Busy, busy busy day for me. So far today I have done yoga, housework, went to a breakfast presentation at t-bop’s school, sowed some seeds in peat pots & other assorted garden stuff, and finished a work assignment. I have a little break for about an hour, then back to work. I have 3 meetings starting at 1 and need to get to the bank before 4. have mercy.

Going to Y late tonight, 9ish. They close at 10.

Today’s Goals:
30 minutes yoga
45 minutes/700 calories Elliptical
120 oz. water
One serving meals, no seconds
Raw veggies for snacks
Raw fruit for dessert
No salt added to food
Brush & floss after every meal
Bedtime 1030pm/Wakeup 6am
Weightloss so far – 43 pounds

I went to spinning class yesterday, and it was so hard! It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve gone, and I could feel the difference. I am going to try to go at least twice a week from now on, oh my word.

Today is a walking and yoga day. It is so nice out! After I did my poses this morning I felt so limber and stretched out, much better. I was all tight from the spinning class.

Oh yah, weighed in this morning at 168!! Only 38 more pounds to go.

My legs at 168 pounds. I wasn’t going to take pics again until I reached 160 pounds but I can really see my weight loss in my legs, finally! I couldn’t help myself!

Today’s Goals:
30 minutes yoga
Walk 12,000 steps
120 oz. water
One serving meals, no seconds
No salt added to food
Raw veggies snacks
Raw fruit dessert
Brush & floss after every meal
Bedtime 9pm/Wakeup 6am
Weightloss so far – 42 pounds
Fitness Pics!

T-bop told me this morning Mom you’re losing your pillow stomach! as he was hugging me goodbye. LOL! Mercury Man said something similar last night, that he could feel I was losing weight because when he held me my belly felt smaller, smoother.

Today the kids are going over MIL’s house so me and Mercury Man are gonna go to the Y and then to a movie.

Today’s Goals:
45 minutes elliptical
15 minutes jumping rope
No salt added to food
Brush & floss after every meal
10 cups water, 8 oz
One serving meals, no seconds
Raw veggies snacks
Raw fruit dessert
Bedtime 10pm
weight loss by day 15 – 7 pounds

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Final Goal: 130
Starting weight: 210
Current weight (as of 1/16/07): 203
total to lose: 80 pounds
current to lose: 73 pounds

We are going to the Y in a bit and I’m hitting the elliptical machine and lifting some weights. I can’t wait to get toned! I’m thinking of adding jumping rope to my routine, it burns a lot of calories and builds strength in your legs.

Today’s Goals:
45 minutes elliptical
1/2 hour weight training
No salt added to food
Brush & floss after every meal
10 cups water, 8 oz
One serving meals, no seconds
Raw veggies snacks
Raw fruit dessert
Bedtime 10pm
weight loss by day 12 – 4 lbs

I am doing ok. I tell you what, not eating after dinner means I wake up ravenous. I feel like a growing kid again, and enjoy my big bowl of oatmeal and raspberries or apples or bananas. My tastebuds have changed…the oatmeal seems more than sweet enough to me with just fruit, I can’t believe how I used to add sugar to it.

Today’s Goals:

Walk 10,000 steps
Go to spinning class at YMCA
1/2 hour elliptical
No salt added to food
Brush & floss after every meal
10 cups water, 8 oz
One serving meals, no seconds
Raw veggies snacks
Raw fruit dessert
Bedtime 10pm
weight loss by day 10 – 3.5 lbs

Question of the day:
How do you balance being a woman that’s trying to lose weight (if in fact you are) and being a mother that teaches her children about healthy body image?

I do it by not making disparaging remarks about my body to or around my children, and emphasizing that my wanting to lose weight is because I want to be fit, strong and healthy. I make positive remarks about my body in it’s current state around them, and I accept compliments that other people give me without putting my body down in reply. For example you know how some women are, if you tell them they have on a pretty skirt they’ll say something like Oh but it makes my calves look so chunky.

I also don’t say I’m on a diet, because I’m not. My kids know I don’t believe in diets and that I am trying to learn how to eat regular portions of food instead of overeating.

Today’s Goals:

1/2 hour Yoga
Walk 12,000 steps
Brush and floss after every meal
Drink 10 cups water
No salt added to food
Raw veggies snacks
Raw fruit dessert
One serving meals – no seconds
weight loss by day 9 – 3.5 lbs.

Trigger Foods

I have been thinking about foods that can trigger overeating and debating with myself about whether to eat them. I am not on any diet plan or anything, I am eating most of the food/meals I usually eat, only in regular portions and only one serving. I can’t get with the idea of restricting a particular food I enjoy because past experience has taught me that this makes me obsess over it all day and then finally break and overeat it. That said, I have a tremendous fear about eating certain foods. Here is my trigger list:

Peanut Butter
Potato Chips
Tofu Stirfry
Vegan Yellow Cake
Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

my other trigger foods are things like strawberries and apples and cantaloupe, stuff that is non-fattening and impossible to overeat anyway. I mean I just physically cannot sit down and eat a bag of apples no matter how much I want to, but I can smash a bag of chips in no time, right.

I actually had just one bowl of tofu stirfry last friday and a handful of chips the other day and was fine stopping at that, but I am not so sure about some of the others. Peanut butter to me is like blood to a shark, LOL. You know that scene in Finding Nemo where the one shark smelled blood and his pupils sharply dilated? That’s me with peanut butter. I don’t feel at this point I can stop at one sandwich.

wooooooot

Well I just had a handful of chips before my nice breakfast of oatmeal with raspberries. But I am not sweating it because I am proud of myself for stopping at one handful. Chips are one of my trigger foods. I’m glad I ate a little because otherwise I’d be obsessing over them all day then probably break and eat half a bag late at night. This way I ate a little and was done, I don’t want any more!!

