I am in love!!!

I am in love with my new treadmill!  I have already worked out on it once last night and twice today.  Today alone I burned 500 calories on it!  Yay me! Lol  I am really glad that I got one with so many features.  I'm sure a cheaper one would have worked but this one has so many options and I think it will help with not getting bored.  I really like all the workout options and the 12 options for the incline.  It goes up to 12mph but I haven't gotten to over 4mph.  I am pretty much going to stick with fast walking, jogging or running would be too hard on my joints.  I am definitely going to try and use it every day and hopefully it will kick start things even more.  Looking forward to Tuesday this week because I really think I'm going to have a good loss.

Brand new treadmill!

First, I lost another 1.8 lbs and am down to 155 lbs now.  Only 25 more lbs to go!  Yay!  The new news is I decided I wanted a good treadmill so I could work out at home.  I'm not really enjoying going to Curves anymore so when my subscription runs out at the end of March I'm not going to bother to renew it.  So I researched treadmills and found one that looked great and tonight I bought a Horizon CT7.1 treadmill from Canadian Tire that was originally $2200 + tax on sale for $650 + tax!!  Huge savings!  This thing is super fancy and has all the bells and whistles include speakers so you can hook your mp3 player up to it, a fan to cool you off and tons of other features.  I used it today and it was quite a workout.  I am planning to use it 7 days a week and I also am swimming twice a walk, walking at the track twice a week, and doing weight lifting with hand weights 7 days a week too.  I am really hoping to up my weight loss and also to tone my muscles more.  I have 25 lbs more to lose and I want to do it by mid-July so I better get to it!

Also on the diastasis front I have been trying hard to wear it as much as possible and I have lost 1 inch on my waist.  I am really hopeful that will continue!

Another interesting note is I read an article that says taking 500 mg of cinnamon capsules 1 in the morning, 2 at lunch, and 1 at supper is supposed to help control blood sugar, help treat metabolic syndrome (I have polycystic ovarian syndrome which is a metabolic syndrome), and reduce belly fat.  There is a ton of info about it so it seems legit.  I'm going to try it anyway, it's only cinnamon so I don't see how it could hurt.  Hopefully it helps!

Looking forward to a good weight loss on Tuesday.  If I lose at least 1.2 lbs I will be down 30 lbs!  Can't wait!

Not what I expected

Well my weigh in this week was surprising.  I gained 0.2lbs.  I did everything perfect, didn't go over my points, but still I gained.  It wasn't a huge gain but still upsetting.  I am not going to let it get me down though.  I have lost 27 lbs in 17 weeks and that is huge progress.  I need to lose 26.8 more lbs.  Halfway there.  I really hope that I lose next week.

In other news I've started wearing a belly band to try and close the diastasis in my stomach.  I can't remember if I've written about it before.  Basically after pregnancy the stomach muscles sometimes don't go back together so you constantly look 5 months pregnant.  My stomach and internal organs are sticking out through the gap.  Gross!  So I've been wearing the band and trying to do the exercises as much as possible.  I'll get my husband to take a picture of me wearing it this weekend so you can see how it looks.  The thing that sucks about it...well one of the things...is that I still have that huge overhang of fat and skin over the c-section scar.  Basically nothing short of surgery will get rid of that.  Anyways the belly band smushes that all down and makes it look even bigger and frankly, quite disgusting.  I'll be wearing a lot of big sweaters over the next few months!

And speaking of that overhang of fat and skin, it has really been getting me down lately.  I know that even if...I mean when...I lose all the weight it will still be there.  I can't get rid of it.  I have been thinking of whether or not I would even consider getting a tummy tuck after I lose all the weight.  I always thought of tummy tucks as the lazy way out.  You don't want to try to eat healthy and exercise so you just get surgery.  But in my case it really isn't like that.  I am working my butt off exercising and dieting and by the time I am done the weight loss part of my journey I will have lost 55 lbs.  But even with all that weight loss I will be left with this area that still looks horrible.  It is really expensive - probably about $9000.  And there are risks - what if something went wrong?  I guess I wil have to wait until I have lost all the weight and see how it all looks. 

Wow, long time no update!

