Boredom post!

I hurt my back yesterday. I had my trainer workout and I think I forgot, or got tired, and didn't brace my core, especially when I was doing dead lift sumo squats. I noticed a twinge when I got back up to my apt, and by mid-day I was having trouble walking. This morning I was ok until I got out of bed. Then when it had to support my weight/body it got so bad I asked my bf to put on my socks for me. He just looked at me and was, Meg, stay home. You can barely walk, you can't even put on your socks. Work remotely. So that's what I'm doing. No sense being in extreme pain and not getting better. I changed my massage appt to 1 instead of 5 and (when I'm done here, lol) I will continue my work. Brilliant me got server access to my email and put remote desktop on my computer so I can access my systems at work. Le sigh...shoulda left well enough alone, lol. Overachiever over here :)

So back to my back. This is a chronic thing. I don't know if I've ever mentioned it, but I was a competitive rifle shooter for 14 yrs. I hurt my back training one time (was out for like 6 months), and now it's pretty much chronic. Put that with repetitive stress injuries down my left side and I'm a mess! Especially when I have girl time I have to be very very careful about what I do and lift etc. It got a lot better after I lost weight, but sometimes it just goes. Yesterday was one of those times. I need to do more core and low back strengthening. I don't blame my trainer. I've done these exercises lots of times and she's always watching for my form. But if you don't brace your core then she can't really see that. It just sucks cause it derails my fitness. I might go swimming later today since it's low-impact.

In food news, I met with my nutritionist friend yesterday. She was fantastic, but damn it was depressing. Give up caffeine? Give up dairy? No. Sorry. I understand not going nuts, but I enjoy that stuff! I've cut out A LOT. After being schooled by my trainer I am trying to cut out any unnecessary sugar and "white" foods from my diet. But I like coffee. I like dairy. I like meat. Am I wrong to think I can still eat the foods I like and lose weight? I understand that it might not be as fast, but at least I'd be happy right? I don't eat fast food. I've cut out diet pop. I portion control everything. I just can't believe that my diet is THAT bad. But maybe she's on to something. I am going to have to learn to make concessions where I can. But I am not going to totally sacrifice what I enjoy.

On another note, measurements tomorrow! I'm really hoping for some serious numbers. Cause I know the scale is gonna slow down soon. I'm going to need to focus on other things when that happens.

Ok, back to work!

WI 5

I started today out great. Good WI. Enough of a kick in the pants to shed those negative feelings I've been having. Work was hard. Had some rough spots that took up way too much of my time and energy with no real solution/resolution. What throws me is how a student can be all smiley and happy and chatty at school and then turn around and tell their mother that they want to go home? I don't get it. I worked my butt off for that student and while she was in NYC she met her mother and apparently her mother called her agent and complained about the school and that she didn't feel comfortable sending her daughter back to Canada. It felt like a giant slap in the face. We did EVERYTHING for her. She was happy and friendly and didn't complain, except about her accommodation which we fixed. Kills me that after everything she wanted to leave. I have a thankless job and this is why I miss teaching so much.

Ok, rant over. Then our internet died, so that's an expensive technician visit. Then I found out my boss invented a conversation in his head and is now blaming me for something I didn't do. It's not been a good day. At the end I was tired and I didn't want to go to the gym, but I went anyway. Don't want to get into that bad habit of feeling down and skipping my workouts.

I did a 30 min walk on the treadmill. Wait, you may ask, what, a walk??! WTF?? No, this was an incline walk. My trainer told me to pick a brisk pace and keep upping the incline (1 full increment) every 1.5 mins. Holy friggin god. I started with a pace of 3.9 and only lasted like 7 mins before I dropped it to 3.8. I think I ended finishing at 3.6 or 3.7 with an incline of 13. My calves burned, my inner thighs burned, my lungs felt like they were going to explode and I was sweating profusely. Not really the easy workout I was imagining. Gives me a nice break from running which I was getting kinda bored with. My trainer says it's cardio that also builds muscle, but damn!

Food is also back on track. Though I wasn't so keen on my dinner. I didn't oil the casserole dish (or I should have put tin foil down), so I made looneyspoons enchiladas and the bottoms stuck to the dish :( I only got half my enchilada. Also, that recipe took frickin forever and by the time it was done I wasn't even hungry! Sigh. I hate that. Not really satisfying.

