9 weeks with my Trainer

Hi Y'all,

I was very happy that I was down another 0.5 lb this week. After 9 weeks I have lost 5 pounds and my measurements are down. I am smaller in the face, arms, bust, stomach, hips and butt. But not evenly. I have lost more in my "extremities" but my stupid middle is still somewhat large.

I have learned that it is a lot harder to lose weight than I thought and I need to be a lot stricter with my diet in order to lose weight. And I have to be fairly uncomfortable to do it. Those people that say, "Yeah. I just cut out my soda everyday and I've lost 10 pounds already." or the "I just cut back on deserts and starting walking and I lost 20 pounds." Well that is NOT me.

I will continue this post later. I've got to go supervise kids in the pool!

"This is as good as it gets"

Standing in the grocery store line yesterday, I was hungry and I wanted something quick to eat. It had been several hours since I had eaten. But I knew that I had one more stop to make, then drive home, unload the groceries out of the car, put away the groceries and clean the kitchen before I could even think about preparing a healthy lunch for myself. Crap. I was really getting hungry and didn't know how I could wait that long to eat. I looked at the candy in the checkout line. It would be so easy to just grap a candy bar. Then I thought to myself, "THIS IS AS GOOD AS IT GETS." Just like the line from the movie.

Meaning, it doesn't get easier. This is what it is like dieting. It is a challenge. There isn't ever going to be a magical time in your life when eating right and exercising is going to be a breeze. I don't mean there won't ever be days when it is easy. Yes there will be days. But, it doesn't get any easier next month, next year, when summer's over, etc. There will always be challenges. So as I am standing in line, fighting that urge to grab junk and take the easier route, I realized this is it. This IS as good as life gets (for dieting, I'm not talking about life in general, just as it relates to dieting here). There is no better time than now. If I think that it will somehow be "easier" tomorrow, I'm wrong.

So what did I do? I bought the candy bar, didn't eat it in the car and took it home. I made my stop, went home, unloaded the car, put the frozen stuff away. Then I ate a piece of fruit and cut up some vegetables and munched on them while I finished putting the groceries away. The fruit and veges were enough to tie me over until I could eat my lunch of fish and spinach. And yes, then I had a PIECE (about 1/4) of the chocolate bar (to add insult to injury, I was PMSing too, craving chocolate all week and wondering why until today:). I consider it not too bad. A partial victory. I could have done better by not eating any of the chocolate but I could have done a lot worse.

Saturdays are hard for me (diet wise) because I dont' have a set schedule like a work day. And I do a lot of running around. And things come up. And temptations on "grocery day" are high. But you know what? Get used to it. It won't be easier to lose the weight tomorrow. There will always be "Saturdays." This is as good as it gets.

Saturday

I want to write something positive. I've been feeling pretty positive lately.

I had a good week last week. THis morning I went a little crazy with breakfast and ate some pancakes, so that was not good for my goals.

Today I plan to stay on track the rest of the day with my eating. I've got food pre-cooked. And exercise. Saturdays, I work out at home instead of at the gym. It is kind of fun to work out at home for a change of pace.

Tomorrow I will weigh in. I hope, hope, hope that my good week will pay off, but I did indulge in pancakes this morning so we will see.

My goal is to be down another 3 pounds by the end of June. I will have to be aggressive to do it.

That's all. Keep plugging away y'all.

Fitting In

Melissa at http://idontneedexcuses.blogspot.com/ wrote a blog about fitting in as a fit mom. Go check it out. It got me fired up!

My response to her post is this;

“I’m over here!” (waving my hand) “Here I am!” I am so with you on this. I am a mom, 38 yo, like to stay active and don’t want to eat junk for every meal (although once in a while a piece of birthday cake or a beer on a holiday, etc seems like a good idea to me). Yet I don’t have a love for competing and I don’t have the desire to put in the time, energy, $ and focus for competing (though I don’t have anything against the women that do.) I feel the same way about training and running a marathon. I don’t want to put the time/effort into doing that either. Ha! ( now a half marathon – maybe). Muslfetish is so right (It has to be something you enjoy and enjoy the process/journey).

