Gyms and Whitesnake

Last winter, during my blog hiatus, I had a minor crisis occur in my little world. My gym, quite abruptly, closed.

Ok, I know this sounds like no big deal and in the greater scheme of things, it isn't, but to my little world at the time, it was a huge deal.

I'd been going to the gym for over a year at that point. Which was a pretty big deal for me. I'd finally found a place and a routine that worked for me. Somewhere I was comfortable. But one day in February, I showed up for my after work workout to find a note on the ground floor saying that effective immediately, the place was closed. The poor staff were blind sided too. I was stunned. And very upset. I even cried a little. You see, this wasn't just some gym. It was a life line. Even now, sitting here writing this, it's upsetting me again and I have tears in my eyes.

The exercise was helping to keep my mood in check during the winter, helping me to keep my inner demons in check and securely locked away. I made friends there. I'd see the same people during my work outs and became invested in their lives and their progress. The coaches were our cheerleaders. We laughed together. It wasn't just some gym where you went in, put your head down, did your workout and left. People noticed when I wasn't there. People were genuinely invested in how I was doing and how I was progressing. And just like that, it was all gone. Poof. I actually felt like someone had died. I grieved the loss. And truthfully, I was terrified. I was at a complete loss as to what I was going to do. I couldn't switch to another location because there wasn't one close enough to my home or work to make it viable. I seriously didn't know what I was going to do. Didn't know how I was going to cope.

About a month later, my friend MA convinced me to try an aquafit class at her gym. I've taken one before and I like swimming so I gave it a try. I liked it. So I signed up. For roughly 9 months, I've been going to aquafit. At first it was 3 times a week and then it dropped to twice a week. We did try adding in a floor class to fill up that 3rd day but couldn't find one we liked or were comfortable with. By the end of November, I think I was making it to 1 class a week and as of today, I haven't been to a class since mid-December. I've lost all desire to get in that pool. Part of that is the fact that I don't like standing in -20C weather, with semi wet hair, waiting for a bus after the class. It's a welcome change in the summer but in the winter, it sucks.

Between December 2014 and now, I've managed to gain roughly 25lbs. I've never been bigger in my life than I am right now. This isn't good. It's bad. Very, very bad. I've stopped going places, I've stopped seeing people because I'm embarrassed. Hell, even my 3 year old niece called me out at Christmas (totally adorable "out of the mouths of babes" moment, which I actually laughed at). I'm not comfortable in my own skin at the moment, and that hurts.

Don't get me wrong, I still have self respect and dignity and will put anyone in their place should they dare say anything negative me about my weight but at the same time, I've very aware and conscious of the fact that I'm slowly killing myself.

Today I took a tiny step to try to fix things. Well, actually I took the step last Friday, they just didn't have any spots open until today. All those friggin' New Year's Resolution people taking up the prime spots. Bastards. LOL. Anyhow, I signed up for an orientation session at my new gym. Hell, I've been there for almost a year now so I guess it's high time that I figure out how to use something more than the pool eh?

A personal trainer takes us around the gym and shows us what to use and how to use it. It was an hour long session with 3 of us and the trainer. He gave us a basic and rather simple follow plan. It's doable. 5 minutes of warm up on a cardio machine followed by 4 machines and then 2 strength exercises done on the floor, with 10-20 minutes of cardio to end it off. The trainer recommended that we do the cardio part 5-6 days a week and add the weights in for 3 of the days. I managed not to laugh in his face.  I only had a hard time on one of the machines. I have to give the trainer props here. He looked at me and said that he had an alternate for me as he didn't think this particular machine wouldn't be effective for me. He wrote the other suggestion on my sheet, wrote down the name of a website where I can find a tutorial on how to do it and gave me his card so that I can email him and let him know when I'd be in the gym so he could come and see me and show me how to do it as well. Well then.

I was anxious before the session and I felt a sense of trepidation walking into the gym but I made it through the session and then stayed to do some walking on the treadmill. I then ended up doing a whole boat load more walking while I ran errands and got groceries and I've been hobbling around my apartment all afternoon/evening but that's a whole other story. My previous gym was a women's only thing. And there weren't any mirrors in the gym. This one is co-ed and there are mirrors all over the damn place. This is one of the times/places that I want to be invisible. I'm ok with a trainer watching me but I don't like others being able to do so and I sure as shit don't want to be able to see myself when I'm working out either.

But I guess I'm just going to have to get over that eh? Now I have an entire day ahead of me to psych myself up to attempt this on my own Monday after work. Cue Whitesnake.... :) (bonus points to anyone who gets that reference).

