Day 38: These boots may have been made for walkin...

...But these thighs were NOT made for squattin'. Wow. So here we are. The day after the "intro" personal trainer session. True to her word, I would hate her tomorrow. And I do. Yowza. I was planning on taking the today off from the gym anyway because as I have been told, "the recovery is just as important and the work". Well, you don't have to tell me twice! I did feel a LITTLE guilty today when I came home and plopped myself down on the couch, but even if I wanted to, there was no way I was going to be able to do anything meaningful today. I guess this throbbing in every muscle, front and back, from hip to knee is my "reward" for working hard yesterday. I keep telling myself that it will all be worth it, but as I sit here with my legs elevated and heat pads on them I have second thoughts. I'm all for the "no pain, no gain" BS even though I rarely follow it, but one day of hard work followed by several days of not being able to do anything seems a bit counterproductive don't you think!? Next week when I really start training (oh God help me....) I'm going to talk to her about ways to ease this muscle cramping and pain. It's obvious that I am WAY more out of shape then I even realized, hence the 3-4 days of being crippled after 30 minutes of strength training, but there have to be something else I can do so that I can work hard like every one else!

In other news, my pants are continuing to get bigger. They are not BIG by any means, but breathing is no longer just a luxury, and I no longer come home with the red ring of death around my midsection.... you know what I'm talking about.... some of you anyway! I am really hoping that I can lose another 10lbs within the next 5 weeks so my the time I go home in the last week of March, I will be down 20lbs. But we'll see. If the 2ISH pound loss a week continues, I should be able to do it. But we will have to see what my body thinks of that idea..... Right now, its too been enjoying it's chubby status.....

38 days down...142 to go!

Day 37: You want me to do WHAT!?

So today was day "1" with my trainer. I say that because it wasn't an official training session, it was more like a "meet and greet" for my thighs.... Basically, she had me do a few random things to see what I COULD do and then she took me through a MINI workout. Well, before the muscle atrophy kicked in, I signed up for 3 real sessions, once a week, beginning next Tuesday. I also discovered why the gym has an elevator. No, no. Not for handicapped people, or those who come in the gym hobbling with a cast and on crutches (yes, I have seen it. And I'm PRETTY sure that broken bones are an excuse NOT TO WORK OUT) but for those who are doing personal training upstairs that equals squats, squats with a yoga ball, squats with weights, and squats with the tube. By the time I was done walking down the TWO flights of stairs without tumbling down and landing on my face, I felt like I deserved and award. Or at least cake or something as an award! Now, a few hours after our "quick session", my thighs are still like jello jigglers and I'm PRETTY sure I will be crawling up the stairs tomorrow.  Damn. I REALLY regret working and living on the 2nd floor..... I can't say I wasn't warned. She flat out told me "your front half will hate me tonight" <check!> "and your back half will hate me tomorrow!" Awesome. I like a little honesty in a trainer. I am starting to realize that John was right... this might just actually help. Well, at least it will keep me on track if nothing else! As of right now, I'm actually excited to start working with her- at least for a few weeks to give me ideas of what else I can do when I'm at the gym by myself. At least that's how I feel now. Check with me tomorrow when my "glutes" are pissed. Again.

37 days down...143 to go!

