Thursday, June 30, 2011

Good news and bad news...

I wrote this yesterday and then blogger decided to go apeshit so I just saved it to LJ so i could post this here later. Finally blogger is up and running again yay!.

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Today has had some highs and some lows... I'm going to try my hardest to focus on the good things though and so lets start with the bad so I can end on a good note.

Bad:
Got a phone call from the temp agency saying I was not selected for the job I've been trying to get for months now. This is my 3rd attempt in the last couple years and though I'm not giving up just yet, my chances keep looking slimmer. Hopefully another class will open sometime later this year or early next so I can try again.

My mom said something aweful to me in front of my entire family and my sister laughed about it becuase she thought it was hilarious. I was highly offended but left speechless and just stood there looking like an idiot because I knew if I did open my mouth I'd have just pissed everyone else off even more and furthered outcast myself which I thought from this standpoint already would be pretty hard to do any farther. Just one of those things that's stupid and shouldn't matter but if you know me and my family and how we relate to each other... you just might understand why this is such bad news.

I was too busy to workout this morning becuase I was getting ready to leave the house as soon as possible to go spend time with a friend. Of course being there all day I didnt have time to workout in the afternoon either. Then after I ate dinner I ended up making everyone else's dinner and then Jett was being horrendous so I sent him to bed and cam over here to get some things done online before planning on starting my evening workout. 4 hours later and I'm still on this computer. ughhh. Excuses! It's 11pm though and so I'm just going to bed and tomorrow will be a new and better day.

now thats out of the way...

Good:

I stepped on the scale today and saw this...


209!!! That means for Weigh-in Wednesday I'm down a total of 3 lbs from last week. After seeing that I went to my closet and grabbed a pair of size 16 capris and pulled them on confidently! :)


Spent time with a good friend today and his little girl because Jett has been wanting to go see them for awhile and I finally had some free time to do so. It's always great when I get to have adult conversation and catch up on whats going on in the world around me. lol.

and tonight on Listia I won some really awesome converse shoes that I can't wait to get and wear! I talked her into giving me them with free shipping if I bid 500 credits or more and she was totally willing to do that so yay!


Trying to look on the brightside about my biggest dissapointment of the day... not getting that job I so desperately wanted... well, more like needed... at least I no longer am worrying and wondering whether or not I'll still be able to have as much free time to keep going strong and doing as much working out as I have been so far. I know that everything happens for a reason, and it's just not my time for that job. Someone else must have needed it more in their life right now than I do. I will try to take comfort in knowing that I have food and shelter and will keep doing my best to still search for more in my life for me and my son.

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Today was like ten times better though. Anddd I'm 208.2 now! :)

Monday, June 27, 2011

210 at last...





I can't believe I've just got 11 more pounds until I reach 'One'derland... If I work really hard I could see under 200 before the end of July... Crazy!

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Motivational photos

So I just found a whole slew of motivational pictures and saved them to my computer to use as a screen saver and uploaded and album on facebook with all of them. I'm not sure ya'll can see this since my facebook is private, but I did create the album as viewable to everyone so hopefully it works...

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.788602826838.2276889.38707153&l=abb51418f2

Friday, June 24, 2011

Exploring my neighborhood...

One of the cool things about this journey to healthy living is all the new adventures I've been going on lately. Walking or biking around our neighborhoods around here I get a little bored of going to the same places all the time so every now and then I venture out in to slightly new territory, or place I haven't seen since I rode the bus there back in high school or whatever. lol. Yesterday I discovered that there's a whole new nieghborhood built behind another one that I had never seen before and it backs up to another neighborhood that is on the complete opposite side of us so instead of just going out and then turning around and biking home I got to bike in one huge circle all the way back around to my house. That was kinda cool. :)

What's even cooler that I found out today though is in a whole different direction we rode off in to we happened across a park! OMG! Yes! I've been saying for months now how awesome it would be if there was a park open to the public within biking/walking distance from my house. And its been there apparently, haha! Amazing what opening your eyes a little will show you...

