A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Here’s a surprise to no one who knows me at all, I ran last night. Even as I typed the words last night I knew that if I was of able body and mind that I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to run. Especially given the difficult days that lay ahead for me. When I wrote it out that I needed to run 4 of the next 6 days how could I not run last night? Now I’m down to needing to run 3 out of the next 5 days. So much more do-able. I do agree with my commenters (yeah for commenters!) I probably need to look into some speed interval training of some sort. As much as I completely adore just running and running I know there is something to be said for mixing it up in terms of intervals.

Last night I ran my normal and then I ran halls balls for 6 minutes, walked 2, ran halls balls for 4 minutes and then walked 2. That is how I finished by run. In the end doing it this way produced the same outcome, 10.25 miles, 1400 calories burned. Plus I do think it’s better for my body. I am going to have to look into that some more as an option. I know I need to change something up but I am a creature of comfort and habit. Thus taking me 9 years to discover the true benefits of water. Hopefully it doesn’t take as long for me to get my head out of my ass and try something different. I really should be more open to change as the water thing has proven.

Actually last night I pretty much kicked ass. Sometimes I think we as humans do better when faced with a whole series of challenges. I say bring them on. I came home, immediately cleaned out the truck for my husband. I did the dishes, changed into workout clothes, picked up a little and then hit the treadmill for my run. Biggest Loser Episode 3. I do love new episodes. I think this season is getting better. I understood the kids purpose a little bit more this episode and was glad to see the nutritionist go to their houses and raid there cupboards. Still not 100% on board but its better.

Anyhow, I cannot deny the lure of a new episode. But I was shocked to hear them say in one of those contest things win a chance to see this season’s finale live on March something… I’m like what? This season ends the end of March? It just barely began. Ugh. That is only like 12 weeks away. Is this season really only going to have 12 episodes? Some seasons have like 20 episodes. Discouraging to say the least. Thank god for my hulu plus subscription. It has been a life saver for me for sure!

After running I hauled ass around the house and picked up some more, put away some bags of couponed items that have been sitting on the dining room floor for 2 nights. I collected all the garbage from the house as this morning was garbage day. I found and sorted kids birthday presents. (I didn’t wrap them, but just getting them out was the first step). I then showered, blow dried my hair (this is a process unto itself!) moisturized my face and then made some dinner. All before my husband came home from work. I felt accomplished. I can get it all done when I really try!

So I broke out some new shampoo last night. I opted to try some Tressemme and I have to say I really liked it. My hair smells wonderful today and I’m pretty happy so far. My only complaint is this… the shampoo comes with one of those pumps on the top. Why is it that every pump never actually pumps enough for you to use? I feel like I have to pump and pump and pump to get enough shampoo/conditioner/body wash for me to use. Maybe I use too much but come on; the amount in one squirt is pitiful! Annoying!

Tomorrow morning if all things go according to plan as I often do try to plan out my entire life so regimented, I should be down 40 pounds to date since October. While I might not be quite ready to reveal my weights yet I do have some pictures that I will go ahead and post that I’ve taken all since January 5 so in the last two weeks. I don’t know the exact dates but these are over 3 different days. Please keep in mind that I still have like 35 pounds to lose but I’m not unhappy with the way I look. Also keep in mind that self-portraits snapped in a mirror on an i-phone leave a lot of room for improvement. These are also 100% completely authentic and undoctored in any way. What you see is what you get. This is me right now. As you can see I have been playing an awful lot lately with skinny jeans and boots. I am quite in love actually and have various boots in various lengths or heights or whatever you want to call it.



It’s crazy to me because I don’t hate myself in these photos but my weight right now in these photos is above where I have in my lifetime started weight watchers at. The number I see on the scale still scares the crap out of me. I am still considered OBESE on those stupid unrealistic BMI scales. At various points in my life I would still cry at seeing the number I am now today. And yet here I am, not completely hating myself. I also wonder how completely messed up my body image truly is. I mean, I know it’s messed up. I can look in the mirror and be completely happy with what I see and think I’m doing great and I am not really that big. And then I look at the number on the scale and I realize that I still AM a big girl. That someone who weighs what I weigh is not small and therefore what I’m seeing in the mirror and all that self-confidence has to be a lie.

Most of the mirrors I see make me feel like I am looking good or doing good but I have this one mirror in my house that I call the “truth mirror”… I don’t know why you have to have one of those but as good as the other mirrors make me feel or distort my view this one mirror, anytime I walk by it and catch a glimpse of myself reminds me how far I have to go still. I don’t know if this mirror is one of those fun house mirrors that makes you gain like 20 pounds or if all the rest are just messed up. But this one mirror, which happens to be in my hall, is large and produces full body images, makes me question everything. It provides me with the visual image of what my mind tells me someone who weighs what I weigh must REALLY look like. I have a love/hate relationship with that mirror.

As good as I may be feeling it just takes one look in that mirror to put me back in my place. I know that I still have 35-40 more pounds to lose and they are important pounds, the pounds that tone you up, and really make you look smaller. These first 40 pounds are the ones that people hardly notice. In fact there is not a soul in my life who has said anything about me losing weight or looking better. I keep thinking seriously, 40 pounds makes no difference? I mean I feel it. But this is just the stage in the game half way thru where this is the reality; people don’t want to say things. I get it.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t have a life time of been there done that to constantly compare to and draw upon. Each time you lose weight it is different. I have to quite holding myself up to the standards previously set by me. Every time I do this I am a different person at a different place in my life. I feel like at 33 years old I am quite a lot more grown up than that stupid naïve 24 year old who first walked into weight watchers. I am honestly so much happier overall now then that 24 year old girl ever was. I have to quite telling myself that I can’t possibly like the girl I see in the mirror today weighing what I weigh. Just because that 24 year old girl hated herself at this weight doesn’t me I have to hate the picture I see. I have lived my life, I have struggled with my weight for the past 9 years and THAT girl CAN be proud of herself at the weight she is today. It is not the end goal by any means, but I don’t feel like I am some gross gigantic girl who will be stared at in public for being a slobby fat mess. Believe me I had those days months ago.

So in honor of the reality that my life is made up of lots of little steps and self-discovery along the way I bring you today’s pinterest…. (Man I’ve got a lot of great ones in there I’m waiting to share, but I seem to try and pull one’s each day the relate to what I’ve just talked about!)

Options

So to whoever commented yesterday on my post (unknown) Thank you! I say thank you because I post this shit and I meant what I said yesterday about it keeping me accountable but I wonder if it really matters at all and then there you are reminding me that for a small little nanosecond it matters. It matters to keep myself honest. I really appreciate it.

Last night I came home and dragged a little bit. Instead of immediately getting on the treadmill I allowed myself to linger doing other things which in turn made it harder to want to get on the treadmill. I did anyway. I played the you only have to run for 30 minutes card. Yeah… I kept running. What is a strange phenomenon for me is that the first 5 minutes are always killer, the hardest by far and then minutes 5-10 are still a little strained and then once 10 minutes kicks in my body just goes. Except that I could tell my legs were tired. I can still tell today my legs are tired. I guess that is from the running exploits of the last three days combined.

Anyhow back to my strange phenomenon. When I am “done” or my body knows it has finished my allotted workout I suddenly inevitably always get a second wind. Perhaps it’s because my body was holding a little something back. I knew I wanted to run 8 miles last night. It wasn’t completely easy. I struggled a little and then was grateful when I had finished. I walked for like 2 minutes to cool down and then looked at my Garmin and I always like to end things on good round numbers so I decided I was just going to run FAST for a minute or so to finish up my run with a nice round number. Yeah, so after running 8 miles thinking I had done all my body could do, just to round things out I RAN faster than I have for a couple minutes and it felt GREAT! Then I walked another 2 minutes and was at 9.25 miles and then was like fuck it lets go for 10. I bumped the speed back up and RAN hardcore for 5 minutes. Proud of myself.

All the while wondering where this surge of energy came from and then it left me wondering if I have it all the time but my body is just keeping it in reserves because it fears I will want it to run for hours and it wants to hold something back. When I “told” my body I was done it suddenly felt free to release that extra energy in faster bursts. I don’t know. But I just find it odd that I struggle and then miraculously find energy to hall ass thru two more miles faster than I’ve gone before.

Needless to say my legs are very tired today. As I sit here at my desk I can feel them… being tired… I guess that’s because Saturday I ran 15.27 miles, Sunday I ran 8.11 miles and Monday I ran 10 miles… that’s 33.38 miles in 3 days. Definitely equals tired legs. So I am not committing myself to anything tonight. But I’m not ruling it out either. I’m still trying to mentally tweak my plan for the next couple days with the impending road trip this weekend. Hmm…. What to do. I also have lots of stuff to accomplish tonight. I feel like I should wrap some birthday presents, the whole reason for the road trip. I also need to clean out the truck as its leaking oil and tomorrow Chris is driving it to work to have it looked at while he is at work. He requested I clean it out since like ummm…. I keep it rather dirty. Not a clean girl here at all! I make no promises tonight. I am toying with a few options.

Option 1:
Run tonight.
Hall ass to do all my chores.
Take tomorrow off from running.
Run Thursday night.
Wake my ass up early Friday and run before work (sometimes extreme circumstances call for extreme measures but this might be too extreme for me!)
Take Saturday off (while at families)
Run Sunday night when I get home.

Option 2:
Take tonight off.
Leisurely do my chores around the house.
Run Wed. night.
Run Thursday night.
Take Friday off (no early wake up run)
Run Saturday at my sister’s house
Run Sunday night when I get home.

