The First of the Last

In the past whenever I would start a diet, I wouldn't tell anyone.  It was a secret. Mainly, because I knew there was a good chance that I would start and then fail in the first week or two. Not telling anyone would save me the embarrassment of  having to explain to everyone why I was back to eating unhealthy foods once I failed.  Even when I started this particular journey 18 months ago, I only told one person.

Now that I'm actually writing that out, I can see how flawed the thinking behind it is.  It's like I was betting I was going to fail before I ever started. Plus, the longer I write this blog and the more people I talk with about my journey and their journeys, the more I realize how much we all need each other to be successful.  We need each other for accountability and support and tips. The more you talk about it with others, the more you realize there are a lot of people out there who struggle with the same things.

Tomorrow, I'm starting yet another reboot of my diet and this time I want everyone to know.  Why? Because I want to kick this weight loss thing in the butt once and for all, and I want any help I can get from any of you.  I don't really have specific ways you can help in mind, and your sweet comments and helpful tips have already meant so much to me.  I guess I just don't want any of you to accept any excuses from me from the next several weeks.

So what's my plan?  Same as what has worked for me in the past. Tracking my calories (eating between 1300 and 1600 daily).  Five cardio workouts a week. Two or three weight lifting sessions a week.  Drinking water like I'm paid to do it.  Eating five servings of fruits and veggies a day.  Doing two planks a day.  Only eating out two meals a week.

I've already made my meals for this week, packaged them into individual servings and logged it all into Sparkpeople. It's a pretty good start.

While I've lost approximately 90 pounds to date, I want to act like I'm starting from scratch.  Don't get me wrong, I am happy, proud, ecstatic, jumping for joy that I have lost 90 pounds.  But I can't continue to rest on my laurels.  I need to kick it into high gear and finish this. I can do it.

If you're looking to lose weight, now's the time. Whether it's 10 pounds or 110 pounds.  It's a new year and a new week.  Figure out what's been holding you back and then figure out a plan to achieve your goals. You can do it.

We can do it together.

Workout Playlist: A Key to Success

One of the biggest hurdles I've had to overcome over the last 18 months is maintaining a kick-butt playlist that gets me up and moving.  Okay, so maybe "big hurdle" is a relative term, but it can be tricky to have an amazingly awesome playlist, because once something achieves amazingly awesomeness, you start to get tired of it.  A playlist needs constant tending to maintain amazingly awesome.

Anyway, as a result, I keep my ears open for good upbeat songs, and regularly scour the internet for new stuff.  Fitness Magazine's website and Running.com have all kinds of suggested playlists, but you kind of have to sift through all of that to get what works for you.

So I thought I'd share with you the fruits of my labors.  Just a selection. You may not agree with all my choices. You may laugh at some.  But if you're like me, always searching for the perfect workout song, maybe this will be helpful.

It would be superawesome if I linked all these songs to Itunes or YouTube or something, but that would take a long time and I don't want to spend my whole Saturday afternoon on the computer.  Sorry.  But feel free to head over there and take a listen yourself.

This is specifically from my running list, but it could work for any cardio. I just pulled twenty from the top today.  Maybe I'll share more in a future post.

