How I lost 30 pounds

Trying once again.

2007-09-25T10:13:00.000-07:00

So, apparently I know how to lose 30 lbs fast. Then regain every stinking bit of it back. *sigh* I've tried to restart many times and have recorded the first positive stance of it here and each have failed.

Today I'm looking for help.

Calorie King's 5 ways to beat a binge.

Maybe that'll help the late night oreo and m&m trend around here.

Drinking more water today. Thinking about signing up for Slim For Life, even though I already know what they'll tell me to do. maybe paying for something will help? But I'm stretched on finances lately and there's a chance Jeff may be having job issues. Don't really know. Going to work out later today, drink a lot of water and try to avoid the big pitfalls.

I found my sport! Big thighs are an advantage!

2007-07-17T06:31:00.000-07:00

Can you believe it? I found a sport that I don't mind playing! I'm more of the "Hey, you go ahead, I'll just sit in the shade and knit" kind of an athlete. seriously.

Well, it's just the boys and me, my daughter is in NM with her dad and Jeff's got his boys so it's my boyfriend, his two boys and my one boy. That makes for more outdoorsy stuff. We went yesterday after dinner to the tennis courts up the hill. We loaded up all the cheapo rackets and my very very old one (I think I last played 18 years ago) and had a BLAST! We had a warm-up where it was all 5 of us on the court at once and was only moderate bedlam. Then they wanted an uber-tournament. The line-up started with Joey & Ben (the two youngest). Winner played David (10 yrs). Winner played ME and then the winner played Jeff. I asked why Jeff was the last to play and his boys said "because Dad is the CHAMPION MAN!" Like there was no doubt. I said, what about me? Oh no. He was the champion MAN. I said ok. Then beat THEM ALL! mwaaa ha ha haaaaa.

Actually, it was Joey's (my boy) 2nd time actually holding a racket. He played GREAT and beat both Ben and David. David has some issues with anger, so it was a challenge, but he did really good. David didn't lose it once he sat down. I beat my son, poor boy. Then Jeff and I had a 3 game match that had both of us running and slamming all over the court. It was AWESOME! I had so much fun, didn't even realize I was sweating and working and today my legs are all slightly sore, arms got a workout too. I sucked down at least 3 bottles of water which is always good. Jeff told me I had "venus thighs". He didn't mean like Venus de Milo as in beautiful thighs, but strong powerful thighs. I'm good with that. Normally he refers to them as thunder thighs. He's very complimentary to me except for those big things.

I felt like a superhero. Seriously. I've got to find a way to play more. I think I loved it because I can do 6 or 7 running steps at a time no worries. A whole 1/4 of a mile kicks my living butt, but 6 or 7 steps, oh yeah.

That counted as my exercise for the day. Going to go to the gym tomorrow for lower body workout of lots of lunges, squats and leg presses and those ugly things where you lay on your tummy on the machine and curl your feet towards your butt and the back of your thighs scream. Should be a blast. Tennis anyone?

Workout 1

2007-07-11T13:19:00.000-07:00

Here's what I did at the gym. Took about 45 minutes.

Walking lunges holding 10 lb weights in each hand, 4 sets of 20 steps

Standing Dumbbell curl
Standing Dumbbell lateral raise
Standing shoulder press
(three done in a row with each weight then rest, then all three new weight, rest, 3 for 3rd weight)
12 reps with 10 lb DBs
10 reps with 12 lb DBs
8 reps with 15 lb DBs

Standing barbell calf raise
12 reps with 30 lb
12 reps with 30 lb
12 reps with 40 lb

Triceps Extension (standing with one DB and 2 hands over head and going back with elbows held in tight against head)
10 reps with 12 lb
6 reps with 12 lb
6 reps with 12 lb

Dumbbell decline press
12 reps with 15 lb DBs
10 reps with 20 lb DBs
6 reps with 22.5 DBs

Seated Dumbbell Row
10 reps with 25 lb DBs
8 reps with 30 lb DBs

Ab work:
Lean back on pad, knees bent and feet and lower back butt on floor, leaning back, switch large ball from right to left, twisting. 3 sets of 25

OK, so the chubb is back

2007-07-09T11:45:00.000-07:00

Not all of it, just 20 lbs of it. damn. Well, at first I maintained but kept active. Ate well and had one item a day that was a little off target. Then less activity. Then all foods were good. Then a 56 oz superbag of m&ms was my best friend late late at night while I was sitting up late knitting. damn damn damn.

It's not a total lost cause, I'm still mostly slim up top, no back fat showing up yet. Just all my pants and shorts are SCREAMING tight. *sigh*

Started eating better about a week ago. Started walking 30 minutes every day 3 days ago. Heading back to the gym. This time with no trainer man. This time with no great amount of money to win in a bet. It's just me versus the thighs. Wish me luck.

Here's some good motivational sites to visit and get workout ideas from.
Shape Magazine I print out some of their workout cards.
Body For Life this one has great workout videos to show how to do the different exercises. It's also got a printable food & exercise logs, but I do better just writing my stuff down in a notebook.

