Sheesh. It's been bad. I totally fell off the wagon.
I lost my motivation.
I lost my drive.
I found the thirst for bad food.

I blame it on the 500-calories-a-slice chocolate cake I made for Josh's birthday. It was serious! I'm back on though. Back to my fruits instead of goldfish for snacks, and back to 100ish calorie lunches. We usually don't run around much which makes eating well really easy to do, but the past couple of weeks had us eating out a lot and it really messed me up. Instead of making better bad decisions (like grilled chicken instead of the taco salad and portion control) I went all out and gave myself quite the tummy pooch. Arggg.

On a positive note I went to a yoga class at the Y and LOVED it! It was great. And frankly, I was more sore from that than from the cycle class! I don't have much else to be proud of though because I haven't been going routinely. I am going to give it my all now that things have settled down for awhile. Took a good long bike ride yesterday with Joseph but I felt like I had a ton of bricks riding with me. Don't know if it's all the sugar and bad food getting me down, but I have had NO energy the past several days. It's my body telling me to get back on track!

Weigh in 1/22 : 162
Weigh in 1/29: 158
Weigh in 2/5: 157
Weigh in 02/12: 153
Weigh in 2/19: 154
Weigh in 2/26: 150
Weigh in 3/05: 151
Weigh in 3/12: forgot to weigh in
Weigh in 3/19: 153

I hit a beautiful 148 when I was sick and didn't eat for a couple of days; being in the 140s really felt good - aside from the fact that it wasn't healthy. That is my new goal: break 150. Hopefully in a good week and a half or two I'll make it. Here we go...

Death on a Bike

I signed up at the YMCA yesterday and decided to hit the ground running. Or riding, rather! I went to a spin cycle class this morning, and after I recovered (as best as I could) from leaving Joseph with strangers with tears streaming down his face in the child care room, I almost died on that bike. It was a serious workout. Or anything at this point would be a serious workout to a beginner. The gal next to me said you can burn anywhere from 400-600 calories doing spin class. When I got home I checked a couple of online 'calories-burned' calculators and one showed 555 calories burned and another showed 597 calories burned - with my height and weight. That's some serious calorie burnage! How many times can I say calories, calories burned, or burn in one paragraph!? Ha.

So the spin class was pretty killer. I did like it though and definitely plan to go back. They have a great schedule at the Y with a lot of variety and good classes. There are a handful of different ones that I want to try so I should be able to find my niche pretty easily. Just gotta get Joseph over his daycare anxiety. Poor baby...he cried himself to sleep in one of the ladies arms. My heart broke when I came to pick him up and saw him there. I'm guessing it wasn't too bad or they would have come to get me. There are classes from 7:30-8:30 pm everyday too, so I can leave him with Josh and go in the evenings if the child care thing doesn't work out.

Anyway, BIG first step here, folks! I'm excited! Wish me luck! Hope this really kicks my weight loss into gear!

MyTrainerBob.com

I'm sitting here eating breakfast with Joseph - Special K of course - and checking out MyTrainerBob.com. He appears on The Biggest Loser, which I don't watch, but I caught a commercial for his website so I'd thought I see if it had anything good.

A couple of interesting points:

• Every 3500 calories is equal to one pound. So if you cut back by 500 calories per day, you should lose 1 pound per week. So if you cut back 250 calories per day – like 2 slices of bread – and increase your exercise to burn an extra 250 calories per day, you can also lose 1 pound per week!
• Get some sleep! When you don't get enough sleep, levels of a substance call leptin, which is a natural appetite suppressant, are lowered in your body. Sleep deprivation also causes your mental alertness to suffer and raises your irritability levels. So get some rest and give your body and your mind a chance to recuperate.
• You can cut calories and still eat the foods you enjoy, simply by cutting your portions in half. You'll consume 50% less calories without having to deprive yourself of any of your favorite foods. This is my favorite theory for losing weight. I've always believed that you should be able to eat what you want (I mean, within a balanced diet) and stay fit. I guess that is pretty much what I am doing now. I've rarely felt deprived on the Special K diet and I've lost consistently. Most of the time any feelings of "deprivation" are unhealthy habits I need to change anyway.

Not much else I really need on mytrainerbob.com though. They have a place to track meals and exercise and of course message boards. I like my blog journal better to keep track of my thoughts and weigh ins. ;)