"Weight"y Woes

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this to you all, but I have given myself a challenge. Dev and I are hoping to be gone for most of February in the new year to spend some time with his family overseas. I haven’t met any of them yet (not really. I don’t think a Skype conversation really counts as being introduced) and I’m turning into a nervous wreck over the whole thing. So, to calm the nerves a little bit I’m trying to learn his native language - Malayalam.

Yeah. It’s an uphill battle. The only thing I’ve managed to remember so far is how to say “I Love You” and a few words that I hear over and over again when he’s either talking to his parents on the Skype machine or we’re watching terribly awful and hilariously corny movies.

But the challenge that I gave myself was to be in better shape come February. So, back in August I decided to start a (hopeful) weightloss journey. This month that journey slapped me right in the face. I really have no one to blame other than myself, and the copious amounts of Tim Horton’s I ate while I was working at the mall.

*shudder*

But, with this new job I have, comes a few perks. One of them being I don’t remember the last time I spent money at Tim Horton’s. The office has a Keurig so I brew all my coffee here.

Off topic, Alanna. Moving on!

So, Tim Horton’s wrecked havoc with my weight loss plans. Since I last did a weigh in - which was in July I think - I haven’t done as good as I wanted to. In fact, I achieved the opposite. I decided to make things just a little more difficult for myself and actually GAINED weight. Now before the outcry of “DON’T LISTEN TO THE SCALES! IT'S HOW YOUR CLOSE FIT YOU!” and “YOU’RE MORE THAN A NUMBER ON A SCALE!”and the ever-popular “MUSCLE IS HEAVIER THAN FAT!” let me just say that I know all this - but it doesn’t change the fact that I didn’t work as hard as I should have.

Instead of asking for help or advice from Dev - who’s been going to the gym since he was like knee-high to a grasshopper - I was too stubborn and headstrong for my own good and thought that my way as good enough, and it’d achieve results. And I won’t lie and say that I haven’t noticed a few small changes since I started to seriously hit the gym three or four days a week, because I have. The problem is, is that the changes don’t balance out to where I want to be, or where I think I should be.

And so, this week end I think I hit my low point. I got slapped in the face with having to fess up to the fact that if I don’t smarten up then I’ll have failed. I need to step up my workout a few notches, and instead of pedaling on a bike at a “slightly difficult” level, my cardio needs to get really hard, really fast. And I started to keep a food journal again.

Make yourself accountable for what you eat. I love sweets (chocolate chip cookies) and salty snacks (peanuts, chips, crackers), which really hasn’t been helping me too much either. I don’t buy chips the way I used to. Instead I’ll get some crackers instead (and a dip too, of course. D’uh.) But if I’m accountable for what I eat then things should start improving.

I also have some raspberry ketones from GNC that I’m taking again as well. I’ve also added more water to what I’m drinking, which is kind of annoying because you have to pee all.the.time!! Maintaining adequate hydration levels is SUCH a drag but I have noticed that it helps. It curbs hunger cravings, keeps you alert, yadda yadda, yadda.

So. I hit the gym yesterday for some cardio. I switched it up and worked harder and longer than I have before. I did my first Zombie Run in MONTHS and I was more than a little disappointed that I couldn’t even finish it, like I had before. However, that might be due in part to the fact that I had just spent roughly 50 minutes on an elliptical machine. There’s also a few workout videos home of some intense cardio workouts that are part of the P90X routine. So I’m going to dive into those as well.

Weight workouts I’m going to do some of them with Dev. We worked out together twice last week, and I was sore for four days! My calves hurt ( I could hardly walk, and the first step I took in the morning nearly resulted in my doing a faceplant on the bedroom carpet), my chest hurt (gravity will NOT make me a victim of Saggy Boob Syndrome!), my arms hurts, my ribs and back hurt - loving the feeling of being sore after a workout is a certain kind of masochism, I promise you.  

I have roughly 20-25 lbs that I could stand to lose. Now, I don’t know if I can get rid of all that by February, but I’m hoping to have shed AT LEAST 10-15 lbs. It’s an uphill battle, and I know I’m going to get discouraged, and frustrated, and have a few low moments but I’m hoping that with your help (and maybe a few moments of food fantasizing about chocolate chip cookies and whipped cream) that I’ll get there.

Having said all that, welcome to this crazy ride I’ve decided to take you on with me. God, you poor suckers - we’re all in this together!