Apparently the rant wasn't over, lol. Ok, one more. My bf still isn't home :( By the time he does get home I'll have to go to bed cause it's a trainer day tomorrow. Sigh. We never get to connect anymore.

Ok, now my rant is over! I swear! Here's to a better Tuesday :) Ooooh! I forgot. I have a meeting tomorrow with my friend who is training to be a nutritionist. She's gonna develop a food plan for me :) Excited.



Down 1.2. Very happy with that. I am gonna post more later, but I just wanted to update my stats/milestones, cause that's also 5% gone!! Next one is 10% :)

Anger?

So apparently what follows tiredness is anger. I woke up in a pissy mood today. I don't know why. I got to sleep in. I got to cuddle with my bf, but it quickly went sour. Our plan was to have something light to eat then hit the gym, then on to our regular Sunday activities of getting groceries and (me) cleaning the apt. But my bf went directly to his computer and started working (he's really busy on freelance projects right now). I said, let's go. He said, ya, after my coffee, then he asked me to make him coffee. I did it but inside I was boiling.

Now, this is odd. Who gets pissed over being asked to make coffee? I think it was because we had this plan and he was delaying it cause of work. I got pissed because he was ignoring what I wanted to do. We didn't get downstairs until like 11 and I was still angry. Every time he asked me to do something for him I got angry. I was just in a bad mood. I was sick and tired of being responsible for everything. And that includes weight loss. I am getting angry that I have to do all this work that for some people it comes so naturally.

This mood stayed with me all through grocery shopping. We always get a zipcar when we get groceries, it just makes it easier. He met me after working with a friend so had his laptop and mouse and we put it in the glove compartment. After groceries he drops me at home and goes to return the car. He comes back like 15 mins later and asks me if I have his mouse (I had taken his laptop). I said no, it's in the glove box. He said he couldn't find it. Then he starts yelling that he had given it to me to keep and how did I leave it behind, etc, etc. I lost it. It's his goddamned mouse, and therefore his responsibility to find it. With me being so close to the edge, I just started yelling right back. We just blew up at each other.

It felt good, lol. To vent whatever anger I had been feeling. Because I am not sure where this anger is directed. This is not a major fight for us, so I know the anger isn't purely about him. The main source of my anger was my annoyance the last couple days of how hard I have to work to lose weight and keep myself going. I'm pissed that I have to do it. And I think this is resulting from skipping Friday and Saturday. Skipping my workouts is remnant of past behaviour when I wasn't totally committed. It's a sign of reverting back to how I was before. This guilt somehow turns to anger? Not sure. I guess anger at myself and so I take it out on the world at large? I can see that.

I worked out today and I am more or less on track in terms of food. That anger and my lack of control with buffets will definitely be a subject for my counseling session this week. I need some clarity.

Tired

It has not been a stellar week for me. At least, I don't think so. This is why...I feel that feeling coming on again. That feeling you get when you've been doing something for a long time and you start to get tired and lose motivation. I worked out Monday. I had my trainer on Tuesday. Then I had another trainer appt on Wednesday because we missed a session last week. But I think what is throwing me is that I didn't do my plan on Wednesday. MWF are cardio days. I do whatever version of my run that I'm on at the time. But because of the trainer appt I didn't do it. I had planned on getting up early and getting it out of the way and then meeting my trainer for resistance in the afternoon. But I woke up before my alarm and changed the time. Then I was going to do it after my trainer appt., but she put me through some gruelling cardio (think multiple sets of jumping jacks, skipping, and mountain climbers done in a circuit rotation...ugh), and I was tired and I didn't want to do it. I think this was the first time I had backed out of a planned workout. Except for maybe one Friday, but then I'd do Saturday and Sunday to make up for it.

It's like there was a dent in my motivation armour. Or a crack. Because when Friday rolled around and I had to attend a potluck at my school, I kinda went nuts. I ate about 1000 calories for lunch. I had pasta and dumplings and pizza and chocolate chip cookies and banana bread and real coke. I felt gross for the entire afternoon. And why did I do it? I don't know. I don't know what it is about the presence of food and my inability to turn away. I'll definitely be bringing that up with my counsellor next week. Then on Friday I skipped the gym. Again, cardio day. Again, I bailed. Fine, I could take Friday as my rest day and do Saturday and Sunday instead.

