I've Got Potential

Tonight I'm feeling like I am living a life that is less than what it could be.  I'm not in a funk, I'm not depressed or even down in the dumps, I swear.  I'm just feeling like I'm spending these days doing the minimum and I think that in doing so I am really selling myself short. 

My facebook today is flooded by posts and pictures of people/friends/acquaintances who ran in the Columbus Marathon this morning.  Five years ago today I was at my lowest weight I had been in years (somewhere around 210 I believe) and I completed the Columbus Half.  What if I had stuck with my journey then?  I'll stop there because we all know where "what if's" get us....nowhere.  Except maybe a path of regret.  And I refuse to regret anything along this journey anymore.

I have a couple friends who have been losing a lot of weight the past several months and they look so FABULOUS!  I have a cousin who had gastric bypass earlier this year and she looks amazing.  I follow a woman on facebook who, since early 2011 has lost over 200 pounds (just by diet and exercise!) and is gorgeous.  I look at my 40 pound loss (give or take) since January 2011 and I am so proud!  Especially by not putting any back on after Lucas!  But there is a part of me that wonders if I could really make things happen if I would just turn all this work up a notch.  I'm not willing to give up everything I enjoy, I lost my weight so far without following a diet, but rather by working out, and by just being conscientious and smart about my choices and my portions.  But I do think that I could concentrate a little more on my goals on a daily basis, and start choosing to do more to get closer to reaching them.  Maybe step up the veggies a bit, increase the water, step up the exercise a bit (I personally think I need to do something nearly every day to keep my head in the game and just to help me stay happy and sane haha:) ....just overall focus on this journey more.  My ultimate goal is to have lost 100 pounds by my birthday next year...that is about 65 pounds (give or take) in about 11 months (did I mention this before?  Can't remember...bear with me:) so it's totally doable.  I just need to make sure I keep my head in the game and stay focused on a daily basis.  Hell, on a minute by minute basis!

I am proud of myself and where I am now in my life, I just need some tweaking.  We all need a tune-up once and awhile!  I can promise you that a year from now, I will not be looking back and wondering 'what if I stuck with it then?'.  I'm sticking with it now. :)

Pumpkin Show Time!

 

Yesterday was our (mostly) annual trip to the Circleville Pumpkin Show.  My grandparents took me when I was little, and then in high school my band marched in the parade.  When Ian was born I took him when he was only about a month old and we try to go every year..and this was Luke's first visit!  It was a windy but fun day.  Here we are all ready to head out.  Clearly Luke is fascinated by his big brother!

 

 

Here's my little pumpkin all ready to check out the show. :)

 

Getting Ian to look at the camera is a serious accomplishment in itself these days.

 

This man was soo sweet, he reminded me of my grandpa in a way.  He is the farmer who grew the prize winning giant pumpkin!  Ian liked him a lot too.

 

Ian got a kick out of this dog...he was at a booth for dog training.  So adorable!  He stayed up on that hydrant for at least 3 or 4 minutes!

 

So we tried the mini pumpkin doughnuts.  I was pretty pumped up for them, but honestly?  I like the plain ones better. ;)

 

 

My little guy doing what he does best (at least during the daytime-haha).

 

 

I love this picture of us..he is the most smiley baby, it just makes me so happy when I see his cute little grin!

 

And here's my big boy all tuckered out on the way home.  He was such a sweet boy all day, I am so blessed with these little guys!

 

I went into the day with the idea that I was taking a day off of worrying too much about my eating...I was going to pretty much have whatever I wanted.  When it came down to it though, I ended up having a few mini doughnuts, a few french fries (I split an order with mom and Ian) and a piece of pumpkin pie I shared with Ian.  DEFINITELY not healthy stuff, but for all day at a festival with ice cream, fried cheese, deep fried buckeyes, candy, brownies, cream puffs, pizza, and much more I think I did okay.  To me, that's the key to all of this.  Common sense and moderation.  I enjoyed myself, I didn't feel deprived, I got back on track afterwards and I didn't spend all day obsessing over food.  It's so nice to finally start feeling like I can control my food instead of it controlling me.  

I'm a Believer

Had training today and all morning I was whining about it.  I did NOT want to go.  I was tired (am tired...it's a constant state of being these days!) and sore and just not in the mood.  I worked myself up so much I was almost sick to my stomach when I went in.  It's just really hard to get back into the swing of things when you've been out of the game for so long.

