Idiot! Gosh!

I was out of town for the weekend and I did pretty damn well considering all that was going on. Family time is always stressful for me, but this time it was okay…and my eating habits reflected this. I was able to eat sensible meals and not binge. I even went on a couple of walks! The weather was nice and cool, and I really have to say that I miss Central Oregon. At least the nature. I miss the high desert. I miss the sage brush, the juniper trees, the volcanic landscape, the smell of the air after the rain, and my beautiful mountains. It’s different from the valley. In the valley all I smell after a good rain is mold. HAHA.

I don’t think I could ever move back to Bend, though. The place stinks. It’s congested, sprawling, and expensive. Whoever is running the show over there is letting money get in the way of good city planning. The reason everyone wants to live there is the close proximity to unspoiled nature and primitive recreation. With the population exploding like it is and the city boundaries constantly being pushed out…the reason people live there…will be gone. Then you’ll be left with this blemish in Central Oregon where beauty used to be.

I’m so upset about this that it’s all I can think about.

Either way…I left my shoes there. At my step-dad’s house. Idiot! This does give me an excuse to buy new shoes, but I hate breaking them in. It hurts. Maybe this time I’ll get the wider pair of shoes that I almost got last time and have regretted not buying ever since. Maybe that will make my workouts less painful. I dunno…maybe I just have to work through the pain!

I weighed myself this morning…and I think I may have lost two pounds since last week. Woo! My usual weigh-ins are supposed to fall on Sunday mornings, but I didn’t have access to my scale the other day. I can’t just weigh myself on different scales…I mean…the one at the gym reads ten pounds heavier than mine at home. So, while the actual, accurate number isn’t that important to me, I do want to at least see a number, any number, on a scale get lower. Perhaps I should get a lighweight digital scale that I can take with me when I’m gone for the weekends?

Anyway…sorry for the non-weight related rant!

Monday, Monday

So. Yesterday. I did my Monday weigh-in to find that, even though I feel thinner and lighter, the scale needle hovered between 285 and 284. I really need a digital scale.

Anyway, I’m trying to keep the attitude that weight isn’t the last word on how I’m actually doing. Still…maybe I’m doing something wrong in my overall diet or whatever. I just want to see that number go down. Gotta keep going!

Rachel and I got together on Monday (J, sadly, opted out ‘cuz she’s a little sick) and scaled the butte. It took hardly any time at all! But my feet ended up killingme. I think I need new shoes. Anyway. Here are le stats.

Exercise Time: 1 hour 2 minutes

Average HR: 152

Time in Zone: 50 minutes

Calories Burned: 921

I really think that if my feet hadn’t been killing me I would have been able to run more on the way down…and I would have burned more calories.

My brother was here this weekend. We had a late lunch on Saturday at the deli in New Seasons, it was nice! As J noted several times, and as I have already noticed since I frequent New Seasons for all my grocery needs…there are always a ton of really hot/cute indie guys there. I need to pull a Katy M. and pick one up. I’m hoping that 100 pounds from now I can do just that. So…yeah.

That last paragraph might have been totally unrelated to weight loss…but since my future success with the boys depends on losing weight…it’s totally appropriate. HAHA.

I think I’m over my funk. Totally depressed, totally defeated. A lot of things happened that made it seem like my life was going to shit. There was a major crisis with a dear friend, the measure that would allow for me to keep my job didn’t pass so I have seven months to find something else to do, and my weight went up to 290 again. Yesterday I missed church and just generally felt like a wretch. Finally I made up my mind that I couldn’t do this everytime a stumbling block was thrown my way. So, I got back up, dusted myself off, and headed to the gym. I still feel pretty down, but nothing that exercise couldn’t help. I went to the gym and was humiliated…in a good way…by all the mirrors mocking me. My trainer took me into the yoga room and made me do all this running and these jumping jacks for a ‘warm up’. HOLY SHIT. Not only were my feet killing me, but during the jumping jacks I could see myself in the mirror and my shirt had hiked up over my pants so that when I jumped up I could see my jiggly stomach. *DIES* I had to remind myself that this was all for a reason, a purpose, an end. I had to remind myself that maybe in a year’s time, I won’t see that. Maybe a little jiggle…a firmer jiggle.

