Non Scale Victories

I'm a tad bit obsessed with the scale. We have a love/hate relationship. It loves to torture me. I hate it with a firey passion. I'm supposed to weigh in once a week. I weigh about five times a day. The scale pretty much runs my life. I eat/sleep/drink/breathe the number that flashes up at me. If I'm wearing clothes when I get on, I try to estimate how much my clothing weighs. If I just drank water, I think to myself, "I just had three cups of water. That's 24 ounces. That's a pound and a half. That means I actually weigh XXX. That's STILL three pounds more than I was yesterday!" When I weigh before I go to bed, I mentally calculate how much weight I need to lose while I sleep to be lighter than I was that morning. It's an ongoing battle. My personal trainer said something to me the other day that makes a lot of sense, but I still can't stay off of the scale. She said that weighing yourself can cause you to gain weight, or at least stay the same. She said that when you weigh yourself and it's not a number you're happy with, your body immediately releases cortisol because of the stress. Cortisol causes a spike in blood sugar, weakens the immune system, and can suppress fat loss.

So, today I've decided to start focusing on non scale victories (from hereon out, to be referred to as NSV's). Today's NSV? I did an hour and a half of cardio and didn't feel sick to my stomach when I was done! 10 miles on the recumbent bike, 30 flights of stairs on the stair machine and 1 mile on the elliptical. Another NSV (that happened a little while ago), was being able to cross my legs for the first time in a long time. That was awesome! 

On a completely unrelated note, one of my very good friends (who I was paired up with as a penpal in sixth grade when we lived across the country from each other) wrote a book! You should go check it out and order it! I received two copies of it today! How I Learned to Smile From The Inside

More NSV's to come tomorrow, I'm sure!

SO glad to be back in the gym!

I never seem to tire from writing about the gym, do I? Sorry about that...okay, not really. (Or, as my teenage daughter would write, #sorrynotsorry)

I SO badly did NOT want to go to the gym today! I was planning on cleansing, which meant no gym, right? I realized it was too soon to cleanse and since I'm meeting with my trainer tomorrow, couldn't cleanse tomorrow and really only like to do two day cleanses, so I decided not to cleanse. I got a new bed yesterday and need to clean my room/rearrange furniture/move out old bed/etc., so that was good enough of a workout for today, right?  I forgot to drink my E+ energy shot, so I went home after dropping my husband off at work, when I usually go straight to the gym, to get it. I sat at the computer. I found out that my best friend is having a book signing in Hollywood next month, so I decided to figure out if there was a way I could make it to that. That was about 20 minutes spent on the computer. That didn't leave as much time for the gym as I usually like to give myself. Excuse after excuse after excuse. I REALLY didn't want to go. I told myself off and went! I'm SO glad I did! Ten miles on the recumbent bike, 5k on the ergometer (with a personal best for time...which isn't that difficult because I've only done it twice, haha!) and 20 reps front and 20 reps on each side on this thing:

The one at my gym doesn't have handles, though. It's kind of awesome. I'm really trying to work on my lower back because I tend to have a lot of pain in that area. I figure if I strengthen the muscles, the pain should lessen. Plus, you can just hang upside down on this thing and it's an awesome stretch for your lower back!

Nights are SO hard!

Why is it that I can go all day being SO good about my eating, then at night, blow it all?!?!?!?! Great breakfast, great lunch, great dinner, great snacks...then BAM...brownies, truffles, bites of my family's dinner. I can eat ALL of my daily calories in the space of one hour. It's awful! I need to STOP this! This is how I gained so much weight in the first place! Nights were always full of snacking and yummy foods and energy drinks and ice cream and...and..and... Well, I think you get the point. I HAVE to get back out of that mindset! I'm completely sabotaging myself!

To top it off, I didn't go to the gym on Saturday or Sunday. I was fairly sick on Saturday, but still wanted to go. My husband put his foot down and told me I wasn't going. Now, I realize that sounds like my husband is crazy controlling or something, but he isn't. I didn't HAVE to listen to him, but he was fairly adamant that he wanted me resting so I could get better and it wasn't a battle worth fighting. Then, Sunday came. I was feeling quite a bit better. I told him I was off to the gym. He told me he didn't want me going because he still thought I needed a day to rest and recover. I told him I was fine and I was going. I tested the waters of, "I'm going" for several hours, but he wasn't budging. He REALLY didn't want me to go. Once again, I relented and stayed home. Then, this morning, exactly what I feared would happen, happened. I didn't want to go back. It was a chore to drag myself back to the gym. When I got there, after about 3 minutes on the stairs, I wanted to stop. I had plenty of excuses as to why I couldn't keep going. I had lost my momentum and I was miserable. It took six days to finally WANT to go to the gym and two days of not going to never want to go again! So, 9 minutes and 22 flights on the stairs, then 1.83 miles on the elliptical. (Yes, that was pathetic!) and something like 6 miles on the recumbent bike (again, not so awesome) and I tried out this new (to me, anyways) cardio machine. I was basically an elliptical, where you're taking shorter strides, on an incline. I did like five minutes of interval training on that and nearly DIED! I WILL conquer that machine! I don't really like it, though. The short strides feel awkward and I bounce too much on it. I'm sure there's a way to not bounce so much, but for now, I feel like my boobs are going to hit me in the face when I'm on it. Well, they would if they were as big as they used to be! Why is it that I lose weight in my boobs first? They were FINE, thank you very much! They do NOT need to get smaller! :( Yeah, that's just a little aside for today.  I also did some work on an ab machine that my trainer showed me on Friday. I didn't do anywhere near enough, but I figure I'd start off slow. It was probably because I didn't want to be there. Ugh!

