12/12/12: Dressed Up for a Party & Thoughts for 2013

Morning Weight:  157.6
This Morning's Exercise: 40 minutes Wii Fit Biggest Loser workout. I just did not want to get out of bed this morning and I most certainly wasn't feeling like going to the gym, but a little something is better than nothing so the Biggest Loser disc got popped into the Wii.  It is a light workout, but there are a lot of stretches and different motions that I don't get in my other workouts, so I think it is probably a good thing for me to do once in a while.  So, even though it wasn't a heart pounding routine, it got me moving this morning and helped me do some really nice stretches and yoga poses.
Yesterday Evening's Exercise:  Strength Training with Jeremy Wallen - quite a workout last night.  That's probably why I didn't feel like doing much this morning.
Yesterday's Calories: 1472
Vitamins:  1-A-Day, D, B-Complex, Calcium, Glucosamine

The Christmas party I mentioned over the weekend is this afternoon, so I am wearing the outfit that I bought over the weekend.  Since I didn't take a picture on Sunday, I thought this would be a good opportunity to post my weekly photo.

12/12/2012:  157.6 pounds, 66.4 pounds lost

I weighed a little less this morning and I attribute that to the fact that I am eating only my own cooking this week.  I cooked tofu spinach burgers and a tofu-kale-peanut stew on Sunday and that is what I am taking to work for lunch and eating for dinner.  Both are delicious and jammed full of veggies and other good stuff.  I am also eating my calories earlier in the day and eating most of my carbs in the morning.  Other than that, everything is about the same.  Exercising a lot, drinking plenty of water, trying to eat as close to 1500 calories a day as possible.

I have given a lot of thought to my original goals and what is truly important to me.  As any of you that read my blog regularly already know, I have been stressing a lot over reaching 150 pounds by a particular date.  My original goal was 48 weeks from my start date, which worked out to be January 28, 2013.  Then I thought I could move up my goal by 8 weeks to December 3rd, because my trend line for so many weeks was 1.8lbs per week rather than my originally projected 1.5lbs per week.  Then the weight loss slowed down and I decided December 31st was more realistic.  Alas, this last 10 pounds is turning out to be 10 times harder than the 10 pounds before it (quoting Ruth) and December 31st isn't going to happen.  OK, I said to myself, perhaps my original target date of January 28, 2013 was the right goal date, after all.

As I have blogged about my frustrations some of you reminded me about other aspects of my goal...my true goals, actually, not "the number on the scale" goal.  What this is really all about is exactly what I have been calling this from day one, "My Get Fit Initiative."  This has never been about weighing a certain number on the scale, this has always been about being healthy, fit, and active so that I can live a long life, feel great, and do the physically active things I enjoy doing.  Losing weight and keeping that weight off for the rest of my life is certainly a part, a big part, of that goal.  But there is a lot more to it, too.  And I am so much closer to that goal than I was 9 months ago. 

The progress I've made has been tremendous.  Yes, I've lost 66.4 pounds.  I've also gone from a 1X/2X top to a medium and from size 18 jeans to an 8.  I am wearing size 6 underwear, for goodness sake!  For most of my life a wore a 7, then those got to small and I had to wear an 8.  Now, sixes fit best.  I can't ever remember buying size 6 undies, before.  I was wearing a size 42DDD bra and about 20 pounds ago I bought 36DD bras, and now those are getting too big.  Soon, I will probably be buying 34D or 34DD bras.  Quite frankly, I feel good about the way I feel and the way I look in my clothes.  I want to lose this last 7 pounds, but it doesn't have to come off tomorrow for me to feel good about myself and the way I look.

On a fitness level, my progress is even more impressive.  When I started my Get Fit Initiative I walked most of my four mile route and the part that I did jog was very difficult.  The first time I got in the pool I could swim four laps freestyle, before I had to swim breast stroke or side stroke to rest.  Now I can run 6.5 miles without walking any of it and I can swim 2000 meters.  If I run short distances I can average 6mph instead of 5mph.  I can even keep up a pace of 6.5mph for short distances, though I can only handle 7mph for a minute.  8 months ago a 10th of a mile at 6.0mph was incredibly difficult.  Now I can maintain that pace for 4 miles.  I couldn't do 3 tricep dips when I started working out with Jeremy, now I can do 20 or more.  I couldn't do a single push-up and now I can do 10.  Wall sits used to kill my legs and I was trembling after 15 seconds, now they are pretty routine.  I have gotten much, much stronger.  I don't have resting heart rate stats, but I am sure that has improved, too.

So I guess what I am trying to say is that I am going to try to stop stressing so much about 7 or 8 pounds.  The new year is quickly approaching and I am ready to set new goals for the new year.  To put it bluntly, I am tired of focusing on losing weight and I am ready to focus on fitness, strength, and endurance.  Weight is something I can never and will never ignore.  But I want the maintenance of my weight to be a side-effect of my fitness plan, instead of fitness being a side-effect of my weight-loss plan.  I am not saying this is going to be easy for me; in fact, I think it is going to be incredibly difficult, but as of January 1, no matter how much I weigh, I am going to end phase 1 (weight loss phase) and begin phase 2 (focus on fitness phase) of my Get Fit Initiative. 

I'm about out of time for this blog post, but phase 2 will include goals like competing in my first triathlon, being able to do a certain number of push-ups, being able to do 1 pull-up, reducing body fat to a certain %, etc...  I need to think about those goals and decide what they are, but that is the direction that I am thinking about.

I have also started thinking about another important set of goals for 2013; all of those things that are talked about in the last 3rd of the Younger Next Year book.  I'll need to drag the book back out refresh my memory, but they center around being committed to and connected to people and causes that are important to me.  They are about being engaged, on a meaningful level, to something outside of my own head.  The transition to my new job in 2013 was huge.  As I settle into that in the coming year, I hope to have energy to focus on other things as well.

I appreciate all of your support, thoughts, suggestions, encouragement, and ideas.  Thank you for being part of my team by following my blog.  It makes a difference, just knowing there are people out there reading.  It really does.