Bonus Pack: Three mini-blogs for the price of one

The Scale Photo

   Obviously there are not a lot of people who are willing to post their scale on the WWW, much less if it is over 200 pounds.  But, for those people it is perhaps because they are going in the wrong direction or they didn't start a blog dedicated to their fat (or the losing there-of).  And in either case, good for them!  Me, I was pretty f*ing happy to see that number on the scale this past week.  I first realized it was heading in that direction when I had a 213 weigh in the day before, but I was getting flukey weigh-ins under the 215 I had been stuck at and didn't want to believe it.  Then it dropped again!  My first week on WW showed a loss of 6 pounds.  A very exciting change! Non-scale victories (NSV) are great and all, but who are we trying to kid?  Actually, some day I really need to blog about the little song I sing in my head.  There's this old song by Johnny Cash called I've Been Everywhere (you've probably heard it, it was even in a commercial once).  I have a song I sing in my head to this tune that goes "I've Been Every Weight."  Actually, that would be the whole blog, so I guess I don't need to write it now...

Anways, I don't know if it was just time for the weight to start moving, if it was the first week of WW or the thermogenic but it was nice to see some change.

You're taking WHAT?

Yeah, I started taking a thermogenic.  It's something they encourage you to do as part of the Body Challenge, but I'm pretty against that stuff in general.  In fact, more than a few people approached me after reading my plateau related laments and mentioned cleanses or cleansing diets or something else of the sort.  If you are reading this as one of those people, I want to say that I really appreciate the sentiment behind the offer and the reason that I didn't respond was because of the above statement.  I really only want to do things that I can sustain long term.  Any kind of cut this, cut that, drink this, et cetera thing does not appeal to me.  The reason why I am such a fan of WW is because it really works and really helps me figure out a way to eat that works for me.  Consistently.  It gives me a road map to follow to eat in the real world.  And yet, here I am taking a thermogenic.  Without even really researching it or anything.  I feel like a hypocrite, but it's hard to feel so much like a hypocrite that I want to stop taking it!  My current plan is to keep taking it until I hit the Onederland and then go it au naturel for a while to see if it really does make that much of a difference. 

It definitely makes a difference in how much I pee, I can tell you THAT much!  I mean, sure, I'm drinking close to 100 ounces of a water -- or more -- a day, but I have been doing that for a while and I wasn't peeing twice an hour!  Yikes!!

ATTENTION: SHOPPERS

So, other news.  The shopping expedition.  That did not go as well as planned, but oddly it was not the soul sucking depressing event that it normally is either.  I am now pretty firmly between sizes, and it depends on the store which sizes I'm between.  I bought two dresses in a store I hadn't been able to fit in anything for a while, so that was a plus -- even if it was their biggest size, who cares?  And I had to go on size run a few times because the size I brought back to the dressing room was too big -- but the size down was still a bit too small.  I also did some shopping in my own drawers and have been able to fit into two pairs of pants that I haven't worn in a while -- that's a bonus!  My size 16 jeans that I have been so excited about getting back into now get loose the day of the first wear after wash instead of the next time around.  Still can't get into the 14's (I know, I tried on Saturday), but I can get them on which is a HUGE step. 

