Beach Body Journey

We moved a lot when I was younger. I was always extremely shy and honestly had and still have a hard time making new friends. For many of those years my parents tried to keep me at the school down the street from my Gma, that way I wouldn't have to worry about meeting new people. Eventually the moves began to require a change of school, I was always the new girl, the weird girl and the girl that never talked. I made some friends but not many and as the moves continued I would turn to food, candy especially. I began really putting on weight in middle school, where I got teased often becasue by that point I was chubby, wore glasses and almost never talked in class.

Fast forward many years later and I am still battling my weight and to accept that I am good enough. I am less shy then I was but still not comfortable speaking to a crowd or standing up for myself. For years I thought I deserved to be fat, ugly and unliked. I was nobody special and this was the life I was given. Then I began to foster Chows for a rescue group and realized I am a wonderful, caring person. It doesn't matter what others think, it matters how I feel. I took in dogs that others had tossed aside and worked to get them comfortable around people, so that they could get wonderful forever homes. Then I had to move back home suddenly, depression lead me to my highest weight ever (349lbs YIKES). Once I got a job and relatively settled in I joined Weight Watchers for the 4th time. I like the concept and love some of the people I have met but I needed more. I met my coach on Facebook and joined her accountability group.

It has been about a month now. I am doing the 21 day fix and drinking shakeology (Love the vegan chocolate). I am learning to be happy with what I have and to work towards what I want. I am down 10lbs so far and know that with the support I get through my coach and the others I have met so far I will have no problem reaching my goals. I used to dread working out and even though it is still hard to do, I push myself each day and find that my muscles and joints are feeling better all the time. I am now loving my journey and looking forward to seeing the changes in myself as a whole, not just my weight. 

These are my before pics, not quite ready for after pics yet :)

Dogs, Training & Facebook

As a reminder for those that read my introduction or info for those that did not, before I start my post. I have 2 Shih Tzu boys anda Chow Chow girl. The boys are almost 6 years and Mika is almost a year.  

Houdini

Mika Moo

EJ (Ewolk Jr.)

So I have seen many many times on Facebook people asking for help regarding training, food “aggression”, rough play and things of that nature. I will sometime comment and sometimes simply pass over the post. Recently I chose to comment on a post about rough play, it was then also mentioned in the post that her chow chewed on her beagle’s head a bit over a bone. I saw several comments saying oh that is just how chows are and NEVER give a chow a bone around other dogs or try to take a bone. When I replied to these comments one person in particular insisted on a few things- 1) that I have too much time on my hands, 2) that I sound retarded- yes quite rude but whatever & 3) that he was positive if I tried to take a T-bone from my Chow I would get bit by her.

So here’s my opinion/rant on the subject of training: Of course it is much easier to train a dog if you get them as a puppy versus adopting an adult. I view training a dog much like raising a child. For those who say it is just a dog, ok fine your dog isn’t going to get a job or write a novel but as a result of you bringing the dog into your home and community you have made him a member of that community. A living being that others also must see and be around. So if your child were to growl at you or argue when you ask them to give you something would your response be “oh ok then you can keep it” or “excuse you! I am the parent and you will listen to me”. Great parents will choose the later, same with pet parents. When you adopt that animal you are agreeing to care for, feed, nurture and love that pet but you are also agreeing to be responsible for the pet’s behavior and actions in life.

To me this means you train your pet to listen to YOU and to be a respectful member of the community you live in. So allow me to define what proper training is to me (I respect the fact that others have their own definitions and opinions on this). Here is my definition/opinions on training:

• ·        As pet parent your job is to ensure your dog is well behaved at ALL times.
• ·        Training is constant and truly never ending
• ·        YOU should be the boss- this can include other humans in the household.
• ·        There is absolutely no instance in which you should fear getting bit or attacked by your pet.
• ·        You pet should get along with other pets, people and children
• ·        Your pet should have manners, especially when outside of the home- this means not jumping on people, sitting when told, not growling/barking at people simply passing by.

There may be more that I will update with later but that’s what I have off hand. I have created an abbreviated version of this for Facebook as well. Please keep in mind that when you adopt a dog you are making a lifetime commitment, you are responsible for what that dog does and unlike children that will never change. If your dog were to bite someone, you could have to pay a fine, for medical bills or even in some states serve jail time. It is not something to be done on a whim.

This weekend I will post a follow-up video/post addressing the “challenge” proposed by an individual on Facebook that: A) my chow will bite me if I try to take a t-bone steak from her- I will be using a raw meaty bone instead of a t-bone & B) that a chow will always attack another dog if a bone is involved. 

WW Wednesday

Down 2.4 this week, total of 9.6 so far! So the meeting was about goals, tips for making goals that you can follow through with in the short term. Basically I am already failing at that this week. Last night I ate an entire medium pizza and then today a giant sandwich from Snarfs. Not a great way to achieve weight loss. I honestly think that a huge part of the problem is that I am stressed lately. 

The whole idea behind WW new plan is that it focuses on doing the things that make you happy and when you are happy it is easier to make healthy choices. Lately though I am having a rough time with things going on. Money is always an issue but I think it is more the changes and living situation I am in.

See a year ago I was living in Georgia, renting a huge 4 bedroom house for 850$ a month. I had a great nanny job taking care of 4 of the best kiddos I have ever known. I also worked part-time at McDonald’s. I was fostering Chow Chows for a rescue and was just all around pretty happy. Then I found out the house I was renting was being foreclosed and I had to move. Well I could not find another house anywhere near that price range so I made the decision to move back to Colorado. Back in with my dad which in itself is a huge stress. He is not very clean, keeps almost everything (not like trash or dirty dishes but other things) and his house is quite small. The biggest problem is that even though I pay him rent he basically makes it clear that I am not really welcome and that I have no say in the common areas of the house. Unfortunately for me there is NO WAY I can currently afford rent out here either. 

