Sunday, October 7, 2012
New Personal Best
Less than a week after breaking my last record (8.2 miles) with a 9 mile run I have beat it again logging a whopping 10.17 miles!! I'm a little tired and a lot sore but feel pretty proud of myself, 10 miles is a long way! Get out there and achieve a personal best...it feels good!!
Monday, October 1, 2012
Nine Miles!
Went out for a run today and ran farther than I ever have! Nine miles!! There was a time in my life when I hated to run and running just one mile was a horribly uncomfortable experience. While my run today wasn't entirely without discomfort (I have a nice blister the size of a nickel on the bottom of my foot!) it was nowhere near horrible, it was even dare I say, very enjoyable! I am proud of how far I have come and excited about how far I have to go! Running has changed me into a completely different person and I think that is part of what makes it so amazing. I can't imagine my life without running and sometimes just thinking about not being able to run is enough motivation to get me out the door. Anyway that is pretty much all I have to say today...new personal record (and new goal set!).
My advice to everyone is get out there and run. Don't quit because everything hurts (and if you are new to running everything will!). Give it two to three weeks and it will start to feel comfortable and that is when you just might surprise yourself and realize you are a runner and you like it!
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Finding Health
So my previous posts have been mostly about fitness, a little about health but mostly fitness. This one will be mostly about health. To be fair to myself I need to address these things as well because otherwise I end up a crazy fitness junkie that doesn't know when to quit...seriously. I've been thinking about this post for a few days now. It got into my head the other day while running with my boyfriend. I was feeling really good and had been staying on track with my fitness and nutrition goals so I was a little thrown when my he told me that I was obsessed with fitness and weight and calorie counting. He told me that one day I would look back and see how ridiculous it was to be so consumed with losing five pounds. At first I was like What?? He doesn't know what he's talking about. Once I lose these five pounds I will be happy and healthy and I will look back and say I sure am glad I put so much time into being fit. Before I could think any further on this he reminded me that I have been on the same obsessed loop for about five years now, losing five pounds, gaining five pounds, losing, gaining and well you get it. At first I felt a little defensive because I want so badly to be happy with myself that it seemed crazy to think that maybe I'm the one making myself unhappy.
It is a very real possibility that I have body dysmorphic disorder. Maybe not necessarily this disorder specifically but something very similar. The conversation about being obsessed got me to consider why I am the way I am. Little things (and big things) that have happened in my life have definitely brought me to this mentally unhealthy place. By looking at these I may not be able to forget or undo them but maybe I can move forward away from them. When I was very young I had my son Bryce. There are many downfalls to having a child so young, one of them being you feel socially on the outside. All of your friends are young and mostly responsibility-less. Because of this I began feeling like I was much, much older. You do not feel very attractive when you feel like an "old mom" rather than a young adult. This feeling only became heightened when I started college. I had taken two years off because of Bryce and so as a freshman in college I was older than my peers. It's sort of funny looking back because I was only 21 at this time. I wish I could go back in time and flick myself in the forehead for being ridiculous, but of course I can't. I still remember seeing the first wrinkle on my face and deciding that that was it, I was forever "old". I was just twenty. Since this point in my life I have spent hundreds of dollars on many, many wrinkle creams trying to get my youthful appearance (that I was sure that I had lost) back. I still cannot look in the mirror without seeing all of my many wrinkles, the difference is that now I feel like they are really horrible and that back then I was just being silly. (I am happy to say that I no longer put these creams on my face but I still look in the mirror and see so, so many wrinkles.) Give me another ten years and I will tell you how silly I am being now. I feel like I am holding on to a youth, that I feel like I lost, so hard that I am missing out on enjoying it while it is here. And that is just sad. You would think that with this insight I would just be able to change it but what I see in the mirror does not let me. It does not help that as a young adult I gained 35 pounds. During the few years I lived this way my self esteem plummeted. I felt even more out of place at school because I was not not only "old" but also overweight. I have not entirely recovered from this. That is silly to me because it has been over four years. When do I get to just live my life and not constantly wonder "do I look fat in this?".
There are other factors that have contributed to the way I am. The media (obviously) is a big one. It is very difficult to keep in mind that models are not anywhere near a normal weight and not something to strive for. Another big contributor to the way I am is simply things that have been said. I am pretty sure that there are many women out there that would agree with me that some things, once said, echo in your mind forever.This being said I want so badly to be happy and confident. I am ready to change...just need to figure out how.
