Sometimes I Surprise Myself

As you know from the last entry, I was feeling rather upset about the lack of weight loss in the last 2 weeks.  This past weekend, my family and I were invited up to the cottage belonging to close friends of ours.  I decided I would try to run at least once while we were up there, and otherwise to relax and enjoy the food, wine, beer, and sunshine.  Next week I’ll get back on track, I thought.

Well, we had a fantastic time.  I ate sensibly, didn’t really count on LoseIt on Friday at all.  Saturday morning I got up and ran before eating, hoping to boost some fat loss – I read somewhere if you can manage to walk or run before breakfast (most days I can’t because I’m getting my kids off to school and it’s a good 90 minutes between wake up and workout).  I ran 6.5km using the EI10K (Ease Into 10k) app on my phone.  I brought the dog with me because we were in bear country and even though she’d be useless with a bear around, I felt better.  Boy does running in bear country make a huge difference in your heart rate.  My imagination is a wild one and I had visions of a freakin’ bear coming out of the woods and what a great meal my fat ass would make.

I tracked food on Saturday, and even with 3 beers, I was below the line!  Groovy.

Sunday was the day we came home so 4-5 hours in the car + sunburn + two nights of not-great sleeping – my plans to work out when I got home were gone.  We ate a healthy dinner and again I was in check for food.

This morning I stepped on the scale and had gone from 176.5 on Friday morning to 174.  I was absolutely pumped to get going on this journey again so I got to the gym early, lifted weights for my upper body like Britt and Lisa suggested, and then did my favorite class: Zumba!

If you’ve never done Zumba, I guarantee you will love it.  It’s latin dancing/exercise and it is a solid hour of fun.  It’s like a dance party in the gym.  Our instructor is awesome and full of energy – she really makes the class.  This morning another trainer was in there watching and she said she was looking to recruit someone to be a second teacher.  The class is always at full capacity so I’m glad they are adding another class.  Woo!

I’m always looking for more things to try to keep me exercising and this is definitely my favorite – well, this and ball hockey. And running.  And biking.  I’m going to try Newbody and Awesome Abs tomorrow – hopefully they are a good workout!

Welcome!

Welcome to my little home on the net.  I’m “Sugarpants.”  This is where I would like to share my progress so far, share recipes and stories, struggles and successes.

I’m a 30 something year old woman, 5’7″ and when I started this journey, I weighed 220 pounds.  I’ve lost 46.5 of those pounds over the last 2 years, falling off the wagon several times.  My goal is to lose about 36.5 more to get to my goal weight of 140.  I have never been an athlete and I’m discovering that somewhere deep inside me is a person who is really starting to feel strong and enjoy both exercise and team sports.

In March 2010, I began running again.  At the time, I weighed 191 pounds.  I was over-eating, making horrible choices and I felt completely disgusted with myself.  So instead of spending my 10th summer in a row covered up, I decided this was my year.  This was the year I was going to finally get my shit together and figure out how I wanted to feel the rest of my life.

The kick start for me was asking a fairly new friend in my life if she wanted to run with me.  She had just had a baby, had never run before, and I thought maybe the two of us could push each other to do this.

We started slow.  I ran the C25K program quite a bit for the first month, as well as doing the 30 Day Shred DVD – Level 1.

I also began tracking my food with the iPhone app, LoseIt.  This was a huge step for me – to really examine what I was eating on a daily basis and to realize what I was doing to my body in terms of fat, salt and sugar intake.  I have never been one to grab the apple over the chips and I had to retrain myself on how to eat.

I still have slip-ups.  Now that we’re in a heat wave, it’s near impossible for me to avoid a frozen yogurt cone or ice cream cone with my kids after dinner.  This sugar addiction is deadly and I HAVE TO KICK IT.

The good thing is that since March, I’ve lost 15.5 pounds.  I *was* down 17.5 but two weeks ago I gained a couple pounds and I seem to be stuck.  I’m still running.  I’m playing ball hockey once a week, baseball once a week and doing the 30 Day Shred, Zumba and several core conditioning classes at the gym.  This is not me.  I don’t know who I am anymore.  When my running partner asked me to play ball hockey and then baseball, I was panicky and sweaty over it.  Now? I LOVE these things and can’t wait to get out there.  The people I’ve met are so nice and amazing.  I feel alive for the first time in years.

Having said that, I’m stuck.  And every day that goes by that I still see 175.5 on the scale, the more I obsess about it.  It’s been two weeks!

I tried increasing my caloric intake from the 1199 it was supposed to be to 1449 – to see if eating more often, smaller meals would help.  It doesn’t.

I’m now increasing protein and as of tomorrow – cutting out sugar.  It seems to stick to me just like you’d think it would.

That’s it for now.  It’s late and I have a workout planned for the morning.