1. Raise Your Glass, Pink (my newest acquisition)
2. Girls Lie Too, Terri Clark (I've loved this for years, but just recently discovered its greatness for running)
3. Forget You, Glee (still my go-to dance party song)
4. King of Anything, Sara Bareilles (fun to sing along to, as well...thanks to Jenna for pointing me towards this)
5. Best Song Ever, Katie Armiger (The beat/music is awesome...thanks to Toby for recommending)
6. Let My Love Open the Door, Pete Townsend (an older one, but still good)
7. Misery, Maroon 5 (a little slower, but makes me want to groove)
8. Sweet Child O' Mine, Guns N' Roses (The guitar solo at the beginning really gets you moving, but then the whole thing gets really repetitive, so I skip it once I get about halfway through)
9. Just Fine, Mary J. Blige (Slower beat for running, but great for dance partying)
10. No One Like You or Foreverandever Etc, David Crowder Band (great song!)
11. If You're Wondering If I Want You To, Weezer (um, one of my current fav songs)
12. Party in the USA, Miley Cyrus (this was really popular with the teen-aged friends last summer. Now it makes me smile and think of them when it comes on)
13. I Do Not Hook Up and My Life Would Suck Without You, Kelly Clarkson (I don't think there's anyone better to run to than Ms. Clarkson)
14. Walk Like an Egyptian, The Bangles (seriously, this is a great workout song)
15. Grandmother Song, Vienna Teng (great beat, great girl power message by my favorite artist to see live)
16. Be OK, Ingrid Michaelson (It becomes kind of chant as I run, "I just want to be okay, be okay, be okay, be okay today")
17. One Week, Barenaked Ladies (Takes me straight back to 1998 and my first roommate, Nancy)
18. Just Friends, Jonas Brothers (Laugh if you must, but those Jo Bros have some good beats. This was one of the first songs I discovered that would keep me running when I wanted to quit back when I could only run for one minute at a time)
19. Holding Out for a Hero, Bonnie Tyler (Workout songs don't get better than this, just ask Kevin Bacon)
20. Pump It, Black Eyed Peas (You could list any number of BEPs songs, but none makes me move the elliptical faster than this one.)

If you've got any great workout songs to share with me, I would love to have them. Post them in the comments section below!

Today's Challenge

So after turning a small corner yesterday and actually feeling some positivity, today I got smacked with a challenge first thing.  I walked out the door this morning without my lunch.  The weird thing is I also forgot my snacks. I remembered them while I was putting my gym bag in the car and went back in the house for them, but completely forget the lunch until I got to work and went to put it in the fridge.  Crazy!

Anyway, I had four options:

1. Go out to lunch (boo! I would not be able to eat my lunch from home like I had promised myself I would.)
2. Go home for my whole lunch hour and skip the gym altogether (boo! I had also promised myself five workouts this week and skipping today's would set me back)
3. Skip lunch and try to exist only on snacks for the day. 
4. Make a mad dash to the house to get the lunch and then go to the gym for 35-40 minutes.

I ruled out #1 and #2 pretty quickly. I think writing yesterday's post helped with that.  It just made me better prepared mentally when the challenge came up. I was seriously considering #3; there are days when that would be a valid option. (Although, please note that I do not advocate skipping meals, nor do I hardly ever skip a meal.) Today, however, I was starving by 11 a.m., and I had already had one of my precious snacks, which means I would've never made it without lunch. That left me only with option #4.

So, I did it!  I raced home and back in 15 minutes. Bonnie (my beautiful Golden Retreiver) was highly confused to see me home in the middle of the day, but she didn't seem to mind. I went over to the gym with Monica, my regular lunch time work out partner, and got to walk for 10 minutes before hitting up the weight room. 

Hooray for mental preparation and will power! 

The Roller Coaster

I had a realization today. I'm sick of hearing myself whine about myself.

Yes, I've been sick (with a cold, not West Nile* virus!).  Yes, it has lasted a long time.  Yes, it means I have not been able to sleep well for several nights. Yes, that means I've been exhausted and cranky with no energy. No, I have not had one ounce of motivation. No, coming back from a Christmas diet-break has not been as easy or effective as coming back from the Thanksgiving diet-break. No, I have not been eating a healthy breakfast or enough fruits and vegetables or drinking adequate amounts of water this week.

But worse than all of the above is the way I have been feeling, thinking, talking and blogging lately.  I have been very "woe-is-me" and very unable to "see the light at the end of the tunnel."  I knew my attitude sucked, and I knew the whole time I just needed to adjust my thinking, but I couldn't do it.  I didn't have the energy or the desire to shift my thinking or my eating.  I'm blaming the sickness.  I think you know that is not like me.

I'm still not back to an inspirational, one hundred percent "healthy living or bust" mentality.  Nor am I back up to my normal energy levels.  But I am sick of hearing myself complain, so here's what I have been doing right:

• I've worked out three days in a row, running twice and lifting weights once.
• I've eaten the lunch I brought from home three days in a row.
• Today I drank water like I'd been walking in a desert and I'd just found an oasis.

Uh, I think that's all I've got right now.  Oh wait, here's another one!

• I'm eating dinner at home tonight!

