Good Day

Today was a good day for a workout.  I was looking forward to going to the gym all day. I got there and there was no one in site! I had the whole place to myself!! This is a first for me, but considering it is a couple of days before New Years I can see why. Now after the New Year all the procrastinators ( I use to be one) will start new resolutions to get to the gym and it will be packed. But no problem people genuinely don't like the StairMaster and stay away. So that is good news for me. I got on the scale today and I am at 155 today. That sounds so good to me.  155 pounds. Down 70 pounds.  It has been almost a week at this weight but I am so not a complainer. My pants fit at size 10 and my size 12 skirts are too big. I am still wearing them because I like them.  But I might have to take them in a bit. I feel so much better after my workout that I did abs tonight for 30 minutes and some Yoga (10 minutes). So overall not a bad day but a good day. I started out this year with a goal of losing weight and getting healthier. I think I am on my way to achieving it.

What am I doing?

I have been on a lifestyle change pattern for over a year now and it amazes me when I have people I see everyday or people I haven't seen in a while ask me what am I doing to lose weight.  Is there a magical gift? Is there a special diet? Is there a special pill, drink, plan or video that is doing it? What is it??? Well damn I wish I knew. I want the same thing. That easy way. The quick fix. The instant lose 20 pounds by next week and look and feel better plan. I just haven't found it or anything like it.  I am not doing anything but diet and exercise. Now there are a few tool that have help me tremendously and I appreciate them but nothing that is easy or fast. Like I said it has been a year. I am not hoping for a deadline to reach. I do have goals but not a specific time frame that I have to achieve these goals.  That I believe is my greatest insight to my weight loss. I didn't put myself on a deadline. It will happen when it does. I will be at my goal weight when I am. Remembering that I have to eat when I am hungry not bored, sad, happy, stressed, worried or angry. HUNGRY!!!! Food is for fuel not comfort. Is it easy to use food for comfort or reward. I have accepted that I am not a naturally thin person or have high metabolism and can eat everything person. I have to work at it. That mean I have to exercise often.  I can't just do cardio here or there. I can't just run for 20 min once a week. I can't do a workout video for 15 minutes then give up.  I have to do the work.  I sure as hell didn't get overweight all at once so it won't all come off at once.  And you know what? I like exercising. I like to be able to put on my headphones and turn on my iPod and get lost in another world. All I have to deal with is moving my body.  All I have to think of is how many more steps, reps or minutes I have to go.  I DON'T HAVE TO THINK! I don't have to think about my problems, my worries, disappointments, stress, kids, husband, friends, work, dinner, cats, dogs, school, family, promotions, moving, love. Nothing. Just blissful body movement. That is why I love working out. Nothing else matters when I work out.  Just me. So I want to work out. Twice a day everyday. I don't do high intensity everyday. I have a plan that is pretty good for me.  I am at point that I can start the P90X series.  I have wanted to start for sometime now but let a few people discourage me.  Not anymore. If there is one thing I know about myself that will never change is that when I am really determined and set my mind on something I can do it. I have to make a time commitment and focus myself but I am ready. I have been doing well in my eating habits because I have cut alot of fat out of my diet. I limit myself to 35 grams of fat a day. That is it. But I have started using a new tool that is helpful to keeping track of food intake and exercise.  I really like it.  It is called Lose It! I found it as an app for my iPod but the also have a website http://www.loseit.com/ that you can use to track. I found it easy and very helpful. See no magic just commitment to changing you lifestyle. Yeah I never really believed that but that has been the only thing that has worked for me.

Stayed home again

I took today off from work.  My oldest was invited to a movie with his class and he was eager to go.  So I had to play chauffeur. Not too bad but not a very productive day.  I just stayed in bed most of the day.  I stuck with my diet plan and did not go over but I only did about 30 min of Yoga Sculpt.  I should have been able to do 1 hour but my mood changed and I decided I had enough. I think it was because I did not do any cardio to get me moving. Well tomorrow I am going in to work so I will be able to work out after.  I did 30 minutes of snow shoveling and rearranged my room so that is a little bit more movement. I should have done more but I will take what I can get.

