Failure or New Opportunity?

Birthday cupcakes (not all 6 but still)
definitely played into my downfall!

I hate failing. In fact, someone once said they thought I had a fear of it. Maybe I do, I'm not sure, but whether I fear it or not, I've certainly done my fair share. The latest failure: January's goals. Not all of them, but certainly my weight loss experiment with The Firm Express.

I have done every workout in the series. I did not, however, do them in the correct order or 3 times a week. I also blew off my diet for a few weeks. Argh. At one point, I had lost 7 pounds during the month due to the exercise and since put about half of it back on. That's what I get for indulging in birthday, Superbowl and Valentine's day celebrations. And mostly just not paying attention to what I was eating well enough.

I heard a stat once that said it took the average person six attempts to quit smoking. I think that number is probably double or triple for lifestyle changes. So instead of wallowing in misery or failure, I'm going to try again. And maybe this time I'll start wearing incredibly tight pants and belts to make myself uncomfortable enough to stop putting food in my face.

This week:

• Days per month that I worked on my novel: 15/15 (not sucking on this one!)
• Calories burned per week: 1550 (a pound is 3500)
• Weight loss/gain since last posted result: +3 lb.
• Cumulative loss/ gain: -3 lbs.

The Firm Express: Week One

Who else works out in t-shirts with a
Cheeseburger on them?

This is the official end to my first week of The Firm Express. I have to say that so far, I'm pretty happy with it. Chef and I ventured to Target yesterday to grab weights because I apparently threw out my 1980s monstrous 6 lb weights in the move. Those things had SAND in them. SAND. They'd slosh around when you were working out, but I have to say they never leaked one grain of sand in their tenure.

Now with weights literally in hand, I can do week two at full capacity. That being said Week One was a good workout. Twenty minutes each session and you don't stop at all. Some cardio, some toning and a lot of heavy breathing. I will say that this isn't for the newbie or at least the uncoordinated because I was having a hard time keeping up with the warm-ups. They got a little complicated for me. Of course, part of that could be that I'm one of those uncoordinated people,  plus I have to switch orientations because our living room is not big enough to fully do the moves AND I did the first week in the wrong order so I wasn't building off the previous days' moves.

All that aside, in the first week I've lost 4.6 lbs. I can't credit all of that to The Firm Express though. I kept my 30 minutes daily of elliptical and just added this as extra. Plus I was counting my calories again and I think my body just wanted to shed some of this holiday blubber. If I lose the promised "15 lbs in 30 days!" then I'll be more likely to give The Firm some props. All in all nearly 5 lbs isn't a bad start though.

What program had the quickest result for you?

Back in the Health Saddle Again

From my lunch time walk

Here's the bad news (or at least bad for me): I gained 11 lbs since hitting my lowest weight in LA. 13 pounds! And six of that was over the holidays. The rest was just the sheer laziness of being me.

The good news: 4 of those pounds came off in the last week of watching what I eat. So I'm only at a 9 lb net gain. Not great, but not the worst thing that's ever happened to me.

I watched an old episode of Oprah last night that was her "last show about weight loss." I recorded it because my friend Mandy was a guest on the show (she was one of the invited that had lost more than 100 pounds--and kept it off). She looked fabulous on the show as she's fabulous in person, as well, but the more I watched the more I realized just how delusional I like to be. I have to face the fact.

I am going to battle my weight every day of my life, for the rest of my life.

That sucks. I wish I was one of the lucky people who never have to think about it, but after seeing so many Facebook pics of people who I thought were "those kinds of girls" in high school ("I don't know why I don't gain weight, I just don't!") and seeing that the calories they packed in back them have come a callin', I realize I'm not alone. I've got plenty of other attributes and skills that I can fall back on in the mean time. But this is something, and not even that unusual of a something, that I'm going to have to face.

So, in honor of that, I started a new workout routine to spice things up. I'm still doing my 30 minutes of elliptical each morning, but I've added The Firm Express taped workouts (Thank you, Chef for getting them for me because I ASKED!) to my repertoire three times a week. I did the first one yesterday morning. Each workout is only 20 minutes and I knew my heart rate was up, but I didn't think I was working anything out until this morning. My butt and legs are achy. that good kind of achy you get when you've worked something you haven't stretched in a while. I'll let you know when I see some results. I'll probably even share the "before" pics that I made Chef take of me. But the thing about "Before" pics is that they only look good in context of the "after" so I'm not just going to post those willy nilly.

I'm back to counting calories and trying to eat smaller meals/snacks more frequently. I even took a walk at lunch today. Although to be honest, that had less to do with exercise and more to do with a study I read about how sunshine at noon helps stop the post-lunch crash. Plus it's like 80 degrees and beautiful today, so how could I not?