Finally Getting Fit

SW: 262
LW: 260
CW: 260

I have officially been exercising and all that good stuff for one week! Woohoo!

This week I am focused less on weight and a lot more on everything I have accomplished. As I said to Mr. JM this weekend, “I feel like I am in such a good place right now.”

And that pretty much sums it up. I’m working, exercising, cooking, cleaning… Things aren’t really balanced at the moment, but I feel like I’m walking with the flow of life instead of fighting upstream like usual.

The lack of a change from last week to this week is disappointing on one level, but I’m not concerned about it. First, I’m still on TOM technically so I’m probably still retaining water. Second, my body is probably still getting used to this level of exercise and is probably retaining water for that reason as well.

So it’s all good!

There is another issue happening that could be keeping me from losing weight, but I’m still debating whether or not that subject is just way too much information to be talking about on this blog.

I really feel like I have finally found the exercise routine that works for me. I’m someone who gets bored pretty easily, so spending half and hour on a treadmill doesn’t quite work for me. With the routine I’ve put together, I’m moving around, incorporating different types of exercise and I’m not doing anything long enough to become bored.

Woohoo!

I’d love to be to 256 by my wedding anniversary (May 5th) but we’ll see if that actually happens.

I hope everyone out there is feeling great and accomplishing wonderful things.

Well, in my time zone it’s actually day six and I’ve already done my morning and lunch time exercises. But I don’t think that’s a big deal.

Things are going great and I’m so incredibly happy with myself. I thought doing all this with TOM going on would make things extra difficult, but it really hasn’t. I can’t tell you just how happy I am.

I keep saying to Mr. JM, “I know I’ve only been doing this for x days, but…”

The ‘but’ is followed by how happy I am, the little successes I’ve had with resisting temptations, how my view of myself is improving etc.

A little voice in the back of my mind keeps telling me this excitement will end. I’m a ‘starter’ by nature. Let me start things up, get them going and you can take them from there. That little voice has been reminding me a lot about that and has also been reminding me about the times in the past when I’ve gotten off to an exciting start only to trip up.

But the thing is, I reckon I need to embrace the enthusiasm for no matter how long it lasts. Who cares if I’m a starter? That’s a part of life. I just need to learn to be a runner when my enthusiasm for starting starts waning.

Do I sound crazy yet? Hehe.

I really am just very happy right now. I haven’t skipped any exercise sessions, I’ve completely cut alcohol, I haven’t even thought about chocolate (though I usually ‘need’ it at this time), I’m looking even closer at labels and – AND! – I’m cooking more.

Everything is looking up, and it all started with finding the exercise routine that is right for me.

Woot!

Today is only day three of my new exercise regime and I am incredibly sore. The combination of stretching, yoga, cardio and weights has me hitting pretty much all of my muscles.

The weird thing is most muscles recover quite well. As in, I don’t feel too much of the soreness until I go to do the exercises again. I’m not sure that is a good thing, but I’m taking it that way. I’m sore enough with the other places (especially right above my boobs and just inside the shoulder area on my chest – ow!) to be grateful for any reprieve.

Another strange thing is that I’m already noticing a change in my mood. I know exercise is a good mood enhancer, but I didn’t expect it to work this quickly! I know it’s partially because I’m teaching myself that even day two or day three in a row is something to be very proud of. But there’s more to it.

I’m not going to question. I’m just going to smile…

The best thing about all this exercise? Well, it should be my feelings of pride and all that good stuff, but it isn’t. Not right now, anyway. The best part right now is that I am enjoying the best nights’ sleeps I have had in weeks. I hit the pillow and I am out into deep, blissful sleep.

Sleep problems have been a pain in my arse for most of the month until this week. I knew exercise would be the trick that switched things around. Unfortunately, I need to go to sleep earlier because I’m so exhausted, but it doesn’t matter. I’m sleeping well!

Things are good. Very good. I’m going to make it this time.

When I was talking to Mr. JM the other day about how I am going to get back into exercise slowly and how I was pretty sure I couldn’t last twenty minutes straight anymore, we got to talking about why I stopped exercising.