I stopped and let Jett out to play and he was just as surprised and excited as I was to see we found a park! I only wish it had some slides. It's got a fort you can climb up on top of but you have to climb back down or hang off the monkey bars and Jett isn't quite strong enough for those yet. He also needed me spotting him to make sure he climbed back down without slipping through the ladder or ropes. But there were some swings and that's awesome. There was also a very nice gazebo with picnic tables and a bar inside of it and lots of outlet plugs. I'm seriously considering this as a new idea for Jett's birthday party this August. On the other side of the gazebo was some steaks spaced out perfectly for a game of horseshoes. Now I wonder where I can find some plastic horse shoes that the kids could play with and not knock each other out. lol.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Advice for going out to eat!!

Once again Marlee has come up with the perfect things to say about how you should behave when enjoying a meal outside of the house! I couldn't word it any better so here's the link! I highly recommend you all read this!!!

http://marleeindebt.blogspot.com/2011/06/eating-healthy-while-eating-out.html

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Done with the Shred, on to Last Chance Workout...

If anyone is looking for something after their done with the shred to keep your ass in high gear and kicked in to blasting away those calories... try Jillian Michaels Biggest Loser Last Chance Workout. Its got a 6 week long schedule that tells you which exercises to do on what days and you always get Sundays off. Its' like 30-35 minutes each day and every other day you switch between the actual workout and between toning exercises for lower and upper body. Then every 2 weeks you move up to a diff level. The first last chance workout has 6 circuits in it! I'll be surprised if the scale doesn't say i lost at least 1 lb tomorrow. :) I was dripping sweat sooo bad tonight. i seriously need a sweatband! I'm tired of sweating in to my eyes and it burning and then i cant see. lol

Monday, June 20, 2011

Guess who can do a real push up?

ME!

yeah that's right!

I not only did a real regular push-up without being on my knees, I did traveling push-ups! Oh snap! I'm a motherfuckin rockstar! :D

Been doing them on my knees this entire last level of the shred but today was day 30 so at the very last second I decided to just try to give it my all and push through. I thought for sure after 1 push I'd be on my knees again. Holy shit I'm awesome!

Day 30 is finally here...

Yesterday I totally failed at working out. lol. I left the house early to take Jett to his MawMaw's for dad's day and then I spent all day enjoying a relaxing time with a close friend. Even had a glass of wine together. It was damn nice. lol. Even better than mothers day! lol. Anyways though, he took me to lunch at some new Chinese buffet but i was sooo good! I'm super proud of my eating habits from yesterday and I didn't gain any weight so woot. Back on the exercise ball today and eating well still so yay.. about to hop on my bike and take Jett down to the lake to swim for awhile then bike back to the house after we get tired of that. :) Hope everyone else is having a good Monday! :)

Since I didn't get my workout in yesterday, that makes today the final day of my 30 day shred workout! I'll be on it right after dinner tonight and sweating my butt off I'm sure! :) Can't wait to feel the burn on that one and push as hard as I can to finish this up with a bang! :)

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

5 Months!!

Its 5 months and today when I stepped on the scale I reached 213 lbs! This puts me exactly at a 60 lbs weight loss! Woohoo!! This is about 10 lbs down in the last month. On average I'm doing 12 lbs a month, so not too shabby! :)

I've had a rough go of things these last few weeks on trying to figure out just what works for me but I think I finally got on to the right track I am now eating the majority of my calories in the day time and making sure that after a smaller dinner I do at least one of my workouts then instead of just sitting in front of the tv or computer resting after dinner like I had been. As a mommy, my to-do list gets long so I always tried to get working out over with in the mornings but I've found that spreading it out throughout the day and making sure at least one part is done after dinner has been a huge help. Since I've started doing that, I've gone down over a pound each day! Crazy, but awesome!

Anyways... time for some measurements...

Starting measurement > Newest one > Amount lost

Bust - 51 in > 43.5 in > 7.5 in
Waist - 53 in > 44 in > 9 in
Hips - 58 in > 49.5 in > 8.5 in
Arms - 17 in > 14.5 in > 2.5 in
Thighs - 31 in > 26.5 in > 4.5 in
Calves - 19.5 in > 17.5 in > 2 in
Neck - 16.5 > 14 > 2.5 in


Wow!! Can't believe I finally made it out of the 50s! Nothing on me is over 50 inches anymore! Whoa... awesome!!! haha. cool.

Anyways.. here are my pictures!









Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Bondiband Giveaway!

