I had typed up a big ol' update a few days ago and then my program crashed and I lost it.  Ugh.  So here I go again.
Firstly, let me apologize for disappearing as I have.  It's been a crazy past couple of months.  Seriously.  I'm not making that up!
The Spring semester has ended and I'm in my 2nd week of summer break.  I'm so stoked for this break.  I thought math was going to break me, I swear!  I thought last semester was rough, well kick it up a few notches and that's the difficulty of this last class.  And it's only going to get worse!  I'll be living at the tutoring center in the Fall; that'll be that.
Of course I did swell in both my Writing Fiction and Digital Photography class.  I've got some great photos that I need to put into frames and hang up now.  We're talking some kickass pictures!  Not because of the class...but because I had time to actually go through pics from the past year and print them out in class.  So nice when you have a great photo printer worth thousands of buckeroos at your disposal!
As far as weight loss goes...the plateau that I'd hit really hit me hard.  Not only was I not losing weight, but I was losing momentum in a big way.   I was trying not to, but when you don't lose for well over a month, you lose steam.  Needless to say, I fell into the typical rut that those who lose weight fall into for a while.  It didn't help with all of the stress going on from school and such, either, and I easily started to give a day up here and there with exercise...until finally I wasn't exercising at all.  NOT GOOD when trying to lose weight.
No fear, fellow fatties, I'm back.  Well, technically I never left, but I'm back for a few months again.  Regularly until school's back in again.  You know how it goes.  I'm back on the treadmill daily.  Forcing myself to not take Sundays off again so that I get back into the habit again.  When I feel I'm good and ready, I'll give myself that one day off again.  Until then...I'm full force and gung-ho.  It's not fair that us fatties have to always worry about falling off of the wagon, so to speak.  No matter if we reach our goal...we always have to be in hyper-awareness mode of what we're eating, how much, and when....we will never be free from being fat, not really.  Not fair at all.  In fact, it downright sucks.  I want to be one of those people with the magic metabolism.  Of course I will never be...so here I am, doing what I can with what I've got.
Still no work to be found and we're entering summer where the pickings are slim in the bank, as well.  We're usually tight during the summer until my first part of my student loan comes through.  I really wish I could find SOMETHING.  I am trying to keep busy in the meantime.  I'm still volunteering a lot at the SPCA, we're in the process of moving to a new location.  Bigger and better.  Yay!  I'm also involved in animal transport and have done a few of those now, as well.  Which leads me to my next big news...
K and I would love to introduce you to our new family member...merry Mary.

She's part Chow-Chow part Golden Retriever.  She's got the sweet and loving personality of a Golden, and the fluffiness of a Chow.  We couldn't have been more lucky in a new family member.  She's Emily's age, 11 years, and so she's old and creaky.  Her hips are not what they used to be, I'm sure, and she stumbles or loses her balance from time to time...but she's got lots of kisses and love for anyone she meets and Emily and Peaches are slowly getting used to having her as part of our family.  Mary came into our lives through my transporting some doggies from Battle Mountain County Animal Shelter which is about a 3 hour drive East of Reno.  I didn't leave home expecting to be bringing home a new family member...but she was going to be put down if I didn't pull her, and nobody's shown any interest at all in her being's that she was so old.  K and I have a soft spot for older doggies...they need a loving home in their final years.  That's the least that we can do for them.  So Mary came home with me, along with the two other dogs that I was transporting.  We took her to the vet within a day of her arrival and she got all of her shots and then took her to the groomer where she was thinned out and shampooed.  After that, it was like her entire demeanor went from blue to perky.  She literally prances and dances and shakes her head in joy.  She's such a blessing to us...and will continue to be so.
So that brings me to today.  Now.  Things are pretty much the same as usual.  K celebrated his 51st birthday and so we had a dinner/movie date...something that we haven't done for months and months since there's just not money for that kind of thing.  It was nice to get out with my sweetie pie and just be together without worrying about the kids.
So that's what's been happening with me.  As I mentioned, now that it's Summertime, I will be updating on a more regular basis again.

Does it seem as though most of your life has been an endless stream of "I'll start tomorrow"'s or "I've blown it, I need to start over."? Mine was until about 9 months ago. Let me tell you a little bit about what I'm doing to help me gain a healthier life while, at the same time, getting into shape.

