Motivation Picture

A great motivator for me is to remember what I looked like once upon a time and to see how far I've come.  This picture was one of the few times my camera was turned on me and I remember being horrified that this is what other people saw when they looked at me.  I was 240 pounds and had recently had my third child.  THAT DAY I started walking at lunch time, every day.  Each day I got a little further in the time I had but I always walked for an hour.  At first I could hardly do much distance at all and it was flat ground.  By the end I was hiking to the top of the small butte near my office and back down in that same amount of time but it happened gradually (the first time I walked to that butte I got as far as reaching the bottom before I had to turn around at 30 minutes, much less getting to the top).

The first time around I lost 80 pounds in about 7 months.  But I did some of it wrong :(  I walked an hour 6 days a week (smart) but ate too little in order to lose it faster (dumb).  I really screwed with my body and it bit me in the ass in several ways, the worst being what it did to my cycles.  This time I'm trying to be a little nicer to my body so I don't hit those ugly road blocks again.


Eventually, I ended up gaining about 50 pounds back over the next several years and last Christmas it hit 210 pounds.  The main reason for that is that I just stopped putting in the exercise and after I got married I started eating too much.  I ate lunch with my husband (I never ate lunch before because I had larger dinners) because he was hungry and wanted company but I didn't make my dinners any smaller.  It happened in such small amounts (5-7 pounds a year) that it took a while to hit me what was happening but when I ran across this picture I knew I never wanted to be there again.

So here I am, back under 180 and still falling.  I'm aiming for about 155-160 (The counters are based on 160) and I plan to be there sometime in late July/early August.  But this time I have to keep the activity going.  No, it probably won't be quite as intense as it is now but it won't stop either.  I'm always going to have to be more active than I was but that doesn't scare me like it did 6 months ago.  Now I can actually look forward to it a little bit.  Hopefully, if you are on the same kind of path, you will be hit that place where you can look forward to it as well :)

Thoughts and achievements

Current Weight: 179.0
Lost so far: 31.0
Pounds to go: 19.0

This morning I went on a hike.  I've done this hike before and it usually took me about 1.75-2 hours.  I had to stop multiple times (3 or 4 short breaks) to do it, but I'd finish it.  The last time I went was about a month ago since I can only do it every other week but two weeks ago I had family in town and didn't have the time .  Today I did it in 1 hour with NO breaks!  Yay!  Last week I bumped Zumba up from once a week to twice a week and it is really paying off in terms of leg muscles and cardio endurance.

As we were walking back down from the top I was thinking about something I read last week.  A couple of articles were about picking an exercise that you like and doing that rather than just commiting to "exercise just because" even though the type you are doing is BORING.  The thought is that it's easier to do something that you actually like.  But, here's the thing:  If you told me 6 months ago that I would hike for an hour, ride my bike 20 minutes to work, do Zumba at lunch time, ride my bike home, and STILL have energy and the desire to take the dogs for a walk I would have laughed in your face, for multiple reasons.  Here's what my whine list would have looked like 6 months ago and where I am at today:

1.  I. LIKE. MY. SLEEP... PERIOD.  Get up at 6:30 to go hiking before work?  HA!  But I do it now and I like it. 

2.  Ride my bike to work?  That bike seat hurts (and yes it's a gel seat but it still hurts) but it has gotten better and the ride has gotten easier. 

3.  Zumba?  Doesn't that involve dancing?  My no-dancing-talent self didn't even own a sports bra and nobody wants to see my fat ass jiggling around!  Guess what?  Most people there aren't that great and the instructors are very nice girls and they encourage, they don't laugh.  Buying a sports bra to wear a couple hours a week didn't kill me and Zumba won't either.  It's actually kinda fun and the person laughing is me because I'm having fun.  I even signed up to do it twice a week instead of just once starting last week.

