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?