ready2bskinE

So much has happened the past several days! First of all, I found out that restricting carbs is NOT for me.  I’m sure tons of people have found success with that method of eating, but for me it just leads to over eating and junk food cravings.  So I will NEVER do that again!  My focus will be staying within a certain calorie count and choosing healthy foods that I enjoy. Who says lunch has to be chicken breast and green beans instead of whole grain pasta with chicken and veggies?  I know how to do healthy carbs, and I’m not ever going to restrict them again.  :)   It’s far too taxing on both my mind and my body!

Secondly, How do I even begin here? Basically, I’m planning to break up with running.  Yep, I’m leaving him.  I don’t have any other time to do my runs other than before sunrise, it’s just downright too cold!  I have ear aches from my Monday and Tuesday runs.  I got dressed to go out again this morning, but I just don’t see any point in putting myself through this.  So I’ve decided to join the ranks of seasonal runners.  I’ve thought this through, and while I will most definitely miss running and look forward with hope to the spring, I know that I can find other forms of cardio I’m sure to enjoy.  My husband is supposed to go get my boxing gear this weekend!  Yay!!  So that’ll help.  I have a step, a jump rope, and tons of DVD’s.  For today, I plan on taking the kids outside, and while they play I’m going to jump rope and do jumping jacks alternately.  If I give it enough time, it’s sure to burn at least as many calories as jogging.  It’s about time I switched it up a bit anyway….  My left ankle has been sore all week, and I don’t want to risk a serious injury.

I had also planned a lower body workout for today. Well, that’s what was on my schedule.  But I upped my normal weights for Monday’s lower body workout, and added a few new moves, and I’m so sore I can’t walk right!  My glutes… OMG  And my inner thighs.  I thought about still doing lower body but focusing more on my calves and quads, but since I’m basically sore all over and dragging my ass, I’m switching up to yoga, lots of stretching, and abs/back work, with my jumping around late this afternoon and a good stretch session again afterwards.

I’m not used to switching things up like this… I’m a Taurus, and that contributes to my natural tendency to just want to bull-headedly push through and go ahead with my plans, but I think when it comes to fitness, listening to my body is the smarter choice.

Ever wonder if some of the things you do on a daily basis could be making you gain fat?

Nine Sure-Fire Ways To Gain Fat

Some things you may already know but some of them may take you completely by surprise!
[ 1. ] Eating then sleeping will make you gain fat.

Did you know that sumo wrestlers eat then sleep on purpose to gain fat as quickly as possible? Your body doesn’t require as many calories during sleep and calories that are eaten right before sleep have a far greater chance of being stored as fat. In fact, it’s almost a certainty. This goes for afternoon naps and also applies to late-night eating. If you eat and then immediately sleep on a regular basis, you will gain fat.

[ 2. ] Skipping meals or not eating for long periods of time will make you gain fat.

But doesn’t skipping meals (most notably breakfast) save a lot of calories during the day? Sure, there’s a chance that it may. But consider this - skipping meals will slow your metabolism and you’ll get really hungry. With a metabolism that’s been slowed by not eating (particularly true of skipping breakfast), you’re going to store a lot more of that food as fat. It doesn’t matter if you’re eating a hamburger and fries or if you’re eating plain pasta and a chicken breast. Your metabolism will be sluggish and your body will want to store what you’re eating rather than use it.

Eat as soon after you wake up as possible (never more than an hour) to kick-start your metabolism for the day. Even if it’s just a small something you grab on the go, do it. It will get your metabolism going and ensure the food you eat later doesn’t get preferentially stored as fat.

	Breakfast With Danielle. Studies have shown that diets that include a large breakfast result in a significantly greater fat loss than diets that avoid it! [ Click here to learn more. ]

[ 3. ] Drinking soft drinks (even diet drinks) with fatty foods will make you gain fat.

• Find Fast Food Nutritional Facts Here…

A sugary soft drink will result in a high insulin response. Insulin is a storage hormone - it helps the body store carbohydrates, proteins and fats. There is also evidence to suggest that the artifical sweeteners commonly found in diet drinks can cause an insulin reaction in the body. It’s a simple reaction to the sweetness, not the carbs as there are no carbs in diet drinks. The body simply associates the taste of sweetness with the presence of carbs and assumes that carbs are present, increasing insulin levels in response.