Both of these plans involve 4 runs in the next 6 days. I am comfortable with that. Actually that is a must/a priority. 4 out of the next 6 days I need to run. Just not sure which of these options will work out the best for me. But at least I am thinking of a plan, so I’m at least one step ahead of the game so far I think. But here I go again committing it to paper that I want to run 4 out of the next 6 days so there’s that.

I guess the decision is going to be made spur of the moment tonight after work depending on how my legs are feeling and what I feel like when I get home. I am motivated by the lure of a new Biggest Loser I haven’t watched yet. We will just see.

I also have to admit something else; all previous times of doing weight watchers I never really ate all my points. I was always like less is more. I would be hard pressed to NOT eat all my points this time around. Something about either the new system (this is the first time I’ve done points plus), the reality of me actually eating breakfast (I consistently eat 8 points for breakfast now) or all this exercise just leaves me hungry. I eat every dang point most days and sometimes that does and sometimes that doesn’t even take into account the “extras” I nibble on here or there. Case in point last night I solidly without question ate my 28 points and THEN on top of it I ate 4 peppermint Hershey’s kisses and I put my spoon into the whipped cream cheese a few times. Not a big deal I realize but those are definitely extra’s I’m not tracking. I mostly think of those as my weekly flex points which I don’t use. Or else my exercise points for the day too. It’s not a big deal but it would be a big deal to NOT eat my points.

I honestly believe because the point values are higher on points plus coupled with the reality of eating breakfast that I mostly can’t help it. I am usually at 15 points going into the evening only leaving me 13 points. I am actually scared about dropping points as I lose more weight. I don’t see a lot of give in my points. But I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

I am really secretly, but now not so secretly to lose 2.4 pounds this week on Thursday because that would put me at 40 pounds lost. Okay, I am actually hoping to lose 2.5 pounds because that puts me into another ten digit on the scale…. I swear soon I am actually going to post my real numbers, but not just yet. Give it another couple weeks and I will post dates and weights to go with it. Just got to work up to it. Anyhow 2.5 pounds might be a tall order but it would be nice. Since I honestly don’t peek at the scale ever I have no idea. We will have to wait and see on Thursday morning I guess.

I can honestly say that with the more weight I lose the more energy I have overall and the easier it is to run. I feel better on a daily basis. I feel more in control and today I am proud of that. So with that in mind here is today’s pinterest.

Word Accountability

Today has completely flown by which is really nice for a change. Since the moment I got into work I have been busy and haven’t had a second to stop and think. What this does is mean that I don’t stop and think about my food or being hungry or overthink my entire food/day situation. I actually wish more days were like this. It is already 3:15 PM and I just barely now have a moment to ponder anything.

Yesterday I decided that I liked coming here and writing things down because it keeps me accountable. I think that was the whole point of starting to blog like 9 years ago to begin with. In particular last Friday I was torn on when to exercise or my plan for the weekend. I wrote that between Friday-Sunday I just wanted to get in two workouts, take one day off. If I had not wrote this and made it all official I probably would have bagged on exercise yesterday. In the back of my mind I knew I wrote those words so somehow yesterday evening I made myself run. And I am grateful for that! Accountability on track….

Friday night I did nothing. I came home and did nothing. I did not have a great Friday so I really didn’t mind. But what happens when I don’t exercise is I start to almost instantly get down on myself or feel yucky. I know I need a break. I appreciate giving my body a break. I just don’t like the lack of the high I get or rather don’t get when I don’t exercise. It leaves me feeling defeated. Saturday morning I got up and hung out with my mom. We did a little shopping, went back to Costco where I got some more water bottles and a new food scale and then I ran my epic longest greatest run yet (see Saturday’s post).

Saturday night was low key and then yesterday I got up and hung out with my mom and sister again, did a little more random shopping here and there and then just really chatted at my mom’s house for a while. I got home about 5 PM. I did NOT want to run. I honestly would have just said fuck it if that nagging little voice in the back of my head didn’t say, you committed yourself to 2 out of the 3 days. Just run for 30 minutes… of course 30 minutes turned into a full “normal run”. That is how I trick myself. I promise myself that I only have to do 30 minutes. And if I got on there and I hated it and I couldn’t do more I would be satisfied with 30 minutes. I know full well that very rarely do I ever only do 30 minutes. Honestly, I felt fine so I kept running. I didn’t over push myself. I finished with a nice respectable 8 mile run. I felt happy and then my husband came home from work. We had spaghetti for dinner. All was well. I played on my ipad he played a game on his phone. I watched the Golden Globes. Pretty uneventful.

I will take an uneventful evening from time to time for sure. This week my schedule is all screwy and I don’t like it. My husband has to work the late shift at work tonight and tomorrow. Meaning he won’t get home until like 9:30. This means I am on my own. Then he is back to regular hours Wednesday. He has Thursday and Friday off and on Friday I am leaving to go visit my sister a few hours away for the weekend. It is my niece’s birthday on Saturday so off we travel the 3 ½ hours to spend the weekend. This completely throws me off. This means I can NOT exercise Friday night as we will leave immediately after work. That means I really should get in exercise Thursday night. I exercised Saturday and Sunday and again tonight. I really don’t want to run so many days in a row, I guess we will just have to wait and see. Friday is not happening. Day off. That means I should try and exercise Saturday at their house but I just don’t know how realistic that is. They have a treadmill, the same treadmill I own actually, but it’s not incredibly feasible to exercise while on “vacation”… Man we will see. Sunday we will drive back and that throws me off too. I could always run Sunday night when I get home but that depends on what time we get home and I can almost guarantee I will be too tired from travel to want to run. Ugh. I will make it happen somehow. I am committed right now and I am willing to make it a priority.

That is why I am here I guess, writing all this down, because I am willing to make it a priority right now because I am seeing the virtues of holding myself accountable. It’s too easy to let something go if you don’t commit it to word/paper/others. I am still chugging down my water. I find that the weekend is harder on all fronts in terms of eating well, exercising and drinking my water. I have a nice solid little routine at work Monday thru Friday and it just works for me. Weekends are a free for all and even getting in my water gets hard. I tried. I did better than I’ve done in a long time but it’s still not perfect yet. Progress is good though and I’m proud of that at least.

Tonight I will run again especially since I am a single lady for the night. Also because I finished up Season 8 of the biggest loser and now I’m on to Season 9, which happens to be a favorite of mine and I just started the first episode. So fun to start over again and the beginning of the journey. Of course the new episode of Biggest Loser airs tonight but I won’t be watching at 8 on the treadmill as I just don’t run that late at night. That will have to be saved for tomorrow night. Guess that means I am running tonight and tomorrow night after all.

And in the spirit of scheduling runs with myself and being accountable I bring you my daily pinterest:

Epic Run

Don't have major time for a post but am operating on extreme runner's high right now that I had to stop by and post this... I hung out with my injured mom this morning (no broken bones but she's incredibly sore), did some shopping and REALLY did not want to run. I did not run last night so I told myself just get on the treadmill and even if you only mange 30 minutes that will be fine.

It always takes me 3-5 minutes to get in my groove and boy oh boy did I get in my groove. I ran and I felt great. Amazing. This is what always happens the day after I take a day off. My body loves me and thanks me for it. So I just kept running. I ran longer than I've ever ran and I told myself I'd just run until I was tired and then I said, okay just run the 13 miles and then I said run some more then and then it was finally time where my legs were like you can be done and I was close to 15 miles so I said just push thru to 15. Low and behold I ran 15.37 miles and burned 2172 calories. AMAZING! I felt really great.

It didn't hurt that I was watching Season 8 Biggest Loser and I am at the end of the season I watched the marathon where they ran and that is always inspiring and then I ran thru 1/2 the finale as well. Always incredible running time as well. I am pretty much 15 minutes away from finishing Season 8, gearing up for Season 9. I love watching Biggest Loser on the treadmill. I feel great, elated with my run. I actually really neeeded that today. After not exercising last night and then my crappy cold morning, I was feeling less than hot and a little down on myself. Nothing like a crazy good run to improve your mood!!!! Best run to date....

Vitalicious FAIL

Vitalicious pizza = EPIC FAIL. Yes. Epic proportions. I heated it up, pulled it out of the microwave looked at it with complete and utter “not impressed” but thought I’d try it. The first bite was awful. I continued hoping it would get better. I had a few more bites and just threw the rest away. There was zero that was enjoyable about that thing. I will not waste my life eating awful tasting food. Thank God I had a lean cuisine left over in the fridge. Properly heated it up and now and going to have a lunch that tastes decent. Wow, what a waste of money, but now I know.

Icy road ahead

Hmm… today is Friday which is nice but shockingly I am not all that excited about it. It is frosty outside and that means the roads were icy. Oregon is a cold place generally but not snow freezing kind of cold and therefore when such things occur people are not adequately prepared to drive in it. The city usually de-ice’s major roads but back roads can still be scary. I was completely fine until I got to work which is not on the beaten path and when I went to turn my stupid two wheel drive truck onto the road to my office I lost all control of the vehicle over the icy patch and slammed it into the curb. I immediately was able to pull into the parking lot. The truck was fine and I was lucky. Stupid Ice.