The biggest reason was the recurrence of mono, of course. However, the seeds of discouragement had been planted a few days before the virus took me down.

When I first went to see my doctor at the women’s clinic, I proudly told her that I could go twenty minutes on the elliptical without stopping. Sure, I was a bit shaky afterwards, but I could go twenty minutes and I was damn proud of that fact.

Then my doctor told me that ‘twenty minutes is nothing’ and that I needed to be doing and hour to an hour and a half of exercise.

Of course, all the times in my life when I’d been proud of something and nobody cared or it wasn’t good enough crashed back down on me. And, as I told my husband, I just lost the will when I perceived my best to not be good enough.

Mr. JM got angry at that and asked, “Well, could she do twenty minutes on the elliptical?”

I smiled. My doctor certainly could not, being a heck of a lot shorter and rounder than me. But in her mind, because she put in the right time amount, she was doing better than I was.

Mr. JM shook his head at the silliness of it. “The thing most doctors are missing these days is that diet and exercise is extremely personal.”

Of course, he’s right. One size never fits all in the health world and I’d just forgotten that fact.

My next appointment is mid-May (the long wait is because she wants to see how I take to being back on birth control), and I am more prepared for this appointment. I am already steeling myself to remember that something is better than nothing and building up from a little is more sustainable that trying for the whole thing the first time.

Because I’m exercising now and that’s awesome because exercise is something I avoided most of my life. Putting any effort is a step up from the way I used to be.

I rock. So there.

Hehehe.

Well, it’s a week late, but that’s okay, right?

I went to my series of appointments (endocrinologist, dietitian, ‘Big Girls Group’ nurse) bright and early, still somehow managing to only *just* make it in time.

The first appointment was interesting. Dr. P is a woman who knows where I’m coming from - she’s overweight and has struggled with her weight all her life. She’s a no-nonsense kind of gal and urged me to start now while I’m young because it hurts a lot more to get started when you’re forty… According to her, my eating habits are quite crap right now and I need to get at least an hour of exercise in a day. *gulp*

The second appointment with the dietitian, Dr. G, was equally interesting. She said that I have a good start with my eating habits - a big gold star for how much I eat/love veggies - but I have to work on portion control and evening out how much I eat over the course of the day.

The nurse for The Big Girls Group (women with PCOS trying to lose weight) was equally as awesome. She didn’t ask about my diet, but she did tell me about the group, the program, my goals, etc. She also said that a minimum of forty minutes exercise is a great place to start.

Dr. P put me on a progesterone pill to get my TOM started and then it’s back on the Pill for me. (Fun, fun.) I go back to see her in May.

Dr. G said I didn’t need to see her if I was going to be in TBBGroup. Well, that’s before I knew that TBBG costs $300 to join, not to mention train tickets every Tuesday and Thursday for over four months. Sigh. I’ve been calling and trying to make an appointment with her, but I’ll probably have to make a special trip into Melbourne to take care of it.

The fantastic news is that, according to their scales, I’m ten pounds lighter than my home scale is weighing me at. Cool beans!

The awesome news is that I’m doing decently so far.

The bad news is that we can’t do $300 for the group (plus train ticket purchases). We could put it on credit card, but I don’t want to.

The bad bad news is that tomorrow is my last day of progesterone pills and there is not even a squiggle in the stomach sign that my TOM is coming.

So that’s where I’m at.

Recently a friend took my husband and me out to lunch as a thank you for my husband fixing his computer. We went to a lovely little place that has excellent food. (Seafood salad for me! Yum!)

The conversation wandered through many things – especially the heat – and eventually we got to exercise and fitness.

He mentioned people he and my husband used to work with and how they would sit all day at their desk, never moving. Lunch got ordered in. Snacks were in ample supply stuffed in desk drawers. He mentioned how he sees those people who are younger than him and yet aren’t have as healthy as he is. And yet, most of them would be if they just attempted to move around and eat healthier.

Being the most overweight one at the table, I figured I’d jump in. I told him how frustrating it can be to hear people complain about their weight-related pains when you just saw them eat a chocolate éclair. Whereas I’m putting effort in and nothing is happening.

He told me (what I’ve heard a million times), “It all comes down to how much you take in and how much you exercise.”

