There's always a silver lining

I'm pretty sure that I had breakdown with those random thoughts yesterday, y'all. I didn't get my shake for lunch so my whole day was out of whack and I was thinking in fragments. I wanted chocolate, pop (or soda, for those of you located in other parts of the country) and really, just to start the day over and more positively. Preferably in stretchy pants.

After work I went to the gym to see my trainer for the first time in a month. The routine is that we weigh in (see yesterday's entry for that delightful exchange), measure BMI and fat percentage and then discuss nutrition for awhile before the work out.

I trudged up to her office feeling like a whale, or a moose or something that trudges, keenly aware of the size of my bottom in the yoga pants I was wearing. Walking in, I sat down and we exchanged pleasantries about her trip (she's from Lebanon and was there visiting family). She even gave me a gift! A little pocket mirror, that is "folkloric" according to her, and Lebanese candy. CANDY. Worst. Trainer. Ever... or maybe the best, but whatever... she gave me CANDY before we discussed nutrition. This is the crap I'm dealing with, people.

The dreaded weigh-in was upon us. I stepped on the scale and...

I had gained 4 pounds from last week.

FOUR.
EFFING.
POUNDS.

I immediately teared up out of sheer frustration. She was clearly unsure what to do with my emotional breakdown, so she tried to console me. Women are only their ideal (read: not retaining an ocean of water) weight 10 days out of the month. What did you eat this weekend, how's your cardio, how much water are you drinking, yada, yada, yada. I have been rocking with all of it and four pounds was not what I wanted to see after that much work. Also I was pissed because I cried. I'm kind of a loose cannon with emotions anyway...I've been known to cry at commercials from time to time (that damn Sarah McLachlan animal cruelty video is ricidulous) but I manage to keep it together at the gym in front of my well-meaning trainer.

The next thing was to measure my BMI and fat percentage. With a quivering lip and tears still threatening to fall, I grabbed on to the stupid unholy gizmo that measures that stuff. Both numbers were the lowest they have been since I began this journey in September. YES!! VICTORY!

Then, she checked the calendar... April 22. The last time she took my measurements was January 21, and she does it every 3 months. Surprise! Yesterday was measurement day. Oh dear.

The number on the scale doesn't determine health!

If the BMI and fat percentage weren't enough silver lining for totally bombing the weigh-in, this tops it.

She measured biceps, hips, waist, chest, and thigh. I HAVE LOST INCHES IN ALL OF THEM! Since I started working out with her in September, I have lost a total of 9 3/4 inches! Take THAT, you stupid scale! My sister posted this picture of me on facebook yesterday. Ok, so this isn't me and isn't what I look like half naked, but it's what I WILL look like! Proof that the number on the scale doesn't matter.

The work out was the exact same work out she did with me just before she left. She wanted to see if I'd been doing my "homework" (work outs she'd left more me to do in her absence). We did the same work out, but unbeknownest to me, she upped the weight on every machine for every exercise. Checking her log, I increased my weight for each exercise with ease! Meaning, I aced my homework! Bam.
This morning I woke up at 5am to do my p90x because my wonderful fiance fixed the dvd player last night. Shoulders and arms today! Then after a shower and my back-on-routine breakfast (3 egg whites, one egg, diced tomatoes, diced mushrooms and chopped spinach), I settled in to my daily battle with my closet on what to wear.

This midwest weather is nuts and I'm sick of pants and sweaters. I want to wear skirts but I digress. I was looking to wear something different today, not just the same ol' stuff I wear every week. Rifling through my clothes, hanger by hanger, I stumbled on a pair of pants I have hung on to for some reason even though they haven't fit since 2009. They have never been my favorite pants, but they are a fun blue/gray color summoning spring and they are different from the black that I always wear.

There's nothing more miraculous for someone who struggles with weight than to risk her self-confidence and the mood of the whole day by putting on a pair of pants that she hasn't worn in a few years. Usually, once they  make it past my hips, I'm home free. They not only cleared the hips, but they zipped! They. Fit. (cue the choir of angels singing 'Hallelujah')

They are still a bit snug and still not my favorite pants but I'm wearing them today because I freakin' can. Hooray!

Just Another Manic Monday

I've officially made it to Monday afternoon and I am a huge failure. I'm tired, I'm hungry and I'm craving every piece of chocolate in the bowl in front of me.

I forgot my shakes at home today and it's only been a week of taking them, but I felt perfectly satisfied and had no cravings after my shake lunches. I messaged my sister in a panic as I do usually (like she doesn't have enough to do) and she assured me I could drink the shake for dinner when I get home and be fine.

Dinner is at least 5 hours away.

