Alright, welcome back, lots to share. Yesterday was the first day in a 2 month weight loss challenge at my gym, so naturally I signed up. There aren’t a whole lot of people signed up so I have a pretty good shot at the $250 grand prize. While this money is not quite the sum of life changing events, it certainly would be nice and the pride of winning would be amazing. However, I don’t have my sights set on winning either.
For me, the goal for the next 2 months is to work out at least 4 times a week. As much as I’ve tried to convince myself that taking my dog to the dog park counts as exercise I’ve decided that me sauntering around the paved oval staying close to her while she adjusts to her new found freedom is not technically aerobic activity.
I didn’t work out at ALL last week and I’ll you why: FIRE ANTS. No, seriously. I got attacked by fire ants one day, when I was taking my dog for a legitimate walk and as I’ve never experienced anything like this – panicked and they stung the shit out of my foot. I counted 20 bites before my foot got so swollen that it barely fit in my flip flop. My mom made me go to the doctor, which was well worth it, They medicated me up and then I slept for the next 18 hours. It took a while for the swelling and the blisters to go down and today was the first day I felt okay using it and putting it in a tennis shoe.
So, for the first time in a week I hit the workout this morning. As it turns out it was an awful, awful, painful, hard, sweaty and squat heavy class. I loved it. It’s always so worth it when I go. It’s SO HARD to find the motivation some times, but man the reward is amazing. It severely changes the day for me. Today was a tough day at work, it was just slammed and non stop and full throttle and had I not gone this morning, I would have been in a horrible mood all day.
That mood probably would have led to other unhealthy choices. It’s like a domino effect. Even coming home from the dog park tonight – I was so tempted to stop and just grab something quick, or drive through for something but that would have made me feel like crap immediately after and if not immediately after then certainly tomorrow morning when I woke up feeling heavy and gross.
Instead, we hustled home and I have potatos and italian sausage baking in the oven for tonight’s dinner and lunch for the next few days. Today I started a new thing – on my measley 30 minute lunch break – I WENT SWIMMING!
So, I live in Texas and for those of you who don’t and are also poor you know what it’s like to NOT have a pool. We had one at one apartment complex my dad lived in when I was a kid. That one was a bummer because I always had to wait for him to come home to be allowed in the pool. Now, as an adult, I clocked out for lunch, put on my swim suit and marched across my parking lot and went for a swim.
It was a different kind of freedom. Obviously there was no one there – it was the middle of a workday – so I was able to do laps. I got in about 20 minutes of swimming, definitely got my heart going and felt some good muscle work. In a week or two the schedules at work will change and we won’t be short handed through out the week so I plan on trying to take 45-1hr lunch breaks so that I can have a longer swim and then actually have time to make food.
Today I had a shrimp stir fry in the freezer from Trader Joes, so I was able to throw that in my wok while I dried off and then ate at my desk when I clocked back in. I was shocked and amazed that I wanted to do more exercise but I love it and I’m excited about swimming because it’s a really good work out and I may get a little color out of the workout.
This is definitely going to be a long 2 months and while I will try my best to eat as clean as possible, I know that I won’t be perfect. The plan in my head was to start on Monday however, I didn’t plan my actions well and ended up not having “diet” appropriate food in the house so I did my shopping on Monday. Nobody wants to cook the same day they do their shopping so – noted. THEN I decided to really screw myself over and at night, when no body was looking, I went to Krispy Kreme and had 3 – THREE – 3 donuts.
I ate them all. I literally enjoyed every single bite, that is no lie. However, when I was done with them I wanted more. I didn’t eat them all at the same time, but when I finished the last one I was thinking to myself that I could easily eat at least 5 more. I can not stand their glazed donuts – they are so sweet they hurt my teeth. BUT their lemon filled and jelly filled are OMG SO GOOD. Wait I lost my train of thought HA
My dad was an alcoholic and always used to say “one beer was too much and 100 was never enough” and as a baked-treat-aholic, I get it. I mentioned it to my mom today and she feels the same way. We crave these sugary sweets and LOVE to eat them but it’s never enough. It never magically cures the sugar monster or makes me feel fulfilled or satiated. It ONLY makes me crave more. It’s almost not worth eating at all because it just leads to disappointment.
I actually went into a grocery store this week. Again, due to my lack of planning and because I wanted to pop into the Trader Joe’s since it’s been months since I’ve been in one. I knew I was going to spend $80 at Tj’s… I always spend $80 there and like normal I walk out and feel like I have nothing to show for it.
I bought stuff for salads and I bough their jicama wraps which are all the rave on the Whole 30 sites. They’re cut thin like tortillas (I think I shared that I tried to make some on my challenge, but didn’t have the right equipment) anyway, I’ll try those this week. Otherwise I bought stuff for salads, thinking that was gonna be good for this summer heat wave we’ve got going on. Salads don’t fill me up, they’re not what I’m looking for in a food. I didn’t have enough protein or fat in the one I made the yesterday so I was hungry almost immediately after.
I didn’t buy a lot of fruit there either, because my budget was already spent. However, I think I’ll pick some up tomorrow because although you’re not supposed to binge on ANY food I would much rather stuff grapes in my mouth than donuts. I don’t know if it’s quite watermelon season but watermelon tends to solve a lot of my problems.
I’ve got a few projects in the works right now and have been really diving in to some great things growing in my life and am excited to continue to nurture them. I will share an upcoming project soon. My goal is to unveil that project by the first week of July. It’s already been so much work and I’m learning to chip away at it, which I think is an interesting comparison to my weight loss journies.
Generally I expect the weight to just melt off the moment I decided to lose weight. Then months later, after lots and lots of hard work and plain chicken I give up because I had been climbing the mental mountain the entire time and there was no vista to let me pause and enjoy the view. At least THIS time right now, I know that in 2 months I’ll be able to stop and enjoy the view.
I’m not kidding myself here about anything either – I believe that I can lose about 20 lbs but that that takes a lot of dedication. 2lbs a week is healthy and what professionals say to aim for over 2 months – that’s 16 lbs. If I lost 20 that would be incredible. This isn’t The Biggest Loser, I’m not trying to work out for 6 hours a day. If the prize was $50,000 yeah, see ya, I’d be at the gym right now. but for $250 which will pay for 1 month of my gym and a gym clothes shopping spree – I’m going at my turtle’s pace thank you.
I have an amazon wishlist set up for myself for “June Rewards” and it’s basically a fitness trampoline with a bar and some bands for home work outs. When I leave my work outs in the morning I’m on empty and can barely walk, but by the end of the day I have a little vroom vroom left to do a quick at home or I can do it on the days when my schedule doesn’t allow for the classes. Anyway, the trampoline is around $70 so it’s not too expensive and if I stick to my budget and my classes for the rest of the month I’m going to buy it!
I think it’s a good idea to make a wishlist for after the two month challenge, something to look forward to, something special. I think about whether I want to blow it on online shopping or maybe do like a massage or something. I will think about it tonight, as I eat my nummy dinner.
Talk to you soon, friend.
Adventures of the untoward 