Anyway, several people have asked how I'm doing today and here's what I'm saying: I'm on track to getting back on track.  A few days ago I wasn't sure I was ever going to get back to normal and thought I'd just live the rest of my life a crazy mess. Now, I'm thinking that might not be true. Well, I guess that really depends on your definition of a crazy mess.

*Is West Nile a current cultural reference? Swine Flu also seems out-of-date...is there a more relevant disease circulating these days?

Wish I Had a Better Report

So I made it back to work today, which means no excuses for not working out.  I missed one whole week of my 10k running training program last week while I was sick, and with my next 10k three weeks away, I really needed to tie on my sneakers and hit the road again today.

The good news is, I did. Against every fiber of my being, I put on my workout clothes, my ear wrap and my sneakers and headed out the door to my favorite neighborhood  near the university (it's all flat.) The first mile felt good. After that I started feeling my shoe rubbing against my left foot and my right calf becoming exceptionally achy.

The bad news is that I was supposed to run 3 miles today, and I only made it to 2.5. It may sound crazy to give up with only a half a mile to go, but it got progressively harder to keep going. I have such a love/hate relationship for running; there's no other way to describe it. It's the most challenging thing I've ever done, although I know I've blogged enough about that before.

So where am I now? Well, despite not making my goal, I am feeling better for getting moving  in the first place.  I think maybe this week will be sort of a transition week, where I start getting used to working out again and eating a bit more normally and then hopefully next week I will be fully prepared and in the right mindset to tackle these 11 pounds (uh, I don't think I mentioned before, but I gained eight pounds during the two weeks of Christmas break, so I'm now 11 pounds from my goal.)

I just wish I had a little more inspiration, motivation and energy right now.  I think I need to try something different, shake it up either with workouts or my food, but I don't know what to try.

Status Update

I enjoyed my two week break from following a diet plan and indulging in the tastes of the season. My plan was to be back on the straight and narrow starting today, as I would be back to work and into a routine.

Except that I never made my meals yesterday. I just still have no energy from the silly cold I've had for a week now and didn't ever get enough motivation together yesterday to get up from the couch and make them.  Today I didn't go to work, because I just can't shake this cold.

However, this is bad because the longer I go without getting back on track, the less likely I feel like I'll be able to pull myself up by my bootstraps and get back on it.  When I went off the diet the week before Thanksgiving, I had supreme motivation to try hard again when I got back.  Now, I just don't have that. I'm missing the motivation and the energy and the positive attitude I need to get started.   I haven't worked out (aside from my New Years' resolution of daily 30 second planks, which I am hating, by the way) since Sunday a week ago. That is definitely the longest I've gone since I started this journey.

Aside from the lack of energy, I think I'm mostly just afraid. Afraid of trying and failing.  Afraid that I will never make it to 100 pounds lost (let alone what I need to lose beyond that.).

I may not be updating the blog every day from now on. It's harder to be motivating when I'm floundering, plus I feel like I just keep saying the same things over and over.

What Will You Gain When You Lose?

I look for motivation and inspiration in everything I read and watch.  The picture below is from Fitness Magazine, and it was an ad for the Special K Challenge (a diet where you eat nothing but Special K products, uh, no thank you, but I love the ad).

The headline read: What will you gain when you lose?  I loved it so much, I took a picture and ripped it out so I can post it and see it again later.  It's so true.  When you work hard at your goals and accomplish them, you receive so much more than just the end result.  In my case, yes, I've lost weight  and I'm healthier, but I've also gained confidence and moxie and most of the other things listed below.  

This is the time of year when everyone resolves to be more, do more, etc. It's important to set goals, but I think this ad just reminded me that it is about so much more than the goals themselves.  When you set your New Year's resolutions today, take a minute and try to visualize the outcomes and the many ways they may affect you.  It all helps as you pursue your goals. 

In addition to my normal goals of drinking all my water, exercising regularly, eating within a specific calorie range, etc., my new year's resolution is to perform two 30 second plank exercises a day. Apparently planks are the best way to strengthen your abdominals and can be done anywhere.  Adding a minute to my day seems highly possible right now. Do you set New Year's resolutions? If so, care to share in the comments section below?