Argh. All I could think about earlier was how I would have a chance to workout today and I even mentally tried out what would feel best and decided on weights and a little cardio, elated at the idea. All I can think about is sleeping and so I am going to listen to my body but I am getting impatient. Damnit. And it is a beautiful day, all I can hope is that I will take a nap and wake up energized and ready to maybe do something fun outside with our son once I get him from school.
Got an A- on my research paper and am overjoyed about it, I actually dreamt that I got a D so this was very welcome. School is this.close to being out and I cannot wait!
Doing well on respecting my body and honoring my hunger in a positive way again now that my hormones are subsiding. Stupid hormones.

The last few days or so I've been feeling like my beautiful lie is crashing down around me. Never mind that for the past month I have felt phenomenal, looked the best I have in a long time, and been so much less stressed out and crappy feeling in general. All it took was maybe a day of wanting to stuff my face and experiencing exhaustion to make me doubt myself and my new found ability to trust my body. Guess what? I'm just bloated and hormonal and cramping and sleeping a whole lot extra...the way I am feeling is normal and will pass soon, hopefully any day now. With time I think I'll learn better ways to weather this kind of thing out instead of jumping to the conclusion that I'm rubbish and untrustworthy and destined to rip the seams on my trousers.
Another huge contributor to the way I'm feeling is only working out twice in the past month, that is just very un-Erin-y but I finally had to let something go in order to preserve my sanity and for a bit I even let cooking go and ate takeout several times a week. School just got INSANE for the past month as you can see from my lack of posting and I found out today that all my classmates have felt the same way for the past month. Thank goodness I chose to break loose from dieting and guilting myself over workouts at just the right time.
I'm headed to bed now even though it's not even 9 but I am so damned tired and am hopeful that I can ride my bike or whatever strikes me in the morning, I am so excited to workout again I can hardly stand it.
In summary: things are going well but my hormones make me crazy sometimes and school is almost out, yay team.

Busy studying for an exam in the morning-semester is almost over!
Just wanted to jot down that since ceasing to diet weird deposits of fat have left, for instance my knees are easily felt now, my calf muscles more defined-so much so that I wondered if something was wrong when I felt the buldge, nothing wrong just a clearly felt muscle. I have bigger boobs again and my stomach almost looks like pre-baby. My weight is up yet I can wear my smallest clothes-so many weird things going on that are totally fascinating to me and probably snoozeville to you, but I had to document it somewhere for my benefit and to explore further later.
Back to the GI system and it's diseases....(studying, not my own diseases).

Just found this while looking through my documents folder for research paper related things:

"The Other Side of Normal. I’m done with the other side of normal, the way I see it there is normal and then there is better and worse than, and for me dieting and the behavior and thoughts that go along with it are definitely on the worse side. I envision the better than normal side as being strong and muscular, a functional happy body that can do more than I ever imagined. I also see myself being semi-vegetarian, having a compost pile, recycling, and taking canvas bags to the grocery. Worse than normal obsesses about her body and its perceived flaws; she is weak and in mental anguish much of the time-worrying about how “bad” she was for eating that cookie once in the last few weeks or having those two celebratory drinks. Worse than is less than, and she knows it well. This is why she gets sick from stress, from pressure to be perfect, self esteem is low and dependent on the scale or a hoped for comment that never comes from people that have no idea it even matters to her."


I may have posted this when I wrote it back in April of 07 but I couldn't find it looking back. Interesting. It is always weird when I come across things I wrote and I don't remember doing it-easy to recognize my writing style though. I am so glad I am definitely on the better than normal side, or at least on my way.

I'm working on a research paper that is due wednesday that I've left until last minute. I was able to test my new found skills (listening to my own body) Saturday night and even did fairly well with it in regards to alcohol, something that at times (many times) has not been easy for me. I think I've braved all my old anxiety causing situations and come out unscathed.
Today I found out my dad is taking pills again and I am having a worse case of munchies than usual but nothing outrageous.
I am okay, I won't let him drag me down this time. It's nice to really like myself again.
I'll post as I'm able, I'm reading when I can, take care all you wonderful people.

