Archive for December, 2007

the results are in!

{ December 21, 2007 @ 4:46 pm } · { general, weigh-in }
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I cannot believe it’s been 10 weeks.  In many ways it seems both longer and shorter.  I mean, I’ve really been working on this for 10 whole weeks?  You’ve got to be kidding me.

Today was our final weigh-in day and I’m both pleased and a little miffed about the results (see results at the end of the post).  We also took pictures, again, and so I donned my ugly black bathing suit for yet another humiliating photo op.  Yes, I weigh less now but I don’t weigh 120 pounds, so it will still be a hideous picture.  We also took “after pictures” in our street clothes and I wore a pair of jeans that I couldn’t get on 10 weeks ago.  Pretty dang cool.  I don’t know if you remember my “before photo”?  The one with no arms and the super attractive hair?  What a joy that picture is.  I don’t yet know if this photo is any better but I did make a concerted effort to let the world know that I do, in fact, sport two arms complete with hands.  As for the hair… I seriously doubt that it looks much better.  The picture was taken at 6 a.m. people and my cognitive skills are not at their best that early, not to mention my ability to see clearly in the mirror.  However, as soon as I have the photo in my hot little hands I’ll be sure to post it.

As for my feelings about this journey… it’s a bit overwhelming.  I feel like I accomplished something huge–haha.  Never in my life did I believe that I could lose a substantial amount of weight without the help of drugs or surgery.  I’ve proved to myself that I can do this without those things and that I can feel better mentally and physically in the process.  I can, in fact, lose weight the hard way and be successful.  Where does this leave me now?  Well, in order to keep my momentum going I plan to purchase an additional year on the bodybugg system.  It works for me and that is a big deal.  I have another 10% goal (27 pounds) to accomplish by the end of March and I plan to enter a 5K run with my friend Teresa and possibly some other purple team member/friends this spring.  I think that with these small, short term goals it’s completely within the realm of possibility for me to get to my goal weight of 155 pounds by the end of ‘08.  And I’m so very excited about that.  I also have long term goals.  The 155 pound me, to participate in the Top of Utah marathon someday and I’d like to not only travel to Antarctica & Salvbard (a long time dream/goal) but also really explore the terrain which is something I couldn’t do at my current weight.   However, most of all, I’d really like to feel good about myself inside and out.

My 10 week “ultimate loser” journey has ended but I have a lifetime of work to do.  It’s time for me to take care of myself and start really living.   Thanks to all my supporters.  It has been invaluable to have people cheering me on, especially on those days when the last thing I wanted to do was wake up at 5:30 and go to the gym.  So thank you from the bottom of my, hopefully stronger, heart!

Starting weight:  301
Current weight: 271.8 — yup, I’m .8 lbs away from my goal.  Suck!!!! ;-)
Total weight lost: 29.2 – I may not have quite reached  my 30 lb goal but this is still pretty freakin’ great! Wahoo!!!

BONUS:

Pictures of Thursdays workout with Ethan.  Margaret had her camera phone.

We have 81 lbs + Ethan in that basket and were pulling it around the track
Sheesh!

ethan.jpg

Wow, I look really bad in this pic!
ethang.jpg
They tried to get me in the basket… that wasn’t happening!!!!!
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The Final Countdown

{ December 18, 2007 @ 2:29 pm } · { exercise, general, weigh-in }
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You skip a couple of days blogging and it seems like such a big production to start up again! I didn’t write about last Friday’s weigh-in because frankly it was uber-disappointing. I didn’t lose anything and while I wasn’t the most accurate with my food logging last week, I know I burned more calories than I ate. Was the “no loss” status due to my eating? Was it because of my hormones? Was it because the universe hates me? I don’t know but I was very unhappy about it.

We’re into the final week and I need to lose 6 more pounds in order to meet my 10% loss goal (30 pounds) for this competition. 6 is a big number but if I manage it, it will be my biggest loss yet.

My workouts are going pretty well. There are no special classes this week and we’re working with Ethan everyday. The purple team is nearly extinct now, only 3 of us are showing up each morning. Ethan has been able to take us out to work on the weight machines because our group isn’t too large. Yesterday nearly killed me and I almost vomited (again) after one particularly arduous set. I have to say that Jen and Margaret are rocks. Neither of them has missed a single day and they are very inspiring to me. It’s also really fun working out with the two of them and Ethan. These three people have had a big hand in getting me to where I am right now and I value the support and encouragement they’ve lended me.

