Up and Up and Up . . .

I'm not sure if I've ever told the story of when I decided to start losing weight. If I have, feel free to ignore the first couple of paragraphs.

It was back in the end of May, and I was doing a bit of work in the library in my office building. Suddenly the irritating buzzer of the building's fire alarm sounded, and everyone went single file to the nearest stairwell. We were required to go four floors down and wait for instructions. We did so, and once they sounded the all clear, most people started climbing back up the staircase. I, having not taken the stairs in a while and apparently in a deep state of denial regarding my physical fitness, did the same.

At the end of four floors (8 flights) of stairs, my calves were tying themselves in knots. I had to lug myself up the last set of stairs by my arms. When I got back to my desk I all but fell into my chair, my legs collapsing and my heart racing as if it wanted to break out of my chest. For twenty minutes or more, I was useless, breathing noisily and trying not to move too much as I felt dizzy and a little sick. It was then that I realized that had I needed to climb stairs for an emergency, I would die. DIE.

Bullshit. I started planning from there.

So fast forward almost five months later, and I'm freaking, because my gym is closed for a week to fnalize their transition to super-active-fancy-pants gym. They'd aready been closed for a month for more extensive renovations, and as a result I'd stopped exercising, and stopped losing. Now that I'm back in the swing of things, I don't want to fall off the wagon. So I plan with some other gym-going co-workers, to get together at lunch and do our own workout, somewhere in the building.

Yesterday was a planned bust (Went out to lunch with co workers for my boss's 50th birthday), but today I wanted to bust my ass with weighttraining (Without weights since they're hard to carry on lightrail without looking silly). Unfortunately, every single one of my gym buddies bailed on me. So what was I to do?

That's when I decided; the stairs!

So today, once every hour since I got to work, I've walked up 4 floors (8 flights) of stairs. After doing this three times I decided it wasn't enough, and so each time I walked up a floor, I stopped and did squats. The next time I did lunges. The next time, wall pushups. The next, plie squats. The next, more lunges. I only have one more set to go, not sure what I'll do, but I know I'll do it.

And how am I feeling after walking up a combination of 24 floors (48 flights)?

Fantastic! I'll probably be sore tomorrow, and I don't think I could currently do much more than what I did today, but I'm a helluva lot farther along than I was in May. Huzzah!

Months Later . . .

Hello everyone!

I realize that it's been a while (Months, actually... yikes!) since I've posted on this blog, and I apologize to those few that have actually been keeping track of me.

Due to various problems, both external (My work gym closed for half of june and half of July for renovations) and internal (ie. my laziness and inability to follow through), I fell off the blog-wagon.

Luckily I didn't completely fall of the health-wagon.

My most current low weight was 282.6 lbs. as of 9/13/11. I've lost some inches and gained some flexibility and strength along the way. I've changed my workout routine from cardio-heavy to a more balanced routine of 3 days of cardio and 3 days of weight training. I've fallen in love with exercise equipment I've never used before (I love you, rowing machine, you crazy, sweat-inducing bastard!) and learned that eating healthy is difficult when your spouse isn't on the health bandwagon (And when your income is pretty limited).

I will try to be better about posting every day, at least to log my exercise and food.

Food-
Breakfast:
1 packet of Maple & Brown Sugar Oatmeal
1/3 cup Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk (I love this stuff, and only 40 calories a cup!)

Morning Snack:
1 serving White Corn Tortilla Chips (Decided to forgo the mango-peach salsa today, not sure why)

Exercise:
Tracy (One of my gym buddies) has a workout she got from her personal trainer, and this was the second time we tried it. It involves chest presses and skullcrushers on an exercise ball, a descending set of bicep exercises, enough shoulder exercises to make me cry for mercy, lunges, squats and finally, ab work utilizing a medicine ball. The first time we did this, I finished well. Tired, my arms and legs feeling like jell-om but I finished nonetheless.

Today, however, I started feeling lightheaded and a bit nauseous about 2/3 of the way through. I didn't get in any squats and did simpler ab work. But in the end my arms at least still felt noodly, so I don't think it was a total waste. I'll be doing sets of squats throughout the day to get those in, and may do some wall push-ups later if my arms will let me.

