Month 2

So I cannot figure out how to put pictures beside one another. So the top and bottom  are today's pictures with month 1 in the middle.  I am going to find out how to do this sooner or later.

Progress seems slow, but it is there none the less. I have finally got to below 180, I had been stuck there for about a week, due to my bad eating.  So hello 179.2 and good by 180's I never want to see you again...ever.

August

              August is a great month for us, we got married, 6 years ago today

  Brought Ringo home 4 years ago (he still lays like this just takes up way more space)

                Brought Lily home 2 years ago on our wedding anniversary

Hmmm, 2 years between each dog, maybe time for another one.....just kidding LB if you are reading this.

This august has been a bit of a roller coaster, not all things have gone as planned and a few bumps and bruises arose, but there have been a lot of learning.  A what is life with out learning and growth?  Stagnant, and that is something I never want to be.  
My working our sans K, have been going really well.  I find that when I am counting each rep, I am able to force myself to do just one more, and well lets just get another two done, until I finished the set without stopping.  This is a great tool to add when working out with K, I will continue to count and than know how many are ahead and blast through each set, with a just one more attitude.  It's also been good to realize that I am capable of strength training by myself, because in a month from now my training with K is up.  We haven't made a decision if I will keep training with her, as it is really expensive.  Our tentative plan is to start working out alone until the new year, and hopefully I will be towards the end of the weight loss journey and she can help with the last 10 or 20 pounds.

Oh Dear

So I feel embarrassed and ashamed but I really binged yesterday.  Like really bad.  Glad today is a new day.

All by myself

So yesterday was my first strength training session sans K.  It went really well, way better than I imagined in my head.  In my head it was a disaster, not being able to remember what each of the exercise were, cheating by stopping during the reps if it got to hard, all kind of things.  I remembered each of the exercises except for the split-squat-row, so I went out to ask the front desk if they knew what it was, and they didn't know but pointed to the machine that was called the row, and as soon as I picked up the weights my body did the rest...good old muscle memory.
On a side note I love these final words from Jack Layton.
My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.
These words cross political boundaries, cultural boundaries, socioeconomic boundaries, and any other boundary I can think of.  They are a wonderful, gentle, and kind reminder of the role we play in our world, and our future. 
                                        Be the change you want to see in the world 
                                                            Mahatma Gandhi   

Small to Large

So as my clothes start to get too small, my large and extra large clothes I have to start thinking about getting new clothes, especially before school starts, seeing as I wore my jeans the other night I had to keep pulling them up.
I have very little clothes in the medium zone, as that was when I was the most depressed and lived in pj's and landon's sweatpants. Literally I have no pants from size 6-14.   I have clothes for certain occasions, like my grandfather's funeral, and our trip to Thailand, but not much else. So I am trying to decide when I should buy new jeans, I very much am a jeans and t-shirt kinda girl, and having no jeans is kinda stressing me out. Yoga pants can and should only go so far.   Should I wait until I finish with K and my weight loss may slow down?...but than again I am hoping I will keep on losing.   I still will have all the tools K has shown me, and I will just have to do it on my own for a while so really there is no reason why the weight wouldn't come off.  Should I wait until right before school starts?... I plan of losing another 5-6 pounds by than, and hopefully that will come off my waist.

Getting my Grove Back

Friday was the first day that I've had a great exercise since getting sick and I was so pumped at the end.  I had been doing the same exercise all along 1 hour on the elliptical on cardio days, but really not being able to get much of a sweat on or heartbeat up, so when I could Friday, watch out.  The disgusting sweaty ashen faced me was stumbling out of the gym with my legs barely able to hold me up.  Saturday morning has been when I do a bunch of different machines and work on sprints.  So after 10 minutes rowing, 10 biking with sprint intervals, 15 minutes of running intervals, 10 minutes of the stair climber and 15 on the elliptical I was again exhausted.  This time I ended up with a flushed face, and was red for an hour afterwards.  Really the looks I rock after the gym are awesome!
Today was the best day though, I exercised outside.  Landon and I went and took the dogs for a hike bright and early, and it was so beautiful.  We hiked to Mount Doug from our house, I used to do it daily before we moved away, and the comparison of my fitness ability was noticed by L, he even felt a little pushed by me.  Mind you it was a micro push, and I was my hot work out self, sweating and not quite able to finish sentences, but it felt really good to be told that I could push him slightly.  We hope that it becomes a early Sunday morning tradition, at least while the weather is nice, as it is so nice to be able to spend some family time together doing something we both love.  And I am learning to love exercise, I never thought the day would come, but I think it is slowly creeping up....

Anger leaves no room for happiness

Resentment/bitterness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die, we heard this at our convention and I personally know this to be true.  There is a belief by certain psychologists that depression is anger turn inward, anger that has never been dealt with, and it causes the depression.  For the record depression is biological, and brain chemistry is affected, this is just one of thoughts of the reason for the change in brain chemistry.
I have spent a long time being angry about four years to be exact.  I was angry at everyone, and anyone, and after a long time I realized that anger was only hurting me.  The people I was angry with had no idea I was upset, and after a while I didn't even no why I was angry.  I truly don't have anger anymore, and the reason this is so real to me right now, is I have a person in my life who suffers from depression and addictions and is so so angry and blaming others for where they are today.  I wish that I could tell them to just stop being angry and it would help them so much.
Anger is a poison that only effects you the person who is angry.  I know that it is easier said than done, but I promise you that working out your anger will allow you to have a more fulfilling happy life.

