Discouragement

So... Christmas... check... 6 months since my Dad died.. check  Losing weight... check!!!  Even with everything going on I lost another 2.5 lbs!!! yay!!!!  That brings my total weight lost to 6.5 lbs.  While I am super excited I must say the only difference that I have noticed is feeling better.  I am not always angry at myself, I have a more positive outlook on my life, and I just feel good.  By good I mean not groggy and I am definitely not so tired all the time now.  These are all a huge part of why I want to lose weight but about 75% of why I wanted to Live fit was to look better in clothes and without clothes and to be honest I just don't see it yet.  I was kind of getting discouraged, then my coworker showed me the below picture.  That picture of fat used to be on my body and now it is not because of my hard work.  That makes me feel good and I am sure that if I can knock another 3.5 lbs off to get to 10 lbs I will see some sort of difference.  Tomorrow will be one month since I started and I lost 6.5lbs.  If I lost the same amount every month by the end of month three or February I will have lost almost 20 lbs and that is something I can be proud of, too.  Aside from my scale accomplishment, I have committed to doing a half marathon at the end of march!!!  13.1 Miles, I can't even jog for 2 minutes let alone 1 mile.  I am going to challenge myself and make it happen!!!  I hope everyone else survived the holiday season!!   

Christmas... No merry involved.

Being sick is terrible when you are trying to lose weight.  First of all... you have to "rest"... My life does not allow time to "rest".  Not only did I have to take a day off of work, but I can't work out.  On the plus side I didn't want to eat anything because my throat hurt so bad.  I was told to avoid physical activity (including gym) for 4-5 days during my sickness.  In any attempt not to miss any more work, I have decided to follow this strictly.  And what not so joyous weekend is upon us?  Christmas... oh yes...  Seeing as how this is my first Christmas without my father, things will be different.  We have decided that we are going to treat Christmas eve and Christmas as if it is just another day, nothing special... No decorations no trees. Just Christmas... not Merry Christmas... just Christmas. Apparently our neighbors and family didn't get the memo...  People will not stop bringing over the most magically delicious treats.  I feel like people thing cramming the worst possible foods down our throats will some how cure the pain and loneliness.  While the gesture is really sweet it is also somewhat frustrating.  People don't understand that this is incredibly hard, not only for me and my siblings but for my mother.  Not only is she receiving foods that are terrible for her, but she gets to see these people that are enjoying their lives enough to bake a freaking plate of cookies.  They stay for a bit, take pity on her, then they get to go back to their lives.  Seeing everyone and hearing about how awesome their lives are is NOT good for my mother, it is so sad.  So everyone out there, think about the people you are bringing goodies to on this holiday season.  If one of your recipients just lost someone dear to them, try a gift card out or "healthy" cookies.  Wow... sorry about my rant, I am just really frustrated that people don't think twice about the situation we are in.  Anyway, back to the food part of it.  There are tons and i really do mean tons of plates of cookies and jars of candy everywhere.  We cannot escape it, and it is so deliciously addictive that we can't stop eating it.  I have limited myself and have only sampled the items that people dear to me have made.  If they are so excited to see me try one, why would I want to ruin that for them.  I just have one and it is enough.  Now I didn't say one of everything, just one.  Eating, or rather not eating, holiday foods  is extremely hard.  It is usually the home cooked meals that are a family recipe that have been passed down since your great aunt fran, my advice to you is this; EAT IT!  How many times a year do you get it?  once even twice?  1 or 2 days out of 365 is not what made you fat, trust me. If you want to eat until you need to unbutton you pants, but the truth is, since you have been watching what you eat, you will not want to eat as much as you have been.  I have turned over a new leaf and the thought of stuffing my face is kind of repulsing.  I will simply have what I want to eat, but a human sized portion.  I encourage you to do the same.  Being healthy is not about restricting your self from every food you love,  it is about learning to eat within reason.  Good luck and a very ... Christmas to you.

Struggles

Today I am struggling.  I am doing everything in my power to not eat what I really want to.  I had a bad weekend with food.  My family celebrates Christmas during the weekend before, so it was all the good old home-style eats.  There was ham, prime rib,  delicious rolls, and my moms scalloped potatoes.  Of course there was amazing deserts that my sweet tooth could not avoid and so much delicious wine, it was hard to stop at three glasses.

