It was quite a weekend for me.  One great experience and one not so great experience to talk about.  I’ll begin with the latter.  Friday night, I went to the rodeo with my guy, his brother and our 11 year old nephew.  The rodeo was held at the Expo center, which is a local venue for these types of events.  I was really looking forward to the rodeo.  It’s been several years since I’ve been to one and they are most certainly exciting events to watch.  Anyway, we had general admissions seating, the seats in the auditorium are those kinds where the seat bottom flips back to the top and folds down when you sit in it.  And of course they have arms.  OH MY GOSH, I sat down in the chair and had to shove my big fat hind end down in that seat.  Then I spent the next three hours with the arms digging into my hips.  And if that weren’t bad enough, I sat in-between my brother-in-law and my nephew.  I found myself trying to make myself smaller by crossing my arms over the front of my body so as not to hang over in their space.  By the time rodeo was down, I was actually kind of sore; obviously from the chair arms digging into me, but also from tensing my body so that I wouldn’t take up extra space.  It was awful.  Luckily my nephew is a little guy, so I was able to lean towards him instead of my brother in law. 

The good experience for the weekend was that Laurie and I went to Wichita to check out the Biggest Loser tour.  A couple of weeks ago, when I first saw that they were going to be that close to us, I called Laurie and told her that if all possible we should plan to go.  Wichita is about a 4 hour round trip from where we live, but we decided that as long as we didn’t have crappy weather we would go for it. 

I really enjoyed the experience.  There was a couple of long lines that we waited in to get through all the activities, but we met so many interesting and inspiring people during our wait that the time passed by rather quickly.  Jim and Julie from this season's Biggest Loser were there to meet people , sign autographs and hand out Biggest Loser books and DVD’s.  We were also allowed to meet with fitness experts who answered questions that we had about diet and fitness.  They took our picture and I guess it’ll go up on msn’s website sometime this week.  People that wanted to create a website for the contest were also allowed to do that during this event.  They had 3 laptops set up for people who were interested. 

After we were done with this event, we decided to have lunch.  We were starving!  We picked a “fusion food” place and both got rice bowls.  I have to say, I don’t go out to eat all that often and was surprised that my lunch cost nearly $11.00.  I digress, anyway, we got these rice bowls and they were really pretty good.  We both got through about half of our food and realized that we were full.  My guess is that 2 weeks of eating portion controlled food helped in that.  Now in the past, I don’t care how full I was, I would have finished that food, ESPECIALLY after I’d spent $11.00 on it.  I guess we could have gotten doggy bags, but since we hadn’t planned to leave Wichita for a couple of hours and then it being another couple of hours to drive home, we just decided we didn’t want to carry it around with us.  Now if we were thinking, we should have just gotten one entrée and split it, but I don’t think either of us knew that we would get full.  The portions of food weren’t outlandishly big like you see in lots of restaurants.  So we didn’t think it would be a problem eating what we ordered.  I felt bad about wasting that food, but obviously stuff like that is what has gotten me in trouble in the first place.  So I have to  say, I felt more proud about being able to walk away than feeling bad about being wasteful.    Guess we’re making progress!!!

Well I did my 1st workout Friday evening.  I actually enjoyed it.  I like weight lifting (toning), it's usually the cardio that does me in.  I did one circuit on the weights and only 15 minutes on the recumbent bike.  The last 5 minutes, I alternated between going as fast as I could for a minute and then slow and steady for a minute.  However, I was unable to make it to the gym this weekend or Monday.  I'm not going to make excuses, I just didn't go.  I'm planning on going tonight after I get off work.  I'm really looking forward to it.  Kathy and I went to Wichita on Saturday for the Biggest Loser tour.  I found it very informative and I really enjoyed talking to the folks in line.  The different stories they told were helpful.  We met one lady who has gone from weighing 240 to 160, she looked great.  Very inspirational.  I hope that someday, I can be an inspiration to someone.

Just a quick note to let you know how I did with this week's weigh-in at the Y; I lost 5 lbs this week (WOO HOO!) for a total of 6.4 lbs so far.  As you can see, Laurie had an awesome week too!  I'm so glad we're doing this together. 

 

As I wrote in my 1/11 entry, my activity goal during week one was to simply walk 10 minutes per day.  This week my goal was to walk 15 minutes per day.  Not only did I meet that goal I exceeded it by doing my 15 minute walk twice a day; once before work and once during lunch.  This next  week, I'm going to try for 3-15 minute walks per day, adding a 15 minute walk after work.  

 

This week has been extremely busy at work.  I work at a college and we've been dealing with Spring enrollment all week.  Hopefully next week, I'll have more time to devote to writing in our blog, so that you can get to know me a little bit better! 

