Week 60. The last one...

Happy Birthday to Me! I turned 40 yesterday, and so it's time for the big report out!

Let's start with the numbers, all in:

Total Weight loss: -25.1 lbs. (15.7%)
Total Body Fat loss: -7.5 pts (17.7%)
Total BMI reduced: -4.5 (16%)
Total Bust inches lost: -6" (15%)
Total Waist inches lost: -8" (22%)
Total Hips lost: -7" (16%)
Total Dress Size: -6 (or -3, if you only count even sizes)


Pretty consistently, across every measures, I'm down around 16%.


First of all, even though I didn't make it to 30 pounds, I'm really excited and proud of myself that I made it to 25. And, I am sure that I'll zag up before zigging back down again, and that's just going to be my cycle. What I've learned is that my weight isn't always going to go down, but it's also not always going to g back up again. I've learned a lot about how i can influence my weight, and that it's just always going to be a thing for me. I will never be a "skinny" girl, but I also don't have tot be a girls who always thinks she's fat, and can't enjoy a doughnut. I'm somewhere in between, and I'm okay with that.

Second of all, I have so many people to thank:

• My husband, for finding lots of ways to be supportive during all of this, and understanding that what motivates HIM isn't necessarily what motivates ME
  
• My closest friends, like Liz, who always go out of their way to make healthy and diet friendly meals whenever we're together and keep me on track
  
• My great friends all over the country who not only read my blog, but take the time to post encouraging notes for me, both when I've had successes but also failures. These in-real-life friends and internet friends were a huge part of my support system, and I thank all of you!
  
• The girls in the pilates classes who saw me transform throughout the year and always made comments about how great I looked!
  
• The great professionals who helped me at the gym, either directly through instruction or through their general encouragement every time they saw me: Laura, Michelle, Andrea, Amy J, Ryan, and most of all, Maria.
  
• The people whose journeys inspired me and made me believe I could do this, like the Joneses and my friend, Tracy and my cousin, Russ, and old friend from college, Lisa Spodak, who shared her journey with the whole world
  
• The people who have taken the time to tell me that *I* inspire *them*, which only reminds me that, I'm not just doing this for myself sometimes; other people can find their own inspiration and journey by reading about mine

I look back at the last 14 months and feel like it's whipped by. It wasn't that it was easy; it wasn't always. But it was EASY to make it important, and EASY to make sure that, every day, I could do SOMETHING good for my health. Even if I didn't get to the gym or make the best choice with my food that day, I could always find a way to make it count.

I know that blogging is a weird thing. It's narcissistic and selfish. I'm not sure why anyone would think that anyone else out there cares about what they fill blogs with each day. But this was a way for me to stay honest, to share what I was feeling with friends, and to get support along the way. I don't regret it, and I think it really helped. I won't be continuing with the blog anymore... I think it served is purpose, to get me to my 40th birthday on this path. I thank each and every one of you for reading, whether it was every week, or once in a while, or maybe this is the first time you're reading it.

Last word: If you're thinking about making a change, do it. If you're thinking you can't, you're wrong. You just have to figure out what's not working, what COULD work, and be open to tweaking it along the way. Bad days happen. Good days return. And if you've got the right support, like I did and do, anything can change for you. Good luck!

I'll close with some of my "Biggest Loser" type pictures... thought those would be more fun than my side by sides (which, if you want to find my last set, from 10 weeks ago, can be found here.)

Quick PSA

Due to a death in the family, I may not get a chance to post pictures and final post until Saturday.

Thanks...

Why Thirty Pounds?

So. as this sixty weeks comes to a close, and I am hoping to achieve my modified goal of 25 pounds, I thought I'd take a moment to talk about the 30 pound goal.

