Posts Tagged ‘perseverance’
The difference of one year
Posted on: July 3, 2013
It didn’t, and still doesn’t, feel like much has changed, physically in a year. Here’s proof that I and my dear friend over at Road to Recovery have both changed. Now, if only there were a way to see the mental and emotional changes that occurred too!!
taken July 2012
taken June 2013
I posted this on my facebook page so I thought I’d share it with you lovely people. The “after” is from this mornings workout.
The week before the “challenge”
Posted on: May 28, 2013
This weekend I didn’t eat clean, didn’t eat bad. I was mindful but I was also letting myself indulge. And every single time I did, I felt like crap afterwards. This is a good thing. I want to remember why these foods are “bad” for my system.
Being the week before my Whole30 challenge, I am using it to get my shopping list together, arrange the pantry, freezer and fridge so it’s friendlier for what I am about to do, and mentally prepare. My nutritional intake will be on point, and will be 80-90% clean. I’m hoping this will make the transition into the challenge less “shocking” on my system. My psychological system that is…
Just as a reference point:
Addiction – (broadly) persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be physically, psychologically, or socially harmful
I’ve got addiction that are not food related, and for the sake of this blog I will list a couple of them. Smoking (broken!!), sugar, simple carbs, weighing in on the scale (broken!!), and compulsive spending. If you’ve been reading my blog since the scale challenge you know how hard of an addiction that had become for me. Its results determined my outlook for the entire day!! I now weigh in once a week, but take into account numerous other factors as well as what non-scale victories I’ve had recently. If you have no idea what challenge I’m talking about head over here to catch up. When it came to quitting smoking, I knew the only way for me to succeed was to quit cold turkey. I couldn’t ease out of it. So far so good, as I haven’t had a cigarette since March 2013. As for the compulsive spending, Link and I have set up a separate checking account for monies not included in bills and fixed expenditures and are basically utilizing an envelope system to help me break that one. Now, I’m hoping, the Whole30 Challenge will help break my addiction and cravings for sugar and simple carbs. Time will tell….
You don’t need to share your addictions with me but I’m curious to know if you’ve found any particular way to help stop them….
Workout pictures!!
Posted on: May 28, 2013
I don’t get to post many of these because, well, I’m the one working out! Nick was nice enough to get these for me. I did have a slight injury to my left groin area after working out on Saturday. It was bad enough I had to cut the training short, but it’s doing much better now. At my training I made sure to tell Nick if it was being bothered or not and we adjusted the exercise as necessary.
He’s got me doing all sorts of exercises, but the pictured ones below are just a straight leg dead lift and lunges. The step is there because I can go further than my toes and deeper in my lunges thanks to my flexibility. And thanks to my flexibility and Nick knowing how flexible I am, he makes me get the FULL range of motion when working out. I hear “go deeper” or “further down” almost every time I train with him. (Keep your dirty thoughts to yourself!!)
In any case, here are the pictures as promised!
Wanna know what else is cool?? Or at least I think it is…
See the bulge in the middle of my hamstring? That is apparently the “bicep femoris.” Bicep makes you think of your arm right? Two and two together… That muscle basically reacts like your arm bicep! And you can see mine now!! Yay.
And just for reference:
what a week!
Posted on: May 22, 2013
I had to take a week off! From what? Well, apparently everything! I ate what I wanted. I didn’t track any of it. I cried from the loneliness. I laughed with my kids. I worked my butt off at the gym. I sat on my butt at home. I did whatever I felt like. I didn’t blog any of it. I didn’t crochet. I did whatever the mood told me to do. I stayed up until after midnight numerous nights. When I was tired, I slept. It was just a week off.
Link is gone, again. Playing in the sandbox, so I’m back to missing him horribly. I had a baby maker scare right as he was leaving, but yay, no buns in this oven! (note – we do want more, just not yet… The littlest one is only 14 months old!!) I was literally finding every excuse in the book to justify what it was I was doing, be it for my own improvement, or more likely, when it wasn’t.
