I am still here !

OK. So I havent lost all that much since uping the calories...but I have maintained! And for me..that is just huge! I have alot going on in my personnal life as of lately. Problems with the marriage and stress at work. I have been going out alot more lately. Maybe I shouldnt be~I will be trying to work on that. Loosing weight has given me more self confidence however. I get compliments every where I go! Its great.
I am right in the middle of my first day of my detox. I only have today and tommorrow ~but WOW am I hungry! After the detox I will be ready to go back to Transformations for phase 3 where I will cut my calories again and I should see immediate results..so check in with me and wish me luck!

This is new

Well. Learning to maintain is this whole new experience for me. I have hit phase two of the program with transformations. for this month I am to focus not so much on loosing but maintaining. I am at around 16oo calories a day. which is easy is comparison to the 800-1000 from before. But I am doing well maintaining which blows me away cause it has always been so hard in the past.  At first I gained a few...then got my period and lost it again. so I am right where I was last 221. Not my goal~but not too damn bad. I am getting complements up the wazzoo which is always great but makes me forget that I AM NOT DONE YET! So...gonna do a 2 day detox through La weightloss. I want to get all the crap out of my system. Going to the gym today. Which I admit I havent done alot of in the past week or so. But I am learning to do it for energy and not just for weightloss. Good thing.

Side Effects?

Well this has been an interesting two weeks. I am still dropping inches and the scale is driving me insane~but there is something else on my mind as of this very moment.

When I went back to transformations I had forgotten to be reminded of all the possible side effects of taking injections of HCG. Well...lets just say I have become the most absolutely sexually frustrated person that I have ever known of. I am in serious heat and its WILD! It only just occured to me that it could be the hormone~I just thought that I was feeling more confident cause of the weight loss and that was stimulating the sex drive.

Women whom are pregnant often complain of a over active sex drive...well...there you go. HCG is the hormone woman produce while pregnant. And to make matters worse~I already had a problem with my sex drive! What a week!

Assumptions

The gym. A place to escape and work out your frustrations. A place to find frustration? I wouldnt have thought so five years ago..but at 200 pounds this is a constant battle. So here's the story...

I have been doing spinning classes on and off for four or five months now. I have built quite an endurance. I outlast a good amount of the "skinnies" in the class. But Today....I decided to go to the 9:15am class because I assumed I would run into less a-holes then. This chipper little lady was instructing the class. The class started to fill quickly as I began to adjust my seat and handle bars. OUT OF ALL THE PEOPLE IN THE ROOM~ the narrow minded little twit heads on over to me and asks me if I needed help setting up my bike. I politely say.."no thanks I got it". She gives me this fake smile and proceeds to tell me that "Your seat height needs to be lowered so that your legs are slightly bent". WHICH BY THE WAY I ALREADY KNOW AND WAS IN THE PROCESS OF DOING! (and the reason you do this is to avoid stressing the knees!).After trying to explain a few more things that I was ALREADY IN THE PROCESS OF DOING~She then says..
"Now this (pointing to the resistance control) knob when turned gives more resistance..but keep at your own pace."
I say (trying as best I can to not smack her across her face)
"Yeah..I have done this before".
Ok. Here is the problem. She didnt address anyone else or ask anyone else in the room for help. Ofcourse everyone else was in relatively good shape (externally anyway). She made a beeline straight for the fat chick because she ASSUMED that because I was big I had never done the class before. She ASSUMED I was out of shape. She ASSUMED that I was a beginner. And let me tell you how wrong she is. I can lift more than half the chicks I know. I can out last EVERY girl I know (with the exception of Jessica) during cardio.

Moral of the story being that this lady got me so pumped up with anger that I worked harder and faster and longer. I watched "skinnies" in their skimpy outfits as they took frequent breaks as I pushed through. I took one break five minutes to the end of class and only because she had us up and out of the saddle for 70% of the class~and my arches were cramping on me.

WHEN I am at my goal weight and no longer have to worry about social stereotypes~I am going to make it my personnal mission in life to never make someone make me feel the way this little jerk did!

About Darn Time!

