Sometimes it is not good enough to do your best; you have to do what is required.
~Sir Winston Churchill
Cardi-OH!
So Monday, I went to the gym and managed to get in an hour on the elliptical, but MAN was I struggling. I don't know what was going on! It was one of those workouts where you sweat and you hurt and you feel every breath...I was so happy when that hour was OVER!!! I just kept on trying to psych myself out with the clock. I wouldn't allow myself to look at it. Sometimes that helps me with cardio. They have t.v.s at my gym, so I'll watch the t.v. and try to get really into a show and then allow myself to look at the clock during commercial breaks. It seems to make it go a little faster. It still is tough, but at least it distracts me. I have found that is the battle with me 9 times out of 10...finding a way to distract myself. If I am successful, I can do anything, if not, watch out...I am gonna be whining my way through my workout. But I don't give up. I just tell myself to suck it up and go. Speaking of sucking it up and going, after my dreadful workout, I still had my wall sits to do, so I did my 5 minutes of wall sits after working out and lemme tell you, if you are looking to strengthen those thighs really quickly and not spend money doing it...WALL SITS. Find your nearest wall, pull up an imaginary chair and sit. OUCH! Thanks for the challenge, Anna!
Tuesday, I got dressed and was having a hard time deciding what to wear. I wanted to wear a dress, so I decided to try on one of my sundresses from two years ago. I hadn't worn it in quite some time because it was too tight. It was still a little snug, but I sure as heck wore it to work yesterday. It made me feel good see that I was beginning to fit in a smaller dress size. I have definitely started noticing a difference in my legs and my rib area. I feel like the weight is coming off from the top of my head downwards and the bottom of my feet upwards. Unfortunately, my mid-section still seems a bit unphased. Oh well. All in due time, all in due time.For my workout yesterday, I couldn't believe what I did!! I was driving home from work and all of a sudden this evil little voice comes out and says..."Why don't you try to run for 20 minutes straight?" Uh...I tried to ignore the voice, but it kept plaguing me and getting louder and louder until I had the impulse to actually give it a try. Like I had on the stair climber, I got sweaty feet...as I always do when I get nervous. I wasn't sure that this was a good idea. I could give myself a heart attack...I could hurt my knee...I could inflame my shin splints. Man...I had a whole list of things that I just knew were going to go wrong. So I decided I would do it and I drug along the guy who rents our basement to call 9-1-1 when I had a heart attack. I started out okay, I ran a lap and 100 meters into the second lap, I was DYING. My legs were screaming, I kept thinking about how long the track was, how much time was left; I knew I wouldn't make it unless I could psych myself out. So I decided to run at the end of the track were they usually have the high jump. I couldn't tell how far I was running then and a lap around that little area wasn't far at all. This way I only had to whine about how long I had and how bad my legs were hurting. Well, I believe most people walk faster than I was running (let's just say I would have been a shoo-in for that slo-mo running sequence in "Chariots of Fire"). But FINALLY Nick came and collected me at my end of the track and I SOMEHOW ran the rest of the lap completing my 20 minutes.
HOLY COW.
When I started this process June 1st, I couldn't run 60 seconds without stopping. Seriously...I couldn't run 60 seconds. I haven't run for 20 minutes since I was in high school. I am so proud of myself. I don't say that to sound like I have a big head, but I say it cause I need to hear it. I never tell myself that "I am proud of me." We should all do that a lot more often than we do. As I was reflecting yesterday I realized that I had always looked to others to find acceptance and love of myself. I told one of my friends yesterday that : "I always thought love would fix me, and I was right, love does fix a person...but it's not the love I was looking for. It is the love that is always there. I should have been looking for the love of myself to fix me...not the love of myself by someone else." After I wrote it, I looked back at it and started thinking, do I really love myself? Am I really giving myself the credit I deserve? No. So one of my goals this week is to occasionally celebrate myself and praise myself. It's just one more layer of the cocoon that must be unravelled.
