Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Stepping out of the shell

Ok, well this has been an emotional few days!
I knew I had to write a new blog post when today, I was walking to class, my jacket was open and I felt the wind wrap around my torso. It felt cold, and it felt vulnerable, and I instantly felt like I wanted something to eat to protect myself from that cold wind. Back up. That's right. living proof that weight is an obvious and literal security blanket to me. I don't really have time to thoroughly explore this tonight, but it was just interesting to me, and it'll give me something to ponder.
But I feel really good and in control. I am eating chocolate and snacks and still staying within my DP! Last week (Sunday) I was down another 1.6, totaling 13.2! 2 more lbs and I treat myself to a relaxing tanning pass!

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

a rainy day

Today was a rainy day, and I felt like a zombie for about 50% of it, which is annoying because I got a lot of sleep last night.
I really wanna lose a significant amount of weight for summer. Not to be cliche, but I just feel like it would improve my overall feelings and interactions during the summer, and I want to show off my progress! I want to be recognized for all this hard work, is that so much to ask!?
So I'll try to go to the gym as much as possible...maybe I'll do shorter workouts so that I won't get burnt out. It just makes my life so much harder that I live so far away from the gym and working out before classes is not really logical, otherwise I so would. But thankfully next year I will be living very close to the gym, and I think over the summer I'm gonna have to invest in getting a locker there.
::exhale:: I've been holding that in for a while now, lol, I hate to complain.
But here's my game-plan:
I've already made over my eating with my POWERFOOD menu, which consists of lunches of chicken and rice and dinners of soup, which has been working well so far.
I ran out of fruit this morning and the street vendors weren't out today because of the rain/snow, so hopefully I'll figure something out for tomorrow.
For exercise, I'm going to follow the 'deadline diet' I found on the Women's Health magazine online: http://www.womenshealthmag.com/fitness/the-deadline-diet
or at least start using these plans as a guideline. I will most likely buckle down and create my own strategical exercise plan, but for now...I'm gonna go to sleep!
Foxy out!

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Post-workout mini epiphany

After deciding that 5 hours of sleep could no longer be used as an excuse to skip the gym (considering when I skipped, I didn't actually catch up on the sleep as I had promised) I had a really great workout today. I've decided to start doing crunches and planks. I'm always apprehensive to do ab exercises, but I've decided to see how it goes. I think in general I am more willing to try things because of my accomplishments so far in running. I figure, if I can build myself up to run for longer than I ever thought I could, than I can build myself up to do anything.
So anyway, my post-workout epiphany happened when I was looking in the mirror, checking out my hard work and thinking about summer, when I noticed my stomach was still there.
"Oh Hi, stomach! Why are you still here?" I asked.
Stomach didn't respond. Instead he looked apathetic.
Maybe it was the endorphins in me, but I then thought, "of course you're still here. You'll always be here."
Not in a depressing -'I'll never lose the weight way' but in realizing that this journey that I'm on...this daily, monthly, yearly struggle will never end. And I've come to acceptance with that. That even when I get to my goal weight, I still need to be responsible for myself and I need to take care of myself. So that my stomach doesn't look apathetic, but looks lively and savors life with me and not in angst. Because no matter what shape or size or texture, he'll always be there.
So bottom line is; maybe it's not fair that I have this body and this struggle, but I just have to trust myself enough to know that maybe it's all because I have an unfair amount of strength in me that is able to overcome anything.

Monday, March 21, 2011

First post

This is my first post on this blog. I've been inspired to start this blog not only by the social media frenzy that I recently have gotten caught up in, but by people who blog about their weight loss journeys. So here I go.
Let me start out by saying that I am doing weight watchers, and have been consistently (this time around) going since last July and so far have lost 11lbs total. Now some people may think; wow 11 lbs in 9 months, that is really slow! Yes, it is. But, it is 11lbs that I have not nor will not gain back. So if it takes me 3 years to get to my goal, well I'm OK with that, and I want the world (and myself) to know it.
Many things that have helped me thus far have been:
therapy, watching tips and blogs on youtube, and as mentioned before Weight Watchers meetings.
Now I want to mention something about the meetings. I've been on Weight Watchers on and off since the 8th grade, and the biggest advice I can give for the program is you need to find a leader you like, relate to, and inspires you. That didn't really happen to me until I started going to meetings in NYC, and I saw what difference it makes.
Now for the therapy thing...that was a gift from my parents when I ended my first long-term relationship. It was a turning point in my life. I started doing holistic therapy with monthly sessions. Since my parents are divorced, I am familiar with conventional therapy, but Holistic therapy was by far the most effective thing I have experienced. It's not very different from the regular therapy, but its just a different style and you also get a holistic "remedy" that keeps you balanced.
Anyway, I won't tackle the big issues now and the emotional journey that I went through, but the bottom line is that the biggest and most effective thing during my journey not only with weight loss but with self discovery was psychological. And I'll be sure to touch more on that later.
I also started running once the new year began. I did the couch 2 5k and can now run about 28 minutes straight (but at a slow pace) I saw about because I realized that once I started getting into the endurance part of the training the weight loss slowed, and so now I'm sticking to interval training.

Well that's a good start to me and my little bio.