I’ve been tracking/logging my food with Sparkpeople for eleven days now. I’m keeping track of tracking my food with HabitForge. So I bet your smartypants next question is – How are you keeping track of Habit Forge? LOL (That reminds me of something I read {totally OFF topic} in a magazine yesterday. You know the awesome online data back up services? They really are great – and usually free or very low cost. But – but ….who’s backing up their data? Hmm….) Yeah, so …anyhoo – back to fitness and getting healthy crap. I’m working hard on it and it is so hard!!!! Hubby’s helping out, though – he did not buy me any candy for Valentine’s Day! Wooohooo! Thank goodness! He bought me gorgeous flowers, a balloon, and a singing card with one of my favorite singers.

I’ve been pretty pepped up the last few days, over the weekend really, since we had a snow day on Friday. It’s just been a pumped up, kind of exciting weekend. Give a southerner a little snow and they go coo-coo! Ha! So I’ve really wanted to exercise and I’m slowly jumping into a little of this and a little of that. One of my favorite things to do is listen to some of my favorite podcasts and ‘do my thing’. What is ‘my thing’? Well, I’d say you could call it “Mrs. Klutzy Cardio”. Yep, that’s what you can call it, for sure.

You know, I don’t do any of those flirty girl fitness moves. You know the ones I’m talking about. You go to the health club and take an aerobics class and the girls in the front couple of rows look so cute. They are rockin’ this aerobics/cardio thing. You know? And there is clunky ol’ me in the back row, looking a little more like a chick with concrete shoes on, trying her best to keep up without tripping herself! Well, and that is just what I do while listening to my favorite internet marketing podcasts.

I get some grapevines in – and oooh, are they graceful. And I get some marching in place in. And I do all kinds of things to just get myself moving. Hey – “Mrs. Klutzy Cardio” with concrete shoes is a lot better than doing nothing. And who knows – with enough practice, I might just look a little less klutzy. Now wouldn’t that be cool?

I am now six days in with my food logging. Wow – this time it has been really hard to get ‘back on track’. What I do over there is make note (log) every single thing that I eat. So when I’ve become a gluttonous fool and I’m just getting back in there, this is how I ‘handle’ myself. I say, “You can eat whatever you want, as long as you make note of it. And it generally takes me about three days to get back within my suggested calorie range. When I’m seeing all the food listed there, it becomes a fun challenge to get to that magic calorie range that I know is good for me.

For some reason this time, it is not going quite so smoothly. I mean, I guess I am doing well – now that I look at the days all together in the reports, but, it does usually seem faster and easier for me. I did lose two pounds, though, so that’s definitely cool.

The one thing that I’m not able to do, is exercise. Which is rather frustrating, as I’ve joined up with an amazing online marketer who happens to be a personal trainer and does virtual personal training. His name is Scott Tousignant and his business is called Fat Loss Quickie. I had started working with him back in August of last year, at which time I was having a lot of migraines. So when I started I was having trouble doing the exercise. I figured a way to kind of ‘work around’ my headaches, bought an exercise ball, made sure to have my hand weights handy – and I jumped right in with both feet! Then in October, I broke my durn foot.

Every time I think that my foot is feeling pretty well and maybe I can just do a little bit of exercise – I wind up making it really sore. So I’m a little frustrated about it lately. I wish I could just have crunchless abs. That’s right – magically gorgeous abs that required ZERO crunches! And all of the rest of it, too! I had told Scott at one point that I would do some kind of exercise in my office chair – you know, like twist, and flail my arms about and who knows! Just get moving! Well, when I tried that, guess what? For the twisting and anything else that I could figure to do in my chair, it required the use of my foot!! And all of that twisting did not feel good on it.

So now I’m back to just push ups. There must be something else besides push ups that I can do. I’m experimenting to see what all I can accomplish, but, in the mean time, I’m committed to logging into Sparkpeople every day and logging my food. And that is definitely helping. And while at times it feels quite depressing, for the most part, I’m feeling pretty good about it! I lost forty pounds with them before, so I know what’s possible. And I aim to get there again (to a 40lb loss, I put back on about half of it) and beyond!

Have you ever tried Nutrisystem? I’ve often wondered about trying it, because, it just sounds so handy. It seems like it would be so easy to just have all your meals completely ready-made for you. So many times, when trying to lose weight – that is half the trouble right there! Trying to figure out what to eat and prepare what to eat. And sometimes it’s most of the trouble! I’ve gone off my diet many times when we’ve run out of my ’special-Mama’s-eating-healthy’ food! We may not be going to the grocery store for several days – or longer – and I just give in and eat the crap we have on hand. And when you’re eating ‘junk’ it’s hard to eat “normal” portions of it. You do know what I mean, don’t you? Let me see you ‘being healthy’ and eat some Cheetos! Come on – that’s next to impossible. You grab huge handfuls and you know it – just like I do!

