Sweat is fat crying!

Knowing, or rather feeling, like I needed to step it up tonight for the Lazy Man Iron Man and for my own personal lifestyle change, my girls & I took a bike ride.  The last ride we did, on Monday, all 3 of us did 3.42mi and we were ok with it because it was later in the evening & absolutely gorgeous outside.  Tonight it was a little earlier & warmer, so my girls were done after the 3.42, but I wanted to push it a little more.  I made it 4.5mi!!  And let me tell you, it was work!  My legs felt like Jello & I have to be completely honest, biking really makes my butt hurt!  But I pushed through & was happy I did.  Here's a post biking pic.

After the bike ride & while I waited for dinner to be done cooking ("Taco Loaf" is what we're calling it) I decided to give the cardio circuit workout a try that I intended to do last night.  As a reminder, it's this:

 And since I'm pretty much a beginner, I wasn't able to do it all.  I did everything up to the jumping jacks, but only 25.  No wall sits.  I will try to increase the jumping jacks daily until I get to the 80 (x3) & until I can do the wall sits as well.  It's progress; it's a journey.  This is what I looked like after finishing this modified circuit:

I keep seeing the phrase "sweat is fat crying" all over Pinterest & have taken it up as part of my personal mantra.  Sweating has never been anything I've ever enjoyed, but now, it lets me know that I'm doing something right & that results will follow.  AND showers are even more enjoyable.  :)  So, I'll move along & keep sweating because I got this.  I can do hard things.

A Little More Off the Top.

Fatigue got the best of me yesterday, so I did not do the circuit exercise that I posted about yesterday.  :(  BUT, I did do my walking & swimming to continue on in my Lazy Man Iron Man competition, and my two lovely daughters joined me.  There's a Riparian Preserve in Gilbert, AZ, just a few miles away from where I live, that's become a favorite place of mine to go on walks.  It breaks up the monotony of walking through the neighborhood where I live.  However, I wasn't really paying attention to the weather yesterday, and going at 3pm turned into a pretty bad idea.  It was hot!  And since the sun was pretty much directly above us, there wasn't much shade, either.  But we pushed through & got in a decent walk, 1.87mi.  :)  I think today my best bet is going to be to go home, take a little bit of a nap, and then try & do some biking later tonight when it's a little bit cooler.  Like after the sun goes down!  Oh, and on a side note, my right leg is covered in some kind of insect bites, from my knee down to my ankle.  Not a happy camper about that, I guess I'll have to wear longer pants the next time I walk there.  :/

It was hot, but we're still smiling...1.87mi walk.

Because it was so ridiculously hot and we were all a sweaty mess after our walk, we decided that pool time was the best idea!  The pool felt SO GOOD and I was able to get in some laps to count towards the swimming portion of my Lazy Man Iron Man.

.5mi in the pool, a total of 1 mile of swimming in the last 2 days.  Only 1.4mi left to go!

Even though I didn't do much exercising over the weekend & I haven't felt sore yet this week or included any additional exercise yet, I got on the scale this morning to check anyway (I tend to be a little overly obsessed with the number on that stupid machine, I should probably find a way to fix that) and I'm down a pound!  239lbs as of today!  I don't know if I've mentioned this yet, but as a motivator, I've decided that for every 10lbs I lose, I'm going to allow myself to get a new tattoo.  I'm halfway to my next one!  When I get to 234lbs, I'll be in the tat shop.  Another 5lbs is nothing.  I got this.  I can do hard things.

Go The Extra Mile.

In my post from earlier today, I mentioned that I wasn't as sore today as I was almost expecting to be since I'd done a lot of different exercises yesterday for my Lazy Man Iron Man that I'm not used to doing.  I am pretty sure I need to add a little something to my days.  I've mentioned in past posts that I'm an avid pinner on Pinterest and have definitely made a huge board dedicated to my lifestyle change.  So what I've decided to do is to try out each of the exercise routines that I find for a 2 week time frame.  Two weeks should be enough for me and, hopefully, anyone else to notice any kind of difference that it's making.  Also, the muscles get used to doing the same thing over and over again, so they stop responding to the same exercises after a while.  This will give me the opportunity to keep my body guessing while I discover the right exercises to target the "problem" areas I'm wanting to take care of.  Starting today, I will incorporate the exercises listed in the picture below into my daily workout.  It's going to be challenging!  But I got this.  I can do hard things.

Lazy Man Iron Man!!

