Wednesday 30 May 2012

Keep on truckin' and tracking

Have been keeping track of food and hitting about 1600-1700 cals per day and getting in three workouts per week. It's tough for me to get out of bed in the morning, but I do it. I have to get the workouts in. After a long work day, it wont happen, just no energy left to do it.

On the elliptical, when almost ready to give up, I say to myself Keep on truckin' girl, keep on truckin' and it seems to make me go for an extra 10 minutes. Then I hop on my trampoline and bounce away for another 15 minutes and that makes me happy :) That's unusual for me... I'm not happy until I get a big cup of coffee.

Next week I'm going to incorporate more weight training into the workouts. I noticed while gardening, I struggled to lift the coiled heavy duty garden hose and had a hard time pushing the big mower. Gotta get my muscles back. Muscles burn fat... and I got plenty of fat that needs burning!

Saturday 19 May 2012

Influenza is not a great diet

Since the day after my last post, I've come down with the flu. One week of 102F fever mixed with chills and then a week of congestion, mucus and bronchitis. Thank goodness I had a stock of low-fat low-sodium Campbell's chicken noodle soup, home frozen home-made vegetable soups and some frozen cans of orange juice to get me through the first week. A kind friend stopped by with a casserole and to replenish my supplies of fresh fruit, veggies, and of course tissues and I'm very thankful to her!!! I'm also lucky that the grocery store and pharmacy is only a ten minute walk away.

Needless to say, exercise hasn't been a priority...and I haven't bothered to weigh myself.  But I've been thinking a lot about things and basically have been doing an inner workout. It also helped that Oprah's OWN network had a bunch of shows about weight loss the reasons behind the weight gain. For me food has always been there for me when friends and family haven't been. It's been my coping mechanism for so long, it's taken me a good year to start to change my relationship to food. Keeping on track emotionally is just as challenging as keeping on track with exercise!

I think I'm almost back to 100% flu-free, so as I wrote in my last blog, I'll start my food log on Monday and get in three morning workouts per week.

Thursday 3 May 2012

Reality Check

Measurement of progress so far:

Chest: 40" (no change)
Waist: 41" (-1 inch)
Hips aka Ass: 47" (-2 inches)
Pant size: 16p

I compared the numbers to those in my first blog post from 3 months ago and it's obvious: I haven't done the work it takes to slim down. I did make a very good start... but fell off with the exercise. The little nagging negative voice inside me says, "You loser, you can never commit to anything can you?"  While the positive comforting voice insists, "It takes a while to get used to a new way of living, this is a big lifestyle change; don't be so hard on yourself!"

Stress at work has certainly affected my level of tiredness at the end of the day. I try to take a long walk on the way home to decompress if it's nice outside, but lately it's been cold pouring rain. I think now if I can wake up early enough in the morning, that's when I'll fit in a workout instead.

To get back on track, starting on Monday, I'll journal my food for the next month. I need to make sure that I'm hitting the right amount of calories. I'm committing to working out 3 times a week in the am, journaling my activity, and getting nice long walk in wherever possible.