I made it to the gym this morning and did my elliptical workout. I really enjoy the elliptical, far more than the running, but I think the running will serve me well in the future, so I'm sticking with it. I just like going to the gym a lot more on the mornings when I'm doing the elliptical. It was a good workout - I'm totally getting addicted. I hate how I feel in the mornings when I don't work out, which is a fantastic thing really. Means I'm more likely to keep this exercise thing going for the long run.

Joined WW with my mom today too. I'm not sure about this one - I've been doing well on my own - slow, slow, slow weightloss, but it's been consistent. But Mike wants to do something about his weight, and he was so successful doing this before. And I could stand to be more conscious about what I'm putting into my body. The issue I'm having is with the weekly weigh=ins. I know if I get too hung up on those numbers, I'm done. So the key is being careful about the 'weight' I give those numbers, so to speak. Slow and steady is good. Obsessing about every single point value or plateau, bad. I've signed up for 15 weeks, which will take me through the worst of my weight gain times - Thanksgiving and Christmas, and then see how I'm doing...

On a very positive (yet somewhat embarrassing) note: Mhy pants that have been getting too big over the last few months are officially WAY TOO BIG - I wore them today and they kept falling off. Like really off - down to my knees at one point. Luckily I had a long coat on. But this is officially the last time I'll be wearing those pants!

stepped on the scales today and was down another one or two pounds. making total weight loss since may 30lbs. (total from my highest weight ever recorded? 42. whoot). I had been avoiding the scales due to vast chocolate consumption over the past week but faced them this morning in the hopes that a gain would have been the imputous I needed to give up the chocolate. But no, there was a loss. And because I am vastly complicated and ridiculous there was more chocolate today. and there might have been cheesecake, but if asked outright I will deny, deny, deny. (it was gluten free organic cheesecake, but it was cheesecake none the less, if I had eaten it, which of course I will never admit *grin*).

I did the gym this morning - 3 sets of 3:1 and then during the fourth set I felt funny, like a fluttering in my chest, and so I took my heartrate and it was HIGH. So I stopped running and I walked at a pace of 3.5MPH for the remaining running times and then did my cooldown. I felt fine after, and while walking, and my heartrate returned to normal quickly, but it was still a bit alarming. I will try running again on Friday - tomorrow is an elliptical day.

Skipped the workout on Tuesday - I needed to get some bloodwork done and so went to the lab early to find out that they didn't open until 8 (not 7:30 like I thought) so didn't get to curves in the evening either, since I needed to get to the lab before they closed (6). And I skipped curves this evening too. And tomorrow is the first ww day...maybe i should go to curves tomorrow morning instead of the gym...hmmm...but i love the elliptical more...I know I do need to really start working on strength training - strong women, strong bones, etc. I just really hate it. It's boring, it's bland. Curves at least is a bit better than strength machines at the gym - it's only 30 seconds and the women are usually nice. at the very least, i don't have to think, I just do. But it's harder to get motivated to go there, when I so much prefer the other gym...meh. I know I need to do it, and I'll get there. I'm still working on the gym 5 days a week - baby steps. But I can't let me get away with skipping curves too often...Perhaps a more set schedule and more strict adherence to said schedule is in order...?

sooo, there has been no exercise since wednesday really - no, get to the gym and sweat your butt off exercise anyway. until this morning that is. managed to do 5 sets of 3:1 on the treadmill today. So I'm mighty proud of myself. I probably could have kept going too - although that last 3:1 was a bit harder than the others. I even ran a bit faster than usual, and my walking pace was an even 3 miles/hour rather than the 2.7 or 2.8 I usually do. it's great to see even little improvements from week to week. I might have a low energy day or two here or there, but the overall trend is improvement. yay. i am so freakin' proud of myself. and these little improvements are so motivating.

it was a good weekend too. i didn't go to the gym - after the week i had last week, the naturopath told me to take it easy over the weekend and let my body recover from the radioactive dye and the ct scan, and the emotional stress it all caused. but instead of just spending the weekend in my pjs as i so often would have done, I got up and dressed each day, heading out for a matinee movie on saturday and a walk/coffee on sunday. I walked 3 km in gale-force winds for that coffee, so strong is the allure of the soy latte. But again, i'm proud of myself for getting off the couch and walking and enjoying life. It's so easy, especially at this time of year, to just sit in the basement watching tv and letting the depression take hold. but this year i'm actively fighting it. and it's so much better. and again, motivating to keep this going in my life. I know in a way it's a choice - you chose to be happy, you chose not to be happy - and this is me making better choices in my life, but it's also not. when you're in the grip of the dragon it's so hard to make those choices, to get the motiviation and the momentum to make the right choices in your life.