A fellow blogger friend of mine is hosting a giveaway for something really cool.. its a headband that keeps your hair and sweat out of your eyes while working out! woot!

http://doaffg.blogspot.com/2011/06/bondiband-giveaway.html

Friday, June 10, 2011

Swimming, FTW!

So... I've quickly come to realize that swimming is something that burns a whole ton of calories!

The last few times I've gone swimming for any great length of time, I've always stepped on the scale the next day and seen at least 1 pound if not 2 come down!

Well I have to learn to not let that get the better of me like I did yesterday. We went to hurricane harbor and I did well most of the day. I also made sure to swim laps through the lazy river instead of just floating on by the whole time. I got my heart pumping and could feel the workout I was getting. Then my mom asks me where we should eat afterwards and I totally caved when she suggested Golden Corral. That place is amazing, but as a fatty, a buffet is never your true friend! You will love it and bask in it like a pig in mud all the while you are there, then 10 mins later you're aching to go to the bathroom because you ate so much you just might spew. And if you manage to make enough room in your body to eat another plate, you will! Because your addiction to food is unrelenting!!! Oh god...


Well... I did manage to keep it to one plate of food and only went back a 2nd time to grab some rolls. I know... still a terrible decision. haha. And I sat at the table for 20 mins debating whether I should let myself or not. I tried hard to talk myself out of it but in the end, my mind lost that fight. I was like... well you swam all day and so you are hungry and you burned soo many calories... so yeah.. eat that roll! lol.. Because I never eat rolls any other time. Not at home. Not at other places out to eat. Only at Golden Corral. I know, not a good enough excuse. But I totally used it. I admit that was a hugely poor decision. I thought about not even telling you guys or blogging here about it. But I ultimately decided, I said I was going to stay true to myself and keep a real log of my entire journey so that includes all the downs as well as the ups!

On top of all the running around yesterday, I didn't manage to find the time to do my 30 day shred. :( I really wanted so bad to do 30 days in a row! But I was too exhausted to move when I got home, so I didnt.

Today when I woke up, I was not looking forward to my weigh-in at all. I was dreading seeing the numbers. I knew the last time I pigged out at a buffet I went up 5 lbs in one day! I thought for sure I had gone up at least 2 or 3 and was scared to open my eyes and see where I was at today, but I knew it needed to be done. The scale gods smiled upon me though and I only went up 0.7 lbs! I'm still 216 as I was yesterday morning, thankfully! However I know that I will not always be so lucky. I need to stop making excuses and start making better choices when it comes to how I eat at buffets. I have been able to control myself at home and at other resturaunts. Its just those darn buffets!!! Ugh. I'm going to try and stay away from them at all costs, but eventually I will have to face them again someday and I hope then I am stronger than I was last night.

Anyways... I went on to doing my 30 day shred today and it was finally time for me to move up to level 3. After slacking so bad on my eating habits yesterday, I was in full mindset to say BRING IT ON!! So I got ready and pressed play. Holy cow this was intense!! I knew it would be hard, but man.. situps?!! I was not expecting that for some reason. lol. What I was even more shocked over though, I DID THEM!!! I've never been able to do any kind of situps worth a damn my entire life. Not even as a kid in gym class. I totally sucked at those. But today I did them. Of course, I followed Anita today, but I'm going to work my way up to being able to do the same as Natalie!! Woohoo! I am so pumped.

I had a shitty night last night, but thankfully the swimming made up a lot of ground and today has been started off well. I'm going to try and continue to get as much swimming as I can done this summer and keep pushing through all my workouts. I will reach my goals on time and I will not let another buffet stop me!!

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

It's posted!

Oh snap! She announced the winners...

http://liztaylortraining.blogspot.com/2011/06/weight-loss-contest-winners-my-readers.html

Huge congrats to Amy W. from Rhode Island!!! woot, keep on rocking it!! I have to agreee with "If I can do it, ANYONE can!"

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

My love/hate relationship with Jillian Michaels.

Dearest Jillian,

Thank you for being there for me from the start and pushing me to keep on going those extra few seconds when you knew I just wanted to collapse into a big pile of mush on the floor instead.

I could just kiss you for how hard you've made me work and how far I've come so far!