Today, after our group workout, I sought out the scale to see if last week had caught up to me yet and guess what… I’ve lost 4 pounds. That brings my unofficial total to 28 pounds lost. If I can get 2 more pounds in the next 3 days I’ll have met my goal! So for the next 3 days I’m keeping my calorie consumption as close to 1200 a day as I can. I’m eating Smart Ones again because they have a controlled portion and I can’t cheat and say I ate 1 cup of soup when I really ate 2. I’m not drinking any coke this week (my biggest weakness) and there will be no cheese. –sniff– I *heart* cheese. Sadly, my work party is on Thursday and is catered (by Culinary Concepts). This is usually a very delicious meal but I won’t be able to eat anything because I can’t accurately track the calories and I worry what it will do to my number on the scale the next morning. I’m thinking that I’ll bring along a plastic container so I can take my dinner home and eat it on Friday for lunch (is that tacky?). I really would like to end this 10 weeks with a bang and begin the rest of my journey with a good start. So hear is to calories burned. May I burn more than I’ve ever burned before!

owie, owie, owie

{ December 13, 2007 @ 3:38 pm } · { exercise }
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I hurt today.  My shoulders ache, my arms ache and I have big bruises on my forearms.  That weigh carrying challenge did a number on me.  Then lets add to it the four miles I walked/jogged/lunged/climbed/bear crawled this morning… owie, owie, owie.

final challenge

{ December 12, 2007 @ 12:58 pm } · { challenge }
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Today I participated the final challenge of the competition. I hated it of course but am so glad I finished it. We were told this challenge was all about the weight we’ve lost and hope to lose and so this is what they came up with to torture us illustrate the point.

We had to carry a total of 230 lbs around the track. There were two 45 lb, two 35 lb, two 25 lb & two 10 lb weights. When Dan first told us how this would work he said we’d be carrying the weights as a team. I thought that meant that we’d decide who would carry the 45’s the 35’s etc. I believe any reasonable person would have thought this. However, it turned out that we each had to carry 230 lbs and the “team” business was simply that the team would share our collective times. Yuck!!!! Here is how it was broken down. We had to take each of the 45 lb weights twice around the track (totaling 4 times around), each of the 35 lb weights three times around, each of the 25 lb weights four times and then the 10 lb weights 5 times around each. I believe the total distance we went was 2 miles and carrying weights while doing it was brutal. I could barely carry the 45’s and had them clutched to my chest, praying that I wouldn’t drop them on my toes. The 35’s really didn’t feel that much lighter. I tried carrying them on my back, with one arm, pressed to my chest and basically every which way I could and was never able to find a comfortable, manageable way to do it. This was the same for the 25′ers. Frankly by the time I’d walked eight times around the track with a 25 lb weight I couldn’t tell the difference between it and the 45’s! By the time I got to the 10 pounds I was exhausted but still had ten laps. Grumpy much? I then, with only four laps to go & carry the last 10 lb weight, went to… the puking place. I started the coughing and gagging which is the precursor to my exercise puking. Seriously, I was almost freakin’ done! So I sucked it up –figuratively– and got past it. I finished the whole thing in 43 minutes 50 seconds. Last (again) but happy that I’d made it.

I’m really feeling the pain right now in my knees and back and my arms are also pretty sore. Curses upon the heads of those who think up these challenges. They suck!

purple-headed step-child

{ December 11, 2007 @ 6:07 pm } · { exercise classes, general, group workout }
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I’ve set a goal for myself to making it to every class and complete every personal workout for the last 2 weeks of this weightloss competition.  This has turned out to be more challenging that I expected.

Saturday, Ethan sent out an e-mail to my team letting us know that we would be swimming on Monday.  Dutifully I woke up at 5 a.m., put on my new blue bathing suit under my workout wear and drove to the gym in the freezing cold.  I decided to walk on the treadmill before group to get my personal workout out of the way–low impact walking I can do with out the aid of a sports bra.  I then went out to the pool area and only found one other member of my team there.  After about 5 minutes of waiting, Ethan comes to tell us that we are the only two who got the message and so they are going to workout in the gym.  Did I mention that I was sans sufficient support?  I asked it it was okay for me to swim laps for an hour seeing as I was unprepared to do anything else and thus I spent my class time swimming laps in the pool.  Boring!