Lunch:
Smart Ones Lasagna Florentine Meal (Cheese! Yum!)

I've lost 20 pounds!

20.1, to be exact.

I'm very happy. Why?

Many reasons-

- It's been a particularly difficult shark week, so I really didn't expect to lose anything this week. Hell, when I weighed myself two mornings ago, it showed that I'd gained five pounds since the day before! Crazy water retention, no? I upped my water intake as much as I could for the rest of the week, and it seems to have done the trick.

- I skipped the gym for two days in a row, and instead walked around midtown and downtown Sacramento, once by myself and once with some co workers. The weather was amazing (72 degrees) and most of the walk was in the shade. We got to walk past historic old homes, snazzy new apartments and lofts, various different eateries (Which was hard since- it being lunchtime and all- we had to deal with walking past the most amazing aromas!) and all walks of people going about their lives. It was wonderful, and we still got in over 2 miles each walk. Not bad eh?

All by Mysee--eeelf

Had to go to the gym by myself this weekend. Crystle had stayed up late elsewhere and was pretty much unwakeable (Unless I don't mind getting an elbow to the face), and Bob was in bed with a terrible ear ache. I was more than a little anxious to go and step on the scale without my support system with me. I've been doing well so far, with an average of 2 lbs. lost each week. The scale at home had been moving more or less steadily downward, but what if I'd missed something? Eaten too much, not drank enough water (This week I drank enough water to satisfy a dehydrated elephant, I swear), eaten too much salt?

So I stepped on. . ..

296.75

I'm out of the 300s! And I lost 4 1/4 pounds this week!

Obviously whatever I'm doing it's working. I'm giving most of the credit to the increased water intake; the day after I started upping the H20, I saw a bigger loss in one day than I have before.

All in all I'm pretty ecstatic with my loss so far.

(Maybe even enough to post my before photo? I dunno, it involves me in gym pants and a sports bra. Ugh. Not sure if I'm ready to show that little gem to the world.)

Weigh In

Woot! Lost another 2 lbs! Two more and I'll be under the 300 lb line!

I really honestly didn't think I lost anything this week, between our amazing (And overindulgent) Mother's Day dinner, and not getting to the gym often enough, and snacking on little chocolates at work (But at least I logged every one of them, dammit!)

My ankle seems to be-for the most part- back to normal, so I'm going to gently increase my workout times back up and make sure it stays that way. I'll be doing ankle exercises and balance stuff to beef them up so this never happens again, because nothing sucks more than being in the most enthusiastic stretch of a weight loss plan and being impeded by physical limitations.

Weigh In

I was pretty nervous about this weigh in for several reasons-
- Dinner at Red Robins on Tuesday
- Dinner at Jack in the Box on Wednesday
- My stupid ankle hurting after grocery shopping yesterday, causing me to not work out today

So it was with a anxious heart that I stepped onto the unforgiving scale, after the see-sawing effect of seeing Bob lose only .25 lbs. this week, and Crystle lose a whopping 7 lbs.to win the week. Go sis!!

So I looked at the scale total.

303.

I lost 3.5 pounds since last week, for a total loss of 12 lbs since April 1st.

One of the things I decided to implement during this journey was 10 lb. mini-goals. After each 10 lbs. I lose I get to buy myself a reward. Lucky for me I lost enough to justify the rewards I bought a little earlier in the week; some fragrance spray and scented candles from Bath and Body Works, and a neat little gizmo that accurately takes body measurements without having to have someone help you. Sweeeet!

(Speaking of measurements, I used said gizmo to take new ones for this week, and confirmed my suspicions that shark week was making me bloat. I lost a total of 5.5 inches throughout my body, and have updated my stats.)

Ankle Woes Continued . . . .

So my ankle hasn't been getting better. After every workout it just gets so painful. So I emailed my doctor and he says most likely I have a reccurent mild ankle sprain.

Crap.

I've been told to cut my workout times in half and wear an ankle support. Hopefully this will help heal it so I can get back to my workouts. I'll just have to be even more vigilant about what I eat.

PS- regarding my last post about my measurement conundrum. I didn't even think about the fact that it was shark week. So yeah, pretty sure that explains . . .all that. Henceforth I'm switching measurement taking week to the second of the month, so it's more accurate.