Extreme Makeover HOME EDITION!

I am beyond excited!!! Last week, my parents bought an elliptical to keep at the house. This will definitely help me get active in the mornings!!! Previously, I would get up at 4:30 in the mornings on days I had to work so I could do 30 min of Zumba Cardio before getting ready for work and leaving the house by 5:45. I liked doing that, but I was always afraid I would be a bother and wake people in the house up because I had to do it in the living room. I would have done it on my room, but there is not enough space to move around much. Dad built the elliptical and put it in our spare room. It's a BEAST!!! I'm so excited to be able to take advantage of this each morning to start my day!!!

My mom also surprised me by purchasing a fitness ball for me!!!! Now I can mix in some other exercises to keep things interesting!!! Next, I will get some hand weights to add to different easy-to-do at-home exercises... Slowly but surely, our home is turning into a safe and fit environment to encourage health and wellness!!!

My parents are definitely showing me all of the love and support they could possibly give me and it means the world!!!

My mom works out with me at the gym and goes to group fitness classes to get in our cardio and she helps strengthen me when it comes to temptations and fighting the pressures surrounding me.

My dad hides my scale and buys me some food to help me with the cost of eating on my diet.

I can't express how much this support means. Without it, this would be so much harder!!!

My Reasons: The Backstory

Howdy All!!

Recently, I have been asked why I chose to start this journey. Had something drastic happened in my life to make me wake up and realize that I was dangerously unhealthy? My usual response is something like this... "Well, I was just sick and tired of being sick and tired..." Though this may be true to some degree, I felt the need to delve deeper within myself for a more accurate reasoning.

Now that I am looking back, there are multiple instances where I can remember various feelings I had that should have pushed me to change my life right at that moment...

• In third grade, a kid in my class told me that I shouldn't be allowed to go on the field trip because I was "too fat to fit out of the emergency exit on the school bus." As a CHILD, those kinds of words can be quite hurtful. What did I know about health and fitness at that age? NOTHING! I knew that I LOVED to eat and food was good. When it came to fitness, I was a pretty active child. I played indoor soccer, outdoor soccer, basketball, and softball.
• I was shopping in the women's section in 5th grade to attend a funeral for my grandmother... an 11 year old girl should not have to shop in the GROWN UP section. Simple as that. Why did I not feel the need to change then??
• In high school, I was in Colorguard. I was VERY active. I should have changed my eating habbits then when I had the largest uniform out of anyone in Colorguard. But what did I do? NOTHING.
• I was the girl that never had a boyfriend in HS because I wasn't desirable. I was the nice fat girl. I always had a lot of friends, but nobody ever really mentioned the weight, even though it was probably an elephant in the room...
• In college, I had a couple of guys who were interested but I never believed they could possibly be genuinely interested because of my weight. It was ALWAYS in the back of my mind. Why did I not change then??? I wish I knew...
• When shopping with friends, I have always felt out of place. I don't want to ask them to go to stores that sell the size of clothing that I can wear because they won't find anything that fits them. Even if a single store has sizes that can fit both my small friends and myself, the sections are SEGREGATED. I almost feel like there are sections of the store so you will know where you belong... FAT or FIT...

So, I am sure I didn't include everything behind my reasoning for losing weight, but I feel like over the years, I was like a volcano that could have erupted at any moment... If one more instance had happened to tear my heart out, I'm not sure where I would be. Something came over me and I just HAD to change. I am sick and tired of being the nice, fat girl. I'm sick and tired of being the girl that doesn't have a relationship. I'm sick and tired of hiding the real me and pleasing people all of the time. I'm sick and tired of not feeling good enough to shop in the sections I should be able to shop in but cannot because of my size.

I guess my usual response hits the nail on the head...

I'M SICK AND TIRED OF BEING SICK AND TIRED.

Sometimes, there just might be a deeper meaning to those words.

Know Your Body, Change Your Life: Body Media

Shop Body Media!!!!

