Looking Back...Looking forward

Today I was reading some of my old blog posts. Its always a good thing to look back and see how we've changed over time. I've changed a great deal over these last 12 months, especially over these last six months. I started a little over a year ago now on this journey and I think its time to pay attention to centering myself. Practice my meditation more and start doing yoga again. I wasn't able to do yoga for a long while because I wasn't strong enough, mentally or physically. I didn't have the right motivation.

Yoga is a lot more, at least to me, than just stretching and doing different poses. I always feel really good, really strong after a yoga session. Yes some of the poses are difficult, but don't all the difficulties in life teach us something more about ourselves? Teach us some sort of lesson about life? About who we are? And the more centered we are the more challenges we can handle. I just feel that as a whole we don't look deep inside ourselves enough. We are always too busy to focus on whats important. I hope that all my readers decide to follow my lead, look inside themselves and see what there is to see. Experience just 5 minutes of undisturbed breathing. See how your body feels as you exhale & inhale. And after those 5 minutes you can't tell me your internal batteries aren't charged just a little more than before. Just those 5 minutes can change how you feel mentally & physically.
....It really is time to get out the ol' yoga mat!

Dealing with a Injury

So for the past 6 months I've been dealing with a shoulder injury and today I finally went to the OSS Orthopedic Hospital in York to get it looked at. After much pain, grimacing & a few x-rays they determined that there is nothing wrong with the bones in my shoulders or neck.... DUH!! The muscles running along both shoulders and my neck are very agitated & inflamed. For one week I will be on a steroid step-down pack of pills & for a total of 4 weeks I am to take a muscle relaxer, take it easy during my workouts (like thats really going to happen, not!), do a few exercises they gave me to do, apply heat, and have the muscles in my shoulders massaged to relax them (ouch!).
If none of this works they are going to do a series of Cortisone shots directly into the muscles. I for one wish they'd just do the shots & get it over with. Even though they are painful - I had one before when I had a herniated disk in my lower back. They tried the steroids then & it didn't work for that injury either, but the shot did.

Other than the injury I'm doing great. My moods are stable for the most part and I'm starting to feel comfortable with my body for once in my life. Sometimes I still feel like the chubby chick in the gym, but that doesn't happen as often as it used to. I think I may even buy a new workout top soon, maybe when I reach 195 or 190 pounds. My gym t-shirts are getting way too big & just hang on me.

Hoping that I can wrestle up some more energy in the next hour or so and go to the gym for a workout today. I didn't do my normal morning workout because I was so sore from the doctor visit.

Thanks for Reading!

The Sweet Smell of Success

I am happy... no... thrilled to say that I have successfully lost 50 pounds.... FINALLY! Its taken me a little over a year to do, but its been so worth it. I'm feeling stronger all the time, a little more self confident, and I stand up for what I believe to be healthy living. My life style has gone from couch potato to moderately active to going to the gym every day and staying busy through out the entire day as much as I can possibly stand. Some days are better than others, we all have our days that we don't want to do anything, but I still at the very least go to the gym once a day, even if its for 20 minutes.

My weight loss has definitely been a journey. I've learned so much about myself and the human body during these last few months. It really is miraculous what the human body can do. I am not a star athlete by any means, but I know that I am much stronger and healthier than when I  first started losing weight. I've lowered my high cholesterol levels to healthy levels and I have lowered my blood pressure, which was already in normal healthy levels, but I did lower it further. My lung capacity is much greater now as well, which in turn means my heart rate while working out is getting lower. Because while I may only have 3/4 of my lungs that function that means that my heart rate goes up because my lungs cannot keep up with the demand for oxygen to my heart. I have lowered my heart rate during strenuous exercise by about 10 beats or so per minute.

My physical appearance has really noticeably changed these last 20 pounds or so. My collar bones are starting to become more apparent, my legs are much smaller in the thy area and I no longer look like I have the start of cankles. And I soon will have to buy more pants... again. My size 16 pants are starting to get lose fitting. 

To summaries what I have been doing to lose this weigh here is my simple plan:
Eat 3 meals a day & 3 snacks. I typically only consume whole foods, which means no processed foods and no excess sodium and fats. The only processed foods I eat regularly are Whole Grain or Whole Wheat Bread, Kashi Go Lean Cereal and Greek Yogurt. And the only "Fast Food" I ever eat is Chipoltle, which is made of mostly whole foods and you can tell them how much and how little of the menu items you want in your meal (I always get the burrito bowl). I consume between 1,200 -1,400 calories a day (the less active I am the less calories I eat, meaning on a less active day I only consume 1,200 calories.. but never less than that). And I only drink water, 1 cup of milk a day and sometimes fresh brewed green tea with wild flower honey (not sugar). Green tea has an antioxidant called ECGC in it, it helps control hunger. So if you feel like snacking but not really hungry drink a glass of green tea.
I exercise at least 20 minutes a day. Lately I've been shooting for 30 - 50 minutes of exercise in the morning and then staying busy the rest of the day around the house. After all, if you have time to sit on your butt & watch tv, you have time to work out!
This plan has helped me maintain an average weight loss of a quarter to a half a pound a day.

It really does feel awesome to be below 200 pounds again. I weighed in this morning at 199 lbs. And I'm going to keep working towards my goal of 160 pounds. But most of all I'm going to keep working to be a happy and healthy person, because thats what really counts not some number on a scale.

Thanks for reading!

Almost to 200

As of this morning my scale was reading 201.1.... SO CLOSE to being under 200 lbs. I just want to physically grab that number & rip it to shreds. I've been Obese for far too long... ugghh I hate that word. 