However, 19 days into the shred now and I'm ready to stuff a sock down your throat! If I have to hear you say the same thing to me over and over again 1 more day I just might explode. I get it. I totally have to work my arms out at the same time I work my legs out so I burn more calories doing the smaller muscles with the bigger muscles!

Tomorrow, when I turn on your dvd, I'll just be sure to make sure my mp3 player is fully charged so I can plug myself in and tune your voice out!

Yours truly,

Jen <3

Monday, June 6, 2011

Looking good and feeling great!

So as I mentioned in an earlier post... I decided to try on some clothes the otehr night just to see what size I'm wearing now. I am around 4 to 5 sizes smaller than what I was wearing 5 months ago!

Here is an old college shirt of mine and an old skirt i used to wear 24/7. Havent worn these items since about 2007!




These are some brand new clothes at walmart that I tried on to see where I'm at. Picked them off the rack and they fit right away. There was no going back and trying 6 or 7 different things until something fit me right! Size 1x top and size 18 capris! There was also a white tank underneath the blouse that was a juniors 15/17.







And these are just some Hello Kitty Sunglasses I made the other night, lol. But some friends of mine told me my face looked skinny here so I had to share! :)

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Doing the unimaginable...

So when I began this adventure many months ago, I wrote down a list of things I wanted to be able to do by the end of it all. Some things have been accomplished, while others I still long for. I can now cross my legs again. I can ride any ride I want to at six flags. I can buckle car seat belts with ease. However I'm still yearning to be able to zip up a nice pair of knee high boots over these huge calves, lol.

There are things I couldn't imagine I wanted to do though and never even thought that I would ever consider them again in my life. Such as, a cartwheel. This wouldn't have occurred to me at all as something I missed being able to do when I was younger and fit enough, but on the finale of Dancing with the Stars this past season I saw Kirstie Alley do one. She did amazing on the show and along the process of dancing her way to the top, she literally danced her ass off. lol. She looked damn good and I was pleasantly surprised when I heard her say she was trying to maintain 1200 calories a day, just the same as me. For some reason its really awesome to hear that even famous people have the same struggles as the rest of us. Anyways... she did this cartwheel and I was like whoa... now that's something I hadn't even thought of aiming to do again. Well, at the time I saw it I still didn't ever think I would be down to a size small enough where I would feel comfortable doing such a thing. Besides all that its something silly and nothing I necessarily need to accomplish at any point.

Well, I never really planned on being able to do a cartwheel again, but I did. I just did one today. I spent most of the day after my workouts just housecleaning and arranging things to tidy up. Just a few moments ago as I scanned across my clean living room floor I happened to suddenly realize how spacious the floor was now and thought to myself, hmm... I think I'll do a cartwheel. Then I did! It wasn't perfect, but it was most definitely a cartwheel. I'm not sure what came over me, but I liked it. :)

Saturday, June 4, 2011

A new type of motivation...

So I decided that since I keep dropping weight and changing my clothing size that I needed new clothes, but I figure they wont fit for very long so I dont want to spend money on anything really until after I'm down to the right size. Well I won this pair of denim shorts on Listia.com for free and they are a size 14. I figure I will eventually be able to wear them but I wanted to take a picture of what they look like on me now and how far up I could get them and then be able to take a picture of them later when they fit and then another picture when they are too big for me to wear anymore! :) Just one more motivating factor for me... So here are the first pics... Yikes.. look at all that excess fat around my hips... scary!




I started off wearing 24 and even some 26. And now I am fitting great in to 18s. (I tried some on at walmart last night just to find out what size fit me best now, lol) So we'll see how long this takes...

Friday, June 3, 2011

My 2nd video post

Finally got around to making another one... Sorry its a little longer than I hoped it would be. I ramble sometimes...

Words of encouragement!

So I happened upon a new friend's blog post (Diaries of a Fat Girl) sharing this video with some very wise words from a little guy who is just so excited about his newest accomplishment in life. I agree that we could all take his words as advice!

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

My story...

So I just found out that I won 2nd place in a weightloss competition held by my friend, Liz at http://www.liztaylortraining.com
I was asked to share my story and here is what I had to say...


