Back On The Wagon

Yesterday I proved to myself that I can indeed achieve my goals.  Yesterday was the first time since the beginning of March that I was able to stay within range of my calorie limits and not eat anything that I hadn’t planned to eat during the day.  That did a great deal for my feelings of self-worth.  As a result, today, it was easy for me to again stay within my limits.  And, actually, I had to come up with new ideas as to how to eat enough to be above the lower numbers of my calorie limits for the day.  I have renewed faith in myself and my ability to achieve my weight loss goals.

I think something that has helped me is the change from the early shift at work to the evening shift.  My day is now broken up in a better format.  Now, instead of waking up at 4am, I’m waking up at 7.  Instead of eating breakfast and then immediately going to work, I’m eating breakfast and then heading to the gym.  After the gym, I’m eating a protein rich snack of Greek yogurt with berries.  Then, right before I go to work, I eat a lunchmeat and cheese sandwich.  During my 8 hours at work, I only take 2 servings of fruit to eat.  I can eat them at the same time, around 6pm or I can eat one serving around 4 and another around 7 or 8.  When I get home from work around 10:30, I eat a good and healthy dinner.  And then I’m in bed by midnight.  I’m sleeping better because I’m working out first thing in the morning as opposed to later in the day, so I’m truly relaxed at bedtime. 

I will be on the evening shift schedule at work for the next 6-12 months.  After that, I’ll be moved to the overnight shift…unless something changes and they decide to leave me on the evening shift.  I’m fine with either decision. 

I have renewed my belief in myself.  I can now begin to look forward to my weekly weigh-ins again, like I did until the beginning of March when things began to go awry with my weight loss and when I lost all faith in myself.  I can now begin to work my way down to my goal of 160 again with renewed vigor and refound hope.

I kind of got away from cooking during the last month and a half.  The last thing I cooked (before today) was a pork roast that I shredded and mixed with BBQ sauce and would eat on sandwich thins bread.  Today marked me cooking again for myself on a semi regular basis.  Since I live alone and have no one else to feed, when I cook for myself, I cook for 4-8 days at a time.  Since I’m happy with a lunchmeat and cheese sandwich (on sandwich thins bread to save over 100 calories per sandwich) for lunch every day, then I will only need to cook one dish at a time.  Today, I made one of my favorite dishes: roasted eggplant parmesan with spaghetti squash.  Sooooo good…and extremely low in calories.  I think next I will make a meatloaf.  I will use my one remaining pound of venison mixed with either ground turkey or lean ground beef.  I love a good meatloaf.  Another thing I’m happy with eating every day is sliced and roasted zucchini and summer squash sprinkled with parmesan cheese.  Eating these two things are great because I can eat a good volume of them for very few calories.

I believe I have overcome the common weight loss excuse of being my own worst enemy by believing I can’t do this on my own and that I would only fail no matter what I did.  It feels good to rediscover that this excuse is just that…an excuse.  Sure I’m only 2 days back into my renewed faith in myself, but I can tell you I have definitely jumped back on the wagon.

Motivation!

“I lack motivation.”  Wow.  What an excuse to deal with this week on Biggest Loser.  I have to say that this is probably my biggest excuse that I struggle with DAILY.  Motivation to eat the healthiest choices and stick with my calorie limit each and every day.  Motivation to do my workouts every day without fail.  Motivation to NOT skip a workout simply because “I’m not feeling it” that day.  That’s a BS thing to allow myself to do…to allow myself to just give up, even if it’s just for a day or two days.  That’s a day or two days that I missed out on working out.  That’s a day or two that I missed out on getting sweaty (which I actually love to do…believe it or not), on burning calories, on inching my way towards weight lost for the week.

Since the second week of March, I’ve had a serious problem with my motivation.  I’ve tried and I’ve tried to get myself back into gear each and every week, only to fail myself each and every week.  I’ve got to get serious about this.  My health is VERY important to me.  How I look when I see myself in the mirror really matters to me. 