Above is a link to an AMAZING product that is helping me in my journey. With this product, I can track my calories burned throughout the day, track my steps (and when they were taken), track my activity throughout the day, along with tracking my sleeping patterns and effiiciency (how long I am laying down vs. when I am truly sleeping), AND it will track the calories that I consume. For FREE, I can link the bodymedia account to the account I have with My Fitness Pal. I feel like My Fitness Pal is easier to track calories on. Body Media is more accurate with calorie burn because it is taking multiple readings from your own body specifications and monitors you 24/7 (except for when you are in water). The armband I have will LINK to my smartphone via BLUETOOTH so I can have minute by minute updates whenever I want to know my progress throughout the day. Now that I have linked my accounts together, my exercise calories get transferred to my fitness pal and my food (nutrition and calories consumed) gets transferred to body media AUTOMATICALLY!!!! I am manually tracking in one place, but I am getting things done in 2 places!! I know so much more about my body than I used to and it is sooo comforting!!!

Also, for an obsessive person like myself, this is an AMAZING tool!!! It lets me generate reports weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly to track my averages and progress!!!! It really helps to have this visual representation of my progress!!!!

The link above will allow you to get 15% off of your armband bc I am referring you. If nothing more, check it out.

A weekend of cHaLLeNgEs... body and mind...

So...

I was allowed to weigh in on Saturday. It would have been 10 days since my last weigh in. I was SOOO excited!!! I had been working hard in the gym with my trainer and each day, I had burned more calories than I consumed. I felt like I knew what was going on with my body and I prayed it would reflect on the scale. I will admit that I gave into some temptations on my birthday on Tuesday of last week (2 cheese sticks, a roll, and a few bites of cake and ice cream) at the Magic Time Machine. I knew I was being taken out, but I didn't know where. I have learned an important lesson. I will insist on knowing where I go so I can have a concrete plan for myself to stick to ahead of time. Also, I will STAND UP FOR MYSELF!!! I will no longer feel pressured to eat wrongly just to make others feel more comfortable with their choices. Just because I am choosing to eat healthy, ect. does not mean that I judge others for eating what they choose. I am doing this for ME and no one else!!

NOTE: If anyone has a problem with my lifestyle choices or new eating habbits, that is exactly what it is... THEIR PROBLEM. Not mine. I will not let other people's opinions affect me any longer. This is my life and MY HEALTH!!!!

My dad hides my scale so I won't be tempted to weigh every single day like I did the first month and a half of this year before I got a trainer... I appreciate him because that is his way of supporting me and my new lifestyle. I am still working on gaining the mentality that THE SCALE DOES NOT TELL YOU EVERYTHING so I shouldn't dwell on what it says... But I suppose that with time, that mindset may come also. Becuase I was going to be going out of town as soon as I left work on Friday for a retreat with my college ministry group, my dad gave me my scale right before we left for work on Friday morning so I wouldn't have time to sneak a peak at the scale before we left for work. Saturday morning, I weighed... THE SCALE STAYED THE EXACT SAME!!! I weighed in at 266.0 lbs... AGAIN...

At first, I was VERY upset... and more than that, I was INFURIATED with myself!!! I didn't understand and then I looked back on my last 10 days of diet and exercise to see what I could have done wrong... Other than my cheating bites at dinner on Tuesday, I could think of nothing bad that I did to make the scale reflect no change.

Then, my trainer sent me this :

Wow... when I read this, I didn't believe it at first because I am such an obsessive person and one thing that has ALWAYS made sense to me is numbers... The numbers didn't add up to me, so I was angry. After thinking on this during my drive home to prepare for the rest of my weekend out of town, I remembered that I still needed retake my measurements. My mom and I measure me each weigh in day (every 10 days). Originally, I didn't want to take measurements because the scale didn't show any change, so why would the tape measure?? Well, I thought back to the picture above that my trainer sent me and decided that I will stick to this and face whatever it has to tell me. The results are as follows:

Neck:  lost 1/2 inch
Arms:  lost 1/2 inch in each
Upper Chest:   lost 3 inches
Center Chest:  lost 2 inches
Under Chest:   lost 1.25 inches
Waist:  same
Hips:  lost 1/4 inch
Thighs:  same
Calves:  lost 1/8 inch in each

Well, as usual, THE TRAINER HAS AN IMPORTANT POINT...

