Do it until.....

I have a really busy day but wanted to pop in and say I'm finally looking at the scale again and I really feel like I have a better understanding of how being SO hard on myself about my weight does NOT work. Beating myself up over my progress....does NOT work.  I've been listening to a LOT of books----The Power of Now, A New Earth, The Battlefield of the Mind, Steering by Starlight, Follow your North Star, Awaken the Giant Within, and also writing my own book and I have to say that I have had a  moment.  Here's what I see in the "light" now:

1. The same impatience that I feel while trying to reach my goal weight is the root of why I'm overweight. An unwillingness to WAIT and sit in DIScomfort makes me make very poor choices. 

2.  I had set myself up in a "lose" -"lose" situation. I was beating myself up when I wasn't doing anything about my weight and then I was continuing even after joining Jenny Craig about the pace of my progress.  This self berating behavior is counterproductive and not the way to reach my goals.  I've learned a tool of becoming the "compassionate observer" to get myself out of this.

3.  I can live my best life at EVERY weight as I go down the scale. This isn't about waiting until I reach 165 and then POW life is great all the time. This is about finding joy in EACH God given day. I will be the best looking woman at 217.2 that I can be.

4.  Stop counting what doesn't matter. WHEN did it become important how long I've been doing this?  I will do this until.... I mean when children are learning to walk they don't come to their parents frustrated because they've counted the number of times they fell yesterday. Healthy people keep track of what's important and its NOT healthy to continue using time as a bat to beat myself up over.

Okay...outta time but that's my update.  I've had no time to read blogs but know that I'm still in the race with you and I"m going to do it until......

Turned 38 today

I had a girlfriend I've known for 13 years and her husband come visit me this past weekend and then I had a lot of work to get done so I could take off this last Holiday weekend of the summer.  So today I turn 38.  Leading up to this day I was really struggling with big "life" questions. I LOVE my career and what I do really has an impact but I never intended to be a corporate person without a family.  It hurts me beyond words to celebrate my 38th birthday without any children.  I never imagined this and I know it's not too late for biological children but I just have to say it hurts to not have any right now and to know that this is one category where I can't work hard and make it happen.  It is humbling because in spite of my degrees, contacts, and all the physicians I know in this nation no one can start life. We can impact the creation but we cannot completely control it.  I'm humbled by this fact and for the first time realize that I have to accept that for now I'm a woman who is 38 and I don't have children but that doesn't make me any less of a woman.  So I had to get that out because I was a basket case yesterday over this. Couldn't stop thinking about my baby and couldn't stop thinking about how sad I am because a family means more to me than a career and anything else I could acquire wtih money. 

So on a positive note I'm off work until Wednesday and I plan to get a massage, pedicure, my hair done, and then I'm going out to dinner tonight.  Tomorrow I'm celebrating with my family for the weekend so gonna make the most of celebrating another God-given year.  I'm thankful to be not only alive but healthy and to still have mind-body connection. I see people almost daily who have a disconnect from their mind and body. They want to move faster but they just cannot anymore. Being in the airport so much I see all kinds of people. Some without legs, without arms, military returning home, sick children, people walking with canes, people falling out of their wheelchairs, etc...the list goes on and on of people who no longer have a choice over their body. I thank God for still having that choice and I am going to honor that by working out and treating my body with exceptional care today.  This will be a day where my "daily bread" will be enough. No over feeding my temple of God today!  Now I just need to remember this gratitude everyday!

have a great day everyone

Are you interested in losing weight or committed?

I thought this was a great article. Guess bottom line is either you are or you're not. 

Here's a summary of the two directions.

If you're "interested" in losing weight...

* You stick with it only until something better comes along (such as doughnuts)
* How you feel determines your outcome. If you don't 'feel like it,' you stop your efforts.
* You need to see results. When the scale doesn't move, you lose your motivation.
* You blame everything else (people, travel, circumstances) for your struggles with staying on your diet.
* Whenever you face challenges in life, you give up and plan you'll start your diet again tomorrow.

