Too much pressure

I have a problem. I start things thinking that I can maintain them. Like this blog for instance. I think I have enough to say and a certain way of saying things and it ends up that I don't. At least not enough to justify writing about it. I need to make more of an effort and make less of an emphasis on whether what I actually have to say is noteworthy enough to write about. Frankly, this blog should just be about what I need to vent or talk about, not whether I think people will read it. So that is my resolution for right now. I will still write when I want to, and hopefully I will make more of an effort.

Getting Results

So I haven't written since my second PT session, and now I am on my 7th (which is tomorrow). Things have changed a lot. My endurance is higher, meaning I don't get dizzy or throw up or feeling sick. I love it. And now I have more guidelines as to what I can do to maintain my muscle tone without looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger--haha. But the best part is that I am seeing results. I have lost 6 lbs so far. Yay! Now all I have to do is lose the rest. Although, seeing that change on the scale will be more motivation to lose the rest, now that I know I can do it. I've still been walking with Tasha when my schedule allows it. And with this gorgeous Montana spring that we are having! I love it! I really hope that it means a hot summer...which a lot of people hate, but I love.

Speaking of summer, I cannot wait for the pool to open. I am sick of trying to juggle three jobs and school and still try to find the time to hang out with people that are important to me. It's sad that I literally have to plan like a week in advance to see someone because of scheduling. The pool is my favorite place in the summer. The children are a pain in the butt a lot of the time, but some of them are so amazing and great. I love the people I work with and my boss is the best boss I could ever ask for...ever. This will be my 4th summer and sadly probably my last. This job is seriously such a blessing in my life. I get to spend my days with a boss who is more like my older sister and hang out with my soulsie and all my "little siblings." But I have to wear blasted sunscreen this summer. I have accumulated a lot of new freckles and some of them are kinda dark...which could obviously lead to some problems. So I am being good this summer, sunscreen every day and more than once a day.

But what I am probably more excited about this summer is the fact that I am graduating!!! So I don't know if anyone read the post about being frustrated. Well guess what!?! I was right from the very stinking beginning!! So just a recap: I was signing up for graduation this spring last November. I knew I had enough credits to graduate this spring, but when going through everything, my advisor tells me that I am 13 credits shy of graduating in the spring. I was devastated. I ran to my car and burst into tears. Well the last couple of days I was signing up for graduation again and I had to pick 13 random credits for next semester which is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I had to have at least one upper division (300 or higher) credit and then whatever I wanted. I signed up for 14 credits and went in one last time to get everything finalized. Guess what, I am TWO credits shy NOT 13!! So we worked it out and I am going to be graduating this summer by taking my last upper division credit with Spanish Phonetics and I will be done by JUNE!!! Gah!!! It was such a relief. I won't be able to walk, but if I graduated in the fall, I wouldn't have walked anyway, so it's not a bug deal. I would've liked to walk but oh well. I don't care. Because I am going to be done!!!

Alright, speaking of being done, I need to do homework so I can pass my classes this semester--haha.

Not that bad

So I had my second go around with my PT and it was a lot better this time. I still got really dizzy and had to sit/lay down once or twice, but overall it was good. She had me do a pyramid of ten, only going down, thankfully. I don't think I could have done it all the way back just yet. I didn't realize how out of shape I actually am. It's kinda sad to say the least. But it makes me want to work harder to get back into shape. On my off days, Cara (PT), only wants me to do cardio so I don't do anything to upset what she is trying to do. I meet again with her tomorrow...my legs are going to be sore.

But along with the PT, I went on a this walk/hike with my sister-in-law, Tasha. Man, it's a killer. It's around 5 or 6 miles. Uphill...well a lot of uphill. It really kicks your butt. But it's a lot of fun to be able to do it. It took a while for my legs to warm up to be able to walk normally. I've been walking kind of weird lately and I don't know why, but I can definitely feel it. When I had my surgery I use to hitch, or limp, my left leg and compensate on my right. Now I am hitching my right leg and compensating with my left, which is really odd to me because my right leg has always been stronger. I don't like it. It feels really off.

