Fate or Destiny

I ordered four Belly Dancing DVDs with the belly dancing twins, Veena and Neena. I like the DVD I have and I found new DVDs on the Internet for only a few dollars a piece. I got a 3 DVD set for 6.50 plus shipping. Anyway, I’m still working out at least an hour a day plus watching my calories.

I’m still working through Linda Spangle’s book. I don’t do it everyday so I’m Day 64. Instant Tools for Triggers. I’m weighing myself less often. I’m trying to not get upset about a little weight gain since it’s fall and it’s natural to gain weight this time of year.

I started doing a bellydancing DVD for my cardio since I needed a winter activity. It’s great fun. I find I’m still trying to run at least 3 times a week. I would like to squeeze in some biking but it’s hard to get three cardio activities in.

I started doing Sparkspeople strength training routine three times a week. I do two sets of nine exercises, exercising the whole body. It wasn’t that hard after the first two times. The hardest part is establishing it as part of my routine. Once I bought an exercise mat, it just became part of my regular exercise routine.

I feel so energetic. I can bike for hours at a time. I can do an hour of aerobic dance without exhausting. I can jog for an half an hour after not jogging for weeks. I don’t know if I’m ‘fit’ but I’m starting to have endurance.

Anyway, this is so much better than spending half my life in bed and feeling tired the rest of the time. Not even a year ago, I hardly had the energy to do my housework. It’s so amazing how much progress I have made from getting exhausted from only walking half a mile.

It’s so great to have the energy to dance!

I decided that I’m returning to maintenance. My body looks good the way it is. I think I look sexy in my clothes. I have moments when I think that I should be thinner, but I think it’s due to being teased and insulted for my weight when I was younger.

I’m not fat at my current weight although my head doesn’t always agree. I’m at a healthy weight. What I need to do is continue to eat healthy food and exercise regularly.

I gained 31 pounds when I went through my divorce in 2001. I lost those pounds between Fall 2007 and this Summer. I’m back to the weight that I was most of my adult life outside pregnancy of course. I depressed myself as a teen and young adult wanting to be thinner than my body wanted to be.

I saw myself as obese although I was only a few pounds overweight. Those pounds came off and stay off as long as I exercise. My weight as an adult if I exercise ranges between 125 and 135.

So all I have to do is exercise and eat right and my weight stays in a range that makes me happy most of the time. I have to tell myself that my weight is fine those other times when I want to be skinny instead of happy with a weight that I can maintain easily.

I started doing a belly dancing DVD. Lots of fun. Anyway, I have to look in the mirror to learn the moves and I really like my body the way it is. I’m going back to staying in my maintenance range of 125 to 130. I’m a healthy weight. It’s easy to maintain. No point in fighting to get lower. Besides, I have lots of size 4 clothes and I hate clothes shopping.

I started riding my bike again around the start of May. I love bike riding. It’s a way to travel without using expensive gas and it’s fun. I don’t care that it takes longer to get places by bike.

Last fall (September 2007) I weighed about 160 pounds. By the time that I found Sparks in April, my weight was down to 138. I reached my goal weight of 124 on August 3oth.

I’m not happy with my weight and still feel fat so I’m going to try to lose 10 percent of current weight (128) to a new goal weight of 115. I was going to wait until late winter or spring to try to lose more weight but I decided not to wait.

I thought about the possibility of gaining back some weight over the holidays and decided that I was not focusing on my diet since I didn’t care since I figured that I would try to lose weight again in the spring. While I was bike riding, I decided there is no point in putting off my diet plans to spring so I’m going to start now.

I’ve been on Sparkspeople since April. I’m restarting the program with the new start for trying to lose weight. I don’t know if I want to go all the way down to 115, but I’d like to be thin enough not to have visible bulges.

