I have a friend in one of my classes who has a small chihuahua that has been ill for the past several weeks. The chi is old (around 14, I believe) and was vomiting, and yelping in pain every time he was touched. He could barely move. Obviously the first thought is maybe it's his time.

The thing is is that she isn't established at any veterinarian. She said that her dogs have never been sick so why should she bother taking them to the vet? Now, maybe it's because I feel that my babies are my babies, and not mere animals, so I'm always taking them in for their yearly shots/check-ups, etc. Maintenance is the best care there is when it comes to both humans AND critter kids. I visit my doctor every 3 months so she can monitor my weight loss and blood pressure. It's just the way it is. Often we're short on cash (more often than not!) and are unable to afford other various things at the time of the check-up...so we end up buying cheaper food (or just not as much that month) so that we have extra to take the babies to the vet (or to see the doctor ourselves).

I don't understand when others don't do the same. If it were a human child, would you neglect taking it in every year for shots and the check-ups? No! Why on earth would you do that for a critter baby?

So needless to say, she was basically forcing this poor little chi to suffer in pain and agony simply because she didn't have any money to take him in. Now, my vet knows us by now, after seeing us every year and whenever there's something that's come up, so we're established with her, and they work with us with payments, etc. when we're unable to pay it all at once. We'll usually give her what we can and then pay the rest off when K gets paid or a school loan comes in. But asking a vet who doesn't know you from Joe Blow across the street to allow you to make payments is ridiculous!

Another friend of mine has a cat who is urinating blood. At the simplest, it's a UTI, at worst it could be any number of things! Both he and his husband aren't working, he is bringing in unemployment, and they are unable to take her to the vet. So this poor kitty is having to suffer because of their ineptness.

I understand not having money. I've been unemployed for going on 2 years now, I'm a student, and we're only making our way on K's checks. We're poorer than we've ever been in my life. But we have NEVER made a concession in our pet's behalf if shots or health care were needed. We do what we need to do in order to get them taken care of. It's just who we are.

I guess what I'm saying is...if you can't afford to care for your pet(s) on a daily/weekly/yearly/emergency basis, then PLEASE find someone else who can. Don't assume that because your pet has never been sick that you don't need to take them in. How do you know it hasn't been sick? Have they told you?

Do you take your pet in for shots/check-ups on a yearly basis? Emergencies? Or do you fall into the category that my two friends do?

I'm not here to bash on anyone. I'm just very frustrated that people do this sort of thing. I'd love to hear your input, for or against this topic. Please, discuss in the comments!

After this past week I was truly afraid to hop on the scale. K and I have been putting off our monthly trip to the grocery store for the past 2 weeks and so we basically had nothing in the house to eat. We solved this issue by eating out. One night we ordered in pizza, another night we ordered in chinese, and another night we got subways. Granted, I did eat smartly and didn't overeat or eat anything TERRIBLY bad for me, but it was definitely more ordering out than I was used to. So anyway, I thought surely I would gain. My eating was terrible, my water intake was a joke, and well, everything else was just uncool...except for exercise. Of course I got my hour in daily. I never deviate from that one.

I weighed in this morning, gritting my teeth, squinting and peeking through my almost-closed eyelids at the dreaded number...

I lost 1/2 of a pound. Usually this would be kind of a bummer for me, but after this past week? Miraculous!

We've since done our grocery shopping, the house is full of good and healthy things, and I've vowed that my water intake is going to improve 110% this coming week. So, next week I just know the number lost will be immensely larger. This week...I gained by a small loss. I won the small battle by a minute margin, and I will DEFINITELY win the war!

Booyah!

Isagenix.

(Check out the link on the right side and let me know if you're interested.)

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.

There are a lot of things that fat people have to deal with besides discrimination and lack of energy. And a lot of it is stuff that the average person has no idea that we have to deal with. If you're of a significantly larger size then you'll know just where I'm coming from when I talk about this.

One of the things that obese and super obese people have to deal with on a semi-regular basis, is the smell. Don't kid yourself...you all know what I'm talking about whether you want to admit it or not. If you're morbidly obese then you've been there, done that...and hopefully, by now, have learned how to deal with it so that it's not so malodorous. I know that when I was younger it used to mortify me. But, as you mature, you learn tricks so that you don't have to worry about it affecting not only your life but those around you, as well.

I'll first address the WHY of it all. As fatties, we have folds of skin where most people do not: under our bellies, boobies, love handles, behind our knees, and even in those more private regions. Because of that, they get sweaty/humid and yeast and bacteria grow, often even causing sores, which then release a clear liquid that the body is trying to clean itself with. With all of those factors combined, it's no wonder that it begins to smell funky. And funky it is! Never fear, though, for there are ways around this unpleasant odor.