About a year ago I signed up with Isagenix (link on right). I started it up, and started losing weight...but my heart wasn't in it. I knew it wasn't...and I felt that I was just wasting the money. We all know that this doesn't happen by itself, nor does it happen easily...we have to feel it in our gut that we want this...that we want it BAD. That we'd do almost anything to get it done. I didn't feel that. Until about 3 months into my Isagenix. Suddenly, I did want it. Suddenly I needed it. Oh, my health was fine, overall, but I could barely walk to class without getting winded. I couldn't get into BED without getting winded. When I stopped one day and took stock of just what was happening to me, I realized that only I could make the changes that I needed to to make it happen.

I started the Isagenix again, with my heart self this time, and began to feel a bit more energy. I wasn't exercising, and I knew I needed to start if I wanted to succeed with any of this...but it was hard. I was over 300 pounds at 4'11" and it felt like I was moving a ton. A lot of you know how it feels to just not feel that energy that you need to get going... The Isagenix helped a lot with that. It's natural, so I didn't feel like I was adding to a regime that already included a lot of pills, and I truly felt the energy slowly starting through me. But, I still wasn't able to get onto my treadmill. I just didn't want to. It's almost like I'd built up a block of some kind. I lost about 10 pounds with just what I was doing.

Then mid-July, I decided it was time. I needed to bite the bullet and just get on the darn treadmill and go for a walk! So, I took the dogs back with me, opened the door so they could run in and out, and I started walking. I walked for 20 minutes the first time, and it was a very, very slow walk. But when I finished...I felt awesome! Like I'd accomplished a huge task that I'd been putting off for a great while. I knew it was the endorphins still zinging around my body, but I loved the feeling. I remembered the feeling from 15 years ago when I was in shape. The following day, though, it was back to, "I don't feel like it." It was at that time that I sternly told myself OUT LOUD, mind you, that this was it for me. It's now or never. There are things that I want to get done with my life and to do them I need to be healthy! And I wanted to get them done before I got much older! I told myself (yes, still out loud) that I needed to make myself get on the treadmill every single day. I got on that day, and did another 20 minute workout.

Around that same time, I switched PCP's and found one that I absolutely love. She took the time to listen to what I had to say, what I felt I needed, and then she helped me get that scientific side of me started on the right track. She prescribed Metformin for my insulin imbalance, which removed the cravings for sweets that I was living with on a constant basis. It also made me feel full so that I didn't WANT to eat as much. She also prescribed Phentermine (you remember Fen/Phen, right?) Phentermine is the drug that doesn't give you heart murmers and the like! Haha. I call it legal speed. It speeds up my metabolism so that I have more energy and my body burns up the calories and fat a lot faster.

So, with all of that, plus the Isagenix, I started feeling pretty damn good! I made a goal with myself out loud (seems the only time I listen and pay attention to myself is when I talk out loud!) that I'd get on the treadmill every day, no matter if I felt like it or not. And that on the days when I especially didn't feel motivated, I especially needed to do it because that was when I needed it the most. From that point on, I walked every day, 7 days a week...no breaks whatsoever, even when my mom came to visit. I walked for a solid 45 days before I realized that no longer did I not feel like doing it when I woke up in the mornings. I started allowing myself a one day break each week. My doctor told me that she wanted me to get up to 60 minutes of cardio in each day and so I slowly worked up to that. Slowly. I didn't get there overnight, by any means. It was frustrating, it drove me crazy, but I got there. I've been at the 60 minute mark for about 3 months now, and the past 2 months I've been including steep inclines intermittently so that I can start building up my larger muscles (gluts, hams, quads) so that they, in turn, will help burn calories faster, as well.

All of that aside, it wasn't until yesterday that I realized that I am officially addicted to working out. Our internet had gone down the night before and there was a tech scheduled to swing by sometime yesterday between 8 and 8. I hate it when they don't give a better time window! Anyway, my husband always wakes me up before he leaves for work to bring me my pills and after he left I couldn't go back to sleep. I kept thinking to myself that I needed to exercise but I didn't want to miss the tech coming to the door. The dogs would be in the back with me so they wouldn't be able to hear the knock on the door, and I certainly wouldn't be able to hear it over the music. And then afterward I shower, and I didn't want to miss the tech when I was doing that. I was laying there, contemplating it all, worrying about it, because I didn't want to miss my exercising! Needless to say, I dragged my butt out of bed while it was still not even completely light out, and got on the treadmill and got in my workout and shower. I was happy afterward, satisfied, and felt that I could get the rest of my day finished with no stress. Do you know what I'm saying here??? I NEEDED and WANTED to workout. I was freaking out when I thought I'd have to miss it!!! I laughed when I realized that. I'm in a good spot these days.