Anyway here I am today. Ready to be the healthiest, happiest and yes fittest me. So how do I fix this? How do I look in the mirror and just feel good. I will start by looking in the mirror in the morning and acknowledging how far I have come. I will do my best to compliment myself rather than turn away with a negative image of myself. I don't know if or when I will stop obsessing but I feel like if I can get to that point I could just enjoy my life and that is really what is important right? I am right where I am supposed to be with my weight and my wrinkles are probably not as noticeable as I think they are. All I need is for my brain to agree with that statement (maybe take out the probably) and I will be well on my way to being the healthiest, physically and mentally, me that I can be.
So, sorry for now Trav, you see a skinny girl that needs to relax and I see a fat old lady who needs to get up and do something about it...I promise to do my best to relax and love myself.
It is a very real possibility that I have body dysmorphic disorder. Maybe not necessarily this disorder specifically but something very similar. The conversation about being obsessed got me to consider why I am the way I am. Little things (and big things) that have happened in my life have definitely brought me to this mentally unhealthy place. By looking at these I may not be able to forget or undo them but maybe I can move forward away from them. When I was very young I had my son Bryce. There are many downfalls to having a child so young, one of them being you feel socially on the outside. All of your friends are young and mostly responsibility-less. Because of this I began feeling like I was much, much older. You do not feel very attractive when you feel like an "old mom" rather than a young adult. This feeling only became heightened when I started college. I had taken two years off because of Bryce and so as a freshman in college I was older than my peers. It's sort of funny looking back because I was only 21 at this time. I wish I could go back in time and flick myself in the forehead for being ridiculous, but of course I can't. I still remember seeing the first wrinkle on my face and deciding that that was it, I was forever "old". I was just twenty. Since this point in my life I have spent hundreds of dollars on many, many wrinkle creams trying to get my youthful appearance (that I was sure that I had lost) back. I still cannot look in the mirror without seeing all of my many wrinkles, the difference is that now I feel like they are really horrible and that back then I was just being silly. (I am happy to say that I no longer put these creams on my face but I still look in the mirror and see so, so many wrinkles.) Give me another ten years and I will tell you how silly I am being now. I feel like I am holding on to a youth, that I feel like I lost, so hard that I am missing out on enjoying it while it is here. And that is just sad. You would think that with this insight I would just be able to change it but what I see in the mirror does not let me. It does not help that as a young adult I gained 35 pounds. During the few years I lived this way my self esteem plummeted. I felt even more out of place at school because I was not not only "old" but also overweight. I have not entirely recovered from this. That is silly to me because it has been over four years. When do I get to just live my life and not constantly wonder "do I look fat in this?".
There are other factors that have contributed to the way I am. The media (obviously) is a big one. It is very difficult to keep in mind that models are not anywhere near a normal weight and not something to strive for. Another big contributor to the way I am is simply things that have been said. I am pretty sure that there are many women out there that would agree with me that some things, once said, echo in your mind forever.This being said I want so badly to be happy and confident. I am ready to change...just need to figure out how.
Anyway here I am today. Ready to be the healthiest, happiest and yes fittest me. So how do I fix this? How do I look in the mirror and just feel good. I will start by looking in the mirror in the morning and acknowledging how far I have come. I will do my best to compliment myself rather than turn away with a negative image of myself. I don't know if or when I will stop obsessing but I feel like if I can get to that point I could just enjoy my life and that is really what is important right? I am right where I am supposed to be with my weight and my wrinkles are probably not as noticeable as I think they are. All I need is for my brain to agree with that statement (maybe take out the probably) and I will be well on my way to being the healthiest, physically and mentally, me that I can be.
So, sorry for now Trav, you see a skinny girl that needs to relax and I see a fat old lady who needs to get up and do something about it...I promise to do my best to relax and love myself.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
All About Beginning Again..and Again
When I see the beginning of an episode of Biggest Loser (or any other show like that) I feel so excited for the person on the show. They have such an amazing journey that they are only just about to begin. They can come so far and it is all about to happen for them. All they have to do is make the decision to change and stick to it....and of course a ton of sweating away all those calories. While I don't envy the weight they have to lose or the long, difficult road ahead of them I do feel like they are so lucky to have the opportunity to be an amazing success story and all they have to do is begin. I will not have such an amazing story but I do have the opportunity for a new beginning...or a few of them!
