I mentioned in an earlier post that when I started losing weight that I started very simple and worked my way up to where I am now, so I just thought I would share a bit of where I am now. I began in February with no excercise. I knew I needed it, but just didn't want to. So, I found a couple of excercise videos to do at home because I really didn't know how else to fit excercise into my day with my three little guys. I didn't enjoy doing them all that much and it was aggrivating to see all those fit little girls doing the same excercise as me, but I kept doing it because it was getting easier. When I started the Biggest Loser competition with the church in May, my team (Crystal and Chrisy) decided we should train throughout the competition to walk a half marathon by the time we were done. These two have ran half marathons before, so they had room to talk about getting us to walk one. I, along with a few other members of our team, thought they were crazy. But, I figured even if I don't get to the marathon part, training with some friends and getting excercise with them would be worth it.
We began walking a couple of miles at a time and I must tell you that our first long walk as a group was way too fast for me. My side hurt and I struggled to keep up til the end. But, as with everything else in this journey, I had to keep plugging along even if it was hard, because I knew it was the right thing to do. Since my husband is gone all week, it has been a challenge to walk with the group. We started walking in the middle of the day, but June, in the mid-west, is just a little HOT. And, I was pushing a double stroller with two little ones with my oldest tagging along and it just wasn't working. The girls started walking early in the morning to avoid the heat and I decided to find a wonderful girl to get up very early for me and sit at the house while I walked and my children slept (ha). My kids have been getting up early, so the sitter has to get them out of bed, but I get up around 5:30 to walk by 6:00. We typically walk about 4 or 5 miles and since I am not wealthy, I can only afford a sitter two mornings a week. I generally get out Saturday mornings because my husband is here and we are starting to walk more like 6 or 7 miles then.
I have never been a morning person, but getting up early to walk really energizes me for my day and I have really come to look forward to those early morning walks and get really bummed if I have to miss them. I must admit that I do feel sorry for myself sometimes and want to throw a little pitty party because it is such a challenge for me to get out to walk in the mornings, but I get over it pretty quick and have learned to just make the best of my situation. One morning my sitter forgot and didn't make it (I totally understand and I don't blame her one bit), but I wanted to throw my little pity party again, but instead I buckled down. Since I was already up and dressed to my shoes, I just decided to put in an excercise video and make the best of my morning.
I am starting to make better decisions for myself. I am amazed. Never in a million years would I think that I would be getting up at 5:30 or 6:00 to excercise and not go crawl back in bed if things didn't go the way I wanted them to. I also got stressed to my max the other day and instead of vegging out in front of the tv with a giant bowl of ice cream, I made a way to get out after the kids went to bed and walk off my stress. It really is a lifestyle change for me now. It's not just a temporary fix. I hope this is inspiring you in some way to find a way to make your situation better and not sit at your pity party feeling sorry for yourself.
Oh, and one more thing about the picture of me. I am still working on getting a current picture and as soon as I do, I will post a before and current one, but our church directories finally came in. My family posed for pictures for this in November (?). I took one look at my picture and couldn't believe my eyes. A good friend of mine said she wondered who that girl was that ate Angie and she is so right. I am so happy that I am making changes to live a healthier lifestyle.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Denial
I tried to find a picture of myself before I started losing weight to put up and show. In finding one, I took a good hard look at it and was in total shock. Wow, I can't believe that's what I looked like. Now, it was also taken at an event where we were supposed to wear the most terrible Christmas attire we could, so the bad Christmas sweater doesn't help matters at all, but what I realized is how much denial I was really in. While I was 250 lbs, I never weighed myself. I didn't really want to know what that number was. I knew I needed to lose weight, but I thought of myself as just overweight. After seeing this picture, I know I was a lot worse off. I can't believe I let myself get to that point and not see it for what it truly was. I think the denial was helping me to cope with it though, and coping was just fine for me at that time. Now that things have clicked and I am feeling so good, I really can't image what that girl was thinking. I know that you probably want to see this picture that I found, but I just can't put it up until I have a current one to put beside it to show you how hard I have really been working this past 5 1/2 months. So, hopefully, I will get a new picture very soon and you can see for yourself.