After Christmas...workout

Today I decided to work out really hard because I have been slacking off for about 3 days. I haven't overeaten but I have not worked out nearly enough. And I needed the distraction. I was looking forward to getting to the gym all day.  Something that I am so grateful for.  I got to leave work early today and I headed for the gym. I pushed myself on the StairMaster on level 9 for 25 minutes then for the last 5 I upped it to level 12!! What was I thinking? I usually keep it at level 8 for 5 minutes then switch to level 10 for the next 25 minutes. But today I forgot to change it until the last 5 minutes.  I finished but was exhausted. I burned 339 calories though!! I did 25 sit ups after that too. Now let's talk about sit-ups. Ugh I HATED THEM!! For years I could not do even one sit up.  Not one. But my abs are the reason I started looking for an exercises that I could do for my abs that would not hurt my back....mini trampoline! It protected my back and I was able to do ab work again. So I was very impressed when about three months ago I was able to do 5 sit-ups. Actual sit-ups with someone holding your feet and everything... Now I can do 25. Too exciting. Then I went home for some all over body sculpting with weights for 50 minutes. I am tracking all my food intake and exercise out put. The numbers are staggering. I don't think I am eating enough food. I keep having a deficit in my calculations that is disturbing.  But for now I will be encouraged to see that hopfully this will be what it takes to lose those last 28 lbs.

Pictures

Since I was a baby my dad would take pictures of me and my sister, all the time.  He was a photographer in his heart but not always in his profession. But boy did he love to take pictures of his kids.  We were willing subjects because he always made it fun, or at least for me it was. Now my sister hated taking pictures. She has other issues I won't get into.  But I loved it.  I got my first camera at 6 and lost it by 7.  Go figure I was a kid. But I never lost the curiosity of learning photography. My dad still has the cameras he used to take my picture as a kid.  I have followed  in his footsteps and have had a love of photography.  One thing I have learned is the it is not always the subject that benefits from having their picture taken.  But it is the photographer that it makes a world of difference to.  She has that tangible memory to hold on to when the subject is either grown up or moved away.  This is especially important to me because if you look at many of my pictures I am rarely in them.  I am usually taking them so I can't be in them.  This only deprives me from gaining perspective on myself and on seeing my interactions with my children, friends and family.  I have made a conscious decision to get into the picture.  I look back at 10 years of family photos and I am absent from so many moments.  I remember being there but when my kids look at these pictures will they?  The thing about being in the picture is that when I am overweight I do not want my picture taken because I don't want to see myself.  For a short while this year I was taking pictures of myself everyday to track my weight loss in pictures.  I only did it for a week then stopped. I started to look at myself differently and I didn't like what I saw. So I stopped getting in the pictures. I have to start up again but I think I have to limit it to one picture a week

Christmas

Today is Christmas.  I spent the day with my boys and they had a blast.  I didn't exercise today.  Nope. Not one bit.  I did feel guilty and will do a little extra tomorrow.  I should have though because I was a bit down.  It is hard to remember that I don't have many people I can talk to.  My husband (we are not divorced yet so I can't call him my ex)was my confidant for years until we grew apart and my best friend that I believed would not abandon me at my darkest times did just that.  So I am feeling a bit down today.  Maybe the word I am searching for is incomplete.  I have such a big hole in my heart that I don't know what to fill it with.  I just want to patch it up and be OK.  Exercising does that for a time for me for a little while.  I like that I can work up a sweat and move to music and not have to do anything else.  I can have a goal and reach it and feel a little better.  All of this I can do on my own.  I have never had such low self-esteem as I have now.  Never. It is hard to look myself in the mirror without feeling worthless and alone.  I know that sounds terrible but unfortunately that is how I feel.  So this is why I should have worked out.  I tried to tell myself that it is Christmas and I can take the day off.  I wanted to spend the day with my boys.  They were having so much fun. Me...not so much. I have to say it was a Merry Christmas because my boys were happy.

Yoga

I never thought that I would look forward to my workouts.  I started out loving Zumba and my mini trampling workouts because they were fun.  But my absolute favorite is Yoga.  This was something I could do without anything needed. I do have a Yoga mat (pink) but I didn't need to get it just have some space.  But I love doing Yoga. It is relaxing but invigorating at the same time.  I love it.  I am very excited about increasing flexibility and the effect it has on my mood. I have three DVD's that I have had for years that I have only looked at.  But now that Yoga is a part of my weekly exercise I can do them!!  Tues, Thurs, Sat, Sun are Yoga days. I would love to be able to do some of the more difficult poses for longer than a micro second...but not yet. Watch out cause I will be getting better!

