I dropped Nathan off at work tonight and then went to the gym. I have to admit I really didn't feel like going. Instead of sweating like a beast I much preferred the idea of going home, getting into my comfy sweats and catching up on the insane amount of TV shows I recorded and have yet to watch.

But I didn't, I went to the gym and was glad I did. I got the incline up to 16 for 25 minutes! I did a total of 45 minutes and felt pretty good when I was done.

The gym's receptionist was on the treadmill next to me and was at an incline of 21. Wow. She was telling me that's about as high as she can go now, though she used to get up to 28 (!), and she still remembers vividly when a 9 incline was extremely hard for her. She's really encouraging and fun to talk to. Incidentally, her Mom is a member there and over the past 2 years has lost 180 pounds. Can you believe that?! That's a whole person! She's really amazing.

That makes 195 minutes completed, 935 minutes to go for November.

My workout went well. The first thing Sgt. Fitness did was take a good look at my eye to see if there was any lasting damage done, and then he apologized all over again. Since there's only a little lump right on my eyebrow you really can't tell I was whacked in the face with an evil resistance band. No biggie, could have been a lot worse.

Anyway, we worked on my arms and sides. The first thing he had me do, much to my amusement, was use a damn resistance band again. He swore to me it wouldn't break, but said if I'd rather not use it he would understand. Well I'm not about to let a band get the best of me, so I did what he wanted.

Something new I did was stand on a wiggly step thing while I did this arm/side exercise. It forces you to use your core to stabilize yourself so you don't go flying off. My sides are feeling it today. Wow. Didn't know those muscles were there.

I'm finding I love doing these arm exercises! He had me stand on a Bosu while I used one of those cable machine things for my arms, and I actually almost found it easy. That's a first.

Oh, there is one exception ~ I hate push-ups. Probably because I'm so bad at them. The last thing I did were two sets of modified push-ups and holy crap by the time I was done I thought my arms were going to fall off. Thankfully they didn't.

I like that my upper body is slowly getting stronger. It may not be much yet but I can feel the difference.

After our workout I got on the treadmill for an hour. I didn't last as long on the 15 incline as I wanted, only 20 minutes, but that's okay. The rest of the time I varied the speed and incline. I actually wanted to try an incline of 16 and see how long I'd last but there are only 4 treadmills there that go above 15 and they were all being used.

I'm not sure I like working out with Sgt. Fitness 2 days in a row, I like having at least one day in between to rest from it, but this week and next week that's the only way I can do it. I scheduled all my appointments out from now until the end of the year. There's one week I can't get in to see him at all, I might ask him if he'll stay an extra half hour one night that week so I can still get in a workout, but I'll worry about that when the time comes.

You know what's weird? I like being sore. Okay, I don't enjoy pain, but I like that it lets me know I've pushed my body to try new things, or do things I've learned at a higher level, and it helps me feel like I'm making progress. I like it.

That makes 150 minutes down, 980 minutes to go for November.

I warmed up at the gym and then got started with my trainer. We were having a nice workout, I was feeling good. He was trying to get me to admit to him what I've been eating, since he didn't look at my food log before our session, but I wouldn't tell him. The workout was hard enough, I didn't want him making it harder! Besides, I'm working out with him again tomorrow right after work so I'll be paying for it soon enough.

Everything was all fine and dandy until he had me using one of those resistance band things with the handles on the ends. I was standing on it with both feet, had the handles pulled up to my shoulders and then pushed my leg to the side against the band, something I've done before with no problem.

Then the band broke and the end came flying up and whacked me over my left eye.

Ouch.

Thankfully it didn't hit my eye, or that could have been really ugly. Sgt. Fitness all but had a panic attack. 'OMG are you okay?? I can't believe that, I've never seen one break before!' On and on he went without letting me get a word in edgewise. I finally was able to tell him I was fine. Yes, it hurt and stung like hell, but no permanent damage was done. It actually hit me right on my eyebrow so you can't see a mark or anything, but there's a sore lump I can really feel. It took some convincing to assure him I was fine and to get him to finish our workout. He said I'm much more of a trooper than he is.

After we were done I got on the treadmill for half an hour. By that point I was tired and had a headache, so I only stayed at a 15 incline for 20 minutes. I still felt really good though, and went home a mostly happy camper.

It's not often I get maimed at the gym.

Well, before I start November, I'll write about the rest of October.

I ate badly. Oh, so badly. There was pizza. There was lasagna. Worst of all, there was liquid satan (a.k.a. Dr. Pepper).

From Friday night until Sunday night I ate whatever was handy, I didn't eat breakfast all weekend, I didn't drink much water, and I didn't go to the gym. And today I'm feeling it. I have a headache, I feel sluggish, I just feel...blah.