Off the diet wagon I went.

Oops! So here goes my confession:  Food of choice: Damn hot pepperoni and jello pudding cups, pretty much one bite of pepperoni and one bite of pudding, I feel sick even thinking about it.  I still can't believe I ate either of those.  For starters I hate pudding, and really don't like meat, but I have been craving dairy and protein.  How it happened: went grocery shopping right after a work out and while absolutely starving, I never allow my self to shop while hungry it's just a bad idea.  I started eating on the way home from the grocery store, something else I never let myself do, for me eating needs to be controlled, in a normal setting like at a table with food served out once, or else it quickly becomes uncontrolled.  So 5 pepperoni sticks later and 5 pudding cups and one giant stomach ache, guilt set in.  Did you know there is 210 calories per pepperoni stick and 110 calorie in each pudding cup= blowing the diet!  I personally would never recommend this combination of food to anyone, it creates a stomach ache like you wouldn't believe, and even worse coming out the other end.  So I am still paying for it today(sore stomach) and will pay for it for the next couple days(on the scale).
So today is a new day with a firm resolve to get back on track with my eating.  I will eat healthy!

Cheers to a better day

Self pity leads to unplanned cookies! The last few days have been a little more difficult than normal.  I've been sick and still trying to workout, our house is going much more slowly than planned, Landon has been working crazy hours and I just plain miss the guy!
The last workout with K, I never really wrote about but she pushed me extremely hard and I am still sore this morning and I have to get ready to see her again this morning.  It will be the last time I see her for a couple weeks, as she is going on vacation and we are tentatively going away, for a much needed break from our crazy lives before school starts back up.  So guaranteed she has something extremely evil planned for this morning and my poor sick body is quivering at the thought of seeing her.  
So last night lead to two cookies, not the end of the world and for a former binge eater good even, but they were not planned and with losing weight I try and have everything planned.  Anyways guilt gets you no where, there are even studies that say you gain more weight when you are feeling guilty when eating.  I didn't read the whole journal article so I can't tell you why, good grief it's summer and in 3.5 weeks I will be up to my eyeballs in journal articles!
So cheers to a better day today!

How to make a workout even harder...

Get sick! I have been fighting a cold for a few days and woke up this am feeling much better.  I went to do my warm up and it felt like my legs were made of lead.  I could barely move, the cold has left my head it just hasn't vacated the rest of my body.  And the rest of the workout was way harder, it felt like the first time I went.  K did add extra weight to the last reps of everything...not helping.  To tired to even write much about the workout, as my arms feel like jello, and ache just typing, yes the workout was that bad. So loading up on protein shakes and hoping that will help my recovery!

Supersized

How I got to be over 200 pounds was an accumulation of 5 years and emotional eating.  All the weight I gained, was gained in the winter when the depression is the worst for me.  Up until I got married I had an awesome metabolism, I could eat anything I wanted and if I wanted to loss a couple pounds I'd spend a couple weeks exercising.  When we went to Japan that was the first winter that I really suffered with depression, and I gained 10 pounds, most of it when we came home from Japan, I lost the weight that summer for my sisters wedding and  kept it off for a few months.  The next fall/winter was difficult we were living in a dark little basement suit, and I slowly gained 20 pounds, that winter was horrible.  I remember that I did not laugh for a couple months until one day when I was watching a movie in March or April and rushed to call Landon at work because I had laughed.  This was so monumental (the laughter) I can't even begin to describe it, it will be forever engraved in my mind.  We moved out of the basement suit and got into the house we are living in now, and the summer went by fine, winter came and went and brought with it another 10 pounds.  So this is about 3 years ago and I am at 150 pounds.  A year passed and I found out that winter my grandfather had lung cancer stage four, on went 15 pounds.  At the time of his funeral 2 years ago I weighted 165 pounds.  That winter I went into get somatic therapy, a lot of things came up that I wasn't emotionally ready to deal with so on went 30 pounds.  That summer we moved out of the house we are in now, and back to a dark little basement suit know as the cave, I lost nothing and continued to eat my feelings until September 2010 when I started school, here I weight 200 pounds, the stress and business of school lead to a lot of unhealthy eating added 17 pounds to my weight.  February 2011 is when everything changed, I realized that the weight gain was the consequence of my eating and lack of exercise and not the depression medication.  This mental clarity and sense of responsibility lead to the changes I have made and the weight I have lost.  Of course this is just a summary of the weight and a lot of history missed but essentially the time line of the weight gain.