If I keep waiting to post until I have the time/ability to type out everything that has gone though/is going through my mind it will never happen.
I believe so strongly in the idea of eating intuitively that I plan to not only do my senior seminar on it, but to also base my practice around it once I become a registered dietitian. This will be quite controversial in my school as the non diet approach is still not widely accepted in the dietetics community though it was briefly mentioned in the obesity/weight management chapter last semester. The professor said, 'some RDs have found great success with this method" barely explained, and then moved on to weighing, food tracking and calorie counting.
In the intense tidal wave of emotional revolution I experienced when finally getting it recently I wanted to behave like a zealot and convert anyone and everyone around me and to proclaim dieting to be harmful for everyone. I forget that not everyone stays on "a diet" for years at a time, spinning their wheels and getting further bogged down and lowering their self esteem. Some people don't seem to be negatively affected by this behavior (constant restriction, self flagellation, etc) but I must say I believe it is a smaller percentage.
Eating intuitively is not about abusing your body. If you think it means never making positive nutrition choices for yourself again or contiuing to binge without investigating what is triggering the abusive actions, please look further inward. I am not an expert at this point, I do not have all the answers, nor do I think you are a depraved lunatic if you prefer to count what you eat and rely on external cues to determine what and how much and when you eat. I do believe however, that learning to trust yourself, trust your body and trust your judgement is a crucial step in truly loving and accepting yourself. Do only what you can see yourself doing the rest of your life, happily.
I've gone through a bit of grieving over the way I've treated myself the last few years and even now it hurts inside, and it is startling how insidiously the damage was wrought. I am well versed on the science side of things, I never ate below 1200 kcals a day, I got lots of protein and vitamins, etc etc. I drank my water, I worked out like a machine, I turned away artery clogging "treats". The MENTAL aspect of holding rigid control, feeling low when it slipped, pushing, pushing always pushing, never happy with myself for long, never reaching the mythical perfection...it nearly broke me. I can see that now. I sat in our bed one night and just sobbed, so angry I did that to myself. The clinical symptoms related to semi starvation are me down to every last one of them, if not all, nearly so. Since letting go I no longer feel so angry or irritable or impatient or stretched so, pardon the word, thin.
Positive things came out of it, I learned to cook and to love doing so. I found a profession that I think I can use to be a positive influence on the world, especially women. I started this blog and met people that are amazing-strong, intelligent, funny women. I learned I love yoga and riding my bike and a host of other activities. Now I can move further towards the shiny happy end of the spectrum.

My little one is very sick, caught the cold my husband got that I think I have been fighting somewhere deep in the Land of the Forgotten Sinuse Passages (aka way up in my noggin' somewhere).
Did an hour of yoga the other night and felt great but have yet to do it again even though I have had the desire just because of my time constraints. Doing the clinical rotation thing wears me out though not as badly as before and I have projects all coming due, only a few weeks left in the semester. I've stopped beating myself up if I can't work out as much as I want to, I know I'll be waaaaay more active when things slow down a bit and I'll just do the best I can right now.
I've had some struggled lately with food and trusting myself to do the right thing and there's lots I need to explore on here but I just can't right now. My little guy just wants me to hold him and it is so pitiful-wish I could make him better. If I haven't mentioned it, thank you to everyone that has been commenting-I get so excited when I see someone left me a note, I wish I was better at responding immediately. Please reference time constraints and management issues.

eep! How do the days just fly by without real time for me to post anything? Tuesday and then again today I've been experiencing weird hot flash type fever feelings and my balance has been really out of whack, the floor feels like it is moving some times when I am just standing around, it really got bad when I was standing in the doorway of a patients room looking at his chart but I think I played it off. Tuesday I just got extra rest and felt pretty good yesterday, good enough to knock out 30 minutes on the elliptical last night (which did NOT squeak by the way, yay) and then it just hit me hard out of nowhere this afternoon. I had to skip out on the DD@ meeting (the local dietetic association)which disappoints me, my friends were all going, it was at the restaurant we had our rehearsal dinner at and dinner is free and two great speakers on diabetes were scheduled. I can't help feeling all crazy though and when I feel badly I just want to go home, I hate sitting somewhere feeling ill.
My son has just redecorated the entire living room floor with toys in an effort to get my attention and so once again, this is cut short. At least I got something out...

