Nancy’s Weight loss Journey 5 Yrs & Counting

As I sit here setting up the WILDCATS forums for the new weeks, it occurred to me how much my weight plays a role in all that I do.

For example, when I was bigger I rarely left the house.  I was anti-social.  I hate having the “stare” from people.  The look of “Dang girl, why you so fat!”

See, when you are only 5′2″ like me and weigh 220 lbs and  climbing, people love to make someone like me the butt of their jokes.  Men, especially Asian Men and other men, who were my ex’s friends, used to make “funny” jokes about my fatness.  Asian people - ah to them being overweight meant you are off the dating market.  They want nothing to do with me!  My ex, his friends used to make fun of him because I was so short and chubby standing next to his 6′7″ frame.  Whatever!!! I don’t care anymore about those losers!

The “DANG WHY YOU SO FAT!!!!”  was never a question, but a statement because they think I’m too lazy and that’s why I’m fat!!!  They never stop to think differently.  But truth be told, I allowed my low self esteem to eat my way up to that weight and IF I did not stop it in 2005, who knows how much more I can gain?

Well, guess who saw at the gym the other night?  One of my ex-husband’s friends.  I saw him working in a corner, I decided to be cordial.  I went up and gently tapped him on the shoulder.  He didn’t know who I was, his eyes - was soooooo big it nearly popped out of his head.  He stuttered and couldn’t say one word to me.  He pointed at me and wanted to say “WOW” but he didn’t.

BUT I SAW HIM - WATCH ME AS I LEFT.  IT WAS  A GOOD FEELING!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, goes to all the assholes in my previous life that used to make fun of me - IN YOUR FACE!!!!

To add some more honey to my night, 5 people, random people, came up to me and said, thank you for being in class each week.  When they can’t see the instructor they can see and hear me.  I’m the “second” instructor to them for kickboxing.  I was humbled by it.  THEN one lady, even grabbed my sweaty palms and just looked me in the eyes and said, you motivate me each time you are here.

And in Pilates, well, gotta love it.  I had a ton of fun.

Today is my off exercise day.  I managed to get some walking in at break and lunch - total of 3.25 miles.  BOY I CAN FEEL IT!

Tomorrow - I’m dressing up as a Lakers Girl for my ZUMBA class.  I have kickboxing and ZUMBA. I want to win the costume contest.

This is a reminder, that the past is the past and I’m making today a better day.  ALL YOU HATERS IN MY OLD LIFE THAT ONLY SAW ME AND MOCKED ME FOR BEING BIG -SCREW YOU!!!!

I would like to give a big bootay shout out to my friend Tina.  Tina, a kitty kat and fellow buddy here sent me a few books that we thought would help me along on my personal journey of self discovery.

I took the do you know your boundary survey……………………….failed. 

Not really failed but I learned from 40 questions that I do not have any idea of what my personal boundaries are.  It’s smeared all over the place. Because of this I allow others to “hurt” me, take advanatage of me……………and so forth.  The book talks alot about the Inner Child and our True Self.  Whenever we don’t know what we stand for, what is true to us, not the ego necessarily, but who we are deep down inside we can easily be swayed by others.

I hope through learning more about my inner child and what my true self is, I will start defining my personal boundaries, the boundaries I set in all relationships and most of all continue to be true to myself.

I have for the last yr rid myself of the victim mentallity.  I’m not a victim - I choose to be one.  Yes, our past does effect who we are, but we are all in control of what we do today.

This too goes for this journey.  I am not a victim, I take accountability for myself, I will set boundaries with others here and in life.

If someone wants to take their journey to the left and I’m going to the right, so be it.  After all, we are accountable to ourselves and ourselves only.

Last night I had a great great great short run at the gym.  I wanted to come home to my honey.  I did 45 min elliptical and 30 minutes lower body weights with the BOSU.