I bought jeans a Fashion Bug yesterday. It’s not one of my favorite stores. Anyway, they have a great new line of clothes, right fit. It goes by waist measurement and hip size. Anyway, the jeans fit perfectly. I tried on five pairs and three fit great. It was great to have clothing sizes that were so easy to figure out.

Anyway, I was given a promotional magazine from the store. It was a large woman’s magazine. I’m not a large woman - I’m 5′2″ and currently wear the smallest size jeans that the Fashion Bug sold (online they sell smaller sizes but only in the Right Fit line). I checked their online site and the smallest size that they sell outside the Right Fit line is 6P which is larger than I wear since I have a 26 inch waist and 33 inch hips and that is smaller than a Fashion Bug 6.

So I felt insulted that I was given a plus size woman’s magazine. All the models were tall and much wider than I. It made me feel even more petite. The average model (not plus size) is much taller than I with about small size waist and hips as I have.

A six foot woman that wear a size 2 or 4 looks totally different than a 5′2″ woman that wear a 2P or 4P. Petite womens clothes should be modeled on petite women so myself and other short women will know how the clothes will look on them.

I love being small. I just wish the fashion industry would have fashion magazines geared for petite women’s needs. The small women’s market isn’t small.

I hurt my knee last week so I’m decided to take a break from running. I’ve been biking instead. One doesn’t burn as many calories an hour biking so I have to bike longer to get the same amount of exercise.

My weight is going up again. I’m going to need to cut back to get myself back to my goal weight. Maintenance is about making adjustments. It’s just that I’m not eating very much and gain weight. I guess that’s how it goes. I just to need to be even more careful.

First, I reached my final goal. My weight hit below 124 pounds. I’m back to running after taking a few days off due to pain. I ran close to an hour today.

Day 11 of “100 Days of Weight Loss” is Food full or filler. I find that good food is both. I find that sometimes need to eat to get energy even if I’m not ‘hungry’. Food should taste good, fill one up and have the nutrients that one needs. It shouldn’t be a choice.

I find that I can put junk food in a healthy diet. Some people think that they should eat eighty percent healthy and twenty percent not as healthy. I often eat food like granola that can be seen both fuel or filler. It’s high in calories, but it has lots of nutritional value. Many foods I eat are high in calories and high nutrients at the same time. Brown rice, oatmeal are two more examples.

I don’t think it’s a choice of one or the other. High calorie can mean high quality. Almonds, olive oil, you get the idea.

I decided to copy a number of my posts from SparkPeople on the Hundred Days of Weight Loss by Linda Spangle.

Day 3
I’m going to quote Linda Spankle’s book a little. I love the stuff in this section.

“People who are interested in losing weight:

*stick with it until something better comes along
*take action only if the feel liek doing it
*need to see results in order to stay motivated
*blame people or circumstances for their struggles
*easily give up when they face challenges

People who are committed to losing weight

*stick with their plans no matter what
*take action whether they feel like doing it or not
*assume that if they stay motivated, results will follow
*take responsiblity for their own actions
*keep going in spite of challenges or setbacks.”

More for Day 3 in “100 Days of Weight Loss”

Today’s actions

*In your diet or exercise plan, identify a task you don’t feel like doing, and then, do it anyway. I rode my bike although I didn’t feel like exercising today.

* Nothing how it feels to accomplish a goal by taking a “no matter what” approach to it..

* In your notebook, make a list of actions you plan to stick with today, regardless of how you feel at the moment. No list, just one: Make a healthy dinner for the family.

Day 6

Onto Linda Spangle’s book, “100 days of Weight Loss”, my program is SP. I read a number of threads everyday. I do my spark points. I’m back of SP Community Team. I find inspiration from SP everyday. SP keeps me on track with my goals toward becoming healthier.

I’m a housewife and I don’t have much of a social life so the activities for today don’t really apply to my life. Besides, I’m used to telling people no when it comes to food since I’ve been vegetarian a very long time and not always in vegetarian friendly communities. I have no problem telling people no when it comes to not eating things that aren’t healthy for me.