~THE SCALES AREN'T TELLING YOU THE WOLE STORY~



With the above in mind... aka- a loss of inches, but not a loss of weight... I realized that just because I hadn't lost WEIGHT, that does not mean that I didn't lose FAT... I was worked pretty hard in the gym with weight training so I had to have been building muscle. I have also been pretty stressed about various things in the past week. On top of that, I haven't been sleeping NEAR the amount that I should. I feel like all of this could have affected my number on the scale.

With all of that in mind, I will continue to stick to my diet, do my cardio on my own, and hit it hard anytime I am doing my weight training with my trainer. NOTHING WILL STOP ME!!!

On another thought entirely, I went to an overnight bachelorette party for a dear friend of mine, Emilie, Saturday afternoon. Before the party, there was a wedding shower. There was a HUGE array of things to eat and I am proud to say that I didn't eat any of it. First off, I wasn't really hungry. In the past, I would have stuffed my face just because there was food in front of me. Aslo, I drank my water instead of punch :)

Even though my routine was thrown off this weekend, I tracked everything. I also MAJORLY stepped out of my comfort zone... We went to Pete's Dueling Piano Bar and when Emilie got called to the stage, her party was asked to join her... That included me. In the past, I would have cowered away from that and sat happily (from an onlooker's view) and pulled inside of myself while the people surrounding me let loose and had a good time... Saturday night, I JOINED THEM!!! I got on the stage with my friends in front of a TON of people that I didn't know and I SHOOK IT!!!! I will say, I was quite surprised when some guy slapped my backside as I was getting on the stage.

I had a blast and it was a weekend full of blessings, challenges, friends, and fun. I learned lessons about myself along the way.

I hope everyone is having a great start to their week. I'm definitely looking forward to training tomorrow. I can't wait to see what is in store for me!!!

Here is to working on not putting all of my focus on the scale!!!

Shedding the Pounds... or Shedding the Camoflage

Well,

I have never really blogged before, but I figured now would be a good time to start. An even better time would have been when I started my journey on January 1, but what can I say? I don't think of everything. Now the question is... where to start?... The beginning will have to do.

I have ALWAYS been overweight. Not just overweight... almost morbidly obese. Thankfully, I am working on changing that!!!! Over the past few years, I have tried various crash diets or random programs to see if I could lose the weight that not only holds me back physically, but emotionally as well. NEWS FLASH: there are NO QUICK FIXES for obesity!!!!!!!!!

I started my SERIOUS and COMMITTED weight loss journey on January 1, 2013. New Year should bring about a New Me, right? So... Brandi 2.0 is in progress!!!!!

On January 1, I weighed in at 293.4 lbs... WOW. I had so many emotions going through my mind when I looked at that number. At first, I was disgusted with myself and then I was just confused. How did I not realize I was getting that bad? How could I have not done something so much sooner? It BLOWS MY MIND that I let myself get this way. I used to be very active but I was still very overweight. Why??... BECAUSE I STILL ATE CRAPPY THINGS!!!!

Since I began my journey on Jan 1, I have learned that you need to EAT HEALTHY & BE ACTIVE to lose weight efficiently!!! I have MAJOR goals to meet!!!

In order to be more active, I joined Anytime Fitness February 13 and started with my very own personal trainer on February 18. With the nutrition and training plan, I was able to lose 9 lbs in the first 10 days!!! I was super impressed!!! As of February 27, I have lost a total of 27.4 lbs. Now that I began training, apparently "It's not always about what the scale says... you need to focus on how you feel and what your body tells you." To prove the point to me, I am only allowed to weigh every 10 days... this is hard for me but I'm working on it. My progress so far is as follows:

Jan 1 -    293.4

Jan 14 -  287 ….. Started 30 days of WHOLE 30

Jan 21 -  281.2

Jan 28 -  276.2

Feb 4 -   274.8

Feb 11 - 274

Feb 18 -   275 …. First Day with Trainer

Feb 27– 266

Mar 9 -  ????????

I will stick to this not only to lose the weight, but to find myself along the way. I'm done hiding behind the comfort of my camoflage. I WILL HIDE NO MORE!!!! Watch out world... BRANDI 2.0 is a comin'!!!