Weekend

We had a good weekend. We went as a family on Saturday to the gym so we could all exercise. My back had been hurting, so I wasn't planning on running. We decided to play basketball as a family. We did a couple of dribbling drills down the court, then a race to make a basket in all of the 6 hoops. I ran a couple of races against my kids. I actually worked up a pretty good sweat. Some teenaged guys came in so we had to only use half of the court which slowed us down fitness-wise a bit, but we had a good time.

Then, while I was waiting for my husband and daughter to finish their game of pool, I decided to go walk on the treadmill. Of course I couldn't help myself and ended up running anyway. I went about a mile. At the end I of my workout I like to push it as fast as I'm comfortable. For the first time I pushed it up to 8.0 mph. That was fast and fun!

It was a good family workout and I love getting my family involved in fitness. They love it too.

Ick and Wow!

I changed my ticker--up. I hate having to do that, but I'm trying to keep it real.

Something weird is going on lately with my eyesight. My right eye is suddenly seeing a lot better than normal. I can actually read things at a distance of five feet or so without my glasses on. That's crazy for me. I am really blind without my glasses normally and usually can't even tell there are words, let alone read them.

I remember reading one time about a woman who's doctor told her that losing weight can improve your eyesight. Something to do with the fat deposits behind your eyes. I don't know. I can't find any info to back that up, but it is a little weird. Cool, but weird. Good thing I am supposed to go in for an eye exam in a few weeks anyway. My contacts are now a bit off--prescription-wise.

I've been running 2 miles as many days a week as I can. Shooting for 6, but last week was only 4. I went yesterday and had to slow to a power walk when my hip began to hurt. That's the first time in a long time that it has bothered me. It wasn't anything major and it doesn't hurt today, but I didn't want to take a chance.

Stuff

I've been doing great on my running. I rested yesterday, but basically I've been running 2 miles every day. Tonight Brad came and did his own run on a treadmill. I like watching him run. Hubba hubba!

My weight is going up a bit (3-4 pounds). I don't have any good explanation for why. I'm trying to be more careful in my food choices. I know I can do better, though. I think this battle will be a life-long one.

Three days in a row

I have run two miles every day for three days in a row and I think I'll be able to do it tomorrow as well. It is still a challenge and I still have to talk myself out of quitting a couple of times during the run. But it's not killing me and my hip is still doing fine. Maybe this will help move my weight down the scale a bit faster.

Hello!

It's certainly been a while since I last posted. Nothing much has changed this month. My weight isn't going up or down, just bouncing around the same five pound range. Today it's at the lower end, so that's good.

I've been frustrated with the stand-still. I have tried on some pants at the store, only to realize I'm not quite as small as I had thought. :( I was also dismayed to find that the capris I wore last year still fit me somewhat. What? I had hoped they'd be falling off me. At least I have a couple of pairs of capris to wear.

So I am trying to be happy with where I am at and trying to continue moving forward. I haven't been exercising as much as I had been which makes me frustrated with myself. Some weeks I'm only getting three days of exercise done when really I need to be doing 5-6 days.

Part of the problem is my hip. Although it hasn't bothered me in a few weeks, it has really slowed me down as far as what I am pushing myself to do. I am still running (just did 2 miles this morning) but not really increasing what I've been doing. I think for a while I'm going to try to do some running every day instead of three longer runs in the week. We'll see how that goes.

I will try to post something on my blog at least once a week. I need to keep myself accountable and on track and this helps a lot.

Woo Hoo! I'm overweight!

I weighed in at 196 this morning, which puts me at a bmi of 29.8 which is out of the obese range and merely overweight. :)

I have 32 pounds to go before I'm in the normal weight range.

These numbers are all a little silly because they aren't the ultimate authority on how much I should weigh, but it is nice to have some gauge to sort of go by.

The fight against self-doubt and complacency

I've reached an interesting place in this journey. Things have slowed down weight-loss wise and I'm settling in to my new life and my new body. I struggle from day to day with believing in myself and believing in this process. Weight loss isn’t predictable the way my body does it and I still worry sometimes that I’m doing it wrong. Realistically I think, how can I be doing it wrong, when I've been so amazingly successful? But on the other hand, when the scale is jumping around and the only reason seems to be what I have or haven't done food and exercise-wise, I do begin to doubt that I have a good handle on how to do this.

One thing that I could easily see happening, (but that I'm determined not to let happen) is for me to become satisfied with where I am and stop trying as hard to get this last bit of weight off. I'm wearing a size 14 pants right now. I don't remember the last time I wore a size 14. I think it was in high school. I've lost over 100 pounds and I'm feeling pretty good. But I still have a ways to go and I don't want to just be satisfied with coming this far and not finish what I started. It certainly isn't that I'm not happy with myself and my body--I am. Maybe that's why I worry about this complacency setting in, because I would most certainly feel successful even if this is the end of the journey(which it isn't).

Maybe another thing affecting me is that I can't really picture myself any smaller than I am now. I just haven't ever been within reach of being a size 12, 10 or even smaller. So that self-doubt innocently takes root and could be affecting me in my actions and efforts.

My current eating habits are leaps and bounds above my previous eating habits, but they aren’t perfect and I know there are some improvements I could make if I was motivated enough. This way of eating has served me well enough this far, I keep worrying that it has stopped working and that I’m going to have to give up any food that isn’t perfectly healthy in order to keep going. It’s this fine line I try to walk between feeling like I’m on a diet and deprived, verses eating in a manner that leaves me satisfied and will serve me for the rest of my life. I just don’t trust myself to know where to stop as far as how much I can include before I’m including too much less healthy stuff to lose weight anymore.

I acknowledge that I will probably never be free of the struggle over food. That's okay because I have the tools to beat it.