Meetings.

I've decided to start doing meetings because doing it alone isn't working anymore. I went last night and I felt like I needed to be there. It was great. I weighed in at 145.6 lbs and my goal weight is set at 135 lbs. My goal is to lose .5 lbs a week because it's manageable. That way I should be at goal by January 1st. I think part of my difficulty is that I've been unrealistic about my weight loss goals and just expecting it to magically happen.

I'm proud of my progress and feel like I can commit to this. I have been working really hard at my weight lifting routine and it feels great plus I got a compliment on my tricep last weekend! Never have I ever had a compliment on any muscle. It made me feel like a stone-cold fox.

Benched- Warning: Angry post.

I am feeling really frustrated. After a really great work out Wednesday I felt so confident and strong and back on the road to recovery. The last two nights though my leg has been really, really hurting. I called my physical therapist and I've been benched. Agh! It just sucks. Feeling so empowered and then having it taken away. And it's hard for me not to feel angry- angry at my body, angry at the physical therapists who misdiagnosed me and took hundreds of my dollars and hours of my time with zero benefit. I'm starting at zero again, and although it's going better than it did the first time around, I'm not going to be all better, which was my unrealistic and very optimistic expectation.

The worst part is that my leg is a phantom malady. It isn't a specific problem but several different problems including a bad ankle, uneven hips, stiff heels, and extremely, freakishly tight muscles so it's so hard to identify what causes what pain, what to avoid. I don't know why it hurts so much today - is it the yoga I did on Tuesday, overdoing physical therapy stretches, the way I sit at work, my crappy sandals, my warm up, carrying too much at work (literally, boxes, etc), the way I slept last night?

I should probably just track the pain the way I track my points and look for patterns. Just one more thing.

Moving Weight.

Good news! Although I did not stay on track last week, it was very active with all of my activities, which must have compensated for something because in the last two weeks I lost 2.5 lbs. I am now at 145 lbs. and only 10 lbs away from goal weight. Hurrah!

One of the reasons my weigh ins are so inconsistent is because I've only been using the scale at the Uptown Y but I switch off between Uptown and Midtown frequently. My scale at home is totally crappy and will change up to 1.5 lbs within 5 minutes. How do you all weigh in?

It's been a pretty active week so far, canoing Monday, yoga Tuesday, gym today. I had some personal training sessions and developed a weight routine that I really enjoy and have actually been looking forward to all day. I went so long without feeling the pleasure of really making my body work. It's so good to be active again.

Oh, and here's a link to a recipe website that I really like and is very pretty to look at.

I think one of my goals for the weekend will be to try and make this blog a little more attractive and even develop a mission about what I need it to accomplish for me. So far it's just been a hodge podge of thoughts without any truly significant aims. I think this could be an excellent tool if I just identified how I want to use it.

Starting Over...Again.

Hello blogland,

After working way too much, eating too much, not sleeping enough, and feeling very stressed I have finished all of my events at work and feel ready to start devoting myself to weight loss the way I had before. I think I just forgot how much it actually takes to devote myself to this and I keep thinking, it should be easier if I already did it...but I really think about that time and it was the number one thing in my mind almost all the time. So, anyway, I am feeling more confident and committed to this than I have in a long time. So that's that.

Anders and I have decided to go to Ecuador over Thanksgiving and it provides a really excellent goal for losing weight and making my leg better so that we can do all of the physically demanding/amazing activities there are like mountain climbing and swimming and hiking and walking miles and miles and miles. So very excited.

On Monday we decided on a whim to go to St. Croix river. For $40 you can rent a canoe, life jackets, and get a shuttle to pick you up and take back the canoe. It was really fun and I'd highly recommend it. It was a perfect day.



Turtles are cute.


"We're canoing!"


On the shuttle home.

My goal tonight is to grocery shopping with a couple of recipes in mind and cooking and the Y tomorrow. Off to my gentle yoga class.

Up, up and away

So much has happened over the last month or two. Basically it was decided that my knee was not the problem and that the last 6 - 7 months of endless stretching, copays, and physical therapy sessions were a waste. The good news is that it was determined that the problem is my ankle and we are working to improve it. The pain has improved A LOT. I can sleep at night and don't feel like one leg weighs 100 lbs more than the other. I'm slowly easing back into exercise and have started doing personal training at the Y. I have a weight lifting routine that I really like and for the first time in ages I look forward going to the Y because I don't just have to walk slowly/backwards on the treadmill. Hurrah. I'm up to 147.5, which sucks, because that's a 7.5 lb gain since August, but considering that physically I was very limited, it makes me feel less bad. However, I feel like I'm back on the road to recovery because I finally have options again that felt like they were missing so long.

I feel like this is what I write in every blog, but I have faith that I can really hunker down and do it. I have support from Anders and my friend Maddie, I can do physical activity again, I am not so insanely busy and have time to cook, and I'm just in that place where I can say no to things.

A brownie came with my salad today and I left it on the plate. The owner of the business noticed and said "So that's how you stay so trim." It felt really good.

I do think one of my challenges is kind of feeling like I'm in it alone...I'm considering doing meetings over lunch break, but we'll see.

Here are some of my fitness goals. I'd like to get down to 135 lbs and I would like to be able to do a push up. That's right, after 8 months with no strength training or intensive cardio, I cannot even do an on my knees girl push up. I am like an unmolded lump of clay who will be carved into some sort powerful Norse God.

That's all folks.