The strange thing about the locker room...

I am a woman. I know this, but I still get thrown off when I see women just walking around naked.

It's not a nice naked, this is why women go to the gym, i guess...so it's like a conundrum,lol. But it's old wrinkly women that feel the need to sit bare bottomed on the benches. Yeah REREAD that part, bare-bottomed. Her ass and all her goodies up on the public bench ready for the next woman to sit down in all her natural God given juices. Fuckin' nasty!

Umm, isn't that gross? Public property, right? How are you gonna sit on that bench (with who knows what was there or sitting there prior to you sitting there..), can you get STD's that way? How are you gonna put your pussy flat on that bench and not have any remorse or shame!!!

This is a random rant, get used to it. I was repulsed and I think everyone should keep their vaginas on their own towel, in their own panties, and off the damn public benches in the 24 Hour Fitness locker rooms!!

On a more enlightening note, I got my heart rate at 168 and held it for 3 minutes...Eff that. I went 45 minutes, and I am exhausted....like really.

Stay Beautiful People... more to come, more to come :)

Best time to go to gym...

I'm still going strong in the working out department. I'm finding that with my internship, classes and Sigma Tau Delta meetings (My English Honors Society) I really have to schedule in my working out.

So, I have been experimenting with different times that I could go to the gym. I've found that the morning crowd is nicer. My theory behind this is, they haven't started their workday yet so they aren't bitchy yet.

I've found that the afternoon crowd after I get off my internship/work (so this is around 5-6 o'clock) are all impatient, bitter assholes. Yes, I said it. People LITERALLY fighting over machines, people moving water bottles and getting on the machine whether or not there is personal property there!!

My favorite piece of machinery to get my heart pumping is the Elliptical machine BUT if there isn't one open, I found a fancy treadmill. When I say fancy I mean, there are handlebars above the push pad where you can hold on to (and find out your heart-rate) and you can change up incline positioning.

But I was proud of myself because I have begun running on the treadmill! Now some may be like....so what? But what you may or may not know about me is I have triple D's... I'm talking about breasts people!!! So when running, it IS likely I can hurt myself either with the bouncing of my breasts while running and/or getting knocked out by them!! So I started doing it like in sprinting form. I'll slow jog a minute, then add 30 seconds and so on... but most of the time I'm power-walking.

So, I need to talk to Connie, find out what weights and what other excercises I can do to tone up since I've been doing nothing but CARDIO 4/5 times these last 3 weeks. Till next time...

What fits your busy schedule better, exercising one hour a day or being dead 24 hours a day?" ~Randy Glasbergen, Cartoonist~

Sweat = Accomplishment

I’m kind of a bundle of anticipation right now. I haven’t been able to work out for 2 days because I got an intense face peel. I had made the appointment not even considering that it would have an effect on whether or not I would be able to work out to the extreme that my regime had been assigned to me.

I’ve slept in these last couple of days and rather than waking up feeling refreshed, I woke up feeling guilty for not working out. Strange, just two weeks ago I would have no complaint as to whether or not I could sleep through a whole day and not care.

I’m already seeing change in my wants, as far as what I want to accomplish in a day. I mean by rather than after sleeping in till noon. I’d wake up nad plop down on my couch and watch hours of meaningless, poinltless television. And I would occasionally get up and make myself something to eat and resume the marathon of oblivion. Now I feel the need to constantly be in motion, but for these last two days I do enough before I start perspiring. That’s right, I can’t sweat while my dead skin cells work their way off my face. Ridiculous. I was told I COULD work out but just don’t sweat. Okay, that is impossible!

Even growing up I found that I was a “sweat-er,” any form of movement and I’m already worked up. At first I thought this was a side effect to me gaining weight but then I started to recall that everyone in my family just does that. It’s gross when you don’t want ta film of gloss coming through your prestine makeup-ed canvas. I grew up In Palm Springs, California, you would think I’d be used to it, but I’m not. My attitude towards sweating is changing though.