As mentioned in a previous post somewhere, I started what's called a "Lazy Man Iron Man" yesterday (Memorial Day) and it goes through until 7/4.  Over the course of this time frame, I'm expected to walk/run 26.2mi, bike 112mi, & swim 2.4mi.  Well, yesterday I did a little bit of everything, since I had the day off, AND my kids joined me in all of the activities!  I honestly thought I'd be a little more sore today than what I actually am, so I'm thinking I need to either step it up a notch and do more of this stuff at once, OR add it some extra exercises.  I'm a pretty avid picture taker, especially when the event involves my kiddos, so here are some pics from yesterday.  Oh ya, I got a little sun burned :(

Walked 1.28mi

Swam 0.5mi

Biked 3.42mi

I'm still trying to figure out how this is going to work, me working full time from 5am-2pm, having my kids with me every other week & finding time to spend with them AND finish this challenge up.  But I'm going to take it one day at a time, just like everything else.  And besides, I got this.  I can do hard things.

"Before"-ish.

OK, as promised, I'm going to put it all out there, including pictures of myself to help visualize and motivate myself & hopefully others as I go through this process.  I'm not happy about doing this, LOL.  I'm really not ok with the way I look right now AT ALL and these pictures aren't exactly flattering.  But when I'm done & have reached my goal, being able to look back & see the difference, that moment will make it all worth it.  I'm planning, at the moment, to post updated pics of my progress once a month.  So here we go!

Also, here are my current measurements:

Bicep - 16"

Forearm - 10"

Neck - 15"

Chest - 44"

Waist - 43"

Hips - 50 1/2"

Thigh - 28"

Calf - 18 1/2"

OK, as promised, I'm going to put it all out there, including pictures of myself to help visualize and motivate myself & hopefully others as I go through this process.  I'm not happy about doing this, LOL.  I'm really not ok with the way I look right now AT ALL and these pictures aren't exactly flattering.  But when I'm done & have reached my goal, being able to look back & see the difference, that moment will make it all worth it.  I'm planning, at the moment, to post updated pics of my progress once a month.  So here we go!

Also, here are my current measurements:
Bicep - 16"
Forearm - 10"
Neck - 15"
Chest - 44"
Waist - 43"
Hips - 50 1/2"
Thigh - 28"
Calf - 18 1/2"

Goals

Growing up, my mom & dad had me & my brothers write out New Year's Resolutions every year.  It was actually a pretty fun process.  We'd read the ones from the year before, toss them into the fireplace & watch them burn up & write out new ones for the year to come.  I think that (realistic) goals, long term and short term, are crucial for anything in life.  Here are some of mine, starting with long term:

1.  Healthy goal weight, 160-167lbs.
2.  When I sit down, I want my boobs to stick out further than my stomach.
3.  I don't want my thighs to rub together when I walk.
4.  Complete a 5k RUNNING.
5.  Complete a 10k.
6.  To be able to see my collar bone.
7.  Quit smoking.
8.  Motivate my girls to be healthier eaters/more active.
9.  Be able to wear a bikini (not that I actually WOULD, just to be able to try one on, look good in it, & feel comfortable).
10.  No more love handles, muffin top, back fat, chicken wing arms, or under boob fat.

Short term:
1.  Focus on only 10lbs. at a time.
2.  Exercise daily, even if it's only for 20 minutes.
3.  Eat clean!  But enjoy cheat meals (days) without guilt.
4.  Stay positive, don't beat myself up if I slip up here or there.
5.  Stay honest with myself.  (This blog will be a big help with that!)
6.  Accountability.  Every night that I go on a walk or do a workout, I take a pic of myself, post it to Facebook & tag my little brother in it, announcing what I've done.  My little brother & my best friend, Kim, have been such a great support system for me & it's good for me to be able to check in with these two & keep them up to date on what I'm doing.
7.  Try new things.  I really want to sign up for either boxing or kickboxing in the near future.
8.  Stay open minded & willing to take suggestions.
9.  Involve my kids in my workouts.
10.  Stay focused on why I'm doing this; I didn't gain the weight over night, it's not going to come off over night.

So, some of these are a little redundant and maybe somewhat silly, but whatever, these are the things I'm aspiring towards.  I got this.  I can do hard things.

Get Moving!