I really believe using weights instead of machines (or at least mostly free weights instead of machines) makes my body work harder. Being a mostly lazy woman, I'm all for getting the most burn out of my sweat. If I work my stomach by holding my body upright and lifting arm weights that's all good. Once you get good at doing whatever weight lifting thing you're doing you can stand on one foot through your reps and it makes a HUGE difference on your whole core tummy thing. Then you can alternate feet for each set of reps. It really used to make me sweat back when I worked out with Trainer Man. I wish I could again, he was so very positive and I worked so hard and felt accountable, but I just can't afford it.

I'm heading to the gym this afternoon and will post my workouts here. I'm not sure if anyone really cares, it's just so if this plan works, I'd like to have a record of exactly what I did to get there.

You know what really sucks? I waited to get chubby and NOW found out my 20 year high school reunion is in 2 weeks. Why couldn't it have been when I was a skinny minny? *sigh* again.

Off to sweat...

Easy move for sexy arms and boosting the girls

2007-05-18T06:50:00.000-07:00

Leaning pushups. I am STILL not able to do more than one normal push-up. Push-up exercises work all the good muscles we need with summer coming up in ONE MOVE. So, what's a girl to do? LEANING PUSH-UPS! Depending on your upper body strength, you can do different levels. Start at whatever level works for you and the different angles actually work different levels of muscles so it's good to do them all.

While hanging out in the kitchen waiting for your coffee to brew or your water to boil for tea, do some kitchen counter pushups. Place both hands firmly on the counter edge, about shoulder width apart, stand at an angle trying to keep your body in a straight line (no sticking the butt out to make it easier). Do 3 reps of 10 each. As you get good at this, do them on the bathroom counter and eventually work down to on your knees on the ground and pushup-ing.

I love this move, because you can always do a quick set of 10 when you're just hanging around. EASY PEASY and it really helps tone your arms, biceps, triceps (the granny flap of skin on the bottom of your arms, you know the part of your arms that keeps waving long after the rest of your arm is no longer moving) AND strengthens the chest (boosting cleavage never hurts) and back. GOOD FOR YOU!

Made it back on the system of mostly eating healthy. Did my water drinking thing, but am only at 3 bottles of water per day when at my peak I was sucking down about 6-8 20 oz. bottles. Eating more little meals and snacks more often, I'm baby stepping my way back to getting ready for tank tops of summer!

Have a good weekend! Take a walk if it's nice or go for a bike ride. I'm heading off to the lake to help my honey with manual labor chores. I'm planning on fitting in some sitting by the lake knitting time too, but I imagine I'll be working my tail off first.

It's official, I'm becoming a slug.

2007-05-11T06:40:00.000-07:00

So much for motivational here's how you do it blogging today. I've become lazy. Not a problem if it's once in a while. Nope, every day. Actually I've not just become lazy, I've somehow morphed from totally workout and health goddess to sometime-goddess and sometime-normal (what I'd most like to be) right on past not caring and being lazy to ACTIVELY trying to fuxx up my fitness. I'm not sure where this happened, but two days ago I realized I ate FIVE candy bars in one day. FIVE. not even little ones, no, full sized and one was even a king-sized reese's peanut butter cups so it should count as six total if I were being honest with myself. You know, you have to WORK at trying that hard to not be healthy. cripes almighty. I'm still looking ok, still have nice arms, but now those pretty lines on my stomach are much shorter and end in this pudge that I can't blame on monthly bloating any longer. I also was clapping at my son's little 1st grade musical last night and FELT MY BACK WIGGLING. oh no. I'm not going back to back fat. Not gonna happen. Got on a scale this morning, saw I've gained 12 pounds in 4 weeks. nice.

I've got a history of getting a bit manic and totally nuts about things I throw myself into. I'm going to try REALLY hard to not be psychotic here. wish me luck. Baby steps.

Walked the kids to school this morning. Forgot to bring in a permission slip, so walked home and then walked to school again instead of getting into my truck and driving the half-block that I've been driving for the last month twice a day. I'm not able to be a workout woman of leisure any longer. Trainer Man had to get a real job so only does training in the evenings. I just can't seem to fit it in, so I told him to holler in the fall and we'll do a once a week maintain/teaching kind of a workout thing then. I just can't let the fact that I'm not working out with someone any longer be my excuse to not exercise at all. I've also got a heavy work load coming up and in another week, I'll have Jeff's 2 boys in the house all day and then mine are out of school in 2 weeks so there'll be FOUR of them running around. That cuts down on the "me time" so I'll have to get creative. I'm going to try to set up some kind of a schedule so I can get back into the habit of exercising each day again.

