2008: The Best Version of Myself

You are beautiful! It's so great to put a picture to the names! Jeff has great blue eyes and wonderful taste in earrings! :D
 
Mal- haha... they were on his wallet.... ;)

Angel- Thanks for stopping by... yeah super duper happy right now which is the result of feeling better about myself and where I'm going body-wise in the next few months.

Blancita- I am doing great... just fantastic fantastic fantastic!

Steve- The PT is a new development. I was a little hesitant for 2 reasons... 1) I felt like if I hired a PT that it would be conceived, probably only by me, that I had failed to lose weight on my own. 2) The girl is new... only got her cert within the last six months so I was even more hesitant... but she's great. I meet her for a weightlifting session one per week for 30 minutes (can't afford more than that) and she really pushes me hard and when I'm doing it I kind of hate it... but it's the sort of hate that hopefully in time will remind me why I never want to overeat or over-indulge except on very few occasions. And I finally sucked it up to hire her because, and I apologize if I said this before, I needed a big kick of motivation... and I wasn't finding it from within. But now that I'm doing something that impacts my finances, everyday when I plan out my food I have an alterior motive to not waste $35 and it keeps me grounded, motivated, and a lot more scrutinizing when it comes to putting junk in my mouth and getting to the gym. So this was week four of seeing her and I'm noticing changes in strength, how I feel when I workout, and seeing where some of the fat is either going away or becoming a much more pleasant shape makes me feel good... I"m already excited to see what I look like around labor day.

daiseeangel- thanks for the compliment! I'm hoping to be a real knockout once I'm all slenderized like you... and I'm really hoping my stomach looks like yours. and yes, his eyes are gorgeous... such a nice crystal clear blue and also he's got these long beautiful eyelashes that are about a half inch long... and when he's got his eyes closed, his lashes intermingle like they're art work... i'm very jealous!
 
I bought a size 14 pair of jeans at the Gap on Friday which was awesome since when I was in there exactly one month ago I had to buy the 16s because I couldn't fit into the 14s...hooray for me!
 
That is exactly what I used to to do!!! I owned 1 pair of jeans - Gap long and leans. I started at a 16, and now I wear a 6! I always bought the same style and brand to chart my progress! It was so awesome every time that I was able to get into that smaller size!

CONGRATS!!! Enjoy the happiness smaller jeans brings! :D WOOHOO!
 
I hear the waaaaaaaaahbulance coming...

Gap long and leans.

That's actually the style I just purchased and I really like them. They also have out some flared jeans and I really want a pair. Most flared jeans are too bell-bottomy for my but the ones they have seem like they are exactly what I'm looking for. I use to wear boot cut exclusively but lately the boot cuts seem to square to me.

So this week has been something... I had honestly forgotten what bad weeks were like...

Monday- Jeff is in ER with what he thinks is a heart attack... very long story short he has an ulcer and is finally starting to feel better, but man my heart dropped.

Tuesday - Boss is concerned about my workload but a) talks to my coworkers about it and not me... b) put 3 hours of work on my desk an hour before I go home wanting it done that day....then my bank rips me off big time and I get locked out of my apartment.

Wednesday- drop my breakfast on the floor and slice my finger open with a kitchen knife (this proves I'm brilliant)

Thursday- Get a collection letter from the town I use to live in saying Ididn't pay my local 2007 taxes... even though I lived there for only 30 days in 2007, never made a dime in PA in 2007... and still they don't believe I was a Georgia resident.... I make less than $40k a year... I highly doubt I could afford to commute to Georgia every week on some scheme to skipout on $20 in taxes.

Today - In a hurry to get coffee AND make the bus... I always count my change before i leave but I was in a hurry and got stiffed $5 at Starbucks (I think there is a plot to steal my money when I'm not looking this week) and I get to work and reslice open my kitchen knife cut from Wednesday on a file folder.

We're going camping this weekend... come Monday I may be dead or hospitalized with things that can happen when you go camping but never do until you have a wacky week.

But the highlight of this week, and really something that outshines everything except my plight with the bank is that yesterday I was walking into my gym... Kristen, my trainer, stops me and goes.."Wow you look great." I smile and thank her and think oh... just trying to get more money out of me:) But then(!!!) the other trainer comes up to me (he also teaches some of the kickboxing classes I go to), while he's in the middle of working out with his own client, just to tell me how great I look and how my body shape is changing and I look a little less jiggly and more firm... plus he's gorgeous and a boxing champion (just had a 2nd round TKO -a lot of his matches are on BET) so I was thrilled and blushing:beating: Still getting better... the Muay Thai instructor is standing on the edge of our mats last night at class waiting for it to be over so he can gets his guys on the bags for 10 minutes and I'm doing a plank ( pictured here ) and now I am strong enough to put my leg in the air as well and the Muay Thai instructor goes, "That is awesome!". And finally (stop reading if you're thinking I need to shut up :D), Nick who taught class last night always comes around to terrorist-fist-bump with us and say good job at the end of class and he's like "You're getting stronger every class... great work."

It always nice to get one compliment... but getting four last night left me speechless. My body is getting there... I don't really have the pounds down or inches gone that I'd like after the last month of paying my trainer but I need to reign in my eating which has been hard with four weekends of friends in town almost back to back.