Except what happens today? I get back downtown after work and head to the mall (there actually was something I needed). But I'm out too long and the bf and I have plans to meet at 5-ish for some well needed time together. I don't have enough time to workout and get ready, so I forgo the workout and instead focus on straightening my hair. My bf and I are working out tomorrow morning, but it feels like I am very tenuously holding on to a very slippery slope. I peeked at the scale this afternoon and I showed a STS from Monday. That's good news. But my dinner may push that over the edge. We went to Lone Star Steakhouse. I wanted fajitas because I knew that aside from the tortillas, I could handle the choice. I didn't account for the complimentary tortilla chips and salsa. My hand just kept reaching for the basket even though my head was screaming "NO!" Then I had the fajitas and while my plan was to ignore the sour cream, that got put on as well. Along with eating bites of the bf's caesar salad that came with his steak.

So all in all this week I've had 3 very heavy, fat laden meals. Wings, potluck, and tex mex. This does not bode well for Monday. But I'm also scared about my success. This is exactly the same feeling I had before when things started to fall apart. I'm also not tracking as dilligently, as in I forget to do it, or eat before it's planned out. This is very reckless considering how fast I can go down in situations like this. This feeling is not comforting and I'm scared.

Tomorrow is of course a new day, and I will tackle it head on. But there is still some fear and I need to focus on that and learn how to conquer it before I can fully move on.

WI 4

Down 2.8! Very excited with that. This means a number of things:

1) That's 7.4 lbs since I started on February 20th...that's just over 4 weeks
2) I get my first rose tomorrow :) One rose for every 5 lbs.
3) I am almost 1/3 of the way till goal :)

I also got to move 28 rocks from the pounds jar to the lost jar. That was a good feeling. There still isn't too much of a dent in the pounds jar, but the lost jar is starting to show :) (it also happens to be a smaller jar, but whatever).

I feel good. I don't have any desire to eat crappy food. That's pretty big for me. Even when I was full on weight watchers, I would still eat junk food. A lot of the time it was "oh, I deserve it" "it's just this once" "I have a week until I weigh in, it doesn't matter". The only real yearning I had was Red Lobster. Lobster Fest has been on, and those commercials are deadly. The bf is deadlier. We were heading for Thai food one night, and you have to bypass Red Lobster to get there. He was all like "oh, do you want to just get RL instead?" I admit, I panicked. I was torn. In the end I said no, I couldn't afford it (financially, when we go there it's always like $50+, and waist-wise). That's been the only really big temptation for me.

For the first time ever on this freaking long journey, I don't want the bad stuff. I eat pretty healthy and it feels really good. I'm getting smaller, and that feels good too. Getting into size 6 skinny jeans feels amazing. They are stretchy, and from Reitmans, but I'll take it. Having my bf call me beautiful, sexy, and hot, is frigging amazing. He said those things before, but it's nice all the same.

I'm also developing some new and better habits. I work out 5-6 times a week and it doesn't phase me. I don't feel like I am sacrificing anything like I did before. I think part of it is because I do 2 of those workouts with my trainer, so it doesn't even feel onerous...despite her throwing it at me every time I see her, lol. So it doesn't seem too hard to do the 3-4 cardio days. I'm also loving the Saturday work outs with the bf. Exercise used to be a chore for me. I hated it. It felt like work. But now, it just feels right. It feels normal, and that is so amazing. I had my run today. Another one at 5.0. I was going to add incline, but since Friday was the first day I did it without stopping, I wanted to just let it go today. I think I will add incline on Wednesday. Maybe even just for half of it. I'm ok with the speed. I'm not ready to bump it up yet. That gets too discouraging to be honest. Because I really struggle with upping the speed. So I am going to play with incline instead.

A week ago I was crying because things felt so far away. I felt like I was getting to that point where my metabolism slows down and I won't be able to lose weight like I did when I was 25. So right now I am thrilled that that doesn't appear to be the case. I lost 7.4 lbs in under 5 wks. That's 1.85 lbs a week. If I did that for 8 more weeks, I will have lost 22.2 lbs and be only 8 lbs away from goal. It makes things seem a little closer.