Then, we went to the free weights, and in the midst of all those perfect bodies, I had to stare at my form in the mirror while lifting dumbells over my head. Oy.

*there is a reason i’m doing this there is a reason i’m doing this there is a reason i’m doing this*

After a good talk with my trainer I was released to my own devices. So I headed to the treadmill and did a program with varied incline and speeds for about fourty-five minutes.

Today I’m sore in all the right places. And…it feels good. I have to say that while it’s a war zone as far as my eating is concerned, I really like lifting weights. I’m making my body do something it’s not used to doing, and I like feeling my body keep working even after I leave the gym.

While I let my good eating habits go to seed for the most part, I still am resolved to get back on track now. I like eating moderately, I have to remember that in site of my emotional desire to stuff myself silly. I really don’t like feeling extremely full and I have to honor my body for telling me when I don’t eat right.

So…Monday morning weigh in and measurements. Back down to 285! It’s teetering between 286 and 285, but I’ll just grab 285 and run with it.

Waist: -1 inch (total -2 since 9/28)
Hips: no gain or loss (total -3 since 9/28)
Biceps: -.5 inch (total -1 since 9/28)
Thighs: -.5 inch (total – 4.5 since 9/28)
Calf: no gain or loss (total -.5 since 9/28)

That bump in the road…

I’ve hit it. But I’m determined not to be discouraged. I’m going to keep going.

I’ve gained two pounds this week. At least I’m still under 290. But damn if I didn’t see it coming a million miles away!! I’ve let myself eat more than one bad meal or not eaten enough to make my body go ‘what the hell is this girl doing?? let’s pack it on boys.’ LOL.

However…if my measurements are correct (I never know if I’m doing it right week to week), I’ve lost an inch around my waist which I swear I can feel, and a half inch around my hips. My arms and legs have stayed the same. But…dammit, I wanted to lose inches, and here I am. So…fuck the weight this week. My clothes appear to be fitting instead of getting tighter. So…that’s huge. That’s great.
Still…I do need to refocus this week on ahdering to my meals plan and actually getting off my ass to prepare my breakfasts and lunches the day before for work. And, I need to bite the bullet and cook dinner! I’ve either gone without, snacked a little, or went all out.

And, for sanity’s sake, I’m not going to have sweets in the house. Not even diet ones. I binge on those no matter what and those add up.

On the exercise front, I really want to work towards hitting the gym before work twice a week and then either hiking various buttes or hills on the weekends, or hitting the gym. At least on Saturdays and Mondays.

So, one of my LJ groups is doing a November challenge which will actually last through New Years. My goal for this challenge is to work out more often, like I said above. I can do it. It’s just a matter of being prepared for it and not letting things go until the last minute the night before.

/pep speech. ;P

Holy Crappin’ Hell

My scale must be a little on the ‘eager’ side or something. My official Monday morning weigh-in is *drumroll*

285.

WOW. That can’t be right….

Actually, the needle fluctuated between 286 and 284 depending on how I had to bend down to look. So, with as little movement as possible, it was most stable at 285.

I wonder if that was the dissapearence of the period bloat?

I certainly didn’t have perfect days this week. I mean, for cripe’s sake, I had eggs benedict for brunch yesterday followed by half a ‘like it’ size ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery. Doesn’t mean I’m going to take license and eat this stuff all the time…I’m just…surprised. Maybe the little stroll to the restaraunt and back home helped?

Anyway. Since last week, I’ve lost four pounds.

So…considering that my dietary habits made a slip into my usual compulsive eating mode a few times this week, I’ve done okay. I mean, I’ve exercised a lot, thanks to J’s insistence, and I’ve done better at following my planned meals and such.

