Things

Sorry I haven't been blogging much recently.  I have been battling my depression.  Not sure it is the winter blues or a medication thing.  Although I feel like crud I am still trying to get to the gym and watching what I am eating.  I did gain 2 pounds from Christmas, but it could have been a lot worse I am sure.  I start school on 3rd so we shall see how that goes with the depression, stress and trying to stay on top of my nutrition.  My husband has decided to go vegan for a month starting tomorrow, January 1st.  I wish him luck with this.  He is a typical meat guy.  I would say meat and potatoes, but he would rather have a real vegetable with his meat.  In an attempt to be supportive and get back on track I will be going vegetarian for the month.  I just don't think I can give up my dairy for that long.  I would be grateful for any advice, food suggestions and so on for the month.  I will try to keep up with it on the blog.  I think in February I may try a cleanse or something like it.  For some reason I want to blame my depression on my eating and not the other way around.  Here's to a new year and a new body!

Plateau

So for the last couple of months I have hit a plateau in my weight loss.  I can't seem to get past 94 pound lost.  I'm not sure what I need to do to get the last 40 pounds off.  I haven't given up though.  I still hit the gym and keep track of what I am eating.  I have also been keeping track of my measurements and I am seeing an improvement there.  I may need to "trick" my body some how.  Switch up my workout routine or try some new foods.  I have noticed that I am eating the same things every day for breakfast and lunch.  Maybe I will forgo the cereal in the morning for a yogurt and a piece of fruit.  I think I need to up my weight lifting with my cardio.  I have become lax in that area recently.  I need the muscle to burn more of the fat.  The one thing I keep taking away from this is that I have not given up.  I am going to continue to keep losing and trying new things (the healthy way) to loose that last 40 pounds.

The Wiggin Winter 5k

I have been thinking about what I could say about my 5k on Saturday for the past few days and I came up with one word: Awesome!  It went better than expected.  I wanted to get in under 44 minutes and was surprised with getting in under 39 minutes!  I couldn't believe it.  My average pace was 12:25, which is the fastest I ever done a mile.  It was a challenge and I hit a wall or two, but I was able to break through it.  I took my time and picked out landmarks to make it to and most of the time I ran past them.  The hardest part for me was to keep up the momentum.  I had to keep up a constant pep talk in my mind.  I have to tell you though the way I felt when I was running was fantastic.  I kept up a visual of how I wanted to look while I was running and kept my strides even and long without sprinting to often. The best feeling of all was passing that finish line and seeing my parents, my sister Sammi and my wonderful husband waiting for me and cheering me.  My dad was the first one to me and practically cracked my ribs.  


    All the training I have done in the past few weeks really did help to prepare me.  I ran with my friend Michele a week ago outside in the cold air and we did 4.4 miles in about an hour.  Running outside should be apart of anyone's training routine.  Yes, I wanted to kill her for making me run outside with the cold dry air and all the hills, but it really did help me out on Saturday.  I also ran the course on Thursday and walked it with Kitty on Friday.  At that point we were both as prepared as we were going to get for the next day.  


    I am so proud of myself.  It makes me feel strong and capable knowing that I finished a 5k. I will be looking into running more if I can.  

3 weeks and still Training

Well, it's now 3 weeks till my 5k with Kat.  This weeks couch to 5k program has been kicking our butts.  We started out with run 5 walk 3 and then the next day it was run 8 walk 5!  We were ok with it, it wasn't easy, but we soldier on through it.  I looked at our next days training and it is run 20 minutes without walking!!!  How in the world did we go from running 8 minutes to running a full 20 minutes!?!?  I am trying not to let it stress me out and keep telling myself my body can do it, I just need to get my brain with the program.  I try to hold onto the feeling of freedom I get when I am running.  This feeling of freedom is new to me.  I love it, I am addicted to it.  I embrace it when I feel like I can't go another step or I think my lungs will give out.  When I let my mind go there I forget that I can't do it and only live in the moment.  It has to be the best feeling for me.  I don't get the same feeling when I am weightlifting or on the arc trainer, only when I am running.  It's the only time I turn my brain off and stop worrying about everything.  I let my mind connect to my body and just let go.  This is what I need when I think I can't do it.  This is how I do it, how I train.  This may be a tough day of training, but I know I can do it, if I just let go.

Rant

I think today I am going to rant a little about Jenny Craig and Nurtisystem.   I don't understand them.  You pay for them to give you food already portioned and cooked?  I'm not sure how that will help anyone loose weight.  Learning to cook good for you foods and portioning is a huge part of the weight loss process.  Yes, it may help you get started, but what do you do when you are done paying for their food?  It's expensive as well.  The one thing I love about weight watchers and calorie counting is you are responsible for what goes into your body.  It is your job to figure out what is good for you and how to prepare it.  The other systems seem a little flawed to me.  I'm not saying that if it works for you, you shouldn't use it, I'm just saying I think there are better ways of going about it.  That's my little rant on those systems.  Please feel free to argue with me about, I won't take it personal.

What I ate

This is where you guys can find my food diary. This will not help you to see what I eat day to, but to see that I don't really cut anything out of my diet. I control my portions and edit my recipes. I currently love my cooking light magazines. They drive my husband crazy since I leave them laying around when I need to find some inspiration for dinner. I really hope this food diary sheds some light on my successes and my set backs.