Here's what I'm doing to try to stay positive:
1. drinking hot tea... it makes me feel full.
2. drinking cold water...it speeds up metabolism

..and that's about it. I leave in 3 hours and meet my trainer at 5:30. It'll go down like this:

her: ok, take off your shoes and step on the scale
me: (shoes off, steps on scale. Note whoever was on this scale last didn't clear out the number and that person weighed 114 pounds.)
her: (edging the weight higher and higher on the scale... until it finally balances at some place near what I was last week.) She will then state my weight out loud and then write it down and interrogate me about my diet, exercise and amount of water intake.
me: while she's talking, I'll be pondering if I can get away with slapping her.

Wish me luck...words of encouragement are appreciated. I will probably be posting tonight after the torture training.

Random {fitness} thoughts by LP

In high school, my friends and I were always writing notes back and forth to each other. While cleaning up my house and packing to move in with the hubs after the wedding, I've stumbled across a few that I saved. In an attempt to waste time in classes and make my friends laugh, I would take up a whole page of "Random thoughts by LP," which would include silly things I observed of our classmates, the teacher... whatever drama was happening in our lives at the time. Because of this and that it's Monday and my thoughts are in pieces above my head like the chocolate bar scene in willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, I bring you, Random {fitness} thoughts by LP.

Weekends are always hard for me. I'm at home, kind of lazy and therefore, don't always make the best decisions. Food choices are worse and more frequent, exercise is not as intense and I take a nap or two.

To make matters worse, my dvd player isn't working for some reason, which I need for P90x. I forget about it until 5am when I'm groggily stumbling through setting up my workout area. This morning I realized again that it wasn't working. So, I did 50 reps of ab exercises.

Why 50, you ask? We are 54 days out from the wedding... so I'm doing 50 of everything. When we get into the 40s, I'm going to increase it by ten. By the time we get to the wedding, I'll be a beast.

Anyway, 50 reps of crunches, side crunches, lower ab exercises, pelvic lifts, and planks. I can definitely feel the abs under the flab! I see hip bone definition and from the side, I look a lot less like I've had a few kids. My love handles are even shrinking, although not nearly fast enough. The best improvement I've noticed is that when I sit down, I don't have to readjust my pants to, for lack of better term, "tuck in" my belly flab. That may be a little too real for some of you that have never had that problem but it's real for many and for this, I'm totally high-fiving myself.

Today, I work out with my trainer for the first time in about a month. She's been on vacation out of the country for a month, so I've been reporting my weekly weigh-ins to her via email and expressing my immense discouragement with lack of results. I'm hoping that this week, I'll like what I see on the scale. My trainer assures me that once I get to a certain percent of body fat, it will be much easier, but I'm SO FAR AWAY from that and her perfectly fit, 100 pound frame does not help. I know her workout tonight is going to kill me, so I need to be prepared for that.

With these 2 a day workouts I'm doing, I've got 11 more workouts this week. *whew*... hang on friends, it's going to be a bumpy ride. Mondays aren't too bad, but with the combination of the trainer being back and the amount of working out I'm doing, I'll be exhausted by Thursday. I need motivation and encouragement to get me through the week!! I'll be looking for it, friends.

Shameless lunch plug

Usually on Fridays, I have some time on my hands at work. This usually leads to a lot of boredom Facebooking, shopping on Etsy and Pinteresting and by Friday, that all gets a little old.

SO-- I thought I should update you all on my lunch. I know... cling to the edge of your seats kids because this is going to be the most interesting thing you'll read all day.

On Monday, I began replacing one meal a day with a Shakeology shake. This is not a ploy to sell the product... I don't profit from this in any way. But, as a person that could always stand to lose a few lbs, this was an option that was introduced to me by my sister.

Here are the basics: you replace one meal a day with a Shakeology shake and also work on a Beachbody workout. I chose p90x but there's also Insanity, Hip Hop Abs and many others.

Friends, I was skeptical. I guess I still am, since it's only been five days. I am a person that diets in waves. I struggle to keep weight down and I am contantly aging in what I wear just to cover my unwanted curves. Nothin' lovable about love handles! I have tried the fads and work out videos, spin classes, cardio madness, I am READY to lose weight. I want it. I needed something else.

Today is Friday and I began replacing my lunch with shakes (Chocolate Vegan Shakeology mixed with vanilla almond milk =delish) on Monday. In these short 5 days, I sleep better and have a TON more energy. I'm talking, I wake up at 5am to do p90x, get to work a few minutes early and work with unfaltering energy throughout the day. Then I am excited to go to the gym after work. Seriously guys, who is excited for that? Certainly never me before this. I work out for about 45 minutes to an hours, depending on the work out, get home around 6:45 or 7 and still have a few hours before I hit the hay. Even when I go to bed, I want to read or do something to wind down a bit to sleep.

Then I sleep.
Like.
A.
Rock.

