Ugh!! I get it and am moving on

My hormones are going wonky. I didn't have a period for like two and a half months (due to IUD not pregnancy) but have had like 6 periods in two weeks. This sucks. Now they are not full blown periods but it has made my life difficulty. I don't know if it’s related but the weight has not been coming off either. I have been eating well (not withstanding the one day of salty nuts) and completed the challenge of 5 workouts last week.

I was seriously getting down on myself until I read this on Sparkspeople.

"Because we are all experiments of one" we cannot compare our weight loss to the rate at which others lose. For many people, the results can take as long as 8 weeks before they show up on the scale, but that does not mean the changes aren't happening. Because our bodies are largely made up of water, any deviation in our diet, hydration, workouts, even hormones can lead to a big shift on the scale.

Know that all changes within the body must begin at the cellular level...all the way down to the fat cells need to release the free fatty acids, to the muscle cells making bigger and more numerous mitochondria-these are the organelles within the cells-to give us energy.

It isn't uncommon to see a slight upward shift in weight when we start exercising and eating better. For one the muscles are making more mitochondria which allow for extra glycogen-stored glucose in the cells- therefore, your body hangs on to more water to help with the cooling off process for exercise and for helping process energy. Your muscles will also have an increase in blood volume in order to have better availability to oxygen and removing waste, especially lactic acid. These things coupled with eating higher fiber foods, such as fruits and veggies can show a gain, when in all reality it is just a shift in fluids.

So I took that to mean don't give up. (Not like I would :P) For the coming week I have planned out all of my meals and workouts. I am not going to let a zero weight loss get me down. I may not kick ass in February but I am on my way to a healthier lifestyle and a smaller waistline. I don’t consider this a setback; I am on my way down.

Some things I learnt this last week:

1. I love, love, love hot yoga. Had my first class on Saturday and will definitely be going back.

2. When work is stressful, a leisurely run at lunch will definitely make your day better.

3. Doing yoga in front of mirrors made me realize how fat I am. Need to step it up. I really didn’t know I had that many lumps.

4. When someone says, I don’t mean to sound like a bitch; they are going to be a bitch. Let them say what they want. They really want to show you how wonderful they are.

5. I am not to be trusted around salty nuts.

Hope everyone has a great week. Sorry I am behind on my blog reading again. The cleaning of my house came before blog commenting today.

Prayer of the Day

Our Father, who are in Vancouver, hockey be thy name

Thy will be done, the gold we be won

On ice as well as in the stands

Give us this day. our hockey sticks

And forgive us our penalties

As we forgive those who cross check against us

Lead us not into elimination

But deliver us to victory

In the name of the Team Canada Hockey

Amen

GO CANADA GO!!!! BRING ON THE USA!!!!!

I love me some salty nuts

Due to the fact that I am no longer eating chocolate (I have never wanted 40 days to go by faster in my entire life) I am trying to find healthy snack ideas. I stumbled upon Blue Diamond Bold Flavored Almonds. For the full serving (like 50 nuts) they only have an extra 10 calories and oh my gosh the flavor is stupendous. Bad thing is I planned to eat 10 almonds and ate like 30. Oops. Not the worst thing in the world mind you. I am loving the Jalapeno Smokehouse and Lime n' Chili. They are actually 2 for 1 this week at Safeway. I may have to wander there this week!!

I don't care what I say, I am back at the 5 am workouts. Okay, truthfully they are more like 5:15 workouts (I tend to hit snooze). I am so tired tonight but a couple of nights of going to bed earlier, waking up earlier makes life a lot easier. This morning it was a walk run on my treadmill and tomorrow its fun times with Jillian.

Now off to bed. I am in need of my pillow and blanket.

