Things at work are much better now. We moved to a new building last June and I have my own cube. We have more people, including me having a new boss who’s really nice and laid back, and who balances our CEO quite nicely. After the hell of the first year I think I proved my worth and now my CEO loves me and treats me very differently than she did at first. But all those bad ‘coping’ habits I picked up the first year didn’t go away on their own and I didn’t realize I was still doing them until recently when I got frustrated about not being able to continue my weightloss journey successfully. ‘

I’VE LITERALLY GAINED AND LOST THE SAME 10-15LBS 4 TIMES IN THE LAST YEAR AND A HALF.

But I have NOT given up. I woke up last week thinking about a book a read a long time ago – ‘The Secret.’ It was kind of a trendy thing that was popular – a book about the power of the universe, and the laws of attraction. Basically, about how ‘you are what you think.’ Think positively, expect the things you want and attract them into your life – or, do what I was doing – think negatively after a huge loss in confidence [thanks to the new job], get in a rut and go nowhere. I didn’t even know I was doing it, so when that book popped into my head, I took it as a sign. The last month or two I’ve been ‘wishing’ for things to be as easy as they were before when I was still at my last job. I had very little stress, a lot of freedom and a lot of motivation. Losing weight and eating healthy was just easy back then. Not anymore and though it took a while for me to stop mourning my last job and accept my life as it is, I wasn’t crossing that invisible line I had apparently drawn in front of myself.

I let the new job color how I felt about myself. When you’re yelled at and made to feel incompetent almost every day for a good 6+ months, I guess you start to believe it. It didnt’ matter that I knew I was talented and came with 16 years experience in what I did, I had to prove myself all over again to a very demanding, very hard-working stickler of a woman. I wanted to quit over and over and even updated my resume and started putting feelers out, but there was something in the back of my mind, instinct that told me if I could stick it out, it would be worth it. I’ve since been given a raise, shares in the company and am up for a bonus in January. Before this job, I’d never received a raise I didn’t have to demand [despite always performing well beyond expectations], and I’d never received a bonus of any kind.

This job has forced me to become a ‘morning person’ of which I’m not and I’m still fighting that. I leave for work around 6:15 am now to get to work by 7am [it's only a 30 mile commute, but the traffic is horrendous, so I leave early to prevent a 90 minute drive in, and try to leave early to miss the same ordeal on the way home], and I try to leave by 3:30 but up until recently that NEVER happened, so by the time I got home it was a 12+ hour day, I was exhausted, emotionally tapped out, stressed, fried and ready to check out. I started reading after work to unwind because my brain couldn’t even deal with the sound of the TV or listening to music, but because I wouldn’t eat enough all day, I’d come home famished. And because of my schedule, my husband would come home later than I would, so I’d try waiting for him to have dinner – which meant a lot of mindless snacking while reading. I kept up my exercise routine pretty well for the most part, though the past 6 months have been especially grueling at work with huge goals, deadlines and projects that took up so much of my time [and a lot of family issues on top of that] that I actually worked every day I was on vacation in September to keep things moving, so my eventually, even my exercise routine suffered. I managed to maintain my weight until then, but then the extra 10-15lbs would creep back on and I’d pull it together for a few weeks to get it off again, only to repeat the cycle over and over.

Now that I have proved myself and things are getting slightly easier at work, it’s time to reprogram my brain to think positively again and to reestablish healthy habits and an after-work routine that maximizes the time I have – while also getting more rest. Another issue I have with this earlier schedule. My husband is in finance and has times of year where he’s working much longer hours working on budgets and forecasts with other groups and he’ll come home anywhere from 8pm to 10pm. I’m supposed to be asleep by 9:30 to get 8 hours, but I’m lucky if I get to bed at 10:30. So, I’m always tired. And when I’m tired, I don’t know about you, but it’s a lot harder to make healthy choices. The smallest things seem too daunting. Why cut up an apple with a bit of cheese or nuts when I can grab a bag of chips? And then popcorn? And then chocolate? And so on… until I’ve essentially ruined my dinner and eaten more calories in the span of 2 hours than I have the rest of the day combined. Vicious circle.

So, it’s time to break the cycle. I’m back to visualizing what I want to look like, how I want to feel, what I want to do in terms of physical challenges. I’m going to start running again and instead of pushing myself too hard, too fast and flaming out, I’m going to treat it as my ‘easy’ workout and go as slow as I need to to finish and not feel like I’m going to keel over. I’ll still do my kickboxing and weight training and stretching/yoga, but I want to run 3-4 times per week. I’ll start off mostly walking and gradually increase the number of times I run and the speed, etc. I have a longterm goal of being able to run 3 miles in 30 minutes. I’m hoping I’ll blow that goal out of the water within 1 year, but I want to set a goal that’s attainable because I’m essentially starting from scratch. I haven’t run in months. Eventually I’d like to be able to run 5 miles in 30 minutes and maybe I’ll think about running a 5k to start with, then maybe a 10k and a half marathon. Who knows. One step at a time for now. I have the rest of my life – I’m in no rush. As long as I’m doing it – working toward a goal and becoming a runner – and not looking at my treadmill and regretting how much time I let pass without using it.

