hadenough

So I have been MIA for a while mainly because I just celebrated my birthday….for the whole weekend.  It got a little out of hand with a lot of boozing and good food and I pretty much erased the words diet and exercise from my vocabulary.  The following week I continued to eat and not work out because I told myself I would be able to go on atkins and shed a lot of the water weight pretty quickly.

Another thing that kept me from working out and eating right is my energy levels plummeted while I was eating poorly and being lazy.  So finally, I started fresh on Monday and even just after 1 day I feel motivated again. 

 The reason I am trying to drop the weight so quickly is because I am in a contest at work to see who can lose the most weight and the deadline is June 30.  Instead of losing the weight correctly over a 3 month period, I slacked off and told myself I didn’t need that much time, but inside I knew I was just making excuses and wanted to continue partying and eating what I wanted. 

Eating unhealthfully is incredibly draining and all the unhealthy elements and chemicals in that food just weighs you down and depletes you of energy because your body has to work extra hard in getting rid of this waste, all while not having the proper tools to do so like rest, exercise, and nutrients. 

 So yes I am doing the atkins diet, which many people have negative thoughts on.  But it is incredibly efficient.  I would also like to add that I do a healthy version of Atkins in that I don’t eat the artery clogging fats that it allows in full fat cheeses and meats. 

Another thing I did is I put away the scale, which has huge benefits.  Although weighing yourself is a good tool because it helps you assess what is working and where you stand healthwise, because we all can’t get our bodyfat percentage tested every week.  Anyways I was getting obsessive with the scale and if I saw a number that I didn’t like, it would wash away all the effort I made to get healthy that day and I would just give up.  I would constantly stress about what my weight would be the next morning and that was not healthy.  Instead I am sticking to my eating plan and working out and will use how I feel and see how my body changes physically to assess how I am coming along. 

Type, type, type…that is not burning calories so time to get my butt to the gym. 

So even though I haven’t written in a couple of days, I have been working out.  I managed to work out everyday this week since last Sunday.  The pounds are not quite coming off as quickly as I had hoped even though I have been sticking to my diet and workouts.  I do notice a change in the shape of my body though and I feel stronger.  All I can say for not having lost much weight is that muscle weighs more than fat.  I am contemplating not weighing myself for a while because seeing my weight always affects me.  If I see that the scale hasn’t moved then I feel hopeless and frustrated that all my hardwork is not paying off.  If I see the scale has dropped then I slack off.  It’s retarded.  I guess they are right when they say that you should only weigh yourself like once a week.

 Anywho today I felt really good and I had a lot of energy.  I went straight to the gym after work and ran.  Then I went to yoga, which I have a love hate relationship with.  I hate it because it is boring and I don’t know how much it really benefits me, but I love it because stretching is good and feels so good and without a doubt, I fall asleep at the end of each class.  Literally every time I end up dreaming and then the instructor will say something and I wake up forgetting that I am actually at the gym.  I get so deep into sleep that I always wonder if I did anything stupid like make funny noises or talk in my sleep.  So far, no one has said anything but maybe they are just being polite.  Oh well, who cares. 

So I must admit that with the long weekend and all, I did drink and eat things that I wasn’t supposed to.  It is hard not to indulge and drink and eat and be merry with all the festivities going on this weekend.  The thing I am proud of is that I did manage to make it to the gym on Saturday and also I did have some drinks, but I did know when to stop. 

 I think what is important is that while being on a diet, you can’t just shut down and workout all day and forget about your life.  It is about the choices that you make.  Instead of indulging in dessert while out to dinner, you can eat healthy off the menu and skip dessert.  Going out should be more about enjoying the time you spend with your friends and family anyways.

