Upcoming 10k

My 1^st 10k is coming up March 5^th and I am getting so ancy for it. I went last night and bought a cute outfit, I have broken in my new shoes, and I started 2 a days this week with all my free time being devoted to running on the treadmill. I have turned down lunch dates, evening get together, and shopping trips so that I can stay on track for my race.  I am motivated and focused to not only finish the 10k but also to run the whole thing and do it under 80 minutes.

The breakdown: a 10k is a total of 6.2 miles (yes I know some of you think I am crazy and I would have thought the same thing a year ago but it’s a way of life for me now!) If I finish in 80 minutes that equals 13.30 minutes a mile. My fastest 5k was run at Jingle Bell this past December where I ran 3.1 miles in 32 minutes (10.32 minutes a mile). So yes, I have set my goal a little longer than I really should’ve but, I am scared of disappointing myself if I set my goal for an hour and I am longer than that…

This run will not only be my 1^st 10k but it will also mark my 1 year anniversary of losing weight. 1 year, it seems so long but looking back it went so fast. 1 year ago I was wearing size 24 jeans, eating out all the time, crying because I hated being fat. Today I am in size 11/12 jeans, I eat fresh food and check the menus of places before going there, and the only crying I do is when Lo makes me do something that pushes me past my limits.

So the date is approaching, the goal is set, and the runner is almost ready… This has been a long year with a lot of ups and a lot of downs but I am glad that I didn’t give up. I want to say a special thank you to a few people who have helped me through my journey and who are still pushing me….

Thank you Michelle, Valerie, James, Lo, Berns, Samantha, Brittanie, Melissa, Ashley, and Patricia!

Yoga - my 1st time EVER!

I have been purposely avoiding yoga for a couple of years now, not because I was scared but because I didn’t look at it as a workout. Why would anyone want to waste an hour of their time lying on a mat doing a position called “downward dog”? To me, Yoga was for the birds! My hatred towards the class might have also done something with a little thing called patience. Patience is something that I have never been good at, I don’t care if it is waiting for a microwave dinner to heat up or if it is waiting 9 months to have a child… I DO NOT HAVE PATIENCE! Yoga and patience goes hand in hand and how on earth could I do something that I didn’t have the right “equipment” for? So long story short, I have avoided at all cost.

               Then I met 2 women who would change my entire state of mind about the class, Brittanie Bailey and Mandy Campbell. Brittanie does Bikrims Yoga where you are in a room that is like a sauna and you do yoga… hahaha yeah okay! When she first told me about this class, I looked at her like she was smoking crack! Add to the list of things I don’t like, HEAT! I love the summer and the hot sun beating down on me but ONLY because I can get in the pool or go inside if I get too hot. Why would anyone in their right mind do yoga in the hot, voluntarily? I have brushed Brittanie off so many times and that is where Mandy comes into play. Mandy is a crazy amazing woman who has studied yoga in Hawaii. She would just do yoga on the beach all day and that was her life! To me, it is so odd that someone can dedicate their entire being to yoga. Mandy started talking to me (we sit next together at work, so we talk a lot) about her love for the art of yoga and all the good benefits it has for you. After months of listening to Mandy and brushing off invites from Brittanie, I decided that why not try it… If I don’t like it, I don’t have to go back. I had agreed to go with Brittanie to Bikrims Yoga (yes I am crazy) but life got in the way and we haven’t gone, YET! Since our company has been so gracious to give us memberships to the local gym downtown, I decided that I will take a yoga class in the morning before work.

               My 1^st yoga experience: I went in with an open mind. I tried every pose and if I couldn’t do something I modified it to where it was easier for me but still was a challenge. I won’t lie, I was a major clock watcher but I did make it the whole hour without giving up. I have had a lot on my mind, a lot I needed to pray about and just talk to God about. So for the whole hour, I devoted my time to God and I relaxed and started talking (not out allowed of course)! It was a great class and I will probably go back every Thursday that I can. I encourage you to try something that you have once said you will NEVER do and always remember… Never say never!

               Oh P.S. – At the very end of class we were sitting on our mats and the guy in front of me farted twice really loud… I was warned about this but I am a 6 year old boy when it comes to farts and I can’t help but laugh! So here I am with the guy in front of me just finishing up his farts and I am holding back laughter because no one else in the class acknowledged it at all… I think that had to have been the funniest part of the whole class! HAHA!!!