After a week and a half of little to no results~I have finally dropped a few more pounds! Ofcourse I know that muscle weighs more than fat and inches go first and the most weight lost in the first week is usually water weight...But that first seven got me all excited and I felt like I had hit a brick wall while going 100 miles an hour.

Today being Father's Day, we ofcourse went out to dinner to celebrate with the family. I was VERY good. I had a glass of un~sweet tea...no appie...no bread (at first...more to tell)...I ordered the Grilled Samon (no sauce and no oil)...was supposed to come with rice and beans~but instead it came out with mashed potatoes and steamed veggies. DIDNT TOUCH THE POTATOES~Chose instead to go ahead and have a SMALL..VERY SMALL..piece of wheat bread that I had orginally avoided~but only because I am not on a protein only diet. I did have a glass of chardonnay. This was my one slip. But it was a very calculated and thought over slip because after all I was spending the day with the in-laws..and if you knew how that family is then you would totally understand the urge to take the edge off.

I didnt got to Cheers for the pajama party. I dont want to be tempted to have drinks (unneccesary calories). I just cant justify wasting my calorie allowance that way! So, instead I hung out with Jeanean and Dori. Which was nice. We killed the urge to get take out~or go to Chili's~instead Dori stopped at PUblix and picked out some celery sticks, fat free ranch, humus and pita.  It was great. We watched Scream (If you can believe it~Dori actually had never seen any of them!!) and munched CAUTIOUSLY on our healthy goodTommorow is spin at 9:15. Meeting up with Jessica there. She has the summer off being that she is a teacher and it helps so that we dont HAVE to go at night when the a-holes are out:) Well...I will write again soon if I have more great results to tell. Or not. whatever;)

Weighed in

I was weighed in today. I have to say~it was less than a exciting moment. Granted I weigh in there once every two weeks instead of once a week. I have been keeping track on my own~but i was expecting to jumpstart off this plateau. I did 30 minutes on the Eliptical on Sunday paired with an Hour of weight trainging on my upper body. On Monday I did a 50 minute spinning class and yesterday I did 8 massages~which on its own is a heavy workout.

But the good news is that i have lost a total of 5 and 1/2 inches. I feel like I am retainging alot of water weight. I feel bloated and I am not (ready for me to get gross?!) going to the bathroom regularly. You'd think all the extra veggies would be helping with that~but Nope. So. I am waiting out this dry spell and pushing through. I have a Spin class in a couple of hours and I am going to do upper body trainging again. I consulted with one of my clients whom was a spin instructor. She said that her legs got enough of a work out from SPinning so she didnt use weights for lower body but just for upper. She also did Yoga and Pilates. She was in phenomenal shape~So I think I will follow her example and see how it works for me. I will write again in a couple of days. Hopefully I will have made some more progress. ~Cara

Frustration

ALREADY! I shouldnt have hit a plateau for atleast a couple more weeks. Eghhh! A few minor slips and blunders over the past week (olive oil here and there...my nightly dessert allowance that contained a wweee more sugar than I had thought...and last nights fat free~or should I say LOW FAT dressing on my salad). All of these are slips that a person wouldnt usually get themselves tied in knots about~but I am on a mission right? And if I am gonna do it~I have to do it ALL THE WAY! Mind over matter and all that jazz. But what have I done right? Well. Quite a bit actually. First of all...I resisted the urge to meet my friends at Cheers last night. I would normally have gone there to meet Deb, Niki, Bryan, JIm, Jeff, Jules and Sara~on Wed and Sat...and gotten completely tore up on greatful deads. But I didnt go instead. I know that they will understand. And if they dont then they arent true friends anyway. I went to the movies with Jeanean to see x-men 3. Which was great because we have alot of movies to catch up on. Jeaneans great to be around when I am  watching my diet. She doesnt criticize or pass judgement. And she is always considerate when eating my favorite foods around me to make sure its not going to be too tempting. Drinking and dieting just dont mix. And Jeanean doesnt drink so~...makes it easy. I have been eating lots of veggies this week. Saurkraut..Cabbage..Beats and so forth. ON SECOND thought-I guess i havent done so badly after all. Well. Off to the gym! I am gonna try to turn this all around.

My first Deadline