I need to get proper rest, proper nutrition and hydration, and stick to a routine of exercise and I know my body will respond positively and I’ll slowly start looking and feeling like the ‘me’ I’m visualizing each day. I may need to be ‘selfish’ at times and just go to bed vs. stay up to spend time with my hubby when he works late. I may need to cut visits with friends short so I can get home and get my workout in. I know this schedule isn’t permanent. I’m still working to finish paying of my debt in a few months, saving in the meantime and hopefully we’ll start a family next year and I’ll have enough saved up by the time baby #1 arrives to be able to take some time off if our financial situation doesn’t change [but hopefully between now and then my husband will have a salary adjustment/promotion and the housing market picks up so we can refi and get rid of PMI, bringing our monthly payments down, etc.], and then I can look for part time contract work that I can do from home and have the best of both worlds. I’ll be home for our kids, but I’ll also have my career and will have my own source of income to keep contributing to the household costs, but also extra money for shopping and savings. My husband and I don’t fight over money because we keep our accounts separate. It works for us and I’d like to keep it that way.

So, if  ’YOU ARE WHAT YOU THINK’ then I’m a 5’7″ athletic, yet feminine woman who’s lost 100lbs, who is very active and leads a clean, healthy life. And I’ll be a happy, healthy, loving wife and mother who finds the happiness and joy in every day and doesn’t sweat the small stuff.

Sometimes life throws you speed bumps, slowing you down, with twists and turns, but the road is still there waiting to be traversed. In the past 6 months my grandmother passed away, my best friend’s mom passed away, my brother needed a quadruple bypass [he's 35], my other grandmother broke her hip, my grandfather passed away, my grandmother came home from surgery and rehab only to fall again and compress her spine, so she’s back in rehab… it’s been one thing after another. Knock on wood my parents, my husband and I are all fine, but it’s the people around us causing us stress and worry, requiring more of our time and energy – which for the most part I’m happy to give, but sometimes I get resentful because some of it was either self-inflicted or preventable… but that’s life. I have a goal of reaching my ideal weight of 155lbs by my birthday the end of February. That’s 35lbs. It’s probably a tall order, but not impossible. And even if I get within 15lbs of that it’s still progress that I’ll be proud of. I may stumble and fall here and there, but I’ll never give up. I can see the road again. It’s been foggy for the past year and a half, but the fog’s cleared and I’m up for the challenge.

Since starting a new job back in late June, my weightloss on the scale as almost stalled, but I’ve been keeping up my workouts and have increased my activity level, so I’ve still noticed changes in my body. I also got myself a treadmill for Christmas and have enjoyed doing interval workouts on it, alternating between doing incline intervals at a fast paced walk, to doing sprint intervals. The first time I ran on it I was at a 5. Now I can sprint at a9.5 and am hoping to hit 10 today. Which blows me away. It only goes to 12. lol…

I’m still wearing the body bugg, and I promised myself that even on days where I don’t eat as well as I could, I’m still going to write it all down and track all the calories – which has been a motivator for me. For the past few weeks I’ve been indulging too often in chocolate and seeing all those extra calories staring back at me has made me angry – which makes it a lot easier to tell myself NO when a craving hits.

After 5 months of hell at this new job I’m finally not hating it and feel like I have the mental capacity to start focusing on my diet again. Sometimes life throws you speed bumps, but that doesn’t mean the journey stops. I’ve learned that I no longer use food as a crutch when I’m stressed. Now I workout or I read. I indulge in my new addiction – vampire romance books. Cheesy, I know, but I love them and they don’t add fat to my hips! And believe me, my husband benefits from them as well. [wink, wink…].