We talked a little bit longer after that point, but I quieted down. I wanted to tell him that no, that’s not all there is to it for some people.

But I couldn’t.

I don’t want “it’s a hormone problem” to be my excuse, even though that is what everything has been pointing to so far. I don’t want to utter those words because I don’t want people to think I have or ever will give up. I know people who have given up. I know people who have convinced themselves that “it’s out of their hands” while they reach for the next bloody chocolate.

My husband stepped in and mentioned how I’m going to the clinic in a fortnight because it appears that there is something more going on that is messing with things. My husband is wonderful like that.

The conversation changed soon after that, but I couldn’t help but wonder if our friend thought I was just another one of those people blaming my weight on everything but myself…

In trying to live a healthier lifestyle, having control of my body with my mind is something I have often struggled with.

Often people think of their mind and their body as one, which isn’t true. Even modern science shows us that we – spirit/soul/consciousness – are not our bodies. Our bodies just happen to be our physical cars, so to say. We go above and beyond, thus, we can greatly benefit from learning to associate the body with being a tool instead of our ‘self’.

This probably doesn’t make a lot of sense at this point…

I am slowly becoming more in tune with my body as a way to determine the difference between the times I want to eat and the times I need to eat. My body lets me know in very specific ways that my blood sugar is low, but I used to not pay attention and lumped all the need/want times together. All that resulted in is me eating too much too often.

When I began to teach myself to control my body as a tool, I began to learn to distinguish between the needs and the wants. Now, when I have a want time, I just remind myself, “I am in control of this body and I will determine when I eat.”

Another example is my time on the elliptical. Learning to treat my body as a tool rather than my ‘self’ has helped me to be a lot more productive in terms of my exercise.

There are plenty of times when I don’t feel like doing my exercise for the day. Or there are times when I’m on the elliptical and I feel like getting off early. Those are the times when I remind myself that I am not my body and it is only my body – not my ‘self – that doesn’t want to go on the elliptical.

All I do then is remind myself who is in control.

Of course, it’s not always easy. Sometimes with the exercise, I have given in. But more and more, with practice, I am finding I have an increasing amount of control and will power over what I physically do.

A great way to start training yourself in this way is sitting meditation or just pushing yourself that extra minute when you’re exercising. YOU can do it because YOU are in control.

I found this video in some of my random internet wanderings…

Didn’t catch on? Didn’t catch on?! Aaah! I have wanted something like this for such a long time. And just now, my husband informed me that they even have Bluetooth ones that have a wristwatch you can look at as well.

*POUT*

Can we say Christmas present? I don’t need to Bluetooth stuff, but I’d love to have a pedometer attached to my shoe rather that something I wear on my hip. The hip ones are fine, but…

In other news, I had my first workout on the elliptical. Besides the machine needing a bit of lubricant, everything went fine! I am so proud that I actually lasted five minutes. It was a slow five minutes that didn’t burn a whole lot of calories, but I estimated lasting about two minutes.

I feel a bit strange about having such a big mood change by just getting an elliptical, but I’m not going to question it! And, like I predicted, with all the statistics stuff I can keep track of, I am totally in love. Yummy, yummy.

I’m keeping track of all sorts of things and am hoping to see noticeable improvement by the end of the month. Of course, weight loss would be great as well, but I’m concentrating on fitness rather than weight until I get to a doctor who can address the hormone problem side of things. (I’ll hopefully be getting to that later.)

Like I said before: remind me of all this enthusiasm when I’m all sore and grumpy!

Ignore the mess in the background – our tiny spare room has been the storage room for many months now and I have yet to completely clean it up.

Say hello to my new elliptical! I finally have it and I am so happy. (Who wouldn’t be after months of talking about it?)

This lovely piece of equipment has all the usual elliptical stuff including a digital screen with pulse monitor, different workout levels, calorie/distance/time/etc monitors… It even has a recovery mode so you can find out how long it takes you to recover from exercise.

Being a numbers and statistics woman, I’m going to be in heaven.

This is the bottom (obviously). The elliptical foot pedals can be unscrewed and moved back so the machine turns into a stepper. That was one of the selling points for me – a machine that does two things that will kick my bum.