Wholy Ranting and Raving Batman

I have something to confess. I have lost 6.5 pounds in two days. Now that is after a rapid 6 pound weight gain. On Tuesday evening for some unknown reason I stepped on the scale (something I normally save till the morning when I am naked) and I was shocked and appalled. I weighted more than when I started this competition. I was mortified. I was torn between vomiting or eating a bag of chips followed by a tub of ice cream. I did neither but went to bed resolved to get my ass in gear. Well, I got my period yesterday and by this morning I was down 6.5 pounds from my atrocious weight of Tuesday evening. Man being a women wreaks havoc on your body. (I have an IUD so my periods are few and far between. The downside is that I never really know when the next one will hit.)

For the past two nights, my sweet and angelic daughter has gotten up super early (3:30 am and 4:30 am). When she wakes up that early, the easiest thing is to just bring her into my bed to fall quickly back to sleep. The down side of that is no 5 am workouts. As I didn't have anything laid out, I would have to turn the lights on and wake up said angle and trust me, the angle is only an angle when she gets sleep. That is okay though cause I went for an awesome walk yesterday during my lunch break and plan to do some treadmill running tonight to make up for it.

I have been struggling today and yesterday with my new commitment. For Lent I have decided to give up chocolate. Now I did this before my beautiful friend Tyler wrote about Lent and how what we give up should not give me a side benefit (i.e. losing weight). I seriously struggled with this all day today. Tyler gave me an out to my commitment and that is what I have been looking for since I decided to give it up (and trust me I have thought about it a tonne since I made the decision on Tuesday - yeah that's right two days ago). The thought of going without chocolate for 40 days makes me nervous and anxious. I keep trying to make up little rules that would allow me to have chocolate and still keep my commitment. Rules like I can have chocolate if is a special occasion (umm Monday's counts right) or if it was of a benefit to me (chocolate protein shake) or if it wasn't really chocolate (Chocolate Mint Oolong Tea). I then realized I must give up chocolate for Lent as it would make me uncomfortable. I do not eat enough chocolate to make me fat and I don't think that stopping eating chocolate would really have that much affect on total weight loss but I do think it will teach me to go without and to self sacrifice a little.

I have decided I am going to try and photograph my meals. Now this may become very boring as I eat very repetitiously. I eat virtually the same thing for breakfast and lunch everyday and only eat one or two different things for supper each week. (So boring I know but cooking for a toddler and myself is hard so I cook once and eat two or three times from it. I have tried freezing meals but not everything freezes well. Plus I really don't mind.) I may thing about this some more before I jump right into it. What I really want to do is share more of my delicious healthy things I make. I read a lot of blogs where the recipes they post are just not my taste and if I feel that way I am sure someone else does too.

I did get to go shopping today. The Gap was having a one day 40% off sale. I didn't try anything I bought on cause it was way too busy for that but the keepers I bought are too small on me. I am going to work to get into these beautiful new sale item. I know, not the smartest thing to do but I want to lose weight and I have enough fat clothes.

Sorry for the random ranting, many things on my mind and truly this is the way my life goes sometime. It is so nice just to let them all out so I can happily go on with my evening.

Have a great night!!

I love bad things

I so want to eat something really bad for me right now. It doesn't even have to be really bad for me, like fried chicken, but even something pretend bad for me, like a crappy 100 calorie snack pack.

This week I am in a different office at work and it is barren of snacks with the exception of icky mints and 9 flavours of tea. Needless to say I am having my 5th cup of tea today. I have some emergency shut the f*&k up kid candy in my purse but that has not been eaten so far. I am not hungry, I just want to eat (hmmm, maybe that is why I am overweight??).

Being in such a quiet, snack deprived office has some advantages like catching up on my blog reading. I came across this free snack giveaway. It for a case of Popchips. Living in Canada, most of the good snack food is out of my reach, or should I say pocket book. A lot of the 'good' snacks can be bought online but the shipping is redonkulous. Although I must say that I am really trying to get away from the pre-packages crap but hey if its free pre-packaged yummy not so good for me food, send it my way!!

The other advantage, I am so caught up on my work its silly. The phone has barely rung and there was like two people who came in so I got a tonne of work done. If this keeps up I don't know what I will do on Friday.