Something that does help, even if only a little bit, is the training classes I can take at my gym.  They’re free, which is awesome.  Taking these classes helps me add strength training to my daily workouts.  Something else that will help me is one of the girls at work has a personal trainer that works out of his own studio and has excellent rates.  12 sessions for only $180!!!  Wow!  She’s supposed to get me a business card.  After I make the switch to the night shift next month, I’d like to set up sessions with him.

Something I have to remember and that will also work to motivate me is remembering how miserable I was at 240 pounds.  How uncomfortable I was in my own body.  How frustrated I was that anything I wore didn’t look good on me.  All it did was cover up the lumps.  And that doesn’t help anything.  I was extremely unhealthy.  I constantly had acid reflux, which was eating away at the lining of my esophagus.  I’ve got to remind myself where I started in all of this.  I’ve got to remember why I’m doing this, why it’s worth it. 

I know I can do this.  I know I can apply myself to do what needs to be done to get the results I want to achieve.  All I have to do is find my motivation.  All I have to do is remember my motivation.  . 

Maybe part of the problem is that my planned reward for next month, a trip to the spa, has been canceled…not because I have failed at meeting my monthly goals, but because my finances are not what I thought they would be at this time.  It sucks.

I watch the Biggest Loser every week religiously.  Each week I watch the contestants take on their excuses and power through them like those excuses are nothing.  This is inspiring to me, but apparently not enough.  I see the transformations that the contestants have gone through and it’s just plain amazing.  Kim is the contestant that I’m rooting for.  She’s the one that I most identify with.  Sure, I wasn’t a professional anything as far as sports go, but I did make a valiant attempt at bodybuilding.  She has an absolutely amazing spirit.  Her example is one I want to follow.  Just, for some reason, I don’t feel that I’m worthy of it.  My feelings of self-worth are at the forefront of my problems…or, should I say, LACK of self-worth.

I truly do look forward to reaching my goal weight of 160.  But, that weight is about 30 pounds away from where I am right now and that’s a little overwhelming.  But then I remind myself that I’ve already lost 50 pounds since this time last year.  And that’s a great accomplishment in and of itself.  I should be proud of myself for losing those 50 pounds.  I guess maybe it’s just a little daunting when I think of the fact that when I do reach my goal weight (yes, I said WHEN, not IF) I will have lost EIGHTY pounds.  Holy crap!  EIGHTY freaking pounds!  How amazing will that feel when I’ve reached that mark?  It will feel like the best feeling in the world…and that’s something I need to keep in mind…something that should be beyond motivating to me.

Good Weekend

A few good things happened for me today.  I weighed myself, it being Sunday, and I had only regained 3 lbs over the month of March.  Sure, a 3 lb gain in just a month is a big amount, except that the last 4.4 lbs I lost, I lost in one week as a kind of fluke.  And really, I gained it back the following week, so I sort of actually lost about 1.4 lbs in all of March.  Not a terribly productive month, especially considering I had lost 12 lbs a month each in the previous 2 months.  But, with how I’ve been eating over the past few weeks, I’m okay with it.  Today marks a restart for me.

It was my first day back at the central booking facility in the jail where I work.  So happy to be back in booking!  But there is a problem.  I’m doing my refresher training on day shift, which means I’m subject to parking meters without an assigned parking spot in the parking garage.  Parking would run me $6/day, $18/week, $36/biweekly, and $72/month.  That’s my cable bill!!!  Well, I got a bit of good news when i checked my work email today...I have a temporary parking spot assigned to me in the parking garage for while I’m doing my training.  I’ll be going to the overnight shift once I’m done with training and won't have to worry about parking at all at that point.  YAY!

