brightlight07’s BodyBlog

I have read on several different blogs and forum posts where people say they don’t have time to eat 5-6 times a day or that there is no way that they could eat that often at work.  What blows me away about this is that there are plenty of people out there who manage to take their fifteen minutes every hour or two for a smoke break.  It also takes about the same amount of time to make a cup of coffee as it does to make up a quick protein shake.  Why is it that we have no problem making time to support our bad habits but we have such a hard time making time for our new healthy habits?

Anyway, just a thought, feel free to share yours.

Took some new pics today.  Let me know what you think.  The progress is slow but it is there.  The tri’s aren’t showing in the pics yet but they are coming along nicely.   Anyway, progress is progress so I’ll take it!

When I started down this road back in May, I wanted to get healthier, be more physically active, and most importantly, lose weight.  I started pretty easily but consistently, walking everyday, doing resistance exercises with exercise bands 3-4 times a week, and cleaning up my diet.  After a while the bands got to be too easy and I wasn’t sure I was pushing myself hard enough walking at the park so I started going to the gym again.  I wanted to see faster results, I wanted to push myself harder.  Then I added swimming 3-4 times a week, sometimes more.  The results I saw were good, if unexpected.  I did not see the scales move significantly after the first two weeks, but I saw my body begin to change.  I would walk past a mirror and catch a glimpse of myself and have to stop and say, "is that my arm?"  or "Are those really my thighs? Hmm."  The more results I saw, the more serious my quest for fitness became.

Now, while it is true that I am struggling somewhat with making the time to exercise at the frequency and intensity that I had achieved before I went back to work, I have come to another remarkable realisation.  I don’t want to eat clean; I need to eat clean.  I find myself saying things like "No thank you, I have my snack in my bag and I’ll eat in a few minutes."  Or "Sure, we can go to the park, just let Mommy stop at the house and grab her lunchbox."  I have resigned myself to the fact that some nights I have to cook two different dinners because the family really wants my special tuna casserole and I need to eat a chicken breast and steamed veggies.

I finally realised that my desire to exercise has moved from a want to a need when Grandma called and offered to take my daughter for several days and my first thought was "Thank you God, now I can go to the gym!"  I get to work out three days straight without having to figure out who is going to watch her or if my hubby is going to get his feelings hurt if I rush out to the gym right after dinner.

I don’t need to compete in the triathlon this October but I really, really want to.  I don’t need to fit into my little black dress again, but I really, really want to do that too.  I do need to put together a gym somewhere in my house so I can exercise everyday.  I do need to keep showing my daughter by my example that exercise and eating right are very important and should be made a priority in our family.  I don’t necessarily need my husband to jump on my fitness bandwagon, but it sure would be nice.

A want vs. a need.  Why do I need it so much, because poor nutrition and lack of exercise will lead me down a road I do not want to travel.  Obesity, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, none of that is for me.  A life where I cannot run with my daughter on a soccer field, or teach her to play softball, or ride bikes with her, or throw her around a swimming pool, that’s not for me either.  I need more than that, and so does she.

184.2 oh yeah, oh yeah!!!  I’ve been cycling my calories and carbahydrates and it’s working.  Finally faked out my metabolism, I guess.  The easy explanation is that I have a portion of protein, starchy carb, and simple carb for meals one and two; protein starchy carb and fibrous carb for meal three; and protien and fibrous carb for meals four and five.  I do this for three days.  Then for one or two days I add the starchy carbs for meals four and five.  Two pounds this week means it must be working.  Hooray!

Still trying to figure out the exercise thing.  I did some stuff when I got home today-pushups, crunches, leg lifts, etc.  I also checked out a couple of parks close to my new work.  I can’t run on my lunch break because I have no place to shower, but I may be able to stop and run before I pick the baby up.  I don’t want to pick her up too late because she already has a long day but I’ve got to do something.

