Workout Wednesday: Weighy tunnel vision

There is an article making the circles on Facebook right now, it was an article I read about a month ago in my copy Self. I remember after reading it the first time coming home and telling my husband I just read an article by a woman who got me. It was also an eye opener on how I view myself and where I put my priorities.

This is the premise of her article is the author was speaking with a friend and talking about how great her life was and all she could focus on was her weight.   To quote from the article: "I guess I don't understand how I can accomplish all this other stuff, but this one thing, the most important thing in the world to me, I can't."

"Your weight is the most important thing in the world to you?" I hedged. "Well, obviously, not the most important thing in the world. Hyperbole!" I changed the subject.

As the article continues she talks about how her focus and obsession with her weight has lead to some interesting places. It was eye opening to me for the path I was on. I have a fabulous family and a life. Yet sometimes I let my weight color how I feel about things. I have been guilty thinking "oh if only I wasn't so fat" or "This picture would be great if I wasn't in it."  But here is the thing, focusing on this one thing can lead me to miss the beauty in everything else.

Yes, I am bigger than I would like to be. My clothes don't fit they way I want them too or I can't fit in the clothes I want to.  But I am working on it, yes I slip and fall but I get back up and work again and with that I can slowly start to change the tunnel vision that I have and make sure that I don't fall into the pattern that the author of the article did.

Workout Wednesday: commit, stop, recommit, stop, repeat

Okay Workout Wednesday only exists because of my friend Elisha, who runs a wonderful blog over at My Thunder Thighs.  Elisha and I have been friends for six or seven years now and we have had similar struggles when it comes to our weight and weight loss. She has been a huge inspiration to me and we have big plans for the future.

Anyway she is the one that suggested/insisted that Wednesdays be the day I dedicate to writing about my workout journey.

I fall into a rather bad cycle of work outs. I get excited and I am all gung ho. I go to the gym five or six times a week, I track my food, I make good decisions with food-then something happens. I could be I get sick, or we go out of town, or we buy a house...anyway I fall off the wagon and I do it big time.  Then something, usually the way my pants fit or the number I see on the scale, or how I look in a picture, sends me back into action and back to the gym.  Where eventually something else happens...see the vicious cycle here? Right now I am well into a repeat cycle.

I make it to the gym four to five times a week right now, I try to be active on Saturdays making sure I get some type of work out in, even if it is just mowing the lawn, but I know just over the horizon is that new stoppage point. I need to find a way to over come that one, find a way to fight through the temptations for sleep or over indulging in food (my biggest vice). I need to find a way to talk myself out of talking myself out of going to the gym.

Let's face it, I know I will commit and stop and recommit again and again but what I really have to decide is what do I want out of the work out experience. Am I working out to lose weight or do I want to be strong and healthy enough to run a 5K with friends in September, or chase after my children in the park.  I think once I can really truly answer this question maybe I will be able to put a stop to the cycle.

What do you to to avoid the slumps or to pull yourself out of one?

Half way there

So this year I made the goal to lose twenty pounds this year. I have a feeling that I am going to have to readjust that goal. Yesterday I went to the gym for my training session. It was time for weight and measurements, my least favorite gym visit. But I guess this new life change is working out. I had lost ten pounds, at least a half an inch of everywhere measured (in some cases an inch and a half) and dropped my body fat by 3% taking me from an unhealthy percent to a fair one (yeah I know fair isn't anything to shout from the rough tops but I take what I can get).

Of course after the celebratory hug with my trainer Stacey she sent me right back to work and my muscles are aching today as a result of that work. But today I am content. Sometimes it is nice to see your hard work pay off.

Two steps forward-one step back

So last month I talked about my goal to lose 20 lbs this year and how I was done with excuses. Well January went really well. I started working out with my lovely trainer, Stacey, again and I worked out five days a week every week. I logged my food over at Sparkpeople.com and lost 7 lbs.

I was feeling good. I was feeling strong. Then came February 1st. I worked out with Stacey that morning as planned but then came home and collapsed. Turns out the cold which my kids have managed to avoid hit me with a vengeance. I was down with it Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

No problem, I thought, I will just start again on Monday. Yeah. Sunday morning I was sitting with the girls in stake conference when I started sweating. My legs were aching and I knew I couldn't sit in that cold metal chair for another hour and twenty minutes. So I gathered up the girls and slid our way out of the row, apologizing to people as we went.