Now when I’m on the elliptical, I think everyone should be so jealous. I’m here busting my ass (literally) and the sweat just seeps out of these pours. Accomplishment, Endurance, Dedication. That’s what everyone is striving for when they work out, right? To feel like they are making a difference. Chugging water passionately as you are keeping your heart rate at 155 and growing feels great, almost invincible. Feel every muscle form your upper torso down to your toes as you take the next stride to victory in your workout session alone is one of your small triumphs in that day.

I miss working out…wait did I just say that?!? Whoa, change is a coming and boy, am I ready for it!!!

“There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction.”
~Winston Churchill~

Mom the Motivation

Okay, so maybe people may not be looking at me. But perhaps the reason I think they are because I am ashamed on some level to be as big as I am.

I was never destined to have a petite figure, if you look at the women in my family it would be more understandable. I’m wanting to make this change so that I’m healthy. So that I don’t end up forever struggling with my weight like I watched my mother do all my life. There was times I saw her give up and stick her head into another bowl of buttered popcorn, and had hidden candy bars in her dresser drawers, and then there was times (unfortunately) toward the end of my mother’s life that I saw her actually changing her efforts. She made the changes too late. Doctors blame her obesity for her breast cancer that came back and spread through her shoulders and then to her brain.

I never got to have a heart to heart with her about being a young adult woman because I was only eighteen when she passed away. Did she gain all the weight after high school? Was it having the three kids and never being able to get the weight off? I’ll never really know. But all I know is I need to change MY habits now. I don’t have children now, so I want to be ahead of the game. If I have good habits when that time comes perhaps I won’t be drowning in regrets for the rest of my life. Maybe my fat won’t end up ending my life. Maybe, I might have a chance at living the right way.

I’m on Day 2 of going to the gym/ eating differently.

I’m increasing my time with Cardio 5 minutes at a time. For 5 consecutives I’ve been told by Connie (aka Personal Trainer/friend) to focus on Cardio this week. My given target heart rate was 165. I thought this would be easy.

Needless to say, I got to 17 minutes and felt as if I was going to pass out. And in my frenzy of trying to slow my heart down when it reached 162, it then flew up to 173…I then had to stop. I was unable to breathe, and I felt faint. My first thought was, Pathetic. I went to the locker room and laid on a bench to catch my breath as I began turning beat red, and I felt the blood rushing to the surface of my chest and face. I then decided I wasn’t done. So I did a few stretches, and headed back out to the intimating floor of already precondidtioned healthy individuals on their separate machines. I got on the treadmill, and I briskly walked on it for 15 minutes, I felt good. I didn’t give up! I completed my 35 minutes at the gym and I felt exhausted!

I’ve worked out before but I never felt like this, maybe this will work. I’m convinced that this is the way to put my body in check and it will be my bitch, ha!

So my energy runs low today, but I’m excited for the change that is necessary in my life.

“I may not be there yet, but I'm closer than I was yesterday.” ~Author Unknown~

I AM THAT BIG GIRL

Reluctantly, I’ve decided t come to terms with my paranoia of being looked at with judged eyes. It’s not so much paranoia when people are really looking at you. The saying of “Ignorance is Bliss,” is what I’ve been doing for the last couple of years and enough is enough. I am a 25, getting ready to turn 26, female who came from a small town (Palm Springs) and moved to Orange County to get away from my old life. But, I’m tired of feeling self-conscious of walking down an aisle in a classroom (or any public venue) between the desks hoping I don’t knock over someone’s book,laptop, notes etc.

I’m tired of not feeling motivated in the morning to get dressed, because I know damn well none of my clothes will fit. The jeans that can't cover my extra "roll" without giving me camel-toe, sit at my waist. This would be fine if my excess stomach didn’t disgustingly hang over the top (a WTF muffin top). So instead of jeans, I thank God that leggings are in right now because I know they won’t leave my skin irritated and chafed from being too tight.

I’m tired of having to find shirts that are flowy, so I can mask the WTF muffin top. And find a top that is long enough to cover up half of my ass because if it was left completely unsheathed someone would be forced to give it it’s own zip code.