I am under no illusions that exercising now has to be really consistent for me. I have to put in the time and effort because we had to save a long time for this. There are plenty of other things we could have used the money for, so to not get the full benefit of having the machine in the flat would be silly.

I’m going to try to start out slow and steady so I don’t hurt myself.

I’m really just so happy to finally have it. Unlike my gym membership, this is something that is the epitome of convenient exercising and is something that my husband can use as well.

Just remind me of how happy I was in a couple days when I’m moaning about how sore I am, okay?

What an eventful few days. Where to start…

Well, I’ll start with the fact it’s actually a holiday weekend here. On Tuesday we have ‘the race that stops the nation’ which is a horse race like no other. People across Australia party, bet on horses and otherwise have a lot of fun. Most of the people in Victoria get Tuesday off.

My husband surprised me by taking Monday off, so we whisked away to western Australia for a mini-vacation of sorts. It was one of those trips where you don’t have a timeline and just go wherever you feel like. We ended up in a nice small town and met some interesting people.

The weekend was a bit emotional, however, because I haven’t been feeling my best. About two weeks ago I started on with a headache. Later on came a bit of tiredness, nausea, soreness and other sorts of fun things. We can to wonder – despite the near impossibility of it – if perhaps I was pregnant.

Maybe it’s silly or stupid for me to think that I could possibly get pregnant with all of the health issues I have going on right now, but I did believe in that chance and took a test. It was negative, as I knew it had to be, but I was still upset. Naturally.

However, if I think about it rationally – though being rational isn’t my strong suit today – I remind myself that my body is certainly not as healthy as it should be for a normal pregnancy. I am reminded that there are still issues I need to deal with because I wanted to turn to food for comfort. I didn’t, but the want was still there.

And so, this week I take off from weighing in and Monday Mailbag. I need the break. I need to get back to the stricter diet my naturopath worked out, need to make an appointment with a gynecologist and I need to get started on my new elliptical…

Hi all. Is it the weekend yet? Hehe.

For this week’s Monday Mailbag, I asked…

“It’s not surprising that we sometimes get down or disheartened on our journey to get fit. What counts is how you deal with the times you’re feeling down or have fallen off the bandwagon. It’s about getting back up and back to it, but that’s a bit easier said than done. So it’s good to have ‘methods of defense’ prepared for when those times do come around.

What do you do to break bad moods?”

This is actually one I didn’t know if I would be able to answer very well because one of the reasons I asked is I’m going through one of those bad mood times. Perhaps answering this will help me with it…

1. Exercise. This might be a strange one, but I have found getting out and about walking has helped a lot when I feel myself on that downhill mood swing.
2. Shopping. How stereotypically womanly of me, but even just going out and buying groceries has been helpful as a bad mood buster.
3. Cuddling with my husband. Sometimes there’s nothing like being held by someone you love and letting yourself accept that you’re not feeling your best at the moment.
4. Watching movies. Or television shows. Either way, the brain drain can be nice once in a while.
5. Reading ‘fluff’. I love a good, fluffy romance or women’s fiction novel – especially in those times I don’t have a lot of female friends to talk to.

Well, there is my list. I hope you find it helpful. If you have any bad mood buster tips, be sure to leave them in the comments!

Though I had heard many time that you have to do weight-bearing exercise as well as cardio to have healthy weight loss, I didn’t much see the point of it. All I knew was that when I started at the gym and was doing the weight exercises as well as cardio, I wasn’t losing weight. (I wasn’t losing weight for other reasons, but I didn’t realize that at the time.)

Then I went to the naturopath in August and started losing weight. I kept up with light cardio, but I wasn’t doing weight exercises. I didn’t think much about it until a few weeks later.

I noticed that my body shape was changing. I still had weight on me, of course, but I began to notice the real difference between fat and flab.

It may seem like a silly thing, but there really is a difference. Without weight (aka muscle building) exercises, my skin and muscles weren’t tightening up to compensate for the weight I was (am) losing.

It may have taken a while, but I finally get why you have to pull the weight as well as lose it.

(Yeah… Bad joke… I tried. No throwing tomatoes.)