Let's Get Physical

Unfortunately, exercise news is not as exciting this week.  I am under siege by allergy creeping crud and just did not want to go this morning or after work.  Maybe if I go sweat it out I can release some of the pollen demons, but it is hard to convince myself of that when it feels like someone ran a rake down my throat.  And I just keep running into these bouts of lame work-outs.  Do you know the kind I mean?  I get up and get going on the dreadmill and then can't finish and have to switch machines.  At least I'm getting cramps in different parts of my legs, this is some sort of progress right??  And I have worked up to being able to do level 4 on the elliptical, which makes me feel like a Rock Star since Scott can't even do the elliptical.  (I know, it's rude to mention but he can RUN which is way harder than the elliptical, IMHO). But, there's only so much ellipticalling you can do without getting bored.  Which is usually the thing that brings me back to my nemesis the dreadmill (I WILL conquer you!).  It's funny, because I climb on and make all of these vague promises to myself about what I'm going to do.  "Okay, Heather you are NOT going to try to run at the 5 minute mark, you are going to wait until the 10 minute mark because you've been trying to go too soon..."  Or I say I'm only going to go 30 seconds instead of a minute or I won't run at all or I'll do incline intervals.  I do not stick to any of it -- I just get so bored.  I mean, the elliptical isn't super-exciting either, but I don't get bored.  I think it's because I do a program on the elliptical and then do my own intervals within that program.  Like I'll do the fat burner program but then every few minutes I'll push my RPE (warning: this link takes you to a ton of information about target heart rate and rate of perceived exertion) to 10 for the duration of whatever cycle I'm in.  My RPE at 10 puts me between 120 and 130 strides, depending on where I'm at with my workout mojo, whereas when I'm at average work-out (RPE of about 6 or 7), I'm at 106-113. 

Exciting stuff, right?  I found something even more boring than the dreadmill!  Listening to myself whine about it!  Ugh!

Anyways, I will try to post more regularly so it's not always 3 blogs in one, but don't hold your breath.

Seriously, don't -- that could add an extra ounce on the scale.  :)

hugs,

Heather

The Bad Things

I mentioned in my last post that I had been to a birthday party and ate bad things, and teased that there would be a future post on this topic.  Since I ate a chili hot dog for lunch, this seemed like a good time!  :)

While I have been overweight for some time, I did not start doing anything to actively correct that until 2005 (see The History of this Fat if you'd like the full rundown).  That was the first time I joined WW and paid attention to what I was eating.  Since I started this blog (and my new life), I have been trying to monitor what I eat and make better choices.  You know that I cheat frequently, since I have written about our "blow diet" Saturdays.  You also know that there isn't much formality to how I monitor my diet, I'm more focused on being active.  But, still -- I find myself saying things like I ate bad things.  This is something that has always driven me crazy when I've known other people dieting.  I remember an Oprah episode where she had some gourmet baker on who had made this amazing cake of some sort, and Oprah wouldn't even eat a bite because she had a dress she had to fit in for an event and didn't want to mess around.  I mean, one bite?  Walk 5 more minutes on the dreadmill, then.

Again, I get into the slippery slope.  I knew that I was going to have a chili hot dog for lunch, so I did account for that in my calorie counting for the day.  But, I also knew that today I'm planning on adding my second work-out and taking a Zumba class tonight.  I knew that there was room for error.  I do try to make much smarter decisions than I did in the past.  But, when I do eat something that is NOT healthy, I really try not to quantify that as "bad."  The food itself isn't "bad" that is a value I ascribed to it when I chose to eat it instead of a bowl of carrots.  Really, I'm "bad", I'm making choices that are not best for me.  I'm trying to balance this need to lose weight with the reality of the world we live in.

Actually, I watched The Biggest Loser last night for the first time in a while.  I had been feeling kind of blue about my progress and was unsuccessful in even writing a blog post that encapsulated how I was feeling.  I just wanted to watch a show where there were people who had further to go than me and see their progress.  It's always been motivating in the past for me.  And last night's episode proved to be a mixed bag of motivation.  There was a team that was given the opportunity to work on their own to try to get back on the ranch.  They had been working out for the last 13 weeks, or whatever, at home and doing their own thing.  The mother/son pair had lost a combined total of 75 pounds.  (One of them needed to beat 91 pounds in order to beat someone who had the highest percentage of total weight loss.)  So, that was kind of amazing to see that one woman had been able to lose 45 pounds on her own in the amount of time that it's taken me to lose about 15.  Amazing and depressing, actually.  Then, there was another team that lost a challenge and had to go off the ranch for a week.  They got a $1000 to use for food, gym memberships and luxuries.  They chose to spend that allocation on some smart choices -- buying their own food, gym membership -- but then they made some not-so-wise choices like getting massages instead of having their personal trainer from the ranch come and help them.  Needless to say, they lost almost no weight and one of them was sent home.  And they had everything in their toolkit to go off on their own and be successful!  They had been working out and eating right like it was a full time job and still failed when they had to do it on their own.