Feelin’ like a Movie Star

            As you all know I hurt my back last Wednesday and I haven’t been able to work out since then. Today is Monday and I scheduled an appointment to have my back checked out to make sure that I could start back into it without re-hurting myself. What is the one thing you dread when going to the doctors, if you guess the weighing in part then you win (sorry no prize, just the knowledge of knowing you won)!! Well, the nurse called my name and said “Miss Lassiter, please jump on the scale.” 1^st off let me just tell you this, nurses should say “Miss/Mr. __________ (fill in your name here), please get naked and lightly step on the scale…” Jumping on the scale makes it sounds like even more of a chore then it already is, and you all know how I just LOVE to jump (not)! So, I “jumped” on the scale, after taking my light jacket and flip flops off… dreading a gain since I have been off for a week. To my dismay, it was 4 pounds lighter!

            I finally get seated in the room and started my long wait for my doctor, which come to find out it was WELL worth the wait. The Doctor comes in glancing over my chart, looks up with the biggest smiles and says (and no I am not making this up), “OH MY WE HAVE A MOVIE STAR, can I have your autograph?” I laughed nervously not knowing what he was thinking… He then proceeds to compliment me on my weight loss and questions me about what I am doing. I have never had a doctor be proud of me because of my weight, it was a GREAT feeling. He pulls out my chart and since last being there (back in November 2010 for a sore throat); I have lost a total of 33 pounds! That my fellow blog readers is 33 pounds in 3 months, now I know why he wanted my autograph!

            Moral of my story: you never know who you are going to have an impression on so never give up on your journey. Here I am at the tail end of the losing my weight part of my journey and a Doctor is asking me for tips because I have impressed him with my achievements. Do the journey for yourself first and foremost, but always know in the back of your mind that you are not only changing your life but you are changing the people around you if its in your family, people at your job, or even random people you see every day at the gym that you don’t even know! Everyone has a story to tell, go out and tell yours… you might change a life and be asked for your autograph!!!

Out of commission!

Yesterday I was suppose to start 2 a days, but I woke up and could barely get out of bed. It was so bad that I had to sling shot Caleb out of bed with one hand and a chair (poor kid). I went to work and decided I couldn’t take the pain anymore, so I went home and got medicated! I took a pain pill and a muscle relaxer and might I say, I have never been more relaxed in my life! I stretched and took a hot Epsom salt bath and woke up feeling about 70% better today. My Aunt, a massage therapist, told me what stretches to do and to not work out for a few days so I can heal. Taking off til Monday…

                Yesterday was Wednesday, that is half way through the week… That means 4 days off from the gym! That is speaking Spanish to me, since I live and breathe the gym! Since we got the memberships through work, all my co-workers are going to the gym, talking about the classes they are taking; all the while I am sitting here being so envious of them all.

                I know that I need to just stop worrying about it, take the time off and heal up because if I go back now I could injury myself even more and be out for weeks or months. February has not been a good month for me, snow, ice, Valentines candy, now my back! Here is to hoping March comes soon! I am going to try and focus on eating healthy, haven’t been so great…

                This is a MAJOR bump in the road, but I am NOT giving up! So, in the words of Justin Bieber… “NEVER SAY NEVER!”

2 a days – I think so!

The owner of my company has been so gracious and has given us all free memberships to a gym located a block away from our office in the beautiful downtown Fort Worth! We had a luncheon and talked with our personal trainer, Melissa, today where we signed our paperwork and we should be able to start using the gym tomorrow!!! This means I get to start my 2 a days - Summer 2011, HERE I COME!!!

The only rules to our membership is that we have to take our personal trainers class at least twice a month and we have to use the membership atleast 4 times a month or the money will be taken out of our paycheck to pay for it. 4 times a month, really? REALLY?! I go 4 times a week!!!

Here is my plan: KICK SOME MAJOR ARSE!!!

Monday: Cycle on lunch & train with Lo after work

Tuesday: Power Yoga & Melissa’s class before work & CDP and Abs with Berns after work

Wednesday: Run/walk on lunch (or Boot Camp if I like it) & train with Lo after work

Thursday: Power Yoga & Melissa’s class before work & TKB and Abs with Berns after work

Friday: Cardio Kickboxing on lunch & CDP with Berns after work

Saturday: OFF DAY that is if I am not doing a 5k!

Sunday: Cycle at LW 24 unless I did a 5k on Saturday and then today would be my rest day!

Mirror Mirror on the wall why am I still fat after all?!