My mom wasn’t quite as lucky this morning. Well, we shall see. She actually had an 8 AM appointment at her gym with her personal trainer. She made it to the gym fine. She stepped out of her vehicle, apparently into an icy parking lot and her foot slid out from under her and she immediately slammed full force onto the ground. Her entire side in pain she had to go to urgent care where she is now awaiting x-rays to determine if she broke any ribs. Good times. Hopefully she is just bruised and can will heal in a couple days. This is a perfect example of how we just aren’t adequately prepared here in Oregon :)

Last night I managed to run again. But after running for a few days in a row I can always tell my body starting to slow down and thus wanting a break. I managed an 8.25 mile run which is totally respectable. I finished the day consuming all 28 of my points and I don’t think I cheated too much. Meaning I am pretty sure I didn’t eat things and not write them down. I drank a ton of water too so that is good.

Today is going to be a low key day I am not feeling it energy wise so much and the bitter coldness in the air is depressing. Hopefully things will pick up. My husband works this weekend so I am not really sure what is on my agenda. I was planning on going to the gym with my mom tomorrow to try some different exercises but alas I don’t think that’s going to happen now. Dang cold ice.

I ordered some of the vitalicious pizzas last week. They are expensive, but a whole pizza is only 5 points. I was intrigued by the excessive amount of fiber in them so I went for it. They have to be shipped 3 day air and are packaged in dry ice. They arrived yesterday. Apparently I have never dealt with dry ice much before in my life because as I was trying to unpack the pizza’s a piece of the dry ice lye on top of the box out of the plastic bag it was packaged in. Thus exposing it. I didn’t think too much of this and bent down to pick the thing up and throw it in the sink to melt. Um, I immediately realized what a mistake this was. It burned like son of a bitch burned my fingers. What the hell? Then stupid me tried to melt the remaining pieces by turning the water on over them. All this did was create smoke, lots and lots of smoke. I am truly retarded. I ended up wrapping a layer between my hands and the ice, picking up the pieces and throwing them back in the box they came in and shoving them in the garage. I haven’t entirely dealt with that situation yet. Now today I actually get to try one of these 5 point pizza’s to see how they stack up to the Lean Cuisine pizza’s I enjoy so much but are 9 or 10 points. Hopefully they are awesome. But they are REALLY expensive so who knows how many I will actually eat in my lifetime.

The newest issue of Shape magazine came yesterday in the mail and I read part of it last night. One thing I found interesting and rather good to know what that according to someone, don’t have the magazine in front of me now, a study now shows that yo-yo dieting is not as bad for your body as they once thought. It doesn’t mess with your chemicals or body makeup and therefore each time you “lose weight” your body treats it like the first time and you are not handicapped. There point was that you shouldn’t use that as an excuse to not try and lose weight that you’ve already yo-yoed and therefore messed up your body’s metabolism. According to this study; not true. I’m quite happy to hear this as clearly I’ve yo-yoed my whole life. Actually I kind of think I’m proof that you can yo-yo and still lose weight even after having lost and gained and lost and gained. My body doesn’t seem to be stopping me from losing.

I’m still drinking my water today, working on my first 24 ounces but the last few days it’s pretty obvious to me I’ve had no problem reading my 64 ounces you’re supposed to get for the day so I’m not too worried anymore about forcing myself to drink it, it comes pretty naturally now to me. It’s so funny to me how I don’t even really crave pop anymore.

I have no idea what this weekend is going to hold for me but I’m sure it will be okay. I have prepared myself pretty well for whatever it holds in terms of challenges. I haven’t decided if I’m going to run tonight or take it off just yet. I have to take either today or tomorrow off, not sure yet which one it’s going to be. I do believe in giving my body a day of rest from time to time. I think it’s good for it to have a day to heal and recover and therefore it always makes the next workout much better. Exercise plan is to run 2 of the next three days. Friday to Sunday I should run twice. I’d also really love to try some other form of exercise this weekend as well. Maybe I should make that a priority. Do something different.

I’ve mentioned how much I love pinterest these days and I have a “workout stuff” folder where I put all my inspirational quotes. I think I am going to start sharing my favorites here as well. Just as the reminders to me of why I do this…. So here is today’s pinterest….

The reality of 75

Not sure where to start today. I have a few things floating around in my brain. First things first, I lost 3.6 pounds this morning. I knew today would FINALLY be a good weigh-in, somewhere this week I just felt better. I also think shockingly to me but I am certain not to the rest of the world this has something to do with water. Everyone says drink your water, drink your water. I didn’t, EVER. I am thoroughly convinced now of the virtues of water. I actually find myself no longer craving pop so that might be a plus as well. Well I only ever drank diet pop I have been told a million times that this really isn’t any better for you.

Yesterday I went home and ran 9.12 miles, burning 1268 calories. That means this weekly weigh-in week from Last Thursday to yesterday Wednesday I ran a whopping 60.38 miles. I really do love to run. I mean, while I’m running sometimes I hate it. Sometimes it is so much work but I am 100% addicted to the high of running. The after math. The feeling I have in my body not only physically but more importantly mentally. It is the single best thing I do for myself. This is a large running week. I don’t normally run quite so many miles in a week. It just happened.

I did in fact wrap an ace bandage around my breast bone to try and circumvent the chaffing from my heart rate monitor. It seemed to work while I ran. I was all wrapped up and it didn’t really bother me. The bandage was soaked after I was done running and I thought all was good. This morning however, in addition to the line of cut from the heart rate monitor I now have a weird second line of injury. It looks like maybe a little rash like. I am not sure. It is gross. I am just not sure what to do about this. I want to keep using my heart rate monitor. I just don’t want to be so scarred. Yuck. Ouch.

Last night for dinner we had burritos. I had forgotten how delicious, filling and low calories/points burritos can be. Well, it did cost me 9 points, but that seems quite reasonable for the amount of food I got. I had a 2 point low carb la tortilla factory tortilla.2 points in beans, 2 points in ground turkey, 2 points in WW shredded cheese, and 1 point in fat free sour cream. I also had onions on there. Amazing. And I drank water. Water seems to be the story of my life these days. More water please.

The thing about the water is this; it actually makes me feel full and I swear gives me a little more energy than I otherwise had. I know I feel like a retard because I’ve only been doing weight watchers in various forms for 9 years and somehow this is the first time I’ve ever seen the real benefits of water. I guess that just goes to show you that you really can always learn something new. I had no idea. I feel like a stupid retard for never really giving myself a chance at water before. I am hooked. Yes it does make me pee an insane amount. I counted yesterday and at work alone from the hours of 8:30 AM to 5 PM I peed 10 times. No joke. I literally counted. But that is a small price to pay for the other benefits of it. I just finished my first 24 ounces for today and already have to pee again.

So this morning I was able to put on a pair of jeans that didn’t previously fit. That is a nice victory unto itself. I ordered these jeans a month ago online from Old Navy and we all know how inconsistent Old Navy sizing is. I ordered 3 pair in various colors in the same size and this one pair would not even come close to fitting before, even though I was wearing the other two pairs in the other colors. Today I could wear the smallest of them. That’s an accomplishment all by itself I’d say.

Okay, so the biggest thing for the day is this, the 3.6 pounds puts me down a total of 37.6 pounds total. Not too shabby. But I have to admit something that I am sad to admit; this puts me pretty much exactly half way to goal. I have lost half the weight I need to lose. Okay so I have to admit that I gained 75 pounds I shouldn’t have. Yes, I somehow found all 75 pounds I had lost in my life. But at least I am half way there now. That is an accomplishment I will take since time just keeps seeming to go no matter what I do. It feels much better being 37.6 pounds down. I don’t hate the person I see in the mirror. Sure I need to lose another 37.5 pounds but for the time being I’m not embarrassed to walk around and have people see me. I was before. I hated every minute of being in public because I was embarrassed by the girl I was again. Today I am confident and comfortable in my own skin again.

Things can always get better but I can live with the girl I am now. I have to admit that a huge motivation for even starting this time around was that I desperately wanted to go see Pink live in concert. I have obsessed over and loved Pink forever. She is kind of like my role model. I guess I love strong women. I guess we are drawn to the things we are not. I don’t consider myself strong. I am not fearless in life and I see Pink as that. She always tells it like it is in her music and I am completely in love and obsessed. Anyhow I swore when she went on tour again I would see her no matter what. For years I always said I didn’t care where she was when she toured again I would get on a plane and fly to see her if that was the closest venue. I had to put my money where my mouth was this time since she did not book a Portland show. The closest show was either Vegas or L.A. Vegas seemed like the better option as you can just fly there and not have to worry about getting a car and trying to get to a packed stadium for the show.

Anyhow, once I realized I would have to travel for the show I was scared because I was really overweight. And I didn’t want to go to Vegas full of all those pretty party people being so in disgust with myself. I booked my flight and room for Vegas on September 26. I weighed way more than I want to admit. But I promised myself I would see Pink in concert. It is high on my bucket list so I just had to. But not only was I freaked about walking around Vegas being so uncomfortable but I was honestly afraid of fitting on the plane. Old insecurities have a way of always creeping back in. I probably was freaked out for a week, but I started realizing that I had time. While I didn’t have enough time between now and Feb. 13 to be at goal or even close I had enough time to lose weight and no matter what go to Vegas weighing less. I knew I could realistically be down 40 pounds if I worked at it. So on October 5 I started eating well. I just did one day and now here we are 3 ½ months later and I am down 37.6 pounds. I have no doubt that by the time I get on that plane Feb. 13 I will be down the 40 pounds; I should be down more than that.

I have 5 weeks until I get on that plane and now I’m not so worried about the seat belt fitting or being in complete disgust with myself. Sure, I won’t be at goal. I won’t be the skinniest I’ve ever been but I will be okay. I won’t be what I weighed on Sept. 26 when I booked the vacation and the reality of my weight sank in. I did accomplish what I had hoped to.