Day 36: Roller coaster of a day

Join me won't you as I recap my roller coaster of a day....ready? Hold on. I'm warning you.....
I wake up and I am FINALLY allowed to open my Valentine's Day card that John left for me several days earlier. It was so sweet that not only did he remember Valentine's Day, but he had the forethought to get me a card ahead of time so that I had it for this morning was super sweet! I get to work, ready for my weigh in..... 2 more pounds down! WOO! A few hours later, I head to the office, and I'm told that the beautiful daisies (wedding flowers!) are for me! Awww I have the best fiance ever!!!!! My day is still heading in the right direction. I decided at that point that since John is away, I am going to surprise him with dinner when he gets back to his hotel. I figure out where he is staying, and order a heart-shaped pizza (I'm a nerd, I know), wings, and dessert and set it to have it delivered when he should be arriving back at his hotel. I giggle at my ingenious. I make it through most of the day, and finally it's time for our party. The volunteer parents start showing up and putting out the food. Lots. of. sugar. and. chocolate. And I want it. ALL. And I ignore it. ALL. I pretended to be happy with my cucumbers, broccoli, and mini tomatoes. Wahoo.... party......My students are getting more and more obnoxious thanks to a situation that I am not at liberty to discuss on the internet..... but it pisses me off. A lot. After being SO good during the party, I scarf down 2 pieces of chocolate. Dammit. 150 calories because I was annoyed. Shortly after, I finish tallying the results of the BL game. At the midpoint, I am in 3rd place out of 21! YAY! Of course that means I win NOTHING, but we still have 5 more weeks so we'll see what happens...... Anyway, as I'm heading home from work, John calls me to tell me they are done with work and are heading to the hotel early. Crap. I call the pizza place and beg them to change the time. They said they will. Then John tells me they are going out to dinner. CRAP. I'm torn. Do I tell him about the dinner surprise? Or do I try to stall him and hope the pizza beats him out the door? I opt for option 2. I was wrong. He leaves for dinner not knowing that he has dinner on its way. Through texts, I eventually tell him what's going on. I was SO upset that my plan backfired, that I was literally on the bike at the gym, crying. What an ass I must have looked like. After 60 minutes of cardio, because realistically, I was pissed, I talked to a personal trainer. I start tomorrow! I finally headed out for dinner of my own and went to Qdoba (secret diet food!) On my way home, I decided that working out wasn't enough to get rid of my anger so I went to McDonald's for some dessert for me and my valentine-my puppy Molly. Of course, since ice cream melts, I just HAD to eat it first. I mean afterall, dessert is the most important meal of the day right? RIGHT? <crickets>........

And that my friends was my day. Feel free to barf from the crazy ride at any time.Oh, and PS- Happy Valentine's Day!

36 days down...144 to go!

Day 35: Down with the sickness

No, thankfully not literally. I'm sure that's coming soon though, but for right now I am avoiding any illness like the plague. I'm avoiding that too. I'm talking about the calorie count sickness... and I have it bad. I have the fever (and yes, the only cure is more cowbell.......). Let me explain. I'm counting calories. Duh. I'm just over a month into this time, but I have done this before. I have also had this sickness before too. The sickness is mentally calculating calories for others as I watch them eat. Now, I don't do this all the time, so don't panic if you have recently eaten with me. But I found myself doing this today while watching Grey's Anatomy. There is poor Lexi Grey, pouring her heart out and scarfing down Reese's PB Cups.... and all I could think about was "don't you know that each one of those is around 75 calories!!!!????!!!!!" Granted, this girl could afford to eat a bag or two of them, but that is not the point. Part of me was SO jealous that she was eating them without care (yes. I DO realize its a tv show, and she is probably spitting them out, or puking them up off camera, but again, NOT THE POINT) and the other part of me wanted to just scream "YOU JUST ATE 600 CALORIES IN THAT ONE SENTENCE!" Yes. I have the sickness. Thankfully, I kept my comments to myself because A) I'm not totally insane and 2) I do NOT need to become my grandmother already and yell at the screen while watching tv. At least I don't do it all the time yet.....

Other than my insanity, not much else has changed. I was able to pretty much stay within my lower calorie count today to try to make up from last night's dinner. I have no idea what the scale will say tomorrow during the weigh in.... hopefully it's at least what it was on Tuesday, but again, since I weighed in a day late as long as my numbers don't increase tomorrow I should be ok. At least that's what I'm telling myself.....

35 days down...145 to go!

Day 34: Stretchy pants... not just for granny's anymore!

Now, before you get concerned about the fact that I am writing this so early, I have to say that Io am going OUT tonight. At 10pm. I know I know... its like you dont even know me anymore! In order to make it until 10 o'clock however, I have to leave my house at 7:30 and eat dinner ahead of time. haha. Small steps! Anyway, as I was starting the LONG process of trying to figure out what to wear, I stared at the small jeans pile. Lord. There are TONS of pairs of pants there. All different sizes, shapes, colors. I tried on THE pants again, and they are still way too tight. At the bottom of the pile was a pair of stretchy jeans. No, not JEGGINGS, because those are just frightening. Actual denim material with some give. Except that lately, even the give wasn't enough to let me walk out the door. I haven't worn these pants in several months, but I thought that maybe, just maybe, 8lbs would be enough to close the button again..... and it is! That's right, I'm in a pair of jeans from the skinnier pile! Granted, they have elastic in them in every possible way, but I'm in them, and I haven't been able to say that for a while. And as I am cheering about my weight loss, I am looking at the menu for where I am having dinner tonight. Not only does it not fit in my remaining 600ish calories that I have left for the day, but I think even if I add in the 300ish calories I have remaining for the WEEK that I will still be over budget. Sigh. I wasn't planning on having a cheat day this week, because I am quickly realizing that my body can't handle that and still lose weight... .but it is what it is. Now I just need to deal with it and move on instead of letting it destroy me mentally on Monday when I weigh in. At least I had a decent work out today, and I WILL work out tomorrow. Maybe I will even sign up for that personal trainer.... dun. dun, dun......

