Blowing the dust off

I've thought over and over what to do with this blog. I want to use it, but I feel like there are so many AMAZING health type blogs out there that I couldn't possibly compare.

The thing is, I'm an "old school" kind of blogger.  I want to just write about my life.  If I share pictures or recipes or anything like that, that's kind of a bonus.  Mostly I just want to write.  Somewhere along the way, I got it in my head that no one wants to just learn about some stranger's life.

But over the past few weeks, I've been really getting into the lives of some vloggers.  They might have started out as a specific kind of vlogger, but now they just talk about their lives, show silly things, and people LOVE it.  So I thought, why don't I vlog?  Then I thought better of it because seriously? I do NOT need to be on video!!!  Lord, I would need a wide lens!

Only, it really got me wanting to REALLY blog again.  To just sit and talk about stuff and show pictures and whatnot.  And maybe once in a while, I might think about vlogging.  Maybe.

So here's the deal:  I'm pledging 31 days of blogging. Every day in July, I'll post in here.  I'll post my workouts, my food, and just random stuff that I feel like talking about.  Because I need to get back to the gym and get back to this whole losing weight business, and I also need to get back to really writing.  I feel better working out and I feel better when I write.

See you Monday!
                                               

Jemima, you suck.

God, I hate the book Jemima J.

Several years ago when it came out, a friend of mine sent it to me because she said it was wonderful.  It's about an overweight girl who meets someone fabulous on the internet, decides to lose weight, and goes to see him after she gets thin.  I love chick lit and I love books about fat girls, so I was eager to read it.

The rest of this post will probably have a lot of spoilers about this ridiculous book, so if you haven't read it and you want to, probably best to skip this post.

Anyway. So Jemima Jones is portrayed as being the fattest fuck in all of England.  No one is as fat as Jemima. She's got triple chins.  She puts the ass in massive.  Her stomach is huge as hell.  She's FAAAAAAAAAAAAAT.

Naturally, she has a thin and beautiful girl friend, thin and beautiful roommates, and a huge crush on the hottest man ever.

So then she discovers the internet and chat rooms.  And, as it happens, she lies like a dummy to this guy she starts chatting with.  Hey, we've all been there!!  When it turns out that the guy she's chatting with actually is extremely fit and gorgeous as all get out, Jemima decides to join a gym.

Awesome. No matter what the catalyst is, getting healthy is NEVER a problem.

But here's where the book loses me.  No, not just loses me.  Makes me angry!

Jemima goes into the gym for her assessment with a trainer. He says he needs to weigh her. Okay, okay...I'm with you so far.  This actually happens.  Jemima is sad about getting on the scale. Hey, been there, too.  And then the weight pops up on the scale.

204 pounds.

Yes, I wrote that right.

Jemima Jones, the fattest thing in all of England, is 204 pounds.

A little bit later we discover that she's 5'7 in height.  I went over to My Body Gallery and popped in those measurements.  Do you know what a woman who is 5'7 and 205 pounds looks like?

Get the fuck out of town.

So Jemima basically starves herself, works out a lot, and gets to 120 pounds in a few months.  She flies off to meet the gorgeous Brad, who conveniently owns a gym, falls in love with him, and then gets fucked over when it turns out that he actually likes fat girls.  Then the guy she had originally had a crush on sees her thin and falls in love with her.

Well then.

This book would have been so so much better had  Jemima like, you know, actually BEEN fat.  Or if her first crush had loved her despite her weight and had been too shy to tell her.  Or if she'd just been happy enough to get fit despite all these men.

I hate this book.

The Sum of It All

So I had my training session yesterday with my new trainer.  Well, okay.  I keep calling him "new" even though we've been together now for almost 2 months.  My original trainer, Seth, left our gym in early September for a new and better career.  I was lucky to have him for as long as I did, and I really hope he's doing well.

Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly, knowing how I am)  I kind of lost my motivation after Seth left.  I guess I don't deal well with change. It's not that I was working out FOR him.  It was just that we were buddies, and I enjoyed our 30 minutes together each week, and I liked showing him what I had done the during the week when he wasn't with me.  We chatted about his kids and my boyfriend and music and movies. It was fun.

