Weekly update

There is no better feeling then waking up and having instant pain with ever muscle in your body. To me, that means my workout worked. I worked hard, and my muscles are reacting because of that.

I had a week of feeling like that. Boot camp last Thursday, Turbofire workout at home on the Monday holiday, followed by interval running Tuesday, Wednesday, and ended the week with a boot camp last night. You can imagine I was looking forward and feeling good about weigh in today.  Needless to say, that didn't go as planned. Up out of bed this morning and into the bathroom I stroll, give myself the usual pep talk, "yeah you can do this, it's going to be great, you ate great, you worked your ass off, you got this". Hop on and guess what, same damn weight as last week. Instant, what the hell? question goes through my mind, followed by anger, followed by sadness. How could this be? Cranky pants were on allllllllll morning trying to get ready for work, which you can imagine is a pleasant experience for the new boyfriend that has just started witnessing me go through this battle. He has a heart bigger then the size of our town, and says everything to try make me feel better, but when you're in that state of mind, unfortunately nothing helps.

Quick rundown of what I'm eating on a daily basis:

2pc of whole wheat weight watchers toast, and 1 egg, 3 egg whites
lunch is a shake (spinach, frozen fruit, avocado, protein powder, chia seeds, coconut water)
afternoon snack is apple with protein peanut butter dip
supper, protein and salad (salmon, chicken, etc)
night snack (when I remember and I don't cheat) greek yogurt frozen berries

I get to the office, and I have my usual vent with Kayla. Kayla is on the same journey I am, we are both trying to get back to our once healthier self. She knows the blood, sweat, and tears that I've had over the past years of going through this battle. It literally feels like the world is coming to an end, its wild. The damn number on the scale. I don't even keep in mind that I've lost 23.25 total body inches since January 5. To me that means nothing, I completely let the number on the scale control me.  Anyway, lost track of where I was going with that. Needless to say the curse words were flying when I was venting to Kayla. Instant emotion says, screw all of it, I'm going to eat what I want, go to the gym, and maintain my current weight. No different then eating crazy awesome and working out and staying the same weight. All emotions were telling Chinese food.  5 minutes later I get a call from Passport Canada in Halifax, saying they received my application transfer and my passport will be ready next week (long story short, I'm heading to Cuba in two weeks and have yet to receive my passport, talk about stress) That happy call pushed me even more to want Chinese food..... so guess what I had for lunch? yup, you guessed it.

I'm changing things for next week, I'm not sure what yet, but this is getting too stressful and annoying.

The struggles of every day

So I'm three weeks away from a sunny vacation in Cuba, and I'm still finding myself struggling to stick with the best eating you could imagine. Daytime seems to be fine, but boy when 4 o'clock hits, almost like the bell at school, I am on my way home thinking what type of treat can I give myself tonight to recognize a good day of eating. It's so silly.

I'm been doing really good at the Y, every day this week, and I'm doing boot camp with my trainer tonight... I'm anxious to see what all the fuss is about :) It's exciting and nerve racking all at once, considering I use to be the one teaching these classes, and now I'm on the other side of things needing the workout.  Why couldn't I  be one of those girls born to be skinny? LOL Life would be so much easier. I say that, but you know what I've learned? Life is not, and will never be easy. The more situations that occur, the more strength I build.  I trust one day I will feel like I'm standing on top of a mountain with the fresh air blowing in my hair, being able to breathe in complete empowerment. For now, I will take the good days and the bad days together. My hardest struggle is emotional eating. I eat for every emotion.

I've heard so many times, " Sarah you're doing so well, you're so positive, life is so great for you now, how did you do it? "  Just because I made the decision, people think I have  no heart, or no memory or feelings about anything. I think it makes people think that I don't have my bad times. The moments where I can be driving home from a days work, and be feeling like I'm on top of the world, and I'm singing at the top of my lungs to the music playing, and within two seconds, or the snap of my fingers, I'm sobbing crying, tears flowing uncontrollably. Whether it is from a certain thought, from a certain song, of anyone or anything that I've lost in my life in the past year. Most times I can't even put my finger on what does cause it. These weak moments are the moments that remind me I need to keep building my strength. In every way possible. It seems to get better each week that goes by, happens a little less often, but still happens. These are the moments that I would like to order one of everything on any menu I can get my hands on. So it I can just control myself in these moments, that will go a long way for me.

Ready for a strong 2015...

Friday, August 2, 2013 was my last post. I just read it again after over a year and a half since I wrote it. It makes me sad. It clearly demonstrates my struggle with "the number" and the struggle with happiness, quoting things like "If I get skinny, I'll be the happiest person ever". Turns out that there was a whole lot more than "the number" that was causing some sadness in my life.

