xtreemchange’s BodyBlog

Right now I’m feeling under the weather. I’ve been reading more and more about the South Beach plan and it may be something I want to try, it’s pretty sensible. I do well having a plan to follow and objectives to meet.

I am still very disappointed with my progress.
I often wonder-why is it so hard? Will I have my dreams come true? I also have to remember that losing weight is often something I hold up as the key to all my dreams coming true, that last thing to fall into place in my life. Maybe it’s true though, it would help so much…

Since I’m out of town a lot for my summer job, I’ve started to go to the gym when there. I only have about an hour and a half free from the time I’m done my day til bedtime so it’s hard but I’ve got to "suck it up buttercup." I’m still pondering what kinds of weight loss supplements to use…got to ask some people…also, thinking about following a set diet plan. I’ve never tried South Beach and there’s the new South Beach Supercharged or whatever it is which sounds actually pretty doable and people usually lose a lot of weight on it…I’m so impatient. My body does not fit who I am. I’m a vibrant, cute person on the inside and I thought I was on the outside too, but it seems people don’t notice that anymore. I hate paling in comparison, even if it’s just to myself. The hardest thing is I looked so good when I was eating so little, and people remembering how I looked then…but I am HEALTHIER now, but healthy doesn’t get me any compliments. Thin does. Thin is what I need to be.

Just a quick note to say I’m still here, still going…away out of town most days of the week with my new wicked job so I can’t post as much until I buy a new laptop to take around with me.

One more pound down! Woo!

Looking better and better all the time.

And my confidence is really good, through the roof.

More later…

I just need to run off some steam, so I apologize ahead of time for this vent/rant post, hopefully I can tie it up positive at the end.

I lost a pound since yesterday, but all I felt was anxiety at still being so huge. I am so uncomfortable in my body that it’s like a nightmare that needs to end, a costume somebody strapped on me at birth that I’ve never been able to fully take off.

I’m tired of just hearing about my face. What a pretty face…I do appreciate that people give me compliments like that but they don’t all know that’s a classic fat girl compliment, one you give to somebody sometimes when their face is the only good-looking thing on them.Thank god my face isn’t bad or where would I be today…completely gross.

Why doesn’t anybody look at me the way they look at a movie star? Well obviously because I am not as good as them. I don’t expect that if I don’t look as good. But it hurts, everytime I watch a movie or see somebody that everybody respects, a beautiful beautiful girl, and I just want it for ME, why not me…this is whiny I know but it hurts so much to have this cloak of silence surrounding 80% of how you look.

It’s so hard, not even the diet part right now, it’s the mental part that’s cracking me this morning. Mentally, I have to do this 42 more times to get to my goal…each step down is barely a celebration because it’s still such an ugly number.

And my mood was unstable last night, I did not like that, I was just slightly hungry but felt weak and tired, maybe I need to get used to low-carbs and it will get better. My energy just dipped so low after my workout. I worked it HARD but after I was pretty much useless. When does the energy part come in? Again I felt pretty good all day long, just after the workout, after 5, I may as well have been in bed. And as I got tired, I got weak-minded too, insecure feeling. I don’t want that for myself. The irony is people see in you what you see in yourself but I can’t kid myself that confidence is going to make people see a swimsuit model where there’s just a…fat girl.

