CROP walk 2013

Last week I found out my church was participating in the local CROP walk. I thought it would be a good way to socialize and add in some extra exercise. I had been looking forward to it all week...mostly because it was a great opportunity to get started on a new audio book.

There were two options for the walk. The main walk was for 5 miles and there was a shorter option of 3.4 miles. I was a bit reluctant at first. I knew I could pull off the 3.4 miles, I mean I walk about 2 miles on Saturday and Sundays when at home, what's another 1.4 miles? But the 5 mile....it was like a mountain I wanted to climb. I figured I'd do it in about 2 hours, this is a walk after all and I had been pulling off 2 miles in about an hour. Plus, I am far from being at a point to jog much less run anything. So a goal of 5 miles in 2 hours sounded good.

I made sure I had a bit more carbs in the morning, packed my protein shake and a banana for afterwards, got my water bottle filled, my audio book ready on my phone and I was off. At first I was doing a decent pace, I didn't want to get tired too soon and then put myself in a situation where I would turn for the 3.4 mile rather than finish the 5 mile walk. About after a while I felt the need to jog. I can't explain it, it's like I was not walking fast enough to satisfy some need I was feeling. So I started to jog. Nothing crazy, it was a very light jog. When I got tired of jogging I walked again. I started alternating, jogging then walking when I felt the need to relax. I paced my water bottle so I wouldn't run out of fluid, luckily there were a couple of CROP walk stops along the route where I got to refill my bottle. I think when I got to the last mile I stopped alternating and just walked.

I finished the walk in 1 hour and 30 minutes. I'm actually very proud of myself, I didn't think I would shave 30 minutes off my goal. I am now proud to say I survived CROP walk 2013.

Since I was doing the walk on Sunday I thought I'd take a break today from working out. I figured my legs would be too sore to work out. I actually woke up not as sore as I thought I would be and decided to continue with my daily routine of working out on the elliptical.

When I got to the walking track where I warm up there were two girls right by the elliptical I use. I like using it because it's on it's own in the walking track which is always at least almost empty. Well these two girls are there and I'm thinking to myself..."great, how long have they been there? are they going to use the machine or just lean on it for the whole hour?" I was a bit annoyed but kept doing my normal warm up laps hoping they would leave my corner of the walking track. I finished my warm up laps and they were still there. I had no choice but to get on the "other" elliptical in the other corner of the lap which I'm not used to. I've used it before, I don't like it. I got on it and just kept watching them....one doing jumping jacks while the other just sat on my machine. Finally after a few minutes, they were gone and I got to use the machine! I was happy and was able to do 30 minutes on a 9 resistance. I did get a tired a little sooner but I did it.

I broke down

I dug out the scale and weighed in. No change. I was secretly hopeing to see a change...a decrease...while at the same time pretending it would not bother me in the least bit if there wasn't.

Considering all the work I've put in to working out and the decrease in calorie intake I just thought maybe just maybe there would some decrease...even just a minor one.

On the upside I took another picture. I don't know if it's my hopefull eyes but I think I see a difference. I can't pin point it but there is something. My plan is to take a picture every week... to have a visual, I see myslef every day after all.

At some point I'll post those pictures. I don't think I'm ready to do that now.

I dumped my scale.

The last couple of weeks I've been feeling kinda up and down.

Up because I'm working out, I'm feeling good, I'm making progress with my endurance (going on 25 minutes on the elliptical on level 7), I've increased how many push ups, squats and crunches I do (thanks to a couple of apps).

Down because I weighed in, when I shouldn't have, and have not seen any decrease on the scale since last week. I realized, I was being ruled by the scale. It dictated what mood I would be in and if I would continue working out. How could it not? It sits on my bathroom floor. I see it every time I walk in, each time tempting me saying "Come on, get on...let's see if you're work has paid off.". It taunts me and when ever I give in, which could be every single day, I either feel good because I've lost some weight or I feel devastated because it has increased every so slightly or after days of hard work it has not budged at all. It's ridiculous but it's the truth, how some inanimate object and rule over you so easily.

Today I dumped my scale. I didn't throw it away or anything, I just moved it to the back of my bedroom closet. It now lays against the back wall behind shoes. It is unreachable. I will have to go digging for it if I really want to weigh myself and I don't want to go digging. If it's not in the bathroom I will not be tempted to weigh myself in every time I go in there.

I think I'll take pictures and if at some point I see a significant difference, then I might go digging but for now I'll let my eyes judge how I'm doing.

Been there, done that.

As I mentioned before, I've been overweight my entire life. Growing up I would ask my mom why I was "chubby" she would always tell me she was the same way until she hit her teens. So I just waited until I was a teenager amd guess what happened? I became a chubby teenager.

