It took me a few minutes today to figure out what I was going to write about. Honestly yesterday sucked in a few ways, work was overwhelming, a few personal obstacles were in my way, tomorrow was April, (it is now by the way) and at one point I literally sat here at my desk and said, "I am skipping my work out today." Not even joking... at 2:30 when I was to get off I said to myself "Self.. NO! You are allowing all of this crap to weigh you down. Put your shoes on and get out there!" and I did. I don't know that it helped the work stuff because it is literally just sitting there waiting on me to do this morning and frankly it didn't help much with how I was feeling about yesterday's topic, but what it did too was shift my focus! My focus became more on myself and my goals and my accomplishments. And littered through that work out was little bits of happiness.
I have already talked about my progression with my running goals so today I want to talk about a few of my other places of improvement. First I want to say I thank you again for following along in the journey, just knowing some of you are out there and interested is like having my own cheer leading squad! Maybe you are reading this and thinking I really need to help myself too, if so I hope I help you do that. Before we talk about the pictures I want to touch on my workouts again. I am not only running and I am also doing a strength training 4 days a week for at least 45 minutes (usually it takes me an hour). I do work outs that either I design by using my tools from previous years or my beastie bestie (hey that is kinda cute) sends me a work out to accomplish, or my girls send me a summary and I design based on that, I love my friends for doing this for me, because it truly is hard to come up with a work out for yourself. Not going to lie when I come up with one for myself I usually end up cursing myself half way through because I literally wrote something for someone who has been working out for a year, that tends to happen because the first draft is so lame that I think a 5 year old could do it.
Those first few work outs, I thought there was no way in the world I was ever going to be able to do this again. I was too old, too out of shape, and way too round, but you know what I did? I kept trying. I started with 3 work outs a week, now I am on to 4 strength and 1 cardio (Zumba in case you are wondering) I am no wonder woman, it takes me awhile to get through the workouts as I said but I get them done. At the end of those work outs I have tacked on a core crushing set some days it is 5 minutes other days it is 10 minutes but to give you an example of how intense it is, I literally threw up a little yesterday. Yesterday was a 10 minute and I was a good 7 minutes in before I was needing to tap out some. Last week on day one I was not making it through 30 seconds without tapping my feet down or just flat out laying there in agony. That is a vast improvement. Every day I find things getting easier to perform, the bicep curls aren't shaky after 10, the pushups are getting higher.. and lower.. and yesterday I held 2 45 second high planks. I don't know why this chick thinks high planks are harder than low planks but she does, maybe they are and I never realized it because in a low plank I am so close to the ground it is easier for me to tap out lol. Last week, she had us do a 30 second high plank and I dropped a knee (BEND THE KNEE!) at 20 seconds, nothing was strong enough to hold this body weight up, yesterday it was.
Side note funny: My SEEESSSTER sent me a tiktok (guilty pleasure right there) about body weight exercises to do at home. My response back was "This is nice and all but if I use my body weight I will end up looking like Hulk Hogan!"
Anyway here I am crushing the hell out of these sessions, and the weird thing.. the truly super odd and strange thing, I am not in constant pain, every other time I have began a work out program, by that night I could not move, it was hard to stand up, it was hard to sit down, and dear lord the next morning I felt like I was a 2x4.. ok a 4x6 if we are being honest. My brain wants me to think it is because I am not putting in the work, but my heart knows I am. My heart knows that when my work out is done the weights literally sit where I dropped them because I just don't have it in me to do move them. So my plan is to continue to stay the course with how I am working out, next week I do hope to meet my friends for at least two work outs (early mornings are not my thing.. that is another lesson I learned) but being with them is morning important than sleep. I also contribute the lack of pain I am feeling in my body to how I am now eating, 90% of the time it whole unprocessed foods.
As you know I talked on Monday about the scale not moving and how I wanted that sucker to put up some numbers because I was big enough that it SHOULD be dropping. Well I guess the thing heard me because... drum roll please... since Monday (today is Thursday for reference if this is read a year from now) it is down 5 lbs. I have literally lost 15 pounds in 24 days. I know what you may be thinking.. "Re .. what are you doing? Did you change your calories to too low?" the answer is no.. no I didn't. I will tell you exactly what I did. On Monday by accident I didn't eat breakfast until 10 am. and it got me to thinking. I wasn't really hungry in the morning so why was I force feeding myself and I was already only using 3 tablespoons of coconut almond creamer in my coffee, so why not cut that out and drink it black and start eating every day at 10. So I looked up intermittent fasting with Keto and this is what I found. That most people do a 16:8 in that they don't eat for 16 hours and have a 8 hour window of eating, but for beginners it is perfectly acceptable to start a 12:12 but I went for the 14:10. I also read up on Keto, IF, and my age (yes that is a factor I am facing) and again it fits. Women my age and my unfortunate round shape have been wildly successful by just making a time window in which to eat. I just eat my same amount of food and meals in that time frame, not going to lie about it some days it is hard to eat crunched together like that because you feel like you are constantly eating, but so far I have not felt over full. I will let you know how that progresses. I have also slowly been adding my vitamins and supplements back into my daily routine based on recommendations, as well as what I learned from the Money Plan, I believe they are also helping over all.