My goal for the next week: walk to & from school each morning and evening. Find one more half-hour in the day to walk somewhere, even if it's just around the neighborhood. For those of you wanting to find more time in your lives, back when I had a real job I would take 15 minute "sunshine breaks" twice a day. Since I didn't smoke I didn't have an excuse to get outside and spent entirely too much time sitting at my desk breathing recycled air. Those in power (hourly administrative assistants with REALLY bad attitudes and also were the smokers who were taking breaks) would get huffy if I tried to take my little breaks, so I just got to where I didn't say SHIT about it and just walked out the door and then came back in 15 min's. No one official ever complained so I just kept it up. I had one tattletail after me complaining to the owners of the company but that never went anywhere. I'd just say that I pee quickly so that time I saved I chose to breathe outside for a bit. Give the whole "energizing my brain" speech or something, but it never came up.

Next week I'll try to add in 3 days of 45 min's of weights. I'll have to drag the kids along to the gym but they can hang in the kids' area and whine if they want to. tough.

Other goal is to not buy any more damn candy. The house is officially empty of chocolate, all easter bunnies have been beheaded and eaten and all candy bars are gone. I'm not walking into any more gas stations since that's where the urges seem to hit me. I'll pay at the pump. I'll also try to start toting my damn water bottles around with me again.

Trying to climb back up on the wagon

2007-04-25T06:29:00.000-07:00

Yup, fell HARD off the wagon. Into the mud, ok into the chocolate. I really have a lazy gene. And a rationalization gene. And they're mighty powerful. My one meal a week to eat whatever I wanted became one day a week, then, well, most days and then EVERY DAY for 2 weeks. I still look uber skinny to myself. Clothes still fit, but they're becoming a bit snug in the tummy and the THIGHS. OH LORDY LORDY I worked too freaking hard to get those thighs to go DOWN to have them plump back up again. I still had work to go, no time to be going the wrong way.

Let's just say I still have emotional eating issues. And bored eating issues. and frustration eating issues. And that laziness? Yup, it's been 2 weeks since I've done any serious exercising. damn. Let's just say it started with biting the heads off 3 chocolate bunnies and then well you can't just leave the little headless bodies around as evidence, now, can you? *sigh*

I'm not wanting to become all crazy about the weight, so my scale's been put into the back of the closet. It came out today and was 8 pounds heavier. I know that's just a number, but still it got me pissed off enough to make me get back on track. I gave myself one last hurrah last night at the knit night and called it my "leftover from the migraine cravings" but today I'm back.

Today I woke up 15 minutes earlier to get my act together. Drank a nice bottle of water. It didn't go down as fast as it used to, you have to burn calories to get your body really craving it. So, water, check. Got kids going, fed, got myself one cup of whole grain cheerios with skim milk. Man it tasted bland. Guess I've got to retrain the taste buds along with retrain the attitude. dammit. WALKED the kids to school instead of driving them up the hill. Yes, I've been driving to & from school and yes it is less than one half block away. dammit. Enjoyed the walk, maybe it was all in my head, but I felt clearer coming home to start my day. That little bit of fresh air and muscles moving got me awake enough to start the day. Got myself a hot green tea and another bottle of water to take upstairs to the office.

Gonna take my ass to the gym today and do a very moderate workout so I don't break this body. My plan is to do some arms and upper body weight lifting and then some lunges and sit in the sauna and sweat out some of the toxins that are having a party inside me. Plan #2 is to walk 30 minutes and catch up on some podcasts before walking to the school to get the kids. Gotta food journal again. wish me luck.

Make it a habit

2007-04-16T09:58:00.000-07:00

The quote for the day on my little Franklin Planner page was PERFECT for me.

Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.

--Jim Ryun

I was talking to Trainer Man the other day. We've cut down to once a week workouts together and he gives me some workouts to do on my own during the week. I was amazed that I'd not turned intstantly back into a slug even though my whole level of crazy ass workout and dieting pace had slowed to pretty much normal living with a little exercise thrown in. He said, yeah, but look at your new habits. I have made some good habits. I still eat about every 3 hours for 5-6 small meals a day, I still eat a lot of protein, I still drink a lot of water, I just have more beers and cookies and whatever thrown in as well. Now I just do an additional jog or walk the day after I eat more calories than usual. I was doing this stuff without even thinking about it. Huh. Good habits. Who'd of thunk it?

I looked back and remembered all this stuff was totally overwhelming for me at first. I just started ONE THING at a time. Worked on it for about a week, then added one more good thing. Now I'm mostly healthy without freaking out. For a high drama girl, that's quite a realization.

not all great ideas are actually that great

2007-04-13T11:08:00.000-07:00

Nice. I keep coming up with these fantasticly amazing ideas for how to make the uber-protein health crap taste better. I don't know why the idea that maybe some of these companies that have huge budgets and are making all this money off people like me trying to get all fit MAYBE would have tried some of this aready. Go figure. My first brainstorm was why not just mix in a scoop of protein powder in with pudding. Maybe this would work if I actually sat down and calculated how much more milk to add to it or something, but no. I pull out an already made pudding pack and try it out. yup. NOT the best end product. It felt like I was chewing on a dead tongue, it was that thick and nasty. It tasted, well, bad. bad bad bad. Not like protein powder and not like pudding. bad.

