So, this is hard. This running every day and finding time, and giving up my favorite treats and eating smaller portions, and the soreness, and the dreadfully slow decline of the scale. It is hard.
I have decided to make things a little lighter by giving myself a tangible material reward to shoot for when all this hard stuff results in what I am working for-- a 125 pound reading on the scale OR (because scales hate me) a slim waist that fits back into my size 4 (or maybe 6) pants.
I am thinking one of these beauties will be just the thing. I have been drooling over them for a while now, but can never justify spending that kind of money on myself, especially when I am so far right now from being able to look good in them. 26 pounds from now, however, I should look great in either of them!
http://www.shabbyapple.com/p-89-lete.aspx
http://www.shabbyapple.com/p-670-le-seine.aspx
I love Shabby Apple, and I think when I am rich and skinny, my wardrobe will be stocked with their items. I love them.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Friday, January 28, 2011
Work-Out Record 1-28 through 1-30
Friday 1/28
I did NOT want to run today. I am sick. I feel awful. My throat hurts and my head is foggy and I ache all over. Not awesome. When the baby went down for a rare nap, however, I kicked my butt into gear.
I ran a mile at 5.7. It was rough, and I was making a fool of myself at the end trying to get myself to finish it. "Come on! You're so close. Keep it up. Don't quit now. 0.3 more to go- that's not so hard!" See, this is why I can't do a gym. People would stare and worry, and slowly walk away and avoid eye contact.
After the mile I put it all the way down to 4, and walked while doing Kenpo arm movements. When I caught my breath a bit, I put the incline up to 10, and then moved it down 2 notches every minute. That meant it took 5 minutes to get back down to level. At that point I had hit 1.5 miles, and I was so done with the treadmill.
There was still some time left on my Friends episode, so I did 75 crunches- 25 regular and 25 on each oblique, and 30 push ups in two sets of 15.
I am tired and so gross feeling, but I am proud of myself for keeping my goal and pushing myself as hard as I did. I think I will shower and then try and sleep while the baby is still out.
Saturday 1/29
I ran a mile at 5.7, then cooled down for .75 miles by slowly decreasing the speed to a fast walk over the space of 7 minutes. That 5.7 speed was not any easier than it was yesterday, so I will probably stay on it again tomorrow.
I did 100 situps in sets of 25- 50 regular, and 25 on each oblique. I also did 60 push-ups in sets of 15, which was really hard for the last two sets as the baby was crawling all over and around me. He was very cute, and I am sure he was trying to be motivating.
I weigh in tomorrow, so we will see if my weight depicts all this hard work. My dad asked if I had lost weight when I was at his house today, and that made me feel happy, so even if that scale hates on me, I will feel like I have accomplished something.
Sunday 1/30
1 mile at 5.8. From there I lowered the speed .1mph every 30 seconds until I hit 5mph at which point I started waiting a full minute to lower it. I did another full mile.
**Weigh In**
I started the year at 155.
Last week I was at 151.
This week I am at 150.
That is 1 pound per week. Not great poundage wise, but my runs feel easier and more natural, my pants fit better, and 3 people have asked if I am losing weight. Suck it, scale! :) Ross thinks I am gaining muscle because of my push-ups. Whatever it is, I am trying not to get discouraged and just keep running.
I did NOT want to run today. I am sick. I feel awful. My throat hurts and my head is foggy and I ache all over. Not awesome. When the baby went down for a rare nap, however, I kicked my butt into gear.
I ran a mile at 5.7. It was rough, and I was making a fool of myself at the end trying to get myself to finish it. "Come on! You're so close. Keep it up. Don't quit now. 0.3 more to go- that's not so hard!" See, this is why I can't do a gym. People would stare and worry, and slowly walk away and avoid eye contact.
After the mile I put it all the way down to 4, and walked while doing Kenpo arm movements. When I caught my breath a bit, I put the incline up to 10, and then moved it down 2 notches every minute. That meant it took 5 minutes to get back down to level. At that point I had hit 1.5 miles, and I was so done with the treadmill.
