The relaunch of Fitness K8

Nothing says TIME TO LOSE WEIGHT like ordering your wedding dress a size smaller than you currently wear.  That's exactly what I did, and I have 184 days to make it fit.  I also ordered a bridesmaid dress a size smaller than I currently wear, and I have a little less than two months to fit into that one!  Time to get back to the gym!

It turns out that I cope poorly with grief, and while dealing with the loss of my closest uncle last year, I gained 30 pounds.  Previous to that, I had put 20 pounds back on when my life got ultra busy and I was working at a place that bombarded me with food and lured my inner glutton out of hiding every single weekend.

You can imagine how defeated I feel, losing almost half of the progress I made before.  But if I sit around lamenting the current state of my body and wallowing in self-pity, nothing will ever improve.  Instead of talking about how much better I used to feel and look, I'm gonna get up and take myself back to that place.  If I lose a mere two pounds each week for the next 26 weeks until my wedding, I will be back at my lowest weight in the losing process.  Then I'll have to have that dress altered to be quite a bit smaller.

Here are some things I realize that are different about me from the last time I weighed what I do now:

1) I actually really like myself.
2) I even like and appreciate my body, regardless of the fact that it's not in the shape I want it to be.
3) There is no pressure to change myself so that any guy will be attracted to me.  I scored the best man while I was much fatter than I would like to be, and he's attracted to me even now.
4) I've lost weight before and I know what my body is capable of.
5) I know that I like to exercise and eat healthfully.

This time I believe that I deserve to look great.  I know that I'm worth it.  I don't feel bad putting myself first anymore.  I am worthy of the love I have from Tim, and I am worth the effort it takes to get healthy again.

With those things in mind, there's nothing stopping me from conquering this new challenge.

And here are the pictures I'm using for my "before" pictures. Stay tuned for the journey!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

One foot back on the wagon

I think I accidentally lost some weight. 

I mean, I have been consciously trying to be better at healthful eating, but I haven't been working out, and that's what usually keeps me on track. I have been crazy busy, though. 

For the second half of July and the first half of August, I was moving out of my apartment and into my aunt's house, and also attempting to adhere to a Whole 30 diet. It turns out that Whole 30 is really difficult when you don't have a regular refrigerator to store healthful food in, and when you don't really have the money to buy the right foods in the first place, and when all the time you need for cooking said healthful food goes to packing and moving and working and not even enough sleeping. 

But Whole 30, although I didn't go through with it completely, did help me out a lot. It broke some bad habits I had gotten back into, like eating a lot of sugar. It got me back in the habit of drinking tons of water. And it restored my healthy mindset. 

The fact that I quit working at the vet was also a big help in my Whole 30 successes. I couldn't handle the constant onslaught of food every weekend. Also that job stressed me out so much (not the job itself.  There were coworker situations that were beginning to make me crazy.), and food was comforting. 

I have a problem. But we already knew that. 

So being away from the weekend sabotage-tastic job, playing along with Whole 30 for three weeks, keeping myself too busy moving, and then trips to Houston and Africa ousted me out of my unhealthy backslidden routine of the past two years, and suddenly I'm feeling a little bit lighter. 

 

Today I bought this dress (for $7 because I rule at finding good deals!) and I felt downright not sausage-y!  I know, that's a long way from any actual goals I have, but I've been feeling like a sausage in everything I wear for the past year, and it's not a good feeling. 

I'm actually motivated to go to the gym tonight!  It also helps that I can take a shower at the gym, and the shower situation where I live is more of a walk-in-tub situation.  That should be enough of a reason to keep me going back!  

I like showers. 

Saturation

I need to drink more water. I haven't been drinking enough anyway, but I'm even less likely to hydrate when the weather is cool. 

There are so many reasons to drink a ton of water, my favorites being that it flushes out my system and makes me feel healthier, and it makes me feel full so I don't eat as much. 