I'm back in Dallas and had a great weekend and feel happy. Lots to talk about but for now I have to do some last minute studying for my Foodservice mgmt exam this morning.

M@rla you may think your comment didn't add anything but it surely did and I wish I had the time to really think it out and respond but I will say something simple and rather controversial to some: I do think diets are disordered and the wrong way to go. Becoming a dietitian gives me a slightly different perspective on everything, notice I said different and not better. I kind of think it gives me even more to think about because I have to decide what I'll do with patients and clients and I can't with good conscious put them on a diet plan, even the most healthy wonderful plan tends to fail eventually because we are not made to live that way. I don't think nutrition should go totally out the window but artificial rules to govern such a naturally process can only work short term from what I have seen myself and what I have read. There is so much to say about this and you can trust I'll be saying it over the next...however long it takes to think it out.
I ordered a few books from Amazon, one of them being Intuitive Eating by two RD's (what I will be) that I had seen mentioned here and there on the web. I've only read a little bit but I like what I am seeing so far and have to say I agree. It is also great for me to read how they figured things out from a professional standpoint and I can say I am leaning more and more towards the same direction. I even asked my sister-in-law if she would be interested in setting up shop with me (she's a psychologist) to treat eating disorders and educate the public on nutritional and mental health, maybe teach cooking classes for low income folks, provide groceries etc. That would have to be way down the road, it usually takes a big org to do things like that, I don't know right now I am dreaming.
I felt trapped before, now the future is wide open.

LME, Thank you for sharing with me, once again I feel like I have support and received shared wisdom from keeping this blog and in "the real world" it doesn't always come so easily. I am happy to say I've made some genuine friends over the last few years but the great thing with a blog is really getting into some one else's thoughts, the things that maybe they won't say out loud. I don't think I'll announce to people out of the blue (which is my usual MO when I decide things or am trying something etc) that I have a problem caused by dieting and my personality type, and as a result I could end up feeling very isolated but I don't. Thanks to everyone out there silent or not.
I mirror checked a bit more than I would like yesterday. People that don't know might think it was vanity, admiration on a constant basis when in actuality it's checking your status, "Stomach flat enough?" no "Hips wide?" etc. I never realized I was doing exactly that, I mean I never felt like I had a laundry list of flaws but I can't lie and say it was really a positive thing either. I weighed myself yesterday. I don't think that weighing has to be an evil thing if you don't attach emotions to it, which is easier said than done. I didn't emotionally react yesterday so it wasn't necessarily a good thing to do in this early stage of healing but it wasn't terrible either. I wanted to weigh myself because my jeans pulled on over my hips with the button fastened and I've been eating whenever I want and whatever I want so I became very curious to see if I had lost weight. That was my big misstep, it doesn't matter if I've lost weight as that is no longer my focus-a small part of me cannot help but want to know since my behaviors feel so positive now, so WHAT DO I WEIGH?
Ack.
Went out to dinner, I wanted to see how eating mindfully would go in that setting. In the old days I would sort of dread going out even though we did all the time because I really enjoy it and yet I would wrestle with myself over what choice I would make and if I would order what I really wanted or not. I usually did not. I ordered exactly what I wanted and ended up eating only about an eighth of what I would have in the past, including an appetizer. I did not restrict myself I just ate slowly and paid attention to each bite and chewed a whole bunch. I have realized I didn't use to breathe when I was eating I went so fast. I am learning how to chew and breathe without choking. Wow.
I adore food, most dietitians do. I also adore cooking which not all of us do and I am so happy to have made friends with it again, and for good. I desperately want my friends and family to join me in my new found thinking and doing but I am displaying amazing maturity and patience (the last one is usually hard for me) in not trying to force things on anyone. Force seems harsh, I usually persuasively campaign. Haha.
We're going to the in laws this weekend and I am not apprehensive about food for once, I know I can trust myself to take care of my body now and I am working on the mind/soul aspect. I have also suggested we have a party the weekend after that and cook out and make margaritas in the fancy blender I got two Christmases ago, it has a drink spout and everything, only used it to make protein shakes. *I am making a face.
Onward!