I have been reluctant to write here for the past month or two. This is because I was busy being human and making all kinds of yummy mistakes and excuses. It all started with a little mini vacation filled with food and drinks without restriction. Before leaving for this vacation I was doing wonderful, going to the gym five days a week, running often, attending boot camp classes and cardio kick boxing. I was feeling good and I was getting very close to my goal weight. One four day mini vacation derailed me entirely. I came back hung over and about five pounds heavier...that means I was gaining more than a pound a day!! When I came back I was a little discouraged but tried to get right back into my workout routine. The problem is that when I stepped on the scale it was so much further from where I had been I was losing motivation fast! So what did I do? Sabotaged myself of course! I would work out and then cook a meal that wasn't healthy or go out and eat afterwards. On the bright side I was still working out so I wasn't gaining weight but it is pretty difficult to stop the junk food/adult beverages habit when you are fooling yourself into believing that working out isn't doing anything at all. Fortunately I am not new to this whole losing weight and getting healthy thing. I will never forget how unhappy I was when I was 30 pounds heavier and refuse to ever let myself return to that unhappiness. I recently started to think about all of the people who have so much more weight to lose than I do and started thinking about how exciting beginning their journeys will be for them and I realized I can have another beginning too. I just need to get excited about it....
Last Thursday I decided enough is enough...time to start! Of course starting must be planned so I chose Monday as the day. That gave me a few days to get in all of my favorite foods and beverages so that I would not feel deprived when my journey began (it was a yummy weekend!). Monday came around and I was ready...until I woke up and realized I was sick. Totally miserable with my head cold I decided that this was my beginning, ideal or not, I would not waste it making excuses. So while I couldn't go to the gym or run I did have my diet in my control. I began, as planned, on schedule. I started the "Curves diet" that has helped me so much in the past. This diet (which is more of a lifestyle than a diet, it is not meant to be temporary) begins with a very difficult first week. I am allowed only 1200 calories and very specific amounts of fat, carbohydrates and protein. It is now day four and I will not lie...I am pretty hangry!
The idea behind this difficult first week is that it jump starts your metabolism. I am not an expert on this so I can not say whether or not this is true. What it really does for me though is get me to choose my foods very carefully making sure that every calorie consumed was a good choice. I have said before that I like to track things. For food/calorie tracking my favorite app on the iPhone is the SparkPeople app. This app lets you store your favorite food so that it is easy to track foods you eat often. It also allows you to easily search for foods or upload nutrition info for a food. You are able to use the nutrition info that other users have uploaded making it very easy to find just about anything you may find yourself eating. It also has a fitness log (which I am not overly impressed with because it doesn't count the calories burned for you). One bonus of this feature is that you can set goals and track your progress. It also has a weight tracker...I wasn't tracking this over the past few weeks cause well, it was not something I really wanted to see. Here is my new beginning-
That recent high point was my starting point on Monday morning. 130.1 pounds. The jump to there was not as drastic as it looks, as I said before I hadn't been tracking because my behaviors were less than healthy. I weighed in at exactly 128 pounds this morning making it a pretty good week considering I hadn't been to the gym in a full week. A few pound drop is to be expected in this first (brutal) week. In my Curves guide book it states that most of the weight lost this week is water weight...honestly though it doesn't matter what it is as long as the numbers keep getting smaller- a pound is a pound :) Now that I am finally getting over my cold I can get back to my fitness routine and get a little further down the road on my journey to health and happiness.
I want to add that when I say that I am on a "diet" I do not mean it the way most people think. I feel that you should only diet with foods/amounts that you can eat, healthily, forever. The (Higher Protein Version) Curves diet worked very well for me in the past and I had continued eating it almost perfectly for about two years. Eating this way got rid of my heart burn (which I was experiencing every day) and my headaches (also a daily occurrence) as well as helped me to lose 35 pounds pretty quickly. It just occurred to me that people may try to find out what this "curves diet" is all about so I googled it. Unfortunately the info that I came across was either false or the diet has changed since I got their book. I have taken a picture of the guide for the diet for the first week as well as the following weeks...just in case you are curious about what worked for me.
Sorry the picture isn't wonderful but the iPhone camera did it's very, very best! These guidelines are only for the first week and are not to be continued longer as the body needs more than this to be healthy and health is what we are striving for right?!
Here is the guidelines for the second week. You continue eating this way until you plateau or reach your goal weight.
The idea behind this difficult first week is that it jump starts your metabolism. I am not an expert on this so I can not say whether or not this is true. What it really does for me though is get me to choose my foods very carefully making sure that every calorie consumed was a good choice. I have said before that I like to track things. For food/calorie tracking my favorite app on the iPhone is the SparkPeople app. This app lets you store your favorite food so that it is easy to track foods you eat often. It also allows you to easily search for foods or upload nutrition info for a food. You are able to use the nutrition info that other users have uploaded making it very easy to find just about anything you may find yourself eating. It also has a fitness log (which I am not overly impressed with because it doesn't count the calories burned for you). One bonus of this feature is that you can set goals and track your progress. It also has a weight tracker...I wasn't tracking this over the past few weeks cause well, it was not something I really wanted to see. Here is my new beginning-
Here is the guidelines for the second week. You continue eating this way until you plateau or reach your goal weight.
(Again, thanks iphone camera for your amazing quality photos!)
