New Favorite Piece of Gym Equipment

So my work's gym has been completely remodeled and it's pretty gorgeous. They took some space from the IT offices and almost doubled its size and increased their collection of exercise machines. Josh and I started alternating nights, three times a week, to go to the gym after the kids go to bed, since that's the only time we're able to leave for long enough to get in a workout. After a full week of that practice, I have some fun experiences and realizations.

First, I don't hate exercising. Sure, I'm really, really, really bad at running and my posture is all wrong and I can't hold my breath for anything, but I enjoy the feeling of strength and power I get when I totally crush an hour's worth of exercise. It's awesome. Second, I love the elliptical! I tried it out for the first time last Friday and I felt like I was flying through the workout. It was both easier and harder than the treadmill--easy, because it doesn't put all that strain on my ankles, which have been killing me after even just two minutes of light jogging; and hard, because it keeps my heart rate above 150 the entire time and I get a good sweat on. I also love that I get to close my eyes and bang my head to my music because my arms are holding onto the machine so I don't lose my balance and fall off of it. Third, I tend to be much more conscious of my eating habits and calorie intake when I work out during the week. Sure, I still eat more than I should and I binge on candy like three times a week, but I'm being much more careful about how much I eat, and how many times I grab a snack during the day. I'm recording my calorie intake on LoseIt!.com and trying to develop good habits that I can maintain. And fourth, I think I have finally found a routine that I can maintain with my young children and full-time job.

Josh is exercising on alternate days from me and that has made me much more motivated to continue my work. Today I ate too much and wasn't very organized with food, but I still worked out and in fact had a great time. I love the elliptical and I totally rocked it. I bought some new workout clothes that are a little too tight, which is great motivation to keep working until they fit comfortably. If I'm embarrassed to wear such tight pants, I can feel the (literal) pressure to make them fit. Hopefully I'll see a difference in about seven weeks from now when I run my 5K. And tomorrow is a great day to make up my bad eating from today, because I participate in no-sugar Tuesdays!

I'll be starting over repeatedly for the rest of my life, won't I?

I'm recommitting (again) to this weight loss thing. It's a constant battle and I'm constantly losing but I refuse to be satisfied with being overweight. I want to lose all of my baby weight from James by the time I have my 5K run in May. That gives me eight weeks to lose 16 pounds, which is totally doable. I ate a smart breakfast this morning and I'm planning to work out at my work gym tonight to start building up the endurance I'll need for running.

Josh's coworker invited him to do a fun run in August. It's a night run at the fairgrounds and you have to wear a white t-shirt because you'll be sprayed with glow-in-the-dark foam and run under black lights for three miles. It's a silly idea and the babysitting logistics are a nightmare (the kids will have to spend the night with their grandparents to make this feasible) but I was surprised Josh even wanted to do a 5K with me. He's not usually keen on participating. I think the pressure of having his coworkers also do it made him more inclined to accept the offer, so now we're paid and committed to running this thing.

Of course, you can't just run a race with beautiful, thin, fit coworkers. His two female coworkers run for fun all the time, so they're in great shape and Josh and I are overweight and out of shape. We have decided to take advantage of this race by starting a running regime together. We'll go for family walks after dinner to work up our muscles, and we'll alternates nights at my work gym so one of us can run on the treadmill and the other one can babysit the kids while they're sleeping. I get Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and I've decided I'll use my Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays to build up my core muscles with a workout video. That way I'll be alternating strength training with cardio, which is the smart way to exercise.

Hopefully I'll be in a good place physically for my May race, and I'll be able to run like a pro by our August run. It may just be a silly fun run, but Josh and I are treating it like a serious competition. Good luck to us!

Do-over?

I'm sort of at a loss. I just keep gaining and eating and gaining. I have no control and I'm as heavy as I've ever been in my life (minus being pregnant). I finally couldn't take it anymore, and I signed up for JillianMichaels.com. It's a three-month program that cost $65 and I can record my progress as I lose weight but mostly I can get menus and grocery lists for my specific calorie needs and workout programs designed specifically for me. I'm a little nervous to start but I've already paid for it, so I need to embrace it.

