The Oprah Challenge

You know what?  I think I'm ready.

I'm sitting here thinking of all the food I want to eat before I can't eat it anymore, and there really aren't any.

There's nothing I'm going to be brokenhearted to lose. 

That's progress.

 

Another Atta Girl moment... remember how the measuring tape couldn't fit around me last year?  Now it fits around me AND Steven.  THAT is too cool for words.

The scale may not show a great big loss, but the tape doesn't lie.

 

I do like Celebrity Fit Club I've decided.  They are really good about seeing where body composition might be changing, so they are very encouraging when the stats are lower than they expected.  I like that, and I can support it. 

The person who gained 12lbs was indeed not eating properly because he had quit smoking.  So therefore it wasn't due to muscle gain or water retention.

 

One thing they do that I favor is they set goals.  So I decided I'm going to set a goal weight loss for this Oprah Fit Club.  And we're going to be realistic about it too.  I'm going to lose 30lbs.  Ten pounds a month is pretty attainable I think  And it's going to be fat that I lose.  Even if the scale says I haven't lost but ten pounds OR that I've even gained, that will be all muscle baby.

This program requires 8 workouts a week.  There is NO WAY I'm going to gain fat this way.  No way. 

This week has been a total bust because I've just been wretchedly sick.  Jeremiah now has it and I worry Steven may be coming down with it to.

But that's okay.  No matter what I weigh in on February 7 (that's Day One),I'm going to be 30lbs lighter on May 7.

 

This will mean that I'm going to be in Boot Camp even if we take our spring getaway.  That oughta be interesting.  That will be a huge test right there.  Can I really be "on vacation" and stay on task?

Only time will tell. 

I'ma gonna hate myself in the morning.

Okay, you all know I've been floundering trying to find my place in this weight loss journey.  Things that used to work aren't working anymore, OR I've just lost heart in the journey.  Stagnation tends to do that and I'm just sick and damned tired of not being able to get below 278. 

So I'm ready to do something drastic.

I've been looking for help.  I was thinking about LA Weight Loss, but money comes into play.  I really can't afford to spend hundreds of dollars on a program.  So I started looking at Dr. Phil's diet program. 

I think I need something more, policed as it were.

Lo and behold when I go to Oprah.com, she's going to start something called Oprah's Boot Camp on February 7th.

 

Boot Camp.  That sounds daunting doesn't it?  Because it is!  We're talking a month without all the stuff that makes my toes curl with delight.

Yep, you guessed it.  Carbohydrates.  Nothing white, and no grains either.  It'll be veggies, protein and fruit - and that's it.

I may not want to live the rest of my life like that, but I can live a month that way.  The two months that follow that initial month I can have grains as well, which is an eating program I can get behind.

 

I have to admit it bothers me.  I don't like the low carb lifestyle, I don't think it's healthy and I don't like how I feel on it (deprived, sluggish, cranky) - I'm willing to give it a month of my life in the hopes that whatever is wrong with my body chemically will be changed and I won't hold onto this weight or bad habits anymore.  If I can live without refined foods, processed foods and sugar for a month, then I can learn a whole new way to eat better and healthier for the longterm.  (I still maintain whole grains and fruits and veggies are a part of that healthier life)

The one thing I WILL get out of this is getting off my butt and moving.  Her workout regimen is just as stringent as the eating regimen.  Six days of resistance training for 20 mins a day, and five days of 30 mins cardio with one day at one whole hour of cardio.

 

I'm not looking forward to it, to be honest BUT I look up to Oprah and for me to commit this to her puts a whole lot more accountability on me.  I want to be able, at the end of three months, to write Oprah a letter saying I lost XX pounds and XX inches.  I want before and after photos to give to her.  I want to be able to have one of the people I look up to most in the world to be able to be proud of what *I* accomplished.

My ego is on the line.

And talk about your integrity.  What better test of integrity could there be?

 

What I will do is journal each and ever painful step using this blog as an instrument of postive growth.  Instead of bitching and moaning I'm going to turn this blog into a gratitude journal.  I'll start listing things that build me up, not tear me down.

Life is all about perception.  I can be happy or I can be depressed.  It really IS my choice.  I'll start littering this place with Atta Girls to pat myself on the back and build myself up. 

It's time to turn off that negative chatterbox.  What an insidious malicious little saboteur that thing is. 

It's time to re-read Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway cover to cover. 