TONIGHT IT’S ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2 HRS OF KICKBOXING AND PILATES!!! :)  2000 CALORIES BEFORE CLASS AND 3000 CALORIES FOR THE DAY

I have to rub my eyes a few times.  But I don’t think it’s me.  It’s been soooo quiet here on buddyslim.  I’m sad to see so many regulars not on.  Where is everybody?

I thought the summertime was bad, but it’s worse now.  I know a lot of people are sick, having to deal with the flu and most people are back in school.

I wonder how much of an impact not having a site such as buddyslim effect their journey.   I know when I’m away even for a couple of days, I care a bit less about my own journey.

What can I do but do my part and contribute?   I miss you guys - the people that are not around.  Those that are here every day - thanks for being here!

LET’S SUPPORT EACH OTHER!!

Last night the Step class was horrible - sub was not a good instructor.  And I was so nervous yesterday I didn’t eat enough food.  I did an hour of pure upper body weights, 20 min. on the elliptical and 1 hour in Step.

Today I plan on doing 40 minutes lower body weights and 40 minutes of the elliptical and 1 hr pilates.

Last night Rod and I talked a bit about what our plans are.  I asked him if I should stop watching these like wedding programs on Oxygen, Bravo…etc.  I just hate sitting there wishing.  Why wish when I should live in reality was the question I pose.  He told me, he just wants to spend the rest of his life with me.  I know in his culture, he needs to take this up with his mom.  The 3 of us needs to sit down and talk this through.  Days like this I miss my step dad, wish my father was in my life and Rod’s father was in his life.  But we don’t.  It’s just us.  We will make it work!

WE ARE GETTING OUR LICENSE AND GETTING MARRIED - Date to be determined in the next 3 months.

He asked me last night about us getting married.  He truly wants to surprise me with a ring and all but you know, times are tough.  R E A L I TY - We don’t have a lot of money.

As my friends and family points out, when is really a good time?  So what right?  A ring is just a ring, we can always get my dream one later.

Rod’s mom have asked him now to do this.  She feels that he and I are very good for one another.  At first I thought he was half joking, but it’s very real.

We are getting our certificate Monday.  From there he has 3 months,  I told him he has 3 months to get me a ring.

I truly want, desire to have an Cambodian wedding ceremony - just for pictures mainly.  I think his mom is asking for an African outfit to be injected in there somewhere.  We will need to talk to his mom and my mom, I need my cousin and my sister to help put this small ceremony together - it will be intimate - just family that is it.

Above all, beyond the ring, the ceremony, we love each other.  He’s never been married and he only wants to do it once.  I want to do it for love.   We are doing it for love.

Ummmm, I wish I can change things and have money for a dream wedding but my reality is, we feel like we are one since our First date 2 years ago.  It’s time to make it legal.

IS this going to be my dream wedding?  Probably not but I have my dream man.  Through all of our trials and tribulations, he makes me happy, and I make him happy.  Our heart is together therefore, we will make this marriage work.

I AM SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO NERVOUS!!!!!

What a quiet and uneventful weekend.  I spent the day sleeping, hanging out with my niece and nephews an honey.

I guess WILDFIRE is back in the picture.  She is a mean one.  :)  I got up on the right side of bed and in 10 minutes tripped and started an argument with Rod.  It took talking to a sweet, caring friend, who just by lending a pair of listening, non-judgemental ears helped calm me down.  I am proud of myself for not: breaking anything, walking away and let it ride.  Came back, talked about it and you know what - we good now.

I did not exercise all weekend.  My feet were a bit sore.  I bought some new gel insoles for my shoes for Friday’s Kickboxing and Zumba class.  They worked ok.  Instead of pushing the envelope, I allowed my feet to rest.

HOLLY - OK I AM LOVING ZUMBA!!! :)  Second class and me likey likey!

I’m good to go for Monday’s Kickboxing, weights and Step combination.  I am ready to modify out anything that would be a lot of weight on my feet to aggravate them.  I think it’s the current kickboxing round - it requires us to be on our toes more so then utilizing our whole feet - thus I can feel it but I do know how to work with it.  But I am a pro at making it all work for me and with two days of rest in - I’m very happy with how it feels.  Yes, cautious cautious is the best way to proceed.