PS Fell down while carrying my son yesterday to the car and jerked my shoulder something awful trying to protect him so we'll see what I can do workout wise-I wanted to do upper body today but I might do yoga, feels like a yoga kinda day.

My workout today will not break any records but I enjoyed it and I truly did it just because I wanted to, not to lose weight which is huge in my mind. I cannot express enough how wonderful I feel to be free of my disordered thinking. I've known for several years now that I had gone beyond innocently starting a diet but it has taken me a long time to admit it, and I still haven't said anything to anyone in person. I'm not sure if I will or when I will and part of that is because I think they would tell me, "You don't have an eating disorder" blah blah and that would drive me insane. Just because I haven't revealed half the shit that goes through my head and the things I do does not mean it is okay to try and make your SELF feel better about having a sick daughter/wife/friend/sister etc. I am getting better and I will continue to but I don't need anyone backing me in to a corner making me feel like I have to make a case for why I strongly feel that I went past diet, did not collect $200 and got myself a damned eating disorder. I don't want to classify things or defend things here either but trust me, reading detailed information about binge eating disorder, bullemia where the form of purging is restriction, and other things like EDNOS are me to a T for the most part. They didn't use to be, before I started WW I didn't do any of the sad, twisted up punishing things or have the negative thoughts about myself. I remember in high school filling out one of those surveys about self esteem and actually having to make up something I didn't like about myself just so I wouldn't be the well adjusted misfit. How funny in a completely non humorous way.
I have been able to drop 99% of the behaviors and thinking so far, I'm afraid it will try and come back but I'm going to fight it off no matter what. I keep telling myself I can eat anything I want and how much I want and it is working because I actually mean it this time. No fear of being fat, no pinching my flesh constantly, no daily weighing, no constant mirror checks, no feeling inferior in a group of skinnier women...I'm tired and I can't even think straight.
I am so happy that I am accepting myself and getting back to being me.
The elliptical started squeaking at 10 minutes this time, I battled it out until about 23 minutes stopping and starting a few times to try and spray WD40 on any joint I could find which did not help. It is driving me batty that I WANT to do cardio for the first time in my life, that I am finding it fun and the durn machine is going haywire. I also did lower body weights and instead of trying to kill the bottom half of my body to burn more calories and build muscle to burn more calories etc. I just did what I wanted to do and it was so freeing. I finished up with dancing.

22 minutes elliptical 300 calories burned: damn good workout on its own but I am especially happy about it since the machine started doing its ear piercing thing at 15 minutes this time instead of 20 and my son gave me trouble the entire time. I wanted to keep going so much but he just was NOT going to take a nap so I finally announced,"You can always do a second workout tonight if you want" and went inside. I was listening to him on the monitor and went and checked on him several times and had a talk with him each visit and then when I went back in for the third time the smell hit me as soon as I got past the door. "Did you have a poo poo?" "Yeah! I poo poo'd in my pull up!"
Son this is not something to be proud of, sigh.
So he is up and watching Thomas the Train movie for the 4th time today and I am cooling off before we both go get in the shower and go to the store. That should be fun with a non napping two year old but we are out of dish soap, salad fixings and I need more baking yeast to make more bread. The last batch came out poorly, at least in appearance so I re-read the recipe and saw it made a 2 lb loaf and mine is a 1 lber I believe. Woops. Also, the yeast was pretty old so I'm going to try again. I've had the bread machine for a few yrs now but rarely used it since fresh baked bread was a "weakness" for me. Fuck that.
Also made a workout mix for the first time today and was happily jamming away to that and still had plenty left to go, maybe tonight depending on how I feel. My mind keeps turning to doing a race or something, I'm not sure what I would do, even the elliptical aggravates my left knee but I know there is some thing I can do.