Are you living in denial, knowing that you aren't were you need to be, but not really wanting to face reality? If so, stand strong, make a change, and decide that today, you are going to make a turn for the better and never look back.
Are you living in denial, knowing that you aren't were you need to be, but not really wanting to face reality? If so, stand strong, make a change, and decide that today, you are going to make a turn for the better and never look back.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Sacrifices
Ok, so by the title of this you are probably thinking I am going to be writing about the foods I have had to sacrifice in order to lose weight, but you would be wrong. I am going to let you know a few of my secrets. Are you listening? Here it goes. In order to make time for the excercise and extra effort a lot of the healthy foods are, something has to give. I am working as a single parent most of the week and that doesn't really leave much extra time to add anything else, so I have to give some things up or let some things slide. Of course I am not going to neglect my kids or quit cuddling them and playing with them. Because, let's face it, this journey is just too long for them to be on the chopping block. I have sacrificed several things including ........... sleep (I used to love to sleep as late as possibly 7 or even 8 am), personal hygiene (I know you are probably grossed out by this one, but hey, sometimes I just can't justify a shower at 9 pm when I am going to be getting up the next morning and sweating again), and
housework
housework
This is just the tip of the iceberg, but I didn't want to show too many pictures in case you called family services on me or something. But seriously, I'm ok with this. I normally like to keep my house fairly clean and would never dream of showing this to anyone, but it's ok. I know that in order to spend more time doing what I need to do to lose weight, things like this will happen. And I have reminded myself time and time again, that this is just a season of life for me. It will be different soon enough. I plan to continue to include excercise and healthier eating in my life, but not to this degree once I get to my goal weight. If you feel really sorry for me and want to come clean my house for me, I am ok with that too. I have come to grips with accepting help at an earlier stage of my life.
So, what do you need to let go in order to make time for some healthy changes in your life? Don't be afraid to sacrifice a few things to get yourself in the place you really want to be for the rest of your life.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Bacon Lovers (anonymous)
I had a few new blog ideas for this morning rolling around in my head, but after last night, I feel I need to post about my night. I mentioned that I am participating in a weight loss competition at my church. It's called Biggest Loser (after the tv show). We began this competition in May and we are nearing the end. The group of 6 other women that I am teamed up with are called ............... Bacon Lovers (anonymous). We are a very competitive group of girls. There are about a dozen other teams and most teams are made up of at least 10-12 members, so we are one of the smaller teams. I wasn't really sure how we would fair compared to some of the other teams because we all didn't have huge amounts of weight to lose. We have meetings every other week and at the meeting last night, we won the team weight-in! We (as a team) lost the highest percentage of our weight. This is the second time we have come in first. We have been in third or fourth all of the other weeks. The exciting part of this is that the stats were sent out and right now our weight loss is the highest percentage (at 9%). That means we have a great shot at winning this. The prize is $ for our charity (which is Bond Christian Service Camp) and the thrill of victory. I love to win! So, that alone would be very cool. We just have to keep this up for two more weeks. I will still be continuing on my weight loss journey as I was before this competition started, but it has been awesome to have this going on. It has given me great inspiration at a point when I might have been ready to give up or slack off.
Another really cool thing is that the individual with the biggest percentage of weight loss will win some money for themself. She sent out some stats for that and I think I am tied for second. There were no names given, but I am pretty sure that's where I am. First place is only 1% above. This is totally within reason for me to get this. Like I said, I love to win! The money would be cool, but winning would just feel so good. Although I know that even if I don't win, I have done a great job and did my very best.
One more encouraging note from last night is that people are making all kinds of comments about how I am looking. It is hard for me to take compliments, but I have learned to just say thank you and leave it at that. I used to try to come up with some other sort of response that would down-play my success, but I am not doing that anymore. I do feel great, I do like hearing those things, and so I will accept the compliments for what they are. So, if you have been one of them, keep 'em coming! Thank you.