After he left, I was paired up with another guy, Johnathon.  Now don't get me wrong. I like my new trainer just fine.  He's a nice guy, and I think he is a better trainer than Seth was because he's very very efficient with our time.   When we finish a workout, I know that I have worked my muscles about as hard as I possibly could without hurting myself.  But we're not really buddies yet.  And maybe we're not really supposed to be. He's hired to give me a workout once a week, which he does and does quite well.

No, my problem now is really just with myself.  I can't seem to make myself go to the gym if I don't have a scheduled session and that's terribly terribly bad.  I'm unhappy that I haven't lost much weight.  Back in the summer when I was at the gym 3-5 days a week and eating better, I wasn't losing much.  I have lost body fat.  I have gained muscle.  But the scale is hovering around the same number that it was at when I started this whole thing back in June and I don't know how to fix that.

Well, no.  I do know how.  I just don't want to do it.

And that pretty much sums up my life right now.

Hey, fat guy

Someone on MyFitnessPal pointed us to Hey, Fat Girl last week, and it was seriously one of the best things I had ever read.  I felt like they were talking to ME in a way.  The post was brought up in a topic where someone was having doubts about going to the gym because of her weight.  I've been extremely blessed to be able to go to this gym at this point in time because the people there are pretty fantastic. No one makes rude comments.  If anything, people seem to go out of their way to come tell me when they've noticed I had a good workout, or they simply say hi, or smile at me.  It's very supportive and the gym is a safe place for me.

While I was there today finishing up my workout, a guy walked in.  Our treadmills overlook the gym and so I noticed when he walked in.  I feel like I need to say something to him.


Hey, fat guy.

You walked into the gym on a Sunday afternoon when almost every guy there is a weight lifter.  I'm not blind. I see how incredibly fit their bodies are.  I know they put a lot of work into looking that good because I see them there squatting, curling, lifting, pushing. They have six pack abs and well defined, muscular arms.  They carry milk jugs with water, and they're all over the gym doing their thing.  Some of them probably haven't eaten a real sandwich that wasn't fashioned out of a lettuce wrap in years.  Watching you walk past them was like watching a fluffy baby bunny walk past a pack of sleek, toned lions.

It took you a bit to come up the stairs to the cardio area.  I know how hard it is to walk up those stairs when you're carrying extra weight.  Your knees, like my own, probably creak with every step.  I watched you out of the corner of my eye while you got up on one of the machines.

I completely admire you.

It's not easy to be the biggest at the gym.  I'm always the biggest when I go in, and I'm pretty sure you and I are neck and neck in that department.  But you still came in.  You marched right past the weight lifters and got on with your workout.  Although you didn't stay on the machine long, you still did it.

When my own workout was finished, I noticed you in the basketball court.  Part of me wanted to come in and tell you that I loved that you were there today.  The other part figured you'd look at me like I was crazy. Which, you know, would have been okay since I get that look a lot.

I hope I see you there again sometime.  I hope one day you're there with the lions.

Gym Talk

I'm sitting here this morning enjoying a nice plate of bacon and eggs.

Okay, that's kind of a lie.  I'm sitting here, after eating a piece of pan dulce, eating a plate of lower sodium turkey bacon and one scrambled egg because I need to get in some protein so I can go to the gym and not fall apart after 15 minutes on the elliptical from a sugar crash.

Turkey bacon makes me a little angry.  I know it means well, but it's not real bacon and it never will be.  Any time I eat it, I think about that scene from the last Harry Potter movie.

Not that I'm calling Snape turkey bacon, because Snape is awesome, but let's face it - he was no Dumbledore in terms of being a great headmaster.

I've yet to see a difference on the scale regarding my weight.  I don't even see a difference in my body.  This makes the Crazy Eating Disordered Girl in me a little nuts.  I mean, it's natural to want to see SOME progress.  The only thing I can say is that I don't look quite as bloated but that's subjective.

The logical part of me knows that it's going to take some time.  I know that I'm supposed to be putting on some muscle because I kind of don't have any.  No, really.  I have so much body fat on me, I cannot use the fat counter thing at the gym.  It doesn't register.

Basically, I'm veal.

I know that in a month, I'm sure to start seeing a bit of a change in my body.  The weight is sure to start dropping and things will be okay, but I'm part of The Biggest Loser crowd.  I want to see a 30 pound loss in the first week.  I know that isn't right, I know that their circumstances are much different than my own less than an hour workouts and free access to double cream cheese are.  They work out 4-5 hours a day and are on a restricted diet and have 'round the clock care.  Physically, I do what I can and then listen to SOMEONE complaining that there's nothing to eat for the rest of the day.  30 pounds in one week?  Not happening for this girl.