Oy.

Actually I did make it to the gym Friday night but Sgt. Fitness called me a couple of hours before our appointment and said he couldn't be there, so I got on the treadmill for about 50 minutes. I only stayed on a 15 incline for about 25 minutes and varied the incline the rest of the time.

I have to admit, I was really disappointed I didn't get to train. The workouts I do with him are so different from what the treadmill does. I've been doing this long enough now you'd think I could do it on my own but I never do. I could probably figure it out though. Sgt. Fitness rarely has me do the same exercise twice, which is part of what I love about working out with him, but it does make it harder for me to know what to do when he's not there. I just need to make more of an effort to remember some of what we do.

This week my goal is to eat well. That's it. I'm going to eat breakfast every day, drink as much tea and water as I can stand, and stay in my calorie range. I need to figure out what to eat before I work out. I don't think I'm eating enough, or maybe I'm just not eating the right foods, because I run out of energy fast and sometimes get jittery.

I'm also starting the November fitness challenge with Son. Tonight I will complete the first minutes of the 1,130 minute challenge. Bring it on!

I was doing so well with what I was eating yesterday and then I blew it.

When I got home from work I had rice for dinner, that's all that really sounded good, so when we got to bowling I wasn't really tempted by any of the things people brought for the potluck. By the time we left, however, I could tell I hadn't eaten enough and I was starving. Well not really, but you know what I mean.

Nathan and I had to stop at the store on the way home and he picked up two of those cheap Totino's pizzas. So what did I do when we got home? I put one in the oven and then ate the entire thing.

Bad. Aimee.

I didn't even enjoy it. I was too hungry to care what I was eating, I just wanted food and I wanted it NOW. Then I went to bed when I was done with my pizza fest and my stomach was rolling around like the Andrea Gale.

When I woke up I felt really yucky and it took me a bit to remember what I'd done to feel so lethargic. So of course I weighed myself and some not-so-nice words came to mind. I won't repeat them.

Why do I do this to myself?!

Okay, moving on.

Today I've done great so far, granola cereal with almond milk for breakfast, salad for lunch, tea and lots of water. My stomach has calmed down for the most part, though it still doesn't feel quite right. Actually that's something I noticed earlier this week. My stomach feels a lot better now than it has in years. I've had problems with GERD since high school. Until about a month ago I was taking omeprazole every single day when I got up so I could eat without my stomach feeling like it was on fire. Since I made a serious effort to change my eating habits, I haven't had to take anything for my stomach. I can't believe the difference.

One thing I need to work on is getting to bed earlier. By the end of the week all I can think about is finally being able to sleep in on Saturday morning. I know the exercise is helping my sleeping habits a lot. I'm staying asleep once I get there. I don't have as much trouble falling asleep. I'm just not getting to bed early enough.

Someone I generally have great respect for went down a few notches in my book today. It's relavent here because it was a 'fat joke' that changed my opinion. I don't really want to get into it, I only mention it because it seems like the last form of acceptacle discrimination and that just pisses me off.

Something else I learned recently ~ skinny does not equal healthy.

I'm training with Sgt. Fitness tonight. I have no idea what we'll be doing but I'm sure I'll enjoy it. I've been training with him for almost 3 months now and I still get excited about going. I look forward to learning something new about my body, and about myself.

Son came up with the idea of doing 1,130 minutes of exercise for November. 11th month + 30 days in November = 1,130. I like it! It's 200 minutes more than we had for October, so it will challenge us, but not so much more that we'll feel like we can't achieve it. I'm really loving doing a certain number of minutes instead of miles.

On the treadmill I've been concentrating on incline, not speed, so I don't worry about how far I've gone at all. Well, that's not entirely true, I still keep track of my miles. It's just not my main focus.

Last night I was on the treadmill for 69 minutes and walked 3 miles! To start I did an incline of 16 for about 35-40 minutes. It felt a lot harder last night than it did Monday, I'm not sure why. After that I varied the incline from 8 to 12 (I think), and experimented with different speeds. I discovered the faster I go, the less I think. Maybe because I'm concentrating so hard on just staying on the damn treadmill, I'm afraid to waste energy worrying about anything else.

Can you imagine what it would look like if I went flying off that thing?!

I finally have been able to listen to music while I'm on the treadmill. Nathan helped me put more songs on my phone so I had new songs the entire time I was walking. I need to find faster songs though, some just were not cutting it.

My eating habits today have been good. I tried mixing Greek yogurt with my granola cereal this morning. It was....okay. It has a different flavor. I don't mind it, but I'm thinking it would be much better in a smoothie or something. I spent a few minutes looking for recipes last night and didn't find anything. I'll keep looking.