Another really cool thing is that the individual with the biggest percentage of weight loss will win some money for themself. She sent out some stats for that and I think I am tied for second. There were no names given, but I am pretty sure that's where I am. First place is only 1% above. This is totally within reason for me to get this. Like I said, I love to win! The money would be cool, but winning would just feel so good. Although I know that even if I don't win, I have done a great job and did my very best.
One more encouraging note from last night is that people are making all kinds of comments about how I am looking. It is hard for me to take compliments, but I have learned to just say thank you and leave it at that. I used to try to come up with some other sort of response that would down-play my success, but I am not doing that anymore. I do feel great, I do like hearing those things, and so I will accept the compliments for what they are. So, if you have been one of them, keep 'em coming! Thank you.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
More tales from the beginning
So, I just got back from my morning walk and had my breakfast. I am in training to walk a half marathon in October. It's not something I ever thought I would be doing, but I am part of a weight loss competition through my church and my team (namely Crystal and Chrisy), decided we should train for this, so I am. It has really been a lot of fun, but when I started my weight loss journey, I didn't do much excercise.
Ok, so when I started my faithful journey on Valentine's Day 2011, I didn't really tell anyone other than my husband that I was trying to lose weight. I felt that if I ended up failing, at least no one would know and (gasp) judge me. So, the first 20 lbs came off and I was waiting. Waiting for somebody to say something about this change in me. But, nothing came. I faced the harsh reality that 20lbs just wasn't that noticable. Which hurt. But I didn't let it stop me. I knew that I just had to keep plugging along.
When I started, I wasn't as hard core as I am now. I started pretty simple.
I cut out all other beverages and drank as much water as I could get in. This really helped with the hunger (which wasn't that bad).
I found some healthy recipes for me and my family on the WW website and cooked them for my family. My husband was very skeptical at first because he doesn't like "diet" food, but he loved the recipes so much, that he was insisting we add them to our normal meal rotations. I cooked things like pork loin, tilapia, salmon, and of course, chicken.
I added lots of fruits and veggies. I know this is an expense, but I told myself that this expense was worth it. Money has been tight for us several different times through this, but I decided this was one place I was not going to let that be a problem. There are so many times and so many different reasons to say that I can't do this right now, it's too hard, I have a good reason to cheat or put it on hold and I wasn't going to let that be my future. I sucked it up and bought all those healthy expensive foods. And made sure I ate them. I mean really, when you spend $11 on a bag of cherries, you're gonna eat those suckers.
That was pretty much it, along with following the WW points plus program and not going over my allowances. I did have days which didn't include the most healthy of foods, but I don't consider it cheating. With WW, I was able to make it fit into my day and my week and maybe make some sacrifices to help make up for it.
One more thing I must mention is that if you are looking to start losing weight, keep some records. Take your measurements, record a starting weight and maybe even take a picture. The measurements will be a good motivator later if the scale isn't cooperating like you think it should. I did not get a picture of myself at the start, mostly because I avoided cameras like the plague and wanted no part of that, but looking back I really wish I had it, so do it. Hide it somewhere if you need to, but take it, you will never be at that place again.
Ok, so when I started my faithful journey on Valentine's Day 2011, I didn't really tell anyone other than my husband that I was trying to lose weight. I felt that if I ended up failing, at least no one would know and (gasp) judge me. So, the first 20 lbs came off and I was waiting. Waiting for somebody to say something about this change in me. But, nothing came. I faced the harsh reality that 20lbs just wasn't that noticable. Which hurt. But I didn't let it stop me. I knew that I just had to keep plugging along.
When I started, I wasn't as hard core as I am now. I started pretty simple.
I cut out all other beverages and drank as much water as I could get in. This really helped with the hunger (which wasn't that bad).
I found some healthy recipes for me and my family on the WW website and cooked them for my family. My husband was very skeptical at first because he doesn't like "diet" food, but he loved the recipes so much, that he was insisting we add them to our normal meal rotations. I cooked things like pork loin, tilapia, salmon, and of course, chicken.