Ok, sorry, back to the whole goals thing. Most of us joined weight watchers to lose weight so that would be the BIG goal, to achieve this we need to focus on much smaller goals along the way. Example this week my goal was to make healthy food choices (hence the failure since a medium pizza is not healthy). They had some great tips to use when setting a goal:

1.     Define success on your terms

2.     Think small

3.     Nail down the how

4.     Keep it real

5.     Be flexible

6.     Don’t compare yourself

7.     Use my success story

Well I define that I failed at my goal this week. A whole pizza is far off from the flexibility area of my goal. It is ok I am simply going to reinforce why I am doing this and try again. Failures will happen and some weeks I will gain instead of losing, the key is to keep at it anyway. Until next week remember You can do this!

WWW

This week I actually gained a pound :( it happens from time to time and I think a lot of the gain was because I have been worried about my dog, EJ. He hurt himself and is not healing well, a post on this to follow. Due to my weight gain I felt the timing of this week’s topic was perfect! It was all about loving yourself and being positive in your thoughts and actions.

As an example when you wake up in the morning instead of thinking “Ok Teresa you will NOT eat any sweets today” you think “Ok Teresa today you are gonna eat at least 3 fruits”. The idea behind this is that if you tell yourself a negative, you will literally spend the day thinking about that one thing. And for me at least it is true, when I try to force myself into something or think about one thing that is all I can think of all day. This makes it very difficult to deny myself something but easy to have something I approve of.

So Far my tracking is going fairly well. I am still working on getting better at tracking when I am at home. I am great at it at work, probably because my day is much more structured and planned out. I also notice I tend to drink less water when I am at home! My focus for this week has really been on just that, making sure I drink enough water during the day.

I am figuring that this week will not be a great week for me as far as my weigh-in goes but like I mentioned before that is ok. This journey is a work in progress and admittedly my focus this week has been on EJ.

The other thing that we talked about this week was our why and letter to ourselves on the day we decide to quit. I am looking for my original letter so that I can post it here but have not yet found it in all my many moving boxes! As for my why well I suppose that is fairly simple:

I want to like what I see when I look in the mirror but more importantly than all of that I want to be healthy, feel healthy and have energy. I often find that there are things I really want to try or learn but then the thought of getting up and actually doing it makes me tired. Yes I am lazy and Yes I procrastinate but I believe that a lot of that is because I simply run out of energy so quickly it seems pointless to try. My why is that I want to get out in the world and live!  It is all for me and no one else, because no matter what we do in life there will be someone that does not like you or agree with your choices.

I think that is where I will leave you this week. If you have never looked into Weight Watchers or feel like it is too hard, I encourage you to give it a try. Plus you can always check out a meeting for free and nothing is better than free :)

Weight Watcher Wednesday!!!

So sorry I missed last Wednesday’s post.

Last Week when I weighed in I had lost another 3lbs for a total loss of 6.8lbs. This meant I was back down (exactly) to my originally beginning weight from years ago. The meeting was about finding your focus. They have a new thing going for the next 9 weeks where we choose one specific thing to focus on for the week. After 3 weeks we get what I feel should be deemed Weight Watcher Wage, yes I like the triple W thing. Anyway it is money to spend at Weight Watchers. Of course getting rewarded for making it to meeting is awesome but I really like the idea of focusing on one small thing at a time. They broke it down into three main categories to start and from there we have to narrow it down to one thing. The three categories are Food, Fitness & Feeling good. For the first week I decided to focus on food, specifically on tracking everything I eat.

This week I only lost 1.4lbs loss :( Still that brings my total loss to 8.2lbs! I picked to focus on food again this week and am trying to add more fruit to my days. I am doing fairly well with it. I truly love fruit and quite a few veggies as well but for some reason I never think of them when I want a snack. I am hoping very much to change this frame of thought. I think one issue I find I have is that fruit goes bad and I hate the grocery store. I try hard to only go once every couple of weeks. Not at all conducive to fruit and veggies. I shall simply have to decide what is more important to me, my weight and health or avoiding the grocery store!

This past week was my 4^th weigh-in and that means I get a key chain. To some it may be silly but one of the other things I love about WW is that they give you these little charms when you reach different milestones. The first thing you get is a key chain to put the charms on. It is nothing fancy but I will post a picture for you next week. Unfortunately I was unable to stay for the meeting this week so I did not get it yet. I will though, I will.

In the meantime I thought I would share my before photo from the last time I did WW. Forgive the mismatch swim were but it was a good “outfit” to show my body in. I still need to get my new before photo done but dread it because I DO NOT like how I look currently. I have zero desire to be super model skinny or anything like that but I do want to be less bumpy and wobbly. Some days I feel like a weeble, you know “weebles wobble but they don’t fall down”.  Perhaps more importantly I do not like how I feel!!!

I found out recently from the doctor that I am pre-diabetic and now I have to take Metformin, a medication to help prevent diabetes. This is a scary thought for me because in all my time being overweight my bloodwork as always come back 100% healthy. Guess I re-joined WW just in time. My heels also hurt a lot these days and I believe that is from the weight as well as the high AC1 blood test. Wish me luck! I am trying to make the changes needed to get me healthy and happy.