So yes, my running adventure yesterday coined my new phrase for cardio...from now on, it will always be called cardi-OH! Cause that's all I can do afterwards...say "oh..gasp..gasp...I am dying!" or "OH...gasp...gasp...I'll never make it." or "OH...gasp...gasp...THANK THE LORD I AM FINISHED!!" : )I came home and did my planks (compliments of Demesha) and BOY do those monsters hurt. I did 3 minutes worth of them. You know it's a good exercise if your whole body is shaking as you are doing it. OUCH.
OH! And I joined "Operation Fat Blaster" today...you should too. Michelle wants all of us to set a goal, and I am trying to come up with what mine will be. I might keep it kinda vague. I just want to keep losing weight and gaining strength. But we'll see what I come up with. I suppose that's all I have for now! Happy weight loss!
Another Lightbulb Moment
This lightbulb moment is sponsored by Demesha ; )
So first off, allow me to apologize for allowing all of my posts to get several days behind. I have been working really hard the past week or so and have had absolutely no time for posting! So, allow me to catch you up:
Last week Demesha (http://rebornwright.blogspot.com/) challenged me to do three things:
1. DO NOT WEIGH YOURSELF MORE THAN ONCE THIS WEEK.
2. @ least 5 days this week w/ a minimum of 20 minutes of cardio each day.
3. POSITIVE THINKING - I want you to write down anytime you have a negative thought this week (when you can at least) and how you CHOSE to make it a positive thought. Send them to me on facebook (personal message) or by email on friday. I want to hear about you taking your thoughts captive and turning them into positive ones.
So last week, I accomplished numbers one and two easily and when I weighed myself Saturday, I was down to 323.8! That was a 7 pound weight loss in 5 days! I couldn't believe it! I worked out 6 days this week for at least an hour (actually Monday I did the stair climber and only managed to go for 20 minutes...yikes was that a painful 20 minutes) so I worked SUPER hard...BUT the item on the Demesha Challenge that I really want to focus on in this blog is the 3rd item:
I have a problem with negative thoughts. They are so pervasive in my mind that I don't even notice them sometimes. Within the past three or four weeks, I have become more aware that they are there and they are detrimental to my success. I had been trying to combat them and then week before last, they got really bad. I was weighing myself every day. I didn't think I was doing myself any harm, just holding myself accountable. BAD IDEA. I was beating myself up soooo much for those dumb numbers that weren't going anywhere on the scale...and guess what happened weekend before last? I BINGED. I ate and ate and ate. I hadn't realized just how much of a negative impact that the scale has on me. It was a real "ah-ha moment" this week when I saw how much more focused I was without weighing myself. My mind was completely clear and focused. So jumping back to number 3 on the challenge--what negative thoughts did I have?
NONE.
Even as I see it here typed out, I can't believe it. My mind has been so cluttered with self-destructive thoughts for so long, that I didn't hear them anymore until recently. Last week, I listened SO HARD for one of those thoughts. I even carried around a pad of paper and a pencil waiting to have the opportunity to write one down. I had even thought of positive thoughts to combat any potential negative thoughts that might come my way.
NOTHING.
There was nothing. As I sat down to the computer last Friday to write down my thoughts for Mesha, I felt like she would think I had cheated and that I blew off the final part of the assignment. This wasn't the case at all. I put so much time and effort and thought into that one and I had nothing to show for it. Right as I was starting to feel a little disappointed, I turned to my husband and asked him how many negative thoughts he had about himself on a daily basis. He gave me a strange look and said, "Well sometimes I get down on myself, but I don't have daily negative thoughts." I pushed him further and said, "So you haven't thought anything bad about yourself today?" His answer was no. I stopped and looked back at my computer screen and the blank message that I had for Demesha and I started sobbing. Jamie jumped over to me and started asking if I was alright and if he had said something wrong and I just looked at him and said, "I have been so abnormal for so long that I don't even know what normal is."
