July musings

July was a difficult month for me.

When I weighed in on July 1, I was thrilled with my weight. You know how sometimes you'll weigh in, and it's suddenly a lot lower than it's been, and then the next day, you're back up again? That was my July 1 weight. All month long, I was very good with my eating and exercise. But, a day or two after my July 1 weight, I suddenly gained 3 lbs, and nothing I could do would shake it.

I was getting really, really upset about the whole thing, and then finally decided to just let it go and stop worrying about it. The weight slowly dropped off, but I could tell that actually having a neutral or negative number would be a miracle.

I finally did the weigh in for Aug 1, and it was exactly the same. So, July was a big fat 0 for weight loss. I was relieved not to have a gain.

When I got comparing my July pic with my Aug pic, I think that maybe I am a little thinner. My number on the scale is the same, but I think I did lose fat and gain muscle. So maybe it wasn't a total waste.

If nothing else, I'm proud of myself for sticking with it, and not giving up.

Camping Trip

I just got home from a couple of days of camping. All in all, it was a lot of fun. We went with several friends, and they were such a hoot to be around. Our kids played in the water almost nonstop. You'd think they wouldn't have been *AS* dirty when they got home, but they were amazingly filthy.

I felt like I ate fairly healthy, except that I know I drink way more soda than I should when camping. I also took a hike. It was just about a mile long, and went up over 600 feet in that mile, which seems like a pretty good climb to me.

My husband took a picture of me at the top. I'm a little sad that I'm not happier with how I look in it.
All I can focus on is how big my stomach looks.

dehydrated?

*WARNING* A/C is out in my house, and I am overtired, hot, and incredibly cranky. If you do happen to actually read this blog, proceed at your own risk. *WARNING*

So, this month, I've been trying to work on drinking more water, as Karilynn suggested as the monthly "project".

I started drinking way more water, and immediately gained 2.5 lbs. It will not go away. So, here I am, more than halfway through the month, and I am heavier than I was on 7/1. I've been eating well- spacing my meals out well, getting proper nutrition and calories. I've been exercising a lot as well. I've gone three hikes that according to MFP, burned 1000 calories. Each. Two times a week at kickboxing. My fat percentage is down at least 1-2% from the beginning of the month. The damn scale just won't move.

In a twist of irony, I actually feel thinner. I bought a pair of shorts a couple weeks ago, and they definitely fit looser. For the first time, somebody aside from my husband noticed my weight loss. I'm down almost 15 lbs from Christmastime, and I finally had someone notice. Win!

So, I think that's all encouraging. I keep on with my good habits because, lucky for me, they ARE habits at this point. I'm also hoping that perseverance will win out, and eventually I'll break through this. My fat percentage is down, and that's really encouraging. I haven't seen it this low in at least 5 years.

However, I have to be honest. I'm frustrated because I am in this competition and this competition is about numbers- pounds lost, percentage of weight loss, etc. I can see some positive changes, but by the standards we use to judge for this contest, I'm failing. I'm not totally hung up on numbers, but it's tough to have this measure me as a failure.

I am also feeling a little bit, "nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I'll go eat worms" because we're now 6 weeks into this competition, and in that six weeks, I've only had two people from the competition comment on my posts. It's a mixture of emotions though- part of me really wants to be kind of hiding in a corner, and I'm glad that nobody is saying anything. On the other hand, am I really that boring?

A much needed reality check

Today we had a family reunion. That could be stressful enough (though in this case, I happen to like my family, so that part wasn't a big deal). But, the reunion took place at a big waterpark. You know what that means.

(cue scary, suspenseful music)

Swimming suits.

I had a moderate amount of anxiety about appearing out in public in a swimming suit. Lucky (?) for me, that anxiety was outweighed by trying to chase four kids around said CROWDED waterpark alone. Husband was helping his parents move.

Once I got there and did some people watching, I realized that I've been spending too much time watching beaches/pools and the women there on tv instead of real life. On tv and magazines, everybody looks perfect. Perfect figures, no lumps, no bulges, no cellulite.

Guess what? Real life is NOT like that. In fact, of all the women I saw today, the one with the best body wouldn't have shown up in any tv show or magazine ad.

I know it's not good or healthy to compare myself to others, but I can't help it. I did. I found that when I compared myself to other women over 30 who were mothers, my body wasn't nearly as awful as I thought it was. In fact, I felt pretty good about it by the time I left. Sure, my stomach is still a train wreck, and will continue to be a train wreck even after I lose weight. My bikini days are over, at least until I get a tummy tuck.

