Day #12: Who Needs Dignity Anyway?

Morning lovelies!

Alright so I may or may not be making the choice to humiliate myself very very soon.

How you ask? Well...by jazzercising.

No- this not a picture of some overly enthusiastic jazzercise nut that I found on google images- this is my Aunt :) In the past few years she has taken a liking to jazzercise and is now an instructor in Seattle.

Long story short she sent me some coupons the other day for 12 free jazzercise classes and wouldn't luck have it that there is a jazzercise class about 10 minutes from my house: free coupons+ needing excercise+ aunt that is going to ask+ close to home= giving Jazzercise a shot.

You may be able to feel the hesitancy and lack of excitement in my voice (or fingers :0) but that is because for the most part I have always pictured Jazzercise being..."an old lady's workout" and that the class would look like something in the above picture- BUT I'm just going to keep an open mind and go- at least once! I've been to my Aunt's class in Seattle and it was a good mixture of ages and body types so maybe this one will be like that as well...let's hope!

Alright so SPILL- have any of you ever *JAZZERCIZED* (that word definitely needs the stars around it!) If so, what did you think? Was it a good workout? Was there anyone there under 30?

I'll most likely try a class out next week and if nothing else it will make for an interesting blog entry :) Let's just hope I don't meet her there...

But I can't lie- she is in WAY better shame than I am!

And finally... you shall most assuredly be seeing my very 1st installment of Progress Pics by Thursday at the latest! (AKA- I'm heading to Target later tonight to pick up my new digital camera (w/my Biggest Loser Loot!) so be excited! Cuz I'm NOT! :)

Peace and Love!

Day #11: Feeling Motivated...

Hey-hey-hey!



Today I wanted to talk about a subject that gets a decent amount of attention in the weight loss world...motivation.



I've written posts before about how I utilize a variety of tips and tricks to help motivate me to continue to lose weight and fight off the temptations to eat unhealthy things- motivation is a good thing and is soooo helpful, but it must NEVER become necessary.



Did you wash the dishes last night? Did you do any laundry this weekend? Did you get your kids ready for school this morning?



If so, my guess is that you didn't do any of these things because you had this surge of motivation and instantly couldn't wait to do them- and you certainly didn't sit around waiting for the motivation to come to you because if you did...they simply wouldn't get done. It is just common sense that if there are certain results that we want in our life that there are things that we have to do whether we feel motivated or not- and that is called "self- discipline." For example, if I want to be able to have a roof over my head then I had to make a choice to get up and go to work this morning even though I do not feel like it. The idea of being homeless is not more appealing than the amount of effort it takes me to get up and go to work.



How many of us wait around until we feel motivated enough to go to the gym or make a healthy food chocie? And we wonder why we struggle to lose the same 5lbs over and over again? While motivation is a truly wonderful thing when it comes, I'm afraid that we have placed too much emphasis on feeling motivated and too little on being self-disciplined.



Consider some of these bloggers who have lost 100lbs+; there is NO WAY that happened becasue they felt motivated for the entire year- it took them desiring to change more than desiring french fries and that leading to self-discipline.



Not trying to sound preachy- and perhaps this isn't something that many of you may struggle with particularly but I know that there were plenty of days last week that I woke up and thought..."Hmm, I may just want that double cheeseburger more than I want to lose 3lbs this week." And I had to give myself a quick slap in the face and remind myself that it's not about my "wanting" to anymore- it is about the decision I've made and the commitment I have made to myself.



Self-discipline doesn't come easy. Plain and simple. In order to strengthen my self-discipline I've been coming up with various smaller tasks that force me to be disciplined- for example:

This is a picture of some of the goodies that were in my office last week- now I'm really not much of a chocolate person but I found myself all week grabbing a chocolate covered peanut here and there-which clearly isn't a huge deal- but still, I was really just eating them because they were there. So, on Friday I decided that it was time to put my self-discipline into action and I decided that I would not have a single thing from this spread- not because they are all super unhealthy, but just for disciplines sake. And you know what? I didn't eat anything from there all day and although it didn't make much of a difference in my caloric intake for the day- it gave me a huge boost in confidence that I CAN say no and I CAN be disciplined.

Maybe you are feeling a little weak in your ability to discipline yourself? Set up small goals like this that will help build your ability to say no and your confidence!