 

Three months.  That's all I have to get through.  And who knows?  I used to think I couldn't get through a day with Pepsi and I got over that addiction.  I can do this - I can do anything. 

Maybe this is just the thing to remind me of that very important fact.

If anyone is interested in joining this, let me know. 

T-minus ten days and counting....

So sick of being sick

I'm convinced it's bacterial.  I think I may need to get antibiotics in order to get over this whatever it is I have.  Today even though I couldn't exercise, I couldn't eat either.  So I guess with every black cloud...

Anyway, I was reading an article by the trainers from The Biggest Loser.  While I wasn't happy by the competitive nature of the show, the article was much, much better.  And it just showed me something.  I can trust my instincts.

Everything I have done or am doing (currently mixing up my caloric intake every few days or so) they suggested, so I know I'm on the right track.

I've just got to learn to trust myself.  All this stress to be Miss Dieter Perfect is counter productive.  I know what to do, I've been doing it.  The results are obvious.  I've lost 6" so far this month, and that's pretty good if I do say so myself. 

It's not always ideal but neither is life.  I just need to be easier on myself.  The only person putting this pressure on me is me.  And I need to quit.

So I'm gonna just chill, allow my body to become strong again.  I'm going to take some me time and just relax, allow time to heal and get well.

Once I'm 100%, I'm back on the horse.  I'm not even really off the horse now.  I'm living life the way most people do when they're sick.  They take it easy and don't push themselves too hard.  The time to meet and go beyond my limits will come.

Right now, I'm just going to take some advice from Steve Perry and Be Good to Myself.

Today's DAILY AFFIRMATION comes from an eating disorder website that encourages those with eating disorders (including those such as binge eating/emotional overeating) to GET REAL.  A couple of these apply to those who suffer from anorexia or bullemia, but the others definitely apply to those of us on the other side of the coin.  I think it's important that we as women learn to separate our identity from our bodies, that's why I highlighted #3.  It's the one that speaks loudest to me, personally.

10 Things You Can Do to Get Real

1. Create a list of all the things you like about who you are - read it and add to it often.

2. Don’t let your weight or shape keep you from participating in activities that you enjoy.


3. Become aware of what your body helps you do each day. Remember that it is the instrument of your life, not just an ornament.


4. Think about all of the things you could accomplish with the time and energy you currently waste worrying about your appearance. Try one!


5. Don’t exercise to lose weight or to fight your body. Do it to make your body healthy and strong and because it makes you feel good.


6. Remind yourself: Life is too short to waste time hating your body!


7. Consciously choose to avoid making comments about other people or yourself on the basis of body size or appearance.


8. Enjoy your favorite meal without feelings of guilt or anxiety over calories and fat grams.


9. Throw out the diet products in your house (e.g. fat-free cheese, diet pills, the scale).


10. Eat when you are hungry. Rest when you are tired. Surround yourself with people that remind you of your inner strength and beauty. Get Real.
 

 

Sigh.

I'm sick.

A-gain.

I'm so tired of being sick.  I can't even tell you. 

I blame the weather for just not being able to shake the flu.  It's cold one day and warm the next, and with dust storms and wind storms there just hasn't been the opportunity to get a leg up on wellness.

I don't know if I need antibiotics or not, with us no longer being insured I don't really have the $$ to find out. 

But we may end up spending $$ to find out. This is getting ridiculous.

 

I do have a goal though for February 1st, since I already met the 3" goal (yayyy!).  I'd like to aim for 10" for the month of January.  So this means, sick or not I have GOT to get my booty out of the house and moving again.  It's going to be fairly nice in the next few days (with rain due on Thursday - joy), so I'm going to try my able bodied best to get moving. 

Goals are good, I've decided.  Unattainable goals are bad, but simple goals are good. 

I'm going to do my work tonight, take some Nyquil and go back to bed.  I'm trying to sleep this crap off. 

Tomorrow tho, it's time to take Mr. Man to the park.  We're only going to walk a mile and then we're going to go to the gym.  That is my exercise goal for tomorrow.  Barring coughing up a lung, I'm going to get through it.

 

I'm still seriously considering LA Weight Loss.  I'm hesitant, because it does cost money.  I've been doing it on my own BUT I think I'm at that point where I need help - obviously.  Interestingly, they are hiring right now and Steven is going to check it out.  Since we won't have the extra money until next month anyway, maybe he can see what it's all about before I have to commit any money to it.