34 days down...146 to go!

Day 33: If I Could Turn Back Tiiioooome......

That's "time" for those of you who don't speak Cher. Not that I am proficient in the language, but that one I do know. ANYWAY. Yes yes so it's true, I finally forgot to blog a day! In my defense (why do I have to defend myself so much with you people!? Get off my back already! :) ) I opened my computer to blog last night and it informed me that I needed an update and a restart.... apparently in the time it took to do that, I fell asleep. Oops. So here is what I SHOULD have written last night, and then tonight I will write again for today and be back on track. Forgive me? Awesome. So here goes:

Day 33: I miss food. Real food. Food that doesn't require measuring and counting and weighing. Food that can be ordered off any menu at any time and not blow my diet so far off course that I can't even see the shore anymore. I know this is not the time to be weak. I'm only a month into this, and I still have a looooooooooooooong way to go, but this is my blog, and I'll whine if I want to! Yesterday was a perfect example. It was an early release day for kids. Now that means that the teachers and staff scatter in every which direction to try to grab lunch and be back to the library in 45 minutes. That also means that most people don't have time to eat before the meeting, and so we all sit there with our various greasy spoon sacks and supersized drinks. As I looked around the room (after consuming my Subway 6in turkey sub with no cheese, no oil, and light mayo silently in my room) I saw all the other possibilities. Burgers, burritos, pasta, sandwiches, etc. All I could do was miss the food that I used to eat without care. I KNOW it's unhealthy. I KNOW its partly the reason why I have to do this diet now and panic 5 months before my wedding. But it's HARD. Its hard to like food as much as I do, and now feel limited to eat off the "you want to fit into your dress DONT YOU? menu everywhere I go. I saw a commercial for Olive Garden when i got home from he gym last night (yes, I'm back on track with the gym) so I looked up the caloire count. All I can say is holy. shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. It's just as bad, IF NOT WORSE than Chili's! The fettuccine alfredo (which DUH of course I knew it was bad, but not THIS bad) has a whopping insane amount of calories. That's after scarfing down the oily bread sticks and salad with yummy dressing. And all the while that I was hyperventilating about how many of these meals I have consumed in my life, I missed it. Here I was, angel on one shoulder, devil on the other. One day I hope to be strong enough to tell the devil to "f- off" but for now, I will settle with being able to tell him to shut up on most days, and forage on with what I need to do. Here's hopin'!

33 days down... 147 to go!

Day 32: It's my party and I'll cry if I want to!

And I did. I knew it was only a matter of time before I had a full fleged melt down, and it finally happened today. Today, after leaving the gym, John told me that for Valentine's Day, he was planning on getting me personal training sessions because he is seeing how much I am struggling with weight loss and staying confident. Instead of getting really excited about having a huge push in the right direction, I cried. A lot. Logical right? Of course he felt defeated. I had to quickly explain to him that the REASON I was so upset is because I feel like I should be able to do this all on my own. I shouldn't have to deal with these gym hardbodies every day just to make progress. Even though it's becoming very obvious that I need help. I don't know what I'm doing. I am pushing myself so hard that I am passing the fat burn mode and working in the "max heart rate" area. I know all this. But the thought of having someone tell me everything I was doing wrong and reminding me that I can't do this on my own makes me mad. I have always been a very independent person and I have a VERY hard time accepting help. Ugh. I'm still not sure how I feel about it, but it seems like the training is going to be purchased for me either way, so I guess I better get on board! CHOOCHOO!
32 days down...148 to go!