I just wanted to post these so that no one was thinking that I was saying it is healthy to limit carbs to 20 grams per day...that's what I was finding in my searched and I would never limit myself like that. The body needs carbohydrates.
Ok...when I start these blog posts I have a direction and mental picture of what it will be and then when I finish I realize that the post sort of did it's own thing. Hope I didn't ramble on too much!! The point that I really wanted to get across is that taking that first step towards your health and fitness (no matter how many steps you have in front of you) is, and should be exciting! My journey begins (again) here...join me. Lets find fitness, health and happiness!!
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Even the Motivated Need Motivation Sometimes
I work out. A lot. There is a strict schedule I follow to make sure that I get all of my exercising in. I exercise currently exercise around 10 hours a week. I do not stray from this schedule and never let the thought of going out to eat instead of working out become anything more than a passing thought. You would think that after 100 days, yes I have finally reached the magical 100 days of working out at my new gym, that I would not be hard on myself and lose motivation but I do. I do because I track everything I am very aware of my physical progress. Every single day I weigh myself and record it...in two different graphs. One graph shows my progress since joining my gym and the other one tracks progress since changing my diet. Both of them motivate me and derail my motivation depending on the day and my mood. I am not a big girl, I have lost most of the weight that I wanted to so I understand that progress will be slow, especially since I lift heavy weights and work very hard to build muscle. I want to be strong and fit but there is a little part of me, the insecure part that wants to be a hundred pound skinny, skinny girl that the media tells me is the ideal. Feeling not good enough all the time is exhausting. I know better, I know I need only be the best possible me and not a skinny someone else. I'm working on it. Back to what I was saying, I lose motivation sometimes because of a numbers I keep recording. Below are both of my graphs.
The top on shows progress for the past month and a half...not very impresive. The botom graph is over the past 118 days and looks a little better. There are quite a few big spikes in that graph. These are after coming back from a weekend away where I did not exercise and enjoyed many, many tasty foods. I am ok (just ok definetely not ecstatic) with the weekend spikes. Life is meant to be lived and enjoyed and I do not feel that a person should deprive themselves of foods they love...every once in a while. The problem with these weekends are that they are stalling my progress. These weekend indulgences should be fewer and farther between and they will be...after this weekend...and maybe the 4th of July weekend...and maybe...and maybe...I need to get this under control soon. Challenge accepted.
When I start to feel like there is no point to all of the hard work I do to become the healthiest and fittest me I think about how far I have come and where I am planning on getting. This helps get the focus off of where I am right now because right now I am changing and progressing, even if the graph doesn't always show it. The weights that I lift keep getting heavier which means I am getting stronger. My boyfriend is a great motivator as well. He works out almost as much as me and we use each other for motivation. It is a lot harder to skip a workout if I know I will be the reason he didn't work out and vice verse. I also find a great deal of motivation on Pinterest. I will find images that resemble my goals and quotes that speak to me. There are many quotes that I will repeat to myself when I am feeling weak while lifting weights or running. This helps me to keep going. One of my favorites is "Of course it's hard. It's supposed to be hard. If it were easy everyone would do it. Hard is what makes it great". This one keeps me going, pushing me further because I want to be great.
I am about to head out to boot camp but before I go here are some motivating quotes/pics to inspire me and you...Now go, get out there and get healthy, happy and fit!
The top on shows progress for the past month and a half...not very impresive. The botom graph is over the past 118 days and looks a little better. There are quite a few big spikes in that graph. These are after coming back from a weekend away where I did not exercise and enjoyed many, many tasty foods. I am ok (just ok definetely not ecstatic) with the weekend spikes. Life is meant to be lived and enjoyed and I do not feel that a person should deprive themselves of foods they love...every once in a while. The problem with these weekends are that they are stalling my progress. These weekend indulgences should be fewer and farther between and they will be...after this weekend...and maybe the 4th of July weekend...and maybe...and maybe...I need to get this under control soon. Challenge accepted.
When I start to feel like there is no point to all of the hard work I do to become the healthiest and fittest me I think about how far I have come and where I am planning on getting. This helps get the focus off of where I am right now because right now I am changing and progressing, even if the graph doesn't always show it. The weights that I lift keep getting heavier which means I am getting stronger. My boyfriend is a great motivator as well. He works out almost as much as me and we use each other for motivation. It is a lot harder to skip a workout if I know I will be the reason he didn't work out and vice verse. I also find a great deal of motivation on Pinterest. I will find images that resemble my goals and quotes that speak to me. There are many quotes that I will repeat to myself when I am feeling weak while lifting weights or running. This helps me to keep going. One of my favorites is "Of course it's hard. It's supposed to be hard. If it were easy everyone would do it. Hard is what makes it great". This one keeps me going, pushing me further because I want to be great.