What do you get when you have fatty foods in the presence of increased insulin levels? Simple. You get fat.

My advice is this: if you’re going to eat fatty foods (we all do it at some point or other), drink water, not soft drinks or even diet soft drinks. Save the diet drinks for times when you’re not eating fatty foods.

[ 4. ] Constant snacking on energy foods will make you gain fat.

I’m all for frequent eating to boost the metabolism and snacking on healthy foods is definitely not a bad thing. That’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about giving your body a constant supply of food energy. Consider this: if you give your body a constant supply of energy, it will not have a reason to dip into stored bodyfat for energy. You’ll never dip into the battery on your laptop computer if you leave it plugged in. The body is no different.

A constant supply of outside energy means it won’t have to use its own stored energy supplies. The result: you put on fat because the body doesn’t need to burn any of it for energy.

[ 5. ] Stress without physical exertion will make you gain fat.

The jury is not out on evolution. The human body evolved to deal with stress in certain ways. Before we became “civilized,” stress was all about fight-or-flight. Stress was that you were about to be eaten by a lion so you’d better run! In response, the body needed a mechanism for quick energy to be available and a system to help deal with shock and injury. It was all about survival.

The result? In stressful conditions, the body secretes cortisol - a hormone that immediately starts breaking down muscle tissue for fast energy (it also acts as an anti-inflammatory in case of injury; cortisone is a relative of cortisol).

These days, we very rarely have to worry about being eaten by pretty much anything. But the basic responses of the body can’t distinguish between that stress and the stress of, say, your boss taking away your treasured red stapler that you love so much and moving your desk to the basement.

In the past, stress would be immediately followed by physical exertion. You’d run as fast as you could from the lion or you’d fight off what was attacking you. Now, there is rarely physical exertion following stress so the cortisol is not dissipated. It continues to break down muscle and promote fat storage.

This is why constant stress without regular exercise will make you gain fat.

	Stress Can Make You Fat. Learn how stress can make you fat and how to prevent it. [ Click here to learn more. ]

[ 6. ] Toxic substances in your food will make you gain fat.

• Learn More About Mercury In Fish

Your body’s reaction to a toxic substance is simple: protection. There are two primary ways the body does this. First, it tries to flush the toxins out. If that fails, it will try to lock the toxins away. Think about it this way - what do nuclear power plants do with radioactive waste? They seal it in concrete and bury it. This is essentially the same thing your body does with toxins that you ingest. If it can’t get rid of them, it seals them up in fat cells and locks them away.

Have you ever experienced headaches or other general ill feelings when you’ve gone on a diet? This is typical and is a result of previously stored toxins being released into the body again as you burn or release fat. You are, in essence, unsealing the toxins and flushing them out. This is one of the primary reasons it’s critical to drink plenty of water when you’re losing fat.

Minimize foods that contain toxins such as preservatives, pesticides (wash your fruit and vegetables thoroughly), antibiotics, and heavy metals (such as the mercury increasingly found in some species of fish). Your body will protect itself by holding onto fat to lock the toxins away.

[ 7. ] Losing muscle mass will make you gain fat.

The engine of your metabolism is your muscle mass. This is where the majority of calories are burned in the body. If you go on a diet and you lose a lot of muscle, it is pretty much a guarantee you’ll gain the weight back (and often more!) and make it harder to lose fat again. If you don’t protect your muscle mass, the more you diet, the fatter you’ll get.

[ 8. ] Overconsumption of fructose will make you gain fat.

Even though fructose is a sugar found in fruit and fruit juice, please, please, please don’t take this point to mean that simply eating fruit is going to make you fat. It’s not. Here’s what I mean: Your body stores carbohydrates in the form of glycogen in the muscles and in the liver. When your body needs energy, it breaks the glycogen down into sugar (glucose) for use in various bodily processes.