There was still some time left on my Friends episode, so I did 75 crunches- 25 regular and 25 on each oblique, and 30 push ups in two sets of 15.
I am tired and so gross feeling, but I am proud of myself for keeping my goal and pushing myself as hard as I did. I think I will shower and then try and sleep while the baby is still out.
Saturday 1/29
I ran a mile at 5.7, then cooled down for .75 miles by slowly decreasing the speed to a fast walk over the space of 7 minutes. That 5.7 speed was not any easier than it was yesterday, so I will probably stay on it again tomorrow.
I did 100 situps in sets of 25- 50 regular, and 25 on each oblique. I also did 60 push-ups in sets of 15, which was really hard for the last two sets as the baby was crawling all over and around me. He was very cute, and I am sure he was trying to be motivating.
I weigh in tomorrow, so we will see if my weight depicts all this hard work. My dad asked if I had lost weight when I was at his house today, and that made me feel happy, so even if that scale hates on me, I will feel like I have accomplished something.
Sunday 1/30
1 mile at 5.8. From there I lowered the speed .1mph every 30 seconds until I hit 5mph at which point I started waiting a full minute to lower it. I did another full mile.
**Weigh In**
I started the year at 155.
Last week I was at 151.
This week I am at 150.
That is 1 pound per week. Not great poundage wise, but my runs feel easier and more natural, my pants fit better, and 3 people have asked if I am losing weight. Suck it, scale! :) Ross thinks I am gaining muscle because of my push-ups. Whatever it is, I am trying not to get discouraged and just keep running.
My Plan
Right now, my workouts consist of 21-23 minutes of moving on my treadmill. Why that random amount of time? Because that is how long episodes of my favorite sitcoms are without the commercials. :) I run while watching my favorite episodes of Friends, Scrubs, Big Bang Theory, and others. That helps me to not focus so much on the time and distance remaining before I meet my goal. It has helped a lot.
The first week, I walked at a fast pace and when that started to feel more natural, I upped the incline to make the workout more intense.
The second week I started a slow jog at the beginning of the workout, and alternated that with my fast walk.
The third week, I pushed it up a bunch of nothces because my asthma was feeling much more controlled. I started with jogging, and went a full mile before letting myself walk. Then, while walking, I would work out my arms by doing the movements from the Kenpo-X video from P90-X.
I have kept that same routine for this fourth week as well. I punch up the mile speed every day just a bit. Sometimes I have to put it back to where I was the day before by the end of the mile. Last night I ran it at 5.6 miles an hour. I know that sounds slow- but I was pretty proud of myself. Tonight I will try it at 5.7.
When I get to a comfortable 10 minute mile (6 mph), I will start trying to run straight for 1.25 miles, and go from there.
Since starting this goal, I have lost 4 pounds. That seems lame to me because I have been working so hard. The bright spot for me is that this running is getting easier. It feels better than it did before, and I actually look forward to my 22 minutes of what felt like torture a few weeks ago. That is awesome.
I have only missed running 5 of the 28 days of this year. The first 3 I missed were because I was down with a wicked case of Mastitus. The other 2 were while I was on a mini-vacation with my family. I didn't run those days, but I did do laps in the hotel pool, and I felt that workout like crazy.
My husband says he can already see a difference. I don't know about that as I can't see a difference, but I have always been hard to pick up on subtle changes like that in myself (which is how I let myself get to this point without stopping it before now).
I think, to keep myself from hating myself and the inventor of scales, I will only weigh myself once a week. That should keep me from stressing over the daily ups and downs that the body naturally goes through. Maybe I will end up throwing the scale away all-together. We will see.