I am about to head out to boot camp but before I go here are some motivating quotes/pics to inspire me and you...Now go, get out there and get healthy, happy and fit!
Why I Relay
Why I Relay
Before I was born cancer killed my grandmother. I remember being little and listening to my mom talk about her. I always felt that it would have been wonderful to have had the chance to know the woman my mom spoke so fondly of. Cancer robbed my mom of her mother and me from ever getting to meet my Grandma.
When I was little there was nothing better than going to my Grandparents’ house for the holidays. It didn’t matter that it was a three hour drive or that back then I got car sick just looking at a car. It was my favorite place to be. My dad has a big family and I loved the wonderful chaos that came with the family gatherings. I remember my Grandma’s hugs. She always hugged you like she really, really meant it. Cancer killed my Grandma when I was thirteen.
I will never forget the day Trav’s (my boyfriend) mom, Elaine, told us she had lung cancer. It was devastating and felt as though the world had sort of stopped. All the worries and stresses of being a young parent in college seemed far away and insignificant. Elaine is a fighter though and after going through all of the awful cancer treatments it seemed as though cancer was a word we could put behind us. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case; she was diagnosed with breast cancer. This year she has beat it and I will forever be in awe of her strength and positivity.
Trav’s cousin Tish was diagnosed with breast cancer this year. She is a wonderful woman and a mother of three beautiful girls. She has gone through so much ridding herself of this terrible disease. It’s so difficult to see this and feel so powerless to help. She went through chemotherapy and is currently recovering from a mastectomy. She recently found out that she will need more chemotherapy after her radiation treatment. To me this is outrageous. She has gone through so much and yet cancer is not done making her suffer. She is an amazing woman and I know she is going to beat this. Her strength is an inspiration.
I know that there is a better way to treat this disease, a way that doesn’t torture those who have it. We can find a cure, we just need to come together, pool our resources and not quit until a better treatment and cure are discovered. This is why I am walking in the American Cancer Society's Relay For Life.
When I was little there was nothing better than going to my Grandparents’ house for the holidays. It didn’t matter that it was a three hour drive or that back then I got car sick just looking at a car. It was my favorite place to be. My dad has a big family and I loved the wonderful chaos that came with the family gatherings. I remember my Grandma’s hugs. She always hugged you like she really, really meant it. Cancer killed my Grandma when I was thirteen.
I will never forget the day Trav’s (my boyfriend) mom, Elaine, told us she had lung cancer. It was devastating and felt as though the world had sort of stopped. All the worries and stresses of being a young parent in college seemed far away and insignificant. Elaine is a fighter though and after going through all of the awful cancer treatments it seemed as though cancer was a word we could put behind us. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case; she was diagnosed with breast cancer. This year she has beat it and I will forever be in awe of her strength and positivity.
Trav’s cousin Tish was diagnosed with breast cancer this year. She is a wonderful woman and a mother of three beautiful girls. She has gone through so much ridding herself of this terrible disease. It’s so difficult to see this and feel so powerless to help. She went through chemotherapy and is currently recovering from a mastectomy. She recently found out that she will need more chemotherapy after her radiation treatment. To me this is outrageous. She has gone through so much and yet cancer is not done making her suffer. She is an amazing woman and I know she is going to beat this. Her strength is an inspiration.
I know that there is a better way to treat this disease, a way that doesn’t torture those who have it. We can find a cure, we just need to come together, pool our resources and not quit until a better treatment and cure are discovered. This is why I am walking in the American Cancer Society's Relay For Life.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
How I Got Here and Where I am Going
If you knew me in high school you knew the me that loved to eat junk food and sneak down the hill at lunch time to smoke cigarettes. This is where the bad habits began. Although I grew up in a very healthy vegetarian home, when I moved out to be an adult with my own family I unfortunately was not as health conscious as my mother (or nearly as good a cook!!). Our meals consisted mostly of frozen microwaved dinners, delivery pizza or fast food. Things only got worse when I decided that it was a good idea to get a part time job at Dairy Queen. At this point of my life I was a 23 year old college student and mother of a four year old. I was about ten pounds overweight at this time. Being just ten pounds overweight is pretty easy to ignore, especially if it means you don't have to stop eating the things you love or change any of your other unhealthy eating habits. Choosing to work at Dairy Queen was an awful decision. I would work 3 to 4 nights a week and my son and boyfriend would come and visit me during my lunch and we would eat. My favorite meal to eat during my lunch was the chicken basket. Do you know how many calories are in the Dairy Queen Chicken Basket? Neither did I, nor did I care at the time. After eating we would get dessert because it was Dairy Queen and you can't not enjoy a tasty treat there can you?? My favorite was the Brownie Earthquake. Any guesses on how many calories were in that? I never gave it any consideration. All I thought about was how good it tasted. After getting off work I would often bring home dinner, which was almost always a Crispy Chicken Sandwich for me, and blizzards for everyone. Below are the nutrition facts for the Chicken Basket (left) and the Brownie Earthquake (right).