I seriously hate this so much, I hate that I have to change, I hate that I’ll never be looked at the way I want, I hate how I look. I hate it. I’m not giving up and I can’t give up, but I hate that this is a battle I never asked to fought but unless I do no one will ever think of me as that hot girl, that’s all I want. That tiny, beautiful, hot girl. That’s all I want. I want to be told that one of my body parts is perfect, I want to be asked if I’m a model again…I want people to stop telling me rude things that they mean well by, like the woman who said, oh, so you didn’t go to the gym all year? Implying that she could see it. Guess what? I went out 3-5 times a week all year doing some form of cardio, KNOWING I would get a lower grade than the other students, my peers, KNOWING that I was sacrificing my grades sometimes when I have goals of a Phd but I HAD TO because otherwise I would be even FATTER. Did anyone care? No. And you know all my friends who exercised less STILL looked better than me no matter what. But nobody cares about effort after awhile if you still look like crap, I know this because my whole life I’ve been working hard, and starting to accomplish things in other areas but I’ve always had to work harder than other people, and I can tell you, nobody cares or notices how hard you work until you get RESULTS. At least in my experience. Who will someone admire more? The chick at 167 who works so hard and diets so hard but looks gross? Or the chick at 125 who works hard and diets hard and looks great? You tell me who’s going to get the most admiration and credit.

Basically I just need to get this out, I know the only thing for me to do is keep going, I’m just mad mad mad at how I look and how long it takes…I am down a pound and a half in 2 days and have just two more pounds for this week’s goal but I am anxious because it’s still a horrible amount to weigh, even when I make my goal on Sunday, it will feel good for a second and then like crap because I’ll realize I still look bad and have so far to go. I’m waiting, waiting to be that beautiful girl, and it’s hurting me.

Again sorry for all the negativity, I just needed to get it out and sometimes writing is the best way.

Now to go get some protein.

I had a GREAT workout today, just so great. I’ve been home, showered, and had meal 5, and a cup of coffee, black, and I’m tired and my brain power is a little slow. I’m still a little hungry, too. I’m going to go for more water and gum until the last mini meal of the day and hopefully my energy/mood will pick up again. I’m not in a bad mood, but I am kind of spacey. I worked it so hard today. Last workout of the week tomorrow, then onto week 4 #1, which is the second week of supersets. Then the last 2, giant supersets, then another cycle. I’m thinking about ordering a fat-burning stack to add to my routine but I am not sure. I don’t want to have to buy something my entire life to achieve a certain look, although it could be a help to me right now to accelerate this process a little bit. Though I am very proud of myself and feeling great, I am still highly impatient to look BETTER. It can’t happen soon enough.

Need at least 2 more cups of water.

I think the last thing I have tonight will be a protein shake.

This whole slow-thinking thing when tired from a workout CANNOT happen to me when I go back to school so I’ll need to find a solution.

Another half pound down after treat day!

I missed all the protein yesterday actually, but still went through with the treat day because it’s going to be an important tool to have on schedule to get through my 6 "on" nutrition days.

I’m waiting for any "hormonal" weight fluctuation to dissipate this week also, and also now know that the creatine I’m taking has the potential to sit an extra 6-8 pounds of water weight on me. I’ll finish this cycle, take 2-3 weeks off the creatine, then assess my progress and get back on it. I can learn to be okay with temp. higher water weight if the supplement is helping me build muscles!

Also, I’m realizing half of staying in a good mood while on a different kind diet/lifestyle than everyone around is preparation. I was just at Tim Horton’s, and instead of being like, waah, donut, poor me, wahh, I knew before I got there that my choice would just be a black coffee, and I knew why, and I knew that those kinds of choices would take me far. Donuts are for Saturdays, if I’m having them. I’m okay with that, having no illusions about the kind of choices I will have to make and being prepared mentally is half the battle. And of course I have my goal to drop 3 pounds this week by next Sunday. I know that every non-clean diet choice will make me feel sadder and behind progress, and every good one will give me energy and progress. If I hadn’t had a set plan, I wouldn’t have known exactly what to do in the coffee shop and may have made a poor decision for lack of a clear plan about what to eat when and why. Now I know, I see all the other people doing it on this site and what it does for them, and I know it can happen for me.

165 here I come!

Still need my measurements and pics taken and up for 1 month’s progress.

Surprisingly this morning I found I had lost about half a pound from yesterday! I almost counted it as a full pound but I was a little unsure so I underestimated to be safe (my darn vision has trouble seeing down to the scale super-accurately sometimes so I have to think twice!).

