judging from the way things have been going, I should be able to start running again by this time next week. It’s just so frustrating!

Injured...

Ugh…I was riding high on Saturday morning. My weight was the lowest I EVER remember seeing on the scale. I was so thrilled. I had just given up on caring about the number and all of a sudden it dropped. Then, we went tubing down the river and I cut my foot on a rock. Right on the side of my big toe. It KILLS to wear any shoe that touches it. I didn’t do cardio yesterday and felt SO lazy. This morning I powered through and did weights, it hurt but it wasn’t as bad as cardio would have been. I’m trying not to let it get me down too much and just really focus on my diet this week.

Finding New Ways to Measure Success

For the past 6 months I’ve been so hung up on the number that I see on the scale in the morning. I forget that there are other ways to measure success, and, since the scale seems to have come to a bit of a stand-still for the moment, I decided it was time to start measuring my success and achievements in different ways.

A few weeks ago I took my measurements for the first time ever. I’d never been interested in them, it was always pretty easy for me to see the changes on the scale and in my clothes, so I really didn’t see much of a point. When I started taking the Slym Magic, the literature encouraged people taking it to take their measurements for a couple reasons, first of which being that the supplement specifically targets belly fat, and secondly that since most people taking it gain muscle at the same time as they burn fat, even though the scale doesn’t go down, your measurements should. So I took them. I decided I would measure myself again every two weeks. So last week I measured myself again. Most measurements stayed the same, but a couple did go down. My waist went down significantly (a couple inches). This made me smile.

I’ve also seen a lot of improvements in my physical strength and stamina lately. I’ve been able to lift more weight gradually each week and have been able to run faster and for longer amounts of time. I did a 5k one Saturday, and the next Saturday took 3 minutes off of my previous time. I was pretty impressed with that.

Another thing I’ve noticed is when I go shopping, I’m pretty much exclusively in size 12 pants now. The only 14s that I have left in my closet are my summer clothes that I just can’t afford to replace right now, but they all have to be worn with belts.

So, I’m still going to weigh myself, but I’m not going to let the number depress me. I’ve done darn good in the past 6 months, and as long as the number doesn’t go up, I’m ok with it for now.

Highs and Lows

This past week has been full of a lot of highs and lows. Last Saturday I ran my first 5k! I did it at the gym, on the treadmill, but it was still a 5k! I did it in 40 minutes! I was so proud of myself (and still am).

Overall, the past two weeks have been really stressful at work. I have still been working out (with the exception of skipping the gym this past Sunday), and have been eating fairly well (but admittedly not as good as I could be). And I haven’t been losing weight. I know. I know it’s just one week, and that there are a LOT of factors that go into weight fluctuation. I’m trying really hard not to get frustrated about it, but it’s hard not too, especially after the two weeks prior to this were going REALLY good weight wise.

It’s weeks/days/times like this that I start to question how often I weigh myself. I used to strongly believe that one should only weigh themselves once a week (when I was on Weight Watchers). This made sense to me. Sometime in the past six months since I’ve been doing the Bodybugg thing, I’ve started weighing myself every day. I know that the final outcome of a weeks worth of work is going to be the same whether I weigh myself once a day or only on a certain day of the week, but I think that if I weigh myself every day it motivates me day by day instead of week by week. For example, if I slip up and eat something I shouldn’t be (like I did last night at dinner) and see the effects on the scale (like I did this morning) then it will motivate me the next day (and days there after) to eat better/work out more, then if I weigh myself again the next couple of days and see that number start to come down again, it proves to me that eat bad=gain weight, eat good/work out = lose weight. Now, clearly this is something that I already know, but it helps to see it sometimes.

I’m going call this week a wash. I’m not going to record my weight on my bodybugg (I know this is kind of like being in denial but seriously the last two weeks have been so hard and stressful that I just don’t even care right now). I gave myself a pep talk after I got off the scale this morning and reminded myself that it’s not all about the number on the scale. I’m still keeping myself healthy by eating well and working out. And, I did give myself a whole year to lose those 25 pounds, so it’s OK if I didn’t lose any weight this week. Shit happens. Today is a new day, this week is a new week (oh and hey, today is also the beginning of a new month!). There will be highs and lows, such is life. The key is to stay motivated through the lows, and not let them get me discouraged.

On that note, I’m heading to the gym!