What about you? Do you find yourself waiting to feel motivated enough to do something?

p.s. This week I will be fasting. I really feel like I need to focus some extra attention on my spiritual life at this point in the new year so some friends from church and I started fasting at dinner time yesterday and will continue through dinner on Saturday. This isn't the first week long fast that I've done and while they are not easy- this is something that I need to do right now. Please know this has nothing to do with losing weight- I'm sure that any weight that I lose during this fast will be gained right back as soon as I begin eating again- it's about re-prioritizing my life to focus on God. Needless to say I'm sure that I'll be learning LOTS about self-discipline this week! :)

Peace out homies!

Day #10: Weigh In... Short-n-sweet!

I've gotta start out by saying I had no clude I would freak so many of you out by saying that I broke my back! hahahaha- My BAD! :)

This is going to be short-n- sweet because I'm running late~ Sundays are always crazy for me!

Ok so as you all know, today was weigh in day and let's just say it was a good thing I had salads every day for lunch and started working out this week because otherwise I probably wouldn't have gotten the little gift from the scale that I did this morning...a 2lb loss! :)

I'm guessing that I could have had a 5lb loss if it wasn't that time of the month and if I hadn't eaten so horribly yesterday (more about that tomorrow) but hey- I'll take the 2lbs! And you know what that means??? I am almost 1/5 of the way to my goal!!! Swwweeeetness.

As far as my back injury...well let's just say last night was NOT good- there were moments where I almost puked because of the pain and was up most of the night but I'm feeling a bit better today and I've had lots of people praying for me so I expect to be feeling 100% very soon!

I hope that you are all having a great weekend and are staying warm!

Peace and Love!

Day #9: Mission Accomplished!!!

Guess what???

The results are in from The Biggest Loser Challenge Round 1 and.....

I WON!!!

I know many of you have just recently began following me so just to clue you in- The Biggest Loser Challenge is a competition comprised of roughly 20 people who are all doing their best to lose as much weight as possible in 3 months- the person who loses the highest percentage of body weight at the ends wins a gold medal and the prize money! I wrote a few weeks ago about how this little twiggy girl was probably going to end up winning because she is already rather thin and lost 10lbs but apparently the Holiday season wasn't too kind to her scale and well...I won!!!! :)

Obviously it is cool to win anything but I am super excited because I was planning on using the prize money ($220) to buy a new digital camera if I won and now I can! Yay! I can finally start doing progress pics! :)

I do however have some not so fun news- I broke my back.

Ok, I didn't really- but it seriously feels like it! This morning some friends from church and I were out shoveling some snow and while I was shoveling I felt some sort of sharp pain in my back happen suddenly and I've been hurtin' ever since. It's times like these that I'm thankful I didn't use up all my vicodin from when I had my wisdom teeth out a month or so ago :) haha

So needless to say I won't be excercising at all today and that's NOT good- I was kind of couting on working out to be saving grace for the scale this week but that's not going to be happening.

I'm really not sure how tomorrow's weigh in is going to go- I only was able to excercise 3 times this week, my eating wasn't as stellar as it could have been (it was pretty good though), and it's that time of the month. Oh well, I guess as long as I don't see a huge gain I'll be ok but I was secretly hoping for a 3lbs loss tomorrow to put me at an even 20lbs lost. I guess we'll see what happens!

Hope you all are having a relaxing and WARM weekend!

Day #8: A Week in Pictures!

Today I have too many things going on my mind to focus on any one subject so I figured I would just clue everyone in on some not-so-momentous yet still relatively interesting happenings this week via pics :)

Alright so it should be obvious by now that I clearly have a Starbucks addiction! lol So I had a little epiphany earlier this week-here's the story: So the other day I went to Starbucks during my lunch break to get a grande skinny vanilla latte and what did I find? They were giving away free samples of my old favorite drink of all time- caramel frappaccinos! Now it's been like at least 3 months since I've had one of these and at 500 cals a pop it's a good thing! But I decided to have one of these samples and here's where the epiphany came in- yes, it tasted very good, even better than I remember- but after the 3 sips that the small cup contained- I realized that was really all that I wanted! This made me realize 2 things: 1) How many times did I drink the entire venti size (remember 500 cals!) when I would have been completely satisfied with a tall? and 2) When I do indulge in things that I shouldn't (which RARELY happens) I will just take it one bite at a time to see if I've been able to satisfy the craving with just that bite or if I truly want more. This could save me HUNDREDS of calories!