And now, I’m enjoying Frozen Earth on Discovery channel on my newly hooked up cable tv!  That’s the other good news...I got cable for the first time in almost 3 years yesterday.  I spent a good amount of time programming my DVR to record all sorts of shows over the next week.  I have no idea when I’ll actually watch all the shows.  Hahaha.  But I have them!  Really, the only time I absolutely HAVE to watch what is on tv in the evenings is on Tuesdays when Biggest Loser comes on, so the rest of the time, I can enjoy my recorded shows.

"Exercise Is Boring"

“Exercise is boring.”  Or is it?  I don’t think it is.  As Bob says, you just haven’t found something that you like to do if you find exercise to be boring. 

I know I like to keep things fresh.  Sure, at the gym, I do the same 3 things…at least for now I do…but that doesn’t mean it’s boring to me or that it’s not challenging to me.  There are numerous different programs to choose from on the cardio equipment.  The circuit training area at my gym does the same 10 strength training exercises, but I can still mix it up a little bit and challenge myself with those 10 exercises.  When I can do 30 repetitions of one particular exercise within the allotted 60 seconds, I know I need to bump up the weight I’m lifting. 

I’ve been going to the gym now for about 3 weeks.  Finally, today, I decided to take along a pen and paper to log what I’m actually doing in the circuit training area.  Now, I have something documented that I can base my future rounds of the circuit training area on and improve upon them.  That circuit training area is really the best idea a gym has ever had.  Seriously.  It’s the reason I picked Planet Fitness as the gym I wanted to join. 

How do you keep exercise from being boring?  The easiest ways are to mix it up and keep it fresh, and to do something you truly enjoy doing.  I have a decent sized library of workout DVDs, over 20 in fact, that I can choose from to prevent boredom and monotony.  And then I have the gym which is an open book of possibilities in and of itself.  And then, I always have the option of going for long walks or for a bicycle ride outside. 

Are you tired of the same old same old hum-drum at the gym?  Does your gym offer classes?  Take a class…or two.  Does your gym have a pool?  Do some laps!  Does your gym offer personal training?  Buy a session or two a month to help keep things changing in your routine.  Don’t have a gym membership?  That’s fine too.  You have plenty of options open and available to you.  Is there a school near your house with a track that you have access to?  Run some laps.  Do interval training by running a certain distance (say 1 lap) and then walking a certain distance (say 200 yards) and alternating for a certain amount of time (at least 30-50 minutes).  Own a bicycle?  Go for a ride.  Go for walks.  Do push-ups and jumping jacks.  Jump rope.  Use canned goods and jugs of milk or laundry detergent in place of weights for strength training.  In short, your workout is only as limited as your imagination!  Coming up short on ideas, the web community SparkPeople.com has LOADS of exercise ideas and instructional videos available for FREE!  All you have to do is sign up for a free account.

So, in short, exercise is only boring if you don’t enjoy it and if you don’t challenge yourself.  The only reason I can think of that you wouldn’t challenge yourself is that you really don’t want to achieve your goals.  Which is exactly what happened to me last year.  I won’t let that happen to me again.  I want to achieve my goals more than anything this time and I will do anything I can to make sure I meet those goals.  I will do whatever I can to make sure that my exercise routine is never boring.

Anxious

I’ve had insomnia the past 2 nights.  A few days ago I did not have this problem.  In fact, for months now my insomnia has not bothered me one bit.  And now, all of a sudden, it’s back.  Why?  Well, I asked myself the same question and came up with only one answer.  I’m anxious.  Anxious about what, you ask?  My impending transfer to another department within my agency.  It’s a department that I have worked in before and I absolutely loved it.  I worked in it for 4 years previously and have spent the last 3 years hoping to return.  And now, finally, I am getting my wish.  But why am I so anxious about this, you may be wondering.  Well, it’s because it’s a change in my life and I don’t like change.  I like things to stay the same.  Well, I like the big stuff to stay the same.  I like variety in the little things.  Even though I am perfectly okay with eating the same food day after day or doing the same exercises every day, I try to mix it up a little.  So, I don’t like change, even though this is a change for the better as far as I’m concerned. 

