Starting Over

Ah I am back.  I had moved to Wordpress and was living life.  Then a "friend" offered to help me with my block and business and I ended up losing everything.  My website and all my blog posts.

I took a much needed break, but now I am back.  

Now I am focused on my weight loss and fitness journey along.

Join me on my journey and leave any and all advice on what has or hasn't worked for you.

Weight Loss in 2014

Another one of my goals is to lose 50 pounds.

More would be great, but I'm aiming for 50.


One of my goals for this year was to run my first 5K.  That has been postponed.

In place of that is my goal of sucking up my fear and having surgery on my knee.  Its been bothering me for several months, but the last week its been horrible, to the point walking is a chore.

It also means having to give in and ask someone for help.  I want to wait until summer, but even then means I need someone to drive me and the kids around.  I hate asking people for help.  Its crazy, but I feel like a failure if I need help from anyone.


Anyway, back to the weight loss goal.   The first big step for this goal is to beg my rheumatologist to wean me off Prednisone.  I hate this medicine, and everything it does for me.  Yes it keeps my immune system from freaking out as bad, but the side effects are horrible.  Especially the weight gain and appetite.


This also means going through my cabinets and getting rid of a lot.  I have a feeling the local food bank is going to love me.

Weight Loss and Fitness Goals

I plan on adding to these as I think of them.  I am hoping that publicly keeping track of them will help me stay focused and on track.  
 

Weight Goals

• 1st 10% body weight loss
• 2nd 10% body weight loss
• 3rd 10% body weight loss
• 4th 10% body weight loss
• half way mark
• out of 200s

Fitness Goals

• 30 minutes on elliptical
• 45 minutes on elliptical
• 5 miles on elliptical
• run a quarter of a mile
• run half a mile
• run 3/4 of a mile
• run a mile

Non Scale victories

• fit in size 16
• fit in size 12
• feel comfortable in sleeveless shirts
• wear (and love it) a summer dress

Goal - 5K

A couple of weekends ago we did the Donate Life walk.

We had a ton of fun, saw a lot of our friends, and met some really great people.  The kids were interviewed several times.  Lots of pictures of them with their poster and their shirts.  And lots of people telling us how Tin Man impacted their lives.

This was something we needed.  We needed to hear from others that they still think about him, because most of the time it feels like people are forgetting him.

Anyway, enough of the sad stuff.

My goal for next years walk is to run it.

Actually I am shooting for running the Southern California Donate Life walk/run in April. 

Warrior let me know that that is 201 days away.  And roughly 28 weeks  (He has an obsession with countdown timers)

My first short term goal is to work on my elliptical to get my endurance up.   I have been doing it a few times a week, but focused more on time than on distance.

Once I feel a little more confident then I will move on to the Couch to 5K schedule.

So we will see how this goes in the next few weeks. 

Fitbit Activity Tracker

I did not receive any compensation for this post.  I just love this thing so much I wanted to share.

Since summer is here I'm trying to find things to get us out of the house.

On top of the elliptical workout, I'm trying to work my way up to at least 10,000 steps a day.  I bought myself a Fitbit Zip to help keep track of my steps.  It also gives you an estimate on how many calories you burn a day, has a great website dashboard that lets you see your progress.

One thing I love about the Zip is it syncs with your computer and you don't have to manually log in your steps all the time.  It helps keep you honest with yourself.

You can also log into fitbit.com and see your progress.

I was amazed at how small it was when it arrived.  I thought it would be a little larger, ok a lot, than it was.  All the other pedometers I have had are about twice the size of the Zip.   As you can see its not much bigger than a quarter.  The size makes it much easier to wear, and hide.  I have mine attached to my bra since a lot of my work out clothes don't have pockets.

The package includes a USB Dongle, the Zip, a clip, a battery, and a "key" to unlock the battery cover.

The website dashboard allows you to see your stats all together.  You can even customize what you would like to see.  It also lists your friends and their weekly steps and ranks from highest to lowest.  You can choose to hide yourself from this ranking.  I'm hidden until I get up to 10,000 a day.

There is a phone app to use.  Right now Fitbit only syncs with  iPhone 4S

Samsung Galaxy S,

iPhone 5

Samsung Galaxy S III

iPod Touch (5th gen.)

Samsung Galaxy Note II

iPad 3, Retina

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1

iPad mini

Even if you don't have one of these you can still use the app to keep track of your water intake and see your daily activity.

I would definitely recommend the Zip to anyone wanting a little extra from a pedometer or anyone that needs something to help keep themselves honest about their daily steps.

10 day elliptical workout

With summer vacation here, I now have a lot more free time. 

This week I had a long talk with my doctor.  After I left I wasn't to happy, but had to admit she was right.

I also had to admit it was time to dust off the elliptical I just had to buy and get my butt in shape.

So I called a friend of mine to ask for help. He's a personal trainer at a gym in LA.  I worked with him a couple of times before we moved.  But since we moved my world was turned upside down, and I just couldn't stick with anything. 

My biggest thing right now is pain.  Part is from the extra weight, and part is from the Lupus.  Either way its hard to stick with something when you're in pain 90% of the time.

So Trainer and I worked out a 10 day schedule to ease me into my elliptical.

This may not work for everyone, and may seem a bit wimpy, but I need easy to begin with.  It also will help me make working out a habit instead of dreading it.