A friend of mine had to have surgery last month for an ulcer and she told me she went on and had a tummy tuck also. I was astonished that I felt a little jealous! when she told me…we have similar body shapes and are about equally overweight/out of shape. We had planned to work out a lot together and help each other through, and now she has a flat abdomen while I have at least 3 months before my belly looks like that. egads. But she is a sweetheart and very emphatic and she stressed that she still has food issues and still wants to work out with me after she’s all healed up.

Today another friend is coming with me to spinning class and it will take a lot of effort not to tell her about it. She is also friends with my friend who had surgery but they met through me and are not as close to each other. anyway. After class we’ll probably get something to eat, and if so I’m getting a salad or fruit bowl. I had digestive issues all day yesterday after eating eggs, yuck. It’s just easier for me physically to be vegan.

Today’s goals:
Walk 3 miles
Spinning class at 1pm
10 glasses of water
Brush & floss after every meal
Raw veggies for snacks
Raw fruit for dessert

woooooot

I walked 2 miles so far today and plan to do another 2 before days end. No salt for 2 days now, I’m so proud of myself for that. Doing good with water, I’ve had about 24 oz so far today (goal is 60 oz). Breakfast was bowl of oatmeal with raspberries, morning snack was carrots (man I smashed those carrots up) lunch was vegetable soup, afternoon snack wheat pita chips with hummmus. For dinner I’m thinking rotini, sauce, biscuits, and spinach. Oh yeah I did some yoga early this morning too, like at 6am. I was up so early because I was on a writing streak and stayed up all night, which is not good for my health. My goal is to sleep 8 hours every 24 with bedtime being 10pm.

I was doing a 6-week fitness challenge started on Jan 2nd with some of the mamas over at hipmama, but since I need more time than that to get to my goal weight I will continue for another 14 weeks and make it a 20-week challenge. *Update 3/02/07* A friend of mine told me perhaps I should extend my personal challenge to 25-30 weeks so as to take the pressure off myself to be 130 in another ten weeks. Because that would mean I’d have to lose 50 pounds in 10 weeks, which won’t happen unless I severely cut my calories and workout like crazy every day, both of which would cause me physical and emotional stress. This is really good advice! and I am so glad to have someone to tell me this. Good friends are awesome, I tell ya. So this is now the 25-week challenge!

I am also going to post pics to show my weight loss as my body changes. I will post new pics every 10 pounds or so. I am losing weight at a nice clip so the shrinkage will be fast! I already have lost some of my back fat. I was wondering where my 7 pounds I lost by week 2 was because I sure didn’t see it or feel any different but I realized on the morning of 1/17/07 that an entire row of back fat was GONE. Three rolls to go! Update 4/13/07 Back fat is almost gone; it’s basically back ripples now, LOL.

Pics Week 18, 158 pounds

Pics Week 12, 170 pounds

Pics Week 7, 190 pounds

Pics Week 3, 201 pounds

Ok so I feel finally able to put my real weight down. Starting this challenge I weighed 210 pounds. Now in most of my pics I don’t look fat, do I? That is partly why/how I got this heavy, I carry the weight ‘well’ and convinced myself that I wasn’t that overweight. I convinced myself that our scale was broken. I am pear-shaped, in that I have a small top and large round bottom. The bulk of my excess weight is in my behind and thighs. Since this has always been my shape I didn’t begin to really take notice until my stomach started getting rolls and arms started getting flabby, and I got the dreaded back-fat. Then overnight (to me) my face started looking really fat and bloated…but then again I have always had big round cheeks and eliminating salt from my diet took the bloat off my face really quick.

These pics are from last christmas, my husband’s mom took this pic. When I was 210 pounds I had a hard time ‘seeing’ how fat I was in part because I rarely took pics/had pics taken of me that showed the expanse of my legs and I’m so much smaller on top proportionately…See how much smaller on top I look compared to my legs?

I can really see the 210 in this pic, wow:

I can also see the 210 in this pic, too, in my face. Compare to the 2nd pic at 162.5 pounds:

I was doing really good with my weight and fitness and overall health last year and got down to the 150ish range, then I got side-tracked due to some family issues and other things. I stopped paying attention to portion sizes and even stopped going for walks every day, one thing that would have prevented me gaining so much weight again. I am determined this year to finally get to my goal weight and stay there. I will learn how to eat and stop overeating and get enough exercise no matter what is going on in my life. I am undergoing a 25-Week Fitness challenge. Watch me lose weight and get fit!

Final Goal: 130
Starting weight: 210
Current weight (last update 6/14/07): 151
total to lose: 80 pounds
current to lose: 21 pounds
current lost: 59 pounds

Exercise Plan:
1/2 hour yoga every morning
3 times a week at gym; burn 400 calories
3 times a week at home, walk 12,000 steps
New! As of June 15th, jog 2 miles every morning
1 day rest (just yoga)

Food Plan:
120 oz.water daily
One serving meals, no seconds
Raw veggies & nuts for snacks
Raw fruit for dessert
No salt added to food

Overall Health Plan:
Yoga 1/2 hour every morning
Brush and floss after every meal
Bedtime when sleepy/Wakeup 5am

Helpful Links
I saw Dr. Oz on Oprahshaking around somebody’s omentum and it freaked me out because I had a lot of fat on my belly area! He also showed what a healthy omentum looks like. Seeing this and hearing why excessive abdominal fat is so bad for yoru health was a real eye-opener. He has a book co-written with Dr. Michael Roizen titled You: On a Diet. The site is full of information included in the book and gives tips and support.

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Here are links to the (almost) daily posts I made about my progress. Note: Some pages will be on my writing blog. I did not set this fitness blog up until May 6th, 2007. I will have everything transferred over as soon as I can.

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day 162
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