When your glycogen stores are full, extra carbohydrates will have a tendency to be stored as fat unless burned by activity. Fructose is more efficently converted into fat (more specifically, it’s converted into the chemical backbone of triglycerides, which are fat molecules) than are other carbohydrates such as glucose. This makes it that much easier for excess fructose to be converted into fat.

While high fructose corn syrup is by far the main culprit when it comes to fructose and fat gain, even the fructose found in fruits and fruit juices can have this effect. Because fructose has “nicer” associations with it (being a fruit sugar) than other sugars such as sucrose (table sugar), a person may think they can drink all the juice they want and not run into the same trouble as if they drank the same amount of a sugary drink containing sucrose.

Fruit juices are essentially a concentrated source of fruit sugar and calories - as much as 150 calories or more per glass! Certainly, juice has more nutritional qualities to it than a soft drink but it is nevertheless important to realize that juice actually has a lot of calories and that the sugar it contains can easily be converted into fat.

What to do about it? Eating your fruit and drinking your fruit juice earlier in the day will greatly minimize any chance of spillover into fat stores. Also, take steps to minimize consumption of high fructose corn syrup, which is found in foods and drinks such as soft drinks and fruit beverages, cookies, gum, jams, jellies and baked goods. As always, read the labels!

	Does Fruit Make You Fat? Learn the truth about fruits and the myth that it will make you fat… [ Click here to learn more. ]

[ 9. ] Drinking alcohol frequently will make you gain fat.

• • Alcohol inhibits both the fat-burning enzymes and the muscle-building hormones in your body for many hours after consumption.
  • Alcohol is normally consumed later in the day/evening, a time when your body has the least need for the extra calories.
  • Alcohol is preferentially stored as fat and is very efficiently converted into fat in the body.
  • Alcohol is not an intelligence-enhancing substance and can lead you to make poor late-night food choices, again, a time when your body needs the extra calories the least.
  • Alcohol is a depressant that will eventually make you tired. Remember what Sumo wrestlers do to gain fat quickly? Take in a lot of calories then go directly to sleep.
  • Alcohol contains a lot of calories (7 calories per gram) with very little, if any, redeeming nutritional value.

  Learn More About Alcohol…

Alcohol can make you fat in so many ways. Consider these points: All these points are not to say a moderate amount of alcohol consumption is bad for you. The key truly is moderation. When you look at these points all together, imagine how quickly you’ll gain fat if you drink a lot of alcohol late at night, eat fast food then go directly to sleep. There are few better ways to gain fat this quickly.

Conclusion

Keeping an eye on the above factors can help you keep your weight under control. Add exercise into the mix and that extra fat will be a thing of the past!

I got this little exercise from issue of Oxygen magazine, and I found it very motivational.   I encourage anyone who keeps a journal (whether it’s a regular journal or a fitness journal) to do this exercise as well. 

You work out almost every day, but do you know why? Understanding what really motivates you, whether external  or internal goals, can make a difference between getting just a great body for now or getting a hot body and healthy mind for life. Take a moment to map out how to make you fit lifestyle stick.

Imagine yourself at your most fit and healthiest stage; how do you look? Describe your ideal body.

For me, it starts with nice, healthy skin from drinking plenty of water. No fat under my chin! Clavicles-I remember when I first saw that I still had them! lol  Love them in a sexy dress. Moving on to very toned shoulders, and strong but not bulging biceps. Strong, toned back and chest. Small, defined waist, muscular abs- FLAT stomach! Slender hips. Toned, muscular thighs and calves.

There is nothing wrong with working out to look good but it shouldn’t be the only reason. Write down a few words that describe how you feel after a workout.

After a workout, I feel STRONG! I feel sexy, energized, and happy. Weights make me feel invincible and tough. Running makes me feel dedicated and successful. Pilates and yoga make me feel calm, relaxed, and balanced.

Working out to both look good and feel good will keep you training for the long haul. Next time  you feel like skipping a workout, refer to the lists above for motivation.

Disclaimer: This blog is about God and is dedicated to my Christian buddies who are struggling.  I hope it’s not offensive to anyone, but even if it is, I’m certainly entitled to my beliefs.

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God is real, no matter how you feel.