So, I'm back from the gym, I'm determined to have a GREAT food day and, want to or not, I'm going back to the gym tomorrow!

She's trying to kill me!

I'm fairly certain my personal trainer is trying to kill me. Today was core day. Stability ball crunches...easy peasy. Some little twisty thing on the cable machine. No problem. Hatchet something or others on the cable machine. I've got this! Some ab machine thing...looked hard, but no problem! Then came some little roll out thing on the stability ball. OMG, I thought I was going to die! After that came...dun dun dun...PLANKS! Regular planks. Okay...not great, but okay. Then suddenly I have to do leg lifts while planking? Wha??!!?! Oh, that's not enough! Now suddenly I'm in plank position, then pushing up on one arm, then the other, then back down. Yeah...that one did me in. I was d.o.n.e! Thankfully, that was the end of our session because I was dripping sweat and shaking like crazy. It was AWESOME!!!! I can't wait to see her again on Wednesday! Upper body, here I come!

For my warm up, I decided to do the stair machine. That thing is KILLER! My butt was SO sore by the time I was done! Awesome! I went super slow, but I am still pretty proud of myself! 22 flights of stairs in 10 minutes!

I'm taking a handgun training course tomorrow that lasts eight hours, so I'm going to have to go to the gym in the evening. I've never been in the evening. I'm curious to see how different the dynamic is. It's always really empty when I go around 11:00 am.

Amber (my sponsor) came over today and took my measurements and took some pictures. (Posted above) For once, I wasn't ashamed to take pictures! I had just gotten back from my workout, so I was a bit red faced and still in my workout clothes, but I don't care! I've worked hard to get where I am and the red face just shows that I'm still working hard! She wants me to do a side by side with a "before" picture. I went through all of my pictures and could not find a single full body before shot. I had a habit of deleting all pictures of me. I'm regretting that now. Thankfully, my sister in law is a fantastic photographer and always has a camera in her hand, so I'm hoping she has a picture or two of me. She's looking through her computer for me!

Oh My Gosh, I DID IT!!!!

I actually felt EXCITED about going to the gym! Not only was I excited to go to the gym, but I was HAPPY while I was there!!! Seriously, ground breaking news here!!!

I had every excuse not to go to the gym today. I couldn't earlier in the morning because I had to get the kids off to school. Then, I had to take my husband to work (We only have one car). Then, my son had a doctor's appointment. Then, my son didn't want to go back to school because he didn't go in the morning, which meant he was going to be considered tardy and if you have more than two tardies in a semester, you're not eligible for the drawing for a bike and they don't differentiate between tardy because you had a doctor's appointment and tardy because you slept in. So, I told him he could stay home. (He's a straight A student, so  I really don't get bent out of shape about him missing a day here and there, even if he's not sick) By the time we got home from the doctor's appointment, I had less than an hour I could spend at the gym anyways.  All of these things were basically begging me to tell myself that it was okay to stay home today. Instead, I found someone to stay with Cole and went! The strange thing was...it wasn't a chore. I WANTED to find a way to go. Even though everything was working against me going, I was determined to find a way to make it there because I WANTED to be there. Not only that, but when I was there, I ENJOYED being there. I was on the ergometer and when I saw that machine counting down, SO close to finishing 5k, I had the BIGGEST smile on my face! I probably looked like a huge dork, but I didn't care! The furthest I had gone on the erg before was 3k. I did FIVE THOUSAND METERS today!!! This was AFTER three miles on the eilliptical and BEFORE 2 1/2 miles on the stationary bike!!! I had enough energy in me to go further on the bike, but I had to get home to pick my daughter up from school, so I stopped early.

Did I mention that all of this is on a CLEANSE day?!?!!? That's right...no solid food today, but incredible energy! I did have an E+ Energy shot today, which I really REALLY think makes a HUGE difference. Seriously...you know that day that I was dragging and was really down on myself about not working as hard as I could? I didn't have an E+ natural energy shot that day. Coincidence? Maybe, but I don't think so.  After being a huge coffee and Monster addict, I didn't think there was any way this tiny little shot with some green tea and yerba matte would give me any sort of boost, but I was SO wrong! These things are absolutely amazing! Seriously, if you drink coffee or energy drinks and want nothing to do with anything else Isagenix, get off of that crap and get the E+ shot!