But the scare is over. My training has picked up again. Nick wants all my workouts to be super-secret spy stuff so we can shock the world with my massive improvements. LOL Not really, but we are keeping the workouts under wraps for the time being. Just know, he’s quite literally working my booty off and up! Even with this past week being crap as far as my diet was concerned, I am still really excited to take and post my progress pictures. I think I’m supposed to do them again next weekend. Since I don’t like the actual action of taking the pictures, I’m only doing them monthly.
I thought I would show a quick little progress picture. My family took some pictures last July 2012 and we just took some more while Link was here. I’m quite happy with how everyone has improved. 🙂
July 2012
May 2013
Getting results
Posted on: May 16, 2013
I remember once passing a mirror while I was still living in Texas and needing to do a double take. I sat and analyzed myself. How did I let myself get so unhealthy? When did I stop caring?
Of course I banked on the excuse, well, I just had a baby x months ago! Of course I’d have a little extra fluff. But staring at myself that day, there were no excuses. I hated what I saw. I hated how I felt. I had to change or my family’s tendencies for diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and a slew of other things would be knocking on my door much sooner than I’d ever be ready for. A doctor had once told me that I was pre-diabetic, but not to worry about. She said it was probably caused by not really watching what I had been eating for the previous few days. We decided I would watch my diet over the course of two weeks and come back to see if there were any changes. I was scared enough that I ate supremely well. I got more blood drawn and low and behold, no problems. GREAT!
You’d think that would scare me onto the right path. Nope. I went right back to my old ways and sat looking at myself in that mirror. Depressed and resenting all the choices I had made that had gotten me to what I was seeing on that day.
That was over a year ago now.
Since then, I have lost over 40 pounds, I’m back to endurance training and can run 3-5 miles without huffing and puffing the whole way. I’m strength training for numerous reasons. I’ve lost over 5 inches from my hips alone! I’ve got a ton of energy (most days) and I sleep soundly when I’m supposed to. My body fat has dropped from somewhere around 35% (although I’m not positive of this) to roughly 24%.
I still have moments that I get upset I don’t have amazing results. But then I think, what I’ve accomplished in one year IS amazing! I need to (consistently) remind myself that I have made some serious changes to my life. Yes, the scale is stuck and possibly glued to a certain number, but I know now that results are more than just what that scale says.
Results aren’t always as steadfast as numbers. Those are just the easiest indicators to find that you’re going in the right direction. Mood, sleep quality, energy…. how would you quantify that?
I no longer want to be skinny. I want to be strong, fit and healthy. My girls and my family see the changes in me and they have noted the positive effects they’ve had on me. I will never go back to that person I stared at over a year ago.
I took this picture yesterday at the gym. I can’t wait for more date nights to rock some heels with these calves 🙂
Happy Mom’s Day
Posted on: May 12, 2013
Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers. Not just the ones with little munchkins clawing at their legs for attention, but to those with four-legged babies, feathered babies, gilled babies, surrogate children (I know I have a few “moms” out there), and the mommas who may have lost their little ones early on. Although I do agree that Moms as a whole should be celebrated on a daily basis, because I mean seriously, WE’RE AWESOME, it takes the effect away.
By have a one day dedicated to mothers, it’s a day for momma’s to really enjoy being pampered for all we do. My daughter made a joke the other day: “Daddy, what does one daddy plus one daddy equal?” (We both had no idea where she was going with it…) Link: “I don’t know baby, what?” Ell: a Mommy!!!
I, of course, thought it was hilarious! It takes two daddies to do what one mommy does… yep, still giggling inside.
Before the rants start, there are some stellar dads out there, but hey, this is my day! 🙂
Anywho, back to becoming a better me. I was in a funk of a mood Friday and Saturday for a variety of reasons, one of them being that I wasn’t fueling myself properly. The types of food weren’t the best, but they definitely weren’t bad. The bigger problem was because I was moving moving moving this weekend, I just wasn’t getting enough of it.