 However, I did not follow my own advice this weekend, but now I know to keep that in mind for next time, i.e. my upcoming birthday.  Anywho, enough chit chat, off to the gym…

Today I came home from work feeling sluggish and out of it.  I took a 15 minute nap and woke up feeling groggier.  I could have stayed home and watched the tube and hey, things wouldn’t have been so bad.  I mean I ate right all day so it’s not like I would have gained weight.  But then I thought to myself, aren’t I trying to LOSE weight?  I have been stuck here at the end of this dark tunnel and I want to see the light!!!

 So I dragged my saggy arse to the gym and just did it.  While doing so I pretended I was on the show The Biggest Loser and that I would have to weigh in tomorrow for $50,000 and this was my last chance workout!  I ran, did some time on the elliptical, worked my abs, and did some deadlifts and shoulder lifts.

 Afterwards I felt amazing, proud of myself, confident, stronger, better looking, tighter and motivated to do it all again tomorrow.  What I realized is that although I am not going to wake up at my goal weight tomorrow, I have gained so much more as a person just in one day.  Each day that I do something good for myself like workout or eat right, I get stronger not just physically but also mentally as well.  So just keep that in mind when your goal weight seems so far away, that what matters is what you did for yourself today.  Each day you will be able to see a little more light at the end of the tunnel, but most importantly, you are that much stronger of a person. 

So I weighed myself this morning and lost about 4 pounds.  I think I was just bloated from the weekend and just one day of normal eating and working out and not drinking helped me de-bloat.  Whatever the cause for my abnormal weight loss, it was a nice feeling to see that number on the scale. 

However, seeing this huge drop also did me some harm.  When I lose more weight than I expect to, it kind of makes me lazy and less careful about my diet.  I did pretty good in the morning, but then I took the rest of the day off to go to the gyno and good news, I am not hiv positive.  Not that I really thought I was, but it is always nice to have that peace of mind.  If you haven’t gotten tested recently, I suggest you do it because they have this new test that gives you results in 10 mins.  Anyways, so I came home instead of going back to work and I was really hungry.  I ended up eating a brownie in addition to my normal dinner and then followed it with a mango and some almonds.  Not so bad, but because I felt guilty about eating a brownie, I decided not to go to the gym.  It doesn’t make sense I know, but if I fall off my diet, I tend to fall off my exercise regimine as well. 

 Anywho, no point in feeling bad about it now.  Tomorrow is a new day and full of new opportunities to get healthy and shed some pounds.  Right now my focus is to get a good nights rest. 

I can’t believe that I made it to work today.  I slept about 3 hours last night due to the heat and also from my body trying to process all the alcohol I drank this weekend.  I woke up with the intention of calling in sick, but due to my groginess I said what the heck, I can pull off a day of work.

 Got into work and it felt like I was dreaming, but not in a good dream.  I kind of just went into auto-pilot.  That is the one nice thing about my job is that I can do that.  I ate well all day and stuck to my daily limit of around 1000-1100.  I came home and passed out for about 1 hour and was in a deep sleep.  I woke up and ate a lean pocket and I feel hungry still.  But I am going to head to the gym and do my workout.  I think once I get into it, it won’t be so bad.  But honestly, I really don’t want to do it.  It is my first day though, so I don’t want to quit this early in the game. 

I have been complaining about needing to lose weight for about 6 months or so and I am sick of hearing myself talk about it.  I have done things here and there but the weight is not coming off mostly because I am not being very consistent.  Some weeks I will be good about working out, some weeks I don’t work out at all, and then there’s my eating habits.  The thing that completely sabotages my dieting efforts is my drinking habit.  I tend to overdo it when I go out and in addition to the 6 to 7 hundred calories I consume in alcohol for the night, I usually tend to eat really bad foods when I am drunk like pizza, fast food, whatever.  Then the next day I am usually really hungover and again crave bad foods and working out is also out of the question. 

So my plan of attack is to cut out alcohol to help me stay on track.  The one exception to that is my birthday weekend that is coming up.  Other than that I think I can stick with eating healthy and working out at least 5 days a week.  That shouldn’t be too hard and that is actually what I used to do when I was in shape.