So, yes, you should pick an exercise that you like to do so that you will be more likely to keep doing it BUT you don't always know ahead of time that you will like it and just because it sucks now you might like it later.  So start small and try to keep an open mind.  If you hate all forms of exercise then start with walking because it's the easiest.  As you get better, add some uphill or stairs.  But as it gets easier, considering trying out some new things.  You don't have to commit to doing them a lot, just commit to trying it 2 or 3 times.  After that third time you might like it a whole lot more (Zumba became fun the third time for me after I started figuring out what I was doing).  Most important, HAVE FUN!

30 pounds

Current Weight: 179.5
Lost so far: 30.5
Pounds to go: 19.5

The 30 pound mark has been passed!  Wahoo!

The kids have tried some new foods for them this week. Red bell peppers, cauliflower and watermelon.  Of course they hated them all because they ALWAYS hate new foods but some seem to have more hope than others as the red peppers didn't even slightly go over well.  I think next time I will try those as a Roasted Red Pepper soup (had some last week and it was SO good!).

I'm going to try carrots on them again this weekend (they have not warmed up to them much) and see what they think of glazed carrots.  They are sweet and not real healthy but once I get them hooked it's easier to start cutting the sweet back a little at a time.  We did something similar with butter and peas/green beans and now they prefer them without butter.

I also swapped the kids usual 'fake' wheat bread, meaning it was made with enriched flour, for the real stuff.  I always eat the good wheat bread and I never give my kids white because my mother once pointed out that if I have always given them wheat then I won't have to fight them to make the switch later.  So when I make them toast or anything where the bread is covered I've been giving them the good stuff so they can get used to it without freaking out about the 'extra bits' in it.  Mean old mamma :)

Quickly

Current Weight: 181.5
Lost so far: 28.5
Pounds to go: 21.5

Not a lot of time today but I wanted to get my numbers up.  I did pretty good this week considering I had a cheat dinner and also had sweet potato fries yesterday (yum).

All Better

Current Weight: 182.5
Lost so far: 27.5
Pounds to go: 22.5

OK, pity party over.  I got my butt on my bike last night and when I got home I cranked up the music and had a little dance party while I cleaned the house.  And for the rest of this week I am riding my bike to work and home again to get in a little more exercise.  It's hard to have a pity party while listening to music.

Take Heart

Current Weight: 183.5
Lost so far: 26.5
Pounds to go: 23.5

So, I'm fighting against the ease of psyching yourself into failure.  Blech.

I went a few days with no changes despite being really good on diet and excersise.  I hoped that it was just water holding on or something and then on Saturday morning 2 pounds just fell off.  It stayed off Sunday and then suddenly came back on Monday.  It could have been water lost/gained, idk but now there has been no total change in almost a week and it's frustrating.  Any thoughts?

Current Weight: 184.4
Lost so far: 25.6
Pounds to go: 24.4

I'm afraid my blog isn't terribly exciting but since only spammers seem to visit it, that's ok :)

Last night I made chicken quesadillas for the kids (plus veggies, of course) and for myself I used some of the baked chicken, melted a little cheese over it, and served it with the salsa. Makes for a pretty light dinner but oh so yummy and, even better, I didn't have to make something seperate just for me when I made the family dinner. Woot!

Half Way There!

Current Weight: 185.0
Lost so far: 25.0
Pounds to go: 25.0




HALF WAY!! I have hit the 25 pound mark and I am now half way along to my goal. It's so motivating to have gotten this far. This morning I did another zumba class and I will probably try to fit a walk in later tonight. Go go go! :)

Overdone?

Current Weight: 186.0
Lost so far: 24.0
Pounds to go: 26.0

Wow, I'm tired :)  Two of us in the work group have joined a Tuesday Zumba class (fun but hard) and then yesterday I took the kids and dogs on a 1/2 mile walk, took a short walk with a coworker, and still hit the elliptical last night. And then, this morning, because I hadn't hurt myself enough I guess, I did a 3 mile-ish hike up the Galena ridge at 6:30 in the morning.  Yup, that was a little much.  Climbing up the stairs on my house was even hard after all of that, haha.

But what a view!!