I'm also hesitant because it's a "diet" and you all know how I feel about diets.  It just depends on how realistic it is.  From the commercials, which is about all I know so far, it sounds like it's realistic, like they teach you how to eat well with your own food rather than supplement your meals with their products. 

I'll have to look into it some more I think.  Best to make an informed decision.

 

I'm excited about school so far.  Despite my 84% on my grammar exercises I've got a perfect score so far in both classes.  This is very cool. 

What's even cooler is that I had a poor grade in one aspect (4 out of 10) and when I responded to the teacher's "Do you think you explained this adequately" with, "Well my first thought was that I did.  My second thought is that I may have missed the mark considering my grade."  I went on to explain one of the things she had a question about, and she changed the grade to 10 out of 10. 

That was pretty decent. 

College life is interesting!

 

I've also been re-reading Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway.  Just bits and pieces, mind you, but it's slapped me hard in the face that I've slipped considerably.  She says that living a positive life takes practice.  I've slacked off in more than just diet and exercise, and it could very well be that because I slipped back into negative thinking that I've slipped back into negative behavior.

In fact, that makes a whole lot of sense.

SO, toward that end it's time to incorporate daily affirmations again.  Even if it's the same thing day after day, that's okay.  I need to remind myself that:

DAILY AFFIRMATION:  I am strong and capable and I deserve good things.

Because I forget that way too easily.  And I need to get over that, seriously.

To channel Stuart Smalley, "Because I'm good enough, I'm smart enought, and doggoneit, people like me!"

Goal #1 Met

Yesterday I found myself down 3 inches.  So yay me!  That means I've lost 6 inches in the month of January.  Not too shabby if I do say so myself.

And given yesterday was a "free" day I don't think I did too badly. 

Even better, I felt like crap - like I ate too much.

So next "free" day should be even better.

 

I'm not doing as well in class as I'd like.  Of course, perfectionist me, I want to ace everything.  Getting a 64 out of 70 doesn't seem so hot to me.  I guess it could be worse. 

I did some grammar exercises and thought I'd sail right through them, no problems.  Turns out I don't know half as much as I thought I did.  I got an average of 84% on nine exercises.  My arrogance was taken down a notch or two, definitely.

So this means I need to edit the book YET again.  Woo hoo.  Fun times.

But hey, if it means a sale I'm all for it.

 

Aside from that, not much going on but work and school today.  Unfortunately I can't eat "clean" because of lack of funds, hopefully that will come in shortly.

The clock is ticking REALLY slow on getting Steven's W-2s in so we can file our income taxes.  Probably because I'm going to use the refund to get mobile, and I really am itching for that.

Once I get the car, there are no more excuses for not going and doing.  I won't be a slave to Steven's schedule anymore. 

Oh, and he didn't get the Lane Bryant job.  :( 

Back to the old drawing board.

Celebrity Fit Club

Okay I got sucked in.  I admit it.  This is what happens when you tune into VH1 for "I Love the 90s Part Deux" and forget to change the channel.

It's The Biggest Loser for famous type folks.  I say famous types because you're not going to find the "hot" celebrities there.  No, all the hot celebrities aren't overweight. 

So we get people like Daniel Baldwin, Ralphie May, The Snapple Lady, Kim Coles, Biz Markie, a judge I'd never heard of before, Mia Tyler (Steven's daughter, Liv's sister) and this other dude I don't recognize. 

Complaint #1:  The Drill Sergeant.  Yes I know he got this name for a reason but he's just unnecessarily mean IMO.  You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, and you don't ride people that hard when they feel like crap to begin with.  It just doesn't work.  What I did like was Mia telling him off, that his issues with her weight were just that - HIS issues.  That she was sexy and beautiful at any size because it's not the weight, it's the attitude.  (Mia just shot up on my hero roster)

Complaint #2:  It's a competition, and while this helps in SOME areas, it really isn't good for a weight loss program.  Because it's more than what the scales say... which brings me to...

Complaint #3:  Apparently on the next show someone gains 12 lbs in two weeks.  The Drill Sergeant says there's "no way" that someone can gain 12 lbs in two weeks.

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm yeah there are.

1.  Muscle weighs more than fat and if you're working out like a maniac you can definitely GAIN weight and still lose fat. 

2. If it's a woman, helloooooooooooooooooooo!  Water retention DUH.  I guess that a man wouldn't appreciate that delicate hormonal fluxuation but it is there and it's not indicative of failure.

Combine the two... and it's quite easy to believe someone can gain 12lbs in two weeks. 

