The Results are In!

After 8 weeks of challenging myself to be a little healthier and do things a little different, here are my results:

In 8 weeks I:

~Racked up 1861 points

~Went a total of 41 days without sugar

~Drank approximately 2944 oz of water

~Exercised for at least 1800 minutes

~Lost a total of 13 pounds

~Am 7 pounds from prepregnancy weight, 13 pounds from lowest weight post Autumn, and 18 pounds from my ultimate goal weight.

~I officially weigh less than Brian does!!!

~AND....guess what I've been wearing all week!?!?

Yup, those size 6 jeans are now at the front of my closet (they're a little snug, but they zip up and everything!)

Limping Painfully Toward the Finish Line

I've never been a runner.  Never.  I've tried to pretend, but generally I look good and feel good for all of 1 city block and then I'm a horrid mess for the rest of whatever distance I choose to torture myself with. 

I have once run an official organized 5K race...ok, well saying that I ran it is giving myself far more credit than I deserve.  I ran and jogged and walked and limped a bit through it.  I was the second to last person to cross the finish line....ah, the pride! 

Why am I telling you this? 

Here's why...

This challenge that I've been doing has felt a bit like a race, a good long marathon, you know what I mean?  And since I've never REALLY competed in a big race, I've never really had the chance to come face to face with the finish line after running miles and miles and miles.  I assume for those of you who have had this experience, seeing that finish line gives you a huge burst of energy, you feel like you're flying down the road for the last 1/4 mile or so.  There is usually excitement and a sense of accomplishment you feel as you realize that this whole race will be finished quite quickly.  You just have a little while left to push and you do it with pride... 

At least, this is how I ASSUME people feel when they're about to finish a race.

I, on the other hand, find myself at the end of my race, but instead of a sense of pride and desire to finish strong, I find myself crawling pathetically toward the finish line.  I'm still doing the things I should, but not with the same vigor that I have all along.  I actually almost even feel like I'm on the raceway, I can see the finish line and I choose to walk off the path and quit without crossing the finish line. 

PATHETIC!!!

It maybe isn't quite as bad as all that, but I've definitely become lax this week.  I just want to be done and go back to my self decided weight loss program.

But, here's to 1 more day of this challenge!  Hope I get back on the path and finish my day strong.

I love the Biggest Loser

I've found myself thoroughly enthralled in this season's Biggest Loser.  What appeals to me so much is that they are attacking all the excuses we come up for ourselves and showing you that really, when it comes to taking care of yourself and your life, there are no excuses.

They've taken on everything from, "I'll wait to start exercising and dieting until after the holidays" to "I can't excercise without a gym" and even "I can't do this alone."

I just really like this idea as I know that I can come up with no less than 20 excuses on the spot for why I don't want to exercise or why I really NEED another handful of M&Ms.

Let's face it, weight loss takes work.  It's not a quick thing that requires only minimal effort...at least not for me and it's a battle.

But it's worth fighting and so the fight goes on!

p.s. Only 3 days left of this challenge!!!

Giving Up...

Me? 

No, no, no.  I'm not giving up.  I have less than 2 weeks left of this madness, so no, not me.

I'm hanging tough for these last few days.

But, I've been thinking about what makes a person give up on things.  What makes us give up on good things for us?  And what qualifies as really giving up?

Is giving up waking up one day and realizing you've ballooned to 500 lbs?  Is giving up something that happens before you reach that point? 

What's does the line look like between saying, "I'm perfect just the way I am" and "I just don't care to do anything more, so this will have to do"?  Is it so black and white?  Does it have to be so black and white?

Why do we push or not push ourselves to be better?  What qualifies as better?  Where does giving up fit in to that?

I don't have the answers to these questions.  I'd actually be surprised if anyone does.  But feel free to share your thoughts.  These are just some questions that I ponder for myself, but if you have an answer, I'd love to hear it!

Life is what happens when you're out making plans...

Or something like that.

I like making plans.  I like having a schedule.  I like knowing what my day is going to look like before I go to bed the night before. 

I do not like waking up and feeling terrible.  I do not like being up all night with sick children and rushing them to the doctor first thing in the morning.  It wasn't part of the plan, it wasn't part of my day.

But, being flexible with yourself, especially when it comes to weight loss and any program of diet and nutrition that you undertake is essential to your success.  

Recognizing that on most days you can make time for yourself and do what you need to do to be healthy, exercise, eat right, so on...

BUT...

There are days when little ones need mom or dad and no one else will do.  There are days when you need to take care of yourself by NOT getting on the bike, not going for the run, not doing that one video.  There are days like these in all of our lives and it's important to find a balance.  You can run tomorrow.  You can sweat and burn and push another day, but you're needed elsewhere today and that is what is supposed to be. 

There are bigger things in life than your program, so give them their time and then get right back to doing what you're working so hard to do!

Doing it YOUR way

As I've had the blessed opportunity to drop a significant amount of weight twice now, I seem to get the question a lot, "So, what are you doing to lose weight so fast?"

Maybe it should be, but isn't, an easy question to answer. 

You see, here's the thing that I'm realizing: 

Different things work for different people.

Ground-breaking, right?

But seriously, the biggest obstacle to weight loss is doing the wrong thing for yourself and hoping that it works.  For many people, dropping all carbs (Atkins, South Beach) works magic.  For others, no red meat and only complex carbs works wonders.  Neither of those options work for me.  I LOVE bread and well, Texas Roadhouse is my favorite restaurant of all time, so not gonna work to give up red meat. 

For many, 3 square and balanced meals a day works magic, but for me, breakfast makes me physically ill and I do much better without it.

I once tried the popular 5 small meals a day.  My biggest issue, 5 small meals turned into 5 large meals and I gained a whole lot of weight, learning from that that I do better if I can eat to full and then be done rather than graze a little at a time.

For me, giving up anything totally makes me so focused on the "can't have" that I become obsessed and set myself up for failure, hence this whole sugar struggle.

So, I find myself at odds with most of the popular advice out there for weight loss. 

But it doesn't matter cause I've taken the time to figure out what works for me.

Have you?

Perfection is a Pain

I'm a point nazi..

I really like to have perfect scores on the things that I do.  I blame college for this.  Though not the easiest level of schooling by far, generally speaking, if you put in the time and effort on your work, it is possible to receive full points on at least the assignments you're given. 

So, I've become a perfectionist as much as I possibly can. 

It puts me in an interesting place with this whole point system program.  I fight everyday to do everything on the list to get full points for the day.  Unfortunately, some days it's just not possible to get all my points because of things that come up and throw my schedule off. 

So with this in mind, I'm making a conscious decision today to not worry about perfect points...at least for today. 

See, on Monday, my family got together for dinner and I made dessert.  According to "Ask Heloise" it is rude for a hostess to serve a dessert and not eat some herself, so because I care so much to be perfect in etiquette, I reluctantly had dessert on Monday.  This put me in an awkward situation.  Remember when I said that the no sugar thing was getting easier, yeah, I spoke too soon.  It's been rough again.  So, I wondered to myself if I had it in me to hang on tight for almost two full weeks with zero sugar since I usually save my sugar day for saturdays.  Well, disappointing and uninspirational as I may be, I've decided to have sugar today.  Why?  Because I've had a hard week and I'm rewarding myself, that's why.  No, it's not the greatest reason for giving myself and extra sugar day, but hey, sometimes you just don't have it in you to be perfect and I just don't have it in me today. 

And that's perfectly ok.