What hurts the most...

Is looking at my ex's engagement pictures and knowing I wasn't good enough, and it sucks.

 

I'm trying to be better though.

 

Maybe someday I will be.

Suck it up and move on.

I stepped on the scale this morning and I'm up 4 pounds. So discouraged. I've been under my calories all week and have worked my literal ass off. What I don't understand is the why.Well, I understand the why -- Calories out were apparently less then calories in. I guess what I don't' understand is the how. I tracked and watched what I ate... I exercised and I burned calories. So boo-hoo poor me. :(

But instead of focusing on the why and the how of this disappointment, I can choose to focus on what I HAVE accomplished this week.

I've been to the gym and according to my Nike+, I've done over 38K steps.  That's A LOT.

I pushed myself during yoga and got deeper into some poses that I ever have before and SURPRISE SURPRISE.... it made a huge difference in how I feel the day after,  in a GREAT way. Sore but sore with a reminder that I CAN push myself further than I thought and be okay after.

I have driven past Dunkin Donuts each time I've said I wanted to go and didn't stop once. I'm so HUGELY proud of this peeps, ya'll have no idea. I have been craving a Boston Creme for weeks now and I'm continuing to talk myself out of it.

So yeah, the scale went up..but guess what--- So did my self confidence, and that's worth much more.

A little bit of this and that ---

I've been pretty busy for the past week or so and haven't really had a chance to sit down and just get it all out. So here's a little bit of what I've been up to:

Signed up for : Canterbury Village Cross Country 5K in May. I'm excited and completely frackin' nervous about it. I did a half-marathon two years ago (walking/jogging) that took me about 3 hours when I was much less physically active but that doesn't stop the self-doubt and nerves from creeping in.

I've been working on school work and finishing up this term at SNHU in my journey to getting my bachelors degree in Psychology, and it's brought me to question my career path. I enjoy the science of psychology but I know I don't want to sit for hours and listen to people complain about their lives.. I'd much rather sit and work with children in a school but I don't know how to focus my schooling in on that. Time to see the adviser at the campus, I suppose.

I attended a hearing for Marriage Equality in Concord, and the energy and the sheer amazing-ness (is that a word?) of the support for equality for EVERYONE that I saw there just blows my mind. I can't wait for the day when everyone is not only allowed but ENCOURAGED to love and marry whom ever they want.

I'm still going to the gym...I took a few days off this last week and really regret it. I ended up feeling blah most of the week. I made up for it yesterday though with 2 gym trips in one day..and I'm hoping to get back in there today after spending time with my niece and finishing up school work.



-- Work out for yesterday--


Elliptical 25 Minutes 280 Calories
treadmill 30 Minutes 300 Calories
yoga 90 Minutes 330 Calories

Rockstar!

I went into the gym feeling pretty crappy. I've come down with some sort of bug and going into the gym and exercising didn't seem at all like anything I wanted to actually do but after talking with Amy at Fat Girls Can Run via Twitter and getting some awesome encouragement, I decided to try for my rockstar status for the day. 5K Your Way Rookie Running Program - Week: 1 Day: 1 -- 20 minutes. 1.5 miles. ROCKSTAR status achieved!!

Yay me.


Workout:

Elliptical Trainer 10 minutes 138 Calories
Treadmill - 15 min/mile 20 Minutes 138 Calories

Super excited--

I've always been interested in running. It seems like a good workout.. I enjoyed doing it when I was in elementary school and I have multiple people in my life RAVING about it-- so imagine my surprise when my favorite fitness website came up with a new "Running Section" and their own 5k training plan.

I've always been afraid to try running and just like FattyBoobaLatty over at Fatty Made a Funny often times find myself THISCLOSE to actually running. But I stop myself just in time. I'm afraid of looking like such an idiot and making the people around me laugh so hard that they fall off their treadmills and die...I'm just looking out for the innocent in this y'all, I promise.  My reluctance to run has nothing at ALL to do with the fact that I'm afraid I won't be good at it.  PROMISE.

 

I guess my point in this is that I think I am going to challenge myself (and any one else that wants to join me) into actually trying to go thru this program. After all..what do we have to lose besides a few pounds?