Fast forward to January 5th 2015, here I stand today. Over 30 pounds heavier than I would like to see myself, and officially legally separated from what was my husband last time I wrote. Through all of this I am now trying to find myself again. A blog is clearly not a location in which I will enter into any type of detail, but I will say that I am a happier person today because of it all.  Life has been an emotional rollercoaster for the past year. It doesn't help that I am an emotional eater. Happy, sad, excited, etc bring me food, and I don't mean lettuce, I want the "good" stuff.

In August 2013 I quit teaching fitness. As much as I loved it, the passion wasn't there, and working a full time job and running a business that was booming on top of that, there was no room to teach. This is when my struggle started again. I spent 2014 running and training outside, and eating kind of sensible, the weight gain really wasn't too bad, I was maintaining pretty good.

May 2014 I joined the YMCA. I noticed I was clearly 20 pounds heavier then I wanted to see myself. Joining the Y was definitely not something I was mentally prepared to do. Here is this girl, who was once a fitness instructor in good shape, is joining the Y and struggling with her weight again. Little do people know, weight is a daily struggle for myself and most people. It is a daily commitment to myself. In May I was prepared to do this.

June of 2014 was Relay for Life, and my struggle with my personal life. Needless to say the stress quickly started forcing me into donuts, carbs, a pure happiness for Sarah. I spent a summer trying to stay focused. 6AM gym work outs, I paid for a personal trainer/dietitian to make me a meal plan and workout plan for the Y. In my head, perfect, this should do it. Nope. Didn't work. During this struggle, I happen to meet a gentleman. A fella that so easily caught my eye, and sparked my hope of finding true happiness. Like most people know, a new relationship is all fun and exciting. Date nights out to this restaurant or that one over there, most things that we had ourselves involved in included horrible eating habits. It was to the point where we just wanted to spend time with each-other, who needs the gym when we have each-other. As most of you know, along with my full time job in the office, I run what i call a very successful business in photography. Fall is the busiest photography season. In my mind at this time, gym and health is on the back burner, and I managed to do 120 photo sessions between Sept to Dec.... and 3 weddings during that time as well. Bring in the money, pay off my debt, I will look after my health another time.

Another time is today. Last weekend i purchased all health foods and started back Monday morning. I'm on day three of my sugar and crap food detox. Not a single ounce of sugar or processed food has been put in my body. I am ready to get back to the shape I was in when I was known as Fitness Instructor Sarah, who's following me?

Update on where I am in life...

WOW, Feb 16 was my last update... ah; well the best I can say was life was busy? Yes, good enough answer? Honestly I just stopped caring about blogging. I did manage to get myself into a million different things in life. There are so many things to highlight, but I won't do that today. Today I hauled out the laptop in need of laying it all out there. My whole life I've struggled and said to myself "If I get skinny, I'll be the happiest person ever" or "If only I hit that certain number, things will be great". Allowing the number to always control my happiness. Friday I weigh in, and if the number am good, my mood is happy and I'm so excited that the number is showing my hard work. If the number isn't good, or what I was expecting.... I will allow it to ruin my day. You only have a certain amount of days to live here on this earth, and I seriously allow a bad weigh in to ruin one of those days I was blessed to live here on earth. 1 lb. / 2 lbs., Silly? I think so. I had finally hit that number that I always wanted. 145. It was my lowest weight I've been since probably junior high, and here it was, the number I've been striving for. I worked damn hard for it, and here it was. I was beyond excited. The Beachbody Ultimate Reset is what finally did it. 21 day program that was such an amazing experience. ( http://myultimatereset.com/esuite/home/ssweeny ) In saying that, it was the maintaining of that afterwards that would be my challenge next. I found myself being so strict with everything. Avoiding eating supper with my family, thinking I'll just do my shake and that's it. Although this may have been helping with the maintaining, I found myself in a very low point in life. Avoiding everything else that was important to me, ignoring it like it/they weren't there. So I go back to that statement of "If I get skinny, I'll be the happiest person ever" and If only I hit that certain number, things will be great". Really? I thought that, really?? It's so crazy to me. I could continue to stress over every little calorie and maintain that 145 weight, or I could be happy, have suppers with my family, have the occasional drink with my family and maintain 150lbs. Turns out the 145 doesn't make me completely happy as I expected. Who seriously is going to notice the extra 5 lbs.? No one, that's who. It's like the 5 lbs. are added directly in one location that it would be like BAM, there it is. Obviously it's not like that, but in my mind it is. I look in the mirror after each weigh in and I'm like, shit yeah my hips are slightly bigger. This coming from a girl who STILL won't wear shorts. How and when will this number game ever end for me? Mentally I sadly don't think it ever will. I just have to keep thinking I use to be 200 lbs. I've maintained 50 lb. weight loss, the heck with the 5 other lbs. I do have a plan though, as always. This summer I'm truly going to enjoy it. If I want a beer, I'm going to have a beer. However I will still continue my running (oh yeah, that's my new thing FYI). I have a 5km/10km back to back race in September to train for. When summer is over, the beer is going back in the fridge, and I will get a bit more on track with everything. Oh, and I think it may soon be baby time... maybe in the next year.

