Thirty days later…

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So I finished one whole month. One month of no skipped workouts and even adding something new to my workout routine…running! I’m making a comeback! My niece is training for her upcoming boot camp session for the Army National Guard, so I helped jump start her into running. We have different pacing and different motivation-not to mention she’s got 20 years on me! That’s what I keep reminding myself as I move slow and steady on my runs.

I also started tracking food with her on My Fitness Pal. I wanted to offer my full support on her health journey. Plus having someone to share the pain of calorie counting and logging helps right? I know it helps me, especially if I’m already figuring all the calorie amounts for her anyway! So for the month of June we logged everything for three weeks. I’ll admit that she dialed in a lot more seriously than I did, but it is what it is right? She has a lot more on the line than I do to stay fit and trim. It’s almost like she’s on The Biggest Loser with a new job with sign on bonus as the prize!

So after a month of no missed workouts, with quite a few doubles and tracking my food for 3 out of 4 weeks, I can say I lost 2.8lbs. I blame hypothyroidism for the slow weight loss plus I’m over 40. So the little picture above is more a reminder for me – that the scale is only a small part of your story. Unfortunately for me, there is A LOT of calorie and weight loss chatter in my house right now, so I have to remind myself to stay positive and stay on my course. Losing 2.8 is better than gaining it and I’m feeling strong and seeing some muscle gains in my arms and legs. (I see them, not sure if anyone else does lol)

Here’s my commitment for the rest of the summer. I closed all my rings every day in the month of June. My goal is to do that again in July and August. I’ll continue to torture myself by tracking my food, because I guess it worked lol. It’s honestly the worst and I really miss treats. This weekend I will indulge myself for my oldest’s 12th birthday. I ordered some breakfast treats from a high school friend and of course I’ll make a cake! It’s all about balance right? One day of apps and cake isn’t going to break my stride. It’s only one day. Plus I’ll track it and move on to stay in the practice of tracking.

I’ll finish up my check in with some things I found in the boredom of trying to stay out of the public as much as possible. I joined one of those Facebook groups that is for women only and they drop small gift baskets for one another. I’ve done several small mail ones and have loved the response. Creating personal connections is nice. I’ve also joined a couple of running groups and pages – Kelly Roberts – Badass Lady Gang, Fat Girl Running and a few others. I’m looking for more positivity in my daily feed aligning with where I should be mentally. Battling with depression and anxiety during this time has been just that, a battle – so exercising and finding the positives are where it’s at for me.

I’m also trying one of those virtual runs with YesFit. I picked the Athena run – 24.9 total miles, at your own pace. I’ll earn a medal for completing it. It keeps me wanting to complete the runs 3X a week. Honestly anything that keeps me moving and out of my own head is a godsend right now. Let me know if you’ve ever done one of these virtual runs. I’d love to get some feedback – there’s a llama run that I want to do next because the medal is super cute!

XOXO Jenn

Am I really restarting again?

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I know, I know. I just restarted. Starting the last time on a Thursday kind of messed me up, because I like my rest day to be on Sunday. Instead it was falling on Wednesday. Sundays are for family pancake breakfasts and hanging out on the porch drinking coffee right now, not a hardcore workout.

So I took a few days off and kicked my week off on Monday with Tabata Trampoline 30 minutes. Per usual I didn’t want to get up and do it, but I got it done before getting the kids going for the day. This whole endless summer/covidcation is making motivation a difficult task. Don’t be shocked, but I haven’t been tracking my food like I wanted to either. I just can’t get into that habit, it feels so overwhelming. I’m open to suggestions if anyone has them on how they do it, I’d love to hear them.