Well it's been awhile since my last post.  I am now down to 156.6 lbs and my weigh in is tonight.  I've lost 27.2 lbs since October 19 and I am thrilled about that.  My stomach is still my huge trouble spot and as of yesterday I am doing the Tupler Technique which consists of a belly splint and exercises to close the muscle separation (diastasis recti).  I am tentatively hopeful because my waist has been 40-41 inches for ages, despite the weight loss, but when I measured it last night after wearing the belly binding all day it measured 39.5 inches!  I was so shocked and excited!  It will take awhile before the changes in my belly become permanent because the muscles need to knit together.  I've been doing the exercises when I drive the kids to school because you are supposed to do them sitting so that's been convenient.  It is quite painful and makes me realize how weak those muscles are.  I am very hopefully that it will work.  I put on a pair of size 12 pants on Sunday and they fit!  I can't wait until I hit the 140s, I haven't since that since 1998!  Will update after my weigh in tonight.

Weigh in tomorrow

From the beginning of this journey I have been really positive and trying to focus on getting healthier, not just losing weight.  So why this past week have I totally started to let the number on the scale define me?  If I'm up a bit I'm a failure, if I'm down I'm a success.  I have been working my butt of this last week, despite being sick for 3 days and I have totally stuck to my points and done everything perfectly.  I know I "should" lose.  But what if I don't?  I am trying to calm myself down and remember that it's a journey and that there will be bumps along the way and that even if I have some bad weeks it will all work out in the end.  But the little fat devil on my shoulder is saying, "You're fat, you're ugly, you can't do this, you'll never be thin."  Normally I would shut him by drowning him in potato chips or chocolate but I am not doing that anymore.  So I am going to get up in the morning and go and work out and try and go into the weigh in tomorrow night knowing I did everything I could do.  Cross your fingers for me!

It's been a long week...

It has been a long week, full of ups and downs in the weight loss and fitness department.  First off, on Monday for some reason I just went bonkers and ate a bunch of chips that someone (you know who you are!!!) had brought into the house.  Then I think all the salt made me more hungry so I ended up eating all my weekly points (weight watchers) in one day!  Then the next day Tuesday was my weigh in and for some reason I was still feeling super hungry so I ate some before I went to the meeting, which I never do.  So I stepped on the scale and....I gained a pound!!!  I have never gained anything the whole time I've been doing this so it felt horrible.  But I know my mindset has changed a lot because instead of doing what I would normally do, going out and binging because I felt bad, I went and bought a fruit salad for supper and went straight home and worked out on the elliptical.  Slowly but surely my brain is starting to grasp the concept that healthy diet and exercise makes you feel better and look better and junk food does nothing but make you sick and sluggish.  I still have junk food (was my daughter's birthday today and I had ice cream cake - yum!) but it is all in moderation.
So you'd think that I would at least be feeling good about myself because of the change in attitude but nope, I have spent the rest of the week feeling so badly about myself.  Because of my diastasis recti and also my huge c-section overhang my stomach is just so ugly.  And I am working sooooo hard and it doesn't seem to be doing any good.  Okay, I have gone from a size 18 to a size 14 but I've only lost 4 inches in my waist and I've lost 20 lbs.  That is not good.  I still have a 41 inch waist and I only have 35 more lbs to lose.  Ideally I would not want to be over 30 inches so how am I going to lose 11 inches in 35 lbs when I've only lose 4 inches in 20?  Some days, or weeks, it is just really hard to believe that I will ever be able to dress like a normal person, that I will ever be able to look in the mirror and think I look great.  I sure hope so.  I have been really good this week and have been sticking to my diet and doing lots of exercise, despite being sick the last 2 days.  I am still scared that I will step on the scale on Tuesday and it will say that I have gained again, or only lost a teeny bit, despite doing everything perfect.  I can't work any harder than I am now, so what then???

Diastasis Recti

Sooooo....it turns out there is a reason that I always look at least 5 months pregnant.  Even with the weight loss my waist is still 41 inches, which is huge!  Everything else is shrinking but my waist is barely changing.  It went down a bit, just from fat loss, but the more abdominal work I do it actually seems to be getting bigger.  It turns out that I have something called a diastasis recti, which is a separation of the stomach muscles.  I have likely had it since I had my second child (Olivia) 8 years ago.  It has gotten considerably worse over the years.  So basically no matter what I do it is not going to shrink on its own.  And all of the ab work I've done is actually doing more damage than good.  Most doctors will say that surgery is the only answer but I have heard great things about something called the Tupler Technique (http://www.maternalfitness.com/).  It consists of wearing a belly splint to pull the muscles back together and doing a series of specific exercises.  I am going to start with wearing the splint and doing the exercises for 8 weeks and then see where I'm at.  And I'm not supposed to do any regular ab work so I will have to modify my Curves workout and my aquafit workout to avoid that.  I am very hopefully that this will make a difference and I will finally stop looking pregnant!  I will take before and after pictures of my belly so you can see the difference.