I love love love love love love seafood - especially fish.  I am a fan of tilipia  - cheap, easy , verstile and it’s sooooo good.  I tried to grill some catfish this weekend; my sis and I were so hungry we ate it a bit raw - back on the grill it went.

Bascally I keep my cooking style simple - 1 grill, some PAM, grill and with some rice and fish sauce I’m good.

My question is, what fish do you love (if any) and how do you cook it?  IDEAS!!!!!!!

Today I truly did not want to write.  For what reason should I do this?  But I decided I must do it.  I must account for my feelings, thoughts -good or bad.  It is after all a chronicle of my weightloss journey.  I guess I feel a bit like I’ve talked about everything I want to talk about.  I already addressed so many different issues - does anyone really care what I think? 

Well, after thinking for a while - I do know of one person who cares what I think!  ME!!!!!

Like last night, I had one of my worse workouts in a long time.  NOT because I didn’t eat adequately because I did!  Not because I didn’t sleep adequately because I got in 7 hours.  NOT because I didn’t drink enough water or did not take my vitamins!  I did everything I was suppose to do to prepare for my classes, but I lacked one thing today - MENTAL STABILITY!

I had too many thoughts on my mind.  I missed count during kickboxing and I just felt blah.  I’m mad that I allowed my mental state to effect my workout.  Usually I can use whatever is going on in my head to help foster a very good session, but I couldn’t last night.

Therefore, my goal for Friday is to release stress and not allow ANYTHING ANYTHING MESS UP MY WORKOUT! 

I do have one thought:  I DON’T CARE IF A PERSON LOST WEIGHT FROM EXTREME DIETING - STARVING IS STARVING - IF WHAT YOU WANT IS A TEMPORARY WEIGHT LOSS JOURNEY THEN SO BE IT - BUT I’M NOT ONE TO GIVE YOU THE KUDOS YOU FEEL YOU DESERVE.  THAT’S JUST ME!  I WOULD RATHER BOW DOWN TO THE PERSON WHO LOST 10 LBS IN ONE YEAR THEN TO THE PERSON WHO LOST 70 LBS IN 3 MONTHS BY SACRIFICING THEIR HEALTH IN THE FUTURE!!!!!!!!!   So what - you look good now but once you started EATING again and because YOU didn’t learn the skills to keep the weight of permanently - YOU WILL GAIN IT BACK!!!

GUESS WHO GETS TO KEEP THE WEIGHT OFF?  THE ONE WHO LOST 10 LBS!!!   If all you want is a temporary FIX, then I’m not one to support you!

Why this bothers me - because its sends the wrong impression to new people on this journey. NO you don’t need to rush your journey or expect to drop 5 lbs every week.  Life is not Biggest Loser!  Yes, you will lose a couple lbs a month or maintain but be proud because you are doing your body good!!!!!  Until these people who starve themselves, fast take diet pills sustain their weight loss for 5 years or more and their health and body AND WALLET did not suffer - then I say ok.  Until then, I’m not going to be saying GREAT JOB!! Because then I’m being fake!  And I have no respect for those who goes around promoting this lifestyle either!!! I know I’m extreme but shi* but that is how I see it.

Yah, you’re right, it’s their life and you know that’s why I leave them alone - not my business, but I will say in my journal how I feel about it though - don’t care what they say or think.  I just know that I’m against it and I have some pretty good valid reasons why!

What happens when you take two people - one don’t drink often and the other drinks mainly beer?  CORKSCREWLESS PEOPLE!  LOL And the thing is I’m too cheap - yes I said it, I’m tooooooo cheap to buy one.

Few options:

1. We don’t drink our red wine (ROD gets no booooootay)

2.  Rod breaks the bottle while he attempts to open the bottle

3.  We drink Red Wine with some cork bits floating around….yummmy extra fiber

4. We push the cork down into the bottle and we are good to go.

GHETTOOO! That’s us.  We don’t drink enough red wine to warrant buying a corkscrew.  Yep he pushed the cork down cursing my name the whole way and then said to me, now we have to drink it all because we have nothing to close it with.  Well, the first glass made me sick and I threw up some of my dinner.  Not sure why I reacted badly to it.