Now, you can call it schadenfreude if you want, but I took a lot of encouragement from that.  Losing weight, getting healthy, changing your life is hard, hard, hard!  If someone who has been doing it as a full time job can't do it when they lose their support net, then someone like me has an uphill battle to face going it virtually alone.  Whose best current food plan has been to "eat lots of chicken."  Yes, I have Scott -- thank GOD -- going with me, but there are still bumps in the road even if your partner is in with you. 

Anyways, I veered off of the bad things topic that I started -- as I tend to do.  The long and the short is that it's not the food that it's bad -- it's the choices that are bad.  I can't keep making the decisions I made in the past, they're not going to help me get where I want to go.  All I can do is keep looking to the future and don't be caught off guard by too much cake and wine and not enough chicken. 

After all, if I keep working at it, eventually the number will follow the work. 

I HOPE!

hugs,

Heather

Weekend update

(insert catchy theme music)

As usual, some highs and lows to report.  Yesterday was, of course, body challenge  workout day.  Last week, we had the workout from hell, so I had been feeling a lot of trepidation going in to this one.  But, the most awesome thing happened in the beginning.  One of the guys from the challenge said, "Hey, I think that we have a problem motivating each other because we've been doing this all this time and I don't even know half of your names."  So, we went around the room and did a name refresher and then during the workout we were able to yell (or grunt or cry) out each other's names and give each other moral support.  That was really cool.  Then after our workout, which didn't feel quite as horrible as it usually does, one of the take-charge type women in our group said, "Hey, anyone want to hang out afterwards and talk about how things are going?"  So, several of us did that and that was also very uplifting.  Like WW and how everyone talks about the challenges that they face.  Scott and I left feeling quite inspired.

But, then we went to a birthday party and ate "bad things."  This is a post I will be writing in the future, because this plays into a lot of the diet related issues I have with weight loss.  Then that night I hosted a Lia Sophia Jewelry party.  I made the statement this week that I was not going to drink until Sertoma Spring Fever, but unfortunately I did fall off the wagon last night.  I will say that I did not leap off and that I pumped the brakes FAR more than I have on previous Saturdays.  But, a house filled with women drinking plus the availability of red wine made it far more difficult for me to abstain.  Still, and I know that I'm rationalizing so give me some slack -- I drank a LOT of water first and did not drink to the point of fuzziness.  I even drank water in between. 

And when I got on the scale this morning, it was the same as it was yesterday -- which usually doesn't happen on a Sunday morning.

SO.  I am once again renewing my commitment to try to stay on the wagon until Sertoma.  I'm feeling recharged by my group at the gym.  And I'm ready to go run... some errands with my husband!

Enjoy what's left of YOUR weekend!

Highway to the Comfort Zone

First, and foremost, a few people have come up to me recently and mentioned that they enjoy my blog.  I just want to tell you how much I appreciate that!  It does inflate my ego, which may be negatively affecting my scale results -- but it is what it is.  Seriously, thanks for the compliments -- it's nice to know I'm not whistling in the dark here.

But, then again, if you're trying to lose weight, have lost weight, decided to keep it on -- no matter where you are on your journey, you're not really alone are you?  There is ALWAYS someone who knows what you're going through and isn't shy about telling you.  As a favorite song line goes, "there's always someone with a big nose who knows and trips you up and laughs when you fall."  There is both comfort and frustration in that, don't you think?  On the one hand, it's really nice to know that you only have to take 3 steps to run into someone who has been on some part of the journey that you are on -- but on the other hand, sometimes you wish they would just shut the f* up.

Maybe that last part is just me, I do tend to have that part of my personality.  Smile and nod, but there's a part of me that wishes you would just shut up.  I mean, not YOU!  :)

As an example, as Scott and I got ready for the 5k there was a morning where I was once again trying to put some running into my walking regime.  As the 5 minute mark grows close for the interval, I really think that part of my heart rate increase is strictly the fear that accompanies what an idiot I feel like whenever I try to run.  I try to make it for a minute, but most of the time 30-45 seconds is doing pretty good.  One morning after we had worked out together, Scott made a comment that he was "disappointed" that I only had a few seconds to go to make it to a one minute mark running and I stopped.  I remember letting this remark fester for a while.  But, I finally thought, you know -- for all he knows, I was shooting for 30 seconds and overshot what I trying to accomplish.  So, whatever.