Also during this I am doing exercises to help strengthen my leg muscles, but also help with the tendons and ligaments in my knees and ankles.  I am also going to talk to my rheumatologist at my appointment this week about physical therapy again.

After the 10 days it starts over but adding resistance to it.  Eventually I will up the time to 30 minute sessions twice a day.

I am focusing on what I can do and not how fast I can lose the weight.  I have learned in the past focusing on what I need to do to make the scale move is to much to fast, so I need to ease my way into it.

Like I said, this isn't for everyone, and may seem like a wimpy way to go about it, but its what I need.

The Meanest Mom

This past weekend I spent a lot of time threatening my kids.  No Christmas.  No birthday presents.  No cell phone.  No friends.

If they didn't get their rooms clean.

Warrior's room smells a lot like teen age boy.  Not to mention things go in there and then disappear.  I'm thinking there's a black hole in there full of pencils, pens, and crayons.  Lots of crayons.

Sugar Pea has turned into a mini hoarder the past few months.  If they were to do a show on child hoarders, they could feature her room.  Need 100s of plastic bags.  She's got them for you.  Need scratch paper.  She could start her own recycling plant.  Empty (and clean) milk jugs?  No problem.

Therapist says this is normal.  I'm pretty sure she'd change her mind if her child was the one doing it.

So this past weekend I turned into the Meanest Mom.  I'm sure both kids were ready to run out and buy me a trophy engraved with this on it.

Little did they know that I had bought Warrior's birthday/Christmas present, and needed a clean room to put it in.  Now I'd be an even worst Mean Mom had I forced him to clean his room and no Sugar Pea, so of course both were forced to clean. 

Warrior asked if he could combine his birthday and Christmas presents this year so he could get a bigger gift.  I asked what and he rattled off about 20 different things including an iPad, a Bowflex, an iPhone, and much more expensive electronic items.

Not happening.  I thought maybe a gym membership, so I priced how much one for him would cost, but between registration fees and monthly fees it was pricey.  Not to mention I'd need one for myself, and then Sugar Peas would want one too.

I finally talked to a friend of mine and asked where the best, yet cheapest place for a home gym would be, and she told me she bought hers at Walmart and other than having to put it together, she didn't have any complaints about it.  I went over and checked hers out and decided I really wanted one for myself.

So I ordered one for Warrior.  You know, its his present, but he has to let his mom try it out and make sure its safe on a regular basis.

Finally got his room clean and I went to pick this up yesterday.  I'm pretty sure my car hated me after I got that thing in it and drove home.  Then watching me and 2 friends try to get the box up my stairs.  I decided to leave the box on the porch and carry it in the house piece by piece.

So when Warrior got home there were metal pieces all over his floor.

 We got busy putting this thing together.  let me tell you this was not made to be put together by short people.  I'm not even 5' and even though Warrior thinks he's tall, he's only 5'4.  As you can imagine, this was fun, and I'm pretty sure would have been hilarious to watch.

 Instructions say about 3 hours to assemble.  YEAH RIGHT!  More like 5 hours with an hour break for dinner.  Sugar Peas gave up and went to bed at 9.  Warrior wanted to quit at 9:30 and go to bed.  We finally finished it just after 10.  Then he was to excited to try it out to even think about sleeping. 

I waited until this morning to make sure that its safe enough for him to use.  Let me tell you, that little safety inspection has muscles I had forgotten about burning.

Walking With Attitude - Day 1

The company my brother in law works for is doing a company wide walking challenge.  Their goal is for each employee and their spouse to get 10,000 steps in a day.  I decided to look into the website they use and found I could sign up as an individual.

I had considered waiting until I got home in August start, but then decided this would give me motivation to get out when we're in South Carolina.

Its also a way to help me get ready for the Donate Life Walk the kids and I are doing in September in honor of Tin Man and his donor.

I'm asking all of you to help keep me on track.  I can keep track of my daily steps on the website, but I figure if I keep track of weekly steps here, I'll have that many more people to keep me on track.

Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012

 When we got our taxes back one thing we splurged on was an XBOX 360 with Kinect.  The kids paid for half of it with the money they had saved up in their XBOX 360 bank.

At first I wasn't sure because there are a lot, and I mean A LOT, of games for XBOX that I won't let my kids play.  I gave in after trying it with the Kinect at a friends house.  I loved that they had to actually get up and move and not just sit on the couch with a controller.

We have the Wii, but with most of those games they just worked out the arms and not much else.  Wii Fit Plus that kids found ways to get around having to exercise when they got tired.

With the Kinect, they can't.  If they don't move, their person on the screen doesn't move.  I also like the variety of fitness games they have.

I bought Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2012 and I love it.  I love that it has beginner, intermediate and advanced exercises.  Let me tell you, even the beginner kicked my butt in some areas.

I've been using it for a week now and I am sore in places I didn't know existed before.

Right now I'm trying to get myself up and moving before I focus on weight.  I have found that for me trying to focus on motivation, weight, what I eat, and anything else causes be to give up right away.

I have a lot of weight to lose, but I'm taking it one step at a time.  If I get myself up and moving first, then everything else will fall into place eventually.

I told Tin Man I wanted to get The Biggest Loser Ultimate Workout and Zumba Fitness to add to my collection.

The more choices I have, the less likely I'll get bored.