2013 was a frustrating year. That year after you have a baby is rough. Everything on your body trying to find it's old spot, you've got an infant to a mobile baby seemingly needing you every waking moment, and none of your clothes fit the way they used to. It was rough.
I started the year with good intentions to have it be the "year Annie figures it out". I had, in my vast expanse of a hollow brain, a list of things I was going to do: doctor's visits (general, dermatological, arthritis, etc.), lose 30 pounds, eat healthier, be calmer and all that stuff. The dreams failed new years resolutions are made of I tell you what.
Well, now we sit eight days in to the new year and today I had that dermatologist appointment. At least I have one thing I can check off my list.
In February of last year I joined a gym and from that time until June, I sporadically showed up to walk on a treadmill. In sketchers. Sometimes without socks. It was probably more just an opportunity to leave the kids for 30 minutes than to really break a sweat.
In June of last year, I decided to start trying harder to be fit. My gym attendance became more regular, I got sweaty lifting weights and tried to be a runner. I failed miserably at running, but I did manage to get myself from incapable of running a mile to running a 12 minute mile on the treadmill. But, when the 5k came at the end of August, I walked.
The month of September was full of frustration and Internet research. The exercise and moderate efforts to watch what I was eating hadn't done a thing for me and I was frustrated. Ross and I started looking into a couple of fad diets and nutrisystem. That sort of thing. I needed help, a jump start, a positive result for the work I had been putting in and had, at the time, nothing but a t-shirt from "The Color Run."
The first week of October I'd decided enough was enough and I rejoined Weight Watchers Online for the 3rd time in seven years. And, like the other two times, in the first 5 weeks, I lost 10 pounds and was feeling pretty positive about myself. This 10 pounds coincided with a night I went to the gym, the week of Halloween and saw a poster advertising an 90 day group life challenge called Liv-a-Betes. I read the poster and thought that I was a perfect candidate and applied. I was accepted into the program and met the coordinator to get nasty "before" photos taken and to do my preliminary weigh in and measurements.
There really isn't much that is more motivating than seeing "before" pictures of yourself. By the end of November I realized that I couldn't make changes on my own so after talking to Ross, I bit the bullet and decided to pay for a trainer at the gym. I signed up for three months, 12 sessions, to see where I could get myself by the end of January, 2014 - when the challenge is over.
The whole challenge has been nothing like I thought. In fact, it's been nothing but a couple of canceled seminars and a few e-mails. But, the trainer? She's been everything. Knowing that I am paying her real money, and that I have to meet with her weekly and show some visibly progress has been some mighty intense motivation to get my act together. The trainer, combined with the fact that I sucked it up and switched from trying (and failing) to go to gym at night and going crazy early in the morning (yes, 6:30 isn't that early, but it is for me) has really started to make a difference. In one month, I've lost 3 inches from my waist; one inch from my thighs and half an inch from my arms. My weight is still 30 pounds more than I want it to be and my body fat percentage could always be better, and I still eat too much nutella but.....BUT, there is change happening. And, I can do things I physically could not do months ago which is pretty amazing.
It's the first real progress I've seen in a long time.
Back in November, one of the goals I'd set for myself was to buy a size smaller pair of jeans for Christmas. Well, Christmas came and I bought myself a new pair of jeans - the same size as normal and....they are too big. I'll admit here, that I've been buying my jeans at Lane Bryant for years now, because they have built in tummy tightening elastic and I need that elastic. I haven't worn a pair of "real" jeans (actual denim with no stretch) for about 4 years now because I've been too uncomfortable, but when the L.B. jeans were too big I decided to go to a "real" store and try on a pair of "real" jeans. I found a pair I liked, in my normal size because I was too chicken to try on something smaller in the privacy of my own dressing room. I bought the jeans, brought them home and guess what.
They are too big.
I have to wear a belt.
I might have to sign up with my trainer for another three months.
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