Today's brainstorm was adding seltzer water to my protein drink, to make it taste like a pop. Think about it. No calories, no sodium, no carbs, just bubbly water. Added to a fruity protein drink should make it taste like a strawberry pop. I love strawberry pop. This drink resembles strawberry pop like mud resembles choclate mousse.

Basically, I should either plan better, have buttloads of ALREADY COOKED turkey breast and chicken breasts in the fridge and steaks sliced into strips or just drink the damn shakes and drinks as they are. Left alone, I can suck one down in about 15 minutes. Just get some protein into your body after you workout. Try to do it within 30 minutes or at least within an hour so your body can have the fuel it needs to rebuild your muscles and get rid of the fat.

I think if I wasn't so damn lazy I would just use my blender, throw in the protein powder with some skim milk and bananas and strawberries and a squirt of lime juice and quit my bitching. I just want it all done for me and to taste good and not cost anything. That's reasonable, right? Ah well. I'm gonna drink down the rest of my experiment (why didn't I try it with a LITTLE of the protein drink and not the whole damn bottle?) and eat a banana.

Have a good weekend, if any of your experiments work, let me know. I finally came to the realization that good things taste good for a reason. They're SUPPOSED to. I'll eat them on my one day a week to eat whatever I want plan. I'll enjoy the holy crap out of them and eat normal food that tastes like normal food and get over it.

Praise your baby steps

2007-04-09T11:03:00.000-07:00

I had two baby accomplishments this weekend. The first is that I walked right on past the Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs bags on the Easter aisle at Target and THEN I saw them on the bottom shelf of each freaking checkout line and did not pick up the bag. did. not. pick. up. the. bag. Reese's pb eggs and I have a very long history. The easter bunny did not bring any of these to the kids or to momma this year.

I have no problem eating chocolate, heck I probably would have eaten less overall chocolate had I bought the damn bag and only eaten a few of the eggs. The thing is, I know myself and these things. Most cravings I'm all about eating a small bit of them and satisfying the craving rather than trying to punish yourself and avoid them. Need oreos to the point that your soul is crying out for them? Buy a small package of 4 or 6 and eat them. enjoy them. lick every bit of the cream filling out of them and satisfy that craving. It's not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of life. You can't live every day eating perfectly, it just can't happen.

BUT if you know that you have a serious problem with something, like one bag is just a warm-up and you've GOT TO HAVE MORE MORE MORE of something, come to terms with that. Agree to find something else almost as yummy, in my case a package of 2 reese's peanut butter cups and eat them. Know your limits. Be proud of yourself for what you've accomplished and move on. no biggie.

The bunny also didn't bring any cadbury eggs to our house. THAT was a lesson learned long, long ago.

Don't worry about everyone else

2007-04-06T17:27:00.000-07:00

Ok, so another week or more has gone by without a post. I'm sorry, bad bad blogger. Do as I say, not as I do and all that.

A concept that made a huge difference to me was realizing that the entire world did not actually revolve around me. Seriously. I'd avoid going to the gym or even going outside for a walk because I was afraid of how I looked. Or I'd wear heavy sweatpants and a big jacket when the weather dictated shorts and a tank top. FREAKING OUT. I finally broke down and went into the gym, but I was always looking around me at everyone else.

When Trainer Man was asking why I didn't use the treadmills like I was supposed to be doing I finally told him because I got too hot in my sweatpants and had to run/walk in shorts. He said, "so?" I explained the whole concept of how parts of my thighs and butt (2nd butt actually, those whole other butt cheeks that resides below the panty line below the original butt cheeks) would move on their own. I'd move, they'd have this 2nd wave, kind of like an aftershock. Sometimes it got going so bad I swear it would throw off my balance and I'd about fall off. PLUS the treadmills are IN FRONT of all the elipticals and bikes and such. IN FRONT. The lightbulb dawned when he said that everyone there is concentrating on their bodies and their OWN issues. I shouldn't worry about what anyone at the gym thought. I said, "oh, so basically SCREW 'EM, SCREW 'EM ALL!" He had a shocked look on his face (he's a kind and gentle soul) and said "no, more good luck to all, concentrate on me." I said ok, but in my head I was still "SCREW 'EM!" and it worked.

The next few times I went I quit worrying quite so much and realized trainer man was probably right. Some of the people at the gym are really nice. If you need help or an idea of what to do, look for the ones that look like they know what they're doing and they can usually help you get the machine set for your height or whatever.

Now I run around the neighborhood in my tank top and shorts and don't worry so much. Of course, my 2nd butt is much smaller and I now can see the shape of muscles down under the fat layers on my thighs, so that's not that big of a deal. The big deal for me was when I started wearing my shorts a few months ago when I still had serious 2nd butt. No one wrecked cars, no one hollered insults. I also started looking around me. NO ONE is perfect, why was I trying to make myself feel like I had to be before I could be a part of everything? Because I'm a drama queen and because the world sometimes makes you feel like unless you're a barbie doll you don't belong. well screw them too. Get out and do what you want when you want how you want. Think positive if that works for you, I'm more motivated with spite. Whatever works.