Here's the BEST part of my new lunch routine, I don't have awful cravings, y'all. I know you've been at work, around 3pm and suddenly, YOU NEED CHOCOLATE. I sit at a receptionist's desk all day with a bowl of chocolate right in front of me. I also have a drawer full of chocolate to refill said bowl.

I don't event WANT it. Not out of craving, or boredom or sheer gluttony. Craving  = gone!

Well, I take that back. I really crave cold water. I drink a ton of water and it is AWESOME.

Love it.

Starbucks taught me a lesson today

It's only 8:30am and I kind of feel like I failed with my day already. Here's how this morning went down:

5am: Alarm went off. The rest of the week, I've gotten up right away and texted or skyped my sister, Meghan who is my coach, motivator and the person who has kept me in check this week. Today we skyped as I shuffled to the bathroom to put in my contacts. Unfortunately, my contacts were not havin' it this morning. For those of you that experience this issue, contacts can, for whatever reason, wage a war on your eyes and when you put them in it's an intense amount of stinging and burning.

If you have perfect vision and don't have a need for contacts, you are very lucky... and a huge jerk. I've been dealing with this crap since 8th grade.

Today was also supposed to be my "off" day from P90x, but I originally was going to work out today so I didn't have to tomorrow, when I go to IKEA in Minneapolis with my mom and sister, Emily. But since the contacts weren't havin' it this morning, I gave in to the off day and went back to bed.

I didn't wake up then until 6:45, which is outrageously late for me. My morning routine is usually work out, shower, get breakfast, try on 5-7 outfits until I find pants that fit me that day, and watch a little Boy Meets World* before I leave the house at 7:30. Obviously this morning I didn't have time for that, so I got dressed and headed out the door without breakfast.

*Don't judge my taste in morning TV... I watch news all day so a little nostalgic mindless is great in the morning.

My beautiful friends, Shawna and Kate. Note my grouch face in the back.

Here's what you need to know about me. Even before all this scheduled eating, I am a total grouch if I am hungry. I'm not one of those people that can just survive on a few bottles of water and a stick of gum to make me feel full. The options for a quick bite to eat (notice I didn't say fast food) are as follows:

Dahls-- a grocery store which also turns into kind of a time suck. They also make their own donuts and my self control, especially on Friday, is well below par.

McDonalds-- Which I COULD have done...it's certainly fast, but the grease smell tends linger on my clothes no matter what I do and I can't really handle smelling like a dumpster all day.

Starbucks-- By far the best choice, because they have a delicious Spinach Feta Wrap, which is a smidge high in sodium, but it's made with egg whites so it has good protein, so it's fine in a pinch.

I arrived at the Starbucks near my office at 7:40. From experience I know that it's much faster to sit through the drive-thru than to go inside. So, I waited in a line of 30 cars to get a dang wrap... getting grouchier by the minute.

I'm not a coffee drinker, so it's completely beyond me why it would take 10 minutes to fill up as many coffee cups. The woman in the car in front of me took a full minute to place her order, then pulled up just enough so I couldn't yet place MY order and then sat there forever waiting for them to give her her order. Finally, the drive thru window opened and ONE CUP OF COFFEE EMERGED. Seriously? One cup? You weren't ordering for your entire office?

I finally get up to the window and the girl working wanted to confirm my order of a latte-grande-soy-something. Politely, but with a hint of impatience, I told her I just ordered a wrap. Hint of impatience really means: GIVE IT TO ME NOW OR I'M GOING TO REACH THROUGH THAT WINDOW AND GET IT MYSELF.

Then I waited. For 5 minutes.

I still arrived at work early, but I've certainly learned my lesson... get up early and work out with glasses on if I have to!

I'm still down a 1/2 a pound form Monday... boo ya.

58 day haitus from the original plan

The original purpose of this blog is to focus on my 30 x 30 list... 30 things I want to accomplish before I'm 30. Which reminds me, I'll be 28 in 4 months so... I have to get rockin' on that list. One of my goals is to get in better shape and live a generally healthier lifestyle. In my last entry I expressed my frustration during this goal. I have a trainer, I log my food, I exercise nearly every day...but I've only lost 8 pounds. It's discouraging and frustrating.

A culmination of a few things happened for me to be inspired to write this post.

1. My sister is a coach for Beachbody and talked me into trying Shakeology for 30 days. These are delicious* shakes that I have for lunch. I'm currently only on day 4, but I've already realized I have more energy and feel fuller, longer. Those things get me more motivated to go to the gym, kill it with cardio and actually feel like I did something in the gym.

                      *At first, the shakes tasted like dog food. By day three, I found myself craving them. So either they aren't as bad as I originally thought, or I'm acquiring a taste for dog food.**
                      ** They are actually good. I'm just used to eating crap, I guess.