My next challenge is visiting my mother in a few weeks. Since she had the stroke she was motivated at first to change her life, but she’s gradually slipped back into all her old, bad habits. She’s been obese since I can remember… She’s done better with eating, but she still hates exercise – in ANY form – and has an excuse for any suggestions I give her. She also uses my grandmother’ deteriorating condition as a crutch to not ever leave the house or even get on the computer to keep in touch with friends via email. It’s like she’s almost agoraphobic, like she’s a dead person waiting for life to catch up to her mental state. It’s depressing and so frustrating – and I’m going down for 5 full days and I know it’s going to be tough. Because she’s back to not going to the doctor, and if anything happens to her, my grandmother will be alone and she’s too far gone to even know how to call anyone for help. It’s scary… and I know my mother expects me to drop my life and fly down whenever she has a problem, which isn’t fair to me, or even feasible for me anymore with this new job. My last job was much more flexible… and I have bills to pay so I need my job. When I go I’m going to have to have a few tough conversation with her and hope to shock her into take responsibility for the situation and top waiting around for someone to take care of her. The worst part is – she’s fully capable. Aside from a bit of short term memory issues, she’s fine physically and mentally, but it’s like the worst parts of her personality were amplified after the stroke. That needy, childlike, rebellious, self-destructive, self-hating side of her is in full swing. It’s also the part with the massive chip on the shoulder that feels the word owes her something because she had a shitty childhood. Well, she’s 66 now, so I think blaming her childhood is a little ridiculous now. She’s been living an easy life for the past 15 years, not having to work, just taking care of her parents. It wasn’t always a picnic of course, but it’s like now she expects me to drop everything and do what she did – give up her life and go move in with her like she did with her parents. Except she already had her kids, they’d grown up and moved out and she had no other choice because her money ran out and she had no place else to go. I haven’t had kids yet, I’m 30 years younger than she was when her parents’ health started to go downhill and I refuse to give up my life. I love my life and I have a lot more of it to live and her expecting that of me defies reality and is completely selfish.

Anyway… the emotional challenges don’t seem to ever stop. Now that my job isn’t killing me I know there’s a new crisis on the horizon with her and her health. I don’t even think about my brother’s health, it’s so depressing. The guy’s 35 and he’s losing all his teeth already. He had a stroke last year, is diabetic, has lost all feeling from the knees down, has had surgery on both eyes [due to damage from high blood sugar], had to have arteries replaced in his legs… it’s just never ending. Both he and my mother are two peas in a pod. Both of them could have prevented all the BS they’re going through now if they’d taken better care of themselves. But somehow it’s everyone else’s fault but their own. I don’t have time for that. I worked hard to get over all my own issues – mental, emotional and physical. Every day is a struggle but I do it because I want better for myself, my husband and someday I hope to be a good example to our kids. Time to get off that crazy train and break the cycle.

But now I’m at the point where I’m tired of maintaining and want to continue with weight LOSS… I’m 191 now and I’m a size 10/12 and want to still lose another 30-35 lbs… now that work isn’t quite so bad, I feel ready to pick myself up and keep going. I got Chalene Johnson’s new Turbo Fire program and I LOVE it. It’s a great high intensity interval training/cardio program that mixes in well with my resistance training and boxing. And I’m in the process of researching treadmills because I want to start running. Even though I haven’t lost much in the past few months, my body is still changing – parts are tightening up and becoming more toned, so overall I still feel really good about my progress even if it doesn’t show on the scale.

I know I need to eat more protein and veggies and less starch and salty foods. When I’m stressed I always go for the salty snacks like chips, which is terrible. Or chocolate. Or bread. All the things that I easily become ‘addicted’ to… It actually took me this long [5 months???] to finally accept that my old job is gone, I’m not going to get it back, and this job pays my bills and even though I’ll never love it like my last job, it’s getting better, so I can finally put more energy back into my nutrition. I’ve also had to change my schedule so I now leave for work at 6:15am – my last job I’d leave for work at 9:15. I’m a night owl, so it’s been really tough accepting the new schedule because my husband’s schedule is closer to my old one and we don’t get a lot of time together after work during the week. He gets home an hour or so before I should be going to bed… so I end up staying up too late and when I’m exhausted I don’t make the best food decisions. It’s time to put myself and my body first again and focus on QUALITY time, not just quantity. Once my bills are paid off [11 more payments!], my options open up. We can start a family and I can freelance part time and stay home, but until the bills are totally paid off, this is my life. lol…

Time will pass whether I continue this journey or not – I may as well continue and lose the rest of this weight once and for all!

So, after getting over the initial shock of it, I realized it was time anyway – I’d been there for so long that I wasn’t challenged, my commute was insane [150 miles round trip 3x/wk] and I knew I wasn’t paid what I was worth. I got complacent because there was no stress – I knew my job inside and out. I loved my coworkers – we had a very tight crew, like family. So quality of life was great, but job satisfaction was low… So this whole thing is a nice opportunity to move on. I’ve been going full tilt getting my resume out there, meeting with recruiters, and I’ve had a few interviews. The first one went so well they wanted to hire me on the spot, but they got news of a merger that put all new hires on hold 2 days before they wanted me to start. The next one – which I had last week – went well despite me forgetting my portfolio at home [as a designer, that was pretty stupid…]. I was the only one they called to come in and the interview ended with them telling me they thought I’d fit in perfectly – because I’m capable of being a one-woman art department – it’s what I’ve done the past 12 years. So, we’ll see what happens with that – I’ll know end of next week if they’re going to extend an offer, but in the meantime the hunt continues…