I also think I will post daily about my workouts, but I will keep it to one post a week. That means I will just put daily updates on the post for the week. I think that should be sufficient. I know it will be boring to read, but as I looked through the work-out histories my friends posted on their blogs, I thought how proud they must feel to scroll through all those days and see how hard they had been working. I think it is an awesome inspirational and motivational method.
The first week, I walked at a fast pace and when that started to feel more natural, I upped the incline to make the workout more intense.
The second week I started a slow jog at the beginning of the workout, and alternated that with my fast walk.
The third week, I pushed it up a bunch of nothces because my asthma was feeling much more controlled. I started with jogging, and went a full mile before letting myself walk. Then, while walking, I would work out my arms by doing the movements from the Kenpo-X video from P90-X.
I have kept that same routine for this fourth week as well. I punch up the mile speed every day just a bit. Sometimes I have to put it back to where I was the day before by the end of the mile. Last night I ran it at 5.6 miles an hour. I know that sounds slow- but I was pretty proud of myself. Tonight I will try it at 5.7.
When I get to a comfortable 10 minute mile (6 mph), I will start trying to run straight for 1.25 miles, and go from there.
Since starting this goal, I have lost 4 pounds. That seems lame to me because I have been working so hard. The bright spot for me is that this running is getting easier. It feels better than it did before, and I actually look forward to my 22 minutes of what felt like torture a few weeks ago. That is awesome.
I have only missed running 5 of the 28 days of this year. The first 3 I missed were because I was down with a wicked case of Mastitus. The other 2 were while I was on a mini-vacation with my family. I didn't run those days, but I did do laps in the hotel pool, and I felt that workout like crazy.
My husband says he can already see a difference. I don't know about that as I can't see a difference, but I have always been hard to pick up on subtle changes like that in myself (which is how I let myself get to this point without stopping it before now).
I think, to keep myself from hating myself and the inventor of scales, I will only weigh myself once a week. That should keep me from stressing over the daily ups and downs that the body naturally goes through. Maybe I will end up throwing the scale away all-together. We will see.
I also think I will post daily about my workouts, but I will keep it to one post a week. That means I will just put daily updates on the post for the week. I think that should be sufficient. I know it will be boring to read, but as I looked through the work-out histories my friends posted on their blogs, I thought how proud they must feel to scroll through all those days and see how hard they had been working. I think it is an awesome inspirational and motivational method.
My Excuses
When I was in 4th grade, we had a fun activity where we had to list 101 excuses for not completing a homework assignment. It was a race, and I totally won. When I went to present my rapidly completed list, the teacher took it, congratulated me, and then ripped it to shreds. While I was upset at the time (I worked hard on that thing!), it got the desired message across.
Excuses are dumb and should be thrown into the trash and exchanged for action and responsibility.
So, here are my excuses that will now be thrown away in my new efforts for health and pro-activity.
Excuses are dumb and should be thrown into the trash and exchanged for action and responsibility.
So, here are my excuses that will now be thrown away in my new efforts for health and pro-activity.
- I have exercise induced asthma. It hurts to breathe hard. This can always be overcome as I temper it with regular activity- but breaking through those first few workouts is insanely hard and quite painful.
- I have 3 kids. My life is busy, and my body packed on the pounds to love and nurture them.
- I plan to have more kids. Why lose weight when I know I am going to put my body through another grueling and weight welcoming pregnancy in the near future?
- I am busy. I have 3 kids. Did I mention that? On top of that, I have a writing job from home, a husband who enjoys my time, extensive responsibilities with my church group, places to drop my kids off and pick them up from, and neighbors who need my time and attention during their current struggles. (3 women on my street have husbands who are deployed, and 4 women within 2 blocks of me are on bed rest. I babysit a lot.)
- It is cold outside. I live in Utah, and it is January. Jsut wait- in July I start complaining about the heat. These weather excuses are awesome.
- I am the least attractive runner of all time. I am a redhead, and, as all fellow redheads know, extreme physcial activity causes those blood vessels that are too close to the surface of the too pale skin to make our faces a nice shade of mottled purple. On top of that genentic deficiency, I sweat. A lot. Its gross.
