Tag Archives: Physical fitness

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Reflecting On My Journey

While I was driving to work this morning, I was listening to Oprah Radio and just doing some self – reflection about my health, wellness and fitness journey. My thoughts were triggered last night while reading the book about the P.I.N.K Method. The book also serves as a journal in which you write your starting measurements, goals etc. While writing my goals, I realized a number of things that I am doing to hinder my health and fitness journey. Some of the things I am going to mention in this post may be a repeat of a earlier post so I apologize in advance.

1. I am an emotional eater.

2. I  snack out of boredom

3. I sometimes skip breakfast

4. I eat certain things out of weakness (giving in to what my daughter and man want to eat for dinner)

5. I lay in bed most of the weekend in the dark either sleeping or watching TV

6. I spend a lot of time feeling sorry for myself

7. I am allowing my depression to run my life instead of continuously seeking treatment (this is my biggest obstacle).

8. I have not made any short or long-term weight loss goals

My biggest obstacle is depression and I have decided that its time to contact my insurance and seek treatment. I was under treatment before at the Veteran’s Affairs but I stopped going since the main focus was medicating me and not allowing me to face my issues and learn new ways to overcome those issues.

I have also realized that I do not need to have everyone in my house on the same page with me. I find that I want EVERYONE in my house to change their lifestyle because I am trying to change mine. I am unsuccessful with my change because I am not focused on just me. It is okay to be selfish so that I can reduce my risk of heard disease, diabetes, high cholesterol etc. I have to make a change for ME and not anyone else.

I initially planned to start the  P.I.N.K. Method on March 19th but since I have not finished reading through the book I have decided to start on April 1st. The first 90 days of 2012 did not go they way I intended on this journey (only a 3 lb weight loss so far), so let’s see how the 2nd 90 days of this year will go. I have some upcoming events to get jazzy for as well as being healthy overall such as my daughters graduation and my birthday. I will discuss my short-term and long-term weight loss goals in a future post. :-)

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My Confessions

I must confess….I have fallen off when it comes to eating. I mean, really fallen off…I have been pigging out off and on over the past three weeks for dinner!!! I have been too lazy to cook dinner so we have ordered out: dominos pizza, Chipotle, Jimmy johns subs, it’s been crazy! I have even gained one pound and on top of that I have been lazy with working out. I probably worked out three times in the past two weeks which included my post about the Kettlebell workout on March 4. In addition to eating badly and working out sporadically, I have not been counting my calories. As a matter of fact I have not counted calories since I started this journey on January 16th!  I  learned in a nutrition course that I have to make sure that I create a deficit in calories to lose weight, which is where working out comes into play. Of course I am going to gain back a pound,I have not been creating that 3500 calorie deficit per week to burn off 1lb of fat.

In the past I would have given up on my journey. I would have just said, screw it and moved on. However, my mentality this year is different from my attempts at losing weight in the past. Not to worry…I am back on track with my exercising which started for me last Friday. My motivation was rekindled when I went out with a friend and we danced for a few hours. I felt so good afterwards and even though I got to bed at midnight on Saturday morning, at 9 am sharp I was up working out with Kathy Smith doing her kettlebell workout. Sunday I rested because I was a bit sore, Monday I did the Kettlebell workout again, Tuesday I rode my mountain bike and today I walked 3.5 miles with my dog. Hmm…what to do tomorrow….? I am having so much fun.

As far as eating goes, I will be starting a new health and fitness program. I may have mentioned this before but I am going to do the P.I.N.K. Method, which is a program designed by a woman for women. I received this program on the 6th and it starts with the P.I.N.K. reset. So, since I align my grocery shopping with my paydays, I will be purchasing food items this weekend so that I can start the reset. I will attempt to blog about each day to let you all know what I am doing, how I am feeling, and things of that nature. As we all know, “if at first you do not succeed, try, try again” so I will keep trying until I get this health and fitness journey right! :-)

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Kettlebell Workout Day 1

This morning I decided to open up my Kathy Smith Kettlebell solution package and try it out. As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, the package came with a 3 lb and 5 lb kettlebell and the workout DVD. The DVD was sealed in a packet that also had two other items. There was a 10 page booklet called Kathy Smith’s Nutrition Solution and a large poster with all the kettlebell workouts along with the description and instructions of each workout. I thought that was nice because I can hang that up on the wall and create my own workouts on days that I cannot pop in the DVD (like those days that my daughter commandeer the television!).