An acquaintance was talking to me (gossiping) about the weight loss efforts of someone else we knew.  She surmised that this other person simply wasn't challenging herself enough.  That she was using excuses and not trying to push herself harder.  My comment was that no one can make you be ready but you. 

But, I don't think she took what I meant in the spirit that I meant it.  But, it goes along with the comfort zone issue that I talk about frequently (here's one example).  It's a very fine line between being comfortable with your routine and knowing when to step it up.  See, for me, this conversation with this lady was one of the secondary factors in my decision this week to start stepping up instead of sitting down.  (The primary was a rougher than usual weekly challenge.  LOTS of intervals and pressure to "reach for the moon, because if you miss you still get a star."  I should've written a blog entry on this experience, but let's just say the pain and near humiliation was seconded only by the Mt. Trashmore work-out also linked above.)

Because, I thought that someone could just as easily have this conversation about me behind my back.  And while I don't entirely care what other people say about me behind my back, it was frustrating to me because I realized it was true.  I haven't been challenging myself more.  I've been self-congratulatory about getting up at dawn to go to the gym and for all of my recent accomplishments -- despite the fact that the scale is not going down and I'm regularly having a blow diet celebration every Saturday.  Despite the fact that I do NOT like to pick things up and put them down -- that's  another Heather Lee, thank you! 

So, today I had my first post-work workout and hope to continue this for at least 3 additional weekdays weekly.  I am also going to make a very strong effort to try to stay completely on the wagon until Sertoma Spring Fever.    (If you've never been to this event, Scott describes it as being like an outdoor open bar wedding reception to celebrate Spring.  I say it's Christmas for drunks.  Either way, it is a TON of fun!)  That's 25 days of no drinking.  That is a lot of awareness!  But, I may be up to the challenge.  We'll see.  There are many challenges along the way, but think of the benefit!

Because here's the thing, there are only 43 days until the body challenge is over, and 7 days after that is my 38th birthday.  My goal is to be in the One-derland by my birthday.  If I get off this highway and get into the challenge zone then that is a highly achievable goal.  50 days to lose 15-ish pounds -- that's an average of 2 a week.  Wish me luck!

Taking the next exit to overdrive,

Heather

PS -- Funny thing though, even though the scale isn't moving much, I'm millimeters away from dropping a jeans size.  So, I know things are working -- just got to get it all together!

5K DAY!

Today was the day!  Halfway through the Body Challenge and today I (along with Scott, of course) finished my first ever 5k!

What a great experience!

It was a really pretty sunny day.  Kind of a chilly, but didn't wear a coat because I kind of thought I'd be warm enough by the end.  The race started at 8, and we were told to be there by 7.  We got there right at 7 and still had to wait in line to get our numbers.  Then it was a lot of waiting and anticipation.

And then I saw KILLER KOPECKY!  That was so awesome!  What a motivating sight, she was.  Her boys go to Cox High School (where the race was held) and she was doing a "short run" for the school.  It was very emotional for me seeing her and I got a little choked up.  But, I sucked it up and we made it for the start line. 

And then Lora (that's Scott's Mom) showed up.  So nice to have a cheering section!  And someone to take pictures at the end.  (I have no idea how Ms. Bitchcakes takes all those pictures while she is doing her events.)

We did our pre-start warm up with the gym.  I was all lined up and ready to go and then when the starting buzz when off -- I had a music malfunction!  See, I had my music all ready to go, but I wanted to hear the starting buzzer so I paused it, then my hands were too cold to start it.  I was trying to jog and fix it and then slowed into my walk.  Most of the pack was in front of me -- including Scott -- but there were some folks behind me.  When I hit mile 1, I was a little concerned about my pace but then I checked the time and I was staying at 17 minutes.  Got a little vahklempt with pride for myself.  I mean, frankly, for my first 5k and my fitness level -- that was my goal, to finish at an average 17 minute mile.  Not ambitious, I know, but realistic.