If you're "committed" to losing weight...

* Nothing stops your efforts. You stick with your diet, "no matter what."
* Emotions don't control your actions. You stay on track even when you don't feel like it.
* Your motivation isn't linked to the scale. You assume that if you stay motivated and work hard, you'll eventually see results.
* You don't depend on other people for your success. You know it's up to you, not them.
* A bad day or a lot of challenges don't affect your efforts. You keep going in spite of it.
 

My weeks summary

Since I'm not reporting my weight until September 6th i wanna share about my behaviors.  So this week i went to Indianapolis from Sunday through Wednesday night. I got an upgrade to the penthouse floor and it was absolutely beautiful.  I got sad because the first thing I wanted to do was call my husband and share all the details about the room, the balcony that looked like I could touch the sky, and the excitement I have for my job right now and my progress with my program.  We still talk amicably but I'm trying to not let him be there for me as much emotionally.  So unfortunately i ordered a 14oz ny strip BUT the next night I had dinner on the patio and got my Bible out and imagined God dining with me. It was wonderful!  It made me realize that only my relationship with God can really help me through a lot of what I'm going through.  So the rest of my week was really good after Sunday night. I had a few blips but nothing major. I took my jenny food and at lunch I got really large salads to compliment my lunch and would get fruit and raw veggies for afternoon snacking while others had cookies, chips, mega size bags of nuts, etc.  I felt proud of myself. I also did a great job with my workouts. I did 2 FIRM videos in the hotel and over 8 miles over those 3 days.  My biggest 'win' for the week is the way I made the mental shift that Im not alone in this. God is with me and guiding me through it all.  I really feel like this focus on what's REALLY making me want to binge is helping for now.  I just know I'm going to turn the corner. I'm finding my way..and while sometimes it's scary I feel like it's the right track. 

So I have friends coming to visit for the weekend. They're thinking of moving to NC from DC in the future and wanted to look at houses so they were great motivation to get my house spotless.  WHY don't I keep it like this for myself? Something else to pay attention to...I really think there is something to what you THINK you deserve and how you treat yourself---ie.overeating vs. not. 

So after Monday my houseguests will be gone and I'll be working from home all week and able to catch up on blogs. 

My workouts this week:

FIRM Hard Core Fusion

FIRM Hi-Def Sculpt

2 hours elliptical

1 hour walk/jog

now I'm about to do another hour of walk/jog intervals this morning or 1 hour elliptical...havent decided but I do know I'll be getting an hour of cardio in today

GO YELLOW!!!!

PF Changs ---CONQUERED!!

Okay I gotta brag a litte since I feel like I've been whining a lot lately on my blog trying to find my way.  So I went to see the movie Tropic Thunder and actually haven't laughed that much in ....well I don't even remember when.  HILARIOUS....Robert Downey, Tom Cruise, the whole crew just funny light comedy which was just the medicine I needed.  So then PF Changs had a 90 minute wait(note to self they take reservations) BUT I had some veggies to snack on in the movies so I wouldn't be starving by the time I sat down for dinner at 9pm.  So I ordered as planned and can I say I have not felt this good about my eating in MONTHS?  I REALLY believe it's because my motivation was SOLELY from how I want to feel and live versus what the scale said today.  I actually had less than half of the cantonese shrimp(switched from the almond chicken because it was 200 for half) because the person i went with ordered some noodles and I wanted to try those so I adjusted(woohoo) without slipping into a human vacuum.  I even enjoyed my meal....you know what I mean? I didn't eat with a little annoying voice in my head saying "don't eat that much blah blah blah". It felt really good to eat for the purpose of just enjoyed mainly the company -not only the person I went with but enjoying MY OWN company with myself.  I'm just exhausted with the mental merry go round I've been on lately about my weight and it just feels good to have stepped off and have some FORWARD momentum.  Okay.....it's early in my new way of thinking but for this day and for this daily 'bread' this was a home run!!!!!