Jeeze Re.. how the hell can you type so much.. Sorry this got longer than I thought it would.. but Full Disclosure right? Why I said it took me a few minutes to figure out what to write about is because I knew all along what I needed and should share but I just didn't want to, but on my post February 27th it was about Full Disclosure and my weight, and I posted pics. I have taken pics every week since and I have kept them to myself, yesterday I shared them with .. I have no idea what to call her.. my little earth angel I suppose, and she saw the same things I did. (again not believing in myself as much as I should) So today in an effort to fully disclose it all again this is where I was.. and this is where I am. That day.. the 27th the scale showed 250 (good lord that was hard to type) the sadder part about that was two days later I got on the scale and it was higher than that. I didn't change my way of eating for another 10 days and no, I don't know what the scale said on the day I chose Keto. The pics were taken a month and 4 days from the pics I took yesterday. That weight was a month and 5 days from what I weighed this morning, even though the number is high this morning it was 235, yes the scale is accurate, I tested it (there is that non belief thing again) I believe you will also be able to see the changes physically, not just those numbers.
So here I am celebrating my small victories along this journey. The scale is moving, the appearance is changing, the performance is strengthening and this is working. Yes I am friggin proud of myself. So very proud, in just a few days I will have been doing Keto for a complete month, I have stayed strong, and truly do not feel that my way of eating is restrictive in anyway. I know along the line tweaks will need to be made to jumpstart and rejolt the system because that is just how our bodies work, they settle in and refuse to budge, but I am already aware and prepared for this, so as not to allow a plateau to derail the whole train.
My biggest fear today... April. Not even 8 hours in and it feels so heavy... I ask you a favor, if you see me wavering, if you see me not journaling, if you see me not working out, check in, because it is a sure sign that I am not in any way shape or form ok.
Signing off today with this, are there areas in your life that you can celebrate the small victories, or do they feel so insignificant that you brush them off? Take a few minutes today and try to find the things in yourself that you should be proud of.
Peace, Love and Light
Re
I have already talked about my progression with my running goals so today I want to talk about a few of my other places of improvement. First I want to say I thank you again for following along in the journey, just knowing some of you are out there and interested is like having my own cheer leading squad! Maybe you are reading this and thinking I really need to help myself too, if so I hope I help you do that. Before we talk about the pictures I want to touch on my workouts again. I am not only running and I am also doing a strength training 4 days a week for at least 45 minutes (usually it takes me an hour). I do work outs that either I design by using my tools from previous years or my beastie bestie (hey that is kinda cute) sends me a work out to accomplish, or my girls send me a summary and I design based on that, I love my friends for doing this for me, because it truly is hard to come up with a work out for yourself. Not going to lie when I come up with one for myself I usually end up cursing myself half way through because I literally wrote something for someone who has been working out for a year, that tends to happen because the first draft is so lame that I think a 5 year old could do it.
Those first few work outs, I thought there was no way in the world I was ever going to be able to do this again. I was too old, too out of shape, and way too round, but you know what I did? I kept trying. I started with 3 work outs a week, now I am on to 4 strength and 1 cardio (Zumba in case you are wondering) I am no wonder woman, it takes me awhile to get through the workouts as I said but I get them done. At the end of those work outs I have tacked on a core crushing set some days it is 5 minutes other days it is 10 minutes but to give you an example of how intense it is, I literally threw up a little yesterday. Yesterday was a 10 minute and I was a good 7 minutes in before I was needing to tap out some. Last week on day one I was not making it through 30 seconds without tapping my feet down or just flat out laying there in agony. That is a vast improvement. Every day I find things getting easier to perform, the bicep curls aren't shaky after 10, the pushups are getting higher.. and lower.. and yesterday I held 2 45 second high planks. I don't know why this chick thinks high planks are harder than low planks but she does, maybe they are and I never realized it because in a low plank I am so close to the ground it is easier for me to tap out lol. Last week, she had us do a 30 second high plank and I dropped a knee (BEND THE KNEE!) at 20 seconds, nothing was strong enough to hold this body weight up, yesterday it was.
