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!!!