This week I have Emily and Abby staying with us so it's not feasible for me to try to buy groceries for just myself, but starting next Monday, I'll get with the program and really focus. I weighed myself this morning and I need to lose some serious weight in order to even look like I did before having this baby. I did a workout video yesterday and it totally kicked my butt. I'm unbelievably sore today and was barely able to take a ten-minute walk tonight. I'm recovering from a nasty cold that has me congested and foggy for most of the day (going on nine days now) and I took a two-hour nap this evening and have been awake for the past three hours as punishment (it's one a.m.). So I know I'll be tired tomorrow, but I'm still going to work out. If I'm too sore still I'll do yoga, but I'm going to work out regardless. I'm also going to watch what I eat and cool it on the junk food. I've been inhaling sugar like it's my life force and I feel so powerless when the craving starts to grow in me. Not fun. Tomorrow I'll work on mastering my self will and telling my body what to eat instead of the other way around.

My official weight loss goal is to lose 55 pounds so I can hit my goal weight. My shorter-term goal is to finish the year by losing 25 pounds. That's roughly two pounds a week, which I can do if I just stay diligent (something I'm not very good at right now). I have workout videos so I should be able to exercise regardless of the weather and I have my JillianMichaels account so I should have all I need to eat smart. I can do this. Here's to a successful October!

Couldn't Sleep Last Night--Had to Try on Clothes Instead

Josh fell asleep around 10:30 but my mind was just really buzzing so I couldn't seem to make myself sleep. Instead, I got up and went to my closet, suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to try on some of my current clothes and see how I fit. I don't know why this was a desire but I did it. Most of the dressed currently hanging in my closet are definitely wearable even though I'm pregnant, which made me feel pretty good about myself. Then I discovered the two bags of winter/non-maternity clothes in the corner that I had bagged up to avoid overcrowding my closet and also to hide the truth. I can't fit into most of those clothes, and it's only partly because I'm pregnant. At my lowest weight I was thirty pounds lighter than I am right now. The sad fact is that I was thirty pounds lighter at five months pregnant--and I'm five months pregnant right now!

Rather than get really, really depressed about that fact, I decided that as soon as I woke up I would rededicate to eating healthy meals and exercising. I don't need to lose thirty pounds to make myself feel good. I'd like to start losing weight and just be healthy for the remainder of my pregnancy. Then I can set a realistic weight loss goal for after I have the baby, having set up a healthy foundation of exercise during the rest of my pregnancy. I enter the third trimester in a week, which gives me a good twelve weeks to get in good shape. My new goal is for every doctor's appointment I have from here on out, I will lose at least one pound.

At my last appointment, I weighed 200 pounds. Last night I weighed 206, which might not be entirely accurate but I'll say it is and work with that. My next doctor's appointment is in a week and a half. If I can really work hard, I have a good chance of getting down to 199 before I go in (since I fluctuate four to five pounds practically overnight), so that's my new goal. Any weight loss is a good thing, but focusing on specific, measurable goals with semi-regular deadlines (each doctor appointment) really helps me to remotivate.

Here's hoping my next appointment is a smashing success!