But whatever.

As always it's all about the numbers on a scale.  If this journal ever gets widespread recognition it will be my ultimate goal in life to release people from that stupid, asinine, archaic hogwash. 

 

You know what I think?  I think that the true key to ultimate success is finding value in who you are without changing one thing.  Because the day will come when the weight won't fall off, you might even gain, and then you will fall into self destructive behavior.

As long as we think our fat is our failure, we doom ourselves to self hatred that will logically conclude in self destruction.  And how do morbidly obese people self destruct?

Two words.

Cheese Cake.

 

If I can ever accomplish anything in my life it would be to teach women that they have value beyond their size.  This is almost like throwing a lasso around the moon, because for decades society has taught women that they are only as good as they look. 

It's insidious.  Women were trained back in the day to stay pretty for their husbands so they wouldn't stray, and they inevitably trained their daughters to be man pleasers.  Girls watched their mothers fuss and fret over their appearance so that it was ingrained into their subconsciousness.  This gets confirmed by the media.  Look at how things are marketed.  Next time you're in the supermarket check out line look at magazines geared toward women.  It's all about how to look good to get a man. 

Happiness is in a size 0 don't you know.  Or you would know if you looked at clothes on department store mannequins who are so thin they wouldn't even have a menstrual period if they were a real woman.

Pah-lease.

 

No wonder so many young guys are dogs and so many young women are starving themselves into living breathing skeletons.

What are we teaching our children?

I came to the conclusion that the reason I haven't had a daughter yet is because God is just making sure I don't subconsciously mess her up with my own issues on being a woman in today's society. 

It's a learning process for me too.

We have to retrain our way of thinking.  Because this is destroying our kids.

 

Hello PMS rant LOL

Okay on to today's report.  I got 1500 calories in today, with four servings of veggies and three servings of fruit.  This is good.  I'm working up to doing things by food groups rather than calorie count.

I'm weaning myself as it were.

I will say this, I did feel more satisfied today than I did yesterday.  I don't think it's because of the extra calories but because those extra calories were mostly proteins.  That's how I started today, with my "gym day" breakfast of a spinach and cheese omelet, turkey sausage and a Weight Watchers apple muffin.

And my I just say, that for a dietary product that was ONE tasty muffin.  It was so moist, I was shocked. 

 

Now if I can just get past these late hour fast food ads, we'll be fine.

Sigh.

Keeping my eye on the three pound/three inch prize.

That will mean more than a momentary fast food fix.

Life Happens...

Yesterday I was trucking along right on plan and then I had company and went right off plan just as easily.  I didn't do too badly with food, but I had a couple of drinks and wasted purely empty calories on it.  My bad.

Today, however, has been GREAT.  I got in 1250 calories BUT I also ate 3 servings of veggies and 3 servings of fruit.  So even though I ate less, I ate better.  This is a good thing.

I'm ready to make some goals.

 

I abandoned goals a long time ago because I would get really frustrated when I didn't meet those goals.  However, I think having something to run towards will motivate me rather than this loosey goosey let the chips fall where they may attitude. 

So... I'm going to weigh myself on Tuesday, February 1.  I've set a goal to lose 3lbs by that point.  However, I've also got a backup plan of three INCHES as well, because I know even if the scale doesn't agree, it's not the only measurement of success.

Therefore it's three inches and or pounds or BUST.

 

The exercise has been a bust.  For some reason my knee gave way on me yesterday and I've been dosed up on painkillers with my knee wrapped in a Thermo Care heat wrap.   I'm going to go to bed early, get up early and still make it to the gym even if all I can do is upper body work. 

I've got to.

There's a goal on the line.

 

I started my college classes on Monday and it was a little overwhelming.  However I broke it down into small manageable pieces so I feel a lot more in control.  The writing course is one of my first classes, so I feel confident I can ace it. 

 

Of course that put my own writing on the backburner.  It's time to brush My Immortal off and get it out to publishers and to agents.  It's not going to sell sitting in a file on my computer.

I have a goal there to - to be sold or repped by the end of the year.  Here it is, halfway through January and I'm still sitting on my tuckus.  This isn't the way to do it.

 

I did have a really long talk with my mom today, lots of stuff aired that needed to be aired.  Things we needed to talk about that needed to be talked about.  I felt really positive after it was over.  So I hope that some of my underlying issues are on the mend as well. 

It's weird.  The more you're yourself, the more people accept you.

Whoda thunkit?