Some changes I'm making starting....now I suppose:
Plan out weekly menus but make it even more predictable than before-like chicken on certain nights, fish on certain nights, veggie meals, out to eat every Thursday-whatever. I know lots of people do this but I never have, and I wonder why I get stressed. For some reason I have it in my head that I have to come up with something new and exciting all the time but I'm willing to give this a go. Not to say it will be the same meals each time but at least I'll know what to plan off for each day.
When I said I was going to stop trying to lose weight I meant that, but of course I am not letting go of good nutrition.
I'm going to stop being so rigid with my workout schedules-I think this drives me away eventually so I'm just going to maybe think of a short list of things I can do each day and just pick one-I may even write them on paper and draw them out of a jar. Won't be a cookie jar since we don't have one of those, haha.
Just completed a good workout, which is amazing since I just sat here and realized my mind kept flashing back to wanting to do cardio so I finally got up, changed clothes and went out there and did it. I also ended up doing a complete upper body weights workout too, then came inside and added two sets with my elastic bands and the door stopper. It bugs me not having the assisted chin up machine at home, I feel like I get my back so much better in the gym so I'm going to start adding the lat pull downs with the bands on those days, maybe some more band exercises too.
Remember when my goal was to curl 20 lbs per arm for a full set? Well I started each curl set tonight with 19 lbs so I'm getting close. I had to knock it down some to complete the ten reps each time but it can't be that far away. I also went WAY up on the standing tricep extension, I can remember when I just used 6.5 lbs and tonight I used 21.5 (my dumbbells are weird, hence weird numbers). Using 70 lbs total now for the flyes on my bench, that's a definite improvement too, I wish I could get my back stronger but since I hate doing back sets that's a hindrance. Once again, wish I had the chin up machine at home, or hell let's dream big and say I wish I could do chin ups with NO assistance. Some day. I also did 22 minutes on our elliptical before getting really pissed off at the durn thing for squeaking loud enough to wake the neighbors no matter how many times I shot it with WD40. I can't figure it out but it is ear piercing and cramped my style big time. The idea when I got on there was to just go as long as I physically could because I have never done that. I always watch the clock tick by and it is torture or I'm doing intervals for a prescribed amount of time or whatever, this time I wanted to see how long I could go if I took away the head games and I surprised myself a bit. 20 minutes on our elliptical feels like an eternity most of the time but I know I could have kept going. At the gym the elliptical machines feel really easy and I can dance away on them forever but ours is much tougher-my husband says it is the stride, he doesn't like it as much as the gym ones but what do you expect for something I got on sale from Academy Sports? It gets the job done.
No calories burned listed because I could NOT find my HRM watch even though I was wearing the chest strap. Of course when I was putting the elastic band up I moved some clothes laying on the bed and there it was...sigh.
I'm going to be tracking my exercise in sparkpeople but not food. Being truly fit is my goal now, not being smaller.