I won't bore you with the details of the route, but trust me it was through some beautiful homes and everyone was so friendly along the way. 

When I finally got to to the finish line on the track at Cox High School, I wanted to sprint more than I did but when I hit the track the wind was in my face and I was not trying to recreate a song from the 80's.  And when I hit the track and saw the 3 mile sign and it was really almost over, I almost started crying.  I was really choked up and emotional but I talked myself out of crying because I wouldn't have the air to sprint to the finish.  I rounded the corner and ran as fast as my fat little beautiful legs would take me.

52:02.

Under a 17 minute mile, can you believe it?

Me, who hasn't been physically active pretty much ever in my life and now I have finished my first 5k.

And I placed!  I mean, it was 21 out of 21, but I still had my name on the list of people who finished.  (I've decided that there must have been more than 21 people in my age group to make it mean more.)

Anyways, so that was my day.  Great day, great accomplishment.  Thank you all for listening and going along for the ride with me!

Now it's off to well-earned massages!

big hugs,
Heather

Reasons I'm motivated

Today was the day of the team challenge of our body challenge.  It's held at Mt. Trashmore, which locals know is literally a "mountain" made of trash that has then been covered and made pretty.  Most of the workout is like our regular group workouts.  We work in groups and do 5 minutes doing various exercises working arms, abs, legs and chest.  After 4 (?) weeks, this is still very difficult for me.  And this brought me to my blog post today.

I've thought of a lot of different reasons that I'm motivated to do this, especially this week.  As I posted earlier, I was having problems getting on track.  I was pretty frustrated with myself.  And was feeling pretty down about my prospects of being able to move forward. 

But then on Thursday, I was able to do 40 minutes on the elliptical at an average stride per minute of 103.  Friday I finished 45 minutes on the dreadmill, and kept that at an average pace of 3.6 mph...  And then I had one of my most motivating things happen.  The pants I wore were a bit too big and were drooping to mid-thigh.  I noted this but didn't think too much of it when I lef the house.  That was because when I lef the house I wasn't walking 3.6 miles per hour -- much less trying to jog a bit.  About mid-way through my workout I realized that my thighs were rubbing together so much that I was sustaining the equivalent of a fairly significant rug burn.  And that was mid-way through.  I pushed through and managed to finish my workout, but I spent the rest of the day walking like I had been horseback riding for a bit too long.

Big motivation -- get thighs small enough to never have to deal with this again!

Then come back to today and the challenge at Mt. Trashmore.  On our interval, the wanted us to run (ha!) up the hill and then come back down... backwards!  I was already slightly mortified in previous intervals when the other people in my group were lapping me, but this was so much more mortifying...  I couldn't run, I could barely walk.  At one point I joked I needed a walker!  And then coming down backwards?  One of the trainers helped me most of the way down and the second time -- I didn't even go all the way to the top (I got a hall pass in the interest of keeping things moving apparently) and even then as I was backing down people who had been to the top were lapping me coming back down.  I really wanted to die of shame.

Big motivation #2 -- get in shape enough to keep up with the pack!

Which of course the work that goes into #1 will help with #2. 

As you know, I constantly struggle with this delicate balancing act of forgiving myself for not being able to do more and still pushing to move forward.  I still don't know when I'm just stopping because I'm lazy or because I really should be stopping.  And how can anyone know that?  I can't find the exact post, but Ms. Bitchcakes once said that your brain is going to want to quit long before your body needs to.  (For anyone who doesn't know this, this woman was one of the biggest motivators in my deciding to blog about my weight loss journey. She has the awesomest, shiniest blog like ever!)  And that's the thing -- the biggest motivator -- I would LOVE to be the maniac.  Like one of the trainers this morning who was so go, go, go that we all wanted to simultaneously kill her and BE her at the same time.  It's a twisted thing.  But that's not something I can expect to happen overnight.  And it's not something that's going to happen without tons of work. 

