Updated pic from 7/15/15— getting there.

Okay so I lost 40 pounds, Yah, I’ve burned a lot of fat and built some muscle. Ask me a year ago and I would have thought it impossible for me to get into a size 6. But 10 months ago when I had to go and buy a bigger pair of size 16 fat pants, and after 42 years of gaining,losing,gaining, gaining fat, I finally decided then that I needed to do something FOR REAL this time.

Of course, I started slow with a few leg lifts and sit-ups and a little bike riding on my recumbent bike but I was doing something. Then I got a little more serious and I asked a friend (who was buff)who had a personal trainer what I could do to get more tone, and lose fat. He said I needed to lift weights….
Ugg…me lift weights? not likely to happen, but I was willing to try. I was using little 3# weights in the beginning, but after a few weeks, I decided to get out the big weights.  And at first, I was just doing a little here and a little there, I really just didn’t know what I was doing, just lifting.
So I went back to my body building friend and asked him if there were certain exercises I should do and how often and how many, etc. etc. So he asked his trainer to make me up routine and he did.
So I was going to the little basement gym at work after working 12 hours and I followed my routines for a few weeks and started seeing changes.

Not only did I start weightlifting but I started doing research on the exercises I was doing, well I didn’t know what a concentration curl was or a skull crusher. so I watched many videos, many of which came from bodybuiling.com. Well, I wanted to make sure I was doing them correctly.  This was getting serious in October 2014.

My initial routine was this:

Monday- chest and tris., Wednesday- back & bi’s, Friday- shoulders, and legs and abs twice a week. I started doing 3 sets of 10-12 reps.

My diet- took some time to perfect, (still not perfect) I knew about eating healthy, or at least I thought I did. So I asked my friend about diet, and he says, just make sure your eating a lot of protein and vegetables. PROTEIN???  I wondered how much was enough and started doing more research. That’s when I found a great website called acaloriecounter.com. I found that calorie counting was key and protein mattered and that I should be eating 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight…wow. So I really changed my diet I went from eggs to egg whites, and bacon to turkey bacon, and spinach and chicken and cottage cheese, and I started taking whey, yah whey protein. it mattered.

the challenges I faced with diet- #1-my husband—he cooks for me and he did not initially like the changes, instead of French toast for breakfast, he had to learn how to cook egg whites and turkey bacon, he was not crazy about changes. Weddings and holidays-very challenging but I stuck to my guns and didn’t overindulge and didn’t gain weight through the holidays. grocery shopping got more expensive, and my lunches that I took to work were more complex. I was eating way more food than before but less calories. Now it is just the routine. My husband knows better than to dangle donuts in my face but for a long time he would try to get me to cheat all the time, like it wasn’t hard enough without him challenging me.

November 2014- I bought a weight bench, one that I could do presses on and leg curls, and preacher curls. Now I could workout at home. I changed my routines to where I was working out more often and I started writing down how much I lifted and how many reps. I progressed very slowly but I have progressed. where I was benching 10lbs., I can now bench 60. where I could only overhead press 3lb dumbells, now I do 20lbs. I used to do zero pushups, now I can do 30. I still struggle with squats and lunges, but i keep trying.

Once I hit 140lbs from 180lbs, I was feeling pretty good, and people notice and they tell me how good I look, and then always the question….”How did you do it?” I’d like to say I took a magic pill and it all went away. HAHA. well there’s ALOT of people that think that those things work-diet pills don’t work, believe me I’ve tried my fair share. But the real answer is diet and exercise…lifestyle change, and persistence or habit. Call it what you want. But it’s not easy. that’s what everyone wants…easy. The one thing I do hate though is when people say, “Wow, you are looking so skinny.” Ugh, I got to where I hated the word skinny. It’s like a bad word. Why not, “Wow, you’re looking fit or healthier?”

I know there are plenty of stories about people losing 100’s of pounds and I think they are phenomenal and reading them helped me stay motivated. I thought if they can do it, I can do it. I joined twitter and followed several motivational weightloss sites. Pictures of muscular healthy women helped remind me of how I wanted to look. I checked out a lot of before and after pics of people that lost weight the right way.

I never had to do P90X or Insanity craziness, I just did 15-20 min. of cardio and lift weights 5 times a week, while always  watching my calories and protein. oh and research research research. Always am looking for better ways to workout and reading about successful people.

Now June 2015-after all the hard work, I am feeling like I’m losing motivation and eating more calories and not progressing with my weights. I gained 10lbs when I went to California 4 weeks ago. I did lose 5 of it but it took me 4 weeks. I’ve been overindulging with chocolate and things I know not to eat. I’m feeling down and guilty and beating myself up. I know it isn’t right. but am having a real hard time getting back into it. I’ll do good for 2 days and then wreck it the third day.

That’s one of the reasons for writing this blog, I’m hoping that writing about my progress will help me get back my motivation. maybe someone will actually read this and have some insite.

Update 8/2/15
Well I was back down to #140 for awhile and doing really good for the most part. Still working out 5 days a week, trying some cross fit stuff. Of course gained 8#s in Gatlinburg. So back on it today. Back on with full force!!!