  Well I went and weighed in this morning.  I'm down to 236.8.  I started at 241.  However I gained at last week's weigh in.  I was at 242.4, so I lost 5.6 lbs this week and a total of 4.2 since we started.  I'm so excited.  It's nice to see the scale go in the down direction instead of the up.  On my scale at home, I weigh 227.  I like that one much better, but I'm going by the scale at the YWCA, to really chart my progress.  I go tonight to get my fitness routine so I can start really working out at the gym.  I'm looking forward to that. 

 

I'll probably check in on Monday!  See ya then!

 

Laurie

Well, I joined a gym last night.  Tomorrow, I get set up with a fitness plan.  I'm going to be doing weights and cardio at the gym and I have some exercise DVD's at home to work on.  I'm going to be a lean, mean fighting machine.  Woo! Hoo!    I started walking today at work, just during breaks.  Next week I'll do it during my lunch breaks, since I can eat my lunch.  One step at a time, one day at a time.

 

Until tomorrow,

 

Laurie

You know as I was watching Biggest Loser last night, I came to a few conclusions.  While watching the scenes with Ali, it reminded me of me.  As much as I would like to blame my father for me being fat, I can't.  One of the reasons that I'm still fat is, like Ali, it's a way to protect myself.  If people don't like me, it's because I'm fat, not because of who I am.  If I lose weight and they don't like me, then it's just me.  If my father doesn't respect me it's because I'm fat, but with him it really is.  If we don't do something that reflects well on him, then we aren't worthy.  Anyway, back to the beginning, I'm not fat because of my father, I'm the one who put the food in my mouth.  I'm the one who didn't exercise.  I'm the only one who can take the weight off.  As far as folks not liking me, I have to like myself 1st then everything else will fall into place.  These are the things that I actually have some control over.

 

More later,

 

Laurie

Good Monday afternoon!

 

I'm so happy to be in week 2 of this new way of life.  The 1st week was a little disappointing.  I actually gained 1.4lbs.  I just don't think I was mentally ready to begin again.  A lot has happened to me over the weekend that has strengthened my resolve to follow through on this.  A big part if it stems from our father.  This man has dieted most of my life and now that he has lost the weight, he seems to forget what a struggle it was.  I feel he is a huge part of the reason my sister and I have this issue.  He has this habit, at least when it comes to me I can't speak for Kathy on this one, of telling me that I'll never succeed so why even bother trying.  He pulled that on me this weekend, not about dieting (we haven't told him we are doing this) about music (which is very important to me) and it finally hit me.  I can't let him get to me anymore.  I have to be a grown up and just know that I can accomplish any and everything I set out to do.  I really need to prove this to myself and for myself, but also for my son (he's 20) I need to show him that his Mom is not a failure and that if I can do this then he can do anything he sets his mind to.  I also need to show him that just because it gets tough, not to give up.  This is one lesson that I haven't learned yet, but I really need to.

Made it through the first week.   Didn’t produce the quite the results I was looking for, but I did lose weight, so I’m not going to be too disappointed ( 1.4 lbs). 

My sis and I entered a local weight loss challenge sponsored by the YWCA.  Last Friday night (1/4) Marty and Amy from the Biggest Loser were in town for the kick-off of the contest.  Saturday morning (1/5) we went to the Y to register our day one stats.  We were weighed, we had our blood pressure taken, our glucose, our measurements and body fat were also logged. 

After the event, the first thing that I did was to go out and by a new scale.  The one I weighed in on at home was a full 10lbs lighter than the one at the Y.  I wanted one that would measure down to 10ths of a lb instead of whole numbers.   I just felt that would be more encouraging for me.  Then I wrote down a list of goals I wanted to reach during my first week.  I wanted to drink at least 64 oz of water a day;  I am a big diet coke drinker and sometimes go for days with that being the only beverage I consume.   My other goal was to get in a 10 minute walk.  I know that doesn’t sound like much, but I am pretty darned inactive during the day.  I am an office manager, and spent the majority of my day sitting in front of my computer and when I get home, I park myself in front of the TV.  I am currently working on my master’s degree and there are days when I don’t even leave my desk at lunch.  I might spend my lunch hour studying.  So 10 minutes at one stretch was pretty good for me. 

I was all excited and gun-ho to begin this challenge and unfortunately came down with a rather nasty cold.; which truly waned my enthusiasm.   I’m one of those people who like to feed a cold.  When  I feel under the weather, I tend to reach for food for comfort. 

 I’m happy to report that I did really well on my eating.  I tried to stick to pre-packaged food, so that I knew exactly how much I was consuming.  I made sure I got in my 64 oz of water a day.  And I got in my 10 minute walk a day.  It was tough because I felt so crummy, but I did it and lost 1.4 lbs this first week.  Obviously, I wish that number would have been higher for my first week, but I realize that being under the weather played a part in my level of effort.    

This next week, I plan to increase my activity to include 2 – 10 minute walks per day.  I will continue with my water intake.  And I am going to start journaling my food intake.  I have read a couple of magazine articles in the past couple weeks that have suggested that journaling is one of the best tools one can use in working through changing their bad habits. 

Thanks it for now, see ya next time!

K.