My problem areas are the ever-so-common ‘chicken wings’ on my arms as well as my stomach area. It’s time to start doing sit ups and arm exercises with my hand weights, huh?

Despite the work involved in dealing with these things, I’m glad to finally be at the point where I need to start incorporating the different types of exercise to get the results I want.

I’m actually getting things done on time today! Well, catching up and now getting the current things done on time anyway.

This week’s question:

“If weight loss was easy, then no one would be fat.” – One of my friends said that, but that person will have to forgive me because I can’t quite remember who it was at this moment.

Getting fit certainly is certainly not the easiest thing you are going to do in your life. We all take on the challenge in different ways and sometimes have to fight different battles. Personally, I usually have to battle my own mind and sometimes lack of confidence when it comes to making my goals. I keep winning that battle, though, and I keep losing weight.

What battles have you fought and won on your journey to get fit?

I have quite a few battles in the realm of getting fit, many of which repeat. Which sucks, but such as life.

The biggest battle I have fought and won recently is the belief that I just couldn’t lose weight. I had tried everything, it seemed. Even exercise and healthy eating just didn’t seem to be doing anything for me. It didn’t help that the psychological factors weren’t exactly up to par.

It turns out it is just a matter of finding what works for you – even if it takes years to do so. Diets, non-diets, changing habits one at a time, detoxing first… You may have to go through a lot of them to find out what works, but it’s worth it.

Thankfully I was able to find something to smack me on the behind and say, “Hey! You can lose weight!”

The time is coming…. Unfortunately, Mr. JM and I can’t afford to get the elliptical we want this weekend (pout) but in a couple weeks (next pay) it’s going to be ‘elliptical, here we come!’ I’m very excited about getting the elliptical. Excited enough to make a list about it…

Thirteen Reasons I’m Getting An Elliptical

1. We found a reasonably priced one. (The first ones we looked at were over $1000 AUD. We’ve found ones that are less than half that.)

2. I’ve fallen in love with one particular machine. We went down to the showroom and I found one that I wanted to take home that day.

3. It’s forcing me and the husband to clean up the spare room. More fitness and it’s about darn time we dealt with that visual wreck.

4. It’s a home machine and that works great for my work-at-home lifestyle.

5. It’s a home machine - both the hubby and I can use it! (Unlike my gym membership.)

6. It’s a one-off cost instead of a monthly thing.

7. Non-impact running/walking! Great in general but extra great for hubby’s dodgy knees.

8. The model I love converts into a stair-stepper. Yum. Tight bum, here I come.

9. You can run/walk forward or in reverse, smoothly working all your muscles.

10. The elliptical is the one affordable machine that well and truly kicked my behind at the gym.

11. It’s not only great for your legs and bum, it’s good for your abs, too. Learning to use it without holding onto the handle bars gets you tensing tour abs.

12. It’s long but not particularly wide, so it’s not going to take up as much room as other machines.

13. One machine for working most of your body. What more could you ask for?

Check out my other Thursday Thirteen at Write Anyway

I do the bullets list on a couple of my other sites as well every once in a while. It helps me out when I have a bunch of little things to say that don’t make full posts on their own. So…

*I found a site that has free fitness logs that you can print off (via links to other sites). Kind of a link hub of sorts.

*I’ve realized that just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Pout.

*It’s not always easy to spot, so just in case you missed it, I do have a links list on the right. Just scroll down a little bit past the site description. (I don’t get to pick where the list goes…)

*Do any of you have recommendations for ‘busy women’ or ‘at home’ workouts? I really need to work more non-machine exercising while we’re still saving for a machine.

*Speaking of, I could use some new tunes to help get me moving as well. If you have any recommendations of your favourite workout music, let me know. I’d love to check some new songs out.

*Do you think rewards are necessary to keeping on track? I realized a couple days ago that I don’t have a rewards system set up for when I meet my goals. I’d like to have special things planned, but I’m not sure if it’s actually going to help me all that much in the end. Something to ponder, if you’re in the mood for pondering.

I hope everyone is having a great week so far. I’m wishing you a lot of motivation, energy, and support on your getting fit journey.