---WORKOUT---

Stationary Bicycling: moderate (bike, biking)	10 minutes	107 calories
Elliptical Trainer	30 minutes	413 calories
Treadmill - 10% incline 24 min/mile	10 minutes	92 calories

DAILY TOTALS :

50 minutes

612 calories

I love a good workout...

[gallery]

Pics from yesterdays workout.

Sweat + breathlessness = Beautiful :)

To be...or not to be (a tracker, that is.)

I participated in #fitblog's chat last night and the topic of conversation was "Tracking". Do you track calories...why or why not, what do you track, and when? I've tracked in the past and let it slide to the wayside after I got into a good groove, but the chat last night really opened my eyes to the fact that I'm really not ready to be on my own in the "calorie war".

So I tracked all day today, and ended up with 845 calories out of a recommended 1790. So, I scrambled at the end of the day to throw something together that would get me close to that range,  and now feel stuffed and uncomfortable. Should I have just left well-enough alone and sucked up the minimal calorie count and just tried again tomorrow or was I right in trying to get as close as I could to it?

I'm basing my 1790 on what SparkPeople says is the high end of my recommended range (Low end being 1440) .. I ended up with 1532 so pretty much in the middle... However, based on the BMR formula that I have always followed.. I should be eating about 2500 calories to maintain my current weight and then reducing that by 500 a day just to lose a pound a week ...so that still leaves me at over 2000 calories and my 1532 from earlier being still not enough.

What do you do in that situation?




Workout:

Elliptical for 30 minutes ( 413 cals)

Treadmill 10% incline 12minutes (104 cals)

Total of 517 calories.

"I couldn't do that...

So today while out and about, I got into a conversation about my gym habits -- and when I said that some days I go more than once for more than an hour at a time..I got a really weird look. "Oh I couldn't do that, I just don't have the time " she said and then looked at me really oddly when I said "Yes you CAN..you CHOOSE not to."

I made excuses for years about not having the time, or the money or the support that I THOUGHT I needed to get off my fat ass and get to the gym. Guess what, I was WRONG. I had the time, the money and all the support I needed...I just chose not to do anything with it, and so I gained and gained and became more and more miserable and un-healthy.  It took a divorce and being faced with the very real possibility that I may not make it to see my kids have babies if I kept on my (then) current path to wake me up and make me be honest with myself.

I'm not saying it was easy. It wasn't. It was (and still is) the hardest thing I've ever done. It's a conscious choice every day to lace up my gym shoes, fill up my water bottle and plug in my ear phones. There are days when I don't want to get up early to go, there are days when I don't feel like giving my all..and yes, I'll be honest --there have been days when I didn't do a damn thing..and you know what-- I missed the pain, the sweat and the all over body tiredness that comes with working out.

So I guess the point is..

You can do it, you just have to choose to.

My work out today-- calorie crunching done at SPARKPEOPLE.COM
Yoga (podcast from Yoga Journal ) -- not a fast one, more of a slow wind down so I'll estimate at 100 calories for 20 minutes.

Elliptical  for 25 minutes -- 344 calories

Treadmill - 15% incline 30 min/mile  for 15 minutes --125 calories

For a total of : 569 for the day.

Plankathon 2011

Josie over at Yum Yucky is hosting a challenge .   A yoga based challenge, which involves doing the plank pose for as long as you can while filming it.So, being the yogi that I am...I jumped in.  Omg, was it harder than I thought.

Plank is a very basic pose but damn...it's hard to hold. I applaud all those that accepted Josie's challenge and I'm proud to join their ranks!

Here's my attempt!



--

Workout for the day:

25 minutes on the elliptical at level 10 --244 calories

90 minutes of Yoga -- 449 calories

Total --  693

Shopping.. (In the JewliaGoulia style.)

I went shopping today and decided to take a page out of Jewlia Goulia's book/blog and take pics :)

This is what I went in looking like:



-- oversized "boyfriend style" cardigan in a plain blue- BORING!

