This is it, my day one. I'm still getting used to everything on this sight and all the ways that it is going to be beneficial for me. I started out the year with the same old New Years Resolutions... quit smoking (again) and stay healthy and active. Over the past five years I have quit smoking at New Years and some where between Mardi Gras and Summer I always started it back up again. This year I started it off by smoking that last cigarette in that last pack the morning of January 3rd and said this was the last cigarette of the rest of my life. I've been smoke free ever since! Some days are harder than other, and it is especially challenging because I get to watch all the smokers from my office window and they prance back and forth with their smoke trails and happy faces. I fight the urge at least once a day now, but I always win, and that is enough success for me.
For the past five years I have also been working out. From hard core, to low effort, but there has always been something. For most of this time I have been working out with trainers at Our Place in Covington, LA. My normal routine was circuit training on mondays, yoga on wednesdays, and pilates on fridays. I stayed in that routine for awhile. Thanks to my friend Erika I also started the training program called something like... sofa to 5 K. At first I thought she was crazy as she went to town on the treadmill next to me at the gym. Eventually, I took it over and started going for it on the streets with my friend Jess. That lasted us most of the summer, and I don't think we did too shabby being that we were both smokers.
My favorite memory was when her boyfriend came along for a jog and we were in a good ten minute stride without stopping. I heard the footsteps behind me and figured Jess was keeping up a pretty good pace and just went with it. The steps were very close behind me, about the exact distance Jess stayed behind me, except Jess usually communicated things like.. we have three minutes left, two minutes left, etc. Well after awhile I heard nothing but footsteps... I looked behind me and it was Shane keeping me going 90 to nothing and Jess was about a block behind us holding her side due to a cramp. I guess it was a location situation, but at the time it was funny and it still makes me giggle when I think about it. Anyways, we kept up with our running all the way through winter. But then the nights came earlier, and we don't have street lights in our neck of the Covington woods, so it god dark and you were pretty much hoping you didn't step into a pothole while running. And then came the night Jess thought she saw someone in the cemetery we ran by, well I don't think either of us has ever ran faster than we did that night! But like all good things it came to an end.
I later started using the treadmill at the gym to keep up with our 3 miles and tried to get there as much as possible in addition to the three workouts per week. This is extremely hard for me since I am a single parent and usually have to rush home after work. When summer came around again I resorted to doing laps around my parents property to stick with the sofa to 5 K program, but that got old too. Seasons changed, schedules changed, and that pretty much cut off my treadmilling at the gym once or twice a week. Summer rolled around again and I took the trace after work on my way home. I was walking/running up to about 10 miles a week in addition to my weekly workouts. I had a few incidents with horseflys that weren't too pleasant and battled them as long as I could. That was pretty much the end of the running for me. I was still smoking off and on through all of this and at times it was harder than others.
I started walking because I seemed to make the same time as when I was running, but that died out too. I gave up the gym when the trainer that had worked for me with years moved on and at the time I just thought there was no replacement for him. He was such an awesome motivator and it took me at least a year to get 100% used to and comfortable with him. So I gave it up and went back to walking on my own. Things stopped all together right before the holidays at the end of last year. I started up on weightwatchers because I didn't want to gain any more weight during the holidays, but my workouts were slim to none.
in total during this five year workout period, I did not have a dramatic weight loss. I did not try to diet, but I was burning some serious calories with the running for awhile there. At the end of this five years I have gained about10 pounds, in addition to the 25 I gained since I started my job 5 years ago, in addition to any leftover weight I had since giving birth to my son (I lost about 70 pounds on weightwatchers 6 years ago but was still not back to my pre-pregnancy weight). This ten pounds also includes any extra poundage from quitting smoking too.
One thing at a time though... Santa brought me Wii EA Sports Active 2 for Christmas and I have been participating in the 90 day challenge ever since. It is pretty much like working with Travis at the gym, except it is in my own home, and far less expensive. It is a start though, and distracts me from what used to be time I spent outside smoking cigarettes after my son went to sleep. I'm in my second month of the 90 day challenge and my weight isn't budging at all!
Then the other night I was on facebook and saw my cousin's friend post some photos from a marathon that she won. I was scrolling through her album and saw her post race photo. Holy Crud! She looked great! I always thought she was a very beautiful girl with very stunning facial features, gorgeous eyes, and the works, but now... look out! She looks awesome! And it was someone I knew! Someone that I had smoked and drank with! It was just so close to home that I had to email her and tell her how great she looked and how I was trying to lose weight and to give me any advice that she could.
I heard nothing back that evening and was so bummed out that she wasn't going to take me seriously. I even emailed my cousin to see if she had any info on how her friend got into such good shape. I just feel like I needed some thing to point me in the right direction and I can grasp on to that wave and ride it all the way home, ya know what I mean???
The next morning there was an email from my cousin's friend responding with all the information I was looking for! I was like a needy little sponge just soaking up each line of the email and taking it all in. Come to find out she had lost 100 pounds in a year for her own personal goals, she detailed some of the things that kept her on track and how she was able to do it. Then she introduced me to sparkpeople.com and here I am!
Right now she is my motivation! It makes me feel completely different to know someone, even if it is a friend of a friend, who has achieved such a great goal physically. It means so much more than reading some random success story. It just hit home in a much different way. I have been struggling with my weight for years now and I am ready to push myself to the limits to end the struggle.
So again, here I am! My day one! Full of inspiration and motivation. I am going to take it one day at a time and appreciate all the little things that I DID do instead of the million and one things I DIDN'T do to help me reach my goals and resolutions. If you have any suggestions or tools that may be helpful please drop me a line! I look forward to setting some goals that can finally be reached!!!!
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