This is a picture of our BEASTLY driveway this morning. You see I grew up in Arizona and then moved to Florida to go to school so up until about a month ago I had never even seen snow! Now that I live in Pittsburgh it is an everyday winter occurence and it probably wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have the steepest driveway ever! This picture truly does not even give it justice; yesterday it had snowed so much and is so steep that my car couldn't even make it up the driveway so I had to park at the bottom- this pic is from about half way down the driveway. Nothin better than shoveling snow at 6:00 am! :)

One of my favorite bloggers Kassey, wrote a post the other day about how every night she enjoys a cup of this 25 cal hot chocolate so I decided to pick some up the other day while I was out and about and let me tell you it is GOOD! I prefer to use skim milk instead of water in my hot chocolate so it actually ends up being around 115 cals but still- it is the perfecto for that time at the end of the evening when you are feeling snacky and you want something sweet! Two thumbs up! Swiss Miss also has a few other varieties that are low in fat, low in sugar, and even a caffeinated version that are all around 60 cals per package- but I promise this one is fabulouso!

Ladies, meet Mr. D-bag! Last week or so I wrote a not-so-nice post about a guy in my office who made an extremely rude comment to me. Not sure what compelled me to do so but I decided to snap a quick pic of him raiding the candy and truffle jar for the 4th time that day :) C'mon don't think I'm too mean- this makes me feel a little better! :) Ok- it's out of my system, no more vengance! lol

This probably isn't something that most people think about but because I had never been through a TRUE winter season, I had absolutely NO winter clothes! I have never owned a pair of boots, ice scraper, thermals, or a winter jacket in my whole life! Because of these cold temps I have found myself wearing things that I not only have never worn before but find quite ugly- but I've realized that when I'm freezing I don't really care what I look like! lol So this is me as I sat in my car waiting for it to warm up and wearing the fugliest (yet warmest) jacket ever :)

And last, but most definitely not least, I leave you with a pic of my oh so masculine roomate snoozin and rockin a pink snuggie :) And of course I had to post this pic on facebook too!

My weekend plans:

-Eye exam and possibly get glasses (boooo!)

-Going to see Avatar w/friends

-3 workouts (I've worked out twice this week and did 1 day of strength training)

-Community Service Outreach tomorrow morning

-Make a new healthy food creation

Peace out girl scout!

Day #7: The Issue of Control...

Morning friends!

Here's something I've learned in the 9 weeks I've been on this journey: You only have partial control over your enviornment but you have complete control over your response to your enviornment. Here's what I mean- you can control your enviornment partially in that you have a say over the kind of food that you keep in your house that will either cause you to eat healthily or tempt you to eat crap; however, you can never have complete control over your enviornment because there will always the luncheon that you go to that all of the food has already been preordered or your co workers will inevitably bring donuts to the office.


And all too often because people base their ability to lose weight and eat healthily on their ability to control their enviorment they FAIL- because you can NEVER control your enviornment 100% of the time. People who live like this are trying to side step a major yet necessary lesson- which is self-control. You can only avoid going out with friends and avoiding family outings so long before you either hurt all of your relationships or go and binge like a crazy person- there is a BETTER way.


Instead of trying to control our enviorment we have to learn to control our response to our enviornment- that needs to become the focus. And I am convinced that this battle is on that takes place in our minds. There are literall hundreds of ways to learn to control your response to your enviornment- many of which you have undoubtedly read on blogs. Because we all think differently and have different reasons for wanting to lose weight the things that can help us be in control of our responses are going to be different.



Just for fun, here are my top 5 ways to deal with temptation (a.k.a- control my response to an un-ideal enviorment):

1. I will physically get up and go to another room (away from the food that it tempting me), clear my mind, and ask myself 2 questions: 1- Is this food worth me not achieving my goals? Or more specifically I will remind myself of one of the billions of reasons I have for needing to lose weight and ask myself if it is worth that. 2- Will this choice to eat this food be because I am in control or because "it" is in control?


2. I keep a picture on my cell phone of a pretty unflattering picture of myself and if I feel like I'm getting ready to make a choice that is unhealthy then I'll whip my phone out, look at the picture, and ask myself if I want that picture to be how I am forever.


3. I make a deal with myself I will drink a full glass of water first and sometimes even brush my teeth and if I still want "the temptation" in fifteen minutes then I'll have it. Usually my cravings are just momentary and partly out of boredom- and most of the time they will subside after 15 minutes.


4. I will log into this blog account and ask myself, "Do I really want to have to write tomorrow to everyone that I just GAVE in to temptation?" It also helps to look at what day (out of 365) that I am on and remind myself that I am committed to being hardcore this year so that I don't have to spend another year obese.