Overall, though, I am really liking the getting back into exercise and getting healthy. The diet is hard, but at least I like veggies and fruit. Yummy!! Speaking of which, I should probably eat...after this I will. I still need to cook more. Last week was really hard because I was house sitting and I worked every night during dinner time. I did make myself dinner (around 3) before work and ate the leftovers after work. But most of the time I would eat before work, get hungry during work and be ravenous by the time work was over. Which was usually late. I need to work on a better eating schedule. It's just kind of hard when I work at night...during dinner time. All this talk about food is making me hungry. I'm gonna go eat :)

E.P.I.C. Fail

So I finally signed up for my personal trainer on Tuesday. I was so excited and nervous at the same time. I don't know about you, but I don't really like having someone constantly watch how I work out, but this is for a better reason, so I should probably just get over that. Anyway, she finally calls on Wednesday morning to set up for Thursday morning, yay!! So I had my first training session yesterday at 8:30 am.

I will still kinda tired but that's because I didn't go to bed early enough. But I went in thinking that I would do well at whatever she was going to make me do...boy, was I wrong. She had me do a fitness test just to gage where I was and how hard she could push me. I did the first, I think three, pretty well and then it went down hill...this is where the fail part happens. My heart started racing so fast, I was incredibly dizzy and I was coughing all over the place. So we had to stop half way through and little baby, pathetic me had to lie down and catch her breath. Once I had my heart rate down, she and I kinda power walked around the gym and then I had to excuse myself to go to the bathroom. To puke. It was just lovely. So up came my breakfast and down went my fitness test. EPIC FAIL. After puking I felt a little better so she had me finish a lower impact version of the rest of my fitness test. Then we talked about what I was going to be doing with her over the next 7 sessions. Lots of pyramid stuff, fitness test stuff and cardio. Sounds good to me. After it was over, she was so nice and understanding about it by the way, I walked to my car and drove home.

I was so mad at myself. Completely ashamed. Granted I have been sick for almost three weeks and during that time I did not go to the gym because every time I tried to do almost any kind of exercise, I almost coughed up a lung. So I could've worked out but not in a good way. Like I wouldn't have gotten anything done that made a difference. Jordin thinks I am being too hard on myself. I think I am too. But I have higher expectations of myself when it comes to fitness and being healthy, which is why gaining all this weight has been hard and annoying to me. I know what I can look like and I determined to get back to where I was. I know that bodies change as you get older and as a female, it's going to be a lot harder to lose weight as I get older, but like I said, I'm determined. But here's to looking forward to a better session next time. No more throwing up or wussing out.

Day One

So as I said in the previous entry, I am starting my new "diet" today. I was suppose to start with my personal trainer today, too, but I am still sick (two weeks in the making). So I am not starting with my PT until I am 100%, which is hopefully soon.

The "diet." I am using the parentheses because it's really not a diet, it's more of being conscious of what I eat, when I eat and how much I eat. I plan on eating lots of veggies, lots of fruit, lots of protein (mainly chicken, fish and eggs) and whole oats. I have to cut back on bread and eating late which I think is the biggest reason that I have gained the weight that I have. So this morning, I am have a protein shake, a banana and a cup of coffee.

Another thing that I will be doing is recording my weight day to day. I might not blog every day but I will always put a weight at the end of the post. I was thinking about doing before and after pictures but I think I might do that once everything is going in the right direction....aka when I am not sick. Maybe I'll do it at the end. I don't know...we'll see how I feel. So here goes the weight...I currently weigh 160.2 lbs at 5'3". This is the most I've weighed since losing a ton of weight from my knee surgery, where I went from 175 lbs to 115 lbs. It wasn't a healthy weight loss because it was caused by muscle loss and not being able to eat due to my pain medication. My doctor actually got mad at me for being semi-anorexic. But after I was able to eat I was able to maintain a weight of 125 to 130 lbs. So that is my goal, 130 lbs. If I fluctuate between 130 and 135 I am okay with that. Also, another thing with this weight loss, eating healthier thing, I am not buying any new clothes (unless necessary, like for work or bras, undies or socks) until I am down closer to my new weight. It's going be kinda hard because Target always calls my name and the bright colors are hard to ignore, but I am determined to not buy anything. I know I will feel a lot better in my clothes once I am have lost some weight.