Day 7 today
I’ve made it through the first week of “100 Days to Weight Loss”. It’s a good day. I’m feeling stronger today. I still have pain but it’s not as bad. I staying in calorie range yesterday. I mowed the lawn finally. I feel like I’ll be up to running again tomorrow.

In this day, Linda Spangle’s book:

Become your own cheerleader
To increase your success with this program, skyrocket your self-talk and create a strong belief that you can do this. Become your own cheerleader, shouting out words of encouragement that will keep you motivation strong every single day.

To enhance your cheerleading, think about you are so convinced you can be successful. Invent several phrases that reinfornce your determination to stay on plan for at least a 100 days. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

*I’m totally determined.
*I’ve done it before and I can do it again.
*I’m capable of accomplishing anything
*Others have done it and so can I!

Recite these phrase everyday, using them to reinforce your determination to make this program work.

(a couple paragraphs down, I continue to quote her)

Today
*Tell yourself “I can do it” at least 10 times. Use this to cheerlead yourself through the entire day!
*In your notebook, write “I can do it because …” and add a few supportive phrases such as “I’m capable of doing anything.”
My words-
I can lose weight because I’ve been successful at losing weight so far. I can continue to get fit because I love working out. hers
*Read your phrases often, using them to reinforce your goals and build your enthusiam.

My current weight 126.5. A loss of 0.7 over the week. Not too bad.

First, I want to thank TX.PATRICIA from Spark People for doing starting a blog series based on Linda Spangle’s “100 Day of Weight Loss” book. I received the book in the mail yesterday from Amazon so I’m ready to start my 100 days a new. Currently, I have my weight loss goal set on pound a week.

My first goal in this challenge is to keep in my calorie range 6 days a week. I’ll come up with other goals as I go along. I eat plenty of produce, drink my water and exercise regularly so that isn’t a challenge, but eating my calorie range is.

First my weight is 127.2 currently. My current goal weight is 124. I suspect that I’ll reach that goal before my hundred days. So it’s a hundred days to lose weight and keep it off. I might go lower than my goal depending on how I feel and if I still have excess fat.

Day 1 for Linda Spangle’s book is “I used to be that way.”

* Make a list of any fears or negative behaviors that have hurt your weight loss success in the past.

1. It’s so hard to lose weight and it’s hardly worth it for a few pounds.
2. I can’t stop eating junk food.
3. I can’t stop at one bowl of cereal or two slices of bread. I’m just too hungry.
4. I can’t not have junk food if my children are eating it.
5. I can’t do more exercise. I’m so tired as it is.

Read each one out loud and then say, “I used to be that way, but now I’m different.”

* Write a new ending by completing the sentence, I used to (fill in the blank) but now (fill in the blank). For example. I used to ‘eat several bowls of cereal at a sitting’, but now ‘I’m satisfied with one’.

I used to avoid moving, now I jog an hour each morning.

I used to eat a whole loaf of bread in a day, I now ask myself if I’m still hungry before eating more.

I used to eat ice cream, cake or sweets every day, now I have then less often.

I can buy my teens food and not have to eat the same high calorie food myself.

*Read the new outcomes often and then live in a way to make that makes them true.

I haven’t decided if I’m going to post each day or at 7 or 10 days intervals on my progress in Linda Spangle’s book.
—
The five pounds that I gained in less than ten days nearly gone.

I finally decided to do a timed run in my neighborhood. I did a mile at a eight minute and 7 second pace. This time, I measured the distance with my car so I hope it’s accurate. I did two miles at eight and twenty pace or sixteen forty second total. I only run at a comfortable pace. I haven’t timed myself since the end of June.

I’m so excited about how I’m progressing. I wonder if I’ll do my next 5K under 25 minutes. That would be quite an accomplishment.

It won’t be long before I’m running at less than a 8 minute a mile pace.