Sigh. This should be interesting........God help me!!

Good Night!

Sarah

"Venus in Front of the Mirror" - Peter Paul Rubens

100!!

Something I forgot to mention: I hit my 100th work out at Curves on August 11th.

That was a pretty big deal for me. When I first joined, 100 work outs seemed like something far away, especially since I only work out 3 days a week. And some weeks it's only twice and for one week last winter I gave up going all together (but I went back the following week!). So I was pretty stoked to hit 100.

I'm not sure that I've ever stuck to a diet/exercise regime this long before. It's become routine for me. I actually enjoy going (most of the time). Today I learnt that I won 2 prizes from games/contests that the club ran in August. I won a pen from our trivia contest and I won a "100" t-shirt from the 100-150 work outs contest. Awesomeness!!!!! Now I'm slowly inching my way forward to the next goal: 150 workouts.

Despite going to the gym on a regular basis, I haven't actually lost all that much weight. Some is gone and while a few pounds keep coming back, the vast majority of what I've lost has stayed lost. So I'm rather pleased with that. I know why I haven't lost much weight. It's no real mystery, especially when you've been in this game as long as I have been. Simply put, I need to modify my intake. And I'm working on that and will be making some changes in the near future. But I'll share more on that later.

Funny part is that people keep telling me that I look like I've lot weight. Probably because I have better posture now. I sit and stand up straighter. Strengthening your core will do that. I'm also slightly leaner, as I'm redistributed the weight around a bit. So it's small changes but they're changes and they're occurring.

Losing weight is a very funny beast. In theory, it's a simple process: intake fewer calories than you burn. But there's so much more to it than that. It's emotional. It's mental. It's a constant internal battle between side A that screams: Love yourself the way you are. Fuck society and accept yourself the way you are. Everyone's beautiful and side B which simply states: Keep it up and you'll have diabetes by 40 and drop dead of a heart attack by 50. Both sides make some valid points. So I think there's a 3rd option: I love myself and am confident enough in myself to know that I have to change. I don't want to die young or be a burden on my family or society because I have a weight related disease or issue. But at the same time, I have no desire to be skinny. I don't even think that's possible given my bone structure. I personally think curves are sexy and plan to hold onto some of mine. I'd just like to reduce them a bit and give them some more definition.

I'm not perfect. Never have been, never will be and I'm happy about that. If you're perfect, you've got nothing to strive for and that sounds a little boring to me. One little step at a time, except on Curves days, and then it's several big steps for about a half hour.

Good Night!

Sarah

Guess What? It's Still Cold.

It's been 3 weeks since I last blogged. It's still cold. There's still lots of snow on the ground. The forecast for the week shows more cold and more snow. And the first day of Spring is 18 days away. Someone needs to wake Mother Nature up and remind her of that fact. I'm so done with this weather. I think most people are. According to the weather experts, this is the coldest winter we've had in the last 20 years. I believe it. I'm hanging in there though.

From a mood/mental standpoint, this winter has been pretty good (knock on wood since it isn't over yet). Other than a  couple of days in December and a week in January, I've been doing pretty good. The demons haven't been bugging me. Maybe it's even too cold out for them! The only thing I've done differently this winter than last is Curves. It's become pretty much routine for me now. I haven't missed a session since mid January. I did miss one day in February but that's because they were closed so that wasn't my fault. I think the exercise really has helped. I've been pushing myself to get out more too, be a little more social. That's probably helped too. I'm starting to see the results from Curves. Just small ones. But they make me smile. In numbers, I've lost 6lbs and 10.75 inches. That means I'm trading fat for muscle. I think it's a pretty good swap.

Despite being up late last night, I woke up early-ish this morning and couldn't fall back to sleep. So I hauled my butt out of bed and got moving. I made it to the grocery store and home again by 10:20am. I then had breakfast, watched Police Academy and cleaned my kitchen. Like really cleaned it. I still have the stove/oven and my kitchen table to tackle but the sink and counters are looking pretty good. Took out a whole mess of recycling too. I can't believe how quickly it adds up! I did empty and toss out some expired stuff so that contributed to the recycling mess.