Today I get to the gym, again early to do my personal workout on the treadmill, and then sought out my team in order to find out what we’d be doing.  On Tuesdays and Fridays we join a class and try a new type of activity.  These have been the days in which I learned that I hate spinning, dislike body scuplting and enjoy pilates and water aerobics.  I guess Ethan hadn’t been told what class we were taking in advance.  So when he found out that we were supposed to be swimming he tried to call the team.  At 5:30 a.m.  I don’t take my cell phone to the gym and I left my house at 5:10 so I didn’t get the message and was without bathing suit.  I wasn’t the only one in this predicament.   On top of this, no one told the pool people that we were supposed to be there and so we couldn’t have had a class even if we had all been prepared.  I kind of feel like the purple team is the bastard child of the competition.  Ethan consistently isn’t told what is going on.  He is never given the weights and measurements sheet for weigh-in day (he is given it Friday afternoon but our group meets at 6 a.m.)  and even when we know what class we’re taking at least twice now no room has been reserved for us to take it in.  It kinda blows and I get the feeling that even our trainer is ready to give up on the whole thing.

So, game on.  They may not want me (& frankly some days I don’t want them either) but I’m going to finish this thing and then carry on into the sunset.  I can totally see myself at my goal weight by this time next year and I kinda can’t wait.

Results at week 8

{ December 7, 2007 @ 8:38 am } · { food, general, weigh-in }
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Well it’s Friday again… you know what that means!  Weight loss update!  But before I get into that I just want to say that I’ve been hormonal all freakin’ week.  This means that I’ve cried, fought with headaches and have been, in general, completely unmotivated.  I haven’t put in the workout time that I should have and so I feel some guilt about my weight loss.  Other team members gave a lot more than I and had a disappointing week.  I apologized to Ethan because I sometimes feel that I’m not working as hard as everyone else and he said that he knows I’m working hard.  I’m carrying around 100 more pounds than the majority of my other team members and I guess that is true.  Perhaps if we strapped 100 lbs onto the backs of everyone else they would be as slow as I. 

“Aunt Amy” commented on my last post that she wants to hear me talk about how happy I am with my progress and how I’m feeling about things.  To be honest, I’m not really feeling yet that I’ve accomplished what I could have.  I’m often disappointed with myself and the level of work I put out.  My attitude is that of a whiny baby and I want to quit a lot of the time.  To be honest, while I feel wretched about skipping a group workout or an individual workout, I often do it anyway.  I suspect the largest factor in my weight loss number is the fact that (aside from my fall off the wagon over thanksgiving) I keep my calorie intake, quite strictly, to 1200 -1400 calories a day.  Even on days when I don’t do anything extra, like Sunday, I burn 2200+ calories so I’m averaging a 1400 calorie deficit every day.  Simple mathematics says that I’m going to lose weight.  Can I lose more… that would be a resounding “yes”.  Am I willing to put more work into it… that really depends on the day.  All I know is that I feel better about myself when I lay down night, if I have spent at least an hour exercising.  And that my friends, is something!

So here it is, the results of week 8:

Starting Weight:  301
Current Weight: 277
Total Weight Lost: 24 lbs
(I’ll fill in the % lost later)

Yup, you read that right.  I’ve lost 24 lbs.  Go me!

Update

{ December 5, 2007 @ 5:56 pm } · { exercise, general, weigh-in }
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I’m really behind in the weight-loss updates. Let’s just say that things have slowed down but I have high hopes that it will all pick up for the final 3 weeks. That being said, I missed the challenge this morning. I’m so completely stressed out about my pta responsibilities that I could not for the life of me turn off my brain and fall asleep last night. I kept worrying about what I needed to get done and what I was forgetting. When it was time to get up and be tortured by whatever unpleasant challenge had been cooked up I was too tired to face it.

I’m planning on going to the gym tonight and working out with my friend and so I’ll have to up the effort. I have been trying to push things harder this week in general. Monday mornings workout with Ethan was killer and I was breathing hard the entire hour. I never got a break between activities because I’m slow to finish. By the time I’ve completed one thing (laps, ladders, etc.) everyone has gotten a drink and is ready for the next thing. This is the thing that bothers me the most right now. I’m so much stronger now and can do the things we are asked to do–I even did the bear crawl!– but I’m slow and I hate being so far behind. Perhaps missing the challenge this morning was a good thing. My team may actually represent in todays challenge and I must admit that it was nice not to cry or vomit on this Wednesday morning. ;-D

I also never posted the results of last Fridays weigh-in so here they are:

Starting Weight: 301
Current Weight: 282
Total Weight Lost: 19
Total Inches Lost: 6.5 – I think it’s more…
% of Weight Lost: 6.31%