It is easy to worship God when things are great in your life-when he has provided food, friends, family, health, and happy situations.  But circumstances are not always pleasant.  How do you worship God then? What do you do when God seems a million miles away?

The deepest level of worship is praising God in spite of pain, thanking God during a trial, trusting him when tempted, surrendering while suffering, and loving him when he seems distant.

Friendships are often tested by separation and silence; you are divided by physical distance or you are unable to talk.  In your friendship with God, you won’t always feel close to him.  Philip Yancey has  wisely noted, “Any relationship involves times of closeness and times of distance, and in a relationship with God, no matter how intimate, he pendulum will swing from side to the other.” That’s when worship gets difficult.

To mature your friendship, God will test it with periods of seeming separation-times when it feels as if he has abandoned or forgotten you.  God feels a million miles away.  St. John of the Cross referred to these days of spiritual dryness, doubt, and estrangement from God as “the dark night of the soul.”  Henri Nouwen called them “the ministry of absence.”  A.W. Tozer called them “the ministry of the night.”  Others refer to “the winter of the heart.”

Besides Jesus, David probably had the closest friendship with God of anyone.  God took pleasure in calling him “a man after my own heart.”  Yet David frequently complained of God’s apparent absence: “Lord, why are you standing aloof and far away? Why do you hide when I need you the most?”  “Why have you forsaken me? Why do you remain so distant? Why do you ignore my cries for help?”  “Why have you abandoned me?”

Of course, God hadn’t really left David, and he doesn’t leave you.,  He has promised repeatedly, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”  But God has not promised “you will always feel my presence.”  In fact, God admits that sometimes he hides his face from us.  There are times when he appears to be MIA in your life.

Floyd McClung describes it: “You wake up one morning and all your spiritual feelings are gone.  You pray, but nothing happens.  You rebuke the devil, but it doesn’t change anything.  You go through spiritual exercises… you have your friends pray for you… you confess every sin you can imagine, then go around asking forgiveness of everyone you know.  You fast… still nothing.  You begin to wonder how long this spiritual gloom might last. Days? Weeks? Months?  Will it ever end?  In utter desperation, you cry out, ‘What’s the matter with me?’”

The truth is, there’s nothing wrong with you! This is a normal part of the testing and maturing of your friendship with God.  Every Christian goes through it at least once, and usually several times.  It is painful and disconcerting, but it is absolutely vital for the development of your faith.  Knowing this gave Job hope when he could feel God’s presence in his life.  He said, “I go east, but he is not there. I go west, but I cannot find him. I do not see him the north, for he is hidden. I turn to the south, but I cannot find him. But he knows where I am going. And when he has tested me like gold in a fire, he will pronounce me innocent.”

When God seems distant, you may feel that he is angry with you or is disciplining you for some sin.  In fact, sin does disconnect us from intimate fellowship with God. We grieve God’s Spirit and quench our fellowship by disobedience, conflict with others, busyness, friendship with the world, and other sins.

But often this feeling of abandonment or estrangement from God has nothing to do with sin.  It is a test of faith-one we all must face: Will you continue to love, trust, obey, and worship God, even when you have no sense of his presence or visible evidence of his work in your life?

The most common mistake Christians make in worship today is seeking an experience rather than seeking God.  They look for a feeling, and if it happens, they conclude that they have worshiped.  Wrong! In fact, God often removes our feelings so we won’t depend on them.  Seeking a feeling, even teh feeling of closeness with Christ, is not worship.

When you are a baby Christian, God gives you a lot of confirming emotions and often answers the most immature, self-centered prayers-so you’ll know he exists.  But as you grow in faith, he will wean you of these dependencies.

God’s omnipresence and the manifestation of his presence are two different things.  One is a fact, the other is often a feeling.  God is always present, even when you are unaware of him, and his presence is too profound to be measured by mere emotion.

Yes, he wants you to sense his presence, but he’s more concerned that you trust him than that you feel him.  Faith, not feelings, pleases God.

The situations that will stretch your faith most will be those times when life falls apart and God is nowhere to be found.  This happened to Job. On a single day he lost everything-his family, his business, his health, and everything he owned. Most discouraging-for thirty-seven chapters, God said nothing!