I am super super sore from my neck down.  Every muscle group screams my name from Monday’s nearly 3 hours of cardio and weights.  I love love love the soreness.

I came home, I was sooooo tired I fell asleep and missed my yoga class.

Thus today it’s all about getting kickboxing and pilates in.  I will do some upper body but very very light weights.  I know that the pilates class will be a ballet/pilates fusion class so my arms will be completely sore from it.

I’m planning on eating a lot of food again - around 1900 calories before class and 2900 calories for the day.  Now, I’m not sure what went wrong Monday, but the Protein shake I bought which was 420 calories, didn’t do it’s job.  HummmphFFF.

I guess I have to stick to a new food plan:

Breakfast: 3 egg whites, 2 cups of steel cut oats with goji berries, 1/2 can of kidney beans

Snack: 2 cups frozen strawberries with Greek nonfat yogurt, 1 pear

Lunch: 1 grilled chicken thigh, sun dried tomatoes, hummus and  rye crispbread, 1fruit smoothie

Snack: 1 banana, 1 coleslaw with peanuts and my Trader Joe’s Vinaigrette

1 energy bar and Powerade zero calories for electrolytes.

Have I ever said Thank You for all the booster notes I get?  WELL THANK YOU!!

I signed on to a very nice messages from you guys.  Ahhhh my heart melts just a little.

Amanda, you asked a very very good question.  HOW DOES ONE ADD PICS TO THEIR PROFILE?  I don’t know if this is the only way, but this is what I did.  I faked it and it worked! :)  I first resize all the photos I want to add.  The ones I can add on the right where you enter the about you section, I keep them around 500X500.  The ones on the left, where you enter your interests, schools and other information, Like I would give out that info, well those must be resized to a much much smaller size like 200×200.

Then upload all these pics into your www.photobucket.com account, you must have an account to do this.  Then grab the CODE, try them all, one will work, copy and paste it into whatever section you what…..ie, if you want in the about me section, you paste the code there.   Now you must make sure you don’t have a lot of texts, if you do, you must modify your about section or whatever section so that there is enough room for the codes.

That’s what I did.  After playing with it for a while, I became a master of it.  But it did take a lot of trial and error.

Last night I met every goal I set for myself. (I thought I finished my blog but I didn’t).

I went to kickboxing, did 45 minutes of pure upper body weights with push-ups, then I did the step class.

This step class is very advanced.  Most of her students have been coming for over 10 years to her.

Being a newbie to her class I knew my work was cut out for me.  The first class I learned that she moves very fast and her choreography very complex.  A lot of it, not done carefully can lead to trip and falls and injury.

I knew I couldn’t and refuse to give up.  Last night I found myself picking it faster and because I told myself never to get frustrated and to continue practicing, I picked up some of the older choreography and keeping up with the new.

What I love about step, there are 1 million and 1 plus moves. Never boring and it makes you think. You don’t have time to stand and do nothing.  I love this class and instructor.  I hope to continue on with many years to come with her just as I do with my other classes.

Yep, baby steps are leading to big long strides.

Tonight my plan is to take a very late yoga class at 7:30pm but before that I want to do an easy jog/run since I have not done one in a while and maybe the elliptical.  I’m a bit sore from yesterday so nothing heavy needed in terms of cardio.

Holly and those interested, I had  an OK time with Zumba on Friday.  I certainly prefer HIP HOP but you know what, I need to suck it up and find the positives in Zumba.  Holly, I think it’s all Lana.  I think she’s not bringing out the big guns since it’s our first official Zumba class.   I do have another option though, should Zumba not work, I will get off work early and take the Hula class before kickboxing.  I will work with it and hopefully learn to love it.  I promise myself that much.  I won’t give up on Zumba just yet.