I’m hoping this has to do with the shock my body has been going through since Nick changed my workouts. We’ve seriously upped the intensity of the workouts and I’m already noticing differences in my legs, it’s crazy! I’m loving every single, sweat dripping workout! I feel better prepared to tackle my dietary disciple issues because I’m working so hard at the gym. I don’t want to be my own success’s saboteur!
I did have to take it pretty easy as far as working out goes this weekend though. My arches have been killing me! I did some myofacial release on them to help alleviate the pain and it definitely helped. It’s much better today, but I think I’m still going to skip a run tomorrow and do another type of high intensity, low impact cardio. We will see. I pinned a bunch of new workouts I want to try on Pintrest! Oh, what’s that? You want to follow me on there?? Be my guest, you can find me right here!
Link will be going back to play in the sandbox for a few more months later on this week. I’m hoping to expend my lonely energies at the gym and just wait for the endorphins to help me through it. I will keep everyone posted as to how the week goes.
Oh, and black bean brownies are on the “to bake” list week. Pictures and review to come!
Hope you have a great week!
Um… Time to bare it…
Posted on: May 6, 2013
I have been taking before and after shots since I started working with Nick. Just recently I had a meltdown because I wasn’t seeing/feeling any different. I knew I was getting stronger, but I didn’t feel like I was getting any leaner. I was frustrated and complaining to both Link and Nick about it. Frustrated doesn’t even really come close to how I felt to be honest.
I am all for getting stronger. I have been promoting the benefits of lifting for some time now. I love the benefits I’ve been reaping thanks to lifting. I apparently still need some help to get over my mental road blocks. I still find myself turning to food to help deal with stress. I still see myself as “chubby” and I am very critical of myself.
Here are my original before and afters:
It took Tom pointing out the difference because I honestly could not see them. I see them now and feel crazy for not having seen it before. No, they’re not drastic, but they don’t need to be! It’s progress and that’s what I need to be concerned with!
I showed them to Nick as well. He made a valid point… I need to get out of the shorts! How am I going to see the progress in my legs if I’ve covered them up? I have always had major insecurities with the “thickness” of my legs and booty, which is why I put the shorts on. So, I’ve got new before pictures. In a triangle bikini no less. I took them last night and it was like some weird form of torture. I like being on the seeing side of the camera, not the seen. I cannot thank Link enough for helping me with them. I felt awkward and exposed. Not the best feeling in the world, let me tell you.
But, after looking at them, I can see even without pictures to compare them to, I know I’ve made progress. Of course there are things I don’t like. I’m trying really hard to not focus on those parts. In order to keep with the whole honesty idea of this blog, I’m sharing these pictures with you. And I may or may not be planning to compete in an ACTUAL fitness competition come September which is where the poses are coming from.
oh, and um, don’t mind my crazy, it’s way past my bedtime hair 😉
Most recent workout
Posted on: April 28, 2013
First and foremost: LINK IS HOME!!! His two week “vacation” started this morning, so I was crazy getting the house and kids ready, which is more or less the reason I haven’t posted much in the past week (ish).
Now, onto blog business. A quick update with my “no scale” challenge. It’s been hard. Honestly. I hate not knowing how much I weigh. At one point, a couple of weeks ago, Nick wanted to get my stats, so I found out then what my weight was, and seriously, it was like getting taking a huge breath after you’ve been underwater to that point just before you know you might want to consider coming up for air. I haven’t looked since though. I’m starting to feel the “itch” though. LOL May 4th is the day my scale comes back out. One more week.
On Friday Nick decided it was a good day to work my entire back half. Wow. Lots of dead lifts. Lots and lots of dead lifts. I was actually able to do 185 pounds, whereas last week I could only do 165 pounds. 20 pound difference in a week? I’ll take it! I try to tell myself those are the numbers that matter, even if it doesn’t sink in every time.
We also did some ab work on the TRX. It’s a great training area/device/contraption/torture device if you can find the right form. Some of the exercises are a bit hard to find the right form, at least for me they are, but I think that’s what I’m going to start working on because I really do like how it works.
I’ve included a couple of pictures that Nick took while I was working with cables and while on the TRX.
—Take care of your body, it’s the only one you have!
If not for the skinny jeans... 