It isn't normal to have so many negative thoughts about yourself. It isn't normal to wake up thinking terrible things about yourself, your body, your life and go to be thinking the same things. That's awful! I realized just how captive I was holding my body. I have been a hostage to my mind and my thoughts for so many years.
All of a sudden I felt a door unlock. Dr. Phil has 7 doors to weight loss, and one of the first ones that you have to "unlock" is turning around your thinking. Friday night, I turned it around. I all of a sudden had a mirror held up to my face and realized how terribly I had been treating myself emotionally: this is why I have anxiety, this is why I drink, this is why I am big, this is why I am gruff and distant, it explained so much. Negativity is kind of like quick sand, the deeper you get into it, the further and further you sink and the harder it is to see how to escape. I am just in awe of how quickly my thinking changed once I was aware of it.
Honestly, I don't know if the seven pounds I lost this week were fat at all. I think it was 7 pounds of negativity I let go.
If you are reading this, and having negative thoughts about yourself, take #3 of the Demesha Challenge this week. Send me your results and see if you can't trap those thoughts before they take root in your mind. The difficult task of losing weight becomes so much easier when you can unlock the chains that have been holding you back. I have posted this before, but I'll post it again because it is such a vivid description of "the fat girl mentality" that is apropos to this post:
"If you have ever been to a circus, perhaps you have seen six-ton elephants tethered by rope to little wooden stakes. Have you ever wondered why one of these powerful animals doesn't yank that stake out of the ground and stampede off? When the elephants are young and powerless, they are attached by heavy chains to immovable steel stakes. The baby elephants tug and pull, but no matter how hard they try, the chains will not come out of the ground. As the elephants grow and get stronger, they come to believe that they cannot move anywhere as long as there is a stake in the ground nearby, no matter how tiny or weak the stake. They don't try to break loose because they think they can't. So it is with people. If you are like those circus elephants, you've allowed your thoughts and actions to limit you, and like those elephants, you may not have been aware that you had choices. Well, you may not have been aware before, but I'm telling you now that you do have choices, you do have power, now you know. You don't have to stay mindlessly tied to stakes of wrong thinking and self-destructive behavior. You can pull up the stakes of wrong thinking and self-destructive behavior. You can "pull up the stakes," transcend your conditioning, and reprogram yourself for success rather than failure."
--The Ultimate Weight Solution by Dr. Phil McGraw
Thank you, Mesha.
So first off, allow me to apologize for allowing all of my posts to get several days behind. I have been working really hard the past week or so and have had absolutely no time for posting! So, allow me to catch you up:
Last week Demesha (http://rebornwright.blogspot.com/) challenged me to do three things:
1. DO NOT WEIGH YOURSELF MORE THAN ONCE THIS WEEK.
2. @ least 5 days this week w/ a minimum of 20 minutes of cardio each day.
3. POSITIVE THINKING - I want you to write down anytime you have a negative thought this week (when you can at least) and how you CHOSE to make it a positive thought. Send them to me on facebook (personal message) or by email on friday. I want to hear about you taking your thoughts captive and turning them into positive ones.
So last week, I accomplished numbers one and two easily and when I weighed myself Saturday, I was down to 323.8! That was a 7 pound weight loss in 5 days! I couldn't believe it! I worked out 6 days this week for at least an hour (actually Monday I did the stair climber and only managed to go for 20 minutes...yikes was that a painful 20 minutes) so I worked SUPER hard...BUT the item on the Demesha Challenge that I really want to focus on in this blog is the 3rd item:
I have a problem with negative thoughts. They are so pervasive in my mind that I don't even notice them sometimes. Within the past three or four weeks, I have become more aware that they are there and they are detrimental to my success. I had been trying to combat them and then week before last, they got really bad. I was weighing myself every day. I didn't think I was doing myself any harm, just holding myself accountable. BAD IDEA. I was beating myself up soooo much for those dumb numbers that weren't going anywhere on the scale...and guess what happened weekend before last? I BINGED. I ate and ate and ate. I hadn't realized just how much of a negative impact that the scale has on me. It was a real "ah-ha moment" this week when I saw how much more focused I was without weighing myself. My mind was completely clear and focused. So jumping back to number 3 on the challenge--what negative thoughts did I have?
