Entry 8: No one said it was easy.

Picture to the left: My body in its glory days, ha!

It is 3:58PM. Michael just left to go to work not too long ago. I woke up, ate a banana right away, and drank a glass of water and my green tea/half of a lemon squeezed with an artificial sweetener. I read online that the best time to work out is in the morning. They also say to drink a glass of water before you work out to get your metabolism up as the water warms up in your stomach from exercising. That sets your metabolism up to kick butt for the day. I also read that the best time to weigh yourself is after you wake up in the morning, before you eat breakfast and after you use the restroom. You will get your most accurate reading. SO that’s exactly what I did today. I did the treadmill early! It feels nice to have done it already. I also did a little bit of weight lifts and used the exercise bike. I made a music mix for myself to listen to when I work out. I feel that is important! I picked songs that get me in the groove. I have realized I am not one to stand in front of the TV and do a work out video. I just don’t do it! The songs get old and I hate learning new things! I think that’s what it boils down to. OH and in case any of you were wondering I DID do the treadmill last night! I didn’t get down to do it until around 10PM. I don’t think I’m going to wait that long to do it ever again. It was tough! My body ached but I kept going! I know most people say when you tell them how to loose weight that they can’t do it because they can’t get used to eating healthy or they have to sit on the couch for this or that reason but to be honest those are just excuses!! I have been there done that! It’s called DENIAL! You can do WHATEVER you set YOUR mind to do! MIND over MATTER! You can’t exercise because your feet hurt? You can’t exercise because your back aches? Exercise can only make it better! It may be painful in the beginning but the end result is to never have those aches and pains again. Being overweight IS the reason why your feet hurt & your back aches. It took me a long time to realize this.
 
On another note I have been craving fast food. (Don’t worry I wont cave) - I don’t think many people understand how addicting it can be to a person like me! Fast food commercials are the worst! I don’t want to even treat myself to it because I am afraid I will fall off the bandwagon. It is like my nicotine to a smoker. Very hard to quit but I’m doing it! I feel the reason why I got the munchies so bad on Michaels Birthday is because we had beef-a-roo roast beef sandwiches. Even though I was still in my calorie intake for the day it set my pace for the rest of the evening. It almost made me hungrier after I ate them! I just think of how icky I felt and how sad I was that I cheated and drink a gulp of water. I am very proud of myself. Even the days I cheated, I still drank water. Ever since I have started this I have replaced all of my drinks with water. I know my will power is strong because I have Gatorade, Pepsi and OJ in the fridge and I still pick water. I have been very hard on myself but I feel I need to be! It is not easy. Michael still eats normal and I have already been through sitting right next to him while he eats whatever he wants. I have made food for him that I wanted to eat too but I didn’t. I feel that really shows my true will power! He had some cookies the other day and I read the calories on the back of the package. It is over 200 calories for only TWO small cookies!!! I notice the more I count calories the better I do. One string cheese is 80 calories, I can’t do it. I have started to feel guilty even eating that! Because I know I will want another one and why waste calories on something so small? 1 string cheese or a big bowl of veggies with fat free ranch?

I had a weight watchers meal for dinner today. I had 2 glasses of water with it and put my fork down between each bite. Filled me up! I am excited to see what my final number is when I weigh in on Friday. It will have been my first full week of this new lifestyle! Even though I have been on this since the end of April; I had a rocky start. There are so many options out there that I just decided I needed to do my own research and do what I feel I would do and not have someone tell me how to do it. Every little difference helps. Even if I am not working out 2 hours a day and going on a crash diet I am still making healthier choices than I was before. The other night I asked Michael to get me a glass of water. Then when he got up to go get it for me I yelled at him. I realized I need to just get up and do it myself. Just because he was going to go in the kitchen already to get something I needed to still get up and do it for myself. I used to avoid going upstairs because I didn’t feel like doing the stairs. Not anymore. I make myself sprint up those stairs and get what I need to get instead of saying ah, I’ll get it later.

Later on I allow myself a snack. I usually like to stick to something 100 calories or less. I have DRAMATICALLY dropped my calorie intake from what it used to be. I don’t even want to know what it used to be! I know it had to be way over 4,000! Now it’s about 600 or less a day. My lean cuisine or weight watchers meals I keep below 300 calories. Usually 240 or 280 and then a banana is 90 calories & my snack is about 100 calories. That also leaves me room to have another healthy snack if I am having a rough day.

So I am hoping to stick with this new routine by working out after I get up and eat a banana and drink my green tea/water. Green tea speeds up your metabolism as well as fresh lemon juice. The lemon juice part was the hardest for me to get used to! I do not like sour things but after I started to add a no calorie artificial sweetener it is much better. Who knows, maybe later I will work out again? My friend can’t walk again until Thursday. I know that doesn’t mean that I still can’t walk but I was thinking on walking to my Moms and back later. That would be 2 miles and a lot of hill, lol but it is raining.

I have no idea what I am doing but I am trying different things and seeing results! Working out is hard but I put myself in a different frame of mind to push myself as hard as I can. I stop to catch my breath and that’s it. In gym glass I used to get myself to run by thinking there was some bad guy chasing me. Weird? Maybe; but had to get myself moving somehow!

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A video from this morning of my dog Heidi saying "Get up off the couch and do something Mumma!"