Food food food

2007-03-28T06:36:00.000-07:00

WOOOO boy, sorry about that little lapse in posting. Computer issues, life issues and the like all got the better of me. I now have a new macbook and as soon as I figure it out I could be dangerous out here in blogland.

ANYWAY, my little tidbit for the day today is DIETS DON'T WORK. PERIOD. I know you probably already know this, but they really don't. I've tried almost all of them out there. I've eaten grapefruit before every meal, done the chicago diet, adkins, eat right 4 your blood type, etc. They each can help you lose weight for a little while, but as soon as you return to reality of life the weight pops right back on, and my system apparently got really pissed off because it always brought back some penalty weight to go with it. It wasn't pretty.

What does work? Re-learning how to eat. Living your life in a way that will let you still enjoy food and family functions and all that. Plain old veggies and meat and whole grain carbs and fruits and good fats combined with sensible exercising. Eating like they did back in the 50's before we became this high fructose corn syrup and super sugar addicted nation. The thing is, you can eat pretty "normally" to maintain, but if you want to lose weight first, you're going to have to be a bit more intense for a short time. For example, while I was really trying to lose weight, I set up a pretty intense system. My goals were to eat 5-6 times a day, eat between 900 and 1100 calories, get 120 grams of protein and about 100 grams of carbs. I didn't count fat grams or fiber. In order for me to hit those calorie goals and still get in the protein, there wasn't a lot of room for junk food. I pretty much ate eggs, chicken breasts, chicken breasts, chicken breasts, steak, cheese, whole grain bread, whole grain pasta, fruit, and SO MANY VEGGIES, if I was a fish liking person, I'd have eaten a lot of tuna and salmon but fish makes me barf. I also used a protein drink for one or two of the little mini-meals. I'll go get out my old food journal and give an example of a day back then and a day now.

Mostly now I still eat about 5 times a day, small meals, and it just works. I don't journal very often because I am basically lazy. I try to eat mostly sensible for 5 or 6 days and then eat whatever I want on the other day or two. During the big weight loss time, I'd aim for one free meal per week instead of an entire day. I'd plan to go out to the chinese restaurant with the family or mexican restaurant and eat all the chips and guac and dip and tortillas or rice and fried rice and crab rangoon I wanted and not worry about it. Eating crazy once in a while is good for the soul and it's good for your diet. Your body won't go into starvation mode and start hoarding extra fat from your food that way. It helps you not freak out every night if you know you get to treat yourself on a night coming up.

Journaling works. It really, really does. I mean you have to write down EVERYTHING you put into your mouth to really journal. If you pick up those 4 McDonald's french fries that fell onto the kitchen floor when you were dumping the kids' meals onto the table and EAT THEM (yes, I really did eat them off the floor) WRITE THEM THE FUXX DOWN! If you cram in a few extra chocolate chip cookie crumbs, WRITE THEM DOWN. Write down gum you chew. Write down every blessed thing you consume for at least 2 weeks, if not longer. It doesn't matter if you show it to anyone other than yourself. I didn't realize how many calories were adding up from little tidbits and crappy things that I didn't even particulary LIKE. Then I treated myself every couple of days with a chocolate bar or something REALLY yummy that in a partial serving usually doesn't work out to more than 200 calories ANYWAY. Looking at what you eat in black and white is amazing. You realize that you've done really well today, so why ruin it with a big binge at bedtime, or you see oh, man, I really sucked today. Oh well, tomorrow is a brand new blank page of paper. I can start all over. It's a good thing.

Oh, and record the number of water bottles you consume each day. Start with a goal of drinking enough ounces that equal half your body weight and go up from there. I'm still at almost a gallon of water each day. I also have a diet coke a day, but only after my body's had some water first. I still swear water is the miracle weight loss pill.

Here's a few sites I like for inspiration, info and the like:
Nutrition Data has great info on calories and protein and such on almost any kind of food imaginable.
Run Injury Free with Jeff Galloway has good info for beginners and women's running tips (also very good for WALKING which I much prefer to running).
Hungry Girl, Tips & Tricks for Hungry Chicks has great recipes, fun stuff and is just motivational to boot. They've also got good survival skills for the weekend.

My very favorite site is Body For Life. This one can be a bit intimidating at first, because the pictures of the people are SO damn dramatic and a lot of them are serious muscle building people. I always thought a girl would get all muscle bound and manly looking if she worked out, but it's not true. Those girls you see with the serious muscles are working their living asses off to look that way. I'm looking lean and trim with just a hint of muscle tone and LOVE it and I lift some serious weights now just because I like it. I'm nowhere near a muscle-bound manly woman, so no worries. If you go around on this site, they've got GREAT ideas, recipes and the like as well as some workout info you can print out. They've also got FREE excel spreadsheets you can either print out or download onto your computer to record you food journal and workouts and cardio. Their site is mostly to promote their supplements and products, but I like it because it also just promotes living healthy and exercising and eating good. I did use their myoplex protein shakes because the taste was better than most and they had more protein in them with less calories than a lot of the other companies, but the rest of the supplement stuff you really don't need to get started. Multivitamins AND WATER are the best supplements you can find.