of course, there could still be better choices to be made: like this morning...why i think i can only have one hersey's kiss and not keep going back for more, even though i never can, i'll never know. everytime i'm faced with the choice of eat chocolate or don't eat chocolate a little voice inside of me says "oh, just have one, you'll be fine" and so i do, even though, i know this is the first of many i will have throughout the day...there is no such thing as just one when it comes to chocolate and me. when i will learn that and thus learn to say no is another thing entirely...

yesterday i woke up completely exhausted. so very tired. mike had gone to work late to solve a crisis and i decided to 'wait up' for him - so silly of me. he didn't get home until about 1 a.m. I didn't manage to fall asleep until closer to 2. and we got up at 6. But i did drag my so exhausted i felt like i was drunk ass into the gym. i did 33 minutes on the elliptical, never going too quick - heartrate never got higher than 133 or so, but at least i did 30 minutes of consistant workout. of course i ate french fried AND chocolate yesterday too, completely undoing any good the workout did. haven't quite mastered the art of avoiding stress eating. it was not a good day emotionally and so it stand to reason that it was not a good day as far as what i chose to eat either.

today there will be no morning workout anyway - i am on my way to the hospital for a CT scan to check to make sure the collection of blood in the gallbladder cavity isn't from internal bleeding but just a hematoma that isn't going away. it never ends. first the surgery, then the infection, and now this... bah. Hopefully it turns out to be nothing too serious and is easily taken care of. it will be hard to convince me that another surgery is necessary when surgery itself caused this mess. arg...

depending on how the day turns out, there may be exercise in the evening. this should be a run day. we'll see...

well, i'm slowly improving...i will make it to five sets of 3:1 at somepoint. today i managed to do four sets of 3:1 and then did one final set of 2:2 before doing my cool down. i just couldn't manage to make myself do that last minute of running. it will come.

Have had a great no-refined-sugar day today. However, I've also been hungry all day today. And slightly cranky. Still considering joining Weight Watchers again. I think mom and i would go together - encourage each other. Just hate the idea of spending that money...encouraging the billion dollar diet industry to just keep taking more money, but at the same time, i know i do best on ww when i'm actually going to ww. as opposed to trying to do it on my own...cuz i'm so not really counting points or writing down what i'm eating right now, and i know i do much better when i do...

i should go to curves, but i'm so tired and hungry i just want to go home. so i probably will. so much for strength training. maybe i'll do some yoga when i get home...

woke up feeling sick and so skipped the workout. took a long time getting going today in general...

lost 2 or 3 lbs this week (my scales give a best estimate of weight only...). and last night while out dancing my jeans almost fell off! so wahoo for getting smaller.

hoping to make it to the gym tonight as I'm starting to feel better but if not, it will be a very early night with a gym trip tomorrow morning...

I think I need to accept the fact that I need to buy some new pants. That no one needs to see me hiking my pants back up after I've walked only a few steps. For heaven's sake, they fell down a few months ago, and I've lost more weight and inches since then...

And yet I'm still wearing them. Why? Because they're comfortable, they look good (when they're not falling down that is) and. most importantly, because I don't need to get them hemmed. So very often the pants that fit my waist are way, way, way too long in the legs. And so, instead of getting them hemmed or *gasp* hemming them myself, I leave them on the rack and continue my search for the right pair - the pair that will magically fit both my long torso and my short legs.

However, there are no belt loops on these pants and if I lose many more inches or pounds, even periodic hiking up of the pants won't do.

On a different note - I managed to make it to the gym this morning before a 9 a.m. meeting. Yay me! My energy wasn't fantastic though - I only managed to run 2 sets of 3x1, one set of 2x2 and one set of 1x2. Then I walked (quickly, but still not running) for the remainder...I felt good when I was done, but I do wish that I could have completed the workout running even the 2x1 or 2x2 intervals. Alas, it was not to be...At least I'm listening to my body and recognizing that I'm tired and not to push too hard, but I want to make sure I'm not giving into the tiredness too soon either.

Curves tonight, and then early to bed. I need to catch up on my sleep.

20 minutes on the elliptical this morning. Not fantastic, but I woke up late and didn't make it to the gym until 1/4 to 8. When you have to be out to catch the bus by 8:40, that leaves little time for a long workout. And I forgot to bring water. Not cool.

But in all, it was a decent enough workout, and I did it as opposed to Friday when we woke up late and I skipped working out entirely. So yay, me!

Did my curves workout tonight - a little rushed though. I need to learn to leave work on time. I don't know what it is about me that makes it so hard to get going, leaving, anything. I seem to be highly reluctant to change of any sort - waking up, going to bed, getting to work, leaving work, it doesn't matter, I postpone it as long as humanly possible. Once I'm actually left or there or sleeping or awake, I'm fine, it's just the process of transitioning that I hate. But I'll need to get over it if I'm going to stick to this routine.