I hope everyone has a good Friday and great weekend. If you get the chance send some good Karma my because I think i need it... :willy_nilly:
 
I think I ate a pill of good mood because man am I way too cheery... anyway saw this story and the best part is that before he gets to Hooters, he stops at Racetrak for a drink and some snacks... something tells me this kid was imitating something he saw someone else do... maybe dad perhaps???
 
Hey Girl! Cute pic of you and Jeff.

That is sort of a funny but scary story. I wonder how he had money to purchase snacks too?

TTYL!
 
So August is fast approaching... hell it took me a moment to remember that it's not already August but close enough. Hopefully hopefully hopefully hopefully Jeff and I will be taking a mini-five day vacation over Labor Day. I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. I need a break from work and I need a new experience with new memories and lots pictures. I'm looking toward that weekend as a goal to make some physical changes. I really need to vamp it up... the last six weeks I've been good about making changes that I feel committed to at the moment, I've been pumped about my trainer and now I finally feel that ready from within. I guess I just needed some outward motivation to get the inward going again.

For the next thirty days I've made it a goal to eat 1800 cals everyday. No going over and if I don't go over I'm not going to go under the day after to makeup which I don't feel is good for my body after workouts. I'm going to eat fresher foods... lately it's been a lot of boxed or take out... I've stayed within my cals when doing that... I think the times that I went outside my limits was when friends were in town... but the only guest I have left this summer is my uncle so I think i can afford one dinner... and I will make it a point to stay within 1800. Plus I just feel like shit otherwise. We went camping over the weekend and grabbed some Wendy's on the way home... they had the nutritional info posted on the wall... I opted for a double cheeseburger, not great but I could afford the cals because I hadn't had breakfast... and I just felt disgusting afterward... the whole night through... i barely ate dinner because I felt like lunch hadn't settled. I think that if more people were committed to eating healthy and fresh for two to three weeks that when they got back to fast food or pizzas or sweets they'd be grossed out and wouldn't want to eat like that. It will be a long time before I crave fast food.

I'm also going to try a Leigh Peele recommendation and try to eat whole foods one day a week. It is going to be hard... I'm not sure what I'll do about wanting to eat cheese, milk, cottage cheese but planning will be key.

The one thing I really need to be more vigilent about is making sure I get in at least three cardio workouts and three weight workouts per week. That's not been happening. I made a list of reasons why I want to lose weight in November and it seems outdated. Now I need to get my butt to the store so I can grab a PW meal before my training session tonight... totally forgot to pick anything up at the store last night.
 
It's great news to read that you feel ready from within! It's wonderful to get to the point where you don't have to rely on the outside motivation. I feel like that's when people are definitely the most successful, so YAY for you!!!! :D I'm really glad your trainer helped you to get to that place!

Fresh food is definitely the way to go! Now if only I could get myself to do that... :eek:

I hope you get that vacation that you deserve!!!
 
Fresh food is definitely the way to go! Now if only I could get myself to do that... :eek:

After eating that double cheeseburger, and i LOVE cheeseburgers, I realized that my sauteed chicken breast with some MJ cheese in a soft tortilla shell, fried up in a tbs of evoo with fresh guac for dipping was a lot better than anything I will ever get from Wendy's (save a chocolate frosty:D) And when I stepped on the scale this morning I was two pounds down from yesterday... not sure if it was water weight or what have you, but I guarantee that since i ate everything fresh (except for the tortilla of course) after I got back from the gym last night it had a lot to do with it. Scale wise I never see a change after a night of weightlifting, but I think my body was extremely happy to get all of those natural ingredients... and a bunch of sources of good fats. I'm terrible at getting in good fats.
 
fresh is good...

after a while - i think you develop an unintentional shudder when you get too near processed foods :D

Hamburgers are fresh food by the way :D
 
I looked for Evoo the other day at my Wal Mart, and I couldn't find it!!! Is it where all the oils are?!

I never eat fast food, and I do mean never, but I also don't do fresh food very often. Pretty much everything (aside from the meats) has been processed in one way or the other! :eek:
 
Hamburgers are fresh food by the way :D

My only complaint about hamburgers is the fat content... you need about 80/20 for a juicy one on the grill and I could do without the 20 some grams of cow meat fat. Yet hand me one on a bun with some bbq sauce and feta cheese and I usually forget all about my little quirk ;)
 
Now I need to get my butt to the store so I can grab a PW meal before my training session tonight... totally forgot to pick anything up at the store last night.

What do you eat PW? Just curious. If you find yourself in a bind, a lowfat chocolate milk makes a pretty good PW meal. Most convenient stores will have them.
 
I looked for Evoo the other day at my Wal Mart, and I couldn't find it!!! Is it where all the oils are?!

If it's not with all of the oils, it's probably in the salad dressing aisle near the red wine vinegar. Also if you can get it in a can it's a lot better. Olive oil, or evoo, is best kept out of light exposure and tends to retain a sweeter flavor but it's not going to be bad for you if you get it in the glass bottle. I've got a glass bottle of it because I haven't been the farmer's market recently.
 
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