It seems like it wasn't all that long ago that I was just another couch potato who had no idea what she was shoveling in to her mouth out of boredom or stress. That was probably just what I was doing the night I realized it was time for a change. Flipping through the channels on my television, I came across one of MTV's newest shows called I Used to be Fat. I was hooked from that moment on. Seeing this young girl, Gabby, struggling with weight problems most of her life and then finally taking charge of herself and pushing every day to eat healthy and exercise as much as possible was just so inspiring to me. Every little thing she said and did was something I too had felt in my life at some point. Right on down to constantly butting heads with her mother! lol. Seeing how much success she had by the end of the episode I was so pumped! Then right after that I saw Marci's journey and could relate similarly to her in all the same aspects of how hard it is to just say no to eating all the wrong things when they taste so delicious and give you that instant gratification you so desperately desire, especially when you feel neglected in certain parts of your life. These 2 episodes were reruns that I happened to catch on a Friday night while at home having no social life whatsoever and buried in food on my parent's recliner. I immediately went to set the DVR to record all the new episodes after these finished because I knew this is what was going to help me change my life forever. I knew that they had the help of personal trainers and that roughly 100 days or just one summer was not going to be idealistic for me personally, but I thought that if these kids could lose around 90 lbs give or take in just 3 months, I could probably do the same in 1 year's time if I took the time to do the research and put in the hours of sweating it out! I was so excited thinking about it that I was up jumping around doing jumping jacks when I saw them do them on the show and yelling out of pure happiness shouting out "YOU GO GIRL!" or other really dorky things to my tv when I saw them doing well and accomplishing what they set out to do. lol.

That next day I took some before pictures of myself, because I knew that someday I would be able to look back and say hey... I can't believe that used to be me! I still cringe looking at those pictures today, and don't think I look all that much smaller just yet. I do feel a lot smaller though. I can breathe easier and can run around with my toddler who is in to everything these days! I used to get winded just walking up the 4 porch steps to my house. Seriously? Yeah... that was bad. I can do those like nothing now of course, lol. But I notice all the time new things that I can do that I could not for the longest time. Yesterday, I went swimming with some friends of mine and we had to climb a whole lot of hills and stairs to get over to the lake and up to the big slides, etc. They were all a lot skinnier than me but panting and groaning and complaining the whole way up, while on the inside I was jumping for joy and smiling my head off thinking how this time last year I would have been panting and groaning like that, too!

Anyways, I have learned many things over the past 5 months now. It's hard to sum it all up and say this one thing works or that one thing is better than this one thing. In reality, there is no fast track to success. You have to put in the work. You get what you give! You have to eat well and you have to exercise. Doing one or the other may help you a little bit, but doing both is what's going to give you the most results. If you really want to lose the weight and keep it off then you have to commit yourself to making this a lifestyle change. I don't refer to myself as being on a diet simply because I feel like a diet is something that ends. This is not going to end for me. I quit drinking soda, and whenever I lose all the weight I want to lose, I will not just start drinking soda again! Sure I may have one like once in a blue moon because I feel to deny yourself something you crave will only set you up to binge on it later, but I promise you I will not allow myself to become a soda drinker again in my lifetime! And the me from last year is saying WHAT?! lol. She was addicted to Dr Pepper since the time she was 2 years old... My son is 2. I am so glad I've made the decision to start changing things now so that I can learn how to help him make all the right choices from a much younger age than I did. He is a huge part of the reason I am on this journey. The only other important part of how I got to where I am now is that you have to have support. I am a single mom and don't really have a great close relationship with my family and my friends live pretty far away so I am alone a lot on this journey but I do make it a point to get online and talk to like minded individuals like Liz! I also found all the IUTBF kids on facebook and chat with them there. Some even on video chat. They have offered some really wonderful advice and words of encouragement to me. I am on several different forums and groups where I talk about my journey everyday. We share what kind of workouts we are doing or what we are eating, etc. Just how our day is going, good or bad, it helps to talk about it and always keep it on your mind. I think the best part about talking to others about my journey though is when I have the chance to offer up words of encouragement or advice to someone who needs it. It's wonderful getting help from my new fitness friends, but its even more rewards to give back that help. <3

Thank you, Liz, for holding this contest and allowing me to share my story with you all. I'm still in major shock that I placed! lol. Anyone who wants to follow my blog is more than welcome to though. http://a-new-poison.blogspot.com