Anyway, I get so exasperated and just plain disgusted sometimes, at the negative attitudes of mothers who do not even have the smallest, microscopic level of value for eating healthy and/or being active. I also know about the snide remarks and looks. Apparently it is not politically correct to say anything about being overweight or the overweight’s choice of food, but if you have a BMI of less than 25, apparently one can let the comments fly! Feel free to comment away about what the normal weight person is eating or not eating, doing or not doing. And if you’re extra lean, watch out! It’s even worse. I’m not even that “lean.” My measured bodyfat is around 24 to 26 % but I am short and have naturally “small bones” and not a lot of muscle so I “look” very lean. But I know better. My goal is 20% BF. A reasonable healthy goal but I get the “Why do you want to lose any weight?” comments all the time.

The other thing that perplexes (and sometimes infuriates me) is seeing all the parents out there going to great lengths to spend the $ and the time to put their kids in sports BUT totally neglecting their health. It’s baseball season time now and parents somehow manage to religiously take their kids to practice no matter what. The parents will sit through 2 hour practices, and 3 or 4-hour games, etc. But will refuse to invest 1 hour in their day to keep themselves healthy. Just think what they could accomplish if they put half of that dedication into an exercise plan for themselves. The funny thing is, kids (most anyway) are naturally active when given the opportunity! I watch this all the time. Gather some people together for a meal, reunion, picnic, whatever. How many times do you see the kids break out of the formal sit-down thing and just start running around and/or playing. The parent/adults are the ones that “need” the structured exercise/sports things more than the kids. There is no balance. Everything is very kid-focused. And no, I’m not against kids sports. My kids are in them. But you know what? During their soccer practice last fall, I took many walks around their practice field during practice. I was the only mother who did this, although I did see one man doing some walking.

I don’t have an easy answer for Melissa but I so totally get what she is saying and it got me fired up!

Walk that Line

Well my eating has been OK but not good enough. It seems that for me to lose fat, I need to walk a tight line. Let me explain with a visual. Picture a continuum. On the clear left is disorded eating like anorexia (which I have never had or anything, I am just explaining a concept) where you eat like one grape for breakfast or something. Waaay farther to the right of that is rapid fat loss dieting (where I want to be, where you lose fat at a fairly decent rate), a little farther to the right is slow fat loss, and farther to the right still is maintenance, more to the right is slow gain eating (mass building phases in bodybuilding) and finally to the end of the right is gaining weight fast.

On this continuum, I feel that I am to the right of the rapid fat loss dieting close to the slow fat loss line. I need to eeek it over to the left a little at a time, being careful not to cross that line. When you are doing fat loss at a rapid rate, it's easy to get obsessed or binge/purge and I just don't want that or need that. I saw a study one time where they took just two "normal" people and put them on strict diets and the two people quickly became obsessed with talking and thinking about food all the time. In other words, you can take someone who doesn't really worry about what they eat or don't eat that much, put them on a strict diet and even "normal" people can just go nuts, so to speak.

So I need to "tighten up" my eating, probably only by 150 calories or so is all I need (delete one serving of carbs), to be at the point where I need to be. Only thing is, this place is "teeth gritting"hard for me because I am hungry and I crave carbs and I am lethargic most of the time. So it is a battle for me. For the Divas out there, yes I am on Tony's plan, but he is allowing me some whole grain carb or fruit if I feel like I really need it. So it is kind of my choice. But if I am too "comfortable" (even if it is healthy eating) I don't lose the weight.

Anyway, I've blabbed long enough about that. I had a great workout today, back and cardio. My total workout was 75 minutes! I love the gym on Fridays because nobody is there! And my husband picks up the kids at the sitters so I don't have to. It's just a big party with just me and the weights on Friday night! Ha. Well there was some teenage boys there. They are so funny to watch!

Sunday

I always think of these witty things to write about when I am not at the computer. But then when I am at the computer, I've got nothin'.

Like I thought I could write about the difference between trying to get in shape/lose weight when you are a single 22 yo college student versus a 38 yo mother 9-5-er. But now, it just sounds like I'm whining.

Food was good all day except for stupid 4 animal crackers made it into my mouth. Today was a day off from exercise.

Weather is finally nice!