I've given myself a new rule at work on the weekends concerning beverages, because my not being a morning person leads me to drink a LOT of coffee. A lot. Like jumping around with eyes wide by the afternoon a lot. 

I can start with a cup of coffee, but I now have to drink a full 32 oz water bottle before each additional cup of coffee. 

I have had to pee a lot lately. 

Thank the Lord for cooler weather!

I get pretty excited when it's no longer a million degrees outside and the thought of being anywhere but inside an air conditioned place is no longer torturific.

Enter afternoon hikes and bike rides and mid-day jogs!  I'm fortunate enough to have a schedule that allows me to do these things in the middle of the day.  The downside to that is that most people are in work, so I don't always have people to go with.  When I'm totally motivated and on track, being alone doesn't stop me from exercising, but when I'm trying to get back on track, like I have been for the last year and a half, it can become an excuse I use frequently.

The other day, however, my friend Becky was free on a Wednesday, and we took the opportunity to go hiking.  I also started a new diet bet, so I'm a little more motivated than I have been in a while.  Plus, I'm just not a fan of the way I feel when I'm not living the healthy way that I know I love.  I don't understand myself sometimes.

It wasn't a long hike, because the sun is setting so early these days, but it did make me want to go more often!  I got a couple great pictures on my phone, and I want to spend some time hiking around with my real camera.  Time to get in hiking shape!  Who wants to go with me?

 

Climb every mountain! Or at least "A" Mountain

Life got busy.  I got sidetracked.  And sabotaged.  And my weight loss was basically demolished.

Well, maybe not demolished.  I'm still down 85 pounds from my heaviest weight, but I am 35 pounds up from where I was prior to losing it.  I've gotten back on track and then not stuck to it a few times, but this time I intend to blast through this ridiculous road block and finally lose the rest of the weight I want to lose.  I'm probably looking at another 80 pounds, and I'm ready for it to be gone.

On Sunday I drove to Tucson for a big photography job, doing school photos for a preschool.  When I was packing I made sure to include all of my workout clothes (including a bunch that I just got on sale at Target!  I love finding workout clothes on sale even more than I love finding normal stuff on sale because they're usually so ridiculously expensive!), with the intention of working out while I'm here and eating healthfully.

I don't love working out alone, and I suggested walking to my mom, but she can't do it with her bad knees.  So I thought I was gonna be completely on my own.  However, on Monday my friend Jane invited me to climb "A" Mountain with her.  It's a 1.8 mile hike to the top, and I've been wanting to start hiking anyway, so this was the perfect opportunity, with the added benefit of getting to hang out with one of my good friends that I don't get to see often enough.

At the top, with a great view overlooking Tucson

It's amazing how one kind of workout can become so easy as your body becomes accustomed to it, and then a new kind is really difficult.  The elliptical does nothing for me anymore, but climbing that hill felt a lot harder than I thought it should be and I was a little ashamed of myself.  But then at the top I thought about that time three years ago at Pierce College when I had to climb 185 stairs and I couldn't make it to the top without stopping to rest, and I realized that being able to climb 1.8 miles with only one stop to stretch my quads that were starting to freeze up is not a bad place to be after not being that active for the last year.

The last few days have been sore ones for my legs and butt, but it's a good sore.  I like the physical feeling and what it means for my body.  I love being active and I am going to make it a priority again.  I have to.  If it wasn't pouring rain, I would go for a run right now, even though I would have to go alone.  I might go anyway!  Wait, no.  I forgot that glasses in the rain is super obnoxious.  Maybe I should get contacts again. 

Sabotage vs Self Control: the battle for my midsection

I was hesitant to say it for a little while, but I think I am finally back in control.

I don't know why I allowed myself to be sabotaged.  Why did I give in to the constant barrage of junk food and just too much food that hunted me down for the last 10 months or so?  Why did I gain back so much weight that I worked so hard to lose in the first place?

It doesn't make sense to me.  I am infinitely happier when I am eating well and exercising and looking better and better every day.