If you click on their recipes and food tab, they even have a list for your first week of meals and a shopping list to get you started. That was the hard part for me at first, figuring out what I could possilby eat and how do I figure out what to do? It was easier for me to see it all written out for me and then I could make substitutions for things I didn't like. Look at their 10 nutrition tips as well, it's common sense stuff, but it makes a real difference in your getting into better shape plan.

Find yourself an online group that's also working hard and you can email and chat or whatever. If you don't have one, EMAIL ME and I'll woo hoo you along. My knitting blogger friends did it for me and it helped more than you can imagine.

I'm still here, don't give up on me

2007-03-21T19:56:00.000-07:00

I'm having MAJOR FREAKING issues with my poor little chug along computer. I can't get onto Blogger, so I'm borrowing a friend's computer for just a few minutes. LOTS of good stuff to post, you guys keep exercising and drinking more water than humanly possible and thinking positive and all that crap. Be back VERY SOON since I'm using some of the $$ I won in the big weight-loss bet to buy myself a new i-mac laptop tomorrow.

The other D word

2007-03-15T15:32:00.000-07:00

Not "diet" nope. This is a GOOD D word. Decisions. Make good decisions. That was another way I made it through this whole trial. If I thought about eating good all the time and all that exercising it was absolutely overwhelming to me. If I broke everything I did down into little bitty decisions it wasn't so scary.

Each time something presents itself, don't worry about the big picture. Make one good decision and go from there. Hungry? Take a drink of water first. Wait about 10 minutes. Ask yourself, am I really hungry or am I bored, stressed, or what? Then you make the good decision to eat something good for you now and maybe that cookie will come later. Do the good thing, then do a happy dance. This is important. The happy dance should be mandatory. It makes you physically aware of what a big good amazing thing you just did. Mine includes hip thrusts that look a lot like the old "time warp dance" from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Whatever works for you.

The first time I drank an entire protein shake I was doing it over gritted teeth. I'm a picky eater and the protein powder is an acquired taste. I said "YES! I DID IT, I DRANK A WHOLE PROTEIN SHAKE!" My boyfriend looked at me like I was crazy and said "so?" in a disgusted manner looking at me like I'd lost my freaking mind. I realized that some of our major accomplishments are not so impressive to outsiders. I did a happy dance anyway and felt like I'd just climbed a big mountain. I went and told my knitting blogger friends and my trainer, and they all said "YES! WAY TO GO!" and other positive things.

Moral of the story, be happy with your baby steps. All those steps add up to some pretty amazing things happening. If those around you think you're crazy, tell ME and I'll do a virtual happy dance for you!

You could realistically be happy dancing your ass off all day long. Just deal with the next 5 minutes of life and let the rest take care of itself.

One of my cardio workouts

2007-03-14T10:34:00.000-07:00

This blog really isn't going to be in a good organized order, sorry people. It'll be just whatever pops off the top of my head. I will TRY to keep mostly organized.

In addition to working out with weights or reistance, you need to have cardio workouts to get your heart pumping and burn off the fat. The muscles you build are most likely burried under the fat. I try to do at least one cardio workout 5-6 times a week. It can be as little as a quick 15 minute walk around the neighborhood or something more intense.

Today I went to the gym and hit the eliptical machine after doing one mile on the dreaded stairmaster. MAJOR TIP: Don't use those elipticals that have the arm things that swing back and forth that you hang onto. You actually burn MORE calories and get a better total body workout on the normal ones. Once you get balanced on them, try to pump your arms and not hold onto the stationary bar in front. You are supporting your weight, and YOUR BODY is making your arms move, not the machine's work of swinging them around. Plus you stand up better and have better posture on the normal ones. SECOND ELIPTICAL TIP: as you do your stepping thing, push through your HEELS of your feet. This really works the thighs front and back better than pushing through your toes. This really helped me start burning off the second butt (that half of the butt that was hanging below the undies line). Any time you do leg work, stairmaster, eliptical, lunges, squats, leg presses, push through your heels and you just get such better results. A little detail like that can make the world of difference.

GET YOURSELF SOME MUSIC! For me, I can't make it without it. For an intense cardio workout, you shouldn't be able to be reading a book, flipping through a magazine or knitting. You should be SWEATING and PANTING and changing things around every so often. I don't like to think more than I have to, so instead of paying attention to minutes at a certain pace and increasing and decreasing, I've found a few songs I play in the same order. I know I'll get a varied workout pace and I also know about how long it'll take me and how long I'll go. Here's what works for me. Feel free to go get theses songs and do them to, or load some from your own cd's. The ones I didn't have on cd's I got for $.99 at itunes but there are tons of music sites around, just google for a good one.