 This is going to be a long process and I know I am going to have to be patient but I know the results are totally going to be worth it. Day by day.

Some changes are afoot...

So I finally have a real reason to write in this stupid thing. I say stupid thing because I love the idea of writing a blog but I never felt like what I was thinking was good enough to write about...hence the fact that I haven't written since November.

But anyway, changes. Changes are good...mostly. A lot of people fear change, I can honestly say that I am one of those people sometimes, but I am hoping that these changes will turn that fear into a fleeting feeling. I am making some choices to that pertain to my physical body but will also affect my emotional and mental.

I have always been an active person. I like to be outside, I like to work out, go hiking and stuff like that. But recently, I have found that it is way easier to be lazy that it is to wake up before class to go to the gym. I usually like to go after class because I have more time, but lately I have been opting out and I don't like that about myself. So I am signing up for a personal trainer at the gym, 12 half hour sessions. I am looking for a new work out routine that's not based on muscle building, which has been my base since high school. I need to change my routine to toning, slimming down and more consistency. Hopefully this will kick my butt into gear.

Secondly, I usually try to eat healthy as much as I can, but it's so easy to not eat healthy because it's easier than cooking or making the conscious effort to find healthier food. My biggest weakness, food wise, is bread. I love eating bread all the time. French bread, toast, bread sticks, bread, bread and more bread. But another issue I've been having is eating late. Jordin, my boyfriend, works late some nights and I wait to eat with him. Well that means eating anywhere from 9 to 11 pm, and by that time neither one of us really want to cook and we just want something easy to eat. Pizza is one of our late night guilty food pleasures. Jordin loves pizza and now I do because we eat it so much. So along with the personal trainer, I am starting my first real diet. Lots of protein, veggies, fruits and sadly, less bread. No late night eating, no more soda, baked sweets and candy.

It's obviously going to be hard in the beginning but it's time for some healthy changes in my life. Hopefully, along with these changes, I'll be able to jump start some of the other decisions that I have to make. So I am going to be using this blog, the stupid thing, to record how these changes affect my life. I hope that I am able to keep up with the blog as well as the other challenges I have set before myself, but I am determined. Here it goes...

Frustrated

I am so incredibly frustrated right now. School has always make me incredibly frustrated. Not because it's hard or because it's time consuming. It's because every single year there has been some kind of glitch that has made my school career incredibly, indescribably frustrating.

My freshman year I went in to get all my stuff in order for my first semester. I went in to figure out my FAFSA stuff and they said I didn't get FAFSA because I was in the military. Ummmm.....what? No, that would be my brother, Kyle. Two months later, it was sorted out. Sophomore year, on my FAFSA form, I was my mother...for some reason that matters? But either way, it was another two months before that was fixed. Junior year, oh dear Missoula, screwed me over by making me walk around campus for four hours in the snow trying to get one form signed to change my major. And this year, my senior year, the cherry on top of everything. I got a letter saying that with all my credits, I needed to meet with my advisor to go over graduation stuff. YAY!! So excited, finally getting to graduate, right? Wrong. I go in today to talk to my advisor for my graduation papers. Guess what? I have 13 random credits to fill. Random credits. I can take gym, painting and philosophy and it's all ok. It doesn't matter that they have no merit to my degree, I just have to take them. It's complete BS! Oh and I forgot, I also have 4 hours of upper division Spanish to do as well. I hate the Montana school system. They can go suck a duck. Gahh!!!!!

So as soon as I left my advisers office and got in my car, I burst into tears and bawled all the way home. I am frustrated and stressed and all I want to do is curl up on the couch. Which is exactly what I am going to do. Sleep.