Because I am only half way to where I want to be I often take for granted how much weight I’ve actually lost. As if it’s an easy thing to drop 37.6 pounds. That unto itself is a lot of weight. I tend to downplay it because it’s not where I want to be ultimately but I need to take a moment and recognize that I have lost almost 40 pounds. That is just no joke.

I suppose by now you all, whoever you all are is that is actually reading this, are starting to get the picture of how much weight I really gained. I suppose here shortly I will probably start actually posting the real numbers, but I have to work in baby steps. For now I feel brave just posting that I gained 75 pounds and had 75 pounds to lose. That is a lot of freaking weight. No wonder I felt so sick and disgusted all the time. Damn Mcdonalds!!!!

Today’s Food:

Keurig Cappuccino (2 pts.)
Smart Ones Breakfast Wraps (6 pts.)
Banana (0 pts.)
Apple slices (0 points)
Smart Ones quesadilla wrap (7 pts.)
Banana (0 points)
Carrots (0 points)
WATER!!!!!

Total points= 15, leaves 13 for the evening.

Water world

Since my husband was working last night and I had the house all to myself I did exactly what I wanted, I ran and felt no guilt about running and running and running and watching the second half of the Biggest Loser premier. I ran for over 2 hours… Obsessive, yes, too much, no. I enjoy running and I wasn’t killing myself but rather doing a nice run. I logged 13.25 miles which is like a half marathon. I keep these goals in mind when I run. I burned 1814 calories, as evidence see my Garmin below.



So the thing about my Garmin is this, I have to wear a chest strap to get accurate heart rate monitoring and calories burned. This is not a problem other than the fact that the strap mixed with sweat means that I constantly have open sores on my chest. Hmm…that doesn’t sound right. I mean it rubs and then it hurts. Its right at the bra line so of course putting on a bra hurts the sore as well. Last night was particularly painful. Probably the extra time ran and then the extra sweat. I actually have a permanent scar now it’s sad that I am scarred from a chest strap heart rate monitor but I’m not going to not wear it. But now today I am fighting the horrible stinging when my bra rubs against it. Yuck. I put Neosporin on it this morning thinking that this is exactly what this product is designed for to help with open cuts and sores and then it just STUNG so freaking bad it wasn’t even funny. I covered it with a big band aid but nonetheless it hurts. Therefore I now it’s going to be awful tonight when I run. Not sure how to avoid this in the future or what to do about it. Not fun.

Anyway, enough about being scarred for life, literally. It is no secret that I am not a water drinker; in fact I’d go as far as to say that I hate water but my week long experiment of drinking lots of water is actually swaying my opinion. I still don’t actually love the taste of water but I am starting to see the other benefits of it. And low and behold I am actually kind of craving it which is nice for a change. The past couple days I’ve been brining 2 twenty four ounce water bottles to work. It hasn’t been enough; today I brought all 3 of my 24 ounce bottles with me. That is 72 ounces of pure straight water. I think I will drink them all as I’ve pretty much finished off one 24 ounce bottle already. It helps that it’s cold. I fill them with some ice in the morning and then water. I can stand water if its ice cold. I don’t like warm water much at all.

So I finished episode 2 of the Biggest Loser and have to say that I am happy to see Jillian Michaels back off a little on her contestants. I just thought she was acting a little over the top. This episode was much better. I appreciate that they are going back to the basics so far this year. Contestants who want to be there and lose the weight and they seem to be focusing the attention more on the workouts and less on any game play, so far. I know they have taken game play out of the equation by having a red line and simply the person who loses the least percentage goes home. It’s kind of a nice change from Season 13’s horrific contestants who were constantly playing games. I like the show going back to basics. It’s a refreshing change.

I do notice that they seem to focus less on Dolvett and his team. I feel like the show feels like Dolvett is the bastard child as there real pride and joy is Jillian first and then Bob. Meanwhile Dolvett is rocking it with his team and having great results. Not sure what the next episode is going to bring but I’m fairly happy with the way things are going. It has been so long to watch something live I’ve forgotten about the excitement of not knowing what is going to happen. So far I’m not overly invested in any person but that’s to be expected because they haven’t really gotten into anyone’s “story” too much just yet.

Tomorrow morning is weigh in day. Today officially marks the last day of week 14 of doing this. 3 ½ months of eating well and exercising. I feel much better than I did 3 ½ months ago that is for sure. I feel like I should have a good loss tomorrow, I want a good loss, I’ve earned a good loss, but we will see. I guess we will see what all the water is going to do to my body tomorrow morning. I am not going to peek or cheat at all.

Food plan for the day so far….

Morning breakfast sandwich (4 pts.)
Keurig cappuccino (2 pts)
Banana (0 points)
Lean pocket (7 points)
Banana (0 points)
Apple slices (0 points)
Carrots (0 points)
Garden Veggie Straws (3 points) – Basically these are chips and they are delicious. Got a big box of them at Costco and LOVE them!

That is a total of 16 points and leaves me 12 for dinner. I have no idea what dinner will be but I always like to leave that a little open.

I dyed my hair again this Sunday and I have to say that I ALWAYS feel better and love it when I have freshly dyed hair. It is nice and blond and for some reason I put way more effort into doing my hair when it is dyed. I care so much more. Of course as we all know as we lose weight we suddenly care more about our appearance as a general rule anyway. Thus getting fake nails this weekend and dying my hair. I feel much better and of course I think that leads to making healthier decisions. I like myself more and therefore am less likely to want to put horrible things into my body. I make better decisions for myself. It’s a common reality of weight loss for sure.

Ugh, I have to pee. That is the one negative side effect of all the water, which I guess means its working. Better to pee it all out and then retain all that fluid inside me I guess. But I have to pee so much its ridiculous. I can pee like 8 times during the work day now. At least I am the only one in the office to see how much I have to go. With that said, I should probably get to it and end this.

Sixteen Candles

As a tribute to a youth spent obsessing over, thinking about, dreaming about, wishing I were her, I can now say that I am super excited to own this beautiful shirt... Okay, It's not exactly beautiful but it makes me smile and I don't exactly own it yet, it is now ordered and I can expect it to show up sometime.... But I just could't resist having Jake Ryan on my shirt, I mean I literally have spent 20 years of my life thinking about the imaginary character.... This is my childhood right here on this shirt...

Biggest Loser and me

Firstly I’d like to say that when I complained a few days ago about my runs being “too easy” I kind of regret that because you know what the universe does? It bites you in the ass and suddenly makes it hard. The universe is funny like that, it doesn’t like to be taunted and that’s exactly what I did. Bad me. So yes after saying those words out loud or rather committing them to paper the next workout kicked my ass. Karma’s a bitch! Nonetheless I pushed on and the workouts seem to be fairly adequate for my tired old body. It’s funny how old I feel at 33. Perhaps I shouldn’t feel quite this old, I don’t really know, but maybe that’s all the extra weight I allowed myself to gain. Not sure.

Last night I got to come home and run to the NEW Biggest Loser. Been a very long time since not only a new Biggest Loser but even longer since I actually was watching a season live as it happened. Season 13 totally blew right by me as I was in no place to care what I ate at the time and watching Biggest Loser while fat and depressed sounds like pure torture. I did watch Season 13 a few months ago on the treadmill. I have to say, semi-spoilery if you haven’t watched it……

Jillian Michaels is totally played off to be a horrible bitch this year isn’t she? I don’t necessarily think she’s any worse than she probably ever was but I guess with her return they wanted to play up how tough she is in contrast to Bob and Dolvett. I actually really like Bob and Dolvett. I used to like Jillian. I appreciate her results but ultimately I don’t think being horribly yelled at is probably the most motivating thing in the world for me. I don’t mind pushing but downright yelling is a little harsh. I suppose her outcome is what she wanted. She weeded out the weak and made the others step it up.

I have always thought I had that little fire or passion inside of me that would have made me a great Biggest Loser contestant. I can be competitive, I certainly am obsessive and will push thru, but then I actually think I don’t know. I am not sure even now my body is capable of some of the beatings they get. Constant hours of torture combined with being yelled at I just don’t know.

I also might be the only person who thinks this but I am not that excited about the kid contestants. Let me preface this by saying I am a firm believer in dealing with the childhood obesity epidemic. I of course was an overweight child and in turn an overweight teenager which pretty much lead to my entire high school experience sucking being crippled with awful self-esteem and zero self-worth. I never felt worthy of anything. I completely think the crazy technology driven society we live in puts our next generation at a huge disadvantage. I see this first hand with my niece and nephew. They are great kids and their parents do an awesome job trying to keep them active. They go to gymnastics twice a week and play season sports. But nonetheless the desire is to sit and play video games. We all know what this leads to.

Anyway, while I completely support the “cause” I kind of think the kid contestants inclusion is a joke. I am not really sure what they are trying to accomplish or do with them. They are kind of pointless really. They aren’t really at the ranch (as one wouldn’t expect them to be, they are kids after all!) They can’t really do heavy workouts, the trainers don’t want to push them (as they shouldn’t!) and they aren’t weighing them in (again as this would be way too traumatic at this point in their lives)…. So ultimately what is the point? Basically I feel like it pulls the attention and time of the trainers away from the contestants that need it, the heart of the show really. I know they are trying to be current and relevant and stay on the forefront of the obesity epidemic, but I’m just not convinced.