OK, so now that I'm eating healthier & starting to see some results (WOOT!), what exactly do I do to get into an exercise routine?  I don't want to get a gym membership, it's too expensive & I'm too insecure at this point to work out in front of other people.  So what do I do?  About 10 years ago, I was 22, married & had a 2 year old & wanted to drop some weight.  I was told that if I walked 30 minutes a day & changed my eating habits that I would see results.  I took the suggestion.  I was doing the whole Slim Fast thing for breakfast & lunch & cooking a healthy meal for dinner & would put my 2 year old in her stroller & push her around my condo complex's parking lot for 30 minutes a night.  And I saw results!  Having had this experience, I know that my body responds well to walking.  It's low impact, easy enough to do, and I can do it pretty much within the comfort zone of my neighborhood.  This is where I started.  The problem, for me, that arose, was that I was coming home at the end of my 30 or 45 minute walks with massive blisters on the bottoms of my feet.  I'm talking big, like covering almost the entire ball of my foot area.  Needless to say, this would interrupt any habit I could get into for walking daily because it was too painful.  I talked with my little brother who told me I needed to be wearing good shoes (you know, ones actually made for walking & running) and non-cotton socks.  Who knew?  So, I took the time & went to a running store (I had NO idea that there was such thing as a running store) and got fitted for a good pair of running shoes & bought myself some non-cotton socks.  What a difference it made!  I was finally able to walk for longer distances & periods of time without being in horrible pain!  Hooray!!  Now, how do I track my mileage & calorie burning, etc?  Well, there's a lovely free app for iPhone (and Droid, too, I believe) called MapMyRide.  It will track running/jogging, walking, bike riding AND has a section where you can upload what you eat & how much, etc, & tally all of your calories for you.  That's what I'm talking about!  As far as counting calories going in, this app is fantastic.  Unfortunately, the counting for the calories burned is pretty inaccurate.  I have, however, found an online calorie calculator that seems to be much more accurate & has many more fields to utilize for the different types of exercising one might be doing.  Here it is:
http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc

I also checked out the $9 DVD rack at WalMart & Target to see if there were any workout DVD's available that I could do in the comfort of my own home for the days that I feel like I need more of a workout than just walking.  I got Billy Blane Insane Abs, Jillian Michaels Beginners, and a 28 Day Boot Camp DVD.  At this point in my "abilities", I stick pretty much to the Jillian Michaels DVD because it's all fairly easy moves that I can actually do (the Insane Abs is hard for me because my stomach gets in the way of a lot of the moves they want you to do) and it's all body weight exercises, which means I don't need to have free weights or a workout bench or anything but a chair and my body.  I can't say that I'm doing any of them consistently, because I'm not, but I am doing SOMETHING on a pretty much daily basis.  For me, it's been all about comfort level.  If you like being in the pool, swim some laps.  If you like walking, go for a walk.  If you like being in the gym, go to the gym.  Do something that is going to get your heart rate up & keep it up for about 30 minutes.  If you can go longer, awesome, go longer.  But try to do at least 30.  You'll be amazed after about 2 weeks how much you start to look forward to doing your daily exercise.  I never thought it would be something I would actually admit to, but it's true.  If I skip a day, I regret it.  So I'm going to keep moving.  I got this.  I can do hard things.

Food!

As previously stated, I love food!  All food.  Mostly comfort food, anything greasy, fattening, chocolate, sugar infused, yummy, delicious, mouth watering food.  As I've been moving along in this process, I ask people who have been successful at losing and keeping weight off how they were able to do it.  90% of the time they tell me they did it by counting calories and having an exercise routine.  Counting calories, huh?  Sounds easy enough.  But for someone like me, I didn't have the slightest clue of where to begin.  How many calories should I be consuming in a day?  What's considered "a lot" of calories?  My younger brother, Austin, has done a lot of schooling in the area of nutrition, so I decided to ask him.  He told me that for a woman my age & height, I should be consuming anywhere between 2000-2500 calories per day.  But again, how do I do this calorie counting thing?  Why can't I just eat "good" food & have that work?  I'm a talker, by nature, so I will talk to anyone & everyone about what's going on with me, what I'm struggling with, etc.  I'm also a smoker (boo, I know) and about a month ago my company hired a new sales guy who's also a smoker AND also is very much into fitness, etc, and so is his wife.  So we're talking one day and he tells me that his wife follows this meal outline that she really likes & it's super effective, etc, and that if I want, he'll bring a copy of it to work for me so I can try it out & see what I think.  Yes!  Absolutely, I'm open to any & all suggestions.  That's another thing that has been crucial for me, having an open mind & being willing to take the suggestions of others; especially if they've got something that has worked for them, it may just work for me.  Here's the meal outline:

First Day

Breakfast             1 small apple, 2 TBS Peanut butter

Shake

Lunch                    ½ cup dry Tuna or Chicken or Turkey or Fish, 1 small salad, with olive oil & vinegar