I've lost almost 60 pounds now, in about 6 months time. My doctor says that I'm losing it at a perfect rate, I go in and see her every 3 months so she can monitor how I'm doing. I strongly recommend you get your doctor in on your weight loss program. It helps!

In the meantime, I've also been teaching myself how to eat. I've never once denied myself something that I wanted. BUT...I've eaten it in moderation. Rarely do I eat an entire snickers bar at once...instead, I only take a bite and put it away. Often I even forget I have it! I just need one bite to satisfy a craving...and that's what I take. If I feel like McD's fries...I get fries. Pizza? I eat pizza. But...I've learned to control my portion sizes. I can't eat 3 double cheeseburgers, large fry and a large vanilla iced coffee in one sitting anymore. I'd throw up! But, I eat some fries, a burger, and I do still drink a coffee on occasion, although I try not to get them at McD's because of the high sugar content. Bottom line...don't deny yourself anything. If you do, it'll just cause a binge later on, and we all know how those can be! K and I have also been buying ingredients and making dinners instead of buying boxed stuff and pre-made. It's not good for us to eat all of those preservatives.

I'm also drinking a lot of water. I stopped drinking soda several years ago. I'll have one now and then and it's just not good to me. It just isn't. I'd rather have water than anything else. And I try to drink (and most days it happens) at least 3 litres of water per day. Drinking water actually helps a lot with stuff other than weight loss, as well. It helps with regulating BM's, keeps you hydrated so you don't feel as much need for salt, it keeps you feeling full, and it's just plain healthy for you!

So, in all, I've been doing Isagenix, exercising, seeing my doctor, drinking lots of water, and learning portion control...and it's all working. I'm really happy about my loss so far, and hope to see it continue to fall off. I don't want to be thin...but I do want to be healthy. I feel that I'm well on my way to seeing that goal.

I've caught a cold somewhere. It's had me dragging for the past couple of days, and I still am not up to par. I've been living with Vicks on my upper lip to clear my sinuses. My head is all achy and stuff from being all stuffy. It's a bummer...but I'm glad it's happening this weekend instead of next weekend over Thanksgiving.

But...in spite of feeling like complete shit...I've still been exercising every day! Still doing my 60 minutes on the treadmill, 6 days per week. I was telling my husband the other day that it's habit now...my day doesn't feel complete until I have exercised. And I love the feeling of those endorphins zipping through my body during and right after I get on the treadmill....it's like a natural high! I love the euphoria!

Exercise...it does a body good!

I got on the scale this morning, and, as you might have noticed my ticker in the top right, I lost a whopping SIX pounds this past week! 

Now people, before you get all concerned, I'm eating!  Sometimes, I think I'm eating too much.  But I'm changing my habits.  No longer do I head to Starbucks for my frappaccino after classes during the week, nor do I hit McD's several times a week.  I eat healthy dinners that my husband prepares on a daily basis (ok, ALMOST daily), smaller portion sizes, healthy desserts like peaches and nectarines and grapes, as opposed to ice cream.  HOWEVER, I am not denying myself my favorite things.  Once each week, on Saturdays, I treat myself to McD's.  I get a caramel frappé, three mcdoubles, and a large fry.  Normally, I am only able to finish the fries and a burger, sipping on the frappé most of the evening, leaving two burgers left over for whenever. 

I bought two pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream almost a month ago, and ice cream, ladies and gents, is my weakness.  I have only ate one pint of the two!  I'm just not craving it.  And when I think about wanting something sweet, I go to the fruit in the fridge before I go to the ice cream.  OR, we also have Minute Maid's frozen juice bar that are a treat, as well.  I'm not depriving myself.  I'm not starving by any means.  I'm getting in around 1000 calories per day, give or take. 

I am exercising on a regular basis, walking at the correct target heart rate speed, as opposed to going as fast as I could, as far as I could, in the least amount of time that I could.  In doing this, I'm burning fat instead of muscle.  All calories are not alike!  Burn the right ones!

I'm getting my water in.  It was one of my Hot 100 goals, and I've been doing awesome at it.