But I feel different.  I don't feel like dying when I walk across a parking lot into a store anymore.  I don't hunt for the absolute closest parking space. [Actually, more on that in a minute.]  I can get up from my chair without struggling too much.  I feel good.  Not great or anything, but a lot better than I felt when I walked into the gym for the first time.  I know my diet still needs tweaking, but it's the exercise that has really made all the difference.  I truly believe that.

Can I talk about the dumb tramps that go to my gym, though?

For the most part, everyone I've really met there has been helpful and supportive and genuinely kind.  It's a place that I enjoy going to.  But there are 3 types of women who go there that I want to punch in the face:

1.  The Juice Bar Bunnies.

My gym has a nice little juice bar. You can get smoothies and fruit and water, stuff like that.  But there are always a few women who seem to only come for the juice.  I've yet to see them do more than 10-15 minutes on the elliptical before they're down there sucking on a straw.  Honey, let me tell you - if this is all you're after, head down the road about half a mile and hit up Jamba Juice.  You can walk around the parking lot if you're so inclined.

2. The Pretty Princesses.


Why are you at the gym in full makeup with your hair done?  You're there to sweat, not pick up a man.  Scrub off your mascara before your sweat makes it bleed into your eyes, scrape your hair back into a ponytail, and WORK OUT.  I know you probably didn't just come from work being that I usually am there at 10 in the morning.  Also? Stop taking up entire benches in the locker room with all your equipment while you sit and text.  Some of us just want to put our purse up so we can do our thing. [Most of these women are Juice Bar Bunnies, too.]

3. The "Oh God, I Have To Do WHAT?" Wenches.


These women drive me nuts.  They're outside hiding behind their cars smoking a cigarette before coming into the gym.  They flit from machine to machine, not really breaking a sweat on any of them.  They drive around the parking lot multiple times because they're looking for the closest parking space they can get.  It's a gym! Walk a little further! AND STOP GETTING IN MY WAY.

I really should stop sitting here complaining about stuff and get off my own ass and go to the gym.  Plus, my boyfriend woke up early, disturbed my quiet, and now I need to go work off some of my irritation.

Gym Time

So that didn't really go as expected.

I headed into the gym on Monday morning, SmartWater in hand, phone holding a couple of mixes from Rock My Run, ready to hop up on an elliptical and pound away for a while.  I was convinced that since I had belonged to this particular gym last year, I wouldn't have to sit through the whole spiel on training sessions, or get beat up by a trainer.  When I'd initially joined this gym, my free personal assessment [basically the "Please buy training packages" session] was given to me by this young guy who seemed nice, then made me do more than my body was capable of doing, and then he tried to shame me into buying a monthly set of training sessions for $500.  Yeah. That was happening.

But, as soon as I got there, I was hustled off to a guy named Joey.  I told him immediately that I was not going to get training sessions and he said that was fine.  And then we talked. And talked. And he led me through a workout that left me energized rather than ashamed.

Yep. I walked out of the gym having signed up for a year of training sessions.

Guess I really will buy anything from anyone who tells me I look like I'm 25.

Okay, not really.  But Joey and another trainer DID tell me I looked like I was in my 20s. Yay for good genes!

So, I have one training session a week with whatever trainer I sign up with. I guess Joey doesn't do sessions there enough or something.  He signed me up for a session yesterday with a guy named Seth since I made him laugh by saying if I had a female trainer, I'd probably tell her where to get off if she tried to make me do something I didn't want to do.  Let's face it, I work better with men. But I think having a trainer is a good thing for someone like me.  I obviously cannot do this on my own anymore.  I've lost control of the situation.  I need someone to help me so that 1, I keep going, and 2, so I don't hurt myself.

I was sore yesterday when I went for my first "real" training session.  Seth made me more sore.  Luckily for me, he had a very large weight problem at one point [I'm beginning to wonder if that's a requirement for these trainers since Joey said he had a problem too being that he is a chef.] and that REALLY put me at ease. It's easier to work with someone who understands that someone who is my size cannot do the same things as some girl who only has 20 pounds to lose.

When I woke up this morning, my entire body ached. I mean, my thighs were absolutely angry and my arms have seen better days. My whole body seemed to be telling me, "Hey, remember the good old days?  Like, you know, last week? When we'd lay in bed and then get up and sit? Can we do that again?"