My brother had a stroke a few months back [at 34!] due to him going off all his meds for diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, etc. He not only had a stroke, but had bleeding in the eyes that required both laser and chemical surgery to stop, and now he’s going in for a sort of bypass surgery to replace the arteries in both legs to get circulation going again to prevent amputation. And yet he’s still drinking regular soda and eating donuts. He didn’t see the stroke as a wakeup call like we’d all hoped – to him it just confirmed what he already believed – that his life sucks, that it’s worse than anyone else’s and he has the right to sit on his ass and feel sorry for himself. When I asked him about the soda thing, he became enraged and told me to shut up, and that he ‘wasn’t in the mood’ for me questioning him. So I hung up. I felt like I was talking to a dead man. I’ve learned over the years that you can’t help those who don’t want it – or think they don’t have a problem in the first place, no matter how obvious.

What his experience only reaffirmed for me was that sugar equals death to people in my family. We’re all prone to diabetes – it runs on both sides of my family. So, once again I stopped eating things with refined sugar it them, sticking to fruit and natural sweetners like agave, honey and maple syrup – but only sparingly. And, no surprised my weight loss has started up again with a vengeance. I started this journey at 255 lbs – the highest weight I saw on a scale. It could have been higher because I didn’t weigh myself for years, living in denial, believing I was ‘doomed’ to be like my mother [she was obese my whole life and still is]. I’m now at 197 lbs. I workout on average 6 days a week, doing cardio, boxing and weight lifting, hiking and trail running. I feel like I’m in better shape than when I was 18 [I'm 36], and I feel like the sky’s the limit.

Not eating sugar has made me realize this time around that my appetite has been cut in half. When I’m hungry, it’s not painful and panic-enducing like it used to be [do to very low blood sugar after crashing from a spike], and I don’t crave junk anymore. It’s literally EASY losing weight when you take out those factors from daily life. I eat so much less, but it’s all nutrient-packed food, so I always have plenty of energy. I sleep like a rock and my skin has cleared up after years battling adult acne. I started at a size 20 and now I’m a size 12. I’m hoping to get to an 8 and I still don’t know what my end weight will be – I’m taking it a little at a time. It could be 148, it could be 168. I don’t care anymore. I use the scale as a tool of measurement along with taking actual measurements and buying smaller clothes and fitting into them.

During the stress of the family issues and the work issues, I never stopped exercising but I did indulge in comfort foods a lot more, stalling my weightloss for a while, even putting a few lbs back on. There were also 2 weddings and a trip to Chicago in there as well and plenty of unknown to fear, but overall, I was able to handle it all much better than in the past. It didn’t derail my efforts, it just slowed them down. But I’m back on track, steaming toward my goals. I read a great quote from Winston Churchill when I first found out about the layoff, “Optimists see opportunity in difficulty, pessimists see difficulty in opportunity.” It struck a chord with me. Attitude really is everything. Life will knock you down here and there – it’s inevitable. What you do after that is completely up to you. You can sit on your ass, paralyzed and let more of your life pass you by, or you can get right back up, look life in the eyes and say, “bring it on.”

I’ve also learned that no matter how alone you feel, you’re never alone – it’s just up to YOU to reach out to people. In the end, true friends and loving family WANT to be there for you and want to help – even if it’s just to be your cheerleader in email. If friends & family aren’t there, get online. I’ve found twitter to be an amazing support system. Find people with similar interests, get to know them and put your issues out there and just watch all the encouragement and prayers come your way. It’s ironic that something seemingly so impersonal would renew my faith in the human condition… ;)

I’ve learned a few things in the past few months. I hit a plateau and didn’t lose ANY weight for 2 months because I got lazy about measuring everything I ate and did a lot of guestimating – I obviously estimated wrong to not lose any weight, especially since I’ve kicked my exercise into high gear. I moved my workout area at home to my basement so I could do more high-impact stuff, as well as got myself a wave master punching bag. I love boxing & kick boxing for the intensity and challenge, so it’s been great! I’m very happy that I’ve kept up with measuring myself because even though I hadn’t lost any weight on the scale in those 2 months, I still lost a few inches and dropped another dress size.

I did have something interesting happen that threatened to derail my progress. I went to visit my mother the end of February, and even though I’d lost 30lbs since the last time she saw me, she didn’t mention my weight or how I looked at all the whole time I was there. It upset me because I took it to mean she wasn’t happy for me, or that it made her feel bad about herself because she stopped losing weight [she eats too little and gets almost no activity - full of excuses again, which was sad to see...]. I think her not acknowledging my accomplishments set off some sort of old trigger in my subconscious that turned on my ‘inner rebel’ and I found my appetite increase dramatically – and I was constantly craving junk food, which hadn’t happened in a long time. I started to feel a little nuts! Luckily I didn’t GAIN weight, but I didn’t lose any, either and had to figure it out.