Before I got pregnant I was at the gym 6 days a week.  Three days strength training, three days cardio training...it was MY place!  I knew everyone there, I was comfortable there and I loved it! Then I got pregnant and I still was able to keep up that routine for quite a while.  As the pregnancy progressed I had to limit myself and finally when Luke was born I couldn't do anything for awhile.  Now that he is 4 months old I am trying to get back into some kind of routine but with two children and little sleep I just can't get back to it like I did before.  I know I will someday, but right now I'm just trying to get through each day.  And now I have a new trainer too, who is awesome by the way, but it's just another thing to get used to. 

So all that is what's in my head when I walked in the door today.  Our first exercise he had to modify (has to do with a plank and a ball, I'll leave it at that) and I was SO pissed at myself!  Pissed that I couldn't do it, pissed that I feel like I'm starting over, pissed that I even HAVE to lose weight in the first place (like that I got to that point), pissed about everything!  But you know what?  I talked to him about it a bit and with a little pep talk from him, I started to remember everything I've done the last 2 years.  The first day with Mandy I fell over...it doesn't get worse then that!  But look where I am today.  I can do this, and I WILL do this.  Jami told me Sunday when I was frustrated in pilates to 'get out of my head'.  THAT, my friend, is the key to a LOT of our problems.  We have to get out of our own way!  We are capable of much more than we think!

And by the way...the third set I nailed that plank. ;)

Am I being punked??

Just a quick post to share my big accomplishment of the day. I skipped Dairy Queen! That's right folks...you read that right. I passed on ice cream. Therefore I expect to be down at LEAST 3 or 4 pounds in the morning. That's how that works, right? ;)

I'm actually pretty proud I got through this day at all...it started with a series of frustrating events, and ended with the same. Got up this morning and within an hour had managed to explode oatmeal all over the microwave, change a totally exploded diaper, blow a circuit breaker, clean up a potty training mess off the bathroom floor and manage to hit myself square in the face with a mop handle. All before 9:30am! Good times. The boys both had doctor's appointments today too, which actually went well, aside from the chaos that taking a 4 year old and 4 month old to the doctor entails. They did both get shots, which leads me to the frustrating events of the evening...Ian is beside himself that his leg hurts (so much that he is limping...don't worry people, he was fine to run around at the playground for more than an hour and half this afternoon) and Luke has a fever. Trying to help the poor baby feel better I end up almost choking him with baby Tylenol (I didn't give him too much, he just isn't used to that consistency or method). Ugh!

All that on just a few hours of sleep. But I can't be too frustrated....I mean, look at these two..it's all worth it. ;)

 

Massage Please?

SOOO tired and sore!  I'm plopped down in my living room and I swear I barely have the strength to type this post!  Yesterday was pilates, and I also hit the treadmill for about a half hour after to try and get just a little cardio in.  Today was cardio with Jami, and we ended up walking a little over 6 miles.  SIX miles!! For me, that's a LOT! And I'm tired! Doesn't help that I was up with Luke 6 times last night (6 must be the number of the day, haha;).  I'm glad though that we did it, it was pouring earlier today and I was afraid I wasn't going to get it in today.  Thankfully it cleared up enough to still get out (even if we did get hit with a few sprinkles here and there).

So before we started pilates Sunday Jami took me over to this machine to get weighed.  Aaron wanted to get a starting point (and frankly so do I).  But it's not just a scale, you get on it barefoot and hold these handles and it measures not just your weight but your lean muscle mass and your visceral fat (fat around your organs, etc.).  I don't have the printout of it yet but I could see the screen while it was computing everything and it wasn't pretty.  BMI is currently about 42, and all the graphs showed 'over' when it was measuring fat by arms/legs/trunk, etc..  I mean, I'm not surprised but it's sobering to see that when you've already lost over 30 pounds.  I did my own computing of BMI and it was 47 when I was at 261 so I guess I need to just be proud of that and move on.  I'm going in the right direction!  About 8 more pounds and I'll be under 40 BMI for the first time in I can't even recall how long. 

I follow a girl on facebook who has lost about 70 pounds (Amanda Tyson for those interested).  I'm not too clear on her back story but I believe she initially tried out for The Biggest Loser and ended up not getting on the show, but she proceeded to lose the weight on her own.  She's pretty awesome and has a lot of motivational things to say.  Well, her birthday is coming up and she posted a list of things that she had wanted to accomplish before the day came.  It got me thinking.  I had figured a while back that it would be awesome if I could be down a total of 100 pounds by my 33rd birthday.  Considering what I've already lost that would equate to about 5 pounds per month until then.  Totally doable.  However I'm not putting that pressure on myself.  That's a great goal, and if I hit it then that will be one hell of a birthday party, but if I don't, no biggie;)  I loved her list idea though...I think I'm going to come up with something like that.  Hers had cool stuff like "visit Texas" and "bike a mountain in CA" (she obviously gets around a bit more than I do!).  I'm going to think on it a bit and come up with something.  Hopefully it will have more on it then just "Get the house clean" and "Take a shower in peace". haha ;) 

Remember how I used to blog?