So I decided to go out of my comfort zone and try on something I wouldn't normally wear.. A dress --



--Love the style, and the color.. however-- It was one size too small and they didn't have another. (in hind site, I should have bought it anyway and used it as a goal..was only $20 ...)

But this was my most favorite-est find of the day...

A GORGEOUS purple leather jacket-- I felt like such a hot bad-ass :)


So for only $10!! it got to come home with me :)

I love TJ Maxx.

Yoga

I've been doing yoga off and on for years now and just recently returned to my practice on a daily basis and today it really hit a nerve with me..all day long, I was feeling antsy and like something was missing... I returned the movies I rented, made sure I had lunch and work clothes picked out for tomorrow...still felt "off"...so I decided to go through a quick podcast from Yoga Journal and see if that helped any.

O'my, the difference was amazing. I feel grounded and almost as if I can "breathe" regularly again. Amazing, how that works. As I slid into triangle pose (
I looked at myself and was amazed that I could make my body do such an amazing posture. It's not the most difficult, it's not the most advanced, it's a basic posture but I can do it, and I do it well.
I'm proud of me. :)

Everything you need is already inside. Just do it.

Just a reposting today. I need to re-read this myself, and re-commit. I'm ready, are you?

I started thinking about this a while ago, and I guess the epiphany moment for me was that "weight-loss" itself can not, IS not, my "WHY."

My "why" has to be more tied into what I want out of life, my long term dreams, my goals, my aspirations in life. How can I possibly get excited, how can I possibly dedicate myself to something that I have not linked to the more important things I want out of life. Yeah, I want to fit into smaller jeans, but c'mon, when I lay back on my deathbed and think of the important things in life, am I really going to reflect back to the day I finally fit into a pair of skinny jeans? Maybe, but probably not.

I realized that my "WHY" are my larger life goals, the things I want, my dreams, and that weight loss is merely one tiny step, one tiny part of that "why." A healthy lifestyle is merely a tool that will allow me to live longer and pursue the kind of active lifestyle I want. And I guess what I am saying is that somewhere along this journey I lost that perspective, and a little bit of myself, as well. I did ultimately come to view myself as a number on the scale and that was a measurement of success/failure that I clung too. And it was for that number that I worked the various programs, with the goal being to get skinny. And of course, I had other reasons "to improve my heath" and to feel better, but I completely lost what that meant or why it was important. Simply losing became the goal and, honestly, a shallow, unsustainable, and hollow one. No wonder I burnt out, no wonder I can't find dedication. If someone at the end of my life asked, "and what did you do with your life?" and my answer was "I lost a lot of weight," that would be really, really sad. And of course, not true, because I was a good mother, a good friend, a caring person, but in terms of the goals that I set for myself and carried out, if losing was my only goal, I would not be satisfied, because losing weight in and of itself is simply not enough of a "why."

Getting skinny is not going to take me to my goals and dreams, but it is a step towards them, not something I am simply doing for getting skinnys sake. At the same time, that being said, there are a lot of other steps/transformations that I need to be doing at the same time I am working my towards my weight loss goals. My weight loss is not my lifelong dream, it is a step towards the kind of life I want, but that life is not going to be magically waiting there for me once I hit goal. Larger dissatisfaction's are not just going to melt away cause I am skinny. Shaky relationships are not going to miraculously improve just cause I got skinny. My self esteem is not going to magically improve because I am skinny (it may improve some, but so far, it hasn't). It just isn't.

So, I have decided to go about this weight loss thing from a slightly different angle, not as a goal in and of itself, but as a step towards the larger things I want out of life.

My "WHY" is ultimately to be able to live the kind of life that I want to lead. I want to lead an active, fit lifestyle so that I don't ever feel my age. I want to be spared the kind of health problems my mom had. I want to be happy and proud of myself.

Anyway, I am not sure that this makes sense to anyone outside my head. But I wanted to write it down for myself and share it...

New years Resolutions (belatedly)

fear less, hope more;
eat less, chew more;
whine less, breathe more;
talk less, say more;
hate less, love more

Also, blog more. I've been neglecting this lately and I am really starting to feel the strain and stress from not having time to write down what I thinking and feeling.