The first trick that I ever learned was using plain, old deodorant/antiperspirant. Not just under your arms, but in all of the folds that you can reach! I use mine on my love handles and behind my knees. Those are my problem areas. But it will work wherever there are folds of skin. Use it twice a day and you'll never smell the repugnant smell again.

There are also other things that people do like using a blow dryer multiple times each day on their folds to ensure that they stay dry...however, that's not always an easy solution as I'm not sure about you, but I don't make a habit of carrying a blow dryer around in my purse!

Nystatin is another useful took to use between folds to help prevent yeast from thriving, combined with Polysporin Powder to help with the smell.

I've tried using lotions and potions and powders to the problem, and the best one that I ever came up with was the deodorant. Do you have any suggestions to help control the rancid smell that is associated with being obese? Share if you do!

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!

(As I've mentioned previously...I go for so long without posting, or posting only a weekly update, and then suddenly I become a posting fiend!)

One of the drugs that I was put on by my doctor, due to a pre-diabetic situation and crazy hormone levels, is Metformin.  Now, I know that I've talked about this before, and it'll probably pop up from time to time later on, as well.

One of the grant side-effects of Metformin is that you have any number of a variety of Gastro Intestinal issues as side effects such as bloating, diarrhea, nausea, gas, headaches, blah, blah, blah....

The main side effect for most is diarrhea.  Most suffer from it on a daily basis....I get it from time to time...but not every day.  My biggest problem is bloating.  My stomach feels constantly full.  Sometimes so much that I feel like I can't take in a deep breath because of it; or even that I can't breath normally.  Naturally that isn't the case, and it's just the crazy side effects.

One of the things that it does is stabilize the insulin levels.  I have wonky levels due to various other issues, namely being fat, and so I was always craving sweet stuff and carbs, because my body was always thinking that it was needing them.  Nowadays, not only do I not suffer from those cravings, but I don't crave food at all.  Don't get me wrong...I enjoy food, I love food.  But these days, the idea of eating anything, even fruit, makes me nausous and want to vomit.  The result is that I end up forgetting to eat, because I don't want to eat...and then, of course, I don't get enough calories in, which we all know makes your body go into starvation mode, yada yada...

So I set timers to remind me to eat meals and snacks.  I never in a million years imagined that I'd have to FORCE myself to eat enough of something so that I got enough calories in.  It's the oddest thing.  Nowadays, I eat less than my husband...that's NEVER been the case!  Ever!

So, despite the bloating feeling, I'm totally lovin' my Metformin.

Metformin....ask your doctor about it today!  Haha.  I am in no way getting paid to plug this drug.  Haha.

Friday night I had another fainting spell.  It's the second time that I've actually fainted since I started on my blood pressure medication a couple of years ago.  Frankly, I questioned whether or not I needed to go on it to begin with...but trusting in the advise of my doctor, I agreed.  My blood pressure before I started taking Lisinopril was approximately 130/90'ish...give or take.  Now it's not uncommon for it to be around 100/70.  Needless to say, that's a considerable drop.  I think it's a bit TOO considerable, which is probably why the light-headedness that followed.  Anyhoo...it was probably about a month after I began taking it that I had my first fainting spell.  I was at work, just leaning back in my chair, and the next thing I knew I was opening my eyes, was very confused, and my boss was looking at me and asking me if I was okay.  That was the first time that I ever fainted.

Ever since, I've had the craziest feelings come over my body when I stand up and/or stretch.  I get really light-headed, and my entire body kind of has this tingley, out-of-body feeling about it.  It sounds crazy...but if you suffer from the same thing then you totally know what I'm talking about.  I've came really close to fainting numerous times since the start of the meds...but until Friday night, I'd only actually full-on fainted the one time.  Generally when I stand up, I stretch...it's habit, it's what I do...it's what a lot of people do.  Stretching feels good, it loosens up the muscles that have went unused for a little while, and gets the blood pumping again.  For most people with normal blood pressure levels, it's no big deal.  It wasn't a big deal for me before the meds.  But now, it's a crazy, lurchy feeling in the pit of my tummy...

So anyway, Friday night, I'd just stood up from my recliner and was walking into the bathroom (not a long walk, perhaps a few feet through a mini hallway), and I started getting the funky feeling mid-way.  So I stopped, propped my arms out against the walls on either side of me, and was just standing there...

Next thing I knew I was singing the same song that was running through my head when I was standing...but I was lying prone, staring up at the ceiling and watching K walking towards me from the couch, and asking me if I hit my head and if I was okay.  I was a bit confused, realized what must have happened, and was a little weirded out.  But I was fine, afterwards.  No problem.  But, it does force me to beg the question...should I be taking blood pressure meds anymore...or maybe if such a high dosage.  It's not a high dose, anyway, but still....