Backwards

So this morning I did 4miles(walk/jog combo) and also went to my WI at Jenny and weighed in backwards. It's amazing how much better I feel just focusing on eating healthy to live my best God given day. Keeping it that simple feels good right now. I'm sure I'll get back to being able to look at longer and larger goals but just this day, just these choices, just this daily 'bread' is all I am concerned about and ....this feels SO much better! I had really worked myself up because Ive been stuck for almost 4 months at this same weight. It finally hit me that I'm NEVER going to be able to go back to day 1 of those 4 months and make a different outcome BUT I DO have today and I was bringing all my 'yesterday' mistakes and poor judgement into today and recreating the misery I was trying to escape. I hope that makes sense.  The point is I only have now. I've been reading The Power of Now and Loving What Is and those books have helped me to realize that when I focus on what I should've done or what will be I divorce myself from today which is my "present" or gift. Power is only in now.  So bringing all my attention to NOW is feelin' a lot better!  So that' psyche 101 for me today!

Doing dinner and a movie tonight.  Going to PF Changs and SO glad I checked out the menu in advance. That place is loaded with calories.  So I have my plan to have 2 spring rolls for an appetizer and 1/2 cantonese scallops. That equals my dinner serving for my healthy choices for this day my daily 'bread'.  Okay...I'll let you know how it goes.

Still in the game

I just got off the phone with my consultant because I got into some real negative thinking about this whole weight loss thing. I shared with all of you how ticked I was at the 0.8lb loss last week and to be honest I never really recovered from that so what common sense logical thing did I do---binge this week!  AH...but I'm not giving up on myself. I'm worth the effort.  So I've come up with a game plan IN ADDITION to my 3 days of 1000 calories which I have completed 2 in spite of the binges. I am going to the pre-planned menus by Jenny Craig and I'm weighing backwards on the scale for 3 full weeks after I WI this week. So I know I'm going to have a gain from the deviations but I also know from my past that I'll get most if not all of that off by next week and then my usual pattern is to get discouraged with the small loss that always follows a large loss and I repeat this insane cycle I have going on right now.  SO....I'm going to get back to the basics of focusing ONLY on what I can control..(1) what I eat so following the plan (2) how much water I drink and (3) my workouts. I'm going to weigh in but I'll be reporting my weight in 3 weeks from this Sat. I don't want the yellow team to think I've backed out because I have NOT.  So September 6th will be the next time I look at the scale.  I don't know if anyone else has experienced this head game stuff but my thinking is my biggest obstacle now.  I SO wanna get to onederland but I'm sabatoging myself every step of the way.  So that's my game plan.  21 days of NOT looking at the scale and 21 days of JUST focusing on following the plan with NO excuses.  So there.....that's what's up for me today.  That'll still leave me all of september when my mind is back in order to weighing in looking at the scale and posting my weight for my team!  whew....I really needed to get that out and regroup mentally.  I see why people stay fat...for me that too had become hard so I figure if 'hard' is not optional why not get something positive out of it and be determined to work at this until....