This is exciting to me because it means I have 2 and a half pounds to go for my goal this week AND I will be beginning my shifts so I’m hoping this will give me many extra chances to burn calories/plan and bring only good fuel, consume it, and get back to work.

Still need to remember to push to get in the gym those three times the 14-day body-sculpting workout has planned for me, even if they’re on my off days or not!

Anyways, I just felt excited about that and wanted to share. Half a pound gone is still half a pound on my way to looking good! Today is my free day of the week in terms of diet so I can indulge a bit more if I want to. I feel hesitant about that but I know it will be important as a motivator each week to have this day saved up where I can have the treat/whatever I’ve been saving, and not feel deprived and crabby about that. I will try to still take it easy and hopefully be done eating in the earlier evening so this day doesn’t take a toll on the scale.

Sunday-Sunday this week coming up: Lose 3 pounds:

From 168-165.

I’ve got to do more than 3 pounds each week to meet my goal of 145 on July 5 BUT again I set it a bit high to allow that if I don’t get it, I will have met the real goal of losing 2.5 a week, a good average fat loss.

I always tend to set smaller deadlines than I probably should. I need to forget that one time when I could lose weight so quickly…and also, it was easier when I had a lot of *fat* to lose. I am begrudgingly following the advice of this site and setting 6-12 week guidelines for my short-term goals. So in the next six weeks, I want to go from 169 (today) to 145 (July 5)

That is six weeks: 168->145= 23 pounds in six weeks. That is 3.83 pounds a week, which is a little on the high side but I think still ok. And plus, I like to aim a little high because it feels effective PLUS it pushes me a bit further and means that if I fall short I truly did well and if I make it I did above-average!

When I meet that goal (not if!) I will be 145, looking decent and 20 pounds away from my ultimate goal weight of 125 pounds.

Then it will be July 6-August 9: 145->130=2.5 pounds a week. That will set me just 5 pounds from where I want to be on August 31, and I will have 3 weeks to drop the last five pounds, and they can be available in case I am needing extra time for unforeseen delays in progress.

I still get so mad at myself for not having achieved this in time to enjoy it for summer, my favourite time of year and one of the most important for looking good. BUT if I can change forever, I will look good for many seasons more.

At this moment, I feel really impatient for results. I have been home from school for about a month and week now and have not seen much change at all. I have seen my core change somewhat, but my weight change has been blah at the least and mediocre at the best. I have been working out the several times a week since I got home, have been taking lots of supplements and protein, and really focusing on this. But I am just frustrated right now. This is the point that is hardest to push past, where all it feels like is everyone else working so hard and changing and me working hard and feeling lame because while I’m proud of my hard work, I feel like all people see is what I look like now…

I’ve never felt that kind of achievement that I wanted. There is so much more I want from my fitness and body. I’ve been working on this for four years now I suppose, but not doing the same routine the whole time. I’m going to break down the four years to see what happened:
Year 1: Working out was my priority. Between dancing and the gym and riding my bike, I was spending around 40 hours a week sometimes doing some form of exercise. Good results, results that I should have appreciated then but never did. I look back now and it’s disappointing that my thoughts about how I looked were often the exact same as my thoughts today. Diet was all over the place, and mostly focused on restricting calories, not nutrition. Diet pop, popcorn, 5 cal soup, veggies, fruit, protein. Best weight: 133 p., achieved and held one day only. I could sometimes eat whatever I wanted and still lose weight because I was doing so much activity.
Year 2: Working out less and not really dancing, but going to the school gym for 1-1 hour and a half of cardio and then weights. I wanted to look good for the summer and this drove me the most in the spring. Same kind of eating as the year before mostly but with some attempts at better nutrition. I wavered because sometimes the more nutritious food had much more calories (full fat yogurt vs. nonfat with aspartame). Best weight 135, achieved only when following my strict no sugar, barely any carbs, tons of cardio plan, no eating at night plan. Still it was hard to hold onto 135 and most times in the spring was 138/137. Anytime I ate more freely of carbs, the weight would creep up. Summer job involved eating out a lot for lunch and super increased my appetite and lowered my energy, making for some weight gain by the fall.
Year 3: Went to the gym very regularly and enjoyed it a lot. Spent periods of time not eating any sugar at all, and then sometimes deciding to just try to eat what I wanted in moderation. But it seems that this just does not work for my body, I mean, at least to stay at a low weight. I would say my avg. weight for that year was 140. In the spring I really tried again to return to my lowest weight, in retrospect it seemed better than I thought at the time, and I worked out sometimes twice a day, mostly cardio but lots of bench and deadlift. Tried my first fun weight lifting competition. Had the same summer job back and gained more weight with dreary hours, lower energy and morale from not liking the job, increased appetite, and junk food at work.