3 1 0 0  yep  taking it to 3100 calories.

I’m doing something new again this week.  I’m adding a short 45 minutes upper body weights session in between kickboxing and Step.  I am never a fan of doing cardio, weights then cardio.  I prefer weights, cardio and cardio.  BUT here I have no choice.  I’m limited to the class schedule and my work schedule.  Will make due and use my time wisely. 

2.45 hours of some pure un-adultured orgasmic gym love.   LOL!!

MY FAVORITE DAY OF THE WEEK IS MONDAY!!!  I GET TO EAT TONS AND TONS OF FOOD.  Most of the time I can’t finish my food listed because my body can’t digest it fast enough.  I learned to start my eating right and 8am,when I get to work and something every 30 to 40 minutes.  It worked last week.

Food:
3 egg whites hard boiled
1/3 cup of kidney beans
1 pear
Coffee with cream
2 cups of strawberries with Greek plain nonfat yogurt

Snack:
1 cup of steel cut oats with goji berries

Lunch:
Grilled chicken leg quarters in Chinese slaw salad with roasted peanuts and my Asian Vinaigrette dressing
Sun dried tomatoe and hummus on toasted rye crispbread

Snack:
2 banana
1 Naked Juice smoothie

And other food to be determined.

Water around 145 oz

1 Powerade zero calorie drink for electrolytes

1 energy bar between classes

IPOD - CHECK - GOT SOME NEW MUSIC HOOKED UP!!!!

BTW, I HAD TO LAUGH MY ASS OFF - SOME WANNA BE SPAMMER IS SELLING US THE BENEFITS OF WEIGHTLOSS DRUGS.  I LAUGH AS I WALK AWAY WITH MY MONEY IN MY POCKET.  HAHA!!

You know what I don’t like about change?  It’s making change to accommodate change!

I told my girl Nicole, how overwhelmed I am with all the changes I made in my life, specifically the last few months.  It got to a point where I just feel like saying screw it!!! I don’t want to do this anymore.

I don’t want to change how I dress!  I don’t want to change who I am!  I don’t want to change to appease other people!  I don’t want to change just so someone approves of me!

Screw that crap!  If people don’t like me for who I am, what I stand for and what I’m about, then that is there problem not mine!

Lately I feel like I damned if I do and I’m damned if I don’t.  If I do something, someone somewhere in this universe is upset by my action.  If I don’t do something, someone in this universe is upset with my action.

You know what?  I’m me!  For a while my focus on buddyslim was skewed.  Skewed so much that I was letting my energy focus on the wrong issues.  I need to refocus, re energize and care, worry about issues that makes me happy with contentment.

Contentment comes to me in the form of:

WILDCATS PROGRESS!!!! Whether or not we win each week is not important.  What matters to me is seeing each of my friends, my cats, my buddies reach their goals.  Nothing excites me more then seeing joy in accomplishing our goals

EDUCATION Believe it or not, I continue to learn more and more about this weightloss lifestyle by being active here each and every day.   By participating each day in blogs and the forums, I learn at least one new thing I can incorporate into my life

WHY DO I BOTHER TO BE HERE? Because it’s about doing it with NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING BUT GOOD INTENTIONS!!!!  I am not here to gloat about what I do each day.  If you think I gloat, then don’t read my blogs or what I post.  I only post what I do in my life and how I address my exercise and food issues.  I’m not here to be MISS POPULARITY!!  I’m here because I want to make a difference.  There are days I feel like you know, I don’t need to keep a public journal of my life, some people are going to think I’m full of myself.  SO FREAKIN’ WHAT!!! IT’S MY LIFE AND I’M LIVING IT EACH DAY!!!  You don’t like it or think that I act like I think I’m better then you, then at the click of a button, you can move on the next post.

So with change comes more change.  I am evolving into a better person…..thanks SANDY!  That’s how I roll now. 

First Sunday workout in a long time.  I didn’t exercise at all Saturday.  Therefore today I am doing weights, push-ups - my own bootcamp workout and yoga.