Priorities

After going back and forth about whether to train for the half marathon and talking to people who have already participated in half marathons and marathons I have decided to put my top priority at reaching my goal weight.  Some may ask why I have to choose one over the other considering I workout 6 days a week now any where from 60-90 min a day?  Balancing calories with intense training in order to make the scale move can be tricky. I talked to AndreaN here on EP and she agrees that it's important to consider my priorities----the half or losing weight consistently. I gotta be honest yall I wanna weigh 160lbs AND then participate in activities that will help me maintain like half marathons. So I'm not saying never I'm just saying not now. Who knows...if I reach 160 in time to still train then I will.  I gotta be honest my ultimate goal would be 145lbs but first 160lbs would be great. I'm going to do 4 days of cardio and 2 days of the FIRM and move forward. This morning I burned 747 calories on my elliptical. For 3 days a week I'm going to set a goal to burn 1000 calories to get me past this hurdle my body seems to be in. My consultant asked me the last time I was at my current weight and it's been at least 4 years and it has been 7  years since I've seen onederland. Bottom line my body isn't going lower easily and I'm at peace with that.  Point is I gotta put on my big girl panties and step it up to reach my goals and for my body that has always required some serious cardio and some serious aerobic weight training by the FIRM.  I'm mentally there because I WANT this. More importantly I WANT the lifestyle that supports health.  I've been going to Jenny Craig now 45 weeks and I've only missed twice. Once because I was jet lagged from a cross country flight and the second time because I was just tired from all my traveling. I promised myself that I would go every week NO MATTER WHAT and work through my 'stuff'. It's been amazing what this commitment has revealed about my habits---both the great habits and the sabatoging habits.  I've learned that when I have great weeks I need to go in for consultation and when I have weeks where I forget I'm even trying to reach my goals I need to go even more.  In the past those would be the weeks I would miss and/or even quit my program only to rejoin several months later.  This time i said I was going to go until....that's right until it's done and basically that's never!  Focusing on my weight one day a week gives me freedom to live a better life the rest of the week. I remember before just being consumed about my weight 'issue' every single day. Now I sit with my consultant one day a week, come up with a plan looking at the high risk situations for the upcoming week, create my exercise plan for the week, and then it's finished. Life can happen after that and not obsessive compulsive thinking about how much I weigh. I can't say enough about how free that makes me feel.  I don't know how I got off on this but anyway bottom line I'm back to the basics. Follow my plan and reach my weekly goals.  I'm loving the challenge that Endurer has started---go YELLOW TEAM!!!

8K training schedule

Okay this is the training schedule to get me up to 5 miles and then obviously I would need to move that up for the half marathon. The master instructors have a 8K training plan that last 10 weeks and then a half marathon plan that goes another 10 weeks so i thought I'd combine them for the Princess Half Marathon. I like adding the FIRM because I feel stronger when I run and my knees are strengthened by the cross training and all the research I've done supports adding weight training...especially as I get closer to 38! Looking at this I see I increased weight training and maybe that's why my weight wasnt' down that much this week---muscles recovering?

  So here goes... I just completed week 1. I'll take any input from you other runners out there!

WEEK 1

M CAWT
Tu 1.5 mile run JF Abs
W Cardio Sculpt Blaster
Th 1.5 miles Upper Body Sculpt
F Rest
Sa 2 mi ( finished this morning and surprisingly easy!)
Su Body Sculpt

WEEK 2

To run in the Princess Half Marathon or not?

I've been crazy busy at work and not able to post but I completed my first week in the 8K training program I've started and I was feeling SO PROUD of my accomplishments. I just knew I was going to drop at least 2-3 lbs this week. I could feel my body shrinking but then....0.8lbs.  I know this sounds really screwed up but I do not want to train for a half marathon at the expense of not getting to my goal weight. I've been reading about other people increasing their workouts and the duration and their weight is the same. That is just not acceptable to me.  So I'm looking for input on this.  I want to reach 160lbs and I am SO NOT interested in maintaining my weight at this level.  I'm getting frustrated because I have been up and down for SEVERAL weeks now. My consultant gave me a plan and she even told me she was going to contact the nutrionist to consider my calorie level(currently 1700) due to my 6 days a week of workouts. I've also added the FIRM again which is aerobic weight training. I've been doing those workouts since the late 80's and I know that weight training can cause waer retention for your muscles in the beginning. Not working out is not an option but I wanna get out of these 200s. It's getting old you know?  I also want to focus on life changes and that includes running in races(5K and even up to a half) but I also want to reach my goal weight. Is that too much to ask? I don't think so. I just have to find the right combination to get that scale moving again. I stuck to the program like glue this week and I actually cried during my consultation today. This means a LOT to me so i know it may seem like I'm being a drama queen but I feel like with all that has gone wrong that I couldn't control this is the one area i can do something about and when it looks like the progress is ....well at a snails pace I get nervous about throwing in training for a half marathon. At the end of the day by March of 2009 I'd love to be celebrating being at my goal weight AND running a half marathon. HELP people. What has been your experience? To train or not to train that is the question but I want to reach my goal weight--bottom line!