 

Ugh. Ok, so I'll admit it. I totally suck at maintaining this thing. I think about it a lot, I have every intention of updating it, but time always just seems to slip away and I never get back to it. But here I am! And guess what. In all this time, I DIDN'T fall off the wagon, and I DIDN'T gain any weight back! Boo-yah! There is SOOO much that has happened in the past year or so it would take me a dozen pages if I wrote about it all. So here are the big events just to get you up to speed. ;)

 

- Like I said already, I didn't fall off the wagon. When I broke my wrist I kept right on training. We adjusted and kept at it! It was weird going in to work out every day with a big cast (especially with weight training!) but it went fine and after the cast was off Mandy slowly got me back to normal. Well, not completely back to normal, because shortly after I broke my wrist I found out.....

 

- I was pregnant!!!  In October I found out that I was expecting! I am so proud to introduce you to Lucas Andrew!  

 

 

 

 He is now 4 months old and is the sweetest, most smiley baby ever!  He definitely needs to work on the whole sleeping at night thing, but he is my little sweetheart.  Ian is now 4 years old, so smart and so funny, and he loves his little brother to pieces.  I can tell they are going to have a wonderful relationship.

 

- When I was about 6 months pregnant, I got some incredibly sad news that Mandy was moving to Cleveland.  She got a job promotion and her girlfriend's family is there so she made the move.  While I was so happy for her, I was heartbroken to lose her.  Not only as my trainer, but as one of my best friends.  I can't even describe how sad I was...we had become so close, and I really feel like God put her in my life to save me from myself, to turn my life around, and she did.  It took a lot of adjusting and a lot more tears to get through her leaving, and I miss her immensely but we are still great friends and talk all the time.  I'd love for her to move back but I am happy that she is happy. :)

 

- When Mandy moved I stuck with the gym until I was too pregnant to keep working out too much.  Luke was born in June and I am just recently getting back into my groove.  I have a wonderful amazing pilates instructor/friend that I work with named Jami who has definitely been a huge support for me through the end my pregnancy and beyond.  I do pilates with her once a week and we do cardio together once a week...I am SO grateful for her!!  I also started personal training again, just once a week for now, but that may increase as things settle in my new dual-children life.  And get this...it's a male trainer!  I never thought I would have the guts to train with a guy but I thought I'd give it a shot.  So far so good!

 

- Weight wise things are good.  I am currently at about 225.  I started at 261 at my heaviest, and got pregnant at 220.  I didn't gain more than 10 pounds with Luke...after he was born I've been up and down about 10 pounds, down to 215, up to 225 or so.  I'm so proud of myself that even through Mandy leaving and the pregnancy I am still sticking to things.  Of course I'd love things to progress faster but slow and steady wins the race!  I am really on the right track now that I have my gym stuff back on the schedule so I'm looking forward to what progress I can make the next few months!

 

My goal with this blog now is just to use it to try and stay accountable.  I hope to check in often, even if it's just a few lines, to share how things are going.  (Ok, or maybe to post a cute pic or two of my kids, I'll be honest, haha;)  I am so blessed that God has given me the strength to keep me on this path despite all the obstacles that have come along.  Life is good!

Bump in the Road...

So I don't know if I've mentioned it on here, but I planted a garden a few months ago. It's been really fun tending to it and picking tomatoes and peppers and such. So far I've gotten a few tomatoes, some grape tomatoes, a couple green peppers, basil and a ton of jalapenos, tomatillos and hot chiles. I also planted some zucchini and squash but haven't had a lot of luck with those. Was hoping for lots of sauteed zucchini this summer but maybe next year I guess. But I digress.

A few days ago I was out picking some veggies from the garden. It was actually my biggest gather yet, and I was really excited! As you can see in the picture, I constructed a fence around the garden because in the first few weeks after planting, something kept eating all the buds. Well, in trying to step over the fence to bring the veggies back to the house my heel caught the edge of the wire and I fell. Hard.

Immediately I felt awful pain in my wrist. The wind got knocked out of me and I felt like I might pass out. Luckily I had my cell phone on me so immediately I called my friend who lives nearby...and even more luck..Ian was still napping upstairs in his crib at that time. My friend came over to get Ian and Jeff came home and took me to the ER as my wrist was throbbing horribly and was swelling up pretty good.