And another where I am actually not wearing a sweatshirt
And just one more
Even after all of the time that has past since then I am still very embarrassed about how out of control I let my weight get. These pictures were not easy to put up.
I continued this way for three years. I was miserable but so far unable to change. Then one day I caught a really bad cold. It drug on and it was getting in the way of my classes so I decided to visit student health services. This wasn't supposed to be a big deal, just get some medicine and go back to class. When the nurse came to take my temperature and blood pressure I had no idea my life was about to change. The nurse said that my blood pressure was pre-hypertensive which was obviously not where I wanted it to be. She had me come back many times to keep and eye on it. These visits were terrifying to me. Even as an over weight smoker I had thought that I was relatively healthy. I was only 26 years old and didn't think that blood pressure was something I should be thinking about. It became very important to me to fix this. I decided to try Curves which is a gym made just for women. It was also just one block from our apartment which was really nice. This workout environment sounded much more inviting than the college gym. I wanted very much to lose the weight and to be healthy but I had little faith that I would be able to stick to any sort of exercise program as I had failed at this many times in the past. Along with my membership to Curves I also got a book that was sort of a guide to getting healthy along with a meal planner. I went to curves every day after initially joining the gym. This wasn't too difficult as it was only a half hour (sometimes I would stay an hour if I was feeling extra motivated). The weight started to come off immediately. I lost around 2 to 3 pounds every week. It didn't take long for me to decide that if it was going to work so well why would I quit going. I was headed exactly where I wanted to be. The second month I was at Curves I entered a "biggest loser" contest. I didn't think much of it at the time, there were so many others participating that I didn't really think that I had a chance. I did win though, losing 12 pounds as well as 11 inches (that is a lot of inches!). I followed the diet pretty much perfectly during this time and by the fourth month I had lost 34 pounds and was right where I wanted to be. My blood pressure at this point was right where it was supposed to be. I enjoyed my first summer in 4 years!
Here I am enjoying the summer
I kept the weight off and like I had thought I would be, I was much happier.
Keeping the weight off was simple, I ate the right foods and went to Curves at least five days a week. This worked for a long time. In August of 2009 (a year after losing the weight) I quit smoking. A month later I began running. This was very difficult for me at first because I had been a smoker for 16 years. I stuck with it though and before I knew it I had incorporated it into my regular exercise routine. I started to enjoy it and even participated in a few races.
And even won first place in my age division in the Birch Bay Road Race (Pretty proud of that!)
I ran into a problem in 2010 though. At this time I was also feeling a little invincible when it came to my weight and it was holiday time. I love to bake and make sweets. Usually I will only eat one or make them for other people but this year was different. I began making fudge for Thanksgiving and then some truffles, then came the Christmas cookies...starting the day after Thanksgiving of course! That was the first year that I decided that I could eat whatever I wanted as long as I was still going to the gym. Turns out I was wrong. In just a couple months I had gained ten pounds. I tried for the next year and a half to lose that ten pounds. There was always something getting in the way though. Somewhere we were going, people we were seeing...lots of excuses to eat poorly and exercise less. I managed to maintain my weight which caused me to feel stuck. Another problem I had come across was that I had become bored with Curves. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with Curves. I loved working out in their gym and the program worked really well for me it just became a problem for me that it was always the same!
In December of 2011 my boyfriend and I joined a gym together. I was so emotional about quitting curves that I actually cried in the parking lot after going in and cancelling my membership! I moved on though and decided to give Bayside Fitness a try. I was very nervous in the beginning. Gyms can be pretty intimidating when you are unsure what you are doing. For the first few weeks I would work out on my own, sticking to the area of the gym where the machines were rather than the free weights. This was mostly because I had no idea what to do with the free weights and felt a little embarrassed when I tried to figure it out. Fortunately my boyfriend started working out during his lunch break so he was able to teach me what to do and push me to move away from my comfort zone! After a few months at this gym I made the decision to take a new Cardio Kickboxing class that they were offering. This was really a big step out of my comfort zone as I had never taken any fitness classes and if you've met me you know I am lacking coordination just a little! Turns out I love it...even if my left and right still get mixed up during class!