Perhaps in upcoming episodes they will grow on me, or else their purpose might be revealed. If the kids can noticeably drop weight than my opinion might change but I don’t really see major changes happening unless your forced their parents to be Biggest Loser contestants as well, seeing as ultimately the kids don’t buy the food or dictate all the activities that the family participates in. I should say that as of this writing I have not watched the second episode that was on last night (Monday night) as I will be watching that tonight. Maybe things got better in Episode 2.
As I’ve only watched the first episode I felt that familiar pang of wanting to punch a contestant for being so stupid. I mean the girl that left on her own; I kind of wanted to punch her. I am not a violent person but it was so obvious she needed help and she just wasn’t putting the work in. I get mad when people voluntarily leave the show. They have to work so hard to get there and so many people want the chance and then she freaking leaves. Makes me so mad. Yes, I know it’s hard. Yes I know it’s probably harder than anyone could really imagine, but seriously, suck it up, you wanted this! How come two of those women on her team could do the work and manage to not piss Jillian off and yet she couldn’t?
Anyway, that’s probably enough about the Biggest Loser. I ran 9 miles while I watched the show and burned 1300 calories. Then I had a nice spaghetti dinner and a Café Escapes Chi Latte drink later in the evening for a snack... (cough... cough… with two Hershey’s white chocolate peppermints as well)… I actually think as much as I love those Hershey’s I will be glad when we have ate them all and they are out of my house. This might take a while as I only eat a couple at a time and I still have like 8 bags of them. They were all free at Rite Aid with my couponing.

Anyway, I also managed to watch the Bachelor premier as well last night. There are quite as many basket cases on that show as well, but for entirely different reasons. That is some seriously crap TV but I watch anyway as I am mostly a sucker for romance. Even though I know it’s not that real. A girl can hope. I really like Sean. He seems like the nicest Bachelor so far so we shall see.

I am drinking my water again today; two 24 ounce water bottles filled this morning. One of them is gone already and another 8 out of the other one. Had a smart ones breakfast wrap and a latte this morning, 8 points, and a banana for snack. It’s getting to be lunch time now and I’m getting ready to eat my smart ones lasagna. Yes, all processed foods but I have apples and another banana and carrots for afternoon snacks.

My husband works the late shift tonight so I’m home alone for most of the night which means another nice run to part two of the Biggest Loser premier and then a little bit of me time.

I am thinking more and more about a Maui trip this summer. It really gives me something to not only look forward to but focus on in terms of goal and keeping on track. I definitely want to be closer to goal if I go back to Maui and I think that is entirely realistic at this point. I’m really hoping for a decent weigh-in this Thursday morning. I haven’t peeked so I have zero idea what the scale says. It’s still better for me to avoid the scale. I can’t help it, but seeing the numbers just ruin my mental game so I have to have the possibility of losing good to keep me going.
I am rocking out to I-tunes at work and am completely enjoying the Philip Phillips cd right now. I’ve already memorized every word to Taylor Swift so I had to move on to something new.

Confession time

I have a confession to make, there are certain foods or things that for some reason I think don’t count. I mean, as I walked around Costco yesterday with my husband and ate those little samples somehow in my mind that food didn’t count. I mean, they were just little samples they couldn’t possibly be anything right? Hmm… I think this logic is probably flawed. It’s not that bid of a deal I realize but then as I was driving to work this morning I started thinking about all the “foods” I ate yesterday that my brain told me did not count. And then I realized I was definitely lying to myself. I had all the Costco samples, then for some reason when we went to my mom’s later in the afternoon and she opened a bag of popcorn, you know the prepackaged kind that has the flavoring all over it and is so stinkin delicious and therefore completely unhealthy. I mean if you only eat a couple pieces at a time, it doesn’t count right? I mean never mind that you eat 8 handfuls, it doesn’t count? And when you are snacking on carrots (yeah for that) and you dip them in a spinach dip, certainly you can’t expect that the spinach dip counts for anything since you are eating carrots after all, right?

And then if you eat one white chocolate Hershey kiss when you get home since it’s just one it doesn’t count, right? And then if you have another one before you go to bed it doesn’t count either right? That is certainly a lot of little that doesn’t count that certainly when put together in the grand scheme has to count for something? I think I might need to go back and readjust and add a few points in for all my doesn’t count…

With all that said I had a decent Sunday weight watchers wise, and actually life wise. I spent most of the day with my husband, we walked around Costco and I love doing that. I got a 3 pack of new water bottles that are each 24 ounces and awesome. I have two of them with me at work today so that I can monitor and appropriately drink my 48 ounces of water for the day. After Costco and a few other errands we headed home where I procrastinated for a while and then ran 9.10 miles. After that we went over to my mom’s house so Chris could hook up her new TV and all the components since her old TV which was literally purchased in 1989 quit working yesterday. We had been warning her forever to buy a new TV because that one was giving out and what do you know… yesterday was the day. My Sunday was good. My Saturday was a whole other story.
As far as my great plans of eating healthy and drinking more water I’d say epic fail. Friday night after work I did come home and run, I got in a solid 8.6 mile run. I totally was happy there and then we headed to our favorite Friday night dinner spot, Red Lobster. I completely love Red Lobster and am obsessed with fresh shrimp and crab. I did fine on the points front. I have learned how to not eat any of the cheddar bay biscuits they put in front of me. I get a house salad with balsamic vinaigrette on the side and then always a healthy fish option with a plain baked potato. I LOVE it to no end. We probably go at least once every two weeks if not once a week. Friday was fine. Saturday was the killer.

Saturday started out fine, I mean, I had the best intentions in the world after all. I got up and went and say my kids (my niece and nephew) before they left town from Christmas. I ate a nice smart ones breakfast sandwich and had a sugar free caramel apple cider on my keurig. No problems there. My husband came over and we helped my mom put away her Christmas decorations. I had every intention of exercising before my 2:45 nail appointment. On a whim I traded that in to go to Bed Bath and Beyond and lunch at Panera Bread with my mom, sister and husband. It was nice. They just opened a Panera Bread in my town. It has been open for two weeks and I’ve gone 4 times. I think if something new opens here it’s like a big deal. But basically I love their fresh healthy menu. AMAZING! I got a salad and a chicken noodle soup. Healthy, good. No problems there.

I got a beautiful set of nails put on. Nice, love it. Got home and then the trouble began. I couldn’t exercise after my nail appointment because I had plans to go out with my husband to watch a live broadcast of motorcycle racing at a theatre downtown. He loves motocross and I love him so ya know. We were meeting some friends there and we rarely do that so I went with it. Before we left I let the Hershey’s white chocolate kisses attack me. Still okay.

The races were 4 hours and we could not eat or drink in the theatre it was an old historic vintage theatre. Afterwards it was 11:00 PM and we were all starving. We went to Applebee’s. It can always be worse as I ordered something off the under 550 calorie menu and didn’t eat it all. What got me were appetizers. Half price appetizers. You see Applebee’s is often a favorite of ours for half price drinks and apps after 9 PM. Boneless buffalo wings, amazing and amazingly horrible. An order is 33 points. We ordered one. I ate some. I suspect it could always be worse as I tried to make decent choices and indulging in a few buffalo wings is not the end of the world. I’m okay; I think it was just the combination of the day, the lack of exercise and the lack of eating healthy stuff that threw me off. After we came home at 12:30 AM I felt sick. My body didn’t like those wings too much. True story.

I didn’t drink enough water and I certainly didn’t stick to my clean healthy food choices. I mean Friday night dinner out, Saturday lunch out, Saturday night dinner out. Oops… I guess this is proof that it can be done, right. And I did run Friday and Sunday night so it could have been worse. Either way today I have my new water bottles and am committed to trying again to drink my water and eat my fruits and veggies. My snacks for the day….

Week 14: Day 2

I’m not going to lie, something quite interesting happened yesterday, aside from needing to pee more than I’ve ever needed to pee in my life, eating well made me feel better. Drinking water all day long (aside from the aforementioned peeing) actually did I believe give me more energy. It was a pain in the butt to be running errands and every time I got somewhere half to run to the bathroom because I was in physical pain, but I think the end result might have been worth it. I am not sure how much water I drank yesterday since I wasn’t really counting or paying attention, probably at least 3-4 sixteen ounce bottles. Today I filled up a water bottle which has to be 32 ounces. That way when I drink it all I know I’ve completed 32 ounces.

When I got home last night after mucho water consumption I ran. And then I had a realization, it is too easy. Not that running is easy, but I mean what I’ve always done has gotten too easy. I need to change something up. I realized that a month ago I was sweating bullets and soaking shirts with this same workout. Last night I felt like I barely broke a sweat. It perhaps is time to dramatically alter what I’m doing. But I don’t want to complain. I mean last night I ran 11.1 miles and burned 1589 calories. That isn’t horrible, but I just didn’t sweat all that much. For the sake of doing something different I then spent 15 minutes on the elliptical and burned 111 calories… 1.2 miles. I guess I just wish I had worked harder for it. I suppose it’s time to up the speed or something.




Aside from the water consumption I had fresh fruits and veggies yesterday which was a nice change. I love avocados but have failed to really eat any at home until yesterday. For some reason I always saw them as difficult to mess with by myself. But last night I cut one open and gutted it and then ate that with bites of fresh chicken breast. It was AMAZING! I definitely could see myself doing that more often. I went to the store at lunch which is how I came into possession of said avocados. I bought TONS of fresh produce. Most of the time I tend to lack in this department. I eat a lot of processed foods even know. Boxed meals out of convenience. Today I have 2 bananas, an apple and some carrot and celery slices sitting in front of me for snacks. I will really have to try extra hard this week to get it all in, the healthy stuff.