First, I'll tell you where it came from. When I started this, and I needed a goal to shoot for, I thought back to when I thought I looked my best. (not my HEALTHIEST, just LOOKED the best.) I thought back to grad school, and how I looked, 30 pounds lighter than I was when I started this thing. When I was in grad school, probably in 1993, I REMEMBER being my smallest, and liking how I looked. Now, I can't imagine I was healthy. With no money for food, my boyfriend and I ate lipton noodle mixes with a can of tuna mixed into it most nights for dinner, except on Thursdays, where $8 would get us a pitcher and all the wings we could handle at 10 cent wing nights at Sutters. I was under a lot of stress, as grad school can do, as all of my friends were getting jobs and I wasn't. I *was* in a city with big hills, so I probably did a lot of exercise, but that's kind of it. All in all, not the healthiest of lifestyles, and certainly not a model of "inputs leads to outputs" to really say it was something to strive for at this point of my life. But I was there, and I remembered I liked how I looked, and out came "30 pounds". Almost 19% of my body weight, up for the chopping block.

And there was a realisticness to the math, right? 30 pounds? 60 weeks? Half pound a week? That seems doable, right? I didn't anticipate months of plateaus, let alone small gains here and there.

Now, I'm not going to say it would have been completely unattainable. I could have done it. I could have gone to the gym 5 days a week. I could have counted every calorie and let it take over my life. I could have made some choices about how to live differently, indulged myself less, tried a cleanse or a fad diet here and there, and I actually think, as unreasonable a goal as it was, I could have done it.

But that is NOT how I wanted to do this. I wanted to, NEED to, do it in a way that my lifestyle could change in a way that was attainable, sustainable, and didn't make me feel like I was living an abnormal life. I needed to make my health a priority, without making it my ONLY priority.

And that is what I did.

I knew when I started this that 30 pounds was a great goal to get me pointed in the right directions, something aggressive, because that's what I needed. I'm not sure I ever REALLY thought I'd meet it.

But, the fact is, I'm not sure I would have thought that 25 was all that more attainable. That's 15% of my original body weight, a tad more, even.

Now that I've gotten to 25, I know that getting to 30 actually is potentially achievable. But what I know now about how I lose weight, I know it would take 6 months, not 6 weeks.

I feel and look great now. Could I lose more? Sure. I still have a gut (not as much as I used to!) and that will always annoy me. There will never be a bikini in my future. That's okay. And, now, where I used to have fat underarm/triceps area, I now have more of a muscle/flabby skin scenario, which seems even more unattractive than the fat in the first place, especially in the gym in front of the mirrors... waving around like flags.

But I think the future for me will just involve doing things I like, and get value out of, and seeing if that continues to get me positive impact, both from how I look and my overall health and strength. Pilates has been awesome -- my instructor, Maria, last night was saying how proud she was of me and really how noticeably STRONG I've become over the year! I'm also liking BodyPump so far, and thinking that this will be great for bone density and the kinds of things that 40 year old women should be thinking about. And, the Couch to 5K program was a great gimmick to get and keep me focused on cardio health. When I think back to my 5k the other day, the only time I suffered was when I had to walk up the hill because my legs were to tired to run it. It wasn't because I was out of breath, like I would have been months ago. I think I can and will continue to try and incorporate this stuff into my life as I can, because I can see where the real health value is, and can really see what a difference they've made in every aspect of my life.

Okay, this was a long and rambling one... thanks for staying with me.

I've got one more post in me on Friday -- I'll do weight loss, pictures, measurements, and final thoughts.

Thanks for reading!

Guess what i did!

Okay, this post is not about a weigh in (i'm up about a half pound from last time I reported, but that's okay).

This is about what I did this morning.

I completed Couch to 5k. I ran an actual 5k. One that I had to sign up for. And pay for. And got a tshirt for.

It was a 5k I saw on the interwebs a couple of months ago, and decided to sign up. I knew it would be in my last week of this journey, and, if I kept training, I might be able to do it. I didn't even tell my husband until about 3 weeks ago.

The route was listed in the paper YESTERDAY, so last night, we drove by to check it out. I learned there would be a really big hill i'd have to ascend, both ways. I decided then and there that I was going to walk the hills. Those were just going to be out of my reach. But that's okay. That would be about a half mile total. The rest I could run. And, for the most part, I did.

My husband was great at supporting me -- getting me ready before I started, meeting me at the half way point, and meeting me at the finish line (this route had a number of loops, so he could easily just go start-middle-finish without being on the course).