At this point I lift weights five days a week, do a minimum of thirty minutes of cardio at least four days a week and take 2 one hour long cardio kickboxing classes a week. Since January I have lost 10.6 pounds. This might not sound like too much for that amount of time but I have gotten a lot stronger as well meaning that my muscle mass has increased and as we all know...muscle weighs more that fat! I would like to lose about 5-10 more pounds...we'll see. The main obstacle that I have lately is constant weekend trips. As you all know, it is difficult to make healthy decisions when traveling. Because of this I lose weight during the week and then weigh in on Monday a bit heavier and have to lose it all over again. I am not worried though because my weekends away are finally coming to an end (finally after 2 months...it will be good to be home for a change!!).
Here I am now
I am a tracker. I track my exercise, my weight and my body fat. I do this almost obsessively. I have two graphs that I keep track of weight loss on. Why two graphs? Just cause I like tracking things, I like seeing my progress. One graph begins in December 2010 and the other begins after I made some changes to the way I am eating. I track everything I eat (except on the weekends when we are gone because that would just be too upsetting!). I count not only calories but fat, carbohydrates and protein and I keep an eye on my sodium. I eat between 1200 and 1500 calories a day (this is less than half the calories I had been consuming just from Dairy Queen!!) and limit myself to two cups of coffee. I avoid processed foods and simple sugars almost completely. I do treat myself to a small piece of dark chocolate every day, which of course I track in my meal planning. If I enjoy a glass of wine, I compensate for it by not eating those calories. This makes that glass of wine much less appealing than it used to be! I have not determined how exactly I should be eating and am currently playing with the numbers a little. Before I changed my diet in 2008 I suffered frequent headaches and almost constant heartburn. I could go through a roll of tums in a day (sometimes two)...easily. When I changed my eating habits the headaches and heartburn went away completely as did the weight. The problem with the way I was eating on the curves plan was that the amount of carbohydrates I was allowing myself was a little low and the protein amount was extremely hard to consume. I feel like a diet should be a little more balanced than that so I am working on it.
So there is the story of how I got to this place in my life and why exercise and being healthy are so important to me. I hope that I can be an inspiration to others. If I can get healthy, fit and happy so can you!
Below are the nutrition facts for the Crispy Chicken Sandwich (left) and the Oreo Blizzard (Right).
Yep that is 3300 calories and it doesn't even include french fries, soda my breakfast and any snacks I may have had. Doing this 3 to 4 times a week every week for half a year brought me to an all time high weight for me. As a teenager and young adult I was between 125 pounds and 135 pounds. My Dairy Queen binge brought me up to 159 pounds. It happened very fast and I didn't really even notice what was happening until it was too late. Carrying around this extra weight caused me to be very unhappy. I would be uncomfortable in just about any social situation and felt that if I could just lose weight I could be happy and comfortable again. I would think about my weight pretty much every minute of every day. I hated being overweight but I was not ready to do anything about it. This was mostly because I didn't know where to begin. And I would love to say that not knowing what to do to correct the problem was my only obstacle but it would be a lie. I liked eating and I was too lazy to make any changes. I tried working out in the college gym and hated it. Do you know who works out at the gym? Physically fit people who know what they are doing with the weights and machines. I felt so incredibly out of place and completely visible that these visits to the gym were miserable and of course didn't last. So I decided that there was nothing that could be done about it. I settled into wearing giant sweatshirts, no matter what the weather, all year round. This was a little problematic during the summer but I was determined to hide myself.
Here is a picture of me during this time
I continued this way for three years. I was miserable but so far unable to change. Then one day I caught a really bad cold. It drug on and it was getting in the way of my classes so I decided to visit student health services. This wasn't supposed to be a big deal, just get some medicine and go back to class. When the nurse came to take my temperature and blood pressure I had no idea my life was about to change. The nurse said that my blood pressure was pre-hypertensive which was obviously not where I wanted it to be. She had me come back many times to keep and eye on it. These visits were terrifying to me. Even as an over weight smoker I had thought that I was relatively healthy. I was only 26 years old and didn't think that blood pressure was something I should be thinking about. It became very important to me to fix this. I decided to try Curves which is a gym made just for women. It was also just one block from our apartment which was really nice. This workout environment sounded much more inviting than the college gym. I wanted very much to lose the weight and to be healthy but I had little faith that I would be able to stick to any sort of exercise program as I had failed at this many times in the past. Along with my membership to Curves I also got a book that was sort of a guide to getting healthy along with a meal planner. I went to curves every day after initially joining the gym. This wasn't too difficult as it was only a half hour (sometimes I would stay an hour if I was feeling extra motivated). The weight started to come off immediately. I lost around 2 to 3 pounds every week. It didn't take long for me to decide that if it was going to work so well why would I quit going. I was headed exactly where I wanted to be. The second month I was at Curves I entered a "biggest loser" contest. I didn't think much of it at the time, there were so many others participating that I didn't really think that I had a chance. I did win though, losing 12 pounds as well as 11 inches (that is a lot of inches!). I followed the diet pretty much perfectly during this time and by the fourth month I had lost 34 pounds and was right where I wanted to be. My blood pressure at this point was right where it was supposed to be. I enjoyed my first summer in 4 years!