But, today wasn't nearly as bad as I envisioned.

Best of all, we left the water park unscathed. No drownings, no kidnappings, no molestations, no sunburns. It was a great day.

Month 1- Finished

Ok, I've gotta admit to mixed feelings on this. On one hand, HOLY COW!!!! I lost SIX POUNDS in one month. For me, that is huge. I've never lost that much in a month unless a hospital visit was involved. I was, and am, so proud of that loss. This is also the least I've weighed in a couple years, so I'm very excited about that as well.

On the other hand, part of me was a little disappointed that I wasn't in the top three. I never had any expectations to be first, or even second place. But I thought maybe I could squeeze in for third. Without seeing any other percentages than the top three, I will say that I was less than a pound from being in third place. That's pretty darn close. When I started this competition, I didn't really expect to ever place in the top three. Definitely not first place for any of the months. But, when I weighed in this morning and saw such a great number, I'll admit to being a bit hopeful that maybe a bronze was in my future. So, yeah. I am disappointed.

Maybe that is one of my problems- that I never really *expect* to have good weight loss results. I think positive thinking really does make a difference. My latest diet effort has been going since around Dec. 20. I've lost a total of 14 lbs since then. Six of those have been this month. I was stuck for most of April and May at one weight. I think I've finally pushed past that plateau and will start losing again. I wonder if maybe our bodies get comfortable at certain weights, and we have to really fight to get past them. I remember weighing 144-145 for a long time, and that's where I got stuck in April, then gained a couple lbs on vacation, and didn't lose them. I don't really remember weighing anywhere from 137-143 for any length of time, so I'm hoping maybe I'll drop through there pretty quickly.

I think making myself spread my calories through the day and eating most of my exercise calories has helped. I've definitely felt more satisfied and full and fulfilled.

PMS and weight loss

Do you find that you gain weight just before or during AF time?

I've found that I tend to gain 2-4 lbs right around that time of the month. It's really frustrating when I'm actively trying to lose weight. I feel like I'm being so good, and suddenly my weight creeps up, and there's nothing I can do about it. Being already hormonally crabby doesn't help my mind set either.

One big problem I think I'm going to have with this competition is that I'm set to be in that pre-period bloat right around each weigh in. I know that it's going to frustrate me that when I do my "official" weigh in, I'm going to be 2-4 lbs heavier than I was a couple days earlier. I'm trying to mentally prepare myself for that. In general, I try to avoid weighing myself during that time because I know it will upset me, and it sometimes will sabotage me.

One thing I've wondered about is on Biggest Loser- those girls seem to lose weight every week, and don't seem to struggle with the PMS weight gain. Or maybe they do?

I'd love to spend a whole week at the Biggest Loser campus during a competition, just to see how things REALLY are, before all the editing. I'd love to see what their real workout schedule is like, how food prep really goes, how much they educating they do with the contestants about eating/food prep. They don't seem to show much of that.

Attempted murder!

There was a mass attempted murder at the gym today. Or, I learned a new swear word.

Tabata.

I showed up at the gym this morning, expecting my usual body pump class. I knew the instructor was in Cancun, and she would have a sub. But, I thought it would be more of the same. Oh, how wrong I was.

I knew this particular instructor who was subbing had a reputation for being really, really tough, but I've never actually worked with her. My first hint was when she had people put away any 3 lb weights because nobody needs that. Huh. Maybe we'll do fewer sets with heavier weights?

No. No no no no no no no no.

&^^$#%^%&^*&%*^&

She said she wanted this workout to be the toughest one we did all month. I can't speak for the others, but it certainly was for me.

I sweated during this class like I haven't in a weights class. Ever. My heart rate was definitely up. It definitely felt like I was getting cardio in as well. It felt a lot more effective than traditional weights, or even cardio, because I didn't hate it like I hate running.

After I got home and could move my arms again, I did some research on Tabata, and was really impressed with what I read. They've found that people who do the high intervals increased their aerobic AND anaerobic capacities significantly more than those who just did moderate cardio. I think I'm definitely going to try and incorporate this into my workouts more.

I've heard interval training is really good for me, but never did it more than one or two workouts. But, my intervals were nothing like this, so maybe that was the difference.