With my regular exercise these days, I don't know if it's necessary anymore to be taking it...especially when it causes me to feel this crazy when I just stand up..let alone when I faint.

I have another doctor's appointment in December as a follow-up to a couple other meds that I've been taking, as well as to check-in with my weight loss (yes, I finally sought the help from a doctor regarding my weight loss).  I'll talk to her then about what's going on.  Unless I faint again, in which case, I'll probably call her sooner than that!

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Click on the graph above to find out more!

**This is a Bzz campaign of which I am an agent.  This is not a gimmick, or a joke.

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!

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 woke up this morning and remembered to get on the scale before doing anything else...except pee.  Hey!  Every bit counts, right?  So anyway, I get on, expecting at best a maintain, at worst a gain of a pound or two.  It's been the bloaty, uggy, feeling that I was thinking was going to be the culprit.

I got on the scale, too a deep breath, and looked down.....

I lost 4 pounds this past week!  FOUR POUNDS!!!!  I'm totally stoked, of course.  I had no idea.  I mean, I KNEW that feelin' uggy was making my appetite non-existant, but THIS was much better than I'd hoped for.  Needless to say, ran back into the bedroom and jumped into bed next to K with a big grin on my face.  When he didn't respond, I put my grinning face 2 inches from his and just held it there.  He opened his eyes not 5 seconds later.  I told him my news and he was proud of me, too.

I spent the rest of the day feeling uggy and doing my English paper.  I got it finished after about 4 hours of steady work on it.  Funny, but I don't really think of it as work.  I ENJOY writing...go figure.

Anyhoo...just wanted to give the news of the update, and hope everyone out there in cyberland is going to have a great week ahead of them!

The past few days the Metformin has had me feeling pretty uggy.  (Yes, I know, uggy is not a real word....but it is in MY world!)  Anyway, I've been feeling uber bloated, and not hungry at all.  And what's the most scary is that ice cream isn't even good to me, right now.  Neither are McD's fries!  I tried eating some Ben & Jerry's last night and only got a few spoonfuls in before I started feeling nauseous.  The fries were the same way....I ate maybe five of them before I stopped, because it was making me sick.  Even a frappaccino isn't tasty to me!  Since when has THAT ever happened????

I know Metformin is supposed to quell my cravings for carbs and sugar, but DAYUM....

It's also another TOTM for me.  Talk about a shocker - 5 weeks to the day.  I'm impressed.  Going from over a year, to twice in a row.  I'm not sure what's better...this uggy feeling caused from the Metformin, or being regular again.  At the moment, I'm just not sure!  Ask me in a week, or two. 

In the meantime, I forgot to weigh myself this morning in my preoccupation with my Spanish test, so I'll weigh tomorrow.  I hope that this uggy, bloaty feeling doesn't affect it, but it probably will.  It usually does.

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!!!"

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!

Along with clarity comes conviction.  At least for me it does.

That night in the rain did something to me.  Short circuited my brain, maybe?  Maybe!  But whatever it did, it's changed me.  Maybe it was so that I would begin the long road of letting go of dreams and starting to create new ones.  Whatever it was, I'm in a better spot mentally.  No longer do I look at my sweet, darling husband and resent the fact that he doesn't want to touch me...because, quite frankly, I'm not sure what I'd do if he did!  I don't have the energy to do much, anyway!  We are in love and that is what matters.  People search their whole lives looking for what we have together...and I'm going to try to remember that.

I've been exercising.  For the past 2 days I've been exercising for 30 minutes each day.  I know it's not a habit yet...and the ritual is still so very new that it can still be broken.  But, here's where the conviction comes in.  I don't want to stop exercising!  Oh, I do look forward to the end of 30 minutes...but at the end of it, I feel great!  I feel accomplished.  And I feel as though I'm doing something to make my body stronger so that I can live longer and make that difference that I spoke of in my previous post.

Along with the exercise I've been sticking more closely to my food intake.  Some days I don't ingest as many calories as I should...but I'm working on it.  I know a common misconception is that fat people eat too much...my problem is that I don't eat enough.  At least of the good stuff.  Sometimes I eat too many brownies, or pieces of cake, or cookies, or, or...ICE CREAM!!!  My weakness is carbs and desserts...but I'm working through that, as well.  I'm trying to recondition my brain to realize that string cheese is just as good (and it is!) as a brownie.  I'm trying to teach my brain that grapes are so much better than a cookie.  I can't change my mindset overnight...but I'm working on it.  And already I'm feeling better about myself.

For the past several months I've been in a slump mentally and certainly physically.  Well, no more.  I'm finished with slumps.  My goal is to lose at least 25 pounds by the 31st.  Think I can do it?

I know I can!