Updated Calendar

I’m on day 2, since trampoline was yesterday and this morning was upbeat strength. I’m making the commitment to NOT change this again and do it for the month of June. I’d love to see some changes happen. As much as I’m sick of my own excuses, crawling out of the brink of depression is harder. I feel like I am constantly battling with the inner voices that tell me I’m not good enough or trying hard enough. I don’t share this to be a sad bitch or for pity, but in case someone else is fight long the same things. Because as I’ve said before – depression is a tricky bitch, she gets you thinking she’s right…that you are just a sad person…poor me, right? Wrong, she’s wrong. Just proving it to yourself is the hard part.

I’ll check in again on Monday morning after completing the week – to report how it went. I also plan to catch up on reading Girl, Wash your face – I slacked off there too. Oops.

XOXO, Jenn

Day 1 of restart 8,635,173,263

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Ok fam. Let’s give this a go. Again. Yep. It legit feels like the number in the title of the post. But I can do this. I think. Lol.

I spent some time while the kids were doing their school work to really evaluate things. I woke up like a bear this morning. Full of jealousy for my husband who has recently lost something like 30 pounds. I’m not an asshole, but I secretly hate him for this. (Did I mention it’s also our wedding anniversary so being a hater today makes it even worse!). I wish losing weight could be as simple for me as it is for him. He stopped eating out and uses our exercise bike 4-5 days a week, with a few pushups and sit-ups thrown in for good measure? Meanwhile I’m over here working out each day until I feel like I’m going to die and somewhat watching what I eat. Now mind you this whole COVID thing has been a weird wild ride for me (just like everyone else I know). So have I been eating more treats and carbs? Yes. But I also added 2 extra people to my dinner table during all of this, so making food that everyone will enjoy plus stretching things as far as they can go has been paramount. Honestly, my overall mood has sucked and I don’t like how it feels.

So after the post I did the other day, it got my mind moving about what I could do. It also got me looking into body dysmorphia, which I really think I have. I’ve talked about this in previous posts – where when I look at myself without a mirror I like the way I look. As soon as I look at myself in a mirror-I instantly start tearing myself apart. I’ve changed my hair color 4 different times in the hopes to boost my own morale. I’ve connected with friends and they’ve lovingly reminded me that I’m not alone. But I just can’t shake the feeling that I need to feel better in my skin and only I can do that for myself.

I took my measurements again this morning and stepped on that blasted scale so I could have a starting point. I posted it below.

I also put together a hybrid calendar for workouts. I’m getting bored with following the full Morning Meltdown program for the second time, so I grabbed my favorite days and mixed them up with trampoline workouts and kickboxing. I have a tabata timer that I love and playlists that make me work – so I’m hopeful that it will inspire me to do it! With that said…the workouts are actually the easy part! Crazy right? Yep, the kitchen is where all my problems are. So I’m also back to tracking on My Fitness Pal, because I’m on a budget and it’s free. Feel free to follow me/friend me? I don’t know how that works. (user name: jenns_losing_it). I also have a Apple Watch and would love to connect with people there too for challenges – accountability is where it’s at!

Wish me luck! I’m starting literally right now – so I need to change my clothes and get my ass on that trampoline! Cardio waits for no one. I didn’t want to start workouts tomorrow when I took my measurements today. Seriously. Here goes nothing. Again. I need support, I need my cheerleaders. I need all the love to help me keep going when I want to sit down and have a snack. I want to feel comfortable in those shorts this summer, because its hot as hell to be wearing jeans!

XOXO, Jenn

Day 67 – Checking in

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I wish I could say things are getting easier, but they aren’t. I’m trying and wont stop treading water.

Stress eating is still one of my biggest challenges I’m facing. The one day taste of summer we had a week or so again also didn’t help my frame of mind. It reminded me that I’m still uncomfortable in my own body and the upcoming summer season, requiring less clothing is not high on my “feel good scale’.

I’ve found myself once again late night googling how people with Hashimotos loose weight. Wanting to starve myself between tiny meals and being unreasonable about what my expectations should be. I even started looking at Weight Watchers again.