Blog

I came across a blog from a young woman that was on a weight loss program with Weight Watchers.  I have never done weight watchers or any other commercial diet program. I could never afford it. But she was intriguing because she was riding her bike in heals and had a pink Hello Kitty bike.  Well this was defiantly someone I wanted to know more about.  She goes by the name on her blog as Bitchcakes. Cute I know. But she is a  great writer and I like to hear about her adventures.  I always wanted to live in New York so I can live vicariously through her blog. All I can say is that she is an inspiration and a role model for determination despite opposing obstacles. Boy do I need some of that inspiration. So I decided I wanted to start my own blog to chronicle my life so far.The title of my blog is significant to me in that a very good friend was always getting on me about what I was wearing.  See this friend knew that I would wear the color pink when I was happy because I love pink.  Pink is a very happy color and I never liked pink as a kid.  It wasn't until I had my second child that I found I was not going to be a mother to a girl.  I had two boys that I loved but no girl in my future.  I was unable to have anymore kids so boys it was.  I realized that being the only girl in a household of three boys (my husband included) was trying to say the least.  But I wanted to be feel special so I settled for opening my heart up to the color pink. Anyway my friend would be disapproving if I would wear any other color.  I really liked what I was wearing (outfits not colors) but he would say that I need to wear pink...to get me to want to be happy. He was right of course.

Weight Loss Part 3

The final part is where I am now. I work out everyday. Doing something. I have a schedule of what I do but I am not getting blogged down if I am unable to complete what I wanted.  But I will do some activity.  I am doing cardio 5 days a week M-F. Monday is all over body toning 50 min, Tues is Yoga 30 min, Wed is Abs 50 min, Thurs is Yoga 30 min and Friday is Glutes and thighs 30 min. Sat and Sun I am doing Yoga and Ab workouts. If I need to make up a cardio session I use my trampoline. I am actually having fun. I like my home videos and I really enjoy the StairMaster because I can't feel how good feels after. Yoga is really a welcome part of my workout routine. My most troublesome body issue are my abs and core.  I have had two children so I have stretched skin and stretch marks on my stomach.  This is a really hard obstacle to overcome.  My inspiration is a dress that I purchased that I cannot fit into.  I need to lose 25 more pounds to go before it fits.  I can do it and i will.

Weight Loss Part 2

So starting a new job did give me some exercises benefits.  Our parking lot sucks and sometimes the walk was 5-10 minutes.  I was still allowed to take off 1 hour 3 times a week to use the gym.  And best of all the gym was right across the street!  No excuses. Just do it.  I liked to use the elliptical but I needed something new.  There are two StairMaster in the gym so I started using them.  30 minutes at level 1 up till level 5 to start out.  It was around this time that I saw an infomercial about a mini-trampoline.  Then QVC had one as a special value $99.00. I liked that.  I could do that.  The thing had me purchase it was you could do abs on it with out back pain.  Now I have had trouble with abs since before I had baby number 1. So this was something I desperately wanted to work on because I could not even do one sit up for years. So on it went month after month. My weight loss was steady. Nothing too drastic or really noticeable except for in my clothes.  It took alot for me to change my pant size because I wasn't use to seeing me thinner and I didn't think it would last.  I wanted to keep my old clothes just in case I needed them for later.  But I have since passed them on to others. 

Weight Loss Part 1

Beginning in Oct 2009 I decided after a scary visit to the doctor that I was going to lose weight.  The doctor informed me that I was at risk of having diabetes.  This scared me beyond comprehension because my grandmother had both her legs amputated due to diabetes related issues.  I was only 7 at the time but that was unbelievable. My grandmother was in a wheelchair because she had her legs cut off. So hearing that I could possibly be diagnosed with diabetes had me making some hard choices.  I love chocolate and was mostly sad that I would have to give it up.  It was almost Halloween so I would have to miss out on all the wonderful candy.  But did I want my kids to remember me as an sick? No.  With determination I decided to take small steps to start my weight loss.  Earlier in the year I had lost over 30 pounds but gained it all back because I stopping exercises and staying on my diet.  So I this time I started really slow. I watched how much I ate and how I was feeling after.  Was I full? Too full? Hungry still? This took work. For three months I tried to curb my appetite and adjust my portion size.  Gradually it worked and I was ready by December to start working out. I was at my all time heaviest weight at 225. That was a number I could not believe. I was a size 22 in the picture above. It was slow at work so I was able to go to the gym 3 times a week during lunchtime.  Cardio...that's what I needed.  Diligently I went to the gym. 30 minutes is about my limit on one machine.  I didn't want to get bored so I actually tried something new.  I had always used the elliptical or treadmill.  I wanted to try the StairMaster.  5 minutes is how long I lasted on the very first level.  That was defiantly something to work up to.  I started to go to Zumba classes with a friend.  They were fun and kept me moving.  By January I was in line for another position and wanted to look my best so I stuck with my workout.  Inspiration is what I needed. Now, I am an emotional eater but I eat when I am bored. So I tried to stay as busy as possible....at work and at home. February 1 I started my new job I weighted in at 205.