Also, there is the complete flip-flop of my schedule.  I will be going from the 6am-6pm shift to a 10pm-6am shift.  I will have to relearn to sleep during the day, which will hopefully only take about week to adjust to.  I will need to get some of those “blackout” curtains for my bedroom.  I had found some nice ones at Target a little while back.  I will also be investing in NyQuil to help me sleep for that first week.  When I was going through the end of my relationship with my ex and my anxiety level was extremely high and I couldn’t sleep, that was the only thing that could get me to sleep, otherwise I would have been awake for days at a time.

I’m anxious that I won’t acclimate back to working nights and sleeping during the day.  I’m anxious about having to relearn everything I was once so proficient at.  I’m anxious about having to relearn all the Spanish I used to know and use daily when I was in this department before.  And I’m anxious because it’s a much more “hands on” assignment than the one I’ve been in for the past 3 years.  You see, I’m going back to the Central Booking Facility of the jail I work in.  There, we deal with freshly arrested people that are still high on drugs or alcohol, or both, people that are suicidal or assaultive or uncooperative.  We have to do unclothed searches of anyone charged with a drug charge or a felony weapons charge.  We have to fingerprint and photograph each person.  It’s a fun place to work, very fast paced.  You’re rarely bored.  I’m just anxious that I won’t do well this time and that I won’t catch back on to the things I used to know so well…things that were second nature to me at one point.

Vacation Weight Loss

“I can’t lose weight on vacation!”  Conda said, “who goes on vacation and says ‘I wanna lose weight’?”  My response to that?  ME, ME, ME!  I do, I do!  And that’s just what I did at the beginning of this month and I lost over 5 pounds in just 16 days.  And I loved every minute of it.  My only regret was not going ahead and getting the new gym membership when I first went on vacation instead of at the end of the vacation.  I could have done so much more during my time off.  So much indeed.  Oh well, I have the gym membership now and for when I go on vacation next time…hopefully at the beginning of May.  One of my best friends, Jessica, will be here visiting me (hopefully my vacation time gets approved…fingers crossed) and we have loads of working out planned.  So, to answer Conda’s question again…Jessica ALSO goes on vacation and says “I wanna lose weight!”

When they were standing on the beach for the surfing challenge talking about their fears, Dolvett said to Kimmy “you’re only as good as the fear you conquer.”  I love that phrase.  It’s soooooo true!  I mean, seriously, you’re only as good as the fear you conquer?  Wow.  Just wow.  It’s like the “you’re only as good as your weakest link” but POSITIVE instead of pessimistic…instead of defeatist.  I have definitely become a “glass is half full” person over the last 14 months that I’ve been on my weight loss journey.  I survived the worst emotional crisis I have ever been through in my entire life.  After that, I figured if I could survive that, then I can do anything I want.  If I didn’t let him stop me from living my life, then nothing will stop me from getting my life back within my control.

Interesting factoid...during the Hawaiian pop quiz they gave the contestants, one of the questions involved how many calories the average sized person burns during an hour of surfing.  The “average person” used to be 150 pounds.  However, now that number is 200 calories.  What does that say about our country?  What does that say about us?  It says a lot, but for each person, it will say something different.  It’s sad really that it’s become okay to be unhealthy…that it’s acceptable to be unhealthy…that the new “average” is actually not only actually overweight but, in a lot of cases, is actually obese! 

Yesterday, at the gym, I had a little revelation inside myself.  I was busting out the side to side step jump I do on the stepper between exercises during the circuit training and I was seriously busting it out and keeping an intense pace and I was keeping it up for most of the whole hour that I made the rounds of the circuit training section.  The thought that popped in my mind was “I’m an athlete!”  When I had that thought, I almost teared up a little because that’s a very happy realization to make about yourself.  That means that what you’re doing is doing you good and you’re increasing your endurance and your ability to meet and exceed the expectations that you set for yourself.  How great is that?  Let me tell you, it’s an awesome feeling.