I'm a little concerned about tomorrow. It's cleanse day number two and you're really not supposed to exercise on cleanse days. I figure day 1 is okay because you still have all of the food to burn from the day before (and boy did I eat yesterday! I went out to breakfast with my cousin, some uncles and my aunt, then out to dinner with my family!) but by day 2, you're really burning your stored fat and if you exercise, you start to break down muscle and having nothing to build it back up. They say that light walking or swimming is okay, so I may just go to the gym and do some light spinning on the recumbent bike, as that seems to be the easiest for me. I just don't want to get out of the habit of going to the gym. I know from experience with other things that once I give myself an excuse not to do something that is difficult for me, it becomes easier and easier to make new excuses. NO EXCUSES!

Are you tired of hearing about the gym yet?

So, gym day again today! They say it takes 21 days to make a habit. Today makes day 4! They (who is this THEY anyways?) also say that most people eventually LOVE the gym and LOVE working out and feel like something is missing if they miss a workout. I'm really looking forward to that. It certainly hasn't happened yet! Today is better than yesterday, though. I don't feel like I'm going to throw up! I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I think it means I didn't work out hard enough. I knew as I left the gym that I didn't work as hard as I could and I was a little disappointed in myself, but when my legs gave out and I almost fell in the parking lot, I decided to cut myself some slack!

My goal (as I believe I mentioned previously) is to do just a little bit more each day.

This is what my days have looked like so far:

Day 1 (Wednesday of last week) 1 mile on elliptical
Day 2: I took off
Day 3: 1.37 miles on the elliptical; 1 mile on the recumbent bike
Day 4: 3000 meters ergometer; 4 miles stationary bike
Day 5: 2 miles elliptical; 2000 meters ergometer; 5 miles stationary bike
Day 6: 7 miles stationary bike; 6 miles recumbent bike

The stationary bike hurts my rear. The recumbent bike makes my feet go to sleep. Both cause a shooting pain in my inner hip area. I can adjust and make it go away, but I have to be constantly thinking about it or it comes back, which sucks. The ergometer is my favorite. Unfortunately, the gym only has two of them and they were both occupied the entire time I was there today.  I'll get it first thing tomorrow if I can! I think I'm going for the 5k on the erg tomorrow!

Unfortunately, I think I'm getting sick again. This morning I woke up with a terribly sore throat and a swollen soft palette, which made it difficult to speak/drink/breathe. That's really no fun. I considered not going to the gym, but realized I was perfectly capable of going, just looking for any excuse not to go. It hasn't even been a week and I'm ready to not go because of a little sore throat? That's just not okay! My head is all foggy now and I feel pretty miserable, but I went...and I'm proud of myself for that! Hopefully I'll be feeling better tomorrow instead of worse!

I feel silly saying this, but I'm pretty darn proud of myself. Day 1, I was DYING after that mile on the elliptical, like couldn't breathe, I felt like my heart was going to pound right out of my chest, I decided exercise was going to kill me, DYING. I didn't go back the next day because I was convinced I was still too fat to exercise. I told myself I'd lose some more weight, THEN start to exercise because it would be easier. The next day was my first day with my personal trainer. That's when I told myself that I spent a small fortune on this membership and physical trainer. I wasn't about to let that money go to waste! So, I just did it. Then, I did it again...and again...and again. It's not getting easier, because I'm not allowing it to. It's easier to do today what I did on the first day, but that's why I'm doing more than that. Today I spent OVER AN HOUR on the bikes. Seven minutes the first day nearly killed me and here it is, less than a week later and I'm going over an hour! That's awesome! I can't wait to see my trainer on Friday!

Gym Time!

I met with my personal trainer today! She was very nice. I like her a lot. Today was basically just an introduction, weigh/measure, go over my goals, talk about my limitations (my knee, mainly) and talk about her plans for our next three sessions. Her goal, by the time my sessions are up, is that I will feel comfortable at the gym, know how to use the equipment, and basically have the knowledge I need to succeed. Next Friday is our first "real" personal training session. We're going to work on my core because she feels that is the most important thing to work on. She told me that no matter what I come into the gym to do and no matter how much or how little time I have to work out, she wants me to get at least one rep of core work done each time I am there. So, if I only have 45 minutes, do 40 minutes of cardio and 5 minutes of core. I think I can do that! I told her that I had only been to the gym once since I got my membership. She asked me what I did while I was there and I told her I went on the elliptical. She then asked me how long I spent doing it. "Until I started to sweat and got tired" wasn't the answer she was looking for, apparently. I now have a goal of "Each time you're doing cardio, just do more than you did the day before." I think I can do that! When I went last time, I did a mile on the elliptical. This time, I did 1.37 miles on the elliptical and a mile on the bike. Progress! I should eventually work up to 45 minutes of cardio. I mentioned that I think cardio is boring, so she suggested I do 15 minutes on three different machines (for instance, row, elliptical, step) and that it doesn't have to be 45 minutes straight on one machine, just 45 minutes of cardio with little rest between.  Let me tell you, that's some work! By the time I got off the bike today, I was literally sick to my stomach. I'm SO out of shape! I just have to keep telling myself that this is worth it and that, not only will exercise help me lose weight, but it will keep me from being unhealthy, even if I'm thin. Thin doesn't mean healthy. I was thin in high school, but was eating Burger King everyday! That's not healthy! I want to be healthy.

Yeah, I'll just keep telling myself that!