Here I am enjoying the summer
I kept the weight off and like I had thought I would be, I was much happier.
Keeping the weight off was simple, I ate the right foods and went to Curves at least five days a week. This worked for a long time. In August of 2009 (a year after losing the weight) I quit smoking. A month later I began running. This was very difficult for me at first because I had been a smoker for 16 years. I stuck with it though and before I knew it I had incorporated it into my regular exercise routine. I started to enjoy it and even participated in a few races.
I ran into a problem in 2010 though. At this time I was also feeling a little invincible when it came to my weight and it was holiday time. I love to bake and make sweets. Usually I will only eat one or make them for other people but this year was different. I began making fudge for Thanksgiving and then some truffles, then came the Christmas cookies...starting the day after Thanksgiving of course! That was the first year that I decided that I could eat whatever I wanted as long as I was still going to the gym. Turns out I was wrong. In just a couple months I had gained ten pounds. I tried for the next year and a half to lose that ten pounds. There was always something getting in the way though. Somewhere we were going, people we were seeing...lots of excuses to eat poorly and exercise less. I managed to maintain my weight which caused me to feel stuck. Another problem I had come across was that I had become bored with Curves. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with Curves. I loved working out in their gym and the program worked really well for me it just became a problem for me that it was always the same!
In December of 2011 my boyfriend and I joined a gym together. I was so emotional about quitting curves that I actually cried in the parking lot after going in and cancelling my membership! I moved on though and decided to give Bayside Fitness a try. I was very nervous in the beginning. Gyms can be pretty intimidating when you are unsure what you are doing. For the first few weeks I would work out on my own, sticking to the area of the gym where the machines were rather than the free weights. This was mostly because I had no idea what to do with the free weights and felt a little embarrassed when I tried to figure it out. Fortunately my boyfriend started working out during his lunch break so he was able to teach me what to do and push me to move away from my comfort zone! After a few months at this gym I made the decision to take a new Cardio Kickboxing class that they were offering. This was really a big step out of my comfort zone as I had never taken any fitness classes and if you've met me you know I am lacking coordination just a little! Turns out I love it...even if my left and right still get mixed up during class!
At this point I lift weights five days a week, do a minimum of thirty minutes of cardio at least four days a week and take 2 one hour long cardio kickboxing classes a week. Since January I have lost 10.6 pounds. This might not sound like too much for that amount of time but I have gotten a lot stronger as well meaning that my muscle mass has increased and as we all know...muscle weighs more that fat! I would like to lose about 5-10 more pounds...we'll see. The main obstacle that I have lately is constant weekend trips. As you all know, it is difficult to make healthy decisions when traveling. Because of this I lose weight during the week and then weigh in on Monday a bit heavier and have to lose it all over again. I am not worried though because my weekends away are finally coming to an end (finally after 2 months...it will be good to be home for a change!!).
Here I am now
I am a tracker. I track my exercise, my weight and my body fat. I do this almost obsessively. I have two graphs that I keep track of weight loss on. Why two graphs? Just cause I like tracking things, I like seeing my progress. One graph begins in December 2010 and the other begins after I made some changes to the way I am eating. I track everything I eat (except on the weekends when we are gone because that would just be too upsetting!). I count not only calories but fat, carbohydrates and protein and I keep an eye on my sodium. I eat between 1200 and 1500 calories a day (this is less than half the calories I had been consuming just from Dairy Queen!!) and limit myself to two cups of coffee. I avoid processed foods and simple sugars almost completely. I do treat myself to a small piece of dark chocolate every day, which of course I track in my meal planning. If I enjoy a glass of wine, I compensate for it by not eating those calories. This makes that glass of wine much less appealing than it used to be! I have not determined how exactly I should be eating and am currently playing with the numbers a little. Before I changed my diet in 2008 I suffered frequent headaches and almost constant heartburn. I could go through a roll of tums in a day (sometimes two)...easily. When I changed my eating habits the headaches and heartburn went away completely as did the weight. The problem with the way I was eating on the curves plan was that the amount of carbohydrates I was allowing myself was a little low and the protein amount was extremely hard to consume. I feel like a diet should be a little more balanced than that so I am working on it.
So there is the story of how I got to this place in my life and why exercise and being healthy are so important to me. I hope that I can be an inspiration to others. If I can get healthy, fit and happy so can you!
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