5. I ask myself this question: "Will anyone make this decision to say "no" to this food for you?" It is one of my biggest struggles to remember that being me being obese won't suddenly go away or change one day- it is going to take ME making one good decision after another good decision to be able to live a healthy and normal life.

I know that this is a lot of mental stuff- but like I said I believe that this is where the ability to succeed or fail truly lies. Thinking that we can control our enviornment all the time is unrealistic and the key to failure and I am convinced that this is at least 90% of the reason that so many struggle with losing weight.

Believe me, I have opportunities to give into temptation every freaking day; but by using some of the tips above I have been able to avert the temptation at least most of the time. For example... :)

Yesterday, a guy I work with randomly brought me a vanilla latte back from Starbucks (does he like me? Probably) haha but of course he didn't know that I only drink skinny lattes (aka non-fat milk and sugar free syrup) so what was I supposed to do? I would have felt bad if I had just let it sit on my desk all day going to waste but I would have felt equally as bad for drinking something that would set me back 6 POINTS!

What was a girl to do? Well... I immediately went to the bathroom and dumped 3/4 of it out! LOL! That way I could still enjoy some of the yummy latte while still not throwing everything else out of wack- a fair compromise I think! Hey- you gotta do what you gotta do! :)

So talk to me! What do you think about this controlling your enviorment vs. controlling your response to it? Any good tips for either?

Peace and Love!

Day #6: TBL Inspiration!

Hey hey hey-

So like most of you, I watched The Biggest Loser last night- how AMAZING is this show? First of all I would just like to ask- was anyone else CRACKING up when the older mom from the orange team was screaming like a psycho at Jillian in the gym?!? I LURRRVED IT! It was like you could see her finally getting fed up with putting herself last and truly wanting to become the person she was meant to be! (fyi- if you haven't noticed yet, I always have to add drama to this kind of stuff! haha)

Truth time: During the final weigh in at the end of the show I actually did find myself getting a little depressed/jealous when I saw some of the women dropping 13-19lbs in one week and it has taken me almost 2 months to lose that much but then I gave myself a good slap in the face and remembered that all that matters is that I've lost 17lbs- not how long it takes me to do it in comparison to someone else. Most of the criticism that I've heard in regards to TBL has to do with the show setting up unrealistic expectations for viewers- but anyone with a brain should be able to see that when you are dedicating 6-7 hours a day in the gym with some of the best trainers in the world every single day you are going to have different results than someone who still has to live the rest of their lives with kids and a job.

The biggest reason that I LOVE TBL is because it pushes me. I have no excuse to not excercise for 30 min- 1 hour when I am watching people who are even bigger than me bike 13 miles and are in the gym 24/7. Seeing that 500lb guy sweating his butt off in the gym doing things he probably didn't think were possible pushes me to see what I can do that maybe I don't think is possible (*cough* the 5K *cough*) :)

You want proof?

Well last night even though I had every intention of walking 3 miles when I got home from work, a recent "squater" has moved in and was watching the t.v. so I couldn't do my walking DVD. I did do about 20 minutes of strength training and just figured that I'll just walk another day this week since I had walked on Monday. THEN I watched TBL and realized that staying up late after everyone else goes to bed (I live with 3 roomates) and getting in some walking is the LEAST I can do- and I did! So there I was at 11:30 at night in a completely dark house with my new BFF Leslie Sansone :) I only did 2 miles instead of 3 but hey- it's better than doing nothing at all!

The proof is in the picture! You may not be able to tell but I was sweating! lol

Another thing that hit me as I watched the show last night was that I am convinced that NONE of those people would have had the results that they did that week if someone wasn't in the gym PUSHING them harder than they thought they could go. I think that is the biggest advantage of being on the show is that you have someone making you do it- most of us (including me) will only push ourselves so far because we don't think we can go any farther- but we can. BUT since I'm not on TBL it looks like I am going to have to be the one pushing MYSELF! This isn't as important to anyone else in my life as it is to me because it's MY body and I can't wait for some magical Jillian fairy to come along and kick me in the butt- I've got to kick my own!

And at any point if we feel like it is impossible to do this on our own at our homes just think of the guy who got sent home and lost 100lbs in 2 months!?! Holy guacamole. Clearly, because of the amount of weight he has to lose it is easier for him but still- just the amount of dedication he showed is what is really inspiring!

What did you all think of last night's show? Any favorites?

Push yourself harder today than you normally would- no one else is going to do it for you!