Don't You Ever Feel...Like Your Less Than Perfect

Well, it has been a while since we chatted and quite frankly a lot has happened.  Belly is not quite so jelly!  Yea!  The scale has moved down a decade or 10lbs whichever you prefer. Now, if I could just bump it down into the next 'decade' I'd feel I was accomplishing something.

So, what's different.  I decided that I couldn't do this alone.  Weight loss stinks and it's hard, and it's really hard by yourself as you really have no one to be accountable to.  That's tough.  So if you are serious about it, then you might as well enlist the help of someone.

Quite by chance at a meeting last month, I was talking with a friend of mine and it came up that I was trying to lose weight.  It dawned on me as I was talking that my friend had been a phys. ed teacher at my son's Montessori school.  So I asked if she would be willing to help me.  She agreed and I was so excited.

I came home and told my husband that I had found someone to help me.  He pointed out that my sister-in-law is a physical trainer and I could have just asked her to help me.  However, there are two important factors with why that wouldn't be such a good idea.  Number 1 - she's getting married at the end of December and is knee deep in working multiple part time jobs, managing a home, and planning a wedding - that's enough to make a sane person crazy isn't it?  Number 2 - she's my little sister.  I took her trick or treating when she was little, went to her basketball games and Christmas concerts, talked about boys, and mean girls.  Seriously, she's my little sister. She's warm and fuzzy - and...I'm not afraid of her.  Which I suppose from a family standpoint is a really good thing, but from a trainer point of view - no, I needed someone who I had to be afraid that they would really kick my patootie.

My little sister, however, did get this weight train a moving last spring when she helped me to train for the 5K at NAA 2011 in Florida.  And I am eternally grateful to her.  But, even then, I didn't do all of the things that she told me to do.  Cause, really I'm lazy, and it was hard, and it made me sweat.  Yuck.  But I have learned that the only way to make the weight come off is...to sweat... FINE!

Later that night I checked my email, as I always do, and lo and behold I had an email from Nichelle (my PT friend) and it said...'okay, let's get together this weekend, I will need about 2 hours of your time to work up a plan for you, but in the meantime start walking on your treadmill 20 minutes a night at a pace fast enough you breathe hard AND stop eating crap food'.  Wow...so soon.  I thought we could give it a few weeks, ease into the whole thing, you know. Well, I was wrong.

So day one...did my 20 minutes.  Day two...did my 20 minutes.  Was feeling pretty good about myself.  Day three I had to work late and then go to a training so it was 9pm before I headed home.  I was starving!  But refused to stop for fast food and opted for a bowl of cereal when I got home.  I got home, absolutely knackered and just wanted to fall into bed.  I checked my email (as I always do before bed - idiot!) and there was an email from Nichelle that read...."Thought you might like to know, one of my girls sent me a text with some sob story about how she was too sick to come to class (spinning) tonight...I texted her back and told her to get her ass in here or we would bring the class to her house...she called me an ogre, I'm okay with that. Just thought you might like to know in case I need to drive to your house tonight."

Wow....so I guess that means no falling into bed.  I responded....'guess my family will have to learn to sleep to the sound of the treadmill' and I changed into my workout clothes and boarded the treadmill train.

I met with Nichelle later that week and she worked out a plan for me to follow each week with with five days of cardio and two days of resistance training.  The first time I did the resistance training I thought I was going to hurl.  And later, when in the shower trying to wash my hair, my arms were like lead and I could barely reach them to the top of my head to wash my hair.  I think I may have gone to bed with some soap in my hair still.

Thanksgiving week was week three and it was a little touch and go.  I managed to get three days of cardio and one day of resistance and tried really hard to eat well.  The end result on the scale, no harm, no foul - all seems good.

So here we are in week four.  I feel strong...I feel good...if the scale would just move under that decade that it has been holding for a week and a half I would feel like superwoman!

I've added some new tunes to my cardio music that I thought I would share for inspiration.  As many of you know, my beloved Basketball Buckeyes are tearing up the court (and mopped it with a little team from Duke last night) and so I have added some of their warm up and game songs to my list to feel 'stronger'.    See what you think and get up and get moving.

Alycia

Cupid Shuffle
Does Your Mother Know (Abba - Mamma Mia)
Hoedown Throwdown (Hannah Montanna - don't judge me - really)
Forget You (C-Lo)
Apache (Sugar Hill Gang)
Love Removal Machine (The Cult)
Perfect (Pink - the clean version)
Party in the USA (M. Cyrus)
Spin Me Right Round (Dead or Alive)

That was the music for tonight.  I mix it up from night to night with rock and roll Christmas - after all - 'tis the season.