- My husband still thinks I am beautiful. He supports me fully in this goal of mine, and has made personal goals for himself as well, but he reminds me all the time that he thinks I am gorgeous the way I am.
- I don't like to be too tired. I get very little sleep due to my children, my insomnia, and my snoring husband, so engaging in activity that drains me of my precious energy doesn't always seem like the smartest idea.
- I have back problems. I have three kids which means I have been pregnant at least three times. Putting all that strain on my tiny frame has left me with some very painful back issues. My OB even tried to find a masseuse who would work on me while in my late pregnancy, because he could see the strain that was being put on my perpetually bent spine. Nobody would. Liability issues. My back now has a perma-arch that doesn't like to be moved.
- I am embarassed. I am ashamed of where I let myself get. I am depressed about how unhealthy my life has become. By making the efforts to work out and change my diet, I have to face all those bad decisions and that is hard.
OK, there you have it. Those are my top ten excuses for not wanting to work out and lose the weight before now. At this point, I feel they are all superficial and contrived. Being healthy and fit is far more important than any of the false luxuries I have trained my avoidance-prone mind to revel in. It is time to rip up this rap sheet of excuses and throw them away.
I am making the change NOW! Here's to the new year, and the new me.
Why I'm Doing This
I am a 26 year old mother of three. I work a part time job from home, have extensive responsibilities in my church, and currently homeschool my two oldest children. All of that compounded with my large litany of excuses has resulted in a nice little 54 pound addition to my body sine I got married 6 1/2 years ago. Not great.
When I met and dated my husband, I was in fine form. I was 98 pounds and was lean and healthy thanks to my place on the college ballroom team, and my personal efforts to keep up my running routine.
Then I got married and took on a full-time job on top of my full-time schooling on top of my new role as wife. This necessitated giving up my spot on the ballroom team, and spending my regular working out moments doing homework. I gained my first 15 pounds (which may not seem like a lot, but remember that is a 15% increase in my body mass) the first year of marriage.
Then I got pregnant. The rest is a 54 pound history, that I am now ready to combat. Some of my dearest friends have created blogs to document their weight loss efforts and workout history. I thought this was an awesome idea as it provides a place to record the thoughts, feelings, setbacks, triumphs, and ideas that always accompany goals such as this.
So- that is my story. I hope to run and crunch and pushup my way out of at least 30 of these pounds. I think 125 is a good healthy weight for a woman of my stature. Aside from that, I have a closet full of clothes that are waiting for me to look good in again. If the scale doesn't want to cooperate, as scales are often wont to do, then I will gague my success based on how I fit and feel in the clothing that looked and felt good on me when I was closer to my target weight.
When I met and dated my husband, I was in fine form. I was 98 pounds and was lean and healthy thanks to my place on the college ballroom team, and my personal efforts to keep up my running routine.
Then I got married and took on a full-time job on top of my full-time schooling on top of my new role as wife. This necessitated giving up my spot on the ballroom team, and spending my regular working out moments doing homework. I gained my first 15 pounds (which may not seem like a lot, but remember that is a 15% increase in my body mass) the first year of marriage.
Then I got pregnant. The rest is a 54 pound history, that I am now ready to combat. Some of my dearest friends have created blogs to document their weight loss efforts and workout history. I thought this was an awesome idea as it provides a place to record the thoughts, feelings, setbacks, triumphs, and ideas that always accompany goals such as this.
So- that is my story. I hope to run and crunch and pushup my way out of at least 30 of these pounds. I think 125 is a good healthy weight for a woman of my stature. Aside from that, I have a closet full of clothes that are waiting for me to look good in again. If the scale doesn't want to cooperate, as scales are often wont to do, then I will gague my success based on how I fit and feel in the clothing that looked and felt good on me when I was closer to my target weight.
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