I’m tired of avoiding to look in the mirror when I’m brushing my teeth, washing my face, or even putting on makeup. This can be a challenge, but I have to focus on the one part of face to make sure I don’t look at it as a whole. It’s all about angles. If you look at me head on, you can see the double chin forming, just there! Hanging there in mid-air, an area that should be tight, AND there it should definitely should be smooth enough to tell that there is ONE chin and there is a neck following it sometime after.

I’m tired of double thinking outfits because I can’t find a light jacket or shawl type thing to wear to cover my arms that (when rested and flattened) become their own plateau of land.

I’m tired of rethinking shorts because when I walk they creep up in the middle of my thighs because my thighs provide so much friction that the material can’t just stay where I pulled in just a few moments ago.

I’m tired of never being able to wear a bikini because it’s just not right when I think I can. So I’ve become a tankini girl. You know the bathing suit that covers your midsection so you don’t revolt everyone else and yourself when trying to jump with the waves in the ocean.

ALL OF THESE THINGS I’M TIRED OF MAY SOUND LIKE SELF-LOATHING, but it’s not. I’m realistic. I recognize that I have these irrational thoughts and fears. Anxiety then stems from it and then I’m left losing a little part of me somewhere in the obesity of my physical being. I didn’t think I was fat. I called myself curvy, and I was proud of that. But when you are walking through a department store and you happen to look over to a mirrored column and see a reflection that you (yourself) judge as a big-girl mess… And then after a longer gaze you realize that that girl is you. This immediately ends your want to shop for shoes, purses, makeup (you know any of those things that will always fit because it’s not clothing with a number), because you want to run away from that truth and conceal yourself into your own apartment where there is not strangers judging, columned mirrors, or a scale to tell you how big you actually are.

I used to turn to food, but that relationship is going on an “only need” basis. No more “just becauses.” I have decided to make myself accountable, and I turned to my friend (Connie, who happens to be a personal trainer) to take my measurements and take pictures of my progress. And with writing this blog, I hope to have recordings to remind myself why I started this “change.” And when it all seems difficult and too hard, I need to remember where I started and if I stop now, where I could end up if I don’t continue.

This is me, this is the new me in 2011.

“When you do nothing, you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved, you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better.” ~Author Unknown~

Measurements

I went over to Connie's tonight. And really she has been an inspiring person to witness get into shape. She went from being 300 pounds plus to a petite,motivated woman who shed the weight and loves getting into shape so much that she became a personal trainer! She is one of my really good friends. So good in fact, that I went to her (out of trust) for her to put me on track with what I have to do to get to my goal weight. My goal ultimately is to be around 150/160. I've got a ways to go.

So as of 1/10/2011, my beginning weight is 246.5. I was really thrown off by this. I hadn't stepped on a scale in a little over 2 years and honestly that moment proved to me that I've been living in denial as to how big I actually was. She went on to measure the rest of my body...

(Right Side)

Neck: 16

biceps: 13.5

forearms: 11

wrist: 7


*Boobies: 50
*Chest: 47
*Waist @ Belly button = 52.5 } Waist should be @ .82 but I'm currently @ .98--- It's some average thing, I'll have to have her clear this up :)
*Hips: 51.5

*Quads: 29 3/4
*Calf: 17 3/4


This session was brutally honest and I have to say it was a moment of being real with myself. I left frustrated and felt like crying. How did I get back to this point? I did so well when I moved away from the desert. Well, I know what I have to do. I just have to stick to it.

So for starters:

1) No more Beer, gosh I love beer....no more beer pong tourneys, no more beers right after class...

2) No more Soda, Lemonade anything with caffiene and/ or high sugar

3) Cut down on my starch intake... Pizza, pasta, Any form of potato (omg i love this shit) etc.

4) Will make lunch/dinner...no more quick fixes. No more fast food!

5) Exercise (any form) 4-5 times a week

With these first 5 things I should start seeing and feeling differently. Here's to change!

“I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” ~Jimmy Dean~