Shake

Dinner                  3oz Chicken Breast, 1 cup green beans or vegetable of your choice, 1 small apple, ½     cup vanilla ice cream

Second Day

Breakfast             2 eggs, 1 banana

Shake

Lunch                    1 Greek Yogurt or 1 cup cottage cheese, 1 small salad with oil & vinegar

 Shake

Dinner                  2 hot dogs or 3 oz chicken breast or turkey breast or fish, 1 cup broccoli or vegetable of your choice, 1 banana, ½ cup vanilla ice cream

Third Day

Breakfast             1 slice cheddar cheese, 1 banana, 1 small apple

Shake

Lunch                    2 hard boiled eggs, 1 small salad with olive oil & vinegar

 Shake

Dinner                  3 oz fish or chicken or turkey, 1 cup cauliflower or vegetable of your choice, ½ cantaloupe or 1 cup frozen mixed fruit, ½ cup vanilla ice cream

3 on, 1 off…water, coffee, protein shake…EXERCISE!! 

Seems easy enough, I'll give it a try.  In the 1st two weeks I followed this plan, and I mean I followed it as completely as measuring the peanut butter, dressing, etc, each & every time, I lost 7lbs!  JUST by following this simple meal plan.  And let me just tell you all, I DO NOT like tuna.  Not a fan, not at all.  But on the days I was supposed to eat it, I did.  I found it was easier for me to eat the tuna if I mixed it in with my veggies or salad & poured the olive oil & vinegar on top of it.  I also discovered that mixing the cottage cheese in my salad was quite tasty.  By the 3rd week, I decided that the ice cream wasn't worth the calories & stopped having that at dinner.  I also discovered that trying to stick to this over the weekends while I had my kids was next to impossible.  In total, I've been working off this basic outline for about a month now.  I've made some adjustments to it, I don't have full cheat days anymore, I do cheat dinners on Friday & Saturday nights, so I can eat the same thing I'm making my kids.  And, again a shout out to Pinterest, I've found new recipes for meals I can make for us all that are tasty and healthy.  Who knew?!  Each day on this meal outline is about 1500 calories.  It's a little lower than what my brother suggested, but it's working for me at the moment.  I know that I'm not going to be able to eat like this forever, I'm already getting bored & looking for more options.  But since I now know what kinds of things to be eating, portion sizes, & actually stopping for a minute while at the grocery store to look at the calorie content on the package, I am better equipped to make smarter decisions.  I got this.  I can do hard things.