5K Training

So my sister in law, Kitty and I are training for a 5k in December.  We are currently on our 3rd week of training, but on week 4 of the couch to 5k training program.  Here is why we are a week ahead of that training. We only have 4 weeks to get ready and the program is for 9 weeks!  I stopped running after my first 5k letting myself slack off a bit and boy am I paying for it now. 


     This week it has us running 3 minutes then walking 90 seconds then running 5 minutes and walking 2.5 minutes.  Repeat this twice and add a 5 minute warm-up and cool-down.  I am trying to get myself up to her speed which is currently at about an average of 5.5 mph.  My average on a good day is about 4.8 mph.  On the 3 minute runs I pushing myself to run at 5 mph and the 5 minute runs I try to stay at a 4.7.  Today it was just not happening.  At the end we were both sweating breathing hard and ready to quit.  Instead if quitting I just backed my speed down to a 4.5 and went slower.  Am I trying to win a race?  No, I'm trying to endure, to make myself stronger.  When I want to quit 30 seconds early, I decide to run faster!  By the end of the run today I managed 2 miles in 32 minutes.  Kitty is going to run the 5k in under 30 minutes. I am proud of her and wish her luck ( that I know she doesn't need).  Is this my goal?  No way!  My goal is to finish under 45 minutes.  I want to beat the time I made in my first 5k about 40 pounds ago.  I know when I cross that finish line I will have done my very best. 

How I did it

For everyone who asked me "How are you doing it?".  I started with a great support system.  My best friends Wes and Sammi!  You can't ask for 2 better people to get you going.  At the time I started I was very depressed and unhappy.  I was seeing a therapist and a psychiatrist, which I still see.  My therapist had been working with me for about a year and on several occasions tried to get me to loose weight.  It wasn't until my friend Wes said that he was worried about me that it hit me.  I realized how unhappy I was.  I didn't like myself, not even a little.  I wanted to disappear into a hole and never come out again.  Luckily with the help of Wes, Sammi and my wonderful loving husband, Adam, I started clawing my way out of the hole I was in.  In therapy we discussed why I ate the way I did.  I just always thought it was because I hated vegetables and yogurt that I couldn't loose weight.  With my therapists help and Sammi's, I quickly learned that, that was not the case.  As with many people I was self medicating.  Stressed out, eat something, unhappy, eat more and so and so forth till I reached a whopping 307 pounds! I have to say that I was a guilty eater, meaning I felt guilty every time I ate.  It became a way for me to express the hate I felt for myself.  I would eat so much I would be bursting and then feel guilty that I ate that much.  I had to fix the way I viewed myself and the things I did.  I had to do the dreaded mantra's in the mirror everyday.  My therapist had me pick one thing I thought was pretty on me, something physical.  I choose my eyes.  Something that had nothing to do with weight.  I would look into the mirror and tell myself how pretty they are.  Instead of eating when I was upset I would go to the bathroom and tell myself that over and over until I believed it.   Soon I was picking other parts of my face, my mouth, my nose, my ears and so on.  With therapy and friends I came to realize that I am beautiful and worth it.
     I started small with the weight loss.  I started with walking on a treadmill for about 20-30 minutes a couple of days a week with Sammi and Wes.  After a few months of this I started weight watchers again.  This time I didn't go to the meetings, to be honest I didn't want to get out of bed on a Saturday morning and weight myself in front of people.  At first every Sunday I would tell Adam then text Sammi.  They were both so supportive.  Once and a while I would text Wes about my weight loss, but he was always more of my exercise guru.  After I lost about 50 pounds I decided that I needed to do a 5k!  Weight watchers was having there yearly 5k walk it challenge.  I knew I could walk 5k and not really break a sweat at this point, so jogging it was the challenge I needed.  I spent my work hours looking up how to run a 5k.  Printed out a 6 week program to get me running. I read everything I could on proper form.  Before I knew it I was jogging 20 minutes without walking.  I finished that 5k in 45 minutes.  That was huge for me.  I did it on my own without someone holding my hand.  Don't get me wrong I had my husband and friends there to cheer me on, but none of them ran it with me.  For the first time in years I did something social without a safety net.  Yes, they were there at the end of the race waiting for me, but I had to go 3.1 miles alone.  Just like my weight loss, it had to be me doing the work.  
     I'm not saying that you need to get a therapist or run a 5k to be successful in your weight loss journey, what I am saying is that YOU need to do the work.  You need to be prepared to look at yourself and figure it out.  While I can hold your hand in the beginning at some point you need to let go. This blog is for you to find what you need to get healthy.  So get out there!  Find your inner strength and beauty.  Find your Adam, Sammi and Wes and get moving!  Just remember that you didn't gain the weight or get out of shape over night, don't expect   to loose 30 pounds or run a marathon over night!

Inspirational Quote of the Day

Success is not a race, be patient.
Success leads to success.
Success is always a work in progress.
Success doesn't come to you--you go to it.Success is a journey, not a destination. Focus on the process.
Some people dream about success... while others wake up and work hard at it.
Success is achieved and maintained by those who try-and keep trying.
Everyday is a good day to SUCCEED!
If at first you don't succeed-try, try again