I am contemplating purchasing Bob Harpers the Skinny Rules book for my ipad. Well, it’s not for my ipad, it’s for me to read, but I don’t mind the format of reading it on the ipad. I read parts of it as the tease on amazon and since it kept my attention enough I might want to purchase it and continue to read. It’s not as if it’s crazy new info or anything but I really like Bob Harper and anything that keeps your head in the game is good. Speaking of Bob Harper I am REALLY excited for the return of Biggest Loser on Sunday. Of course I won’t watch it on Sunday since it isn’t on until 8, well past my workout time. I will watch Sunday’s show on Monday night, so I’m telling myself it’s premiering Monday night. Of course it will actually normally be Monday night, so actually a Tuesday workout viewing experience for me. Monday night is also the new Bachelor. I can’t help it, after all these years I’m still addicted to that show. Its trash TV with very few actual happy endings but there is always the hope that it could turn out that way. I’m a sucker for that hope.



I’m also attaching a picture of my new “everyday” Coach purse I purchased last Sunday and then my “travel” purse that I pretty much purchased for Vegas, but I suppose I can use it every time I travel which isn’t NEARLY as much as I’d like. I think this summer I need to take a nice week long vacation somewhere it’s been far too long. But I also think that has something to do with my weight. When I am overweight I don’t want to go anywhere. It seems fitting that by the summer I should be closer to goal and happier with myself and therefore want to go to a warm tropical beach. It’s how it always goes. I am thinking Maui of course. It seems to be every two years and this would be the year then. Who knows though, Maui is WAY more expensive now than it was two years ago or four years ago for that matter. Here’s hoping that the prices somehow get better in the next couple months. It’s possible, but it’s definitely in the back of my mind.

I think that’s about it for the day, plan is to run again tonight, but I should probably just immediately start out at higher speed. I guess my fear is that I will tire out quicker and not be able to run as far, but I guess I shouldn’t worry about that because the whole point is to challenge myself and make the time I do work out worthwhile and if I work out for less amount of time but at a higher intensity it probably is better for my body. I will have to try and see how it turns out.

Week 14: Day One

In honor of the new year and perhaps because the scale is not exactly doing what I want but mostly because I feel like I’m not giving it my all I am going to mix things up this week. I can live with the reality of losing 1.6 pounds this morning. Yes that puts me down exactly 34 pounds in 13 weeks, which is still a pretty impressive number considering I survived Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years in the course of those 13 weeks. My biggest reason to shake it up though comes from feeling like these past two weeks not only have I been half ass-ing it, but I don’t think I’ve been doing good things for my body and I don’t like it. Slowly I let some of the less than desirable habits creep in. I find myself drinking too much pop (yeah, it’s Diet but it’s not good for you) and suddenly I realize in two weeks I don’t think I actually have drank any water. Then there’s that whole fruit and vegetable thing. Again, I have slacked and I do think it’s taking its toll on my body. I am not operating at 100 percent.

Today, week 14 day 1 I am mixing it up. Instead of pop for my morning beverage of choice I drank bottled water. Instead of stupid snacks I brought 2 bananas. I am going to detox this week. I feel like I’ve let too much unhealthy junk back into my system. Perhaps a few too many Hershey’s white chocolate peppermint kisses. It’s too easy to pick one of those up and pop it in your mouth. I also don’t feel like I’ve been that great at accountability for that reason either.

Yesterday I did something awesome. Since my awesome husband got me an ipad for Christmas and a couple months ago I became a proud owner of an iPhone I am just starting to discover all the wonderful apps available to me. I lived in the Dark Age prior to this. Yesterday I found a lovely app for my phone/ipad that is basically the entire weight watchers program, at least the tracking portion of it and it only cost me $2.99…. I really wanted something to record my points to keep better track but wasn’t keen on the $20 plus dollars weight watchers wants a month. I LOVE my new app. LOVE LOVE LOVE it. I mean it tells me everything weight watchers would, I can scan the barcodes of foods, record my own points, look up points, ya know all the usual suspects. One time fee of $3… yeah, I can handle that. I have not been recording points previously but I feel like perhaps it’s time to venture down that path since I am ready for something a little different.

My father in law gave me a nice gift card to Best Buy for Christmas. Since in the past year we have already replaced every TV in the house with a nice new flat screen and each of our 4 TVs have blu ray players already I wasn’t in much need of new electronics. What I decided I was in need of was a keurig. Now I am not typically a big coffee drinker. I like foo foo coffee drinks from Starbucks, etc… but I can’t brew a pot of coffee and just drink it. What I am loving is the café escapes latte’s… those are delicious. Also ordered some caramel apple cider sugar free ones from amazon that should be here tomorrow to try out. I am feeling so yuppie with my new ipad and keurig and my gorgeous new Coach purse I bought myself last weekend. Yeah I might have a Coach purse addiction as well.

I killed it Monday night on the treadmill I spent my New Year’s Eve running. It seemed like a good thing to do. I ran 13.15 miles. Then Tuesday I started 2013 with a nice 8 mile run as well. But then yesterday my legs were shot. I honestly don’t think it was from the running. I think it was because while watching the Biggest Loser one of the contestants kept trying to dead jump onto a little stool. She couldn’t do it. It looked so easy. I kept yelling just jump up there. Just do it. It was totally a mind thing, not a physical thing. So what do I do? I have a little living room stool that appears to be about the same height and I think whatever I can so do this. And then I stand there and jump and what do you know, my mind gives out. I could NOT get on that thing. I tried this over and over could not. I came back the next day and tried again. I jumped and jumped and jumped. I mean, I’m not going to brag or anything but when I let my mind go, I did it. I finally did it and I finally realized that I shouldn’t yell at the girl on my TV. Anyway, back to my point, I used some different muscles than I do running and those were killing my legs so I did not run last night. That and my sister and brother in law and my niece and nephew were back in town for the night and I wanted to hang out.

Tonight I will run. I mean its day one of week 14. I will run, but I also feel like in the spirit of trying something different this week I should really do just that. Aside from running, I should try working different muscles. I mean my muscle ache reminded me that I am not pushing myself the way I really should. I have lots of muscles running apparently doesn’t touch. I am considering either some more elliptical time. Yes I own an elliptical too that I never get on because I heart my treadmill so much, that or else I should break out one of those exercise dvd’s. I have this Bob Harper kettle ball that I purchased still in the package that has a workout dvd with it. Mind you I think I purchased this almost 2 years ago and it sits there in the package. Perhaps it’s time to break it out.

That or else I have one more option I was saving for a little while. My mom joined a gym a couple months ago and this gym allows her to bring a guest EVERY time she goes. So I could really always go to a gym with my mom. I could do some of those weight exercises, but I kind of wanted to wait a little while on that. I really don’t like gyms; we’ve never really gotten along all that well. I have way too many insecurities and hang ups for that. It might be better to try a video first I think and maybe in another month’s time or so perhaps venture down that path. Besides isn’t the gym going to be very crowded anyway?

I also feel like perhaps the last two weeks I OVER exercised. Meaning I ran a lot in the last two weeks and I think my body performed a back lash on me. I don’t know. It’s hard for me to be mad really because in two weeks I did lose 2.3 pounds which is totally respectable. It’s not anything. I just felt like I didn’t lose anything or give it my all. I am just going to have to try harder this week.

I made an appointment on Saturday to get fake nails put on. I love beautiful fake nails but I hate that I can’t type as well. I have to learn to teach myself to type again and probably how to use an ipad with my nails. Nonetheless I feel better about myself when I have them so that’s happening. I hate making appointments; it’s something I rarely do. I don’t like to be tied down I guess. I like to go where the day takes me, but thus far without an appointment it has failed to take me to a new set of nails so I gave in.

That’s about all for this week. I will try and check in again this week to keep myself accountable. I can already say having drank water this morning I’ve had to pee like 3 times. Ugh. I hate having to constantly go to the bathroom, but maybe that’s a good thing too…. Off I go.

Week 13, Day Two

Week 13, Day Two

It’s funny to me that there is all this hype and anticipation for Christmas and people vest so much into it (myself included completely) and then it’s over in a blink of an eye and some of what seemed so important really isn’t. And some of it is so much better than you could ever have imagined. I have a wonderful thoughtful caring husband. Sure we may fight and argue like most adults who breathe, but he tries so hard and I appreciate that so much. He got me an ipad for Christmas, which I completely LOVE. He also got me a $100 gift card to Victoria Secret, $50 to Red Lobster (my favorite restaurant ever!) and then he was super sweet and got me a coconut bath and body works body butter (because coconut is my favorite) and then the bare essentials face powder that I use was getting low so sometime recently he must have taken it into the store and he got me a new one. That is thoughtfulness!
Anyway, that was a side tangent. My point is Christmas is over- New Years is fastly approaching which I find to be an interesting time. Somehow magically because tomorrow is suddenly 2013 people decide that they must resolve to something new for the year. Why do so many people suddenly decide it’s time to lose weight? I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, I mean deciding Jan 1 is better than NEVER deciding. It’s just an interesting phenomenon that gyms suddenly become packed and stores put all their fitness stuff on sale. Then by the time Feb. or March hit most gyms have returned to normal capacity with only a few survivors of the New Year’s Resolution fad.