Friday I had lunch with a great friend named Brittanie, who is so stinking pretty, tall and slender! Saturday I hung out with my best friend Michelle for a few hours, who is average height and has recently lost 75ish pounds and looks amazing. Saturday night I went out with my new friend Ashley, who is so pretty and has recently lost 40 pounds and is currently working on losing the rest of her weight. All three of these girls are 100% different, each at different spots on their weight loss journey, and none of them have ever met the other. But what you don't know and what they might not even know is that each one of them brought up a GREAT point this weekend, the SAME point... which got me to thinking!!!

You lose weight, you lose inches, you get into smaller clothes but then you glance in the mirror or the next day look at pictures from the night before and all you see is the same fat person that you were before you started this journey. It might not happen every time you glance in the mirror or look at the pictures, but it happens enough to make you start doubting yourself. Is my hard work paying off? Is this really how people see me? Why is it that I am putting all this hard work in and I still see a fatty looking back at me?

Michelle brought up a good point while we were on this conversation, she said that your mind is the hardest thing to change (she saw this on Oprah when Jennifer Hudson was on). Here we are focusing on our eating habits and making sure we get our cardio and weight training in, who has time to add your mind to the mix of things you have to worry about? How do we even go about "working on our minds"? I am a thinker, like someone once said to me "you don't have a mouse running in your head, you have a cat who ate the rat who ate the mouse running in your head!"... my mind goes 90 to nothing and then comes to a sudden halt. How do you work on changing your mind when it comes to see yourself in the mirror or in pictures?

Michelle has a book that has her before and after photos in it and I think that this is key to help change our minds. Every time you look at the mirror or the pictures from the night before and see that fat person starring back at you, pull out the before and after photos. See how far you have come and know that you aren't that person anymore. Remind yourself that you are in smaller clothes, that you have seen a drop on the scale and that the inches you are losing are just adding up. Keep friends around you that are positive, that will step up and compliment you on your weight loss, and that will be honest with you. And if all else fails and you still see the fat person looking back at you, get angry and take your anger out at the gym. Then maybe next time you look in the mirror and the pictures, you might be able to see the beautiful, skinner, healthier person saying "Hi, this is the new me!"

Blaming the wrong person for to long

I wrote awhile back about how one day I would write about 2 of the biggest reasons for my weight gain roller coaster I was on… well today is one of those days! Just a fair warning, this is very emotional for me, but I have realized that part of my new weight loss journey has been to let go of all the past hurt and all of the negative energy.

                As a little girl, you are supposed to look up to your Dad and put him on a peddle stood and know that no other man could ever live up to him because he is the King of Kings in your world. Well, that wasn’t how my life was at all, not even close.  I had the type of “father” that felt the need to put you down in order for him to feel better about himself. I don’t know why he was this way either, his parents and siblings were and are some of the most caring people I have ever met. As a young child (up until about the age of 10ish) I was an average kid, wasn’t over weight really at all. Age 11 came and boom, I started to gain, partly because I was an emotional eater and couldn’t stop myself. Throughout middle school and high school, I just continued to gain weight…

                All I wanted more than anything in the world was for my “dad” to look me in my eyes and tell me he loved me and tell me that no matter what I looked like, no matter what I did, that he was proud of me and that he loved me for me. That never happened and I doubt it ever will happen (which I have come to terms with now, but as a teen I struggled with). In high school, I came up with this silly idea that if I lost weight, my “dad” would love me. If I could look like those girls he was chasing in the bars every weekend, he would want to spend time with me. I became a cheerleader for many reasons, but one of those reasons was that being a cheerleader meant you were “hot shit” and well my “dad” had to love me then, right? Wrong! I can’t tell you how many games I invited him to, and never did he show up to one of them. The years passed and prom was right around the corner, I was living with my Papa (my “dad’s” Dad) and one day my “dad” was over and my Papa brought up the fact that I still didn’t have a prom dress and that my “dad” needed to step up and buy me one. Instead of just handing me money  to go get a dress, or coming along to help me pick one out, he told me that the only way he would give me money would be to lose weight ($100 for every 10 pounds I dropped)… This threw me into a mixed stage of wanting to lose weight but also being so hurt that I fell back on my emotional eating roller coaster and ended up gaining weight… I ended up buying my own dress!

                I am not blaming my “dad” for my weight gain at all, but he surely never helped stop it in a healthy way. All I ever strived for was his approval, one of the easiest things a parent can give a child and he just could never do that for me. As a parent now, I could never imagine not being proud of Caleb, not loving Caleb because of his weight or what he looks like. I have forgiven my “dad” for all the damage he has done in my life, and I am now looking at it as God was using him as an example of what kind of parent NOT to be to Caleb.