I decided to take it easy this morning because in all honesty, I did not walk or workout last week. In addition, it has been a while since I even did an upper body workout so I decided to do the warm up and the Kettlebell Upper Body Solution. I wanted to record my work out session because I am a YouTube Vlogger documenting my natural hair journey (luvndanaturalme channel) as well as my health and fitness journey (Journey2Jazzness channel) but I honestly did not feel like setting things up. Any who, I got a very good work out in 25 minutes, burned 400 calories, and I am really looking forward to doing again. The workout was a little difficult because the muscles in my arms were like “hey, what are you doing? You don’t normally use us this way” so I am sure to be sore tomorrow even though I stretched before and after the work out but that is okay. Later on today I will do a 30 minute walk with one of my three dogs as I cannot handle all three of them and tomorrow I look forward to doing the Kettlebell Core Solution.

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My Progress So Far

On January 16 of this year I decided that it was time for me to get myself together and change my lifestyle. I want to get healthier, lose weight, stop my knee pain and just be better overall. It has been a total of seven weeks since the start of my journey. Although I have changed they way I eat and I walk for one hour a few times a week my progress in losing weight has been slow. I have lost inches which is wonderful and as of this morning I have lost a total of 4 pounds, my current weight is 193. I know that a 4 pound weight loss is good, however in seven weeks I should have lost so much more. Why? Because I need to work harder when it comes to exercise. I am so tired of worrying about my knees which is preventing me from working out the way that I want to. I have decided to step it up a notch with my health and fitness journey by doing the following things:

I will continue to walk but only for thirty mins a few times a week. I recently made a few purchases of some at home workout DVD‘s to add some variety to my workout life. Through my bank I received Jillian Michaels Killer Buns and Thighs which I have to save until my knees are stronger, looks like a lot of squats….maybe I can modify the workouts. I also receive Kathy Smith‘s Kettleball Solution. This package came with a DVD, a booklet, and a 3lb and 5lb kettleball. I am so excited about this program and I will be starting this one either later on today after I run errands or after church tomorrow. In addition, I had been looking into the P.I.N.K Method for a few months now at the recommendation of my daughter. She saw that it is a health and fitness program that was designed by a women specifically for women while watching Dr. Phil. So, I saw a few YouTube videos about the progress that other women have made on that program and I finally decided to purchase the program. I should be getting that in the mail on March 6th and I am excited about getting started with that program as well. After chatting with a friend of mine, she motivated me to book a few appointments with my personal trainer at LA Fitness. My thoughts on working out at the gym will be in my next post. So, I am hoping that by the end of March…well no…let’s back up. My GOAL by the end of March is to weigh 189. That is a feasible goal right? That is a one pound weight loss per week….we will see how this all plays out!

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I feel like I am fighting a losing battle….

I know that it took me several years to gain the 40 pounds that I want to lose but it seems like I am fighting a losing battle. I go up and down with my weight loss journey and give up when I feel this way. A few years ago, I would have lost the weight much faster. All I had to do was power walk, or run and in a matter of weeks my weight was falling off. What is the issue now? Well, I cannot do those things now. I have osteoarthritis in BOTH knees and it angers me. Why? Well because it’s partly my fault. I over did things, I gained weight, I got really lazy and this is the result. Now I am in pain and I feel like I am an old woman.

I have the option to get knee injections and physical therapy but I am still on the fence with that. My reason, well….the pain will only go away for about 6 months. What is the use in that? Will that buy me time to lose the weight? Who knows but I am not going to give up. I started my health and fitness journey on January 16th and as of January 29 I am down two pounds. I measured myself today and I have lost up to 1.5 inches in certain areas of my body. I keep telling myself that if I continue to work at it without hurting myself the weight will be off of me by the end of the year. Have I had moments where I wanted to try a “lose weight fast” gimmick? Yes…I was talking to a friend of mine today about the NV weight-loss system. Then I decided that I do not need to take an appetite suppressant especially since my eating was not a big issue, it was the lack of exercise.

I did not want to set myself up by saying I wanted to lose 40 pounds by a certain date. I do realize that slow and steady wins the race and that I have to go through a bit of pain to gain the end results of being 40 pounds lighter.