And I'm not there yet.  I'm still working on becoming the me I want to be.  But look how far I've already come, right??

I can work out for 30-40 minutes at a time without puking.  By their scales, (which is another post) I have lost 13 pounds.  I'm getting up most mornings and working out before I go to work.  I'm eating better than I ever have in my life.  I've gone from drinking most nights to confining my wino-ism to the weekends -- and then mostly just Saturday.  My jeans fit out of the dryer.

And that's only a couple of months into my transformation.  Aren't you excited to see what the year is going to bring?? 

Have a great weekend!

Hugs,
Heather

Body challenge post

Today was the first official work out of the body challenge.

OMG.

I'm writing this as soon as possible, because I don't think I'll be able to use my arms much longer. :)

It was an hour strength circuit. Speed moves on arms, legs and abs with a dash of cardio thrown in to make sure your heart rate never drops. It was intense. Some of the things I couldn't even do, particularly anything that involved upper body strength. No push-ups, for sure. Mountain climbers? Fuhgeddaboutit. I tried my darnedest though and I'll keep trying and keep pushing because I'm going to do this thing!

And in 4 weeks we're going to be doing a 5k! Yikes! I'm trying to work up to being able to at least walk a 15 minute mile, so that way if I can walk/run it I'll at least finish under 45 minutes. Because the day of the 5k, we're still going to work out afterwards! Yikes again!

And my weight loss? 4 lbs on their scale -- 6 on mine, but with less clothes. :)

My first goal is to be under 200 at the end of the challenge, really. I'd like to win, sure. But, to lose 24 pounds in 12 weeks is totally do-able, especially with the amount of working out I've been doing.

I'm all over the place. Time to eat!

Slippery slope

I AM sorry for the much delayed post about the start of the body challenge at the gym (aka the biggest loser). It's been a crazy few days since then -- more on this in a moment...

The kick-off for the challenge was on Saturday at 9 a.m. There was no work-out this time, it was informational only. The owner of our gym owns 3 gyms in the area, so the three teams are each of the gyms. It's a 12 week challenge. The first Saturday of each month we meet up for a "club challenge" where all three teams compete against each other in a work out at Mt. Trashmore. (Just in case some non-local wandered on here, Mt. Trashmore is a local recreation place that was indeed made out of trash.) The other Saturdays we have an hour long meeting at the gym which includes a "fun" work-out and an informational topic.

At the kick-off, they gave us the food plan and the exercise goals. I won't get too mired in the exercise goals -- lots of cardio and strength training. It's not rocket surgery, after all. They strongly suggest doing cardio in the morning. Yesterday, I did get up at 6:30 am and did 30 minutes of cardio before I had to go to a doctor's appointment at 8:30. Today, I was not as good but it was because I had to leave so early to take my mom to an outpatient surgery and I'm just not ready to get up at 5:00 am for anyone. Yet. When I am back at work next week (I'm on staycation this week), I may have to get up a bit before 6:00 in order to get to the gym and back and showered, etc in the right amount of time. I'm working on it.

I've NEVER been an early riser or someone who thrives on being up in the morning. Many years ago I had a 6am shift at my job (can you imagine?), but I still wasn't ever raring to go. BUT, part of the diet challenge is that they want us to try not to drink coffee. SO, getting up and going to the gym totally eliminates the need for coffee. I mean, I'm saying this after one day, but trust me -- I didn't miss it at all yesterday. Not that I'm a caffeine-a-holic, I usually have one travel mug a day. But, it's just the idea of it.

ESPECIALLY with all of the dietary restrictions on the new diet... It's definitely challenging. SO challenging that Scott and I spent like 3 hours on Sunday trying to figure out what we were going to eat. I'm afraid I'm still not 100% on target, but I'm working on it. It's a focus on a specific caloric, protein, carb and fat goals. It's targeted eating based on a weight where I have less fat or something. It's not the end target weight -- the weight the calculations are based on is 210. I think the targets get lower as the weeks go on. I'm supposed to eat about 1833 calories a day and there are other targets for fat, protein and carbohydrates. I'm not doing so hot on the protein so far. The protein goal is like 229 or something. It is very hard to eat that much protein in a day, we're finding. Especially while trying to keep fat and carbs down to a minimum. Very challenging! But one of the keys things with the diet plan is that they never want you to feel hungry so they want you to eat something every 2-3 hours. I'm also failing at that. In part because I had a 4 hour trip to the MRI yesterday which of course put me way off track.