Sick Day at the Gym

Today with K was great, I was a little worried after I saw her at Dairy Queen, getting a blizzard for kids day, that I was going to get killed in my training this am, but it was kids day and I did only get a mini while she got a large.  I was starting to get sick yesterday, and woke up today with a full fledged cold and not feeling like working out.  The last thing I need is a cold to derail my progress, but K worked with me having a cold and it was a great, really hard work out.  K really is fantastic at her job, and I love working with her, no matter how hard it is.  My clothes are starting to fit, or not fit (AS IN GETTING A BIT BIG), I am really excited for the changes that is happening with my body and mental state.

Back to normal?

Well the last of our family left today, so after 10 days of visiting with Landon's mom and dad and than my sister and her little family we are back to the normal that our life is.  I'm not sure living in renos can be considered normal.
I've done amazingly well keeping up with the gym and dieting, despite all the distractions.  I saw K yesterday after 6 days without seeing her, and wow I am so sore today.  It was the lunge, squat and barbell combined exercise that just about had me calling for mercy.  I am not sure where she comes up with these things.  So that horrible exercise went like this, lunge with inside leg, move leg back and squat, and switch to the other leg  lunging (while holding a barbell), repeating until I was whimpering to stop...yuck.  Needless to say it was a great workout and there is a reason I am so sore today.
On an interesting note dehydration is the most common reason for cramping muscles, thanks K.

Up to my ears in cuteness

I have been super busy, so sorry about the last few days with no posting.  I have my adorable nephews in town, and they are so much fun, and all my spare time is being spent with them.  I think they are leaving tomorrow.  It has been wonderful to get to know them, and see life through their eyes.
I have been keeping up with the gym and the diet.  The diet has been very hard the last few day, spending it with little kids and people on vacation, there is candy, chips, cookies, pop, juice...oh my!  All I have had, treat wise, is a half (!HALF!) of a cookie.  Seriously people this is hard for me, and how do you tell a two year old who is wanting to share his treats with you that you are on a diet, and that you are working out at the gym to hard to even think about what candy will do to you.  Besides is it ever just one candy or one treat?

Motivation

Motivation is going to be key in the next month. My appointments with K are going down to twice a week and that means I will have to do one weight training day by myself.  I started this am by accident, I got up early (6) to go to the gym only to find out on Sundays it is open 8-5... seriously.  Usually this is not a problem by we are away all day and there would be no time for the gym, and my stress level was telling me that I needed to get a work out in.  So I dug out our weights and did a workout this am at home, not as hard as K as I didn't have all the muscle groups to work out as our house isn't equipped with a gym. But an okay workout, I need to learn to really dig deep with out K this week to make sure that I get as much out of each work out as possible.  The other thing that will happen in two weeks, is according to K I will start gaining muscle and the scale may show less weight loss, to I need to stay motivated during this time and not get discouraged.  Also our kitchen situation leaves much to be desires...as we don't have one yet.  The husband has been working 15+ hours a day with work and there isn't to much that I am able to do, this means I have to get creative in the "kitchen" making up new and tasty, healthy meals this month!  

My Time to Shine

I was talking to a wonderful friend of mine, about a person in my life who makes me feel incredibly insecure.  (the insecurity from me nothing that they have done)  And she reminded me of the amazing things going on in my life and the successes I have accomplished in the past little while and told me that it was my time to shine.  For the last few days that has been my mantra, and it has been helping.  I have a lot to be glad for and there is never any need to compare yourself with others.

Goal Met

So this is almost a months worth of work.  I have lost 4 pounds this week.  So a total of 10 pounds this month.  I am very glad I met my goal. I wish it had of been a bit more. I haven't been to see K yet, but I have weighted myself at home and have officially lost 30 pounds! I am 185 and going to get smaller!  

Reasoning

One of the struggles dealing with depression was wondering "why me?".  Why do I deserve this?  Why if I pray for it to go away it wont? Why can't the doctors make it go away? Why, Why, Why...common words in my vocabulary in the first 2-2.5 years of depression.  I really struggled to make sense of the world that I was living (or suffering) in.  In the past I have seen things very black and white, right or wrong, good or bad, and when you look at life this way you find yourself not being able to enter into the world of others.  I was the first one when I heard someone was depressed to say get over it, wow did I ever have to eat humble pie on those words.  During the last 2.5 years I have come to a realization that this was meant to happen, call it god, karma or the universe, I was meant to have this experience.   And I have become grateful (most days) that I can understand the pain of another, because I have felt pain.  My understanding of other human beings has increase, so has my love and compassion, for this I am grateful to suffer depression.  If we can find the silver lining, the reason, the purpose, to the things we have suffered we can grow and become better human beings. 
PS I AM STRESSING ABOUT TOMORROWS WEIGH IN!!

Killed By KettleBall

Today we introduce the Kettleball, a new form of weights to make regular exercises even harder, brought to you by the letter K!
It was actually a lot of fun to use the kettleball, ever since I saw them used on Biggest Loser I've been dying to try them, and see how they compare to other weights(dumbbells and barbells).  We used them for every single exercise, squats, lunges, tricep curls, leg lifts, crunches, bicep curls, wall squats, and a few others that I cannot remember.  I am glad that K switches things up, that way I never go into a workout dreading any particular exercise and waiting for it to show up, like the plank.  If I had to wait for the plank to arrive every time, I may have quit or at least skipped one appointment.