This year our Christmas weekend took place up at Lake Naciemento, where my aunt lives.  We rented a house and all 25 of us piled in.  Everyone was required to bring some food item.  I was assigned potato chips.  I could barely even open the bag before i broke into them.  The oil and salty flavor just captured my taste buds.  I tried to refrain after a couple of handfuls and made a salami sandwich on wheat bread.  I thought i was going to be able to stick with my healthy eating and pull through dinner but when the emotions hit, I was done.  My father was tragically taken from my family June 26th.  This will be my families first Christmas without him.  Dinner seemed to be going ok, but I could tell my mom and sister were being saddened by his absence.  My aunt (who had lost her husband the same week my dad passed, three years prior) was feeling the pain as well.  There was just something missing.  My mom had prepared a surprise for our family that was about to hit me hard.  She had taken my dad's clothes and made teddy bears out of them for everyone.  I can usually ignore my pain and push through it, but with the help of some good white wine I couldn't ignore it.  I became overwhelmed with sadness.  My boyfriend (Jason)  went with me outside and let me cry and helped me through the initial hit.  When we came back inside though, I couldn't control what I was eating!  I tend to eat my feelings and man it felt good... at the time.  Today I feel terrible.  I am so scared to put anything in my mouth, because all I want to eat is pizza or french fries.  I am tired and have no drive to make anything healthy.  I am angry at my self because I could have and should have done better.  I feel so good when I eat healthy and get closer to achieving my goals.  I keep going back and forth.  Part of me is like F*ck it, i'll be fat forever and eat what I want, but the other side is telling me that it is only a minor slip up, there is next week and it is hard during the holidays.  I need to get through this but it is hard.  I will not let my stress get the best of me...  but man am I struggling....  This is just me getting in the way again.. Just as I have for  the last 5 trillion times I have tried to lose weight.  So "me"... get the hell out of my way I'm not where I want to be yet.

Working out late at night... Again

I have absolutely no desire to be at the gym. It is 11:30 PM. I have been up everyday at 7 AM working all day. Monday and wednesday I go to school all night. The rest of the days I am trying to catch up on the things I need to do, like my homework hanging out with my newly widowed mother, and trying to be a normal 20 year old. After a stressful night of packing for our exciting trip this weekend, i still knew what was ahead... The gym.... If I didn't have a gym partner that planned their schedule around me I would not an I repeat WOULD NOT be here right now. This is day four in a row and as much as I would like to be at home sound asleep, my fat ass is on the exercise bike. Granted, I am not doing a vigorous workout, hence the blogging while working out, but I am here and I am handling it. I love the picture below. Even though I am yokg slow I am still lapping everyone that decided to sit tonight out, including the person inside of me that wanted to give up. All on all, even if your tired, sad, angry, or stressed... Go exercise. If you don't it will just be one more thing that makes your feel negative feelings. Put your goals and dreams first and lap all those lazy couch giver uppers!!!! I believe in you!!!!

The game of weightloss

I came across the below picture on Pinterest and couldn't help but write about it.  Weight loss is NOT and I repeat NOT a gamble.  You get out what you put into it.  It is as simple as that.  It took me 6 years to put on my weight, it's not going to take 2 months to shed 50 lbs. Now I am definitely guilty of falling for these tricks.  I did weight watchers and tried to cheat the system by eating french fries, burger, and pizza for my points and yes, I did lose 30 lbs.  BUT  not only did I gain all that and more back, but I was miserable the whole time.  I would go early in the morning because that's when I was the lightest.  I would wear the lightest clothes I had and wear even less on weeks I ate super bad.  I was get nervous, anxious, and scared to weigh in.  Stepping on the scale should not be like this picture below,  it should not be a gamble.  If you ate healthy and had a balanced week, worked out, drank tons of water, and got plenty of sleep you WILL lose the weight.  There should be no fear along with those things.  Either you did what you were supposed to or you didn't.  There is no way around it.  This last week was a little bit tougher for me, well I was fine until Saturday.  I had 3 Christmas parties this weekend and let me tell you.... I LOVE party food.  I indulged a couple of times and I only lost .7 lbs. (The tab on the left rounds up!  I am only at 3.5 lbs lost total)  I didn't go 100% so I didn't lose my full potential.  Today when I reflect on the choices I made this weekend,  I know I would have felt a lot better if I had skipped the cream cheese filled salami or the extra slices of garlic bread and instead lost more weight.  The taste of food is temporary, but losing weight and feeling good about yourself is amazing!  I had a bad weekend, but I learned from my mistake.  I hope I can continue to rock it!