How do you praise God when you don’t understand what’s happening in your life and God is silent? How do you stay connected in a crisis without communication? How do you keep your eyes on Jesus when they’re full of tears? You do what Job did: “Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.’ “

Tell God exactly how you feel.  Pour out your heart to God. Unload every emotion that you’re feeling.  Job did this when he said, “I can’t be quiet! I am angry and bitter. I have to speak!”  He cried out when God seemed distant: “Oh, for the days when I was in my prime, when God’s intimate friendship blessed my house.”  God can handle your doubt, anger, fear, grief, confusion, and questions.

Did you know that admitting your hopelessness to God can be a statement of faith? Trusting God but feeling despair at the same time, David wrote, “I believed, so I said, ‘I am completely ruined!’ ” This sounds like a contradiction: I trust God, but I’m wiped out! David’s frankness actually reveals deep faith: First, he believed in God. Second, he believed God would listen to his prayer. Third, he believed God would let him say what he felt and still love him.

Focus on who God is-his unchanging nature. Regardless of circumstances and how you feel, hang on to God’s unchanging character. Remind yourself what you know to be eternally true about God: He is good, he loves me, he is with me, he knows what I’m going through, he cares, and he has a good plan for my life.  V. Raymond Edman said, “Never doubt in the dark what God told you in the light.”

When Job’s life fell apart, and God was silent, Job still found things he could praise God for:

• That he is good and loving.
• That he is all-powerful.
• That he notices every detail of my life.
• That he is in control.
• That he has a plan for my life.
• That he will save me.

Trust God to keep his promises.  During times of spiritual dryness you must patiently rely on the promises of God, not your emotions, and realize that he is taking you to a deeper level of maturity.  A friendship based on emotion is shallow indeed.

So don’t be troubled by trouble.  Circumstances cannot change the character of God.  God’s grace is still in full force; he is still for you, even when you don’t feel it.  In the absence of confirming circumstances, Job held on to God’s Word.  He said, ” I have not departed from the commands of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread.”  

This trust in God’s Word caused Job to remain faithful even though nothing made sense.  His faith was strong in the midst of pain: “God may kill me, but still I will trust him.”

When you feel abandoned by God yet continue to trust him in spite of your feelings, you worship him in the deepest way.

Remember what God has already done for you. If God never did anything else for you, he would still deserve your continual praise for the rest of your life because of what Jesus did for you on the cross. God’s son died for you! This is the greatest reason for worship.

Unfortunately, we forget the cruel details of the agonizing sacrifice God made on our behalf.  Familiarity breeds complacency.  Even before his crucifixion, the Son of God was stripped naked, beaten until almost unrecognizable,  whipped, scorned and mocked, crowned with thorns, and spit on contemptuously.  Abused and ridiculed by heartless men, he was treated worse than an animal.

Then, nearly unconscious from blood loss, he was forced to drag a cumbersome cross up a hill, was nailed to it, and was left to die the slow, excruciating torture of death by crucifixion.  While his lifeblood drained out, hecklers stood by and shouted insults, making fun of his pain and challenging his claim to be God.

Next, as Jesus took all of mankind’s sin and guilt on himself,  God looked away from that ugly sight, and Jesus cried out in total desperation, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  Jesus could have saved himself-but then he could not have saved you.

Words cannot describe the darkness of that moment.  Why did God allow and endure such ghastly, evil mistreatment? Why? So you could be spared from eternity in hell, and so you could share in his glory forever! The Bible says, “Christ was without sin, but for our sake God made him share our sin in order that in union with him we might share the righteousness of God.”

Jesus gave up everything so you could have everything.  He died so you could live forever.  That alone is worthy of your continual thanks and praise. Never again should you wonder what you have to be thankful for.

From The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren

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We all have times when God seems distant in our lives.  This chapter I’m sharing reminds me why sometimes good people go through bad things; like Jesus on the cross, sometimes we suffer so that others will have the opportunity to receive God’s grace.  Sometimes there’s merely a lesson we need to learn.  Sometimes it’s a test.  But ALWAYS there’s the opportunity to trust God and grow closer to him through prayer and thankfulness.