2. A girl at work asked me yesterday if I had a blog detailing my weight loss nightmare journey. At the time I was chowing down on a grapefruit as a snack before I left to work out. At the gym, I found myself phrasing what a blog talking about this subject would sound like; things I'd talk about, observations in the gym, and of course my results. I could do this in a witty, humorous way while still documenting this adventure. Why not?! I'll just make it an amendment to my existing blog, since I don't have the time to manage two seperate blogs.

3. I've lost a half pound since Monday. It's Thursday. Bam!

I think also in this intro of my sub-blog (subblog? sblog?) I should detail why I want to lose weight and life a healthier lifestyle. And to mix it up, I'll use letters as bullets.

a. My paternal grandmother had breast cancer (not anymore...she's 91 and still kickin'). Most of the female members on my mom's side of the family are overweight and over time they have developed heart disease, diabetes, etc. They also have a history of poor knees.. mostly due to the amount of weight that's constantly on them. Staying a healthy weight and eating right will not only help me and my longevity but it will give people around me (i.e., my future children), a good example of health.

b. I want to wear a bikini again. I realize how superficial this is, but it DOES serve as motivation. It doesn't even have to be skimpy... maybe something with a vintage feel that's high-waisted... like the picture.

c. I get married in 58 days, which is the reason for the length of this obsession about fitness and health. I. want. to. look. stunning. I get this day once and I don't want to waddle down the aisle being self-conscious about my lunch lady arms and back fat. My fiance loved me 8 pounds ago, he loves me now and this isn't about him. It's about me and being the best version of myself. In talking to my sister about this, she agrees that confidence is one of the secrets to a happy marriage and I want to start it out right.


Me, top right, high school track. Super skinny.

d. I am fed up with arguing with the button on my pants on a daily basis, wearing layers to cover my physique that resembles a busted can of biscuits on most days and jiggling everywhere when I do jumping jacks. I was naturally thin growing up. In fact, in high school, my track coach pulled me aside every year for 4 years to ask if I ate. And if I ate, did I throw it up? Um. No. I ate constantly. My brother and sister were both in school there and were also very thin. In college my metabolism remained high, so copious amount of beer, late night pizza and lack of exercise didn't phase me too much. But, I walked ALL the time on campus and let's face it, I was 21 years old. Out of college, I worked at a desk, sat all day, indulged in office potlucks and thought I could still not exercise and be healthy. At this point, it's caught up to me and I want to look great.

So there you have it. I may do several entries in a day, and I may skip a few days, but I will keep you in the loop. If you want to know about Beachbody, Shakeology or my work out schedules, I'm happy to share what I know.

Shedding for the wedding

Hi. My name is Laura and I have been working with a trainer since September 12 to completely overhaul my eating and exercising habits....

This is the beginning of many successful weight loss stories. They usually include pictures of very petite girls holding up large 'before' pants next to their now-svelte frame. They speak of having tons of energy and making this change "for good."

I am not that girl. I love food- namely carbs and cheese. I have hips that won't quit and I also have lunch lady arms.

It's true I've been working out since September 12 and I have completely changed my eating habits. But, I've only lost 8 pounds. EIGHT. POUNDS.

For those of you that have ever tried to lose an amount of weight, you know that it's probably one of the most tedious and frustrating tasks one can accomplish. If done correctly, it takes a lot of time and doesn't come off quickly. It comes with weird cravings for fast food and irrationally bitter feelings towards anyone in a swimsuit. It involves sacrifice, sore muscles, and a constant battle with buttoning your jeans.  It freakin' sucks.

I get married in 68 days. It's quite literally crunch time at this point to hopefully lose 10 pounds. Can I do it? Yes. Will everything in the previous paragraph be amplified? Absolutely. But-- I have tons of resources that I will use in the next 68 days to get closer to my goal of 25 pounds. I think if I write this out, I will be able to hold myself more accountable to my end goal. Getting to a healthier weight and living a better lifestyle is on my 30 X 30 list also, so I'm really working towards that goal!

I have a fabulous support system. My fiance loved me 8 pounds ago, he loves me now and he'll love me no matter what. He is supportive by offering to go on runs with me to get in extra cardio. He makes a point of keeping healthier foods at his apartment so I won't splurge when I'm there.

I also have my mean and awful fabulous trainer, Jessy. She's supportive, understanding of my struggles, and super nice. Unless of course, she's training me boot camp style and I'm sweating like a pregnant warthog in the Sahara desert.

My friends and family are extremely helpful and supportive also. I can rely on them to be truthful but helpful. My sister set up a workout plan that she is sharing with me and has also told me about several healthy eating apps and tools that will help me in my struggle journey. A friend is starting the couch to 5k program and she has invited me to start it with her. This is happening.

I have no excuses and nothing but support, so it's got to happen!