NONE.
Even as I see it here typed out, I can't believe it. My mind has been so cluttered with self-destructive thoughts for so long, that I didn't hear them anymore until recently. Last week, I listened SO HARD for one of those thoughts. I even carried around a pad of paper and a pencil waiting to have the opportunity to write one down. I had even thought of positive thoughts to combat any potential negative thoughts that might come my way.
NOTHING.
There was nothing. As I sat down to the computer last Friday to write down my thoughts for Mesha, I felt like she would think I had cheated and that I blew off the final part of the assignment. This wasn't the case at all. I put so much time and effort and thought into that one and I had nothing to show for it. Right as I was starting to feel a little disappointed, I turned to my husband and asked him how many negative thoughts he had about himself on a daily basis. He gave me a strange look and said, "Well sometimes I get down on myself, but I don't have daily negative thoughts." I pushed him further and said, "So you haven't thought anything bad about yourself today?" His answer was no. I stopped and looked back at my computer screen and the blank message that I had for Demesha and I started sobbing. Jamie jumped over to me and started asking if I was alright and if he had said something wrong and I just looked at him and said, "I have been so abnormal for so long that I don't even know what normal is."
It isn't normal to have so many negative thoughts about yourself. It isn't normal to wake up thinking terrible things about yourself, your body, your life and go to be thinking the same things. That's awful! I realized just how captive I was holding my body. I have been a hostage to my mind and my thoughts for so many years.
All of a sudden I felt a door unlock. Dr. Phil has 7 doors to weight loss, and one of the first ones that you have to "unlock" is turning around your thinking. Friday night, I turned it around. I all of a sudden had a mirror held up to my face and realized how terribly I had been treating myself emotionally: this is why I have anxiety, this is why I drink, this is why I am big, this is why I am gruff and distant, it explained so much. Negativity is kind of like quick sand, the deeper you get into it, the further and further you sink and the harder it is to see how to escape. I am just in awe of how quickly my thinking changed once I was aware of it.
Honestly, I don't know if the seven pounds I lost this week were fat at all. I think it was 7 pounds of negativity I let go.
If you are reading this, and having negative thoughts about yourself, take #3 of the Demesha Challenge this week. Send me your results and see if you can't trap those thoughts before they take root in your mind. The difficult task of losing weight becomes so much easier when you can unlock the chains that have been holding you back. I have posted this before, but I'll post it again because it is such a vivid description of "the fat girl mentality" that is apropos to this post:
"If you have ever been to a circus, perhaps you have seen six-ton elephants tethered by rope to little wooden stakes. Have you ever wondered why one of these powerful animals doesn't yank that stake out of the ground and stampede off? When the elephants are young and powerless, they are attached by heavy chains to immovable steel stakes. The baby elephants tug and pull, but no matter how hard they try, the chains will not come out of the ground. As the elephants grow and get stronger, they come to believe that they cannot move anywhere as long as there is a stake in the ground nearby, no matter how tiny or weak the stake. They don't try to break loose because they think they can't. So it is with people. If you are like those circus elephants, you've allowed your thoughts and actions to limit you, and like those elephants, you may not have been aware that you had choices. Well, you may not have been aware before, but I'm telling you now that you do have choices, you do have power, now you know. You don't have to stay mindlessly tied to stakes of wrong thinking and self-destructive behavior. You can pull up the stakes of wrong thinking and self-destructive behavior. You can "pull up the stakes," transcend your conditioning, and reprogram yourself for success rather than failure."
--The Ultimate Weight Solution by Dr. Phil McGraw
Thank you, Mesha.
Mission Updated!
Updated!