I'll admit it, I didn't want to go to the gym today.  I started talking myself out of it.  I'm tired, I'm sore, I need a recovery day, I don't wannaaaaa....  But then I started thinking about my family, about how my parents are paying for this, about how much I'm sick of this body.  I told myself to get off my fat ass and go.

Okay, so then while I was getting ready, I was cranky towards my boyfriend and he didn't seem to like it, but if I have to exercise, I want him to do it, too!  He's not going to, because he is kind of lazy, but I keep thinking if maybe I nag enough, eventually I'll get him to come in with me at least once.

So I went.  I moaned to myself all the way up the stairs. Every step was felt deep in my thighs.  I managed 10 minutes on the treadmill, and then 20 minutes on the elliptical.  I used to be able to do so much more, but I did what I could.  Seth had told me to put the resistance up higher on the elliptical rather than just doing longer at a lower resistance, which makes sense to me.  The trip back down the stairs was a ton harder than going up the stairs, which made me think, "What? Is this opposite day?"  Every step made my legs shake.  I held on to the railing and went slow, which was kind of embarrassing, but it would have been more embarrassing if I'd tried to go faster and fell ass over heels down the steps.

As I was leaving, this older gentleman walked out with me. He wanted to chat with me a bit just to offer some support.  He told me that "try" and "hope" need to be out of my vocabulary.  I need to just put my heart into it and do it.  He also said that, not to offend me or anything, but I'm really pretty and if I just lost weight, I'd be even more amazing looking. From his lips to God's ears, you know??

Oh, and he thought I was 27.

Kinda love the men at the gym these days!

I have cardio again tomorrow, then Friday is a rest day but only because I'm stuck going to jury duty. I'm hoping I can get that over with quickly and maybe get in a short workout, but we'll see.  Rest is just as necessary as working out, and I definitely don't want to burn out too quickly.  I have too many people behind me this time.

Let's not be like Bee

I come from a small family.  Not small in numbers, but everyone is fairly thin.  I'm one of the tallest females, although I'm only 5'5.  I'm definitely one of the the biggest females. When I stand next to my skinny beautiful cousins and my tiny little aunts, it can be incredibly awkward.  At least, it's awkward for me. My family loves me no matter how I look.

But, despite my out of control obesity, my mom's cousin Bee is actually bigger than me.  In fact, she's probably twice my size.  The last time I had seen her, she was well over 500lbs, and from what we've been told, she's gained more because she will hit up several fast food restaurants and get a couple of burgers or tacos or whatever from each and eat it all.  And I get it.  I, too, used to do the same thing.  Only I purged it out because that's how I dealt with my unhappiness.  She just eats more.  I suspect it's because she might be lonely, but unfortunately she's got kind of a bad attitude.  You know the type.  She's even told people not to bother coming to her house unless they come over to clean it.

We discovered a few days ago that Bee's health is definitely going downhill quickly.  For the past couple of years she's used a walker. I think the last time I saw her, which was probably 3 or 4 years ago, she had a cane.  Now it's getting harder and harder for her to get around.  She's diabetic.  Worse than that, she needs a heart bypass surgery.  Even worse than that? She's refused to get it.

Basically, she's decided to die.

Since there's not really much anyone can do for her now, the family has decided to turn their eyes on me since I'm the next biggest.  They're worried. They pray. They ask about me. And as sweet as that is, it makes me feel bad.  I don't want to be a worry to anyone, ever, and the fact that I'm causing my family any kind of worry does really really bother me.

So, I have to fix it.

I have been thinking for a while about rejoining my old gym.  I know that exercise is really going to have to be the key here because I don't eat badly.  I just don't move enough. Not even nearly enough.

After my doctor's visit this past week [and yes, my weight was totally brought up] my mom called me the next day and told me that she and my dad had been talking, and if I wanted, they would pay for me to rejoin the gym AND pay for any new workout clothing I'd need.

Well.  Twist my arm a little harder, I guess?

I registered today on the website and I'm planning on getting up early tomorrow to go.

I feel like I should be more nervous about going back, or even sad because I know for a fact that there is no way in blue hell that I will be able to do the workouts I used to do. [Yet, anyway.]   But I'm not.  I'm happy.  I'm happy to have somewhere to go, and to know that I'm finally going to do what needs to be done to start getting healthier again.