Then one day last week I was working from home and finding myself reaching for some chocolate and I *knew* I wasn’t hungry – and that’s when I heard that inner voice whisper, “You’re better than that!” and it was almost like a reality slap – I put the chocolate down and let myself think about that for a few minutes. I think my mom inadvertently set off that old part of me that never felt good enough for her – kind of like when you rack up credit card debt and you find yourself thinking ‘what’s the difference, I may as well buy x, y. & z…” I started feeling that way about food. I hadn’t lost any weight going on 3 months at that point and started to feel like what the hell was I working so hard for?

Well, since that moment the crazy cravings and ravenous appetite went away. That inner self-sabateur reared it’s ugly head, but when I figured it out, I looked her in the eyes and gave her the finger. LOL… And I’m back on track.

I also had a pretty great accomplishment the other day by accident. I went to a local state park to go for a hike after work  and wanted to attempt to do some running on my own. I’d been wary of running because I have asthma and wasn’t sure my lungs could take it [and I have a hangup about breathing heavy in front of others]. So running in the forest where I was totally alone was a great place to give it a try. And I LOVED it – wearing headphones helped because it took my mind off my breathing and I found that my body just did what it needed to do naturally when I wasn’t obsessing over breathing properly, etc. Unfortunately I got horribly lost and ended up going in a lot deeper than I intended – they’re in the process of remarking the trails so the deeper in I went, the less markings there were until there weren’t any for a while. So I found myself running most of the way to make sure I could get back to the entrance before they locked my car in for the night . I got back to my car with 5 minutes to spare. One hour and four minutes later. I went home and broke out a map of the trails and figured out how far I had gone – I ended up doing 7 miles in that time! 2/3 of it were rocky trails up and down hills, too! I had no idea I had it in me and found myself beaming with joy when I realized what I was capable of!

So, now I know my lungs can take it, it’s just a matter of losing the last 30lbs or so and conditioning my body to handle more running [not jogging - not good for the knees] because I found my legs got tired before my lungs did. I’m going back tonight after work to do it again – but I’m only looking to do 5 miles and more running vs. getting lost and feeling semi-panicked half the time. lol

Here’s an update of how many inches I’ve lost over the past 2 years now that I’ve been doing this:

Neck: 3″
Arms: 4″ each
Chest: 10″
Waist: 12″
Hips: 11.5″
Thighs: 7″ each
Calves: 3″ each

Every now and then I need to look at these numbers and remind myself how far I’ve come. I find myself not caring so much what the scale says – it’s just another unit of measurement. I’m more concerned with how my clothes fit and getting into the next size down. My favorite form of motivation is buying a pair of jeans a size smaller and trying them on every now and then to see how much farther I can pull them up.  =)  We have 2 weddings coming up in May and it’s the first time EVER I’m excited to go dress shopping. Normally I just put it off to the last minute and hope I find something that just FITS because I knew nothing would actually look good… now I know I’ll look great and am just excited to dress up for myself, for my husband, and to have a great time and dance – and NOT feel self-conscious. =D

When I went to my Dad’s house for Christmas and saw family I hadn’t seen in a month or two, everyone said something about how I looked – like suddenly it was more obvious that I’ve lost 49lbs… it felt good but I didn’t want to make it a big deal. I have 36 lbs more to go to hit my initial goal. And then I’ll reevaluate and decide if I want to keep going or not. I weighed 170 lbs senior year in highschool and I always felt like I could lose a few pounds, but I actually feel like I’m in better shape now [more muscle] so who knows. The more weight I lose, the less the number on the scale means to me.

It’s only December 28th and I’m already longing for Spring to get back outside for hikes, walks, runs and to try new activities like kayaking, or to take up old favs like cycling. I love my workout DVDs, but I do enjoy the variety of pushing myself outdoors as well. Today it’s a toasty 37º and it’s been raining all day. Bleh…

Anyway, it’s okay to take a few days off, relax, be lazy and eat crappy food. I know I’ll jump right back in the saddle and keep going. My body bugg is charged up, and I’m on vacation all week this week on furlough, so I’m going to take advantage by eating better and getting more exercise, establishing a proper routine of sleep and workouts so come next Monday, it’ll be like clockwork. Alternating weights & abs in the mornings, and doing cardio at night, so that I burn my calories by 11pm – by the time I hit the sack. No more going to bed at 1am or 2am… time to grow up and accept that fact that I need more sleep and I also need to maximize my time during the day and it starts with waking up earlier and getting some exercise in.