As a teen I expressed my concerns to my mom. I really hoped she could help me. What she did was expose me to the world of fad dieting. The first "diet" I was on was "La Dieta de la Luna", the moon diet. I don't remeber the details but you fast for a period of time then you can start eating again on some phase of the moon, full moon, new moon...some moon. Of course I was starving by the time came to eat and I ate everything in sight once the fast was lifted. I'm not sure how many times we did this but I didn't lose a pound.

As an older teen I discovered Herbal Life...oh dear lord. I had a shake for breakfast, food for lunch and a shake for dinner. Being the only one on a diet made this ubber hard with my moms cooking for the rest of the family. With the cost being high and all the great food around me and really no other support I eventually gave up.

While attending the community college a group of friends and I decided we would support each other in our weight loss goals. We got memberships at the local "Y" and after a week of 5am workouts before class..we gave up. There were just too many naked elderly women in the locker room, not enough privacy in the showers and the gym smelled horrible. At some point one of them got a few Tai-Bo DVDs and there you had us in my friends basement punching and kicking in rhythm. That didn't last very long either. Boyfriends and schedules got in the way.

In between somewhere I also tried the Atkins diet and the South Beach diet. Someone at some point must have raved about the results and I had to try them.

A few years later I attended a state University. There, I met new people with different lifestyles. Soon I was playing racket ball, learning to roller blade, and started weight lifting with the boys. It was fun, for a while. It lasted until finals or vacation hit then schedules got in the way once more and it was over.

After college and getting married, I decided to join Weight Watchers. I did the online only version for some time. I did well for a few months then having to track everything got to me and for at least a month I was paying for a service I was not using.

At some point my dad heard about some weight loss program that involved diet change and pressure points. By this time my mom had already taken me to do pressure points years ago but that didn't involve diet change so this must be different, and so he and I signed up. I lost weight but I couldn't handle eating just vegetables and protein. It was ok going to get checked in every week during the summer but then school started and it got "complicated".

Soon after that I was pregnant with my son. After his birth my sister-in-law and I signed up for WW, this time I attended weekly meetings. I figured maybe I needed the support system to help get going. I did lose weight but I think that was more attributed to the fact that I was nursing more than anything. I wish I had been more disciplined then, maybe things would be different now...maybe not. She and I lost motivation and we both quit.

Within the last 7 years I have gone back and forth to WW 5 times. As you can see I've just about it all. At some point I realized, it's not them...it's me. There is something about me that just does not want to follow through. It's not lack of desire or motivation. I'm motivated and I desire it. It's not lack of education. I know what I should and shouldn't eat and that I should exercise. As a matter of fact I think I eat pretty healthy, I don't eat junk food, I don't drink juice or soda pop. I stay away from most carbs, they don't seem to like me very much. I don't keep the house stocked with cookies and ice cream. I know there are things I can improve on but overall I think I'm in a better place than many people, yet I'm twice the weight I should be.

In any case, this time has to be different...it just has to be.

Right off the bat changes

I've made some small...or at least I think they are small changes to my.....what's a good word? Lifestyle. Although I have always kept a water bottle at my side, I've decided I'm not going to keep track of how many ounces I've drank or worry about not drinking enough water. If I'm thirsty, I drink. If I'm not, I don't. Keeping it simple. I figured I put too much stress on myself to keep track of how much water I'm drinking, I'm just going to go with the flow.

I've switched out coffee in the morning for green tea and cinnamon tea. I can find tea bags of both at my local super market so instead of drinking a cup of coffee in the morning I'm drinking a cup of green tea/cinnamon mix with a table spoon of honey. So far that hasn't been a very debilitating change. I had been drinking decaff coffee and had just recently switched to caffeinated. So I wasn't quite hooked yet. My coffee stuff was moved to the pantry and I moved to the kitchen counter the tea bags and honey.

I started taking B12 and MSM every morning. This hasn't been a huge change for me because I take a multi-vitamin every morning after break fast. For what ever reason I'm always feeling fatigued and I figured the B12 would help with that. My knees don't hurt right now but I am worried about them because both my parents have had knee surgery, this is something I want to avoid when I am older so that's why I'm taking the MSM. I got both for a decent price on Nutrition Express . After reading the labels on both bottles I realized that B12 helps support a health metabolism and MSM supports healthy joints, hair, skin and nails. All of which I don't mind any assistance with.

One other change, which isn't really small but hasn't been horrible so far is the working out every weekday. That is kind of a big change but I've been feeling motivated recently so I haven't felt too forced about it.

We'll see if these small changes work in some way.