I Love Long Weekends and My Mom

My mom came down for a visit this long weekend. It has been a while since she has been to my house for a visit even though with all the funerals in my family I have seen her a lot lately. Regardless, with the commotion of funerals, I haven't had a good visit with her. She came down on Friday and left today after lunch - it was a great time.

We went shopping (tonnes of shopping), cooked a turkey, made soup, watched movies, took my daughter to the museum and caught up on random gossip. Even though I didn't get any exercise in (unless you count shopping and really this weekend I probably could) but that is fine with me. I would rather spend a quality weekend with my mom that included sleeping in all three days.

Tomorrow is back to 5 am exercising. I am also planning on doing some menu planning tonight. I have a house full of food (honestly, I don't remember having my freezer and cupboards this full ever) so my options are wide open.

Hope everyone had a great weekend.

Even the Stars Think I Should Get Up Early

I rarely read my horoscope – and I mean rarely. I read two to three different news papers daily as part of my job and cannot remember the last time I actually read one. I am not a big believer in astrological signs. Plus, I am a cusp baby so different astrologers in different publications tend to give slightly different dates for when each of the zodiac signs start and finish. This is because the actual times and dates can vary a little bit from year to year and I find it very hard to keep up.
Why is this girl blathering on about astrological signs you may ask. Well today I actually read my horoscope and just laughed...

Each action you take, even during your downtime, contributes to your success. You start tomorrow off right and do positive things with your evening hours. Take the time to care for your body and mind. Go to bed early.

This makes me laugh. I guess even the stars think I should be getting up early to work out. Early starts have not been easy this week but I will get in my three mornings if it kills me. (And really dragging your ass out of bed 5 am won’t kill anyone.)

Now onto Month Two

Okay so month one is officially over. Did I do as well as I hoped? Heck no. I wasn't expecting a stellar month, I had two grandmother die within three weeks of each other (yes, for those who follow my blog, my grandmothers died within 19 days of each other and yes it sucks) so it was an emotionally straining month. That being said I still lost 3.5 pounds and any loss is better than a gain.

I know the reason I didn't lose more weight, I didn't exercise regularly or watched what I ate. No matter how many colon cleanses and fat flushes I did, the weight just didn't fall off. Bahaha, sorry I had to put that in. I didn't put harmful chemicals into my body in hopes of looking like Heidi Klum and never would. (Funny side story, I was talking to a pharmacist friend of mine at his work while he was stalking the shelves. I came across a weight loss supplement and asked him if it really worked. He laughed his ass off and said, "If that really worked, do you actually think that there would be any left on the shelves?" Point taken.)

Seeing how well everyone did in the competition has done some serious motivation for me and I know have a plan. Screw the sleeping in, I will get up at 5 am to exercise. I am not just going to run on my treadmill (as it bores me if I just stick to that) but instead mix it up with some dvd workouts. These workouts will be a minimum of three times a week (to start with cause really if I commit to 5 and it doesn't work out I may quit). More excitingly, on February 27th, hot yoga starts up and I am super pumped. Its on Saturday afternoons so its totally doable and I even got a discount rate from my sitter so it won't cost like $30 a class, rather with babysitting it will only be $22. (I know, still expensive but I don't care).

Congratulations to all of the losers out there. I am so proud of everyone. Lets make February and even better month!!!


Afterthought:

So after I finished posting, I am catching up on my blog reading and find out you can get free workout videos on line. Thank you Prior Fat Girl for posting the wonderful links. This mean even more variety and motivation. Spanks!!!

When do you workout

Okay, so I am trying like heck to get my eating habits back on track and its working so far. I am trying to be really diligent and find myself feeling better. The whole no sugar challenge is actually helping as apparently I was eating way more sugar than I thought I actually did.

My problem now (cause you know I have to have one) – exercise. I am finding it very hard to get motivated to move. Due to the single mommy thing, I do have limited workout times and the ones I do have suck. I can either work out at 5 am or about 8:30 pm. I know I just need to start and a few days into working out it won’t suck butt so much.

My question is when does everyone workout? When do you find it easiest to get off your butt?