So not only have I lost pounds, but I’ve also lost inches. A couple of inches around the waist, half an inch around the hips, an inch around the thighs, etc. So, that’s awesome.

I still can’t beleive that I’m actually losing weight. I never thought that I would have it in me to stick with it as long as I have. OA has helped, as well as having a friend who is doing the same thing as I am. Having a wieght loss buddy has proven to be more valuable to my own success than I thought it would.

So…there you go.

One More Pound! :)

today, a coworker from heaven granted me my wish. She belongs to that one gym that stays open twenty-four hours a day, and received these promotional cards to give out to friends and family. Membership for twenty-four bucks a month and no extra initiation or processing fees. Heck yes, I’m joining!! At the gym two blocks from work, they have a swimming pool. A SWIMMING POOL. Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet. As fat as I am, I’m not embarrassed enough in a swimming suit to avoid swimming. I don’t care. I love swimming laps. It doesn’t get my heart rate up as much as walking and jogging does (or as J calls it…wogging…)

So…I figure…on the days I don’t want to go home and walk alone in the dark, I can go to the gym, stick my headphones in my ears and sweat away. On the days that J comes over or I go over to her house, then I won’t go to the gym. Easy.

I found this swell item at Tarzhay on Friday. It’s a kind of pedometer for your iPod. You put this remote sensor in your shoe (there are specific shoes you can buy that have a little hole under the sole-thingy made for the sensor, but it works just fine for me tucked at the side of my shoe), plug in the tiny receiver to your iPod and start walking! It tells you how fast you’re going, how far you’ve been going, how many calories you’ve burned, etc. And every so often a voice comes on over the music to tell you how you’re doing. Very handy. The only things it can’t take into account are your pulse or how many calories you burn walking uphill. Which is what I try to do a lot. I may be walking 31 minutes a mile, but I’m walking uphill the whole way!! Luckily, Spark People has a ‘hiking’ option under their fitness trackers. Hauling my big fat ass up a hill is the best workout ever. Guaranteed to burn at least four hundred calories over a forty-minute period. Or more…maybe.

What I’d really like to get is this thing that my dad has. It’s a watch, but you can put your thumb on this little tiny sensor and it takes your pulse and tells you how far you’ve gone, how many calories you’ve burned and that sort of stuff. I called him a million years ago about it…but haven’t heard back.

My new goal for the week is to take a walk everyday, no matter how long or vigorous. But to just do it everyday. I need to reach my ‘calories burned’ goal more often. I’ve been doing better with the food…staying within my allotted calorie goals and all. I messed up once last week. Went WAY over all of my goals for the day. But the rest of the week I did fantastically. Then, again, last night I just couldn’t be bothered enough to fanny with any of it. So, I let myself go for the day, with the intention of not doing it again. I know I might slip again, but I need to be vigilant. I want to approach it with the idea of never doing it again.

I lost one more pound this last week!!

Stop the Presses!!!

In spite of my slip ups in diet, my official Monday weigh-in saw positive results. Or negative. I am down two more pounds. It’s hard to believe, but I’m sure the exercise helped get those two pounds off. I’m now one pound away from breaking the 290’s. That was my first goal.

I really feel like my goal is attainable right now. I hope I can keep this attitude up and keep these goals at the forefront of my mind and my daily life.

In a way, I’m kind of scared. I mean, I’m making my body do something to lose weight, and now that it actually is…I’m like, ‘Hey…that doesn’t happen. My body never listens to me. I must be doing something wrong.’ I’ve got to get away from that thinking. I WANT to get this weight off…I’m doing this INTENTIONALLY. I can’t be afraid and scared my whole life of the unknown.

/pep talk.

Carry on!!!

EDIT: I forgot to add that yesterday I prayed the Akathist Hymn to the All-Holy Theotokos in Honor of Her Wonder-Working Icon ‘Unexpected Joy.’ I needed some encouragement and lifting up. I guess she really does help, yeah? Thank God…it was just what I needed.