So my wrist is broken. I knew it when I was laying in the yard rolling around in a pile of smashed tomatoes crying (I'll let you picture that for a moment...done laughing? Ok, read on;) It just hurt too bad to not be broken. Despite all the annoyance of having one hand instead of two (for example, this post is taking 3x as long to write as it should) I am more upset about my training. My first thought was that...how will I box? How will I lift weights? How will I do push ups or learn to use the prowler? I had an almost immediate sense of panic and sadness. I know it doesn't seem like too big a deal in the big picture, but for someone that is working so hard and is dedicating so much time to doing everything I can to getting healthy and fit, this is a huge setback.

So I called Mandy that night. If anyone in my life knows what I'm feeling right now it's her. A couple months into training me, Mandy was taking her level up test for Krav Maga and tore her ACL and Meniscus. She had major surgery to repair it and has gone through months of recovery. I needed to talk to her. She definitely helped lift my spirits. She gave me a huge pep talk and reminded me that in the end, this just adds more to my story. An obstacle that gives me more to be proud of in the end. So that is what I am trying to focus on through all of this. I see a hand surgeon on Tuesday to most likely get my regular cast applied (right now I have a plaster splint cast) and to find out how long it will have to stay on.

It's definitely an everyday challenge. It's hard for me to not just say screw it, and stop going to the gym, and start eating whatever, and just stop. But I'm not going to. I'm keeping on my routine, even if it means changing up my training and doing more pilates and cardio and such until I can use my arm again. It's hard to not let it get in my head. I laid down on the reformer for my pilates PT last week and just couldn't help but start crying because all I wanted to do or thought I should be doing was boxing or kicking ass on the TRX. And all I hear in my head is that I'm going to end up gaining everything back and getting weak (oh my gosh, how weak will this arm be in 5 weeks!!! UGH!) again. But I know that is ridiculous because I refuse to let that happen. Even if I have to cry and break down once and awhile in the process. Because that's what it is. A process. And this is just a bump in the road...one that I will get past and one that will make me even stronger.

Update in Pictures:)

It's been a busy couple of weeks and to be honest I'm tired!! But all good things at least:) First, we had a bunch of work done on our house and it is finally completed. I LOVE it...it was totally worth the money, time and anxiety. Check it out...

New floors..


New appliances (minus the new fridge)...


Not too shabby! I'm so glad it's done. We basically had to stay upstairs while they were doing the work (about 2 weeks long) and keeping Ian upstairs all day and evening was no simple task.

Speaking of Ian, we're getting ready to start preschool next month. I can't even believe it's time for that kind of thing...I was so excited about it this summer but now that it's getting closer I'm getting kind of emotional. The truth is, I take him to Mangos (my friend's childcare center) twice a week anyway when I'm at the gym, and his preschool will be those exact same two days...so really not much is changing except he'll be there about an hour longer. Honestly I guess it's just the fact that he is getting so big and that's hard sometimes. I miss my little baby! But luckily there are so many awesome things about him growing up that it keeps me from getting TOO sad...he's talking so much, saying the funniest things, asking the most hilarious questions, it's all so entertaining:) I'm so grateful to have been blessed with this amazing little boy. Man, I love this kid:)







I'm going to write another post soon about this, but I had a great surprise last week. Jeff whisked me away for a surprise weekend trip to Chicago!! It was my first time there and I absolutely LOVED it. I will post more pics soon, but here's a sneak peak;)





I've been keeping up my workouts/boxing/pilates and I'm feeling pretty good. I went shopping at Lane Bryant the other day and I actually only found 1 shirt that looked good on me...all the rest I tried were too big! It was awesome. I am pulling old clothes out of the drawers that I haven't worn in forever, buying workout clothes in regular stores again, and my capris from last summer and this past spring are too big to wear..they look pretty ridiculous. It's a really nice feeling:)

So when I won the 90 Day Challenge Mandy told me I should write a little essay about my story (how I came to Lifetime, losing the weight, all the new workout stuff I've been doing, etc.) and submit it to Lifetime's website for their success stories. Well, I did, and not only did they post it, but they featured it on their main success story page. I couldn't believe it!!! I'm so proud:) If you would like to read it here's the link: http://lifetime-weightloss.com/success-stories/category/dublin-oh

So of course Mandy was especially proud of me. She had told me so a million times and even shared my story with her colleagues. A week or so later I came in for my 6 AM TEAM Weight Loss class and as soon as I came up the steps to walk towards my treadmill I saw this:



She had completely decorated my treadmill with streamers and balloons and a big "Congratulations Michelle!" sign. There was also a card signed by her and a bunch of the other trainers. I was SOOOO touched I teared up. She had been planning it since the 90 day results came out...I was so surprised! It was seriously one of the sweetest things anyone has ever done for me. I'm so lucky to have so much support in this journey. When I think of what my life was like last year and what it looks like today, it just blows me away. I am so blessed.