I am miserable when I am eating junk and feeling full all the time and not exercising and busting out of my clothes.  Feeling cute is really important to me after spending too many years feeling unattractive and worthless, and I have been letting the cuteness I recaptured slip away.

I haven't been relying on God, and it is too hard on my own.  I need His power to get over these hurdles and I need people in my life to push me and keep me accountable.  So I have once again asked for help. 

A few weeks ago I started walking/half-heartedly jogging two miles every night with my friend Rocio, and I was disheartened when I didn't see or feel results right away.  But I kept it up, knowing that results would come, as I worked on getting my eating under control.  It wasn't hard to do during the week.  One day my roommate came into the kitchen and found me eating a cucumber.

Michelle: "Are you just eating a cucumber?"

Me: "Yep."

And it was good.

The real challenge was maintaining control at the vet on the weekends.  There is always so much food there.  Always. So. Much. Food.

Sabotage

 

Self Control

I didn't touch any of that stuff.  The last two weekends in a row I haven't succumbed to the lure of the bad food, instead bringing my own snacks.  It's just not worth it.  I hate how I feel when I eat that garbage!

 In the middle of last week, the scale finally started to move, and within three days it went down 12 pounds.  I was stoked!  When I went to work on Saturday, my scrub top was looser than it has been in a long time.  The weekend before it was like a sausage casing.

Sunday night I went out after work to have dinner with my family for my cousin's birthday, and I wore this dress, and I felt cute.  Knowing that I still have 30 pounds to lose to get back to my lowest weight from my original weight loss, I certainly didn't feel as good as I know I will, but this is a start.

Yesterday I went to the gym and I was back to feeling discouraged by my backsliding.  I was feeling fat and out of shape.  Instead of letting that feeling continue to sabotage me though, I am taking it as a challenge to get back to where I was and keep going from there.

There's no point in wallowing in my failures.  I am choosing to push forward and conquer this.

Today I'm feeling cute in my new tube top from Target.  My collar bones took a little vacation, but they're starting to come back again.  I love collar bones.

I have a lot of work to do, but I'm up for it.  I'm eating well again, and not even craving junk.  The other day I turned down fruit snacks!  I haven't been in control of the way I eat for almost a year, and being back in control feels amazing!

Fitness K8 or bust!

Alright.  My season of gluttony is officially over.  I'm sick of feeling like a sausage in all of my clothes and even in my skin.

Right now I'm wearing workout clothes because I went to the gym for the first time in months, and I wore the gym clothes all day because I knew I would be about 80 million times more likely to force myself to go if I was already dressed for it.  So on one hand that was smart, but on the other hand, the shirt I'm wearing is a tube top with another shirt over it, and the top of the tube is tiiiiiiiiiiight.  My armpit areas are in pain from the top of this shirt.

This is not good.  And I have no idea how I let this happen.  Why is it so easy to get out of good habits that make you feel amazing, and you practically have to move Heaven and Earth to reinstate those habits?  It literally takes an act of God, at least for me.  Because when I'm not relying on Him, I sink pretty low.

This is how my niece Lilly and I feel about my lack of self control:

I mean, I still look okay.  I haven't gone back up to my epic proportions from the dark years.  And apparently I like to take selfies with my right hand on my hip.  But I am missing my smaller self, and I wasn't even close to my goal yet.

So I have some new goals.  I want to lose 50 pounds in 100 days.  That's about 15 pounds a month, which is totally doable at my size.  I am going back to the gym and I have enlisted a friend to meet me there a couple times a week.  I'm also gonna be doing Blogilates (a free online personal trainer who is really great and posts new videos all the time and comes up with a workout calendar each month) videos every day.  I'm getting back to limiting my portions and not eating as many sugars and breads.  I don't cut anything out completely, but I know what should be limited.  I just need to listen to my body.  Right now I feel full pretty much all the time, and it doesn't feel good.

I don't want my face to look like this anymore:

I miss when it looked like this:

And in 3 months, it will again.  Adios to feeling gross!