Side note funny: My SEEESSSTER sent me a tiktok (guilty pleasure right there) about body weight exercises to do at home. My response back was "This is nice and all but if I use my body weight I will end up looking like Hulk Hogan!"
Anyway here I am crushing the hell out of these sessions, and the weird thing.. the truly super odd and strange thing, I am not in constant pain, every other time I have began a work out program, by that night I could not move, it was hard to stand up, it was hard to sit down, and dear lord the next morning I felt like I was a 2x4.. ok a 4x6 if we are being honest. My brain wants me to think it is because I am not putting in the work, but my heart knows I am. My heart knows that when my work out is done the weights literally sit where I dropped them because I just don't have it in me to do move them. So my plan is to continue to stay the course with how I am working out, next week I do hope to meet my friends for at least two work outs (early mornings are not my thing.. that is another lesson I learned) but being with them is morning important than sleep. I also contribute the lack of pain I am feeling in my body to how I am now eating, 90% of the time it whole unprocessed foods.
As you know I talked on Monday about the scale not moving and how I wanted that sucker to put up some numbers because I was big enough that it SHOULD be dropping. Well I guess the thing heard me because... drum roll please... since Monday (today is Thursday for reference if this is read a year from now) it is down 5 lbs. I have literally lost 15 pounds in 24 days. I know what you may be thinking.. "Re .. what are you doing? Did you change your calories to too low?" the answer is no.. no I didn't. I will tell you exactly what I did. On Monday by accident I didn't eat breakfast until 10 am. and it got me to thinking. I wasn't really hungry in the morning so why was I force feeding myself and I was already only using 3 tablespoons of coconut almond creamer in my coffee, so why not cut that out and drink it black and start eating every day at 10. So I looked up intermittent fasting with Keto and this is what I found. That most people do a 16:8 in that they don't eat for 16 hours and have a 8 hour window of eating, but for beginners it is perfectly acceptable to start a 12:12 but I went for the 14:10. I also read up on Keto, IF, and my age (yes that is a factor I am facing) and again it fits. Women my age and my unfortunate round shape have been wildly successful by just making a time window in which to eat. I just eat my same amount of food and meals in that time frame, not going to lie about it some days it is hard to eat crunched together like that because you feel like you are constantly eating, but so far I have not felt over full. I will let you know how that progresses. I have also slowly been adding my vitamins and supplements back into my daily routine based on recommendations, as well as what I learned from the Money Plan, I believe they are also helping over all.
Jeeze Re.. how the hell can you type so much.. Sorry this got longer than I thought it would.. but Full Disclosure right? Why I said it took me a few minutes to figure out what to write about is because I knew all along what I needed and should share but I just didn't want to, but on my post February 27th it was about Full Disclosure and my weight, and I posted pics. I have taken pics every week since and I have kept them to myself, yesterday I shared them with .. I have no idea what to call her.. my little earth angel I suppose, and she saw the same things I did. (again not believing in myself as much as I should) So today in an effort to fully disclose it all again this is where I was.. and this is where I am. That day.. the 27th the scale showed 250 (good lord that was hard to type) the sadder part about that was two days later I got on the scale and it was higher than that. I didn't change my way of eating for another 10 days and no, I don't know what the scale said on the day I chose Keto. The pics were taken a month and 4 days from the pics I took yesterday. That weight was a month and 5 days from what I weighed this morning, even though the number is high this morning it was 235, yes the scale is accurate, I tested it (there is that non belief thing again) I believe you will also be able to see the changes physically, not just those numbers.
So here I am celebrating my small victories along this journey. The scale is moving, the appearance is changing, the performance is strengthening and this is working. Yes I am friggin proud of myself. So very proud, in just a few days I will have been doing Keto for a complete month, I have stayed strong, and truly do not feel that my way of eating is restrictive in anyway. I know along the line tweaks will need to be made to jumpstart and rejolt the system because that is just how our bodies work, they settle in and refuse to budge, but I am already aware and prepared for this, so as not to allow a plateau to derail the whole train.
My biggest fear today... April. Not even 8 hours in and it feels so heavy... I ask you a favor, if you see me wavering, if you see me not journaling, if you see me not working out, check in, because it is a sure sign that I am not in any way shape or form ok.
Signing off today with this, are there areas in your life that you can celebrate the small victories, or do they feel so insignificant that you brush them off? Take a few minutes today and try to find the things in yourself that you should be proud of.
Peace, Love and Light
Re
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