Day 2 of 84...whoa what a day!!

So let me start off with how my day went b/c today was insane but I have some good news about the day!

I woke up at 7 am, which wouldn't be bad until you hear that I didn't go to bed until 2:30 am that morning so I could get as much writing done as possible last night.

I made brownie cookie cupcakes for my son's birthday.  He turned ten today!!  Then I had to rush and get the girls and myself dressed and ready to go to his 5th grade orientation.  I went there, got paperwork to register him and came back home.  We had construction start on our house today so I had to keep the girls entertained in my room.  I attempted doing some laundry with them but they were not very receptive to this idea at all. 

Luckily we had lunch plans with Andrew for his birthday.  I went and picked him up from his dad's and then picked up one of his good friends.  He wanted to go to Hooters.  I had the blackened fish tacos without the sauce.  They were actually pretty good and were definitely healthy...just cabbage, pico, and blackened fish on them.  :)

I had an Eggo (yep just one) waffle for breakfast.  Then for supper I had a mushroom taco with fresh Mexican cheese, cabbage, & avocado.  I drank water and only drank 1/2 of my Pepsi when we went out of lunch.  I also have ate some Wintergreen Lifesavers but that is all.

Let's see I did my challenge today for the Jamie Eason's program.  You can read more about her program here.  This program is free and posted online so you can do it on your own.  The best part is that I know that I am in bad shape and I can do it, even though it can be really hard and painful, I can still do it!  I ran my mile.  I did a weigh in because I thought that it might be encouraging to others if you see where I lose/gain on a daily basis.  I was shocked when I stepped on the scale and saw a weight of 247 lbs tonight!!  Yay!!  That will make it a total of 10 lbs lost to date.  :)  I am proud of myself and I feel great too knowing that I am going to be able to get into better shape and perhaps I will be lucky enough to reach my goal weight in 84 days.   I am doing my 150 crunches before I head to bed tonight while I watch some TV.

I can't wait to hear from my readers so if you are out there, struggling and on your own weight loss journey or doing your own workout to lose weight I would love to hear from you.

I have to admit though that I was a bit discouraged at the gym.  Let's face it when I go to the gym I am fat so I sweat and I sweat a lot.  I refuse to wear nice clothes to the gym to ruin them.  I typically wear a pair of leggings and a tank top or something.  Is it pretty when all 247 lbs of me is out there for others to see?  No, does it work to help me want to do better?  Yes.  Plus it is cheap workout clothing.  I have four children and so I can not spend all of my money on clothes that I have purchased to work out in.  I would rather have nice clothes for other things in life and then have crappy cheap clothes for the gym.  I am not going to the gym to impress anyone but instead am going to better myself.

Anyways I go to the gym at 9 pm.  I do this for a couple of reasons.  One of which is that there are not a lot of younger people there.  I workout at a child free gym because this is my time to get away from my own children and frankly I do not want to be around others.  Anyways though tonight I went and there was a couple there with their two children.  One was definitely younger and one was high school aged.  Neither of these girls were thin or in good shape themselves which is sad for how young they were but both of them proceeded to make fun of my clothes that I was wearing to the gym.  I know that they were making fun of them because I am fat and you can see my bulges and bumps but I think that it is sad that two girls who are probably going to have weight problems one day judging from what they look like now would subject someone to that pain and humiliation.  I held my head high and did my workout pretending that I could not hear their rude and snide remarks but those remarks hurt.  I was tempted to turn around and say "Laugh now.  I know that I did when I was your age.  In fact when I was a cheerleader my sophomore year of college I wore a size 24" waist on my cheerleading uniform.  I made fun of fat people and now karma is kicking my ass."  That's right karma is getting me back now and it is doing one hell of a job.  I have learned my lesson and would never say anything about someone else's weight again. 

The thing about this family though was that the parents were both there with them.  The mom was laughing with them and the dad was trying to make them all be quiet.  It was pretty awful that I had to deal with this and enough that I will message the owner of the gym and tell him that the young children in the gym at night were quite disruptive to my workout.  I was not happy and am not trying to be a petty bitch but why would you let your children do that to someone?  If I heard one of my kids making fun of someone I would make them apologize to that person if they were there or I would have a long talk with them about why that is not okay.  I certainly would not sit and laugh with them at someone else's expense.  So what I must ask you is what would you in this situation.  My note to the gym owner will be very nice, asking questions about the child policy as I have four children of my own.  :)  

Day 1 of 84--Thoughts, Food, and Exercise

Each day is an opportunity to start thinking positive and moving on to the positive things in life.  I have tried every diet on the planet, read hundreds of diet books, magazine articles, joined gyms, etc.  The bottom line is that I am still fat.  As much as I wanted a diet pill to work and to make me feel better I did not have that luck.  Instead I sit at the same horrifying weight that I did a few weeks after giving birth to my fourth child.  I am thankful for my gorgeous little one but some days I am still depressed that I have let myself get so fat and go so far from when I want to be.