Bowling tonight, that will count as a tiny bit of exercise. We're having a pre-Halloween potluck. I'm going to eat dinner before I go, everyone always brings junk to eat like cake and cookies. Of course I've only recently started to look at it as junk, before that I wouldn't have thought twice about it. Funny how perceptions change.

Funny how I'm changing.

I had a session with Sgt. Fitness tonight, we did more arm stuff. My sides are still store, more my right side than the left thanks to bowling, but the workout felt good. I told him how sore I was before.

His response? 'That's good!'

Hmmm.

Well, okay, he said more than that but his first response is what I remember the most. I was bad
and didn't get on the treadmill when we were done, so now I feel kind of cheated. Why didn't I get my butt on the treadmill? Because Kelly started talking to me and by the time I got away I had to leave to pick up Nathan and take him to work.

Thankfully Sgt. Fitness didn't ask me how I've been eating lately, or he'd have made me do more of those...whatever he calls them, shoulder press dealies, they were hard. Today, for example, I ate a good breakfast of granola cereal stuff. And for lunch I had a hamburger with ketchup and mayo along with a small order of french fries. And let's not forget the fry sauce, had to have that. I was just craving a hamburger.

Now one meal isn't going to derail everything I've accomplished so far, but over the weekend I ate like crap too and I had Tuna Helper for dinner last night. Ugh. It's caught up with me though. I can tell I had too much sodium because my hands are swollen. I just have this overall feeling of ickiness.

What amazes me is how differently my body reacts to food that's bad for me now compared to how it would have just a few months ago. In July, before I started going to the gym and tracking my food, I would never have noticed this lethargic feeling. I felt that way all the time, I just didn't realize it. How scary is that?!

Now that I can feel the difference, I do not want to go back to feeling like shit all the time again. So I am really going to step up the effort on my eating habits. I will still allow myself a meal to eat whatever I want, but only for dinner. I think by telling myself I can have an entire day, it's too easy for me to justify crap meals other days of the week. That defeats the purpose.

For some reason lately I'm craving red meat. I wonder if I'm getting anemic again, that's been the case before. Instead of going to the doctor and getting a blood test, I intend to figure out what foods have iron in them (besides beef), and load up and see if that helps. Maybe the trial and error method isn't the greatest way to go about things, I really don't know. I should have asked Sgt. Fitness tonight but I didn't think about it. I could email him but I hate to be a pest, especially since there are other questions I meant to ask him and spaced it.

I'd like to find a good multi-vitamin too, that would help if I'm lacking iron. But it's so frustrating! Vitamins apparently aren't regulated well, so you could buy a bottle of vitamins that do you no good whatsoever. Some have just one pill, others have packs of half a dozen. How do you know which ones do you the most good and which are a waste of money? I've seen the prices on some of them, they aren't exactly cheap.

I also want to talk to my doctor about getting off the fluoxetine completely. I know you can't go cold turkey, you need to have the dosage lowered first. I did that once but I need to check on whether or not it would have to be done again before I can stop it completely. I've been avoiding it though, I know I'll have to go in and talk to him. Sometimes you can get away with a phone call but I don't think that will cut it this time. Grrrr.

My clothes are not fitting me well. My pants are looser but still stay up, however my shirts are really starting to look awful. I should go buy at least one or two new ones that fit decently but I hate to spend the money on clothes right now, especially when I still have so far to go.

I haven't been getting enough sleep lately. I wonder how much that affects my cravings. In fact I should really be in bed now but I wanted to get some of this out of my head and into this journal. I go on so much in my everyday LJ about all this I almost hate to subject anyone to yet more of it. But this is different because I don't worry about what anyone else might think. I shouldn't anyway and yet I do. Right or wrong it's human nature I suppose. My nature, at least.

Alright, off to bed with me.

I met Kelly at the gym this morning for an hour long Zumba class, which finished out my goal of exercising for 930 minutes this month!

Woohoo!!!!

It feels damn good to reach a goal I set for myself (thank you again Son for the idea).

My arms and chest are sore today. Wow. I feel the muscles every time I move an inch. I suppose I should ask Sgt. Fitness how sore is too sore. I don't think I'm there, I can function just fine, but I want to make sure. He wouldn't let me injure myself while I'm working out with him, but I wonder if there are things I can do after our workouts that would help keep the soreness down to a minimum.

I expect to be sore. I haven't used these muscles in.....oh who knows, forever perhaps? So I know that waking them up again and getting them moving isn't an easy task. While I don't enjoy pain, I do enjoy knowing that I'm doing something to better myself. I like learning about my body. I'm surprised sometimes at what I can do.

I think we sell ourselves short.