**Dedicated to all my buddies who are struggling to trust in God through hard times.

My goals for the next several weeks include:

• Improving my running, working up to 10K training.
• Lifting heavier weights.
• Consistent exercise. (Not just when the weather’s nice or when I feel like it, but completing my planned work out daily, regardless of my emotional response to it.)
• Start boxing training. (With the gloves, bag, jump rope, whole 9 yards. I want to be a tough chick!)
• Cleaner eating.
• Goal weight: 115; Goal size: 3/4

My beginning measurements for this 12 (or so) week challenge will be my ending ones from yesterday. 

And here’s my workout plan (for starter’s anyway, I don’t have my boxing gear yet, but it’s been promised to me.)

• Monday: 45 minute walk, lower body work.
• Tuesday: 5-8 x 400 interval workout, abs work, and upper body work.
• Wednesday: 3-4 mile run, lower body work.
• Thursday: Rest!, abs work.
• Friday: 40 minute jog, upper body work.
• Saturday: 5-7 mile run, abs work.
• Sunday: 30 minute easy jog (active rest day, they call it), and upper body work.

I try to focus on each body area 2-3 times per week, sort of like bodybuilders do, only my focus is a whole, rather than individual muscles.  (I’m not to that point yet!)  The workouts that I have for each area (upper, lower, and abs) are basically compilations of moves that I’ve gleaned from videos and magazines, such as Jillian’s 30 Day Shred, various yoga videos, and LOTS of workouts in Oxygen and Shape and Fitness magazines.  Their websites have lots of great workout information if (when!) I need something fresh.  I spend probably 20-30 minutes on each of these toning/strengthening workouts.

For right now, I’m not really restricting my calories much. I try to keep it around 1800 calories per day, with one low day (on my rest day) around 1300, and one very high day around 2200-that high day gives me the opportunity to satisfy any cravings I may have had during the week without going over on my weekly total.  The other days vary, 1600-2000, averaging out to 1800/day for the week.  It’s enough to keep me full, and hopefully enough to be able to build muscle while still burning fat.  (The building of muscle tissue actually requires a calorie surplus, but I don’t really want to gain weight; I’m open to the idea that I may in the future have to increase my calorie intake, but for now, I’m going with 1800/day and we’ll see where it leads.)  :)  I’ve been reading about appropriate diets for building muscle, and while carbs and fats are necessary, the best diet seems to be high in protein, with moderate amounts of carbs and slightly lower in fat.  So that’s what I’m going to try for this challenge (at least TRY to stick with, because God knows I CRAVE carbs after a good, sweaty workout!) ; I don’t imagine it will be easy, because so far I have been eating “whatever” as long as it is within my calorie allowance.  Not necessarily junk food, but still not monitoring the macronutrient ratios.  So this will be a new challenge for me, but hopefully one that will give me that extra boost I need to get that hard body I want so badly! 

So… that’s it.  Just a personal challenge to myself, some goals I’d REALLY like to achieve by the end of the year, and some areas of improvement I’d love to see.    I can’t help but think, after this little challenge is over, I’ll be in the midst of the Christmas rush, and then it’s time to set new goals for the New Year!  Hopefully reaching the goals I’ve set here in this time frame will help me start 2010 off on the best foot ever, fitter than ever. 

Side note: I seriously doubt I’ll be able to get down to 115 lbs over the next 3 months, as I tend to lose about 1-2 lbs per month, but it’s a goal, and I’m going to work hard to get as close as I can safely in this time frame.  I’m thinking that maybe the two goals of a lower weight and building muscle may contradict each other (???)  BUT all I can do is wait and see while working hard and doing my best. 

I don’t have any new pics to post as of right this second, but I’ll get some on here as soon as I can.  (I’m not good at that stuff, and it’s a hassle for me, so please bear with me.  )

But for anyone interested, here are the results of my 8 week challenge to myself.

