My Story

I spend a lot of time encouraging all of my friends on My Fitness Pal. I know how discouraging it can be to do everything right to lose weight, but the scale does not seem to move at all.

It took me a long time of struggling with the scale to realize I was better off focusing on the things I could control. I knew that I could control whether or not I tracked my food or exercised. I could also control what I ate. As long as I was making healthy choices in the things I could control then I would consider all of my work a success. It didn't matter what the scale said.

I realized today that I started picking up this habit in high school when I was on chemotherapy. There were a lot of things out of my control at that time but I chose to focus on the things I could control. I could control whether or not I did my homework. I could control my attitude when I was at the doctors office receiving treatment. I chose to experience the journey as enjoyable of a life experience as I could.

That is the attitude I want to keep with me the rest of my life, always finding ways to make crappy inevitable situations the best that they could be.

The Difference

I have a couple of friends who are struggling with their journey to a healthier lifestyle. Seeing their status updates has me thinking about myself almost a year ago, August 2011 to be exact.

I wasn't happy with how I looked and I had started running and exercising and "watching what I ate". I was frustrated though because I wasn't getting the results I wanted. The pounds were not coming off in spite of all of my hard work. Eventually the holidays came and my exercise routine went by the wayside, but I was still frustrated that I wasn't losing weight.

At the start of this year I decided to give a diet program from Fitness magazine a chance. And it worked. Te eating plan was simple and the exercise routine was doable. I have relied on the structure of that eating plan multiple times because it outlined how many calories to have for each meal.

I have been on a roll ever since then. But the point of this post is the journal I have kept since August 2011. The first entries are very desperate and whiny. I wasn't taking control of the situation completely. There is a definite progression through this past year. Maybe one day I will type up my journal. But for now I can look back and see the change. I am now 21 pounds down and have a completely different lifestyle than what I had before.

Chugging Along-June Goals

I really need to get better about writing blogs when I have all of the great ideas in my head.  I have been listening to a lot of Jillian Michaels lately and she really has me thinking about why I gained the weight and the whole process of changing my lifestyle.  But of course my mind is at a blank right now.

I redeemed a Groupon for group training for the month of June and will be getting up bright and early tomorrow to go for my third class.  I'm exhausted at the moment but it is a great workout and I really like the trainer and hope to see some amazing results.

Without Further Ado...my June Goals

1) Be in the solid 180s by the end of the month.  I hit 189.6 over the weekend but I have a feeling the scale will bounce around a little bit before settling.

2) Run 1.25 miles.  I hope to gradually increase my running distance every month.  Hoping that I will be able to run at lunch even with doing group training at 6 am every day.

3) Focus on veggies.  I haven't been focused on these and it shows in my food diary.

4) Continue to track all of my food.

5) Aim for a minimum of 5,000 steps daily.

That is all for now.  More philosophical insight into this whole weight loss process at a later date.

I think I'm in love

I am knitting a scarf for Mr. Badango's Grandfather. I was going to do a simple mistake rib, and then a simple rib, and then seed stitch, but I ripped out every one of those after a few rows. I just wasn't happy with how it looked. Then I started playing and got the below result. I will post the pattern once the scarf is finished. But I have now set this picture as the background on my phone. I am in love with this scarf. It may not be let go of by me

Funny Work Pant Story

With all of the weight I have lost so far my work pants are starting to just hang off of me, well my jeans too but that is a different story.

I went to Target this past weekend to get some new pants for work. In my mind I have been wearing a size 14 this whole time so grabbed some size 12 pants and went into the fitting room. After much grunting and pulling and jumping around I finally got the pants on and zipped up. The thing is, I just couldn't justify buying them because they were too tight. I was really sad about this because I thought for sure the pants would fit just fine. I put them back on the shelf and did the walk of shame to Mr. Badango to let him know that I wouldn't be buying pants today. No sense in buying more pants in the same size I was already wearing.

I continued to be a little bummed about all of this until I decided to check the size on my work pants the next morning. Apparently I have been wearing a size 16 and the fact that I fit into the 12 means I have gone down two pant sized.

Meeting Goals

Okay, I have a confession.  I've been avoiding posting up my weight loss progress because I feel like it has stalled.  I weighed in at 192.2 this morning and am realizing that is down .5 pounds since April 24th.  The thing is, the scale has been bouncing around all over the place for the past few weeks.  One day it will be 190.9 then 191.4 then 192.2 then 190.3 then 191.6 then 192.2.  It is driving me a bit bonkers, but ultimately the low is getting lower and the high is also getting lower.  I may not get into the 180s like I wanted to this month, but I will be meeting my other goals that I set at the beginning of the month.

Goals for May
- Complete 30 DS- Working on it
- Get into the 180s- Eh, my body will get there when it gets there
- Continue to track all of my food- Been doing that
- Run a mile- Accomplished today and will continue to push myself to go further.

 I was reading a rant the other day from a woman who was upset about the rate the numbers on the scale were going down.  She knew that she looked thinner and her measurements told her so, but that number on the scale just wasn't going down.  I loved one of the responses and am trying to keep it in mind as I continue on this journey.

"So you've gotten physically and visibly smaller, right? But the number on the scale, which no one sees but you, hasn't changed? I don't see a problem here."

The number on the scale is only visible to me, and most people don't really care about that number.  What matters is that I am building muscle and toning up.  And whenever the fat does decide to drop off I bet I will have a 6 pack waiting for me.

Sometimes a break is needed

Thirty four days ago I joined a 50 day challenge and have been consistently meeting the challenge every day for those 34 days.  At this point I feel like I really can't fail at it.  The thing is, my body is rebelling and teling me that I need a break.  The past couple of days my food intake has been more and more unhealthy.  Not super unhealthy, but  I have been a lot more lax.  I have still been tracking my food and exercising, but it all culminated to today.

 My husband worked from 11am to 7 pm today.  I slept in until he had to leave for work then proceeded to sit on the couch and knit and read and watch tv until he got home around 8 pm.  I didn't bother to get up and do my 30DS dvd and I also snacked on the pastries he had brought home from work last night.  I didn't feel like I was eating too horribly calorie wise, but I really didn't care to track my food and find out.  I was also trying to figure out what type of slacker exercise I was going to do just so I could actually accomplish the challenge for today.

 I decided to track my food while we were driving to dinner for sushi and was glad to find out that I hadn't done too badly and I was able to control myself at the sushi place.  Then when we were leaving the restaurant hubby and I decided to go to the local shopping mall to do our usual walk around.  I counted this as my exercise for the day.

 It was a nice relaxing day.  I allowed myself to indulge and enjoy my hobby.  I didn't stress out about pushing my body and I ate the pastries I enjoy the most.  And at the end of the night I was able to say no when hubby offered me more pastries.  I also didn't allow myself to go full blown on a binge today.  I just didn't want to push my stomach to the point of being sick.

 I guess after spending 34 days focusing on exercise and tracking everything I eat, this whole healthier lifestyle thing is becoming habit and something I don't want to give up on, no matter how much I want to lax off and just be lazy.

 So I guess what I'm saying is sometimes we all need to give ourselves a break and trust that this lifestyle change that we have been working so hard on won't let us turn too far from it.  After all, the alternative to living a healthy lifestyle doesn't seem very pleasant to me.  I rather like the fact that I can climb up the two flights of stairs to our apartment without wheezing and push myself to run faster and faster during my lunch hour without being too sore to walk the next day.