Becoming healthy and getting in shape takes work. Hard work, lots of effort. And in our day to day lives it's so easy to overlook what we could be doing for ourselves. We get so busy working, answering phone calls, taking care of our families, etc. etc. etc. That's not a bad thing, obviously, it's part of life.

What I'm learning is that by making the time to take care of myself, I do a better job of taking care of the rest. I feel better about myself and have more energy.

Why didn't I get off my ass and do this a long time ago?!

October Challenge

Challenge ~ To complete 930 minutes of exercise in the month of October.

Goal ~ 930
Total Minutes Completed ~ 960
Total Minutes Remaining ~ 0

10/1 - Bowling = 30 minutes
10/2 - Treadmill, 10 incline for 30 minutes, 1.70 miles / 30 minutes resistance training with Sgt. Fitness = 60 minutes
10/3 - Off
10/4 - Treadmill 10 incline for 10 minutes, 12 incline for 30 minutes, 1.90 miles = 40 minutes
10/5 - Treadmill 10 incline for 10 minutes, 13 incline for 20 minutes, 8-4 incline for 10 minutes = 40 minutes
10/6 - Treadmill 4 incline for 15 minutes, resistance training 30 minutes, treadmill 13-10 incline 15 minutes = 60 minutes
10/7 - Off
10/8 - Bowling = 30 minutes
10/9 - Treadmill 13 incline for 40 minutes, 10 incline for 5 minutes = 45 minutes
10/10 - Off
10/11 - Off
10/12 - Treadmill 4 incline for 10 minutes, training with Sgt. Fitness 30 minutes, treadmill 12 incline for 20 minutes = 60 minutes
10/13 - Treadmill 12 incline for 15 minutes, 14 incline for 15 minutes, 18 incline for 5 minutes, free weights and running 20 minutes = 35 minutes
10/14 - Treadmill 15 incline for 30 minutes = 30 minutes 10/15 - Bowling = 30 minutes
10/16 - Treadmill warm up 10 minutes, training 30 minutes, treadmill 14 incline for 10 minutes, 10 incline for 25 minutes = 75 minutes
10/17 - Zumba class = 60 minutes
10/18 - Off
10/19 - Treadmill 15 incline for 40 minutes, 10 incline for 10 minutes = 50 minutes
10/20 - Treadmill warm up 10 minutes, training 30 minutes, treadmill 16 incline for 15 minutes, 10 incline for 15 minutes = 70 minutes
10/21 - Treadmill 15 incline for 40 minutes, warm up/cool down 5 minutes = 45 minutes
10/22 - Training 30 minutes, treadmill 15 incline for 15 minutes, 10 incline for 15 minutes, bowling 30 minutes = 90 minutes
10/24 - Zumba class = 60 minutes

I finished with a week to spare!!!!

I am feeling muscles in my arms, chest and shoulders I never knew existed until today. I seem to say that a lot about my muscles, not knowing they existed. I'm so glad that is changing.

But back to my arms.

I worked out with Sgt. Fitness for 30 minutes. I used 15 pound weights for shoulder press things, it was not an easy task. Well, at first it didn't seem too bad, but when I got to about 15 of the 20 reps Sgt. Fitness had me do I wasn't thinking it was so easy anymore. And then I had to do it all over again. All but one of the exercises were new to me so it kept my attention.

I have to admit I sometimes get distracted by people working out around me. No matter how often I tell myself not to, I inevitably compare myself to others. I see women who have amazing arms or run on a treadmill for an hour and wonder how long it will be before I get results like that.

Wait, I take it back about the running. I hate to run. But you get the idea.

What's interesting to me is that before I started all this gym stuff I would have looked at these women and wished for their bodies and been jealous. Now I look at them more as an inspiration to get my body in the best shape it can be. In the short time I've been going to this new gym I've started to discover what my body can do. I've pushed myself out of my comfort zone and it's not nearly as scary as I thought it would be. Instead of being all gung-ho for a few weeks and then stopping or getting bored, I'm even more excited about it now than I was when I started.

I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the progress I've made. I'm seeing results, my measurements are going down and so is the number on the scale. My clothes aren't fitting me very well. Best of all I just feel better in general. And what makes me excited to keep going is knowing I've just started. I can't wait to see how I feel after another few months.

My eating habits have improved greatly but still need a lot of work. I need to figure out what to eat before I work out, because I seem to run out of energy pretty fast and sometimes get jittery or shaky feeling. I'm also not very good at balancing the calories out, I'll eat hardly any calories for breakfast and lunch and then be starving by the time I get off work and want to eat everything in sight when I get home. I need to work on a meal plan of sorts and make a shopping list.

I'm feeling pretty damn good about things.