So it hasn't been quite a week since my last post, but a lot has happened. Last Wednesday KCRA's Sharakina and her cameraman, Jorge, followed me around. They taped me eating breakfast, doing water aerobics at Butchie's, and then watched me do the aerobic class at Franklin. Overall, I think it went well. Even my daughter was excited she was going to be on TV. They interviewed her and asked her about the new 98% fat free sausage I cook her eggs with now. She was soooo cute!! Even Andon did amazing. He was such a good boy all day. The aerobics class just about killed me and I was sore for days. It felt good to get that intense workout, though.
Thursday was the Harvest Carnival at my daughter's school. There was tri-tip dinners. I ate the tri-tip and the salad minus the croutons. I gave the bread to my little cousin. It was a fun night. The weekend wasn't exciting. I did laundry, went yard saling, and did my best not to overeat. I haven't put on any weight, but I haven't lost any either. This is a competition. I have to step up my game!!
Tomorrow starts a new week. Wish me luck!
It's strange that I used to look forward to weekends. There was something magical about the sense of freedom that accompanied Saturday and Sunday. Monday always came too quickly. Now that I'm doing the Franklin Biggest Loser I no longer enjoy weekends. I stress out because I over eat and I don't exercise enough. I dread the weekends. Monday through Friday I have very structured days. Eating and exercising work into my schedule with ease. The weekends are different, though. It's when I don't get enough exercise and when I can't seem to keep all of the treats I've been depriving myself of all week from being eaten. When Monday rolls around I feel like a failure. I look at myself in the mirror and I see a lazy lout who has no self-control. It's depressing. Before I started this whole process I liked what I saw in the mirror. Yeah, I was a little too curvy and my clothes' sizes were a little larger than I'd like, but I didn't feel bad about myself. Now I do on a regular basis. Is that how it's always going to be? From here on out am I going to get depressed every time I eat something I shouldn't or feel like a lazy loser every time I don't get the exercise I need? I don't know. What I do know it that I need to get control of the weekends. It's Tuesday and I'm going to spend all week recovering from the weekend. That's not what I wanted to do. I wanted to keep losing through the weekend, but that didn't happen. Hopefully, I'll eventually quit gaining over the weekends so I can be productive through the week instead of back pedaling to try and get past the gain over the weekend.
Wish me luck!
Wish me luck!
I'm off to bed. Tomorrow I am working in my daughter's classroom, so I'm not going to get to work out in the morning at the pool. I'll be riding my bike once I get home. I still need to lose 2 pounds by Thursday, so I have to do all I can!!
Wish me luck!
While I was at the school one of the teachers and I were talking about our progress. I've hit the 10 pound mark, by the way. You may applaud me. :) I've been patting myself on the back all morning. It gives me encouragement to keep going to see the weight come off. Anyway...back to what I was saying. She was telling me I needed to watch my sodium along with my calories (I'm down to 1200 calories/day like they do on the real Biggest Loser). Good advice. I came home and decided I'd keep track of my calories AND my sodium. The problem was I had no idea how many mg of sodium I should have a day. Then I looked at the the back of one of my fiber bars (the Kellogg's Fiber Plus bars have less calories than the Fiber One bars, are cheaper, and are just as scrumptious) and saw that it had 55 mg of sodium and it was 2% DV which is based on a 2000 calorie diet. I used that information and some algebra to come up with 1650 mg of sodium per day with a 1200 calorie diet. Math rocks!! I'm going to have to remember this scenario to use in my algebra classes once I'm teaching again! Practical applications are fun.
So far today I've had a great bike ride and some fun doing math. Now I'm off to work on my masters classes while my little man lays down for his morning nap.
Wish me luck!
Wish me luck!
Wish me luck!
I haven't slept good in several nights, so I'm crunchy. I want a Reese's, but I can't have one because I need to lose weight. The only good thing is I've finally dropped all of the weight I gained over the weekend, so now any weight I lose will go towards my overall total. I'm sleepy and I need to go to bed. Frist, I need to clean the kitchen, work an hour on my online courses, and shower. Blah. Maybe I'll just clean the kitchen and work extra hard on my classes tomorrow. As for the shower...it can wait until tomorrow, too. I need some sleep!! Being exhausted is no fun and it puts me in a bad mood. I need to be in a good mood because my daughter has her preliminary GATE testing tomorrow and I need to ooze postive energy.