I'm going in a whole 'nother direction after getting so blue the other night and reading various things around the net. I say it's a different direction but in reality it is one I've visited before, just didn't stick with it out of fear.
I'm talking about learning to trust myself to make good decisions and to respect myself more instead of punishing. It's amazing how little I am hungry or even think about food when it is not off limits.
I know I've said this before, several times in fact, and I may falter again but I am not 100% convinced that no longer trying to lose weight is the answer for me to be a happier person. If you know me at all you know that doesn't mean free for all crap eating and no activity-that's not me anymore so why do I think I can't be trusted and further more why have I been so afraid of gaining weight? Will it matter if I'm no longer this size, if I never get to a smaller one? Hell no it won't. I'm sorry I had a Spartan birthday out of misguided ideas but each day is a new one and here I go. I'm starting to realize why I had a pretty badass body in high school despite my serious lack of nutritional knowledge and lack of exercise-I didn't have disordered thinking like every other girl I knew. I didn't care what size I was or how much I weighed and I never restricted food-just ate what I wanted and only rarely overate-we were way too poor to go out to eat even weekly so even Burger King was a treat to me. When I got to an income comfortable enough to go out any time the mood struck it became a thing to take for granted and the overeating continued, just all the time instead of a rare thing. I didn't sleep much and worked on my feet and unloaded freight trucks-before that I walked a LOT without a car, played in the woods even before that and was always outside. My lifestyle was just totally different, I guess I was the opposite of what I hear about today (lower economic families being heavier, etc.) We didn't have chips or sodas or candy or any of that nonsense-no money for that. My mom served meat, two veggies and a slice of bread with margarine and we drank iced tea all the time that was barely sweetened. There you go-no breakfast either most of the time and when I started working I had to provide my own lunches (15 yrs old on).
I think I completely lost my train of thought but I don't want to read back through this.
I want salads and water and fruit and lean meats and fresh seafood etc etc etc. Stuff that added the extra weight is not my cup of tea anymore for the most part and I move my ass quite a bit more than I did when this whole thing started. It's time to focus on being happier and to stop trying to meet a ridiculous ideal. My health is excellent and I'm tired of being miserable for vanity's sake.

I think this is a record for me, I'm not sure how many posts total for the day but I know most of it was negative. I want to change the way I am feeling and thinking before I just spiral further downward-my mind is a powerful thing no matter which direction it goes.
The problem is when I get like this (which unfortunately is too often for my liking) I feel helpless and miserable and think things like, "why can't I just be happy or do other people deal with this like I do?" In reality I know that at least I have long stretches where I am okay and others have it much, much worse. Hard to keep that in mind when I am dealing with things but I know it to be true.
My gut is telling me I need to baby this leg until I am sure it is okay, it may feel fine in the morning but I tweaked it pretty badly. Step ups at the gym are doable, not on my bench at home apparently, it is just too high and my hip flexors are too tight. I should have listened to my body when it told me that but I just kept going-trying to "save" my crappy day. I felt like I was failing myself by missing my workout and so I pushed it and ended up possibly knocking my ability out for several days. Hopefully it won't be that bad, I have to think positively.
I had a mindless eating problem for a few hrs today, just kept putting empty calories in my mouth and then a bunch of a cheese/prosciutto/basil roll on top of the high sodium lunch I had when I wasn't even hungry. Not horrible in the big scheme of things but not good-I could tell I felt weird and I can now identify when I am having a day like this that usually manifests in food abuse but I still don't know how to combat it.
Possible ideas: Go do something that engages my mind completely that doesn't involve food, not sure what this would be but I think it would be a good idea. The proximity defense regarding food and also maybe it would lift my crazy mood.
Okay that's really all I can think of right now-I really don't know what else I could do-my husband tells me to think of all the good things I have which just makes me feel worse like I am ungrateful or broken. I can't control these feelings coming on and awareness in that moment of all the things I have that I seem to be not appreciating is not helpful.
I may wake up tomorrow and feel fine, I never know how it will go. I'll reassess as far as workouts go when I see how my leg is doing then.

Oh man, I'm sitting here icing my right quad after sucking it up and going out to the garage to try and workout after all. I was anticipating coming back here and writing that I did it despite craziness going through my head all day and now I am just disappointed. At least I tried.
Tonight's really abbreviated workout: 150 calories burned.