Ugh!!!  I’m tired and I’m sore and I haven’t even been working out!!  My back is achey and sore because I’ve been sitting in kid sized chairs at a kid sized table working on stuff for my classroom all week.  I haven’t figured out a way to exercise now that I am back at work and taking the Baby back and forth to camp everyday.  It is frustrating because my husband works insane hours and is no help when it comes to watching the Baby or doing the drop off or pick up.  I will figure it out but I hate breaking my stride this way.

The food aspect is going really well, though and the scale is finally starting to move S-L-O-W-L-Y, but move nonetheless.

I am also kind of cranky and short-tempered in the evenings which sucks for all of us.  I think it is just getting used to trying to juggle all the home and work stuff and also trying to be a halfway attentive mom.  There’s just not enough time in the day.  Top that all off with not having time to exercise makes for a grumpy Shelly.  GRRRRR!

The job is going well and I am doing well with my food.  The kids have snack around 9:30am so I eat my snack when they eat theirs.  Then I have lunch with them (my own lunch, of course) at 12:30 and have a Muscle Milk and a banana at around 3 when they go outside.  Their afternoon snack time is too early for me to eat again.  I am getting tired of egg whites for breakfast so I tried some cottage cheese  this morning.  Man, I hate that stuff!  I gagged and almost puked, I just can’t take the texture of it.  I guess it’s back to egg whites.

As for my workouts, I have kicked it up a notch.  I am frustrated about not being able to do any upper body stuff but I’ll get over it.  I am swimming 800 yds three times a week, sprinting the last 100 yds.  I have also increased my weight on leg press from 85 to 115 lbs.  and increased all sets by 2 reps.  I am doing intervals on the treadmill, walking 3 minutes, then jogging 2 mins, for a total of 30 mins. three times a week.  I am doing less time on the treadmill but at higher intensity. 

Yesterday we were cleaning up in the backyard and I found my stepdaughter’s old ten-speed behind the shed.  It is in pretty bad shape but I put new tires and a new chain on it and adjusted the brakes so it will be okay for me to train on for a few weeks until I can get a new bike.  Once the hubby saw me drag that bike out and clean it up he started to FINALLY take me seriously about the triathlon thing.

So, here’s the thing, I was looking on the website that I found the triathlon for next spring on, showing my husband the different lengths and stuff, and came across a sprint tri in October that I want to enter.  Crazy, huh?  That’s only three months away!  The way I look at it, though, is that it will take me as long to train for this as I give myself and I am much more motivated when the pressure is on.  I could drag this out for nine or ten months or I could get down to business and get this thing going.  The tri in October is only a 400 yd swim which is no problem.  I don’t think the bike ride will kill me, either, but I will definitely have to train hard.  The killer is going to be the run.  It’s only 5k but that is a long way for me.  I am not a big fan of running and I know my form leaves much to be desired.  As I have said before, I am a good sprinter but no good for distance!  That is what I will have to focus the most on, I think.  That and the whole transition thing.  Anyway, October 7, Lake Lanier Islands here I come!  Three months from Saturday…Oh boy!

Well, it had to end someday, my holiday is officially over.  I started a new position today as Pre-K teacher in a Christian school.  We have about three weeks before school starts so I’ll mostly be gearing up for the new school year.  It’s exciting and I’m looking forward to teaching again.

I missed both of my snacks today but I will be better prepared for tomorrow.  I have already plugged my food for tomorrow into fitday.com so now it’s just a matter of eating it all!  The scale is still not registering much of a loss but my clothes are so I’ll just go by that for now.  I wore a pair of shorts on Sunday that were uncomfortably tight at the beginning of May.  I am most noticing a difference in my pants around my pockets in the area of my lower abdomen.  It is so nice to be comfortable in my pants again!  I am also starting to notice that my sleeves aren’t as tight anymore.

Anyway, I’m beat and tomorrow is another day.  I didn’t make it to the gym after work today but I definitely will tomorrow!