I truly believe ANY time is a good time to start. If it happens to have to be Jan. 1 for you than its better than never for sure. What I really don’t mind is that at this time of the year since so many people jump on the fitness bandwagon there is lots of deals on stuff and of course lots of good information out there. It seems to be a good focus for a while and therefore lots of discussion in regards to health and fitness happen. That feeds my little obsessive self. I mean the Biggest Loser returns Jan 6 and for that I am completely grateful. Although rewatching past seasons are truly a wonderful thing for me right now. I believe I have enough past seasons to get thru to last me a year so I don’t show any signs of feeling complete depravation yet. However a new season is always welcome!

Since I’ve already been at this for 3 months I feel like I have a real secure footing/foundation on this weight loss thing. I am still plugging along happy for the most part. I stumble here and there and there are a few times where exercise becomes a chore I just don’t want to do, but for the most part I love it and look forward to it. It really is true what they say about exercise improving your mood and being the natural anti-depressant. It always is for me which is why it’s so puzzling that I ever give it up. I need all the natural help I can get.

I feel like that with the New Year while I may not be committing myself to a healthy lifestyle, I do feel a renewed yes I can do this and that is happiness. Things were not perfect over the last week but I will say I think they went better than I actually could have expected. I am completely proud of myself. My goal was to run last Friday and then manage two runs in between Saturday to Monday… I am very proud to say that I ran Friday night- 10 miles. I got myself up Saturday morning and I ran 8 miles. I got myself up Sunday morning and I ran 8 miles. I EVEN got myself up Monday Morning (Christmas Eve) and I ran 8 miles. Mission accomplished. My eating was better than I expected but not perfect. Which is okay. I did drink wine and eat cookies and cheese and crackers on Christmas Eve. Then Christmas day hit and I definitely ate more than I should have. After a wonderful Christmas morning with my family (complete with coffee cake pastries) we headed to Chris’s dads house where I ate lots of nuts. (Hunger lead to nut eating!) and then we went to Shari’s. I had the holiday dinner special which ultimately is pretty bad, but it was Christmas…. And therefore okay to eat a piece of pie… Ah well. I worked hard and ran 4 days in a row.

Christmas was wonderful and then I had to go back to work on Wednesday. I ate good on Wednesday but it’s hard to instantly undo damage from the previous 2 days of eating bad. I ran Wednesday night, 13 miles to be exact. Alas, when I weighed myself Thursday morning I was down .7 pounds. I expected it. Firstly, I had two previous weeks of killer weight loss and then I was coming off of two days of bad eating. With all that said I actually believe I lost more this week but that it will take a week to show up on the scale. And if I didn’t that’s okay to. I didn’t gain. That was my goal for the week. I simply wanted to live thru Christmas and not gain any weight. Mission accomplished.

Week 13 finds me down a total of 32.4 pounds. Not too bad. While I am embarrassed by the weight I started at, at least I am doing something about it. I mean the weight I am at now is also a weight that I have previously joined WW at. People start their weight loss journey at the weight my scale says right now. I am fully aware of this fact, but again, at least I am working on it right now. Oh, and I can run. I don’t run super fast, but I am an endurance runner. I can run and run and keep running. That is something I can do. And because of it I feel strong and proud. I have solid little muscles forming in my legs and I completely think it helps with getting rid of the McDonalds gut I have developed over time. Running is my friend. Always has been, will always go back to it.

Last night I managed another 8 mile run. Tonight I run. It’s just what I do. Or rather it’s just what I do after three solid months of caring. I had to make me the priority again. I had to make loving myself instead of hating the mirror more important.
I’m glad Christmas is over, as much as I love it, I’m glad it’s done so that I can return to focusing on other things. I’m ready for spring, although January is not really spring… but I’m ready nonetheless. Bring it on… and bring on 2013. I’m ready…

2012 hasn’t been the best year of my life, but what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger right? Thanks Kelly Clarkson for that. I am thinking 2013 will be much better… Said with a grain of salt before 2013 has even begun. I will make goal again this year and that is something to celebrate all by itself. (Wish I didn’t always find myself in a place of self loathe where food seems like the only option) but now is not the time to dwell on the bad… move forward. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and I feel stronger today than EVER….

Week 12: Day Two; Christmas Anticipation

Well I survived another week of Christmas activities and another weigh-in yesterday. I love how I saw weigh-in as if it’s all official. It’s not. I get up in the morning, go to the bathroom and then stand on my scale. That’s as official as it gets for me. But it seems to be working. I was down another 4 pounds this week. That means I am at officially 31.7 pounds for 11 weeks. Not too shabby at all. I am starting to notice and feel it. I feel better and that is an improvement. I still shutter to tell you what that number actually puts me at. A number I am still embarrassed by. Funny how you could lose 31.7 pounds and still be embarrassed by your weight or realize that you still have more to go. But honestly, I don’t hate myself now. Not that I ever hated myself, but I don’t dislike the way I look and that is an improvement. 31.7 pounds ago I hated looking in the mirror and I hated the way I looked in everything.

I managed to frost cookies last Saturday and only eat one cookie and perhaps a little more of the frosting that I probably should have but it still all worked out okay. I think it all works out okay due to my running. I love to run and make it a point to push myself as much as I can. Yesterday was myself imposed night off from running. When I run Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I need a rest. That was last night. But I have to have a calculated plan for this week because this week 12 is going to be HARD. Like the hardest week in a while. I have so much celebrating and Christmas activity to do. I have to get thru work today and then its four fun filled days of family fun. Fun filled days of family fun involve bad food and wine.

This is what I am thinking in terms of exercise. I am writing it down to commit myself to a plan. I will run tonight and treat today as any other normal day. Christmas is Tuesday so no exercise is going to occur that day I am way to busy. Wednesday is back to normal so I will most likely go to work and then run after work. That takes care of two workouts for the week. My goal is simply to get 4 workouts in. I generally strive for 5 workouts a week but this week will be THRILLED if I can get 4. That means between Saturday and Monday I need two workouts. My family really doesn’t come into town until noon on Saturday so I could potentially get up Saturday morning and do an hour run. I HATE morning exercise. I always run when I get home from work at about 5:30 or so. This is what my body is used to. Morning exercise and me don’t mix. I am not a morning person at all. But it might be what I have to do. This means that between Sunday and Monday I have to do one more workout. Monday is Christmas Eve and we have huge family festivities but not until the afternoon so again it’s possible for me to get up in the morning and run for an hour. I am basically just trying to talk it thru and commit myself to a plan of action. I think I will feel much better if I can manage that. I am not expecting anything big in terms of weight loss this week. To be honest if I could just maintain and not gain I am going to be happy for this week.

The food will be plentiful the exercise will be hard to come by and I bought wine to indulge in. Its Christmas, my favorite time of year hands down and I think it’s perfectly okay to not be perfect. Christmas day after we open presents we go to Chris’s dads and will go out to an early dinner at Shari’s probably so my healthy options are limited and I don’t want to be that girl anyway. So it is what it is. Maintain this week would be wonderful. I mean I quietly went into the weight loss night, didn’t jump in with some scary admission or run full force into the I’m going to be get thin bandwagon. I feel like I haven’t given it the crazy obsessive attention I have in the past and therefore I am beyond thrilled that in 3 months I weigh 31.7 pounds less. What if I hadn’t started exercising or eating better… where would I be right now? Very unhappy I’m sure. The truth is life was going to go on no matter what I did, these three months would have passed regardless so now they’ve passed with me being 31.7 pounds less. That is an accomplishment.

February 13, 2013 I got to Las Vegas to see my Pink concert. We are leaving on Feb 13, will celebrate Valentine’s Day there, my concert is Friday the 15th and then we come home on Sat. the 16th. I think in the back of my mind I just always wanted to be healthier for that. I was afraid of going to Vegas being the size I was a few months ago. I barely had clothes that fit, I felt frumpy and old. I already feel better and I have a month and a half still until Vegas to take off at least another 10 pounds or so. I won’t be at goal but at least I will be happy. That is good enough.
I am very excited for my family to get here on Saturday and really enjoy the holidays… It just makes me smile… I can’t wait!!!!! With that everyone enjoy the holiday season and allow yourself the ability to fully enjoy it!

Week 11: Day 1

Today is Day 1 of week 11. I have successfully completed 10 entire weeks of eating healthy and exercising. I feel really good today, but then again it was a weigh in morning so typically when I see a loss I feel pretty good and its hard to not feel really good all day long basking in that glow. In 10 weeks I have lost a total of 27.7 pounds. That is not too shabby. It’s not Biggest Loser crazy (can you tell I have been watching a lot of biggest loser lately) but nothing is Biggest Loser crazy outside of the Biggest Loser. I think Jillian Michaels said it best, Biggest Loser is the Olympics of weight loss. It is not possible anywhere else nor would I want to. I mean who really wants to work out 6-8 hours a day? I do NOT. I’ll take my 27.7 pounds in 10 weeks and be happy. Crazy happy actually. That is a great number.

Today I was rewarded with a great number. The last two weeks the scale was only losing a little bit then today I got a 4.5 pound loss. Body catching up. I actually don’t hate my body right now, must better with 27.7 pounds off of it, that’s for sure. I’m rocking a cute outfit today which makes me happy. I ventured into the black leggings and knee high boots realm today and I must say as much as I admire the look online I was very weary that I couldn’t pull it off. However, I think I’m doing okay. I feel happy and confident and that is what most of weight loss efforts are really about. Doesn’t matter what the scale says you are ultimately going for feeling happy and confident. I am still a long way from where I’d like to be on the scale, a long way from where I once was, but its not cool to compare what once was to now. What once was is clearly no longer and I am clearly a different person now so what I am now is what matters.

