I had never exercised in my life. If I ever did any exercising, I walked, and that was not consistently at all. I remember taking a Strength Training class in college. It was for a P.E. credit and it was pass/fail. I dropped it about half way through and it was only a half semester class. I hated it. I was just never interested in exercise. I didn’t like the way it made me feel when I did it. It hurt! I literally did not like to sweat or do anything that made me get out of breath.
For the first week of being on WW I didn’t exercise. I didn’t think that I would add stress to my life at that point and just focus on the food. My neighbor, Kyle invited me to her house the next week to have a glass of wine with her and a friend, Caitlin. I planned my day around that and allowed myself enough points to have 2 glasses of wine. When I got there she gave me a glass and I drank it. She offered me more when I was done and I drank that. She offered me more when I was done and I said, no thank you, and that I had only allotted myself to have 2 glasses. She looked at me like I had lost my mind, and I told her that I had joined WW. She told me that she had done it before and Caitlin had as well. She said that she actually had a friend, Jennifer that worked at the WW that I went to. They started telling me about all these tips and tricks and recipes, and we talked about it for a long time. Kyle has always been really into exercise, and she asked me if I had thought about it at all, and I told her that I was just going to start out doing WW. She told me that it could help me lose a lot more weight faster if I did.
So, the next week I started my old safety net, walking. We have a Siberian Husky (Shadow) that I took with me (which he loved!). I started out only walking a mile, but I walked 6 days a week and took Sundays off. I had to go every day to establish it into my routine; otherwise I knew that I wouldn’t go. I couldn’t be the person that worked out 3 days a week because I would wake up in the morning and be tired and not feel like going and say, “Oh, I’ll just go tomorrow”. I did that for a couple of weeks and then went to a mile and a half; eventually working my way up to 2 miles. I did only that for a long time until it started to get really rainy and cold. I walked in the rain a couple of times and was determined to not let the weather keep me from walking. So, I joined a gym near my house, Fitness 19, which costs next to nothing every month, with the intention of only going when the weather was too bad. I did the elliptical for 30 minutes just for a change from walking. Then I found myself going to the gym more than I was walking.
Kyle and Jennifer decided to start up a boot camp called Boot Camp Moms. They called it that because they are moms, but anyone could work out with them even if they are not moms. They wanted me to come and try it. I was scared to death. I had no idea what they did at those things, but the name alone is enough to scare you, especially someone who had never worked out in their whole life. She assured me that they weren’t drill sergeants, and that everyone went at their own pace and that there would be people of all sizes, ages and levels there working out. I talked to Justin about it and he was worried for me to go because he didn’t want for me to get discouraged and quit exercising all together.
Again, it had to be my own decision, and I decided to go to my first one. To say the least it was hard, but not as hard as I thought it would be, so I started going each week. Kyle also works at the YMCA, and she and Jennifer worked out there every day. The Y has a TON of classes, and they would occasionally ask me to join them for a class they thought I would like and get me a guest pass sometimes.
There was one other emotional moment that I had at a WW meeting. I was getting ready to leave to go on a weekend trip with some friends. I was supposed to go to boot camp on Thursday morning and I set my alarm for the wrong time, so I didn’t get up in time to go. I was very upset about it especially since I wouldn’t be able to go on Saturday because I would be out of town. When I weighed in at my meeting, I had lost another 5 pounds, so when they did the rewards at the end of the meeting, my leader asked me what I thought helped me to lose those 5 pounds. I started to answer, and all this emotion came over me. It was really hard for me to answer. I’m not sure if it was just because I was having a hard day or if it was that I didn’t get to go to boot camp that morning or what, but I later told some friends about the story and said I felt like the fat girl on Richard Simmons! I said in my meeting that I thought exercise was really helping me and that I was very disappointed that I had missed boot camp that morning and that was so crazy because I had never worked out before starting this program. I went from never exercising to exercising 6 days a week and being upset when I couldn’t go!
My journey continued and once the New Year was here, I decided that I wanted to ramp up my workouts. So they told me to just start coming to the gym with them every day. Obviously I would have to join the Y to do that, so I did. I was a member of 2 gyms. I went from a person who hated exercise to a person who was a member of 2 gyms. There was something just not normal about that.
Now I am doing all kinds of classes, and boot camp. I feel great and it is part of my routine. I get up early, before my son and husband (and most mornings even the sun!) to work out. That’s the schedule that works for me. I am amazed at how quickly I have advanced. I couldn’t do a sit up, a push up, nothing, I didn’t know how. They showed me how, but it was really hard. Now I can do real grown up pushups, not girly ones on my knees! I can actually see my muscles! Crazy!
So, another purpose of my blog is to help people who are not exercising get motivated to exercise because it is so important. If you just focus on food or just focus on exercise, you won’t get as far as if you focus on both at the same time. Easier said than done, I know. I still find myself more focused on one or the other most of the time. But, finding a good balance between the two is key. So, as well as recipes, I will share what workouts I’m doing each day. Today I went to a muscle class at the Y that was really hard!
My friend, work out buddy, and as I like to call her my personal personal trainer, Kyle, had this quote on her Facebook status, but I’m not sure where she got it: "I never regret it when I do it, but I always regret it when I don't." That is so true of exercising, at least for me.
I’m not sure if this is a quote from someone else or not, but one of my favorite trainers at the Y, Paula said to us this past Thursday morning when everyone wanted to quit doing 90/60/30 seconds of mountain climbers, ”Do not quit, your mind is going to give up long before your body will!” and I love it, and it is so true it is scary. There are so many times that I am “forced” to run (who can force a grown woman to run, well I don’t really know the answer but I don’t like to run so when I do, I say I’m being forced!) I want to quit before I start, but my body isn’t physically making me stop, my mind is telling me that I hate it and I don’t want to anymore, but I keep on pushing it.
Some people can’t walk or talk or exercise. Some people have handicaps or injuries or physical problems that will not allow them to move, much less exercise. So I’ve become thankful that I can do all of those things and I do them as much as I can, and I work out and I love it now. When I feel like not doing it that encourages me to get myself out of the bed and just do it! Nike, right?!? I look forward to going to work out with my friends. I love the rush that I feel when my muscles burn. I love the endorphins that are released throughout my body when my heart rate rises and I sweat and I get out of breath. I still have not learned to love to run and I may not ever, but I am moving 6 days a week, and that’s at least a pretty good start.
Recipe for the day:
In my previous post I said that I have made up some things, but mostly it’s just meals that I have put together, and this is one of those. I got a pork tenderloin that was already marinated at the store. I have a meat thermometer that I use to get it to the right temperature. The book that came with it said to cook it on 325, and I have found the lower temperature helps keep it moist. I set the meat thermometer to 170 degrees, which is what the book suggests for the internal temperature for a pork loin. I calculated the WW points plus from the package, but in general, 4 oz. is 4 points plus. You can get bags of frozen steamable vegetables that you can microwave as a side. I made roasted potatoes to go with it, which is a recipe that I got from borrowing a WW cookbook from my bestie Kelly. I have found 1 ½ lb bags of potatoes at the store and I use those mostly because they are preportioned and I don’t have to weigh them.
1 ½ pounds small potatoes, quartered
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp rosemary
½ tsp each salt & pepper
Preheat oven to 475. In a bowl toss with your hands all the ingredients. Spray a baking sheet with PAM, put the potatoes on the baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes. ½ cup is 2 points plus
This dinner is so easy and really good!
This dinner is so easy and really good!
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