2010 is going to be a great year. I can feel it. Hopefully my family will get healthy – no more strokes – and I can just focus on myself, continuing my quest to get fit and healthy, a well as focusing on paying off my debt so we can start a family. I’m almost ready for that next step in our lives. Almost…  ;)

To date, I’ve lost 45 lbs! I’m about halfway to my goal now. I started out at 255lbs. I’m now 210lbs and for some reason, no longer embarrassed to say what my weight actually is. Most people don’t believe me when I tell them my weight now. I’m tall [5'7"] and I do have an athletic frame, so I tend to run heavy anyway. I’d like to get to 170lbs and then decide if I need to lose more or not, but I think that’s a good intial goal to have. That’s what I weighed the end of highschool and I was a size 10. I can probably go lower – 148-155, but I’m not sure I want to go too low with the body fat. I have no desire to look like a skinned rabit, or look 10 years older than I am because there’s no fat left on my face to fill in the ‘cracks’. lol… I’m still taking it one step at a time, one day at a time.

I’m also happy to say that I’m now a real size 14 and my days of shopping at the ‘big girl’ store are behind me. I can buy regular clothes in regular sizes, which has been so much fun. I always thought I hated shopping. Nope. I just hated shopping when nothing looked good on me. Now, it’s dangerous already! I started out at a stretchy 18 – if I was honest with myself at the time, I was probably more like a 20 or a 22, but I couldn’t bring myself to buy anything that went beyond 18, so I’d stuff myself into jeans and I’d have horrendous ‘muffin top’. I was so wrapped up in the numbers. Not anymore. I have a dress I bought last year that’s a size 18 – it finally fits me now and looks great and the size doesn’t bother me. It’s just cut differently from the majority of brands and styles I tend to buy – no biggie. The only problem is, it’s a very lightweight dress that’s more suited to Spring or Summer, so by then it’ll probably be too big and I’ll never get a single use out of it. Unless we go to Florida in the next month or two to visit my mother – then I’ll bring it with me and wear it one night when we go out for dinner.  =)

I’m still using my body bugg – without it, I’d be lost. It really has made the difference for me – a person that had no concept of calories or potion size – or how much I was eating on a daily basis, for that matter. I never wanted to count calories because it never made any sense to me – why count what goes in if you have no idea what you’re burning? Now I know what I’m burning, and it’s made it not only easy, but it motivates me to stick within a certain calorie range so that I stick to a certain calorie burn each day. I shoot to create a calorie deficit of between 1,000-1,250 calories a day. Most days I make it, here and there I don’t, but I always burn more than I consume – even if it’s only by 250 calories.

Now that I’ve been doing this for a while [I started using the body bugg and tracking my calories on 9/27], I also know my body’s cycle, so fluctuations on the scale don’t freak me out. Take today, for instance. I’m about to get my “.” any minute now and I’m up 2lbs from yesterday. I know I’ll hang on to that 2 extra lbs until my “.” is over, and then I’ll drop the 2 lbs over night, and the next day or two I’ll drop 2 more lbs.. My body is funny like that. But it’s okay because overall I’m still losing 1-2lbs per week, which is a good pace for me. In 9 weeks I’ve lost 18 lbs. Woo-hoo! If I can stick to this pace I’l be at my goal weight in the Spring and if I want to keep going, I’ll get to what I call my ‘ultimate weight’ in the summer – in time for our Anniversary in September. The last 2 years we went to Bermuda that week. I’m already dreaming of the cute sundresses and bikinis I’m going to wear next time.  =)

I still have plenty of room for improvement, though. Once the holidays are over I do need to refocus and start getting more of the sugar out of my diet. I live within my calories, but not all calories are equal. My New Year’s resolution will be to clean up my diet and finally ditch the ‘white stuff’ – refined sugar & flour. I still eat a lot of chocolate and I rely on a lot of bars – they’re all natural, but they also have a decent amount of calories and because of that I tend ot eat less fruits and veggies that I otherwise would. I also need to get back to planning my meals better so I maximize my fresh groceries.

I’m still bouncing away on my ball when I watch TV which is both the gift and the curse – it’s a gift because it makes it easy to hit my calorie target for the day, but the curse because it also gives me an out to be lazy and skip a workout BECAUSE I can still hit my target as long as I watch TV on my ball. lol… I need to get back to working out in the mornings again, so that if I feel like skipping an evening workout, it’s not so bad. Or if I feel like just relaxing on the couch or reading, I wont’ miss hitting my target because I hadn’t exercised yet.