I’m so torn most days about weight loss and body love. I know that I should LOVE my body – it’s strong, it’s carried two huge babies and carries me through each and every day without fail. But in the same breath that I write that and know that, I still cant stop myself from comparing my body to other peoples. Wanting to look like them, be thin like them. Or to the other thought process – I see the girls like me that just give zero fucks about what everyone else thinks or feels and just lives their best lives. How do you get there? Where you stop comparing yourself to everyone else and just live your very best life in the body you have right now.

I really feel like I need to make a shift. If I don’t I’m going to easily fall into a depression. Some days I feel like I’m walking the line. The last month has been a thought one, filled with all sorts of emotions. We’ve had some major changes within our home and they’ve had me running the range from sad to angry to worried to happy. So freaking weird. I’ve also seen myself shut down into full preservation mode. Where I just stopped talking to anyone outside my house and focused only on what feeds my soul. I organized my garden area in the garage, planted my garden, shaped up my plants and painted my plant stands. I felt accomplished when I was done and I liked it. I listened to my podcasts and got dirty in the yard. It’s what I needed that day to recharge myself. No one in my house deserves me and my attitude when my tank is empty and it was running on fumes.

I keep threatening to start meditating. I think I really should start doing that. It wouldn’t hurt to see if that helps to recharge my tank daily rather that just filling it with food like I’ve been doing for a while.

I also need to continue to push myself to workout each day – even if that workout is yoga, because the endorphin boost is what I need each day – it’s just convincing my body to roll out of bed and throw on the workout clothes. Once they’re on, I know I’ll do the workout. The bonus for getting it done before the kids wake up is that I tend to have a little more patience for distance learning.

As usual, thanks for letting me vent. Today I’m going to come up with a plan of action because I need a change, a shift in focus.

XOXO,

Jenn

Checking in from coronacation

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I’m here, I’m checking in, how are you all doing during this crazy mixed up time? I know I’ve been riding the roller coaster of emotions over here!

We’re 30 some odd days into this stay at home, self quarantine thing and I honestly thought it would be easier! In general I love flying solo on most things and keep myself busy with things around the house. I used to like the quiet “me” time that I would have after dropping the kids at school. Sometimes that was coming home and working in the office and sometimes that was just poking around at Target or IKEA. That’s not a thing right now and it’s kinda sad. The other places I liked to go and decompress are still available – state parks and walking trails. However, the amount of people at those locations are insane right now! So I’ve honestly been avoiding them as much as possible. Even the Geocaching that we were doing became a downer when you realize it’s hard to even find a place to do that where it won’t be swamped with people.

Now before anyone gets the wrong idea – I totally respect the reason all of this is happening and I am trying my best to follow all of the rules. Such as staying at home as much as possible, only going to the store once a week and I wear a mask when I do. The stores are another tough one for me. The anxiety before heading to the store and while at the store is insane. Mostly because I feel like I’m feeding off everyone else’s emotions while I’m there. Last week when I went to the grocery it almost felt normal. Almost all of the things that were on my list were available and there were also only a few people in the store (new occupancy rules plus bad weather for the win). I’m planning on hitting the stores again tomorrow since there is rain and thunderstorms in the forecast haha.

I’ve been relying on anxiety medication to help me through the super tough times. There are a lot of days that I feel depression type symptoms creeping in. Zero motivation, walking around like a mopey sad bitch, and getting nothing done. It also didn’t help that last week the kids were on “spring break” – so there wasn’t any pressing items to do every day. At least this week we are back to distance learning – so I have a reason to roll my ass out of bed. I feel like I need to start making a commitment to doing SOMETHING during the day – exercising NEEDS to be one of them. I generally feel better after a workout, however fighting the looming depression/anxiety has been a chore. My kids don’t deserve depression mom, so I’ve been trying my very best and exhausting that toolbox to keep as positive as possible.

I guess I can finish up this post with my commitments for the week and also the fact that I see all of you out there in the same boat. I get it and I’m here if anyone wants to connect, because lets face it, this shit sucks.

XOXO, Jenn