Wish me luck!
Today has gone smoothly, so far. After I dropped my daughter off at school, my son and I went to the pool for an hour. After his nap we rode our bike twice as far as we normally do. My legs were jell-o when we got home, but I was feeling good about the ride. I do need to get a water bottle for my bike, though. Once we were done with our bike ride, I threw the little man in his backpack and we took the dogs on a walk. It was hot and I was already tired, but the dogs and my son were so excited. The one who was the most excited was my little sausage of a dog. He's a teacup Chihuahua. He's 3 pounds instead of 2 and looks like a sausage with a pea head and legs. His name is Brutus. Hilarious, I know! Anyway, he was so excited about the walk. He was jumping around like he was a puppy again. It was so cute. During the walk his tongue started hanging closer and closer to the ground and his tail drooped more and more. On the last leg of the walk I was dying. Sweat was running down by back and in my eyes and my 25 pound son felt like he weighed 100 pounds on my back. Then little Brutus stops in front of me and stops. He looks up, breathing so heavily he sounds like he's going to explode, and looks as though if I don't carry him he will pass out. So I, of course, bend down and pick him up. I told him that I wished I had someone to carry me.
That's when it dawned on me...I really don't have anyone to carry me. There is no one there to scream at me to keep climbing the ladder. There's no one there to demand I do one more repetition. It's just me. I have to be the one to keep myself going. There is no one to carry me. That's a scary thought. My success or failure is totally up to me. I have family and friends who are cheerleaders. They congratulate me when I do well and encourage me when I do poorly, but they're not there to push me when I want to quit. I have to push myself. I have to keep myself going. It's all me. Can I do it?
After Brutus got his breathing under control he wanted down. From there I cheered him along telling him we were almost home. I'm not sure if it helped him, but it did help me. It kept me going. Once we were home I filled up the dogs' water bowls, drank a big glass of water myself, and then took my son off my back. He'd fallen asleep. While he's out I needed to write about my revelation. Now I'm going to go clean the house and pack a bag for the pool. I'm headed back there with both kids after I pick my daughter up from school.
Wish me luck!
Wish me luck!
I might not being doing what Jillian and Bob would suggest, but the whole idea behind my personal version of the Biggest Loser is trying to find what works for me. I'm not dieting. I'm changing my lifestyle. What that means, then, is none of my choices can make me miserable because they won't stick. If this was a short term thing, then I could make myself suffer. Since I want it to be a long term thing I need to change without it being totally painful. Vacations happen. I don't need to pig out to enjoy myself but not eating any of the delicious food around me would make me miserable. The best choice, then, would be to enjoy the good food, but do it in smaller portions. Vacations don't last forever, so I can get back to my strict calorie counting and exercise routine when I get home.
Since I didn't eat until after weigh ins, I was starving by the time I got home. Luckily, I had boiled some eggs, so I ate one of those and a roast beef roll. The egg was 70 calories and the roll (3 slices of roast beef and a slice of pepper jack cheese) was 130 calories for a grand total of 200 calories. Not only that, but it was high in protein and low in sugar. A healthy alternative to a bowl a cereal which has the same number of calories, but no protein and a ton of sugar. If I hadn't had the eggs boiled I probably would have had the cereal. That's a lesson for me to keep in mind...have boiled eggs or other pre-made snacks available.
I have made some changes in my workout routine. Step aerobics is out and bike riding is in. It's not fair to my son to make him suffer through daycare 4 days a week. It's just not. I don't care that people keep telling me he'll get used to it. I can hardly concentrate on what I'm doing because I'm worried about him. If I could not go to the gym at all I wouldn't. I've signed a contract that's not up until the end of January, so I'm spending the money so I need to use it. Plus, my daughter likes the x-arcade and I want her to be healthy, too. So, I'm still going to do yoga on Wednesdays and Fridays, but on Tuesdays and Thursdays I'm going to ride my bike instead of step aerobics. Another change is my daughter and I aren't riding bikes to her school yet. It's a 2 1/2 mile ride on a busy street with no bike lane. We need some practice before we attempt it. The last thing I want is her to veer off into the middle of the street and get hit by some bozo who didn't slow down. As soon as she can effectively stay in front of me and stay on the white line we'll start riding to her school. Until then, the practice is good exercise. Well, my little guy is asleep, so I'm going to go work on my masters classes. I've done all of the work in one of them, but have a lot to do in the other one.
