Changes.

Although I have been neglecting this space for the past month, I have not been neglecting my exercise time.  I have been slowly increasing my speed on the treadmill runs.  My goal is to run a 10 minute mile sometime in the near future.  Right now I’m sitting around 11:15 so I’m getting there.  Yet besides getting back into running more regularly, I had been feeling a bit bored with my gym routine.  I would do some sporadic strength training or ab work, but nothing consistent.

So last Saturday I tried a Pure Barre class at a studio recently opened near my house and I am totally hooked.  I was VERY nervous…I hadn’t done a workout class since I was a teenager but I just got back from my 4th class and I feel like I’m finally getting it.  I plan on trying to keep up 3 times a week for the next 2, and then see if I want to go on from there.  These classes are not cheap, but I’m really loving it and already seeing more definition in my arms.  It also seems to be improving my endurance for cardio as well.

So hurray for trying new things…tomorrow I may be singing a different tune…two days of class in a row may equal some very sore muscles but it is nothing I haven’t dealt with before.

Sidelined.

It has been 8 years since I have had anything close to the flu.  I was in my 3rd year of college and was hit hard with a 48 hour bug.  It was the first time I had been seriously sick since I moved out of my parents house.  It was awful.  I remember calling my mother asking her if she would come take care of me, and she laughed at me saying get some 7up and crackers and sleep it off.  

This time around was a little bit different.  Having a husband comes in handy from time to time.  He took good care of me.  And it was a much less dramatic sickness, without all the puking, just feeling like I could for almost 3 days straight.  I’m doing a bit better today, less nausea but still sort of weak and tired. 

Needless to say, I’m out of routine right now.  I was just coming off an 8 day streak of gym trips, and I’m starting to wonder if I was pushing a bit too hard.  I’m going to ease back into workouts, perhaps with a low intensity treadmill walk tomorrow morning.  That is, of course, depending on how I feel in the morning.

I’m taking this as a sign that I need to slow it down a bit.  Since my current approach wasn’t  really producing steady results, I may need to change things up anyways.  Sometimes you just need to take a cue from your body and give it the rest it needs.

Maintaining.

I fit in an outdoor run this weekend.  Ohio gave us an unseasonably warm 60 degree Saturday (at the cost of a 20 degree overnight drop that has left me with a gross sinus headache today) so I had to take advantage.  It was a bit slow going, being that I haven’t logged 2 miles at once since December, but it felt great to get out there.  Yesterday I stepped up my cardio by doing a 45 minute elliptical interval workout, followed by some yoga.  The gym is insanely crowded still, with all the resolutioners, but I’m hoping things to thin out in the following weeks.

I wasn’t the most stringent about eating through the weekend, so this morning when I weighed myself and saw I maintained from the previous week, I wasn’t surprised. I wasn’t upset either though.  The previous week’s 4 pound loss is the most I have lost in a week in a long time.  I was almost expecting a gain this morning, with a weekend that included a Chinese buffet dinner and movie theater popcorn (I passed on the butter and only got a small…but a small is still SIX cups of popcorn!) so when I saw I maintained, I was happy.

This week I am focusing on longer cardio workouts in the morning and doing some strength training in the evenings.

Hurray for fitness!

2013.

I have a short list of goals for 2013.  2012 was a great year for me but I want to make 2013 even better.

The top of my list is to consistently hold myself accountable for what I am eating.  So far so good on that front, and it has paid off with a 4 pound loss in the past week.  While I am eager for the weight loss aspect of my healthy living, another huge part is that I am trying to focus on the bigger picture and how the exercise/weight loss is only one aspect.  I feel great when I eat healthy things, and I feel like crap when I don’t.  I want to feel my best as often as I can. I am also too hard on myself when I am not losing….hell, I am too hard on myself 90% of the time when it comes to body image.  This year I want to change that.  No more self hate.

Tying into my overall healthy lifestyle, I want to spend more time doing things I love so I have decided to read at least 52 books this year.  I am blogging about that over at A Book a Week in 2013.  Reading has been something I have done excessively since I was 6 years old and got my first pair of glasses.  When in college, I did not have much reading for fun time, due to the reading for school, so I am making up for all that lost time (6 years during my undergrad then Master’s program) by taking up this challenge.

Lastly, I have decided this is the year we stamp out all of our petty credit card debt/have a year of nothing NEW on credit.  We began this year with a New Year’s Eve hotel stay at a Hilton, which is something I would have put on a credit card in the past but I decided we would not.  And we were still able to set back some monies from our last pay day as well.  So I have set a good model for the rest of year.

Here is to 2013 being as positive and productive as I can make it to be!!

12.

I have been consistently active throughout every month of this year.  I have lost 23 pounds to date.  No one else could have done that for me. 

Going into 2013 I really want to step things up a bit.  I talk a lot here about cleaning up my diet, and I have made some major changes in how I look at eating and the foods I put in my body, but I haven’t seen the success in the kitchen like I have at the gym.  I know i am capable, I just have to follow through.  

I have succeeded in making fitness a part of my life, and that is something no amount of weight loss can replace.

Here is to another year full of sweaty times, and hopefully another year of growing as a person.

 

Losing.

Finally! Some Progress!  Hooray! I have dropped 2 pounds per week for the past 2 weeks.  After a months long stretch of maintaining, this feels AMAZING.