It was in the high 40's this morning, so that was freaking cold, but I warmed up well and gave him one of my shirts when I got to the half way point.

There were only about 100 people total, a mix of runners and walkers.

I only finished ahead of one of the runners, but I finished ahead of all of the walkers (I think). The only runner I beat was an 83 year old man. I'm okay with that. I think he was hoping to catch me, but that didn't happen. He was nice. We commiserated over oranges at the end.

I told my husband when I started that I thought it would take me an hour, give or take 10 minutes. But it didn't. In fact, I dreamed that I could do it in under 45 minutes, and I did. Just, but I did.

I was really proud of myself for finishing. Well, once I could breathe again, I was proud. I'm glad I did it. It was a huge goal of mine for this journey to be able to run (mostly) a 5k before this was all over. And, 6 days before turning 40, I did it.

Yay me.

NOTE: I won't post my weight again until Friday, my birthday, but I do hope to post one more time before this is all over with some of my thoughts and reflections.

You guys are awesome for being with me all this time!

Thanks for reading!

Nudged off the plateau...

Nice to have some better news to report today, but I'll keep it brief.

This week's weight loss: -1.6 lbs.
Total weight loss: -23.9 lbs.

Okay, that's kind of cool.

I'm feeling a bit more hopeful that I'll get to a full 25 pound loss by my birthday (which is in 18 days).

As a process reminder, for those of you interested, because my birthday is technically at 59 weeks and 4 days, I'm going to do my final weigh in on Friday, October 8th.

It was a busy week last week, and I'm planning a run tonight and another later this week. No pilates tonight, because my instructor is still involved with the last of the BodyPump class launch. Not sure when BodyPump will be added to the full schedule at the gym, but I plan on checking that out a bit more regularly.

Thanks for reading!

A story of inspiration... want some motivation? Watch this man's journey...

sooooooo, BodyPump...

This weekend, my gym is launching BodyPump classes. My pilates reformer instructor, Maria, also runs all the class offerings for the gym, and she's been talking to us about this since early spring. She and a number of trainers and instructors from the gym have all been working for months to get certified, and today was the first of the demo days. I decided I wanted to try it, mainly because I know I need to get some weight training into my regime, and I've heard such great things about it. I know a number of my blog readers take it and really love it.

If you don't know what BodyPump is, it's a choreographed class where every song for an hour focuses on a different body part through weight lifting exercise with a bar and a variety of options of weights you'll put on the end. In addition to the warm up, there are a song each for squats, lunges, shoulders, biceps, triceps, abs, and probably something else I'm forgetting.

So, I went, and one good thing is that they had all the staff there to help out with form and things as you go, so I feel like I got great attention to make sure that I was doing things correctly.

I can see how a program like this would totally work for weight training for anyone, me and women alike, and it gets your heart rate up quite a bit, as each song really goes through a full regimen of exercises for each body part.

By the 3rd or 4th song, I just wanted to cry. I'm serious. Many times, especially towards the end, I was choking back tears.

I don't know why. Yes, it was extremely hard for me. Yes, there were times I didn't think I'd make it through the whole song. But I think, for whatever reason, it was just an emotional response to working so hard and at times feeling proud of what i was accomplishing and at other times feeling like i was so overwhelmed and in over my head. I really couldn't pin point why I was emotional.

At the end of class, I straightened out my station and headed straight to the locker room. I needed to get out of the space.

After the locker room, I walked out and ran into a friend from my pilates class, who also took the class. We were chatting about it, and she said, "Hey - I saw your poster!" What? My "Success Story" poster was hung and I hadn't seen it? We walked over and she showed it to me. I couldn't believe it! It's just the front facing pictures from the blog you've all seen, with some information about how I got from "before" to "after", but even I was like, "Wow! I really have changed".

I have to say, seeing that poster after going through BodyPump and thinking I just wouldn't make it was enough motivation for me to go do it again. Though, next time, I'm dragging Robert with me.

Oh, and my hair's a compete mess, because I can't lift my arms to fix my ponytail. The world is just going to have to deal with my rat's nest today. :-) Tell me it will get better????

Thanks for reading!