Last week I started a new thing with my diet.  I eat when I am hungry and I eat what I am hungry for.  When you are allowing yourself to have anything that you want, I have found out that I don't want as many bad for me things.  I eat within reason and I am working out hard.  I have several different things that I do to work out.  This is hard for me.  I'd honestly rather just give up eating than have to work out hard and get my ass up and go to the gym.  Let's face it, no one really enjoys working out.  They enjoy the benefits that you get from working out but not working out itself.

I have lots of fitness goals but the main one is just to fit into my favorite pair of jeans and right now I am far from being able to do so.  I know that I am fat.  Do I like being fat?  No.  The problem is that at the weight that I am now things are difficult to do.  It is hard to be able to put myself out there, to run or to attempt to work out.  There are fat rolls in the way and that makes it feel impossible from time to time.

However I am now getting to the point where I can feel myself being motivated.  One week of working out and listening to my body about foods and I lost 7 lbs.  I started my journey at 257 lbs.  I know that the number is disgusting.   I hate myself for ever having crossed the 200 lb threshold but the thing is that I have four amazing children and one amazing husband that deserve so much more from me.  For them I have started this journey.  I am now at 250 lbs.  Am I proud of that?  No but do I feel that I can do better and reach and meet my goals in life, yes.  My goal is to weigh between 145-160.  I won't know my goal until I get there and I know based on past losses after having a child that my weight might be different than what it was before while I can still fit into the same clothes. 

I guess you might want to know what I am eating.  Today I had two eggo buttermilk waffles for breakfast.  That is what sounded good to me so that is what I ate.  I then had some yogurt and granola for lunch, again it was what sounded good and what I wanted to eat.  For supper I had a piece of baked blackened tilapia, some parmesan roasted potatoes, sautéed green beans, and a slaw that was made from fennel and cabbage with a homemade balsamic, olive oil and herb dressing and a bit of goat cheese.  It was all what sounded good to me.  

For workouts here is what I did today.  :)  I did day 1 of a free training plan that I found online and I also did my personal crunches challenge of 100 crunches and ran 1 mile.  :)  It feels good to work out and to have my body feel good after working out.  Running is very hard for me.  It is something that I have never ever been able to do but each day that I run I feel a bit stronger, go a bit faster, and end up feeling a bit better when it is all over.  This is the workout that I do and this is what I am working hard to accomplish. 

My personal goal is to be accountable and to keep records of working out, my food intake and everything else for 12 weeks.  It is not that much time.  It is something that I can do.  I am devoting these 84 days of my life to getting into the best physical shape possible and starting a new lifestyle that is going to stick with me for years to come.  The reason that my posts will have the numbered style of writing is because I want to know how far I have come in my 84 day journey and how far I have left to go.  I want a reminder that if I mess up I am wasting all of those days that have come before more and I want something that is going to personally help motivate me to do better. I have an odd goal of wearing a cute and maybe just a little bit sexy Halloween costume this year, something that will make the hubby just a little bit more attracted to me than he was before and something that will make me feel great about myself.

Here is my journey, my story and I hope one that will inspire you and help you to make the journey your own.  Lots of love and I really look forward to hearing from you all over the next 84 days to hear about your own journeys and to hear about how things are going for you.  I have a lot of weight to lose and I do not think that I will have it all off in the next 12 weeks but I do think that I should be able to be much closer to my goal and hopefully wearing some of my old clothes that I have not been able to wear in quite some time.

On a side note, here is a link to the 12 week program that I found free online.  I am not following the diet guidelines as I want to continue going with my eating when I am hungry thing as it seems to be working out so well for me now.  However this is the strength training routine that I will be doing.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/jamie-easons-livefit-introduction.html

This week the focus is on 3 sets of 12 repetitions of each exercise.  Today's exercises were wide pushups (can be on knees if needed and it was needed for me to do them on my knees), dumbbell bench press, flat bench cable flyes, narrow push ups, standing dumbbell tricep extension, and tricep pushdowns.  It was not that hard to accomplish, I am sure that this was in part b/c of the kettlebell classes that I have been taking but I feel great and these exercises felt good overall.  I did them all.  Those push ups, even on my knees, sucked and were awful.

I did my personal best mile in 14:28!!  My last mile was in 17:46 so I shaved nearly 3 minutes off of the time!

If you can't get to a gym I will leave you with my favorite at home workout that I have ever found.  I love that your heart rate gets up there and that you sweat a lot with this one but that overall it is super easy.  Here goes!!  Enjoy this one if you can not get out....personally I did not do this one today but will probably be doing it later in the week while we are on vacation.  1.  cross lunge butt kick x 20 each side, 2.  single t squat x 20 each side (hold the last one for 20 sec--on each side), 3.  hockey squat jumps x 16, 4.  narrow squat hold for 40 seconds, 5.  lunge kicks x 20 each side, 6. crunches x 100, 7.  heels up and down x 20, 8. stretch.  The more advanced you are the more times that you can quickly run through this routine.  Add in some chair dips, additional crunches, and some push ups and you are working nearly all of the muscles in your body with ease and without any equipment at all making this the perfect choice for you when you are traveling or on the go.