What I will say is that although I am not the same person now inside of me ALWAYS has lives a fighter. Someone who will not quit no matter the circumstances. Someone who will achieve anything that I actually decide to do. That is where I am at right now. I will achieve this. I am not even worried or thinking that I won’t. 10 weeks, 27.7 pounds. I am not stopping now. I completely seriously am proud of the fact that I have done this all without compromising myself. Without once peeking on the scale. I weigh in once a week period. I don’t obsessively write my food down. I eat breakfast and lunch and dinner and run. Wash, rinse, repeat. Of course it is more like 4-5 days of running a week. I have a hard time with weekends like most of the world and tend to overindulge and take off from running. But after 4 days of working out in a row my body screams for a break. I HAVE to take a day off. In order to run well again I need a day of rest. It seems to be working for me.

It feels really good to do things right for once. I am not perfect but I am happy. I wasn’t happy 10 weeks ago, and felt powerless and spinning out of control. Today I am happy and really excited for Christmas. Christmas is my favorite time of the year hands down and I am so excited to celebrate and share in the fun with my family. I just love being around my family so much and the wonderful happiness that is Christmas just warms my heart. I sincerely can’t wait.

Glad today is Thursday and another weekend is coming up. I have a pedicure appointment with my mama and sister on Saturday morning. Love them, should be fun. Ususally I get a French tip but I am thinking since its winter and my toes are not often exposed except at home I might go red for the holiday season. Just a thought…. After that we are going to my aunts house where I shall meet up with cousins and aunts to frost cookies. Now I am just praying that I don’t down lots of cookies and frosting which are always my weakness, but I plan to wear a nice cute outfit to keep me in check and hopefully remind me of how far I’ve come. Either way it should be fun. I just love this stinkin time of the year. So merry… Complete love… Happiness in my heart and that’s about it.

Silent discent

Hmm… it’s interesting to me that somewhere in the universe this page exists where previous thoughts of mine have been collected. Actually when I get in a mood I have goggled myself, Emilys Big Adventure and up pops my very first website that actually still chronicles my first date with Chris, well over eight years ago now… has it been that freaking long? Anyway, it’s crazy to me that this page is here in the universe and I can write something if I choose which apparently I don’t often choose. Guess I’m leaving lots of good info out there in the world for people to search and find if anything ever happens to me. Yes, I watch too much Dateline NBC, 20/20, 48 hours mysteries, Snapped, etc. The news media would have a heyday with the info they could find on the World Wide Web with me. But I’m assuming it shall never come to that as for most people it rarely does. I’d probably delete my first website if I even knew how to. I can’t remember what password or username or even how to get into it so it sits there as a tribute to the girl I was forever ago. I certainly am not her anymore. We have a lot of similarities, but are such worlds apart to.

Hmm… last time I wrote I went back to weight watchers the end of May. That lasted two weeks; clearly I still wasn’t ready despite seeing that awful number. Further proof that you can’t make yourself do it if you aren’t ready to yet. What transpired was another 4 months of avoidance and self-loathing which quietly materialized into an October 5, 2012 recommitment to me. Instead of being a loud boisterous announcement to the world of my recommitment, I quietly went into the weight loss night and simply just ate well for one day. Then the next I ate well, and then I was like hey can I go three days… It wasn’t a declaration of my recommitting to any greater good. It wasn’t an I’m going to do this because I hate myself so much. It was a simple quite act and it worked. In hindsight I actually think this is why I am two months solid and feeling okay about things. I made no great promises to myself, no shockingly unrealistic expectations, just one day, one girl, one moment at a time.

In fact it took me until October 10 to decide that I might even want to try and exercise again. And even then it was a simple quick 30 minutes of walking on the treadmill. This old tired large body wasn’t used to anything more vigorous. Of course what followed was what always happens which is my love of exercise or rather running is resparked and in the weeks that followed not only was I doing an hour plus but I was running the entire duration and slowly but surely getting better. All of this was occurring while I was NOT weighing myself 3 times a day or conveniently starving myself more than I should. It was a nice natural happy progression. And it’s working.
In fact for an entire month I did not weigh myself at all. I weighed myself on Oct. 5 and then it was November 1 before I got on the scale again. This made perfect sense to me. Mainly because I was able to avoid a lot of the crazy behaviors that so often plague me in any effort to lose weight. The constant weighing and shuffling my life based on those stupid numbers. The not drinking too much water or liquid even after running my ass off for an hour simply because I didn’t want to see the water on the scale. STUPID! If you don’t weigh yourself you take care of yourself. Crazy concept I know. So alas one month passed and I lost 10.2 pounds. Good enough for me. Besides at this point while at times it seemed easier to want to sit on the couch after work rather than run, for the most part I wasn’t doing anything that was too hard. I was definitely beyond the point of return. No more daily McDonald’s runs and my body felt better. No more crazy turning of my stomach after eating stupid grease. Yeah, I had come too far to quit for sure.

I guess it’s a little bit like, what am I going to do now, quit? Even if I had a bad day where I wanted to eat a bag of candy or not exercise, in the grand scheme of things was I really going to quit? No, I honestly am not. Since Nov. 1 I have been weighing myself exactly once a week. Every Thursday morning after I get up and go to the bathroom I weigh myself. No second guessing all week, no being mad if earlier in the week I saw a lower number, no beating myself up. Just once a week and I take whatever it gives me because a loss is a loss. 4 more weeks have passed at this rate and I am down 21.2 pounds. I of course have weigh in tomorrow morning. I don’t feel like I had a particularly great week as my sister and niece and nephew were in town this weekend and I didn’t exercise like I should or eat like I should. I had too many of those delicious peppermint candy can Hershey kisses, but even if I lose half a pound I will take it.

I am most proud of the reality that despite what I weigh, despite everything I constantly put my body thru I still can run. I love running. Always have. Last night I ran for 1 hour 43 minutes, 13 miles. I know I am capable of that. I also look forward to what I will be capable of when I weigh less and get some more of this weight off of me.

Clearly I will always have a weight problem. Thank God I always come back to eating well. I should also point out that I am not crazy obsessing over food either, in fact I am not even writing anything down. I eat breakfast and then lunch, have a snack run have dinner and it is what it is. And I’m happy about the fact that I don’t obsess over every stupid little thing.

I still have my moments of I hate my body or I can’t do this, some things are very hard to unlearn. But I can honestly say that for the most part I don’t think about it too much. I see the progress I’m making and that is what matters. In eight weeks I lost 21.2 pounds and that is progress. Someone else probably can’t tell on my body just yet, but I notice the subtle little things and that’s what matters. Hell I’ve been wearing my wedding ring for a month no problems and that was a huge goal for me. Not squeezing my finger so much that I have to take it off.

Things are good, I’m doing good and I’ll take it. I have to say I much prefer the silent decent into happiness rather than the guns blazing running in shooting em up approach. This works so much better.

Oh and two shout outs, one to pinterest where I have collected motivational sayings about exercise that keep me smiling and motivated when I might otherwise give up and I have found my missing link, the holy grail of running, for me it is my lovely huluplus that I watch on my blu ray player in the gym. Who knew that someday there would be a means to watch past seasons of the Biggest Loser on demand while I run day in and day out. I have watched two complete seasons now and am working on another one. Sure, I watched them some time ago, and while I know who wins and all and I have vague recollections of some of the events, in a lot of ways it’s all new and fresh. I LOVE it so much. I haven’t been able to tear myself away from past seasons as if it’s happening right now. The best part is that after I see someone get kicked off I can go to facebook and search for them to see how they are really doing today, years later. I am presently watching Season 6 which aired some time ago. I always thought my best workouts came when I was watching the Biggest Loser and now thanks to modern technology I can just watch it over and over. AMAZING!!!! I’m completely in love.

And so it begins

7.8…

Yes, you read that right…. 7.8 freaking pounds. That is how much I lost this week. I have NEVER lost that much in a week, EVER. Of course I had never gotten on a scale without giving it any thought like I did last week. When I weighed in last Thursday I am sure I had just drank a bunch of liquid and since I didn’t have any idea I’d be weighing in, last weeks number was probably a little inflated, but who cares… I’ll definitely take a 7.8 pound loss. I earned that this week. Well, honestly I don’t feel like I worked as hard as I could have so I am thrilled actually with that number. I was hoping for 5. I would have been happy with a 5. I am blown away by 7.8.

I did run last night, run 35 minutes, walked 35 minutes. Not all in a row of course. I broke it up. Intervals and I felt amazing afterwards. Of course it is still much harder than I’d like it to be. Much harder than I remember it being. I used to glide thru runs. It’s a struggle, but obviously worth it. I will get better at it. It WILL get easier. Right now I am just happy with the loss for the week.

I can also say that I am thrilled that I didn’t once all week get on a scale. Thus that number was a true shock. It was incredibly nice to not obsessively weigh myself. It was nice to just wait and see, because no matter what I did all week, the results would have been the same. I paid for the monthly pass so that I am forced to go back. So for now I am just going to take it one day at a time. That’s all I can do. Had myself a subway sandwich as my reward after weigh-in. I weighed in at lunch time. I have some couponing to do after work and then I will probably try and run again tonight, since tomorrow I will have to take off to go to dinner for Chris’s birthday.

Overall, I am very happy today. I am tired. I slept like crap last night, but I am happy right now and I’ll take it.