The crazy days in general have been wreaking havoc. I didn't workout Friday through Sunday, and there was a lot of bad eating behavior on Saturday when we were confronted with the challenges of the weeks to come.

And here's where the title comes in. The slippery slope. When I don't do everything 100% correct -- which how often is that really going to happen? -- I start to beat myself up a little. And that leads to a lot. I don't want to beat myself up. That's the point of why I started doing this in the first place. Started changing my life.

And that's the thing. I'm changing my life. A life that's been going in the wrong direction for a while healthwise and it's not going to change in a few weeks. It's going to take time. BUT. Where is the line between allowing myself some room for mistakes and sliding down the slope into all of my bad old habits again? I don't want to forgive myself but so much, you know? If I skip a day of cardio because my mom had surgery, is that forgivable? What if it's just because I don't wanna?

And don't get me started on the self-abuse for not starting strength training yet. Sigh. It's a slippery slope, and I definitely need some traction.

hugs,
Heather

Hmmm, the last "testing" post was because blogger has a text to blog feature. I sent out a testing to see if it would work and then got a text back that said -- yay! It worked. So, then I text-posted a much longer update, which of course did not work at all. Clearly, it's sit at the computer and do it or nothing at all. Luckily, you didn't miss much -- I was just confessing to skipping a workout on Tuesday.

The biggest loser competition at the gym starts in 9 days. There is a check list of things you should do to get ready. One of them is that you should drink 1 oz of water for every 1/2 pound of your weight. (So, if you weighed 100 lbs, you'd be drinking 50 oz of water.) Well, you already know how much I weigh, so I was a bit daunted by that. I did the math. That's like 6 oz for every hour you're awake. Of course, your smarmier folks were all "that's what you're supposed to do anyways." Really? Well, suck it -- that's a lot of water and a LOT of peeing. I know, I hit it today. But it was a bit of effort and I was not enjoying it. I mean, the water is fine but the enforcement of it felt like punishment and the having to pee all the time was not exactly a walk in the park either.

But, that's fine. The trainers want me to quit my job and drink water, pee and work out all the time. And think of all the weight I'll lose from not having money to buy food!

Change in plans

Okay, I've decided that I am not going to join WW and instead turn this into a blog about how much fatter I can really get!

Ha! Just kidding... Kind of. When we were at the gym today, we made an impulsive decision to join in their version of a Biggest Loser challenge. Yikes! But, with the challenge there is a proscribed eating plan to maximize weight loss, which pretty much eliminates the need for me to join Weight Watchers until after this 12 week program is over.

But, the GREAT news for you is how fun is it going to be to hear about a 12-week weight loss challenge?! Right?! I know -- I can already feel your excitement. I know that the journey is one that both terrifies me and excites me. I've never been much of a challenge myself physically kind of a girl. I have friends who have done marathons and half marathons and triathlons (and one friend who has done all 3!) and constantly push themselves to be in good shape. I admired this from a distance while eating ice cream and congratulating them. But, I'm ready to be congratulated. I'm ready to change. I'm ready to be the person I'm meant to become.

And to prove it, I'm putting myself fully out there with my blog and posting my very first super fat photo! Yikes!





They make us take before pictures for the the challange. I was not excited about stripping for the buff little dude who is the trainer but what are you gonna do?

Once I get more in tune with this, I'll figure out how to do a whole photo page or something. But let's just baby-step a little bit more, shall we? I mean, seeing all of this is not for everyone! It certainly has played a large part in my aversion to reflective surfaces for so long!

I need a catchy sign off....
Heather

PS -- Turns out my initial weight loss confession was off -- I was 228 on their scale today. 2 lb weight loss since Thursday, ha ha!