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 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 haven't had a chance to start checking everyone's blogs out, but I promise to get to it in the next day, or so.  Currently, I'm working on an English paper, and studying for a math test!  My life's a mess, at the moment.  But after the paper is turned in and the math test is over, I should have a few moments to myself before needing to do it all over again!  I do love being back in school!  :D

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.

My, oh my, was I wrong when I thought that Spanish would be an easier course.  Don't get me wrong, it's fun, but ay dios mio, it's much more difficult than I imagined it would be!  I mean, here I was thinking that I know some words here and there from living where I do and watching TV, it should be a cinch!  NOT! 

Now, if I were wanting to learn CONVERSATIONAL Spanish, which is what one would learn if one were to be 100% immersed in a Spanish speaking country for 6 months, then I would do just that!  But, nooo, I have to go and learn the book Spanish! 

I have a test on Saturday, the first one of the semester, and I'm a little nervous...can you tell? 

I was studying with my friend, Angela, who is from El Salvador (Angie, I'm so sorry if I remembered wrong!), and speaks English as her 2nd language, earlier today.  She was like, "What the f**k, Shauna, this isn't how we speak Spanish!"  Hahaha.  She was great with helping me, though, and I cherish her for that.  We met during Spring semester when we had math and english together.  We are taking English together again, however, she's now ahead of me, by one, in math, cuz she took a summer class.  It works out, though, cuz my strong suits are her weaknesses, and vice versa.  Plus, she's just a fun girl to hang out with!

Math is going well, too.  It's funny that when I was doing this level before, in my life, I had such a hard time wrapping my head around it and grasping the concepts.  But, I'm learning, that math is actually quite easy...and it makes sense.  Where else do the rules NEVER change???  Certainly not in English!  So, I'm learning a deep respect for numbers, and variables, and integers, and geometric shapes, and, and, and.....  You get the idea.

English has been great so far.  I'm taking the same instructor that I had during Spring semester because she just totally rocks.  Patty's definitely one of the better instructors that I've had, since being back in school.  And, I've learned, that there are definitely bad ones!  We have a first paper draft due on Tuesday, so this weekend I'll be writing like a fiend.  I think, maybe, that's why I'm catching up on my blog NOW.  Because I know that I may not have another down moment during this weekend, between studying for Spanish, writing my English paper, and studying for my math test, which is on Tuesday.  God, I love college!  I love having my brain work again!  I feel so dormant during the summer months!

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!!!"

Do you fellow fatties ever have people just look at you in disgust?  No longer do they actually SAY anything to your face about how fat you are...but instead just look at you with a mix of "I'm so glad I'm not you" and, "stop eating donuts, you fat pig!"  Seriously....get off it.  If I'm this fat...I don't need your snooty looks reminding me.  I am reminded practically every moment of every day...from the time I wake up in the morning with a sore back to the time I crawl into bed at night with aching knees, feet and ankles.  I don't need you to remind me that I'm fat!

You know what you REALLY need to do?  You need to reevaluate yourself.  Seriously.  If you want to put forth the effort into shooting iced daggers towards me, just stop.  Ask yourself why are you even bothering?  Am I bothering YOU?  Am I in your way?  Am I taking up half of your airline seat?  The answer is no.  I don't fly anymore because I know I"m too fat.  Besides...it's freakin' embarrassing asking for the damn seatbelt extender!  So why are you bothering wasting negative emotions on me; someone you don't even know?  No, I get that you didn't SAY anything...but you were the kid back in my formative years who never missed an opportunity to do so!  You're the one who stalked me through the halls, oinking at me, laughing at me, harrassing me, and making me feel like I was inferior to you.

Guess what?  I'm not.  In fact, I'm quite smart.  What have YOU done with YOUR life, I might ask?  I'm absolutely, positively happy with the choices that I've made in MINE.  Are YOU?

So before you look at me like I'm the scourged, epitome of evil....take a moment to reflect on just what it is that you're angry at me for.  My guess?  Jealousy.  Because I don't have to worry about being a size 2....ever.  Why bother try to achieve the unachievable?  To me...it's a waste of MY time and my energy.  I have far more important things to be spending it all on.  Work, family, learning, growing.

So go ahead...have at it.  But if you're meaning to make me feel bad?  Don't bother, because....

I am rubber, you are glue....

(Note: This is not an event that has happened to me recently, but instead one of many instances of this sort that happened to me when I was young.  I write about it in support of others who may not be as strong as I am now, to help them stand up and to give them a voice.  Or at least let them know that they're not alone.)

I gained .5 pounds this past week.  I've been feeling pretty bloaty all week from the Metformin so I'm pretty sure that's what's going on.  The exercise is still happening and nothing has really changed.  I'm a little bummed out...but I can't let it get me down too much.  I can only go forward from here.  That's all I want!