Anyway… I know that if I can tweak and tune up my routine, I can increase my weightloss from 1-2lbs per week to 2-3lbs per week, which would be great, but I also think I’ll feel that much better, too. I’m going to be 36 in February – but I feel like I’m going on 16 physically. It’s hard ot believe how old and tired I felt just 2 years ago. I was 34 going on 64 with all my aches and pains, fatigue, shortness of breath when I’d go up some stairs. It was horrible. I could never go back to feeling that way…

The most interesting thing for me now is, when I reach one of my smaller goals – whether it’s hitting a target on the scale, or fitting into an old pair of jeans or a dress, it’s great, but not a big deal. Because I know I’m not stopping here, I’ve got more to do, so if some old piece of clothing fits, but I know I won’t wear it because it’s out of style or not the best quality [because I bought it YEARS ago and it never fit and I always hung onto it hoping it would some day], I just donate it right away and look for the next ‘benchmark’ to shoot for. I’m running out of them, though – I have nothing below a size 12 anymore so once all my old size 12 clothes fit, I’ll have to start buying 10s and 8s to have something to work toward. I actually bought a pair of size 12 jeans last week, and because they have a more than usual amount of stretch to them, they fit me pretty nicely – snug, but not tight. I knew they would because I have the 14s in the same style and they’re already too big in the waste and I have to wear a belt with them. Ironically the black version fo the same jeans in a 14 are still snug – they hardly have any stretch to them, but they’re definitely wearable. If I had a choice, I’d never buy anything stretchy ever again. Not only do they lose their shape too easily, but the also make it too easy to fool yourself into thinking your’e not gaining weight right away. Kind of like not updating your checkbook for a while. You think you’re good until you finally check it and realize you’re broke!

Since my last batch of measurements I’ve lost another 1/2-inch off my chest and off my calves, but the rest are the same. Though my middle is smaller, it isn’t around my waist or hips where I actually measure. It’s almost like the areas above and below my waist are shrinking and tightening up, but I wont’ see a change in my waist measurement until it becomes one, cohesive unit again. lol… I almost don’t have ‘rolls’ anymore and my tummy is ‘this close’ to being flat – still a bit thick, but I’ll take it!

I eat anywhere from 1,500 to 2,200 calories a day, depending on the circumstances, my choices, and my appetite. But I also burn at least 1,000 calories more than I take in, so I’m always in a caloric deficit. If people pick an arbitrary number – like 1,200 calories and stick to that, eventually it’ll either be too much, or not enough, theoretically…

So, I’ll keep you posted on that aspect of using a body bugg – IF the dreaded plateau does strike. lol… so far, so good. I did have no weightloss for about 2 weeks, but I think it had more to do with my monthly cycle than anything else. Once my period was over, I dropped over 4lbs, seemingly overnight. That’s just how my body works, I guess. As long as it’s temporary and I immediately catch up to the pace I’m going for [2-2.5lbs/wk], I don’t care.

I took some measurements today and was pleasantly surprised. Especially when compared to my original measurements when I started this journey almost 2 years ago:

Here are my inches lost to date:

Chest: 7.5″
Waist: 10″
Hips: 10″
Thighs: 8″ [ea]
Calves: 2.5″ [ea]
Arms: 3.5″ [ea]
Neck: 3″

That last measurement blows me away – 3 inches off my neck! lol… I’ve lost 40lbs so far [40.2 if you want to get technical], and I’m shooting for another 55 lbs to get to my goal weight. At the pace I’m going now, if I can keep it up, I should get there by early to mid April, 2010 – a mere 5 months. That’s just amazing to me. I lost all of 7lbs all of last year because I wasn’t tracking what I was eating. I did drop a dress size from exercising and my body comp changing for the better, but then my weight just stayed the same for months and months until I got frustrated enough to look for something that would work for me – I found clean-eating, Tosca Reno, Oxygen Magazine and Chalene Johnson… and on Chalene’s recommendation – the body bugg. It’s been a slow but steady progression to figuring this all out for myself, but now that everything is clicking, it really does seem pretty easy. If you told me even 6 month ago that it could be this simple, I wouldn’t have believed you…

I’ve tried keeping a food journal in the past  but I was always tracking too many things – carbs, fat grams, protein, etc. And then I’d judge myself, or if I wanted something ‘bad’, I didn’t want to write it down – because that would make it real, disturbing my delicate state of denial. So I’d give up. All I track now are calories, and I eat whatever I want, but because I track calories, and because I like how I feel when I make healthier choices, I tend to want healthier foods 9 times out of 10. I do have chocolate almost every day. I do have snacks like crackers and cheese. Trackign calories has helped me to understand portion sizes. I see what I eat now and compare it to how I WAS eating – even while ‘dieting’ – and it’s no wonder I either gained weight or didn’t lose anything. When they say a food journal is key for most people to reach their weightloss goals and to sustain them, they’re not joking.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get comfortable enough to intuitively know approximately what I’m taking in vs. burning each day after I get to my goal weight. I suspect I’ll continue to use a food journal… even if I stop using the body bug. It’s pretty easy to remember about how many calories you burn during certain activities… and I would think once I don’t have anymore fat to lose, as long as I burn what I’m taking in, I won’t gain anything back. I’ll either be able to eat more, or have less daily activity. Right now I shoot for an hour and a half of ‘activity’ and 10,000 steps, 3,000-3,250 calories burned… yesterday I beat all my targets and didn’t even workout – I tend to do more around the house because I have more energy [and because I know it burns calories] and by bouncing on my stability ball while watching TV. So I gave my body a break from weight lifting and the 45 minutes of cardio I usually do, and today I feel fantastic, and ready to tackle the 2-3 hours of raking and bagging leaves that we have to do.