I added lots of fruits and veggies. I know this is an expense, but I told myself that this expense was worth it. Money has been tight for us several different times through this, but I decided this was one place I was not going to let that be a problem. There are so many times and so many different reasons to say that I can't do this right now, it's too hard, I have a good reason to cheat or put it on hold and I wasn't going to let that be my future. I sucked it up and bought all those healthy expensive foods. And made sure I ate them. I mean really, when you spend $11 on a bag of cherries, you're gonna eat those suckers.
That was pretty much it, along with following the WW points plus program and not going over my allowances. I did have days which didn't include the most healthy of foods, but I don't consider it cheating. With WW, I was able to make it fit into my day and my week and maybe make some sacrifices to help make up for it.
One more thing I must mention is that if you are looking to start losing weight, keep some records. Take your measurements, record a starting weight and maybe even take a picture. The measurements will be a good motivator later if the scale isn't cooperating like you think it should. I did not get a picture of myself at the start, mostly because I avoided cameras like the plague and wanted no part of that, but looking back I really wish I had it, so do it. Hide it somewhere if you need to, but take it, you will never be at that place again.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
The beginning
Ok, so I've never thought about blogging before, but a good friend suggested it to me today and that's all I can think about, so I guess I should go for it. I mean what's the worst that could happen? I could fail and never write anything again or no one would ever read this, but how bad is that really? When compared to world hunger or something like that, not bad at all. So anyway, here it goes, my very first blog post! Wow!
I'm starting this to hopefully inspire others with my journey of weight loss. It's been a long road and I'm not finished yet, but one day, I hope to have accomplished my ultimate goal of losing 100lbs. There's a lot going through my mind about what I want to write and advice that I have for others who are looking to lose weight, so I guess I will start by telling the begining of my weight loss journey.
February 14, 2011, I weighed in at a whopping 250lbs and I was tired of it. I had been one of those people sitting on my couch eating ice cream and watching The Biggest Loser. I knew that I could lose weight like those people on the show, but I just wasn't ready to put in the hard work that I knew it would take. I had seen so many commercials for programs to help you lose weight and I picked one. I started Weight Watchers online. My husband was getting ready to start a new job as an OTR (Over the Road) truck driver and I knew that with my three little children, making it to weekly WW meetings would be next to impossible. So, I signed up, used some money that I had recieved for Christmas that I was saving for some new clothes and took the plunge.
You might be thinking, "Why make this decision on Valentine's Day?" or "What made you decide to start losing weight?". Well, my friends, I was tired. I was tired of being fat, I was tired of the size of my clothes, I was tired of seeing other people lose weight and look great. But the biggest reason of all was the excuses that other people were giving me for being so fat. I know, they were just being nice and trying to help, but it wasn't, or maybe it was. If that's what got me here. 70lbs lighter and on my way to my ultimate goal.
I'm starting this to hopefully inspire others with my journey of weight loss. It's been a long road and I'm not finished yet, but one day, I hope to have accomplished my ultimate goal of losing 100lbs. There's a lot going through my mind about what I want to write and advice that I have for others who are looking to lose weight, so I guess I will start by telling the begining of my weight loss journey.
February 14, 2011, I weighed in at a whopping 250lbs and I was tired of it. I had been one of those people sitting on my couch eating ice cream and watching The Biggest Loser. I knew that I could lose weight like those people on the show, but I just wasn't ready to put in the hard work that I knew it would take. I had seen so many commercials for programs to help you lose weight and I picked one. I started Weight Watchers online. My husband was getting ready to start a new job as an OTR (Over the Road) truck driver and I knew that with my three little children, making it to weekly WW meetings would be next to impossible. So, I signed up, used some money that I had recieved for Christmas that I was saving for some new clothes and took the plunge.
You might be thinking, "Why make this decision on Valentine's Day?" or "What made you decide to start losing weight?". Well, my friends, I was tired. I was tired of being fat, I was tired of the size of my clothes, I was tired of seeing other people lose weight and look great. But the biggest reason of all was the excuses that other people were giving me for being so fat. I know, they were just being nice and trying to help, but it wasn't, or maybe it was. If that's what got me here. 70lbs lighter and on my way to my ultimate goal.
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