Another goal was to put the most effort that I could possibly give towards school and my family.  Well, my family is fine, however, I didn't do so well on my first spanish test.  Oh, I passed, that's not the issue.  But it was with a C+.  What the hell???  I can do much better than that.  And it's because I didn't study nearly as much as I should, for it.  So, that's my goal this week, in particular, to get my flash cards created and work on those.  I need to learn the conjugations that we've went over, backwards and forwards.  No excuses!

So that's it for the week.  Obviously, I've gotten a lot of things off of my chest in the past couple of days.  Woohoo!  It's my mutli-posting again!

I was thinking to myself earlier today, whilst trying to locate the THR for obese people, that being short really messes up exercise info.  Most information out there is based on the average woman's size/height.  We already know my size is far above where it should be, but my height, that's where things get tricky.  See, I was looking for songs to jam to for exercising, and came across numerous sites that said along the lines of "these are great for warm ups and these are great for full on cardio..."  The thing is...my legs are too darn short to walk that fast!  My full on cardio is their equivalent of warming up!  So basically, all of the songs that I'm able to listen to with the right BPM are slow and boring....  So, of course I just said f**k it and downloaded what I wanted.  I just think it sucks.

OK...vent over.  :)

For a better part of this morning, I've been searching for what the average target heart rate should be in morbidly obese women.  It's like looking for a needle in a haystack, or a needle in a stack of needles (as Dr. Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds, likes to say).  But, FINALLY, after figuring out my resting heart rate, my maximum heart rate, yada yada (of course, all of these are based on the average body), I found a website that told me the percentage of my maximum heart rate that I should be targeting for MY exercise regime.  If that makes any sense, and you're still with me, after figuring that out, I found a calculator that corroborates my findings, so I thought that I'd share it with you.  Thank you, Nutribody, for providing us fatties with the information that we need the most.

I knew that, being morbidly obese, my heart rate was going to be different from that of the average woman's body.  I just needed to find it online!  The page also has the other regulars...BMI, etc.  But the THR calculator is spot on if you're obese.

I know, I know...it's me again with my multiple posts.  Ha.  I can't help it!

If any of you are following, I will ALWAYS update my ticker in the top right corner of the blog, even if I don't get to blogging the update for a few days.  Every Saturday you will see an update...unless, of course, it's a no loss/no gain...in which case, you'll just have to wonder until I update.  Haha.

So, now that that's out of the way, last Saturday, the scale said that I'd lost another 2 pounds.  I'm SO stoked.  That means that, so far, since I started my determined weight loss journey, I've lost about 25 pounds.  My guess is a little less, now, but I won't know for sure until Saturday morning.

So, I was celebrating just a little in my heart and mind last weekend.  I'm so stoked for myself!

And I'm still treadmilling daily, with the exception of Sundays, for 50 minutes on a 7% incline now.  I upped the incline.  I like feeling the burn in my buns.  Ha.

One of the blogs that I follow, Donut Therapy, mentioned this awesome challenge happening over at another blog, Log My Loss.  Now, some of you may know that I'm rather competitive with myself.  I don't mind so much competing against others, because, essentially, why do I care what other people think???  This is my journey, my goal, my loss, my life - should I really care about competing with others?  No.  However, and this is a big HOWEVER, I do compete with myself.  I wonder if that makes as much sense written out as it does in my head....  I don't feel TOO bad when I don't lose..or when I gain a little...but I do feel a little bit bad.  So anyway, I'm rambling.

Basically, this challenge is about the last 100 days of the year.  I will let Steve, from Log My Loss, explain it to you better. 

"What is the Hot 100?  The Hot 100 is a challenge focused on the last 100 days of 2010.  September 23, 2010 starts the clock.  From that day forward there are exactly 100 days left in 2010.  One hundred days to make this your year.  One hundred days to achieve your goals.  One hundred days, each and every one of which can be a great day!"

I DO want to mention that, although he mentions September 23, he's giving everyone until October 1 to be in the game.

And so, as I mentioned, this isn't a challenge against others...but WITH others.  Hopefully, with all of the great support available out there, we can ALL achieve our goals.  Now, part of the Hot 100, is that I need to set some goals for myself.  At least three.  That's easy enough, so here goes....