I've decided that I'm going to attempt something this week. It's going to be hard and I'm most likely going to be very cranky but it's worth it. Lent is coming up. And while I'm not Catholic and thus don't normally observes lent, over the last few years I have. For the last 3 years, I've given up chocolate for lent. I've managed to stick to it and then I go hog wild at on Easter. LOL. This year, I'm stepping up my game. I'm going to give up ALL sugar for lent. You see, sugar is my drug. Some people go nuts for chips, for me, it's sugar. Cakes, cookies, squares, chocolate bars, gummies....sugar. And I need to kick that habit. My mid-section needs me to kick that habit. So this should be an adventure. I'm not going to beat myself up if I'm not perfect and I'm sure God won't be disappointed in me either but I'm going to hold myself accountable and give this a real try. I've been told that it take 6 weeks to make or break a habit. Lord knows that my "doing dishes every night" habit attempt failed miserably but my making the bed every morning one worked. I bought a bunch of unsweetened apple sauce fruit snack cups to help with the sugar cravings. I just hope I can do this without killing anyone :)

Bed time has arrived so it's time to sign off. I really hate that the Oscars save all the big, fun awards until the end of the show. I guess no one would watch it to the end otherwise. Oh well.

Good Night!

Sarah

Down 2 and Up 10,000

Guess what? At some point in the last week, my lowly little blog cracked 10,000 page views. That's kind of awesome. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I can't believe anyone actually reads my ramblings. I still can't get over how much writing this blog has helped me. It's funny how something so simple can be so effective. I'm truly looking forward to the next 10,000 page views milestone.

Anyhow....It's been a crazy week at the office and it's been a short week too since I had Monday off. For some odd reason, short weeks seem to feel long. I dunno. Maybe it's our desire to get back to the weekend again. I started my new position on Monday. It hasn't been a totally smooth transition as I'm still doing some of the old duties until the new person is fully equipped and up and running. I've been kept rather busy with my new tasks though, so that's good. Keeps me out of trouble that way. My boss reminded me to look into the available training sessions and let him know which ones I'd like to take and if there were any other tools that I feel that I need in order to become an expert with my new position. Sounds like a good idea.

I survived another week of Curves. I even got off my duff and went to the gym on my day odd. Braved the snow/sleet to do so too. I felt pretty great about it when I got home too. As a result of not being at my home club on Monday, we moved my weigh in day to Wednesday. The scale was kind. I lost 2lbs! So I'm down a total of 6.5 in my first 2 weeks. I'm quite happy with those numbers. I just have to keep an eye on the eating plan portion and try not to slide too much. I'm supposed to go out for lunch tomorrow so I'll have to work that into my day. I'm on a quest to find more healthy recipes to try out. Which just gives me a good excuse to kill entire evenings on Pinterest (like I need an excuse). That makes me happy.

While in the grocery store earlier this week, I couldn't help but notice how odd and strange some of the so called "healthy" foods are. I swear to god that I thought they were selling a bag of bird seed in the cereal aisle. I had to actually pick it up and read the label to confirm that it wasn't actually bird seed. It was some sort of muesli or granola. I dunno. It still looked an awful lot like the wild bird seed mix that I get to put on my balcony. It also baffles me as to how expensive 'healthy' food is. For example, 355ml bottles of Pomegranate juice are on 2/$5. Meanwhile, 2L bottles of pop are on 4/$5. Apples are $1.89lb (so maybe 4 apples) where as big bags of photo chips are 2/$3. Sigh. I'm getting low on peanut butter too. I really need that to go on sale soon. The hard part for me is working more vegetables into my meals. I'm kind of a picky eater when it comes to veggies. I only really like a select few: broccoli, cauliflower, raw carrots, mushrooms (cooked), turnip(rutabaga) and brussel sprouts. The turnip that I like is counted as a starch on my meal plan so I can't go hog wild with it. I'm on the fence with cabbage and cucumbers. Some days I like them and some days I don't. I guess the same could be said for celery. I'm not a fan of it cooked though. I'm going to have to get creative.


Maybe while I'm looking for recipes on Pinterest, I'll find some good gift ideas for my parents. I'm struggling to find something to get them and my mother isn't being overly helpful. I ask for a list and my mom gave me 2 items. I told that that didn't count as a list. Sigh. Yes, I know that the spirit and meaning of Christmas isn't about presents and material items. It's just that they give me so much through out the year that I'd like to be able to give them a little something back. To show them how much I love them and appreciate all that they do for me. My Christmas holidays are a month and 6 days away (not that I'm counting).

I need to go and get ready for bed. I work up at 4:21 this morning, got up and went pee, came back to bed and then couldn't sleep. I think I drifted off for about 15 minutes between then and when the alarm went off at 6. It was brutal. I'm hoping that a repeat doesn't occur this evening.

Good Night!

Sarah

Smiling on a sunny day!