Walking around the gym, getting myself upstairs to the eliptical I listen to Catch 22's Keasbey Nights and 9mm and a Three Piece Suit. I don't know why, but fast-paced violent music makes me want to exercise. I'm weird that way.

PreCor Eliptical Machine
Incline 5 Resistance 1 (feel free to increase & decrease both of these throughout, today I just left it alone there)

Pump your feet in time to the music, keep up with the beats and you should get similar results.

Miss Otis Regrets by Bette Midler, 2:39 mins, 136-142 SPM (steps per minute), at end of this song I've completed .25 mile.

American Idiot by Green Day, 2:53 mins, 180-184 SPM, completed .5 mile (this one's HARD and FAST, but you can do it, really you can, keep up with the fast pace and BURN baby BURN that fat!)

Paradise by the Dashboard Light by Meat Loaf, 8:29 mins, SPM range through the following ranges 180's, 120's, 170's, 105, 170's during the talking part it's 125 and take a drink break WHILE STILL STEPPING, 160's, 170's and ends around 165. If you really want to kick the burn, add kind of a hip swingy twisty thing whenever you hear the "will you love me forever, do you need me...." girl's part. At the very end of this song, I've completed 1.24 miles in a pretty short amount of time (14 minutes) and I'll either repeat American Idiot and Paradise a few more times or range through other workout tunes I like.

SUCK DOWN SOME WATER before, during and especially after your workout, go home and get some protein in you within one hour of your workout to best help your body reshape itself.

I have really gotten to like the dry sauna at the gym. For my slow-down, I either relax in there sweating my stinky self or at least walk slowly around the gym and calm down the heart rate.

Slowdown music faves:
American Pie by Don McLean 8:28 mins
Good Riddance by Green Day
and my very VERY favorite power happy happy joy joy relaxation song EVER, Sun Again Will Shine by Slackstring. I often repeat this one a couple of times, because it makes me happy. I first heard it on Brenda Dane's podcast Cast-On and HAD to have it.

Get out there in the sunshine and at least walk around the block a few times, or go crazy and get on an eliptical. burn baby burn

Tip #3...WATER drink it. drink more of it.

2007-03-13T19:05:00.000-07:00

Water. I know, you've heard this one before, but it's another biggie. This one's magic. Your skin, your hair, your organs, everything about you will be better with this one. There's all kinds of studies about how your body has to crank up the metabolism to process the water and also how the metabolism keeps cranked up for longer periods even after the water has been obsorbed.

When the big bet started, I probably had about 8 ounces of water each week. yes, each week. I lived on diet coke and beer. and mike's hard limeades. Mostly diet coke. I can really freak out a health nut when I tell them that. It actually makes them shiver and get ill. That much fake sweetener and chemicals combined with a lack of pure water is HORRIBLE to your system.

SLOWLY work your way up on this one. Start with that first glass of water in the morning. remember? You're already doing that right? RIGHT? Then carry a water bottle around with you ALL DAMN DAY. Everywhere you go, you go with a water bottle in hand. Glasses just don't work. I don't understand why, but it's harder to get all that liquid in you drinking from a glass or even from a straw. Water bottles with the squeeze top are even better than regular water bottles with twist off tops. There's just something about squeezing in water rather than sipping it that adds up to a lot more ounces getting into your system.

If you're as bad as I was, go slowly. You can actually drown yourself if you start pumping tons of water into your system too fast. Start with about 8 ounces 4 times a day. Drink water with each meal and snack and when exercising. Aim for drinking half your weight in ounces. I'm now at a gallon a day and feel parched if I go for an hour or two without any water. My skin looks radiant, toxins are washing away, I feel energized and most of this came from increasing my water before I made any other changes.

Yes, you WILL pee. A lot. More than you've peed since you were 8 months pregnant and the kid was jumping on your bladder. pee pee pee pee PEE. But it gets better. Your body will adjust. The pee is a good thing. A lot of the bad crap that's hanging around in your cells will be flushed out. Plus, peeing burns calories. How 'bout that? Burning calories while you pee. How easy is losing weight my way? huh? Now that my body's used to it I pee just a little more than a normal person, WAY less than when I was getting used to the increased fluids.

You can still drink your diet cokes, just in MODERATION. I worked my way down to about one a day. Green tea is also a good thing, healthy and gets your metabolism cranking. Drink it in addition to all that water.

I keep about 3 water bottles circulating, try to have at least 1 or 2 cold in the fridge, so I can just switch it out and go.

Tip #2...Eat some damn breakfast

2007-03-13T18:33:00.000-07:00

I won't profess to know all the medical reasons why, but basically this is a biggie. EAT SOME DAMN BREAKFAST! IN THE MORNING! (the good ol' denny's french toast grand slam at 3am after the bars close doesn't count)

Just making this one change will be an amazing thing. Within ten minutes of waking up, get yourself a glass of cold water. DRINK IT. Within an hour of getting out of bed, eat something. Preferably not coated in sugar and dripping with syrup. Try a SMALL combination of a little protein and a little whole grain carbs.

