The Party's Over

Well, the pity party is over.  The big girl panties are on and it's game on.  It's like a never ending cycle.  I have up days and I have down days.  Yesterday was a down day.  But, yesterday is done.  I had a good talk with a girlfriend and I'm focused again.  Here's to hitting the 35 pound mark soon!

Bursting my Bubble

My bubble has officially burst. I was feeling pretty confident with my 33 pound loss.  In fact, my workout shorts were getting pretty baggy, so I set out to buy some new ones today.  So, I grabbed a pair of Large shorts and headed for the dressing room.  That's where my bubble was burst.

It wasn't pretty.  I really feel like I should have looked much better in those shorts.  On top of that, the large shirt was a little tighter in the lower belly than I was happy with.  Thus leading me to believe that after 33 pounds, I still need to buy XL clothes.  And, since we're talking about sizes, I'll also mention that I've been wearing my size 12 jeans for months now. Months.  However, I also tried on a pair of size 12 casual shorts and I couldn't get them fastened.  I left that dressing room feeling completely defeated and deflated.

I'm trying really hard to not think about the time, money, and emotional investment I've made on training these past 8 months.  Because if I let myself think about it, I might start to feel like I've been wasting my time.  I might start to feel that the results I thought I was seeing aren't really that impressive.  And I really don't want to feel that way.

I want to focus on how far I've come.  I want to focus on how much stronger I am now.  I want to focus on how much more defined my muscles are.  This just turned out to be a huge slap in the face for me.  I'm sure tomorrow I'll pick myself back up, brush myself off, put on my big girl panties and get back to it.  But for now, I'm throwing a pity party for one.

Regroup

To start with, I was right on my last post.  My big loss was a fluke.  It probably has everything to do with the fact that I weighed in really early that morning.  It clearly had nothing to do with anything else!  So, I'm back to my original thought from last week that my weight loss is kind of at a stand still right now.  So, it's time to regroup.  Again. I feel like I do that a lot.

I do feel like I should back-up a little bit.  This past weekend was my son's birthday party.  So, naturally, there was a lot of un-healthy food at my house.  Unfortunately, I didn't do a good job of staying away from it.  And you know, I'm finding that as yummy as it tastes to begin with, the feeling I get afterwards is really not worth it.  Not only do I feel gross for having eaten it, I get extremely upset with myself for not resisting it.

So, I regroup.  And, to some extent it's a good thing, I guess. It's not good that I have to regroup because it means that I've slipped up again.  However, it is a good thing because it means I'm not giving up.  Being 32 pounds lighter means that I'm well over half way to my goal.  And there's no way I'm going back now.  As much as I hate that my weight loss is currently at a stand still, I know that eventually I'll get going again.  I just have to regroup.

Slower Than Molasses In January

I was all prepared to write a post today talking about how slow things are going right now.  According to the last time I weighed (which has been a few days, thank you very much!), I hadn't done much.  But then I stepped on this morning and I had a huge jump!  I'm down a little over 2 pounds!  Now, I don't know if it was a fluke or not.  It might have been because I weighed in unGodly early this morning in order to make it to my 5:45 Boot Camp.  Regardless, slowly but surely I'm inching my way to being down 35 pounds.  And with this have come some problems that I didn't anticipate...

It's pretty funny actually.  I'm having wardrobe malfunctions now.  A lot.
I first noticed it while I was working with my trainer.  Now, let me preface by saying that my dryer has a thing with drawstrings.  Several pairs of my workout shorts, and sweatshirts, used to have drawstrings.  Key words: used to. For whatever reason, my dryer always tears them out!  Anyway, fast forward to my training session when I'm asked to jump rope.  When you're wearing shorts that are slightly big, without drawstrings, jumping rope isn't a good idea.  I managed to catch the shorts before it was an issue, but needless to say, he now asks if I'm wearing "good shorts" before he asks me to jump rope!  I found out this morning, however, that another pair of my workout shorts might be on their way out. These used to be one of my "safe" pairs, but I felt them slipping this morning as I was doing burpees.  I've been putting it off for a while, but it looks like it's time to go shopping!

Back In The Closet

I'm stuck again.  I'm really not doing a whole lot as far as weight loss right now.  Actually, I should clarify... I'm back to stepping on the scale a lot, but that's definitely not a good thing.  So, the scale went back in the closet.  It's been there since Monday and I have to admit, this time was definitely easier than the last time I put it there.  I'm determined to only bring it out once a week now.  It's not doing anything for me besides driving me crazy.  I just need to back off and trust the process.  I don't need to step on every day for confirmation.  If I know I did well, then I don't need the scale to tell me that every day.  And, on the flip side, if I had a rough day, I really don't want the scale to tell me that!  So, its new home is in the closet.  I won't let it run my life and in return, I won't hate it as much.  I think we'll both be happier with this arrangement.

Lose Yourself

I love music.  I have it on all the time.  It doesn't matter if I'm doing dishes, taking a shower, walking the dogs or simply waiting for my coffee to finish brewing.  I've always got music playing.  That love for music extends to workouts as well.  However, when I'm with my trainer, I don't have MY music playing.  In my opinion, it's rude to have my headphones in while I'm working with him, so I just get the music that's playing on the fitness floor. It's usually not anything that motivates me.  But, that's all changed...

The gym has most of its weight equipment upstairs where all the members have access to it.  However, it also has another room that's used by the athletic performance department.  It's a small room that's private.  Lots of  equipment, fairly soundproof.  It also has a dock that you can plug in your phone or iPod.  Fortunately for me, my trainer has access to that room, so we've been training down there for the last few weeks.  And, I love it!

So, we either plug in my iPhone or his iPod and we crank the music. Loud.  Today, one of the songs I have on this blog, Lose Yourself by Eminem, came on.  I'm not sure what it is about that song, but it is one of the best songs to work out to.  It could be the driving beat, it could be the lyrics, probably a little bit of both.  But, whatever it is, it makes me work.  I just get in the zone and keep going.  For those 4 minutes and 29 seconds, I'm a machine.  I'm focused.  Stopping is not an option.  Today was probably the hardest I've worked in a long time.  Thanks Eminem!

Taking A Break

I've been a bit "off" lately.  I've been at the gym at least 5 days a week for the last several months.  But for the last few weeks, I've had some things going on in my head that have had me distracted.  I've been there physically, but my mind has been a bit preoccupied.  Nothing major, just some comments I've been getting that are starting to bother me.  Anyway, my trainer has picked up on it.  I thought I was doing a good job of covering it and working past it, but I guess not.

So, I've been told to take a break.  Not a long break, but a break.  He doesn't want to see me in the gym tomorrow.  He doesn't want me to think about the gym tomorrow.  Shopping, manicure, massage... all suggestions that he gave.  It's become such a habit for me that it's going to feel strange to not go to the gym on a Wednesday morning.  But, he's seeing something.  So, taking a day off to re-focus is (literally) just what the trainer ordered. I'll be back at in on Thursday.

On a side note, I did something yesterday that I should have done a long time ago.  I took a "before" picture.  Admittedly, being 30 pounds in doesn't exactly equal "before", but it's a start.  My 20 year class reunion is in 9 weeks.  So, I took a picture of myself in the dress that I'm going to wear.  I plan on taking a picture once a week until the day of the reunion and hopefully I'll see a difference! If I ever figure out how to post pictures on here, I'll be sure to share!