I have been running 1 mile at every trip to the gym (plus time on the elliptical) and I have been squeezing in outdoor runs as well.  I did 2 miles in 25 minutes this past Saturday and it hardly felt like work. I’m excited to see how the weather is this coming Saturday because I can’t wait to get outdoors again.  Early morning runs are out of the question (way too dark) and so are after work with little fading daylight once I am home.  I am thinking of actually following through and finding a 5K in my area in the Springtime.  I have this irrational fear of any type of group fitness…classes included, but I really want to run a 5 K and if I think of it like running on a treadmill next to other people at the gym, it doesn’t seem so scary.

I hope to keep up the losing until the end of the year…it would feel awesome to start 2013 off almost 30 pounds lighter than a year ago.

Thankful.

I tend to ignore this space when I don’t feel like I’m making any progress on the weight loss side of my life.

Then I remind myself of how a year ago I wasn’t active on a regular basis and the thought of me going for a run was laughable. Now I find myself looking forward to the most active parts of my day.  Just when I think I am getting bored with the gym routine, I dust off an old workout DVD or I start trying to squeeze in outdoor runs again (the weather is giving us yet another small reprieve from typical November in Ohio so I must take advantage).

Tuesday marked 4 months completely smoke free for me.  I had cut down to only smoking in social situations for the past couple years, ones that usually involve alcohol, but 4 months ago I was finally done.

Weight loss is great, but it isn’t like I haven’t accomplished things in the past year.  I have lost about 25 pounds to date, I became a runner and I kicked a nasty habit for good.  I’m so thankful for all of these things, and how they are shaping me as a person as I move into the next years of my life.

Happy Thanksgiving! I’m going out on my own personal Turkey Trot right now!

Stuck.

So.  I have been losing and gaining the same four pounds for about two months now.  It is getting really old.  I’ve decided there needs to be some major changes to my routine.  I’m going to keep with the moderate to high intensity early morning workouts but I’m striving to do something different every day.  For example, today I ran intervals of running/power walking switching every minute on the treadmill for 25 minutes.  Then I did the aerobic program on the elliptical for 15 minutes.  I think I need to get over my fear of something new and try the rowing machine.  I used to bike either on the stationary or recumbent and I haven’t been doing either lately.  I’m also going to start walking a couple miles in the evenings as well.  I need to get my husband in on this (he recently went from retail where he was on his feet all day long back to a graphic design 9-5 job where he sits all day) as well.  The fresh air will do us both good and since we are in Ohio, the pleasant early fall weather could be gone any day.

The biggest thing is: I need to clean up my diet.  I am not doing very good lately with making healthy choices with what I put in my body.  I need to remember just because it is the weekend, it does not justify eating poorly.  Or just because I had a shit day at work, doesn’t mean I get to eat pizza for dinner. Breaking 20+ years of emotional eating does not happen over night, but I have already made gigantic strides on certain things.  I no longer eat when I’m bored, and any time I’m hungry right after eating I drink a glass of water because I’ve learned I’m usually just thirsty.  I often think of the following quote I saw on Pinterest:

“Do not reward yourself with food, you are not a dog.”

I also need to remember it took 2.5 years for me to gain almost 40 pounds, Losing 20 of that in 9 months isn’t horrible progress.  It is twenty pounds down.  I have a 2 1/2 year old niece who weighs about 26 pounds (she is a lil thing!) and that is practically what I was carrying around before.  That is some heavy stuff.  I need to stop comparing my current progress to how my last weight loss went.  That was three years ago.  This is now.  I need to learn to stop looking back so much.
It doesn’t get you anywhere but stuck.

This week is all about looking forward, because like it or not, the future becomes the present every day.

Thoughts and stuff.

I have been keeping up with my early morning gym trips where I have gotten back into a routine of running 3 days a week and elliptical machine-ing it the rest of the time.  Somedays if I am feeling bored, I’ll split time between a bike and the elliptical as well. I have also added daily strength exercises, because I felt like I wasn’t getting enough lately.  This also keeps me from getting bored with the same thing every day.  Which is totally key to sticking with it.  As the weather gets cooler, I’m thinking about adding a morning run to Saturday or Sunday.  I love this time of year, so to be able to run in it makes me a happy woman.

I know I expected to have lost a lot more by this time when I set out back in January to finally take control over my habits.  I think gaining a new approach and outlook to my life (after flailing a bit in the beginning) makes my slow yet steady pace alright.

People have been noticing my weight loss.  Sometimes I notice it as well.  But I need to weigh in.  It has been a few weeks since my last one. I have an irrational (and long running) fear of the number on the scale.  I need to get over this because seeing tangible proof is always a good thing.

Busy times.

My co-worker (who I work very closely with) is out on maternity leave, so I am extra busy at work lately.  This leaves little to no time for updates.  I am going to try and pop in a few times a week in the evenings though.

I have kept my morning gym routine going, and it feels amazing to see that I have lost 4 pounds in the last 3 weeks.  It feels so great to see results, so hopefully I can keep doing what I am doing.

Every morning I have a choice to get up and head to the gym or to stay in bed for another hour and a half.  I choose to get up and go get my sweat on.  It is not the easy option, but for me it is the right option and I know my future self will thank me some day.