Losing weight isn’t the rocket science the diet industry will have you believe. It’s in their best interest to give you a taste of success only to take it away, so you keep coming back for more – buying their books, products, ‘systems’, etc… It’s such a sham. If your goal is to lose weight only, then you don’t care that the diet your on doesn’t make nutritional sense as long as the number on the scale moves down. If your goal is to get healthy and fit, nutrition is everything – it affects your performance in everything you do. Which sounds more intelligent?  [It only took 25 years to become obvious for me]. ;)

I would have figured I’d get bored with tracking calories, but I haven’t. I actually love knowing how many calories I’m consuming because I love hitting all my daily targets for calorie burning, steps, activity duration, etc. I’m a body bugg-a-holic if there is such a thing. lol

I’ve also discovered a great trick to making sure I burn up all my calories for the day. I love TV and I watch too much of it, but I bought myself a stability ball, and now I bounce on it while I watch TV – it works so well that I know I burn 350 calories while watching 45 minutes of news! If I know we have a lot of shows ot catch up on and will be in front of the TV for 2-3 hours [I know, it's a lot...], at least now I know I can burn 1,000 calories or more doing it. It doesn’t replace my daily workouts but it does mean I can just do ONE workout a day and then burn off the rest of my calories while watching TV vs. doing 2 workouts a day like I was doing before, which felt like too much. Bouncing isn’t that hard on the body, but working out twice a day can be.

I’m going to try dropping my calories from 1,850 to 1,750 and burning 3,000 a day vs. 2,850 to see if I can increase my weekly weightloss from 2lbs to 2.5lbs. If it’s too much I’ll go back to what I was doing before [1,000 calorie deficit per day instead of 1,250]. By kicking my routine up a notch, the body bugg software claims I’ll reach my goal by April 9th. Which is great because it gives me time to settle into my new size [whatever that ends up being] and gives me time to do a little shopping – we have a few weddings to go to in May. If/when I reach my goal it’ll mean I’ve lost a total of 95lbs. How crazy is that? I’m almost halfway there – I’ve lost 39 lbs so far since I started this journey. I’m still not 100% sure my goal weight of 159 lbs is correct or not, but I weighed 160 at the end of highschool and again when I lost the weight I gained after my first year of college, so my ‘ideal’ weight is probably around that number. I can always reevaluate once I get there if I think I can lose a few more lbs… and if my body stops at 165 or 170 and I look and feel great, I’m fine with that, too.  =)

The best part of counting calories and living this way is, nothing is off limits. I eat mostly healthy, but now and then I can splurge if I plan for it. Last night my husband took me out for a delicious lobster dinner. I had a 1.5 lb lobster and I dunked every piece in butter – I also made sure to let most of it drip off, and in the end I probably ate about a tablespoon total of the butter, which is about 105 calories. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. When we got home I had enough calories left over to have some popcorn while we watched a movie and a few squares of chocolate. That whole thing about some people being able to eat whatever they want is true – as long as it doesn’t mean their taking in more calories than they burn.

I used to think maintaining a big weightloss would be tough, but if you exercise, it really doesn’t need to be. If I’m burning 1,250 calories more than I’m taking in now, to lose the weight, it means I either keep up the activity level and I get to eat a LOT more, or I can eat about the same amount of food and I don’t have to worry about being SO active every day [right now I do about 10,000 steps and get in about an hour and a half of activity per day, at a minimum]. It’ll mean I can take a couple of days off each week and really let my body recover fully before pushing it again.

This whole experience has been such an eye-opener. I know I won’t ever have the same issues with weight gain again. I know I’ll be ready to move on with the rest of my life when I reach my goals. This will be the toughest thing I’ve ever done. But once I figured out what works for me it stopped being an uphill battle, and turned into a happy journey.  =)  I’m enjoying it every step of the way.

In case you’re wondering about the stability ball, this is the one I have. It’s made to withstand 1,200 lbs – it’s made more rugged for weightlifting. I’ll be getting another as we finish off part of our basement as a gym so I can use it in place of a weight bench: Rhino Skin Stability Ball [image courtesy of amazon.com]