Wish me luck!
Today was a perfect example of life happening. I had very little sleep last night because my little man is teething and sometimes Tylenol, Ora-gel, and teething tablets just don't help. He just needed him mommy to hold him, rock him, and sing to him. Four hours of sleep isn't enough for me to function at full capacity. Still, he and I went to water aerobics after we dropped my daughter off at school. It was just what I needed to get me motivated to face the day. During the warm-up he was getting a little fussy, so I took him out of the boat and held him while I jogged around the pool. He fell asleep. It was so cute!! One of the women in the class offered to hold him so I could work out. I told her I would be very appreciative, but I didn't know if he'd let her hold him. He did. His little eyes opened for just a moment and he looked at her, put his head down, and passed out. She danced with him through the whole class. I love Butchie's! I love the people who run it and the people who are clients. There is such a sense of community. I left there feeling good about life.
After Butchie's my little man and I went grocery shopping. He was starving, so I decided to get us something to eat. I was so proud of myself. I ordered a grilled chicken salad and had low fat balsamic dressing. The meal was filling, decent tasting, and had 230 calories. Yay, me!! When I talked to the news reporter I had said I was giving up fastfood. Life got in the way of that. However, I adapted. I made smarter choices. If you could see me, you'd see me patting myself on the back!! It was the second time I had made a healthy choice with delicious fattening foods staring at me. My daughter wanted Eggos for breakfast. Those along with syrup would have ran me around 400 calories just for breakfast. Instead, I had Special K waffles and sugar free syrup and it was just over 200 calories. The waffles were good, but the sugar free syrup will take some getting used to. It's definitely an acquired taste.
Wednesdays are one of my yoga days. I was really looking forward to the class. The moves are difficult and I'm the only one who works up a real sweat in the class, but it's worth it. I walk out of the room with the stress drained from my body. It only lasts as long as it takes to make it to the daycare, but it's still a moment of inner peace. Today that didn't happen. Right as class was starting I got paged to go get my little guy. He hates daycare and cries the whole time he's there. Depending on the severity of his crying depends on if they'll just let him keep crying or if they have me come get him. Today he had a poopy diaper that needed changing. I walked in and he was hysterical. After I changed his diaper, I got my daughter from the x-arcade and we went home. It just didn't seem right to leave him.
Well, that's it for today. I have an hour of class work ahead of me and then hopefully a peaceful night. Tomorrow is the first weigh in.
Wish me luck!
Tonight aired the premiere of Biggest Loser. It made me cry. I don't think I'd be able to go on without my children. It would kill me to lose them. I'm actually tearing up just thinking about it. The woman who lost her two kids and her husband has my vote. I'm rooting her on to be the Biggest Loser because she is stronger than I'll ever be. This is going to be a good season. I can already tell. The contestants are genuine people. It's not like a couple of seasons ago with Icky Vicky and Heba (those two women were just not nice). These people went back and helped a fallen contestant cross the finish line. Stuff like that chokes me up. It's good to see people caring about one another.
I need to look into finding an online resource where I can fill in what I eat and how much I exercise like they do on Biggest Loser. Two days until our next weigh in.
Wish me luck!
I just watched the KCRA news story on Franklin's Biggest Loser. There I was talking on the TV and all I could think was, "OMG! Where's my neck? I have no neck. What happened to my neck?" Ugh!! They also said I had three kids instead of two. Well, it looked like I could have had three kids, but one of them got eaten! That's bad. I shouldn't say that. I need to focus on the positive. I have a beautiful smile and once I can see that, along with my neck, instead of the extra padding around my midsection I will feel better. Seeing myself on TV just served as more motivation to do well. I have to meet my goals. That made me think. I really haven't laid down any measurable goals. I've said I want to get healthy, but what does that entail? What do I want to gain from this experience? So, here are my goals:
Short Term (the next 18 weeks)