                For so long I held my “dad” and all the dumb guys who haven’t approved me because of my weight (I will blog about them later) semi-responsible for my weight gain. But I know now, they weren’t the reason at all; I was pointing the finger at them because I didn’t want to have to point it at the true person who was to blame, myself.

                What I want you to understand from this blog is that you are responsible for who you are right now and who you will become in the future. People help us down our journey but at the end of the day you are the one making the decisions. Stop using other people, sickness, and anything else you are using as a crutch. If you want a change bad enough, you won’t let those things stand in your way any longer.  You may be weak when you 1^st start to change for yourself and no one else, but just remember if you keep pressing on that weakness will turn into strength!

My Bikini Flip Book Idea!!!

Yesterday when it “snowed” I decided that I was not about  to binge eat again… so I rearranged my living room and jumped rope. Yes you read that right, I jumped rope. I cant jump it like normal people, but if I act like I am running then it works. I did 5 sets of 50 jumps, and boy oh boy was I proud of myself! Then Samantha came over and we did an hour of Billy Blanks Taebo. The snow cleared up around lunch time and so at 3pm I decided to not let the boredom set in, I bundled up myself and Caleb and we went to the gym for a hour. Good news: I STAYED ON MY FOOD PLAN AND DIDN’T CHEAT ONCE!!!

                Now on to my flip book idea – A month ago (1^st week of January) I had Samantha come over and take my pictures front, right side, back and left side view of me in a size 10 bikini. Then yesterday when we finished up our Taebo, she took them again. We uploaded them to the computer and looked at January pictures side by side with the February pictures we just took, and WOW you can tell such a HUGE difference! I was SO proud of myself that in just 1 month, I have come SO far!!! Sam and I decided that every 1^st of the month she would come over and we would take pictures and compare them… making a flip book of my progress!

                If you know me, you know that I am not a shy person at all… so I wanted to share my pictures with you. I mean this is a blog about my journey, right?! And these pictures are a HUGE part of my journey!!! If you are on your journey right now, maybe you can do the same thing and take picture monthly so that when you get discouraged you can look at them and realize that all your hard work is paying off!!!!

The dreaded weigh in

I was NERVOUS to say the least, but I got up on the scale and POOF… 2.2 pounds down! I have never been so happy to see 2.2 before. It wasn’t the 6 pound loss I wanted, but its way better then the gain I thought I was going to have. Now, I am going to put that horrible, dreaded, stupid snow week behind me and move forward because I will be under 179 on my next weigh in (February 21, 2011)! We have a couple of snow days coming up, but this time I come prepared. This time, I am going to stay at my house where I have my food planned out and do not have all the extra junk food there tempting me (like I do at my sister’s house).  I am going tonight after workout and going to rent a few movies that will help take my mind off the boredom. Then when Caleb goes down for his nap each day we are stuck in, I will put in my work out DVD and invite my friend Sam (who lives across the street) over so we can get our cardio in! I have a plan and I am sticking to it this time!!! The snow doesnt come in until tonight at midnight, so I am going to make the most out of today. I am going to Cardio Dance Party after work and then will be running/walking until Caleb's time is up in the daycare. Planning is easy, its sticking to the plan that is hard... so here goes nothing!

I hope that you are all prepared too, just remember this…

Nothing taste as good as skinny feels!!!!

Snowmageddon!

Last week it snowed pretty much the whole week, causing me (and plenty others) to be locked in doors where the only thing to do was eat! I can’t count how many times I went to the fridge, opened it, decided there was nothing worth eating, then only to go back 30 minutes later and manage to find something to eat to help cure the boredom! Eating when I am bored is one of my worst habbits and is one of the major reasons I got up to 265 in the first place! This week took a major toll on not only my eating habits but also effected me mentally. I realized that I need to get a better grip on my ability to focus on other things to do besides eating, something I am going to try to work on.

You all know that my goal at weigh in last week was to be 6lbs lighter (179), because of stupid Snowmageddon I didn’t get to weigh in. I go to train with Lo tonight and as bad as I wanted that 6lbs loss, all I want more than anything tonight is to NOT gain 6lbs!!! I told Lo that I would probably have to cut off a limb just to break even!!! Since being with Lo in October I have yet to gain anything, well there comes a 1^st time for everything, right?! I am going to take whatever number the scale throws my way and restart. Last week is over and done with and after I weigh today I am starting a new clean slate.

The snow was fun while it lasted, but I hope that never happens again. But if and when it does I will hopefully be a little bit more prepared! No matter the number I am just going to remind myself that this is just life, no one gets out alive!

I will update you all tomorrow with my results and my new plan!!