If I did do Nutrisystem, though, I could put in my order for the program of food that I chose …and it would just show up at my door! Just like that! And they have several different plans from which to choose, one of them being vegetarian! That’s definitely cool!

Ok, I’m reading about the vegetarian plan and they give a sample day of food:

• Breakfast ==> Pancake Mix (Yum – I love pancakes – score!)
• Lunch ==> Cheesy Homestyle Potatoes with Broccoli (Omigosh – delish – score!)
• Dinner ==> Vegetarian Chili (I’ve been thinking of making some, actually – score!)
• Dessert ==> Fudge Brownie (Say no more – score!)
• Snack ==> Low fat String Cheese and a Pear (Love both of those – score!)

Gosh, I think I might just about be sold!

I had some friends years ago that were on it and they swore by it! They just loved it! Of course, that was back in my younger days and I had no expendable income to spare, so I couldn’t even consider it. Now – it is definitely sounding good!

Another thing that it would make so much easier is the fact that I am generally eating something entirely different from the family, since I’m the only vegetarian. This way I could cook their meal – and mine would be right there, already made, ready to heat up. Easy peasy.

I’ve lost them. They’re gone. I can’t find them anywhere. I wonder if you could help me find them….

I really don’t mean it. I don’t want them back, no way, no how – not a chance in Hell do I want them back. In fact, it would be great if I lost some more 11.3398093 kilograms! Seriously!

You see, with the help of some lovely people online – and with some really strong determination, that came from I don’t know where, I have….

I am so happy and so excited that I can barely see straight! I have been struggling with my darn weight for seven years now – and have not been able (until now – heeeeee!) to find much determination at all to lose any of it. And then we moved twice – and with each move (especially the 700+ mile one!) I put on more weight! No more moving! No more! None! You hear me?! (Well….. unless that means I get to be near Scooter again!)

A few years ago, Scooter’s mother and I were doing Weight Watchers. We started right before the holidays – and then gave up around Christmas time. In the beginning of it, though, as I began to lose one pound here, two pounds there, I was getting frustrated with the slowness of it all. So Tracy took me to the grocery store and did something for me that her mother had done for her. She took me to the produce section and lifted up a bag of …somethin’, I can’t remember – heck, use apples! And she picked a bag that weighed the same amount that I’d lost and handed it to me, saying, “Here! This is what you’ve lost!” That made such a difference to me! It made me feel a lot better about my weight loss.

So …along those lines, I’ve been wanting to ’show’ myself how much I’ve lost. Living out here in the boonies with no car, I don’t really get to the store much, so I went online to search ‘for what I’d lost’. I googled ‘25 pounds’ and the very first thing that came up was “11.3398093 kilograms”. Obviously that’s a smaller number, but, I sure liked the sound of it, anyway! All those decimal points must just do it for me! Ha! And I also thought it made for a really great title for Darren Rowse’s llatest group writing project covering the topic of ‘killer titles’. I’ve always wanted to join in on one, and I’m finally doing so!

I’ve been on this journey for about three months now, and since putting on the weight, I haven’t ever made it this long attempting to get healthy. The funny thing is that it all started with a tweet. Weight loss started with a tweet? WTH? It’s true! I swear! Ok, well, I’d been thinking about ’starting’ the journey and I’d been making little (bitsy, teeny, tiny) changes, and then one day I saw Jason Falls tweet about starting a weight loss support group via Twitter using hashtags. We were to use the hashtag, #twit2fit. So any time you tweet about your journey, add that into your tweet and it would then be easily tracked by the group.

I joined up with them (Thank You, Jason!!!) and that same day also logged back into my SparkPeople.com account, which had been sitting, long abandoned. I started logging my calories there and also any exercise that I did.

Over the following days, Jason and all of us Twit2Fit’ers discussed back and forth how we could enhance our communication with each other . He started a FriendFeed room for us and then went ahead and opened up a Ning social networking site for us. You can see some of my rockin’ cool friends here:

I am utterly amazed, flabbergasted, humbled, and grateful that ‘weight loss’ is actually – and finally – working for me. One morning I was really overwhelmed by it while saying my morning prayers and I kind of just went ‘Thank you-coo-coo’ on God! It was funny – I realized I hadn’t actually thanked him for it, and I went, “Thank you for my weight loss, God, thank you so much, thank you, thank you, thank you…..ad nauseum!” It was kinda funny. I think you had to be there, though, because, later that day when I tried telling my daughter about it, she didn’t laugh. Heh. That’s cool – private joke between God and I. I’m totally groovy with that!

I’ve still got a long way to go, but, I am feeling great! And I have an absolutely precious gift on my side – the knowledge that I can do this – no matter what! (I actually LOST A POUND on my two-week summer vacation!)