I got home and sat the girls in front of the tv with their brother to watch scripture stories while I collapsed on the bed. I should mention that my husband was sick to, the reason he stayed home from church with the boys. I spent the rest of the day either so cold I had to pile four blankets on top of me or so hot that I was happy to sit in front of an open freezer just to stop the heat from radiating. Yeah it was a happy day.

The next day was more of the same. Finally my husband convinced me to go to the doctor (I hate going to the doctor. I avoid it all costs. Usually this is more detrimental to my health that not going but I have not learned my lesson yet) and he took my to the insta-care while my parents watched our kids.

Sure enough I had an infection and that on top of the second round of the cold has put me out this week.

So yeah. My great January has fizzled into a lackluster February.

Come Monday though I am getting on that elliptical and I also hope that the grilled cheese sandwiches I have indulged in this week didn't do too much to my shrinking waist line.

No more excuses

I am a size 16. There I said it. I know that is not a surprise to those who know me. I have never been the thin girl. I have never been the athletic girl. I haven't even been the healthy girl. I have just always been overweight. It has bugged me and at times I would get up and do something about it but most times I just let it go telling myself I was too busy, too tired, too sick, or too fat to do anything about it.

My latest excuse was a good one but it was still excuse. Six months ago today I gave birth my son. I worked out through my entire pregnancy, in fact my trainer Eric was the second person I told about my pregnancy. Even though I was pregnant he pushed me hard. I remember running up and down those stupid stairs at the gym thinking, "Dude, I am pregnant let up." But he didn't. When he moved to Texas I continued my training with Stacy, a trainer who just happened to be pregnant. She pushed me so hard and even with the morning sickness I would still give her everything I had. My goal at that time wasn't weight loss but simply to stay healthy.

I worked out up until two days before I delivered Matthew. Most of that was walking loops around the mall hoping that would help my little one come faster-it didn't. Then like that I had a baby and my work out time was gone. I tried to get taking the baby for walks those first six weeks but quickly found excuse after excuse why I couldn't- the baby was asleep, I needed to sleep, I had an infection, I wasn't cleared to do any work outs. I also justified myself- I was nursing so I was losing those extra calories, I wasn't getting any sleep so I deserved that ice cream. I fit back into my pre-pregnancy pants so what did it matter. Then before I knew it the weight I had taken off after the birth was starting to come back.

Finally able to hit the gym again I started going three times a week, when I could work it around Matthew's nap time. At first this was easy. He was a champ napper in the morning and I could take James and be gone for an hour and when I arrived home he would still be asleep. I thought I had found a grove but then his nap schedule changed and he is not quite old enough to go to the day care at the gym.

I started relying on my old excuses and my old friend chocolate. And all the good work I had done was gone again.

Then came the new year and the new start. And despite the crazy schedule I decided that it was time to make me a priority.

It didn't set in until Wednesday morning though how much I was hurting myself with my excuses. Because Matthew's nap schedule is just not what it used to be I decided to work out on our elliptical in the basement. I turned on the Biggest Loser and there theme- No more excuses. I sat and listened to some of these contestants who weigh as much as I do giving the same excuses that I had. I realized right then how important it was for me to do this. How I needed to commit really commit this time. None of the false starts I have had the past six months.

Yes I still have a six month old that requires most of my time. Yes I still have James at home that needs help and supervision. Yes I still have two girls who need help with homework and to be driven to various activities. Yes I still have a husband who I need to help support with his own weight loss goals. Yes I still have a house that has an uncanny ability to get messy no matter how often I clean it. And that is on top of all the errand running and other daily life goals that need to get done. But I use them as excuses anymore.

So this is it. Excuses are gone. It is going to be hard. But I am going to be down to 200 lbs by November 1st. Twenty pounds. I know it really isn't a lot to lose for some people in 11 months but it is the goal that I have set. If I surpass it then great. But that is it. I will attend the gym five times a week. I will eat better. The excuses, no matter how good they are, are now gone. I want to be there for my kids. I want to be able to chase them and play with them. I want to have another fifty years with my husband and I am realizing now that it up to me.

So here it is- NO MORE EXCUSES