Starting Measurements:                                   Ending:

bicep: 11 inches                                                   11 (-0)

chest: 35 inches                                                   33.5  (-1.5)

waist: 28.5 inches                                               28  (-.5)

33 inches at belly button                                    31.5  (-1.5)

hips: 36 inches                                                     34.5  (-1.5)

upper thigh:  19.5 inches                                    18.75  (-.75)

calf: 13.75 inches                                                    13  (-.75)

Weight: 129.5 lbs                                                   127.5   (-2 lbs)

I didn’t really have any “set” goals for this challenge; I just wanted to see how well I could do.  2 lbs is almost embarrassing, but it really does take me a long time to lose weight.  I go through a lot of back and forth, like lose 2 lbs one week, gain 1 the next week, etc…. And I gained a FEW lbs over the Labor Day weekend, so I’m pretty happy with a 2 lb loss over the last several weeks.  I’m *very* surprised by the inches lost, though slightly saddened that so many of them came from my chest area.  No big surprise though! lol  I knew I was getting plenty smaller up there!  Happy that I got a couple of inches off my tummy, though I’d like to shed still more.

I’m thinking that Autumn officially starts tomorrow and ends on December 20…. Maybe  a little pre-Christmas personal challenge is in order.    I want to set some specific goals and workout plans this time through; give me the evening to think it over and I’ll be back tomorrow. 

I finally dusted off my Wii Fit the other night.  :)  My favorite workout is running, but it has been raining like crazy here lately, and it shows no sign of letting up til Sunday at the earliest.  But that doesn’t mean anything, cuz Monday the weather girl said we’d have a perfect, sunny weekend… lol  Now it’s rain through Saturday with a chance Sunday. Ugh…  Anyway, so I’ve been at a loss when it comes to finding fun workouts, and remembered I paid like $500 for this Wii and balance board not too long ago, Why not use that. 

So when I started the game, it weighed me, and told me how close I was to my goal.  I set it at 125, so pretty close but not there yet.  (I haven’t played it in a WHILE and I had lost over 10 lbs since last time, but still not at goal.)  So I was pretty happy to be so close, BUT I kind of muttered under my breath, “That’s not even my goal anymore anyway.”  My husband was sitting on the couch, and he was like, “What are you trying to get down to now? 110?”  He said it all sarcastic, like I’d just blow away in the wind of I weighed 110 lbs.  I looked at him like he was crazy, and I said, “OMG! No way….” But he could tell by the look on my face that he was close. “115?” He asked.  Blank stare from me.  “You’re crazy….” he informed me.  But I’m telling you guys like I told him, all I want is to be able to look in the mirror, and LIKE what I see! Is that too much to ask?  If I were skin and bones, trying to lose more weight, I’d be like, “Yeah, maybe I’m crazy….” But seriously, 115 is not even at the bottom of my recommended healthy weight range.  (I’m barely 5′5″) It’s my body fat % I’m more worried about anyway, but that’s harder to explain.  He knows that I want heavier weights, and I’m going to get them this weekend.

We were “wrestling” a few nights ago, and I found out that if my husband pins my upper body where I can’t move my arms, I can still get him off of me!  :)  He was like, “Damn, your legs are getting STOUT!”  All that running, lunges, squats, bridges, etc… But if he gets on me where I can’t move my legs, I can’t BUDGE him with my arms.  ZERO upper body strength… at least compared to my legs.  I definitely plan on working on that over the next several weeks; It was embarrassing.

Oh, here’s the other reason I’m crazy (according to him).  Ok, so the town we live in is GHETTO!  It’s ridiculous how scary this place is at night, and during the day, it’s not a *whole* lot better.  So whenever I’m planning a shopping trip, we ALWAYS go out of town.  (I will go to the Wal Mart here if I just need a couple things that I forgot, or something comes up unexpectedly during the week, but I definitely try to get everything elsewhere on the weekends.)  So we drove to the next town over to go to Wal Mart, and I had just happened to reset the mileage tracker thing on the dash.  It was exactly 27 miles to the Wal Mart there, and when I saw that, I said “Cool!”  :)  Big smile! He asked me WHY that was cool of course.  lol  I told him that’s about how far a marathon is, and *someday* I planned on running that far, and it just made it click in my head exactly how far it was, and I was just thinking about maybe trying it someday. (Not soon; can’t even finish 10 miles yet!)  And he said that was crazy!! Now, thousands of people run marathons every year… How is that crazy??