My trainer told me that we're going to aim for 10 lbs in the next 6 weeks. So that's a slightly slower pace and I know that she's gonna kill me to get me there. I say bring it on. I am finally ready to accept my success and I am so happy to have that realisation within me.

Positivity Update

Yesterday was great. Bf and I are talking again (dancing around the oh so important issue at hand). I'm going to slowly try to go forward with discussing things and see how I fare.

Aside from the bf stopping being such an ass, I had a good run, maybe even a great run. I went to my regular gym and then unpacked everything and saw that I was missing my headphones. I'm sorry, I can't run without all of my stuff. I can't run along to the gym music. At this stage in the game with willpower and determination holding on by a thread, I'm not about to make my runs even harder. So I decided to head home and hit my condo gym.

This could have been disastrous. I am very easily swayed. If this had happened even 2 months ago, I can almost guarantee that I wouldn't have run at all. I would have said I'm tired. Oh it's Friday, I'll take this as my rest day and go on Sunday (knowing full well how much I don't like exercising on weekends). As I've explained before, I can justify anything. It's a gift.

So I get home and the bf wants to go out and buy a bike helmet (he's doing the 200 km bike ride to conquer cancer for Princess Margaret Hospital in June) and I tell him, nope, I gotta hit the gym. And the biggest part? I actually do it! Cue applause! lol.

So I'm down there, finished my warm up and said to myself, ok, you can't look at the time until 2 songs are over. I was toward the end of the first song, and I said, nope, wait for 3 songs...then nope, wait for 4 songs. I made a commitment to focus ahead of me and not look at the time for 4 songs (which I figured would put me at the 20 minute mark)...and I actually did it!! I was so freaking happy. The run itself was even good. Every time I felt tired I just kept telling myself that it's my body growing stronger and pushing itself. When I finally did look at the clock I only had 5 mins left! So I added incline and pushed myself, all with the biggest smile on my face (pretty sure the girl next to me thought I was crazy!)

It was such a nice feeling after the rest of the week. I don't know what is the cause of it...the self-talk beforehand, the fact that it was the 4th time running at that speed, or I'm just getting stronger, period. In the end I don't really care, it felt great! I think I am going to keep that speed and add some incline next time. I need to start conditioning myself to run outside. I'm still a little scare to hit the pavement. Yesterday would have been the perfect day. It was freaking beautiful in Toronto. But I'm not there yet. I really want some endurance before I attempt it so that I have the confidence to face the fact that running outside is harder than on the treadmill.

Today was good too. Taught at Humber for 4 hours, checked out Winners for workout gear (total bust, the Reebok yoga pants I wanted were no longer there :( ), then on the way home bf and I decided to hit the gym when we got back. I did my resistance workout from my trainer and he did 5K on the treadmill (so jealous of his ability to just RUN...did I mention it was at a speed of like 8.0-10.0? sigh). My workout felt great, added some more weight. Then we hit the pool and swam a bit, then the hot tub, then up to our suite. It was great. We did the same thing last Saturday and it's such an awesome bonding experience. Exercise endorphins and quality time (especially after the last few days we've had :S)

In the 17 days of March that we've had, I've been active 14 of those 17 days. That is freaking amazing! I am so proud of myself. I am really looking forward to my WI on Monday, and I feel in control of what I'm doing. There is something to be said for positivity :)

Thank you

I'm calmer now and no longer feel like screaming or crying (mighta done a lil bit of both yesterday, but anyway). Anyway, I wanted to say thank you to the people who reached out to me about this (either in the comments here, or on the WW boards where so many lovely people support each other every single day).

I don't honestly know what's going to happen. With this situation or with our relationship. But I'm hoping we can calmly discuss things. I tried a little today and he was semi-receptive.

On another note, in a trial because of some negative posts I've made lately about my running...I am about to head downstairs to get my run on and I am determined to stay positive no matter what happens. If I have to stop for one minute, that is not a failure. If I have to drop my speed 1 or 2 points, that is not a failure. I am going to feel good about my run and how I'm feeling and the changes I am making.

Here's to positivity!! Stay tuned to see if I can follow through ;) I'll post an update when I'm done :) (sigh, still looking for emoticon help...not even sure it exists!)