Year 4, this year: Did running in the fall, schoolwork was killer this year and it basically swamped me. I would still take the time to work out when everyone was studying and there were times I would exercise and know it would give me a lower score the next day. It was very frustrating because I need to have high grades, but I didn’t want to achieve that and look like crap. This year my grades and body both didn’t go well, but I worked on them both and wouldn’t let either one drop. This meant that the quality of progress went down in both. But I need them both in my life at a high level of amazing so I hold on, hoping to raise them both up together with practice. Weight in the fall from 145-150. I spent many late nights studying, about 2 hours on the bus everyday…I always seem to need something to keep me awake at night and now I know to stick to black coffee, not food. I was worried about dieting sapping my energy and brain power even more but I think I will do much better next year by keeping hydrated and having six small meals frequently with the evening one being liquid protein so I can study and not have grumbling tummy/low brainpower. After all, me having a busy life is never going to change, and me having to think super hard is never going to change either. Weight went up over the school year to 158, and now it is 168. However, I have been reading about creatine, which I started taking a month ago, and learned that in the beginning, it can increase your water weight from 6-8 pounds as it plumps up and volumizes the muscles. But for women it can still be ok as it will help me build more lean muscle I want to burn off fat. It would be best for me to not fixate on that number as I have a lot of number anyway, but it’s just so important to me to feel feminine and lithe, and that number to me says…ogre or something, just kidding but you know what I mean. The article I read recommended the creatine for 2-6 weeks, then come off for 2-6 weeks to observe the true changes and let water weight dissipate, then go back on, etc. I can possibly learn to be more comfortable with a higher number if I know it’s water weight that isn’t fat. I just hope it’s not making me look puffy. I love the energy I get from it and the power to get through harder workouts. My plan now is the 14 Day Plan #1 from the Body Building Bible for Women, and I am on Week 3/6. After I am done, I will assess my progress with that plan, and I can rotate through again changing to plan 2 or 3 or changing weights or try another plan from the book. I love the plans so far, I’m just disappointed that the results I expected didn’t come after a month’s work, I just wanted to see something better, it can be very discouraging. I am working on my diet very hard making changes. I still have a good appetite and increases as my workouts get harder sometimes, sigh. But I am focusing on protein and the six small meals. One day of the week to eat what I would like, Saturday is that day. Reward for the end of the week if I went 6 straight days according to my plan. It varies in difficulty right now, and I need to settle on a definition of what is and is not acceptable for my "on" nutrition days. I also need to be careful with my new job, another tiring and long one, BUT I like it a lot so far and it has the potential to burn a lot of calories and it’s super hot there which is good to keep the appetite down a bit. Boy this is a long entry! Anyways…I know my diet is a huge factor…and I know I need to wait longer for results. I wish I had done my measurements a month ago…I did front, side, and back relaxed pics which I will repeat tomorrow, with some more poses/focuses. And my measurements, which I will add and make goals for.

I get tired of waiting for the body of my dreams but I need to remember, I am not waiting, waiting would be sitting around and doing nothing, and I am definitely not doing NOTHING. I am working hard…I just want it to show in a way that counts.