After riding high on optimism for days now I am really struggling today, I think it all tracks back to my energy levels and how I am exhausted most of the time by existing in a constant state of stress. Inner voices right now are urging me to eat something terrible tonight and to have a drink or two or three...weird how I can feel on top of the world for days on end and then get really tired or have a crappy day and I sink down into the swamp.
I wanted to write this because it is not all roses or easy even when it seems like it is-I doubt I'll get in my legs workout today, I feel really OFF physically, not sure how to put it-like I'm on another planet. This is not entirely new, this happens to me periodically and I think the ability to climb back on the proverbial horse is the important thing here. I hate the idea that I fought my way through the weekend and felt really proud of that and now I am failing and I don't have a strong desire to stop the damage.

I did it. I effectively maintained over my birthday weekend while eating away from home three times and attending two major sporting events, usually death traps for weight loss. I'm up a few ounces but I will definitely take that, this is the first weekend in a long time that I haven't been up a good bit, bloated and fighting my way back down. On top of that a major excuse zone (birthday) and I am feeling pretty pleased.
In two weekends we go to Tulsa for Easter and that will be a major challenge. I would like to be 150 or lower by then but we will see if that happens. Either way I'm sticking with my workouts and good eating. Before we leave I'll make up a game plan and post that here, I know there are plenty of others out there that have to deal with well meaning (we hope) saboteurs to our healthy lifestyles. Drinking will be the main thing that will be hard to resist without rocking the boat. It's my choice and my body and my life though in the end.
Legs today with 30 min cardio-if I can't do it during the day I'll hit our garage "gym" as soon as my Husband gets home.

I haven't been back on here because today is my birthday and we've been busy all weekend.
First off, M@rla I really appreciate the encouragement, to hear my efforts are impressive from someone that impresses me always makes my day.
On the workout front, I sort of took Friday as a rest day (after legs on Thursday which are still a teeny bit sore today) though I did some housework like vacuuming the whole house and laundry and just stuff that had me on my feet quite a bit. Nothing major though but I was so worn out by bedtime that I was delirious and laughing at anything and everything. Saturday I drove to my campus gym which was a first for me, I've never gone up there just to workout without having something else to do school related. Did the same upper body workout from last Tuesday but of course increased the weight or reduced the assistance where applicable (chin ups and dips). I was pretty impressed with the progress I made in that area but it just makes sense that I should be able to do better each time on that since my own body weight is decreasing and I am getting stronger. If there is less of me I of course need less assistance to do these exercises. Regardless, I improved on pretty much everything but it was irritating they don't have in between dumbbells, only 5 lb increments. I really need 17.5s to do the dumbbell bench press but they don't have that and the 20s were too much after the three sets of chin ups. I'm pretty sure I could do the 20s if I was starting fresh instead of already fatigued a bit.
Today I walked for an hour again. Yes, on my birthday-I felt it was a good way to start a new year for me and I said I wanted to do it Saturday so I made sure to follow through even though my husband and son were napping and we had a great brunch just a bit earlier. As far as eating goes which is usually terrible on my birthday weekends I did really well, didn't even have a whole drink despite many many opportunities and ate very little food "off" program and I don't feel deprived by that whatsoever. I had bites of high calorie foods but stuck to good for me stuff almost entirely. No more back tracking for me damnit.
On calories burned: Saturday's workout:680 and today's walk around 500 again but I had to throw some brief running in to the walk to get that number. I wanted to mention that, after only one rotation of my workouts I improved enough in a cardiovascular sense that even though I felt that I pushed and I raised the weights on pretty much everything I burned fewer calories. So: good-I am more efficient already (amazing!) and boo-I burn fewer calories and have to step it up even MORE. ARGH! I think one reason I burned higher numbers last week was the extra fluid I was toting around that I sloughed off and just jumping back into hard workouts after comparative non-activity.
Something I am doing differently this time around and forever as far as I am concerned is drinking a post workout shake on weight lifting days-equal carbs and protein within an hour after my workout. I have noticed a difference in a very short time period and am excited to see what is in store for me.
Right after I posted about the scale I woke up 2 lbs lighter and have no idea where I'm at lb. or BF % either one at this point.