Thought I did terrible with food yesterday but when I plugged it all in to fitday it wasn’t really so bad.  The worst part was that I didn’t spread my eating out over the day very well.  I was encouraged though that I didn’t really blow it like I thought I did.  I guess some of these habits really are starting to stick.

My little girl turns seven today!  I guess at some point we should stop calling her "The Baby" but she has not complained yet and as she is my only child I will call her that for as long as I can get away with it.  It seems kind of poetic in a way that I am finishing up my six weeks off on her birthday when the last time I had six weeks off was when I was on maternity leave with her.  So much has happened in the last seven years, I can honestly say that I am not the same person that I was then.  I have been transformed in mind and soul, now it is just time to get the body to match!  I wish we both had the time for me to share the story of those years but that is for another time.  I hope everyone has a wonderful day today!  I am taking the day off training to spend with my baby.  I tell her all the time that she is the best thing that ever happened to me, today is a day to show her beyond a doubt that it is true.  Love you all!

It’s been almost a week since I’ve checked in but don’t worry, I’m stickin’ with the program.  The shoulder seems to be healing.  I haven’t done any weights with upper body and will continue to stay off them for another week and then have Mark re-check the shoulder for me.  I have been swimming a lot, though, with no pain.  I swam 800 yds Sat. and Tues., and will swim again today.  I also worked lower body and core Monday and Wednesday.  I also rode 2 miles on the stationary bike on Monday, and walked for 35 minutes yesterday at 3.5 mph.

As for food, I have been doing well during the week but the weekends kill me.  Part of it is not being on schedule and part of it is because my husband is not on board with this program at all.  I am not blaming him but I am admitting that it is very frustrating to have him around some times.  When I go to get my morning or afternoon snack his response is, "Well, can I have a snack?".  I will admit that I am selfish and possessive about my healthy stuff because I know that he is going to turn around and eat crap too.  I spend a lot of money on the stuff I need to eat and resent it when he eats it and is not committed to eating healthy.  This is not a personality trait that I am very proud of, but it is what it is.  When he eats half a can of almonds (which he doesn’t even like all that much) and a Little Debbie Snack (from the box he bought when I asked him to stop and get some more eggs) it infuriates me.  I almost wish I had my own little fridge to keep my stuff in, isn’t that awful!  I have tried keeping all my stuff in the pantry on its own shelf but that just leaves it in the open for him to grab.  Now I put all his favorite stuff in the front and then put all my stuff in back.  Again, I feel like a rat, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do!  If and when he gets serious about his health then I will be more than happy to share and help him in whatever way he needs, but he has to take some responsibility for his health and his choices.  Anyway, enough of that rant.  I just needed to vent a little.

I have spent the last couple of days doing a little more research.  I have been a little frustrated because it has been almost six weeks since I started this and I haven’t really lost much weight.  I know there has been improvement because my clothes fit better and I can see the difference in my progress pics.  Still, I would’ve thought I would have shown a little more progress on the scale.  I actually think I may have cut my calories a little too low and may need to eat a little more.  I have been eating between 1200 and 1600 cals. per day but I am going to raise it to between 1700 and 1900.  I found a formula to figure out what my daily expenditure is and it’s about 2400 a day, so I am going to try dropping to around 500 cals. below expenditure.  I am also going to increase the intensity of my cardio.  Right now my target heart rate is about 120bpm and I am going to try raising it to around 140bpm.

I also found a bike on ebay for about $500 which is much more reasonable.  I just need to try to find the same bike in a bike shop so I can take it for a test ride.  I tried using the stationary at the gym and, man, was it uncomfortable.  I would like to get my bike and a stationary trainer to use at home.  I also found a treadmill for a reasonable price.  I will need to do more of my training at home once I start my new job, I think.  I start next week and for the first week the baby will be on vacation with Grandma so that will help me figure out my schedule.

Anyway, long blog, I know, I guess that’s what happens when I stay away too long.  Hope everyone is having a great week!