How to Change

If you know me very well, you know that I have lost people that I love. It has been 20 years since my little sister Jamie died and today makes it 13 years since one of my best friends Shanny died. Death is always one of the things that is brought up as a cause for weight gain, and not being able to get it off. But even if I think that is a cause... how do I fix it? I can't bring them back. I feel like I have accepted their gone, so what do I do? It is so hard to get in the mind set of working out and eating right. I can do it for a while, but a little detour and I am right back where I started. So low self esteem mixed with losing loved ones equals over weight. So I ask again... if this is my problem. How do I fix it?

Back at it...

Okay, Okay... leave me alone! So I got pretty sick. It lasted for about 2 months, I would try to get on the treadmill and would just start hacking. Talk about a DE-motivator. So then I got back into the routine of not working out. Here we go again... I haven't weighed myself because I don't dare, I am sure that I have gained most, if not all of it back. I did get on the treadmill last night and I am going to try and get back into a routine. But I am headed out of town tomorrow after work, so don't look for an update on Friday. Good Luck to me again...

Sorry All...

I hate to not have any good updates but this week is not going so good either... Chris finally just took the keys and drove me to the doctor... I have bronchitis!! Wahoo for me! I have a really hard time breathing, so working out has been out of the question. I did start on a Z Pack so I hope to be good to go soon.

Not Today

I have been sick all week this week. I haven't worked out since Monday, and I have just been laying around all week. So... I have decided not to weigh in today. I don't think I could handle the results, whatever they may be. If I've gained, I'll be upset. If I've lost I'll be upset because I didn't do anything! And if I have stayed the same... well you get the idea. Chris is taking off for the weekend so I am hoping just to get a lot of rest and get over it so I can kick it in the butt next week!

1 more...

Honestly I was expecting more this week, but I'll take it.

I knew it...

A whole lotta nothin'... I realized something this week. I am killing myself trying to get this weight off. I want it to happen so fast that I am stressing out way to much about it. And why? I don't want to be embarrased about not losing anything. I don't have a deadline, I'm doing this for me! It isn't like my job depends on how fast I can lose weight, and of course Chris isn't pressuring me to do it. He loves me the way I am. It is all me getting inside my own head. And I need to stop. We'll see what happens.

Something Positive

Tomorrow is weigh in day and I am a little nervous because I have had a bad week, and I know stress can do crazy things to your body. I didn't miss any workouts or anything, but I have just been off. But today on my way home from work I stopped at Kohls to look for shoes. (because I have a monster dog that has decided that these make for the best chew toys). But just for kicks I went into the clothes. I tried on a pair of size 16 pants... AND THEY FIT! I was kind of stoked. They did show a little more definition then I would like in the back, but they fit! Of course I didn't buy anything, but it is nice to know that when I am ready to, I will actually have a selection of clothes. Not just the 5 grandma shirts and 2 styles of pants that are in the Plus Size section. :)

One of those Days

So I am having kind of a downer day... one of those days where I just want to go to the store and buy something from the bakery and then of course I will regret it right after eating it. My mom and I went to the Gym this morning (by the way she is down 12 lbs... way to go mom). We hit the treadmills and then went and swam afterwords. But seeing some of the people there, really made me realize that I have a long way to go. I know I am on my way there but I am starting to get frustrated. I feel like I am working harder then the results I am getting. And I am such a picky eater that food is starting to really bore me too. There are only so many things that I will eat and I'm tired of eating them. I want a big bowl of spaghetti noodles smothered in butter and salt, with garlic bread and chocolate cake! But if I do that, next week you will see me complaining about gaining a pound! I am not really looking for encouragement here I just wanted to vent for a second!

1 lb.

Not really worth mentioning...

Getting inside my head...

So, I am going to reference the biggest loser again… sorry I love it and it inspires me. But one thing that bugs me is they talk about getting inside their heads and finding out why they have gotten so heavy and every time they make someone cry I think what would I say when they are breaking me down… I don’t know what deeper issues I have. I guess my big issue has always been my weight. My sister brought something up today that really made me think about it. Growing up I was always the bigger one. I could always wear my older sister’s clothes, which made for a variety of outfits but that meant I was big. When I was 13 years old I threw a “tantrum” in the Fred Meyer, and my sisters love to tell this story. My mom said that she was going to leave me in the store… and did. I am very stubborn and I stayed in the store and cried. But this was the first time in my life that I had actually passed up my sisters; I am 3 years younger then Lisa and 5 years younger then Kristie. And I had to buy a 33 inch waist, which neither of them wore. I didn’t have pants that fit and my mom said that I could only have one, which would have meant I only had one pair of pants that fit me. So then she gave in and bought a second pair. But I always had really low self esteem, even at my smallest, I was the biggest of both my friends and my family; and I guess I thought that if I had nice clothes people wouldn’t notice. Still to this day I like to buy nice stuff, I feel better about myself; it cheers me up. Not clothes… but cars or toys… I have a nice 4 wheeler and a nice 5th wheel. I don’t do it to be better then anyone, I do it to make myself feel better. Does that make sense?