Motivation

The biggest thing, for me, on getting started on this whole losing weight journey, has been "where do I find the motivation?"  I have spent years sitting around wishing & hoping that I could lose weight & feeling sorry for myself that I wasn't as skinny as this person or as active as that person, but I wasn't doing anything to change it.  I continued to eat the way I was eating, continued to do nothing active & stayed miserable for a long time.  There were short time frames here & there where I would convince myself that I was ok with the body I was in & that it really didn't matter what I look like on the outside, but they were far & few between.  So, last October, I decided to do something different.  A friend of mine is a coach for Team Beach Body & was promoting Shakeology & how wonderful it is for you & how it'll produce results for weight loss & general improved health, etc.  I was looking for something to get me started, so I signed up.  Shakeology is a wonderful meal replacement shake that really did fill me up for that one meal I was replacing & since I was replacing one meal a day with something healthy, I decided that my other 2 meals needed to be healthier than what I was doing at that time.  And let me clarify something here, for anyone reading this & myself; I am a food addict.  I mentioned in my intro that I'm a recovering alcoholic & drug addict, but I am also absolutely, 100% a food addict.  I love food.  I am an emotional eater.  If I'm upset, depressed, happy, sad, bored, whatever, I eat.  I am a choco-holic.  Anything to do with food, I love.  That's my problem.  If it tastes good, I eat it.  And for most of my life I associated "good tasting food" with unhealthy things.  I also don't seem to have a "full" button.  In most cases, I eat whatever it is that I'm eating until it's gone.  So if that's a party size bag of peanut butter M&M's, it's not just a handful of them, it's the whole bag.  Having said that, once I started with Shakeology, I knew I needed to adjust my other meals, and by that I mean preparing them myself the night before, taking it with me to work and eating ONLY what I brought with me.  And this worked!  Amazing, right?!  Over the course of 2 or 3 months, I stuck to this "plan" and was able to lose 20lbs!  Unfortunately, Shakeology got to be a little too expensive for me to continue to purchase, and since I stopped doing that, all the rest of my healthy eating habits went down the drain as well.  I also didn't get into a regimented exercise routine at all while I was using Shakeology.  I would walk for 30 or 45 minutes here & there, but nothing that got me into a habit of doing something daily, like I should've been doing.  Therefore, yup, you guessed it, I gained back about 10 of the 20lbs. that I lost.  :(  In the middle of all of this, I started dating a new guy.  He's the same height as me, but, at this point, weighed pretty close to 100lbs less than I did.  Obviously, it wasn't an issue for him that I'm overweight, but it's become a HUGE (no pun intended) issue for me.  As we continued to see each other (and are currently still together) I noticed how dedicated he is to working out, going to his JuJitsu classes, walking everywhere, riding his bike, etc.  And let me just tell you all that he can eat whatever he wants and it doesn't make a difference.  So, between watching him eat a gallon of ice cream at a time & it having no effect on him, hanging out alone watching a movie while he's at the gym, & hearing him tell me about the weight that he's been losing, I decided that I needed to make a change.  Again.  Again, let me clarify; I am NOT doing this because he wants me to.  He could really care less about my weight, he loves me because I'm awesome.  :)  It's ME who's uncomfortable with the way I look.  Me.  I am doing this for ME.  I want to be able to walk into any store in America, pull something off the rack, take it into the fitting room & not be frustrated or disgusted with myself because it doesn't fit at all or looks horrible on me.  I don't want to avoid having pictures taken of me anymore because I can't stand the way I look in them.  I want to be able to chase my daughters around a playground without getting winded after 5 minutes.  The healthier I get, the longer I'll live.  So, for me, the motivation to change came from within.  I have to, however, also give my brothers some credit here.  Both of them have been avid athletes since forever & in February, my older brother signed me up for my first 5k.  And then we talked my little brother into doing it with us.  It was such a great experience, I finished in just under an hour, my little brother stuck with me the whole way through, encouraged me, etc, but I wasn't physically able to run hardly any of it.  If I had to guess, I'd say that I actually ran less than a mile (a 5k = 3.1mi).  As we got close to the finish line, there was a girl running towards us and I said "I want to look like her" to which my younger brother quickly replied "Then you'll have to run like her".  Motivation.  Some days it's hard to find.  But I try really hard to focus on this process just like I have on my addiction recovery process: One day at a time.  Just for today, I'm going to stick to my plan.  I got this.  I can do hard things.

Day 1: Introduction

This is going to be an amazing adventure!  I'm Megan, I'm 32 years old, I'm a mother of 2, a full time employee, a recovering alcoholic & drug addict & have been overweight my entire life.  And when I say "my entire life", I mean my ENTIRE life.  I was sharing my moms clothes when I was 12.  I can remember weighing in for PE in 7th grade & seeing the 198lbs. on the scale.  I've never been a skinny person.  Ever.  That's going to change.  I'm doing this blog for me, to keep track of what I'm doing, what's working, what isn't working, to be able to track my progress & keep myself honest.  If I happen to inspire people along the way, awesome.  I am not a professional anything, not a dietitian, not a personal trainer, just a regular person who's tired of being fat & ready to make some life altering changes to improve my quality of life.  I hope to be posting entries daily, what I ate, how that's working, what kind of exercising I do, etc.  I'm an avid pinner on Pinterest & there's all kinds of workout suggestions that I will be trying to see if the results promised are actually attainable for the average person just getting started into a work out routine.  I'm also starting a Lazy Man Iron Man with some of my family members starting on Monday, May 28th and will complete as of Wednesday, July 4th.  Over the course of this 39 day period, the goal is to complete 26.2 miles on foot, 112 miles on bike, and 2.4 miles in the pool.  It will be a challenge for me because I have 2 daughters and join custody with their father and since school let out yesterday, they'll be with me every other week for the entire summer.  I will have to get creative in how/when I get my mileage in, because I don't think they'll be very excited on going for 10 mile bike rides or 6 mile walks with me, LOL.  But I WILL make it work!  Over the course of the last month I've gotten very serious about controlling my eating habits & making sure I have some form of exercise included in almost all of my days.  Since October of last year, I've lost a total of 30lbs.  I currently weigh 240lbs. and am 5'8" tall.  According to everything I've seen & read, the average "healthy" weight for a female of my height is, at the most, 167lbs.  I have a little bit of a ways to go.  But I'm ready & willing to do the work.  I'm done being fat, I'm done hating to go clothes shopping, I'm done feeling inadequate & uncomfortable in my own skin.  I am doing this for ME, because I CAN do hard things.  I got this.  ;)