222

that was my weight after working out yesterday

when i started the workout i was 223.1 lbs

yeah - i got back up to about 232-235 from august through christmas. the lead-up to the election. shit in my personal life. slowly stopping regular exercise. the election. the hell that followed losing. thanksgiving and christmas - and all that eating.

i started working out every day since just after christmas. i have gotten a little tighter on what food i am eating.



the beast (AMT) pictured above on this page is my new friend. previously i was in love with the elliptical trainer, but have since discarded that machine as my primary object of desire.

i work out for a minimum of a half an hour every day except thursday (dance lesson night) - even then sometimes i will go work out. i do 300-600 calories (as machine measured) minimum and most of the time do 900 calories a day. i have got myself to the point where i have a comfortable manner of exercising on my home elliptical as well and use it for the days i don't make it to the gym. i am even able to keep discipline when the kids are at my place.



i always liked the non-cross trainer elliptical (without the cross-country ski poles). the motion with the poles/handles just wasn't natural for me.



on the new machine above - the AMT - i like using the poles. i dislike not using them. this is different for me.

i am able to eat a little less paranoiacally. that is a good thing. i can enjoy wine a little more often. and i still lose weight. not as fast as the hard core vegetable and fibre diet originally took me down, but roughly 10 lbs in 5 weeks is nothing to sneeze at.

i was pretty dejected about gaining that much weight after the hard fought battle to get down to about 210. it irritated me when i mentioned my weight gain to my daughter this last fall and she told me that her mother had observed and commented on it - not in a pleasant way - a sneering and denigrating way - you will recall the battles stbx and i had over my diet and exercise when we were still together.

i was pretty dejected during january after restarting exercise and didn't think i was getting anywhere. each weigh in would show no change - until i stopped weighing in some two weeks ago i was worried i was getting fat again. becoming my (self-perceived) unattractive former self. and then poof - yesterday i weighed myself - it was in the afternoon and i had eaten very little during the day instead of being an after supper workout and weigh-in - so thught maybe i'd show a lb or two.

i would describe to you the body loathing i felt, but having known many of you for awhile, i suspect there is enough understanding of that feeling. nothing fit right - i hated looking in the mirror because it would remind me that i had let myself slide towards the loathsome physical being i had previously.

i'm still not very confident body or looks wise (i am only now beginning to believe that maybe Smitten does actually find me attractive).

it was smitten who first made me feel better about myself in this cycle. i was just telling her about the new machine - it's been at the gym for about 6 months and i have slowly drifted toward it. i was talking about how much i hated the poles before but loved them now on the new machine - about how good the motion felt in a body sense. she commented that she could tell because my upper abdomen and pectorals were a different shape - that she knew i was doing something different in my exercise. that made me feel better that something was working (but also a little paranoid that she is "watching me" - i know not in the critical stbx-mrs_c sense, but i'm still freaky from that life)

going every day was a hard grind - and still is to an extent. i am having to adjust my ideas about how my exercise will work - i used to consider the runner's high i would get at around 1hr 10 min to be a big part of the payoff. now i just go. it is all discipline and i only get my "fix" every 3rd day or so when i actually have the full hour hour and a half to commit to a full session (900 calories).

Smitten tells me she admires my dedication to exercising very much. she has begun a personal exercise program herself recently. she says i inspired her.

it's cool to have her able to do it. when i met her she would not have been physically capable of doing the exercise regime she has begun.

when i met her, her SI (sacroiliac joint [SI joint]) was constantly out. she was rarely in for more than a few hours. she was in constant pain. through massage (mine and my RMT). through the physio my RMT refered her to. through the rehab exercises the physio people provided. and through more massage - she is now at the point where she is staying in for a couple of weeks at a time - and we can put her back in through stretches or massage/manipulation. there was period where she was at the chiropractor every day - sometime more than once a day.

now she hasn't seen him for a month - and that was for a stiff neck - not her SI

the acupressure and the "golf ball treatment" i introduced her to (lying/sitting on golf balls to do acupressure) keep her muscles from going over the edge. she always thought it was a bone/spinal thing but we have since worked it through and she now realises it was her muscles spasming that were throwing out the bones.

i am so happy she is better now. it's been a long grind. if there was any payoff for all the pain i endured and all the things i had to learn about muscles and their spasms - it would be the gradual healing of Smitten.

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well, that got a little off topic

anyway - i am exercising and losing weight

i love the new machine

i look forward to being able to show off my re-toned abdomen when i am back down to 210. so in april or so - watch out.