2 is better than 1

2 More pounds... Slowly but surely. And I am officially at my lowest weight in years! If you read my first post you know that I was down to 208 when I lost motivation. I am now at 207. And can't wait to get below that 200 mark! My drivers license says 170... I got it when I was 20 years old. (and I am sure I lied then) but wouldn't it be nice to actually weigh what it says?

Idiot

So it has been a month since I started all of this and all I can say is that I am an idiot!! Why did I ever stop in the first place? It has been a lot of hard work to get back down to where I was. And of course, where would I have been if I never stopped? I am dissapointed, I could have been a lot closer to my goal. So for those of you that are thinking you want to start something... DO IT! You will kick yourself for not doing it sooner. All of those months telling myself that I have to get started again were just wasted time. "Tomorrow" turned into 6 months and this month I lost 6 lbs... that's 36 lbs, I could have lost!!! Like I said, I'm an idiot!

Better than Nothin'

A little bummed but 209...

Nothing New for Me

Sorry all, nothing too exciting happening to report for myself, but I can for someone else... My mom has been following and decided to go gung ho, herself. Sunday was her weigh in day and she lost 4 lbs!!! Good job mom. I'm proud of you.
She said that she gives me the credit. But I know that it is so hard to make yourself workout everyday, and choose not to eat that second pop-tart because they are 200 calories each! So I told her it was all her!

Hope for weeks to come

After last weeks lack of weight loss, I was really nervous to get on the scale. I worked hard again this week and ate well. I had a really good work out last night at water aerobics. We did intervals so there was a lot of cardio and keeping my heart rate up. It was a good "last chance workout"! So I hope this is the start of a pattern of the weeks to come. I lost 2 lbs and am down to 210!

The Gym

Well I wasn’t planning on joining a Gym, I was going to use the equipment that I have at home and go to water aerobics on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s. I used to be a member at the West Valley Family Fitness Center but I live in a very crowded city with lots of kids. So it was packed all of the time. And not just with adults wanting to work out. It was like a giant playground, so there were kids running around everywhere, and if you have kids maybe it works great for you, but it makes me not want to go. Anyway... my office is doing a “Cut the Fat” campaign with Gold’s Gym. And they are paying for half of our memberships, which is a great deal… and it is a month to month thing so I can cancel anytime. So… I am officially a member at Gold’s. But you can bet, I won’t be posting “Off to the gym” or “I’m headed to workout”, I don’t know why, but that is a huge pet peeve of mine. It seems like we live in an overweight world and everyone is always at the gym. How does that work? :) If you are one of those people that post that on Facebook all the time. I still love you; please don’t take it personal, it’s just one of those things that make me roll my eyes. And I am by no means calling you overweight either; I just don’t care if you are headed to the gym! But maybe I’ll see you there!

The Week 2 Curse!

For those of you who follow The Biggest Loser know what this is. For those of you who don’t… on week 1 the contestants always lose amazing amounts of weight then come week 2 they don’t lose anything. They put up very small numbers if any, even though they worked out just as hard if not harder than the first week.
I weighed in this morning at 212, I am frustrated because I know I worked out harder and watched what I ate, and I realize I am training my body for change, but it is still hard. And I don’t want to hear that muscle weighs more then fat, I feel that I worked hard enough that I should have lost more fat then gained muscle.
I made the mistake of weighing in yesterday too… and yesterday I was at 213, I should really know better but I couldn’t help it, then when we went to water aerobics last night the instructor was sick, so they let us use the pool for free for 45 minutes, but we were on our own. So I didn’t get the workout I would have liked; especially knowing today would be my weigh in day and that would make last night my “last chance workout”. So I came home and hit the treadmill for a mile and did 100 steps on my climber.
I am trying to stay positive and think about the end result… I may have lost this weeks battle but I’m going to win the war!

No Excuses

So, I went to Water Aerobics tonight with Dana, my Mother-in-Law... her first time back after knee surgery! Good Job Dana!! I also conned one of my co-workers into coming. Well not so much conned, as said "hey the pool I go to is by your house if you want to come." and she said yes... I am glad you came Amber! This is also my friend who's mom had some suggestions for my blog... but Lori was sick tonight so Amber didn't think she would be able to make it. But when we got there. Both Amber and Lori were already there, sickly and all! I am glad you guys came and I hope you enjoyed yourselves!

Too Out Of Shape

My senior year in high school, I worked out A LOT, I can remember having to take a fitness test for P.E. and push-ups were part of it. I was so upset that the teacher let everyone do "girl" push-ups because I never did girl push-ups. I did real push-ups and could probably out do a lot of the boys...
One of my friends at work gave me an awesome Christmas present... he paid his trainer at Irockfitness to do 4 Saturday classes for his staff, and he was nice enough to include me... Well I about died trying to do girl push-ups! I think most of us did. But I had to keep stopping because I couldn't do pretty much everything he had us do. But I am excited to see by the last week what a difference it will be. As long as I stick to a routine at home during the week. Thanks again Felipe!

First Weigh In

I was nervous because I didn't get the workouts in that I wanted, but.... 212lbs!