1. Lose an average of 3 pounds per week (total = 54 pounds)
2. Be able to ride around my bike 10 miles
4. Be able to take an hour long step aerobics class without wanting to die
3. Get to a size 14
Long Term
1. Get to a size 10 (I like being curvy and I'll lose that if I try to go smaller than a 10.)
2. Be able to ride my bike 30 miles
These are some reasonable and measurable goals. I'll keep you posted on how meeting them is going. For now, it's a day by day struggle. Yesterday I caught myself eating cheese out of habit. It was crazy. I was grating cheese to put in my daughter's omlet and I popped the extra little chunk that won't grate into my mouth, chewed, and swallowed. Then it dawned on me what I had done. It's not something I usually even think about; I just do it. Overcoming my bad habits is just one more challenge I'm going to face during this process. Besides the cheese incident I also had a bite of my son's dinner while I was checking the temperature. Two uh-ohs, but it was also two eye openers. I'm going to have to make a conscious effort not to do those things. When it comes to making sure my son's food isn't hot I need to just touch it to my lips, not shove it into my mouth. When it comes to the extra cheese I need to toss it to the dog, not shove it in my mouth. It would seem that I shove to much into my mouth!! Yesterday wasn't all bad. I went to the pool and got a great work-out and got a jump start on my week's assignments for both of my classes. My daughter also started karate. She loved it which made me happy because I want her to stay active to help keep her healthy. Today we didn't ride bikes to school because mine needed some work on the pedals. I am still going to step aerobics at 10 AM and Butchie's right after I pick my daughter up from school. That being said, I need to go get ready for step. Keep your fingers crossed my little guy doesn't have a total meltdown today!
Wish me luck!
Recently I joined Franklin's Biggest Loser. Franklin is my daughter's school. Today was our first preliminary weigh in. The actual weigh in is on Thursday, but KCRA 3 is following the story and asked for a preliminary weigh in just to see how people were doing. I've lost, which is good. However, there are some serious competitors, so I've decided to step it up a notch. Somewhere I read that writing a journal/diary helps a person keep from emotional eating, so I'm going to keep this live journal so anyone who wants can see how I'm doing. This is Biggest Loser in the real world. I don't have Jillian or Bob or a ranch where I can escape from reality. I have to do it on my own. I am a sinlge mom, co-room mom for my daughter's class, and I'm taking two online courses working on my Masters degree. My life is far from stress free and there is no escaping reality for me. This journal is going to be my way of sharing my journey.
I'm not going to post my starting weight, but on Thursday I will post my percentage lost and the number of pounds I've lost. That way anyone who wants to know my starting weight can figure it out mathematically! Sounds fun, doesn't it?!
So, now for my plan. I am going to exercise any chance I get. In the mornings on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I'm going to Butchie's Pool (a community pool you need a prescription to use -- yes, obesity will get you a prescription to exersice in the pool) to do water aerobics. This works well for me becasue my daughter is at school and my 9 month old can be in his boat while I work out. Wednesday and Friday at 4:30P I'm taking a beginning yoga class at Northside Fitness. I picked this gym becasue they have the X-arcade for my daughter. It is an interactive arcade. She exercises and has fun doing it. Tuesday and Thursday mornings my daughter and I are going to ride bikes to her school. We'll keep this up as long as the weather permits it. I'm also taking a beginning step class on those days while my daughter's at school. The hard part is my son screams the entire time he's in the daycare. It's heartbreaking. I have the same problem with the yoga class. That's one of those conundrums...is exercising at the gym worth putting my son through that? I just keep reminding myself he will get used to it and then it won't be so bad. It doesn't do anything to help me as I'm walking away hearing his heart break, but I'm getting healthy for him, too. Tuesday evenings it's back to Butchie's. I feel like I need to get a schedule going so I'll keep to it not just while I'm doing the Biggest Loser but also once it's over. As for eating I'm having a harder time. I love food. What I've decided to do is eat a good breakfast, have a snack after exercising, have a good lunch, then a small snack, have a good dinner, then finish the day off by having a small low calorie dessert. I've also decided not to eat after 7 PM. My goal is to keep it between 1400 and 1500 calories a day. Saturday I'm allowing myself one meal where I'm not counting calories. This is so I can get a popcorn and Milk Duds when I take my daughter to the movies or enjoy a dinner out. I'll get a small popcorn instead of a large, but I am still getting the popcorn. My biggest challenge is going to be drinking all of my water everyday. Well, that's not true. My biggest challenge is going to be not getting a double whopper while I'm shopping in town!!
That's the jist of it. My biggest issue so far has been the weekends when Butchie's is closed and I don't have time for the gym. I also have more free time where I'm wanting to eat. It's just going to take me getting creative to get in my exercise. Maybe walking the dogs or bike riding with my daughter. I'll let you know.
Wish me luck!
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