I'm really starting to enjoy my new body. I went to Target today & got some new pajamas. They are super cute and the top is actually a size Medium. How awesome is that?!?! The pants.. that wasn't so exciting.. they are a size XL but they are what they consider a "fitted" size... WTF does that mean? But I did hold them up to a regular fit Large pant & it was the same size. I swear, can't we just stick to a measurement for clothes? -Clothing makers must want to make you feel bad about yourself with their "fitted" sizes..

Any ways... I'm not going to let a pair of size XL pj pants get my mood down. I had a great workout today. Did cardio & weights. My abs were very sore after the gym. I have definitely lost a lot of inches around my tummy since starting my weight loss. Can hardly wait until I no longer have even a small roll there.. I know it will be a while, but its worth all the sweat, pain & sore muscles.

....a medium top... WOO HOO!

Quick Goal

This week I'm really kicking it up a notch. I want to be in the 190's by the end of the week. Vacation really stalled my metabolism, but its slowly getting back to the high speed it was at before. I did cardio this morning & I plan to either hike the police trail while pushing the baby stroller w/ Haden or if it rains we will head back to the gym for another workout. And tomorrow I have a personal trainer appointment with the "Silver Fox".

Today I was taking great pleasure in raiding my dresser drawers & tossing my "fat girl" clothes that no longer fit. I have a pretty good sized pile of stuff on the floor awaiting its fate. I'm going to bag them up & take them to the Salvation Army or The Community Out Reach Center, not going to toss them in the garbage when there are a lot of people that could really use them. While I was trying the clothes on I realized just how big I had gotten, and I plan to take a picture in one of the outfits I'm getting rid of... just a small reality check for me.

A Sad Sight That Ticks Me Off!

Yesterday afternoon when my hubby got home from work we all went strawberry picking. While walking up the small hilly driveway to the fields we see people walking down. The children that were walking down the hill were so obese that they were winded just walking. How could someone let that happen to their child? Seriously?!?! These children were so overweight.... no I can't use that term because it would be incorrect... they were so OBESE that their arms were all rolls, they had cankles for goodness sakes. I feel bad for the children because their parents don't seem to give a crap about their health to feed them the correct foods & make sure they aren't just sitting on the couch doing nothing all day. At least they were going to get some fresh fruit.... But I just wanted to scream at the woman, "STOP FEEDING YOUR KIDS #@*! MC DONALD'S!!!!!!".... but I didn't. I've seen so many children lately that are just so unhealthy and as a parent it pisses me off that people don't take care of their children better. And as someone who got picked on a lot when they were a kid for being overweight it makes me so sad for those little kids. To know what kind of bullying they are going to have to deal with as they grow up.

To those people who let their kids get like that, you can't just sit there with a Mc Donald's Big Mac in one hand & a sugar loaded "super sized" soda in the other and blame the food system for making you & your kids fat. Yeah big business food producers could & should make processed foods better for you and not so much for their bottom line, but you don't have to sit there and eat every gosh-darn high-fat high-calorie treat they make just because you can!! That is your choice to eat processed food that is slowly killing you & clogging your arteries but at the very least think of what it is doing to your children. A burger, fries & a soda are not a nutrition packed meal. How hard is it to grill up a turkey burger, put it on a whole wheat bun, slice up a few potatoes, brush them with a heart healthy olive oil & put them in the oven instead of deep frying them and steam up some vegetables????? Imagine what kind of vitamin deficiencies these children could have and what its doing to their maturing bodies.

I honestly feel that instead of paying for endless wars that don't get us anywhere or expense accounts for government officials that already make too much money, we should start a nationwide nutrition program that will teach people what healthy eating is and how easy it is. Americans just need to wake up & smell the coffee.

Thanks for reading my rant fellow readers.
Stay tuned :-)

A Long Hard Road

Changing your job, bank account or changing the color of your hair are all simple things really. Changing your lifestyle, your diet and habits... now those are major. I know when I started out I would "slip up"... you all know what I mean... You eat something your "not suppose to" while on a diet - OMG I hate that word- and then you feel guilty and you just let that guilt hold you back. Don't feel guilty for really enjoying that high fat, high calorie piece of dessert. Just realize that if you do eat it, that you need to work that much harder and burn that many more calories. If your counting calories or whatever it is your doing to lose weight, give yourself a little bit of a break sometimes. Lets face it, how long are you really going to stick to your "diet" if you don't get to eat anything your craving. Yeah, there really are some things that NO ONE should actually be eating EVER, but if you have a sweet tooth, go ahead and have that candy bar or whatever, but make sure its really worth it. And try to only give in on special occasions... nothing like being at a party and having to say "No thanks, I'm on a diet" when someone offers you food. Enjoy yourself - in moderation.

I guess the point I'm getting to is that while on vacation, I really enjoyed myself, more than I probably should have when it comes down to the food I ate, but I didn't gain any weight, thanks to walking all over New York City. But at the same time I didn't reach my birthday goal weight. I was short by 3 pounds.

And that brings me to my next point, try not to let it get you down if you aren't at the weight you want to be by a certain date. Don't let that stop you from continuing to do what you need to do to have a healthy & fit body. I'm certainly not going to let it stop me. I've already set up another goal and if I don't meet that one, that is perfectly fine because I know how hard I've worked & that I've put in an honest effort. Goals are just there to help you stay on track, who cares if you don't actually reach it when it comes to weight loss. Our bodies have a mind of their own and there are times where we don't lose any weight or the amount of muscle we are gaining adds a pound or two.


To all of my readers out there, the few of you that actually read this, I have a challenge for you. Pick one healthy habit and make it yours for 30 days. It can be as simple as eating eggs or oatmeal for breakfast (Lower Sugar if you get the flavored kind in packets) or getting up an extra 15 minutes early in the morning to stretch your muscles. Let me know how it goes, and if your still doing whatever it is you choose after the 30 days are over. 
Good Luck Readers!