As promised...progress shots...

So I slightly recall making the promise of posting the before and after shots of me in my bikini before I go to Florida *eek* My husband took the before bikini shot January 1st, and today I got him to take the after shot. As much as I hateeeee to post them, here we go:

As you can notice in the pink bikini, in the before shot my bottom was really digging in. Now, not as much! Slimmer hips and waist.

 

Now after my trip, back at it to prepare for Bust a Move.

Let me know what ya think guys.....this is VERY out of my comfort zone FYI to post this.

Focusing on "A" number

So during this whole process, the number I keep looking at to track my success is the weight on the scale. This is horrible for so many different reasons. Horribly discouraging how a number can change my attitude for the entire day. I must stop ruining days because of that number, and focus my success on another number. I thought pant size would be a good way. When I started this whole journey at my heaviest weight, I was a size 16 in Reitmans pants (probably 5 years ago). I state Reitmans pants because every clothing company has different size methods. At my lowest weight during this journey, 147lbs, I was in a size 5.  Size 16 to size 5...crazy right? So over the past year I've went through a slight struggle, and was back in a size 9. I should also note that I literally had to go out and buy new pants that fit me because I had slowly let myself go for a bit. These days you can find me sitting in a pair of 7s. The 7s not long ago fit perfect, but with my success over the past month with healthy eating, exercising and SHAKEOLOGY, my 7s are getting rather large, or I should say, my butt is getting rather small ;) haha  my goal is to be back in my size 5 pants. Manageable goal I think. But seriously, sitting here thinking size 16 to now 7, I may have something to be proud about there.

So I'm on week 5 of shakeology, and wanted to give an update. I'm not trying out the recipes that come with the shakes. I'm one of those people that when excited about something, I don't read things that go with it, I just get right to it. Well, for the first month of shakeology I just mixed shakeology with water or skim milk and had that. So FYI the shakes are good enough on their own. I think I've already blogged about the Peanut Butter Banana shake which is to die for. This morning I had a coffee one. So i made a Keurig coffee, and put it in the fridge over night. This morning I used that coffee instead of water, added ice and make my shake. This is a close call to the peanut butter banana folks! Mmmmmm. It goes to show that this product must be amazing for me to be EXCITED to get up and have it in the morning. I would recommend this to anyone!

Another thing I wanted to mention! Anyone that likes lemon in their water, how much do you HATE having the lemon go bad in the fridge? Look what I found:

I bought a box of these!! $4, got them from Cheryl Pickens, at her studio! It is a box of these individual packages. Each package is 1 wedge of lemon. I start my day with this now! It tastes exactly like a lemon wedge, because that's what it is!! I suggest ya get some!!

Weigh in and update

Hey blog world! I have been really slacking with the blogging lately, I'm sorry! Here I am!

I had a kick ass week. Shakeology every morning has been just plain awesome. I'm not sure if I blogged about the recipes for the shakes, but my new favorite is chocolate peanut butter banana. SOOOOO good. I'm sitting here typing this and honestly can not wait to have my shake in the morning.

I got my workouts in this week. No excuses. I want this. Wednesday I thought it would be a good idea to go out and look for shorts to buy for our upcoming trip. I could be a size 0 and still hate shorts I think. The chances of me actually wearing them on the trip is unlikely, so to frenchies I went! Grab every pair that I thought would perhaps fit, then the horrible time came to try them on. I did manage to find 3 pairs of shorts, a skirt and a dress. (Insert happy dance here). I can see the change in the muscles in my legs, still hate my legs though.

Thursday night was back to the studio! I was glad to be back! I had two pretty fantastic classes planned....I understand I may be slightly bias with that statement, but I'm pretty sure members could confirm that. I love pushing them....

Weigh in day was yesterday! 157. Again.  But I'm the most toned I've ever been....so it balances out. I wish I could just clear the number obsession from my head....but I can't just yet. I know that I've never eaten this healthy before, I've never exercised more in my life then I have lately, and have never felt this GREAT.  So I'm going to keep at it. I like feeling healthy. I should note that when I weighed myself yesterday morning and seen the 157 I was pissed. I was actually truly upset. So I must advise what I did (Kayla will get a laugh out of this, I told her I would confess). I allowed myself to be in a horrible mood all morning because of "THE" number. I had to go to Superstore to pick up a few things to prepare for this storm coming. Going around the grocery store I had to walk by the big display of donuts. I said F, it! I'm getting a long john. Like a chocolate eclair, sooo good. Everything else purchased was healthy I promise. I get home to unpack my groceries, took the long john out of the package and ate it within 5 minutes. HA, take that 157. Stupid. So yummy...but stupid.

So mom has started Shakeology. Fantastic news. And LOVES it. I knew she would. It is truly yummy. I will keep you updated on how she feels with it too!!