I think he’s just saying these things are crazy because he doesn’t think I can do them, but I most certainly CAN and I plan on proving it to him.  :)  I am NOT crazy, but I do set high goals for myself, and I think I’m ambitious enough to accomplish them.

Doutzen Kroes, Jamie Eason…. I could post more pics of more women who inspire me, but these two are shining examples of what my “ideal body” is.  Yes, these women are models.  They are gorgeous women, but frankly that’s not what inspires me.  These are women who very obviously work hard at looking the way they want to look.  Not stick thin fashion models (well, Doutzen is a fashion model, but at 120 lbs, she’s definitely at the upper end of their size spectrum)  these are beautiful, physically FIT women who OWN their workouts.

I don’t necessarily look at these women and think “I want to look like her,” though I can occasionally detect that thought somewhere in the back of my mind.  :)   What I think when I look at these pictures is, “Wow, I wonder what her workouts are like….”  Whatever they’re doing to look their best might also help me look my best!

Hollywood’s and New York Fashion Week’s standards of perfection are very different from my own, but I definitely have an image in my mind of the ideal body, and I’m determined to work hard until I’m as close to it as I can get myself.

I don’t want to fall into that trap of going to the mall or whatever, looking at the women around me and thinking, “I look average, I look like all these other women, so I must be ok.”  What’s the fun in looking just like every one else?  That is *not* what I’ve been working so hard for.  Not that I need to feel “superior” or get extra attention, but I definitely believe looking my absolute best *does* boost my self-confidence which improves every aspect of life. 

After all, if you were building a house, you wouldn’t go to the run-down section of town looking for inspiration.  If you have a medical question, you don’t ask someone who flunked out of medical school.  And if you’re trying to get in shape, you don’t look at the women at the mall for inspiration.  Find someone who is where you want to be and follow their example and learn from what they’ve done! 

I’m not sure exactly WHAT THE HECK has been going on with me lately.  I *was* totally pumped about being so close to my goal weight; my motivation was really high; I had lots of goals and step-by-step plans and workouts to achieve them.

Then somewhere along the way, Reese’s peanut butter cups happened.  Doritos happened.  Cool weather and grilling steaks and burgers happened.  JUNK FOOD IS SO YUMMY!!!!!

*sigh*  Now I’m right back up, close to 130 lbs.  This morning the scale said 129-point-something; this is after a semi-large chip binge last night.

I’ve read several articles about getting the last 10 pounds off, and they all seem to be saying basically the same thing.  Increase exercise intensity, DECREASE amount of food, or at the very least, be FAR MORE selective about what it is you’re eating.  Combined with re-evaluating your goal, to make sure it’s healthy; some people can’t get the last 10 pounds off simply because their bodies are healthier where they are than 10 lbs lighter.

So I thought about it: is my goal, my *dream* weight of 120 entirely too low?  Maybe, but I’ll only know if I *try* hard to get there, by upping my workout intensity and cleaning up my diet.  I know that getting these last 10 pounds off is going to require some serious dedication, and I’m a little nervous about comitting to it, but I really want to see if I can do it.  After all, if I can give myself that final push I need to reach this ultimate goal, maybe that will give me the confidence to do the same thing in other areas of my life.  If all I ever do is stop when I’m comfortable, give up when going further requires too much work, I’ll always just be “mediocre” at everything.  So I’m going to give myself the opportunity to try.

I’m not sure what a good goal time-frame would be for these last 10 pounds; after all, these aren’t just any old 10 lbs. lol    No doubt they’ll take a lot longer to come off than the first or second 10 lbs.  But if I can have them off by Christmas, I’ll be ecstatic.  If I can keep them off through the holidays, I’ll be amazed.  lol  (After all, dedicated is the dieter~person for that matter~ who doesn’t gain at least 5 lbs through the Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year celebrations!) 

I feel like I’m always “starting over” but this time, I don’t necessarily need to.  I’m going to look at this “Last 10 Pounds” as a journey unto itself.    I think I might start a forum topic, for anyone else interested in sharing workouts and diet tips (and of course, daily struggles) in getting off those last 10 pounds….