Lori's Post

This Post is for Lori...
I have a friend at work who's mom is a blog guru. Now mind you, I only know Lori in passing, but I love that she was passionate in helping me achieve my goal. She had some suggestions to make my post a little more worth while. :) So you'll notice, I have added a "ticker" to track my progress. Which was a great suggestion, I wasn't aware I could do that. (I did notice that my cousin's wife Jana had one on her blog after I heard about this). You go girl!
Second, Lori wants to know what my plan is. How am I going to do it? Well I have already had a minor set back this week... I was run over by a 100lb rotweiller, we call her Monster. She made me spin around 360 degrees and I landed on my face! In the process I hurt my neck my side and my right leg. But I didn't want this to be an excuse, so I still got on the treadmill and walked until I couldn't walk anymore... making it at least a mile before I quit. Which is not how I wanted to kick this off. Today was the first day I made it over 2 miles. Walking the whole way, but doing it none the less. I do plan on going to water aerobics tomorrow and then every Tuesday and Thursday from here on out. Hitting the treadmill every other day but Friday. I am still taking it off for myself. I would like to get up to jogging at least 3 miles a day, but like they say, "one day at a time". As far as eating goes, I am going to be realistic, I'm not going to starve myself or eat Broiled Chicken and Broccoli every meal. But I will eat in moderation, control my portions. Make better choices in what I do eat. I am a Biggest Loser fan and one of the tips was to eat Fiber One bars as snacks. They are pretty tasty. So instead of going for chips I'll grab one of those or maybe some fruit. If there is a choice in white or wheat for something, I'll eat the wheat. But if we are having pizza for dinner. I'm going to have a piece of pizza. I want this to be something that I can continue to do. But not deprive myself of everything just to gain the weight back because I'm not used to eating pizza. But I can't wait to see what happens! Lori, I hope this is what you were looking for! :)

Thank You!

So I had a huge response from sending this out. I even had people thanking me for posting it. People that feel grateful to know that someone else is going through what they are going through. My intention was purely selfish to get myself motivated but it turns out that so many others were looking for something too. And if this is it, and I can help you at all; that makes me feel great and I guess my plan worked because it let me know that I wasn’t alone. It broke my heart; one of my friends said that she bathes in the dark because of how bad she feels about herself. But I know the feeling! Crying over putting on an outfit because of the way it does or doesn’t fit. Not wanting to be seen in anything less then full coveralls! I rarely even where capris. Most men hate it when their wives go shopping because of how much money they spend. Mine hates it because I come home on the verge of tears or having already cried. I can spend a whole day looking for clothes and come home with 2 pair of shoes instead. My feet have stayed the same size and shoes never let me down. But shopping for clothes is the worst and I want to be able to enjoy it again, and not have to buy the grandma clothes because those are the only ones that fit.
But I want to thank everyone for supporting me and I hope this does help any of you that might need it.

My First Post

My sisters have blogs and asked my why I don't. Well the main reason is, what am I going to blog about? My life... pretty boring. I get up, go to work, come home, have dinner, go to bed... same routine every day.

So the question: What will I blog about? Here is the answer:

For those of you that know me well, know that I have lost some weight; I started working out over a year ago, however when summer came we were so busy heading out of town every weekend. It would start with shopping on Wednesday for all of the food for the weekend, packing up the trailer on Thursday making sure that no details were missed. Then heading out right after work on Friday. Then we would come home Sunday night exausted just wanting to relax and then we unpack everything on Monday. This leaves Tuesday to work out, then starting the routine all over again for the next weekend. So after the summer and into the fall, I hadn't really got any workouts in and I have now lost motivation. Gaining weight back! So I figure if I put it all out there for everyone to see. I might, just might keep going! So I am going to try and post pictures along the way. (Very Embarrasing)

So let's start here. This is me senior year about 130-140 pounds of solid muscle, but I had to work hard for it. I used to get up at 4:00AM to get on my health rider. Then at school I took aerobics and weight training on top of regular gym class and I was in athletics because I was on the softball team. Obviously after graduating I was going to gain weight.

But once I did graduate I still worked out 2 or 3 times a week and I was still gaining weight. When I went dress shopping for my wedding, I picked out the first dress I tried on, because it fit. It was a really sad day for me, when it should have been really fun. I went from a size 5 to a size 16 in 2 years.

Which brings me to this; this picture was in 2007, after being married 10 years I was up to 250 lbs wearing a size 22. And I was more depressed then I had ever been. Growing up I was always bigger then my friends or my sisters but this is rediculious.

So here is what I did. I started working out, I would hit the treadmill and I would go to water aerobics twice a week, only taking Friday's off for myself. And it was working until I lost motivation. I went from 250 to 208 and was feeling pretty good. I am now back up to 215 and need to do something. So as embarrasing as this is. I think I have to.

The picture on the left is me at 238 lbs and the picture on the right is 215. So here is my starting point again. My goal is to get down to 165 I haven't set a date because I want to do it right, I don't want to pressure myself and I don't really know what is realistic. But I know that I hate that you can see all my rolls and I want to get rid of them. So Good Luck to me!