1. Keep up with my current water intake.  My current goal is 2.5 Litres per day.  Sometimes I drink a little more, most of the time I drink a little less.  I need to stay on top of it.  It's hard to do when I'm in class part of the week.  The instructors frown on jumping up to pee every 10 minutes!  But, I'll learn to deal with it.
2. Keep up with my current treadmill goal.  I've successfully made it to the point where it's become a habit, and one that I enjoy, but some days are much harder to get my arse on there than others.  I'm sure most of you understand where I'm coming from with this!
3. Whatever I do, no matter what happens, I will maintain a positive attitude towards not only my weight loss journey, but my school, family, and money issues.  When I allow the rest of my life to take over my mind,  it affects the rest of what I'm setting out to accomplish.  This needs to stop.

So that's it.  You can click on the links within this post to go check out the challenge info, or you can find (and click) on the link in the sidebar, to the right.  I hope to see you joining this challenge with myself, and many others, as we all share the common goal of wanting to be healthy.

Let's hear a "BOOYAH!!!"

I just finished my 50 min workout on the treadmill for the day.  I was starting to wonder if I was gonna get around to it today.  I kept meaning to do it earlier...and time just kept passing by.  So, around 9:30 I put my shape-ups on and told my husband that I was going back to exercise.  He was starting to wonder if I was gonna exercise today, too!  It's always so hard to get ON the treadmill...but after I start it feels too good to stop.  And afterwards, I feel so great that I'm totally glad that I didn't put it off.  It's just gathering up that gumption to "git 'er done" that's the hard part.  I'm really proud of myself for sticking to my regime and not giving up.  I'm so glad to see the pounds slowly coming off, and I'm so glad that I'm able to move around a little easier.

AND...I'm so glad that I went down a pant size!  Woohoo!  I have so many clothes of all different sizes that I won't be having any issues with actually affording new ones for a while.  But I'm stoked about losing a size.  Nothing feels better than putting on a pair of capris that I've not been able to wear all summer...just as summer's ending.  Haha.  Oh the irony!  And next summer they'll be too big.  Ah well...c'est la vie.

OK, so the title has absolutely nothing to do with what I'm about to post...but I thought it might get a laugh.

The first week of school is done and the 2nd week is about to start.  I'm not so fond of my math teacher, but perhaps she'll grow on me.  I just need to know and learn the material.  That's it!  My English teacher is the same one that I had last semester (half of the class are previous students, as well...ya gotta love that, if you're the teacher!)  I'm really looking forward to her class this year.  I've only had one Spanish class, so far.  It's supposed to be every Saturday and she'd told us a couple weeks ago that she'd have a sub there on the 4th, so the class all show up and the building is locked up tighter than a virgin with her knees locked together!  Hmmm, a little crude humor there...can't hurt!  Haha.  So we're all wondering what the heck is going on and a campus cop drives up and tells us the campus is closed till Tuesday for the Labor Day weekend.  Well, apparently she didn't get the memo!  Que pasa????

I lost another pound in 5 days.  Which, I considered quite good, since I had pizza two days in a row.  The first night fresh...the second night, leftovers.  So I'm happy for that.  I chalk it up to having kept on exercising.

Speaking of exercising....I've deemed myself officially addicted to it.  So, I've given myself Sundays off.  I didn't want to skip any days before now because I knew if I did it'd get too hard to get back into the swing of things.  But I've got it down, now, and I'm ok to take a day off per week.  Sundays are the day.  It's laundry day, anyway.  I'm still doing 50 minutes, but I've notched my speed up by .2 mph and added a 6% incline.  For the first few days my ass was killin' me!  It was definitely letting me know that it was there!  Not that I needed the reminder!  But I'm good now...and I'm feeling my gluts and hamstrings firming up from the incline work.  I love the feeling.  And I've got a killer playlist now.  It took me a while to get it tweaked just right...but it's there now.  Lots of classic rock and stuff from the 80's and 90's.  Good stuff!

I'm proud of myself that I can walk into my husband's work building now without getting all huffy and puffy, anymore.  It's quite a ways from the parking lot and I always hated going to see him cuz it's so freakin' far away!  Haha.  I can also take the stairs at school with no problem and can walk faster without getting out of breath.  For the average person in average shape that's no big deal.  For me?  It's a huge milestone.  It's reasons like that that keep me exercising every day.  That and seeing the pounds falling off.  Woohoo!

Doing my Flashdance thang....  I was walking...so it's blurry.

I've not missed any days yet.  I'm stoked.  I'm still doing 50 minutes each day, but I'm adding a 6% incline.  Talk about workin' my BUTT off!!!