Got measured today and weighed. You're supposed to do it every month there, so you can track your progress. I had never bothered (since, when you're close to 300lbs, the last thing you want is to share that information with others) but now that I've lost weight and am at a more 'normal' weight (for me, anyway) I figured I could let someone in on my dirty little secret (what I actually weigh) and since I'm getting smaller anyway, it was time to start measuring it to find out just how much smaller I'm getting. Which is a surefire way to garuantee that I will probably not lose a single pound or inch this month, but whatever. Hopefully concrete results will be motivating and if they prove to be anything but then I'll go back to my routine of blissful ignorance of all things measuring-tape related (I'd like to say I'd also be blissfully ignorant of all things scale related but I know myself too well for that...)

Tomorrow is a cardio/elliptical day and also I see the naturopath to ask questions about nutrition pre and post workout. Right now, by the time I get up, get to the gym, workout, shower, change and get to work, it's a good three hours from when I wake until I'm eating and I think that's too long...

progress is being made, which always makes me happy. I managed to run 3 sets of 3:1 before my body said slow down, so i finished off the remaining two sets with a 2 minutes of running to 2 minutes of walking ratio. Not too shabby. At least I'm proud of myself. I will make it to 10:1 eventually - when I can increase my time spent running, I start to really believe it....

The schedule has stepped up again: cardio in the morning Mon-Fri, with M,W,F being running days and T/Th being the elliptial days. Curves will be three evenings a week (either M,W,F or T,Th,Sa). Weekends will be open for walking, or other unscheduled activities, like yesterday's trip to LaRonde. Walking for hours on end and standing in park lines might not be heavy cardio, but it's still activity, and it's fun!

Eventually I want to add yoga/pilates to the list, but that will come. baby steps...

the alarm went off at 6 a.m. like always, but unlike usual, mike leaned over and instead of hitting snooze, he ended up hitting off and the next thing we knew it was after 7 and we were running late. so i didn't make it to curves today. i could have gone after work, but by the time i was home it was after 6 and there was a major thunderstorm. i was soaked within 10 seconds of getting off the bus. the thunder was so loud it set off a car alarm on my street. and i'm lazy, or so it seems. i could have had the car even, but instead i'm sitting on my bum, watching tv and playing with my computer. i do so love that i can blog from the basement. or the living room.

but, to make up for the day off, tomorrow has to be a curves and a run day. or at the very least, a run day with some weight work at the gym. i'm losing my focus - forgetting why i'm doing this. instead i'm eating candy and cookies and crap. luckily my weight has stayed the same, but that won't be the case if i don't get back on track and right away. we're thinking of starting weight watchers again, because mike is also frustrated with the weight he's put on lately. it worked well for him before, but i'm still hesitant. i know diets don't work long term, but we need to do something. i'm thinking of focusing on the no-counting 'core' plan - whole foods, wholesome, the way i was eating before. the way i need to keep eating. with a few 'points' for treats. because it won't stick if there are no treats...

this is always the way it goes with me...i get to a certain point and i stall. lose focus. forget. i don't want to forget. repeat old patterns. i want this to stick, i want to make lasting, permanent changes. i just need to remember that.

had very few hours of sleep last night and woke feeling less than refreshed. decided not to attempt to run on the treadmill as my energy was so low and i know that if i tried and failed at the running, especially in my over-tired state, i would be bummed. really, really bummed. so i did the eliptical machine instead - 33 minutes of high energy music and after the first few minutes, high energy suze. it felt great - i worked hard, but it wasn't as hard on me or my knees as the treadmill is. but despite the good workout, my first instinct, which was to crawl back into bed and call in sick, might have been a good one. i took forever in the locker room having my shower and getting dressed (i don't understand what took so long), missed my bus, had to wait FOREVER for another bus, which is supposed to come every 10 minutes, but rarely does, and then was late for a meeting. Not a good impression that makes. AND i didn't get to eat until 11 a.m. by which point i was starving and made bad choices.

the only redeeming thing about today is that i'm going out for dinner with a friend to a yummy organic vegetarian restaurant where i will be able to get excellent, healthy food. perhaps make up for the crap i've fed my poor, tired body today.

and then, then i'm going home to sleep. perchance to dream...

did my curves circuit this morning. felt good, but now that i know how to do this properly, it was hard. those 30 seconds, when you're giving it all you've got and moving the machine as fast as you can, it seems like a loooong time. no wonder i wasn't feeling it before - i was doing it all wrong. hopefully now that i've figured it out, i'll start seeing better results...

did seven sets of run 2 walk 2 today. energy was good, and i probably could have done more. the last 20-15 seconds of each set was really difficult though, so i don't think I'm quite ready for 3/1 sets yet. i'll continue at the 2/1 sets for the rest of the week, and try 3/1 next week. that way I'll only be one week behind the group which isn't that bad.

at least it was better this week than last. i still can't get over how difficult i found running last week. i don't know if it was poor energy, that my body was too tired to run, or if there was a lack of determination or lack of proper nutrition or what, but last week was hellish as far as wrokouts went. i hope this week will be better.