Pain

When we think about getting in shape,  we all want instant gratification.  We don't want to do it the "right" way because it will take too long.  I want to be skinny NOW, not in a year.  But this got me thinking.  If the average woman lives to be 77.8 years old, will the one year it takes to see what I want to see in the mirror, change my mentality, and transform my life for the better really take "forever"?  I have dwelled on my weight and eaten my feelings for more than 1 year.  Imagine if i had just handled it when it first started to irritate me?  All of the times when my eating habits and my reflection made me cry and hate myself could have been avoided.  So now I am trying to persist, no matter what obstacles get in my way, I am determined to be fit and healthy and love the way I look.  I am working hard and doing this right and finding out along the way that it really ISN'T as hard as I made it out to be the last couple years.  I love getting re-inspired!!!  I am extremely sore from my last two workouts but, I am still going to the gym tonight and you know why...

It's true... and you know it!

Crappy Circumstances and Sweet Rewards

Oh Day 8,  the three day weekend is over and I have made it exactly 1 week without cheating!!!!  Now what wonderful reward did I achieve for this amazing feat?  I lost 3 lbs!!!!!! I am so excited that with hard work it happened!!

This weekend was the Chevron World Challenge (a golf tournament sponsored by Tiger Woods).  My boyfriend, Jason is an avid golfer and wanted to see Tiger hopefully win his first tournament in over 2 1/2 years.  So, I had the day off of work Friday and we went.  I never knew how much walking golf entailed!  I definitely got my cardio in that day!  We decided to skip the gym because Jason's shoulder was killing him.  This didn't really affect my workout plan so I stayed home to nurse him.

Now while we were at Target on Friday night, my brand new iPhone 4 got stolen.  After tracking it down with an awesome app and filing a police report, I am still with out my beloved phone. :[ It is so difficult living with out it.  I track all the food I eat on the app MyFitnessPal* on my phone.  I thought for sure that this would derail me.  Luckily your profile is synced with an online database, so I can track what I eat from other iphones and online at myfitnesspal.com.   I am so proud that even with this crappy circumstance I was able to keep on track.  Since I tend to eat my feelings, I was craving all sorts of foods that were bad for me.  While I ate a lot of fast food I made really good choices.  On Saturday I got french fries when we got In-N-Out and I had a piece of chocolate later that night.  It is amazing to see that even with those bad food slip ups, my hard work didn't disappear from the scale.  This proves that there is more to losing weight then just being under calories.  In the past when I have done programs I get nervous on weigh in day.  I try not to eat anything and wear light clothes so that I weigh less.  I am in control.  What I do and the choices I make will be reflected back at me, and I am not giving up!  I am stronger then I think.

* MyFitnessPal is a wonderful app for i Phones that scans the bar-codes of products to obtain nutritional information.

Motivation

Today is day 4 of my new lifestyle And guess what?  I am still going strong!!!  I am so proud of myself.  I have been to the gym only 3 of the days because I am a big wuss.  It is recommended to do weight training because lean muscle burns more calories than fat.  To me it is just so scary to use the free weights and machines!   I felt feel so intimidated my all the strong men and lean women that carelessly do their strength training, which by the way is 10x harder then mine.  I feel like they look at me and talk to each other whispering things like, "What is she doing..." or " She's so fat, she doesn't belong here...". It was then that i recalled a moment from one of Jamie Eason's videos at bodybuilding.com where she said that you go to the gym for yourself, to improve your body and achieve your goals.  this made me truly think that #1 I am there to accomplish my goals, not theirs and #2 that I have to start somewhere.  Right now my body isn't in peak condition, but I am doing something about it.  So,  I am learning to banish those fictitious voices and continue with my own motivation!