Man- Camilla has the best attitude and determination of anyone I have every seen! She is my hero. I love how motivated and positive she is. I love that she is still writing on this blog even though I'm sure we all forgot about it. She just never gives up. When she gets off course she readjusts and tries again. I want to be more like that. I really want to learn how to endure to the end better. I don't want to give up just because something is hard. I really want to dig my heels in and finish the race, and although I know losing weight isn't a race I'm pretty sure you understand the gist.
I also have the best husband in the whole world. He is patient, loving, supportive, and just plain awesome! We all have our own trials and a big one of mine is working out in front of people. I just feel like they are all thinking really mean things in their head and it messes with my confidence. Ian totally gets me in a cool husband kind of way and so he suggested we move my elliptical into our tiny little loft. That way I can work out in private and at a time that would work for me. He also moved all our things all around while I tried to figure out how we could fit it in with nary a complaint. He even moved the beast up our stairs and into Abby's room because he is just that cool. Now I can go back to my schedule of a little bit at a time. I start with 20 min a day for a week. Then I add 5 min every week until I am at 40 min. It really helps with my stress. That is where I am at the moment. I hope to continue updating everyone as I get more into my routine. Keep trying. I know it helps me to know I'm not alone in this struggle. I really believe we can all do it.

Going at it again

I can't give up on weight loss just because I'm pregnant. I had the best success with weight loss the last time I was pregnant too, so I'm taking full advantage of this time again. I weigh 186 now, which is a 13-pound weight loss from where I was last Halloween. My goal is to reach 170 eventually, which should take me halfway through March. By then I think it'd be silly to actively try to lose weight while the baby is growing inside me. Instead I'll concentrate on remaining healthy and not gaining too much until after the baby is born (sometime in July-ish). Then I have another goal of weighing 170 by the end of the year which, with exercise and nursing and watching what I eat this time as opposed to last time, should be possible. I hope to weigh less by the time I give birth this time than I did the last time I had a baby. That way I'll have less of a journey to get back down to my goal weight.

This morning I weighed in at 186 and I was 186.5 yesterday, so I'm heading in the right direction. If I can lose just one more pound by Sunday, I'll be in good shape. I have to lose two pounds a week for the next eight weeks and I'll be almost completely done with my weight loss journey for the rest of my pregnancy. By February first, I hope to weigh 179.

First step is to lose one more pound this week. Here I go again...

Another Medifast Attempt

I tried to pick up Medifast again several times after having Scarlet, but it was so hard to go without food. But I read an old blog post of mine that shared my weight last December when I was seven months pregnant. The day I read that post, I weighed three pounds less than that. Not cool. And then Josh got violently ill this past weekend after Thanksgiving and lost nine and a half pounds. So jealous. So I decided I would commit to Medifast for realsies this time. I'm on day three and surviving just fine. The hunger pains only lasted the first day, I'm feeling well-fed, and yesterday I bought a bunch of fresh vegetables to eat with my dinners. It's been pretty all right. I used to crave the sugar intensely but now I mostly crave breads, and those feelings aren't overwhelming or impossible.

I'm already down three and a half pounds. Sweet! My goal is to get down to my normal weight by the end of the year. That way I only have to lose ten pounds in the next year to look better than I have since I've been married. It's not impossible, but it is 13.5 pounds away and I only have three and a half weeks left to do it in. That's a pretty lofty goal, but if I stay committed I bet I can do it. My one concern is Christmas. Do I give up eating all the yummy things associated with Christmas in order to stay faithful to Medifast? Or do I cheat one day and risk losing all my steam? It's a tough choice and I'm not sure what I'll decide by the time Christmas rolls around. Currently I'm leaning toward staying strong, but yesterday I was swinging the other way as I walked through Costco and saw all the chocolate. For now I'll stick to my diet and see how long I can stay focused.

I've also got to run a 5K on the 21st in order to hit my new year's goal for this year, which will be tough since I haven't gone running all year. If the weather holds up tonight, I'll head to the gym to start running again. It's going to be painful but I really need to condition my body for my 5K. I'm going to at least be able to run the first mile before taking a break. After tonight we'll see what my new goal will be. I'm not sure I can run the whole 5K in 45 minutes, so we'll just have to see. Plus it'll be snowing and cold when I do run, so that'll be a factor. Running in the cold is murder on the lungs.

But there's nothing like losing weight during the holiday season! It gets a head start on my new year's goals for next year and I don't feel so impossibly behind with my weight. By the time Scarlet has her first birthday, I'm going to have my pre-baby body back (well, mostly).