I feel like I am at a crossroads again, or a jumping off point, if you will. Which is odd, because I find myself here so blankety-blank frequently. I am needing to get back in the swing of things with my weight loss, though. And I guess, I could be grateful that I continue to arrive here, instead of falling off the wagon and abandoning all hope forever. So it’s good news that I want to get back on the horse. The falling off part is in the past. Right. That is the best way to look at it. When I was doing so well before, I was taking a diet supplement. I wasn’t taking the full dosage, and I wasn’t even taking it every day. I think I just used it for the gentle nudge in the back to keep me going, you know? I would like to try to find another one, though. It had Hoodia in it, which I think helped me, but, it also had something in it that made my heart race like a young thoroughbred just released from the gate! It was awful! I don’t remember if it was caffeine, or what, but, I would like to try one with just Hoodia in it, I think. This is all just so frustrating. I remember when I was a friggin’ teenager and young 20-something and I thought I was so fat! Could someone please find me a time machine, so I can go back and slap the crap outta that me?! And if I wanted to lose weight back then (yeah right, like I had any to lose!) I would just make it happen. Almost like snapping your fingers and the weight is gone. What I wouldn’t give…
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIcW-TrwP84]

Wow! Sharon looks really great and she really spoke about some things that I could really relate to! I have often felt the same way about seeing old friends, and I have failed over and over again at weight loss!

I know, I’ve been working at it for several years now. People who have never dealt with obesity often have simplistic ideas about what they see as a simple task. And maybe for some people it is simple – simple, but, not easy. Just like we say in AA. And sticking to something that is hard to do, but, simple – can be, well, hard. Especially when life throws its little curve balls at you. And then you don’t feel so great, and who the hell cares about eating carrots anymore – gimme a KitKat! You know?

There are, however, certain factors that can actually have a profound effect on the ’simpleness’ of losing weight. Did you know, for instance, that women often go through a pre-menopause state called perimenopause for up to 10 years, before they ever actually hit that cursed change? We’re talking about like 20 years of hormone havoc! And then there can be basic age issues, there could be thyroid issues, or many other reasons that this losing weight thing just is not working for some of us.

A lot of people address the issue with their doctors, and enlist their help, as well. And, although it is not as common as it was twenty years ago, doctors do still prescribe diet pills for some people. One of those is Ionamin, whose common name is phentermine. Pills like that really scare me. There’s even a warning on the Medbroadcast website in bold lettering, to not stop taking the medicine without first consulting your doctor. I wonder what it could do to you if you stopped taking it suddenly. A very long time ago, when I was young and stupid (Now – ya’ll be nice!) I stopped taking a medication suddenly that I was supposed to taper off of under doctor supervision, and I broke out in a rash ALL over my body! I am not kidding you or exxagerating – it was even on the palms of my hands and INSIDE my ears!! It was crazy!

I am just going to keep working at rearranging my lifestyle choices, and hope that I don’t ever need to have a prescription from my doctor to help me lose weight!

I know, I know, I should really say… Must. get. healthy.

As that is really the ideal goal, striving for health, but, you know what?

I WANNA GET SKINNY! I am so sick and damn tired of being overweight!

If you had told me when I was 21, that I would one day be a fatty pants, I would’ve laughed in your face! For reals! No way was I ever gonna be a fatso! I always had that, “Oh, I’m so fat!” mentality, but, I never thought I would be obese, you know.

I’m just ready to get back to being ‘me’, you know? And a substantial weight loss would really help me get there!

So I have been really trying to focus on drinking more water, eating less, and getting some kind of exercise every day, no matter how small!

And I think just re-training my brain like this is helping a lot!

I just finished up a bottle of diet pills, like I’ve shared here before, and they had a hoodia supplement in them.

I couldn’t take them all the time, because of my silly stomach issues, so I didn’t experience a consistent result.

So I am not a good case study, but you can find out all about hoodia side effects at the Hoodia Gordonii Guide. There are 69 people’s stories there.

They were actually on Oprah and 60 Minutes, that’s cool. I would love to try a product like that – the pills I was on had a ton of ingredients in them – kind of like a chemistry experiment going into my mouth! The pills recommended on this site seem so much more natural!

Well, I haven’t gotten very far on my weight loss, and it seems that just as soon as I make some progress, I have a setback and wind up just where I was, or worse – even bigger!

Last summer, I bought some diet pills, and I really like the energy I get from them, but, so far I haven’t had much luck losing weight with them. There is so much caffeine in them and a lot of days I can’t take them because my stomach is a little haywire – and I know that the caffeine would make it worse.

So it has taken me this long to get through the bottle. I only have one pill left. There are a lot of Free Diet pill programs online, where you only pay shipping. I might try one of those, but, I’m not totally sure.

The diet pills are so much about ‘being on a diet’ and I would much rather have a healthier lifestyle than temporarily ‘be on a diet’.

But I do love the energy boost!