*one slice of whole grain bread toasted with a tablespoon of peanut butter and either apple butter or low sugar apricot spread

*egg white omelet with some veggies

*2 eggs and SMALL glass of pink grapefruit juice

*1 cup whole grain cheerios and skim milk or special K cereal with skim milk

*breakfast burrito with whole wheat tortilla, egg whites, sprinkling of cheese, tablespoon of organic salsa (I am in love with a pineapple salsa that only has about 30 calories/tbspn)

*protein shake

These are some of my faves. Because I am at heart a very lazy person, I mostly did the cheerios thing or a protein shake because I just had to pour it into a blender with some water and some skim milk and I was done.

There's something magical about getting the whole metabolism thing going early in the day that helps you burn calories. If you have some sliced lemon wedges (go organic if you can) throw a couple in with the first glass of water in the am. It's supposed to "get things moving" in the digestive tract as well as get the metabolism cranking. I don't know about you, but in my old days of living a very processed very white sugar life, my guts weren't "moving" all that regularly, so this lemon idea was a plus for me.

Tip #1...Decide

2007-03-13T18:20:00.000-07:00

Just decide. How hard is that? For me it was a doozy. I not only didn't think I could do it (not much willpower here) and also wasn't sure that it would work even if I found the perfect diet and exercise plan anyway. I'm not sure that I even thought I was worth it deep down inside me.

Once I realized that what's the big damn deal anyway?!? I was able to make a few decisions.

#1 It was worth trying to get in shape for myself, my children and my life.

#2 No one ever got anywhere without taking the first step.

#3 I could at least make a few changes, even if I didn't complete the whole shebang.

#4 What's the worst thing that could happen? I could not lose weight. That would put me no worse off than I was at the start.

#5 I was worth trying this. All of us are worth trying a few special things to make ourselves feel and look better. All of us.

The background info

2007-03-13T18:00:00.000-07:00

I'll be posting things I learned through my recent success in getting healthier. Try a few, improve your life. Try a bunch, you never know, you could be doing a "before" and "after" shot soon too!

I grew up as a skinny thing, with metabolism that would floor you. I could actually lose weight while eating an entire bag of oreos, drink and dance in the bars all night and live without a care in my twenties. I lived on whatever I wanted to eat, never giving a thought to exercise or eating healthy or any of that noise. Two children, a divorce, working a job where I sit on my ass, taking up a new hobby/crazy life obsession of knitting where I spend more time sitting on my ass, and the approaching 40 year old birthday with a body fat index that placed me in the obese level freaked me out. I still had my petite upper body, but that was paired with a lower half that was, well, basically a big ol' pear that was making it difficult to find clothing, walk across a parking lot without getting winded and basically just making me feel old and tired all the time.

I've tried about every diet plan, pill and gimmic out there and have yo-yo-ed for the last 15 years until I finally made the decision to give this whole idea of getting in shape truly my best shot and if it worked, I'd have a new life. If it didn't I would accept that and just live with my life as it were and prepare for the health risks that have affected many of the women in my family as they got older and heavier. I had to give it everything I possessed this one final time, so I could finally put this whole dieting bullshit to rest once and for all.

I talked my boyfriend into "the bet", also known as "the bet from hell." The bet gave me a reasonable 5 months to lose 30 pounds. If I made the goal weight, I would win $2500, just for me. Not for kids' needs, not for bills, not for anything reasonable, just for me. If I lost, I had to mow the yard all summer long with a crappy old recued-from-the-neighbor's-trash push mower that barely chugged along, bag the grass and do all the landscaping duties in the hot, humid sweaty kansas city sunshine while said boyfriend and most likely the other men from the neighborhood sat on their butts in lawn chairs drinking beer and watching me. Yes, it took massive amounts of money and the threat of phyical labor in high humidity to get me motivated. None of that get in shape to live a healthier life for your family bullshit was working here.

I ended up blowing it off for about the first 2 months and GAINING another 5 pounds, so the bet became a 35 pound loss necessary. I did it. I worked my living ass off and did it. I then put on about 5 pounds and now am comfortably enjoying my new lifestyle. It took me a while to stumble on HOW to actually lose weight so that it STAYS OFF your body and that I was actually able to CHANGE MY SHAPE! I was able to achieve this 35 pound feat in 3 months, but I really REALLY do not recommend doing it at my pace. I possess a truly, um, compulsive crazy ass stubborn streak that let me do this, but I about made everyone around me miserable towards the end.

I've seen my cousins, sister-in-laws and friends start incorporating just a few of the things that have worked for me in sensible ways and they are changing their bodies and their minds into healthier happier people! WOO HOO!

I am normally the laziest person on the face of the earth. If I can do this, ANYONE can make themselves feel better and look better. I have learned so much along this path. I've had so many people ask for tips that I thought this would be a good place to post things. Please talk to your doctor about any weight loss programs, don't take what I say as gospel truth. Everyone's bodies are different and different things work for different people. This is just what worked for me.