Weigh-in #8 and #9: 21 Day Challenge

I have some sad news to share.

No weigh-in this week. I’m currently at Rebecca’s house. Due to a sudden death in the family, I am here taking care of all the fur babies. I’ve realized that I haven’t really updated in a while so you don’t know how big of an undertaking that is. Rebecca has two cats, and two dogs. She also is currently fostering five four week old kittens. They are ADORABLE, but they need to be bottle fed every four hours. They were dumped off in a bucket and a fisherman found them 😦 I love them, but the night is hard. It’s like I had a baby. And if you didn’t know, it takes me about an hour to two hours to fall asleep so I never really get to go back to sleep, or even nap inbetween feedings. They are old enough to begin to start weaning (and we’ve pretty much successfully litter trained them!) so it should be getting better. They are definitely more independant than when we got them last Tuesday.

So, nine animals to care for means no weigh-in. I could have brought my scale over, but I didn’t want to have to deal with that when I was bringinig over clothes/toiletries/food so I’m calling this week a bust, and will do a weigh-in next Sunday. The Sunday after that is the day I head to my summer stock really early in the morning, so I don’t think I’ll weigh-in on that day. I really don’t think I’ll remember to do it at like 4 am in the morning. I’m still debating on whether I’m going to bring my scale. It’s one less thing I’ll have to pack and find a place for if I don’t bring it, although I won’t have the accountability of seeing the number every week. But, it could be cool to see how much I lose after 9 weeks of not stepping on the scale. We’ll see what I decide.

The last weigh-in I did was on the 16th (I really AM slacking on this blog, I’m sorry). It was at 300 lbs, which is maintain from the last week. It’s ok. I was kind of bad with my calories towards the end of the week, and my food wasn’t as good as it could have been. I know why it’s the weight it is, but it’s still a tiny bit disappointing.

I finished my last 21 Day Challenge around the 9th of this month and I realized I didn’t talk about it. I made a video about it:

I didn’t do so hot in the water department, but did do well in both the keeping track and cleaning categories. I guess 2 out of 3 isn’t bad, right? Since I love my lists and resolutions I decided to do another challenge. This one in addition to keeping 150 oz of water, I added exercising at least 2 days a week, and get up before 10 am. We’ll see how it goes.

Happy birthday Shakespeare!

Theatre is my life, and it’s only fitting to at least celebrate a talented playwright who helped bring it the masses!

So, it’s currently my fourth day of my personal 21 day challenge and it’s been going ok. The one thing that I am finding difficult is the amount of water I have to take in a day. Using the general water rule (take 1/2 of your body weight, and that is how many ounces of water to drink-to maintain a generally non active state), I have to take in 150 oz.

That is more than twice the standard “8 glasses of water a day”, and it’s hard. Not only am I consuming so much water that I’m getting sick of it (or really bored), but I feel like it becomes a burden. I have to make sure I drink my 16 oz water bottle in full almost every hour that I’m awake. And then on top of it, I have to go to the bathroom more, especially right before going to bed. I have always had issues with going to sleep (my mom used to tell me stories of how she would put me in the crib, come check up on me and I’d be standing there just looking around and not crying but also not going to sleep), and the disruptiveness of this act is becoming a nuisance. It’s harder now that I’m not working, since I don’t feel the “need” for the water. It’s an obstacle I need to overcome, and hopefully this 21 day challenge will help that. It does make it a little bit harder, but none of this journey is easy, right?

While on the elevator coming back to the apartment from going to Lowes and picking up some plants for the apartment, I overheard some guys that I was sharing the elevator with talking about how they had just picked up their registration packet for the Derby Marathon happening tomorrow. This got me thinking about how much I wish that I could be doing that. One of the things that I’ve wanted to accomplish and has been in the back of my brain is to run. Right now, in my current physical state, I barely can run a minute without feeling like my lungs are going to rip out of my chest. I can remember one year while I was in middle school, we had to do laps every Friday. I started by walking most, and then I slowly started running to certain points. I would tell myself “Run to that tree, and then you can walk for a bit”. Every week I would up it, and by the end of the year I remember finding out how much my time had changed and really felt accomplished.

I’ve always wanted to start a Couch to 5k program, but always become mentally stopped. Why? Because I am paranoid about the way people would view me while out in public running and stopping as much. It’s something that really stops me from doing it. I’m fine with walking, but when I have to do something that shows how physically out of shape I really am, it frightens me to think about what people are thinking about me. I do the same thing with gyms. If I’m not going with a friend, it’s hard for me to work up the courage to work out when there are other people around who are physically more fit than me. I hate that I think that way, and I try really hard to not do that, but it ends up not working.

Does anyone else feel this way? I’m still working out the answers as to how I can get past this mental block. I have friends who have said that they would run with me, and that’s fine if it were to go workout on individual equipment, but they are runners themselves and I would feel that I would be keeping them back from getting the most out of their exercise, and I’d feel bad about that. I think one day I’m just going to have to bite the bullet and do it. For most of the stuff in my life, once I just dive right in I’m fine. Until then it’s still a major obstacle that I need to overcome. I am so jealous of everyone who is constantly signing up for marathons or runs and coming back with stories of how they beat their personal record, how much fun they had, how their sense of accomplishment afterword, even the medals and t-shirts make me jealous. I guess if I ever want to make it happen, I need to do it right and stop letting myself mentally not?

Easier said than done.

21 Day Challenge

I absolutely love Celestial Seasonings Bengal Spice tea. It really is fabulous, you should all try it. I also love that it is cold enough outside for me to enjoy a warm cup of tea. I hate drinking hot liquids when it gets hot out, although I love the taste. Very fitting since I am sitting here watching a marathon of Antishay’s Youtube videos, since she is the one who recommended it. I am trying to find inspiration, motivation, and the mindset that I can do this, and I can start this journey again.

Hi, it’s me. I feel that I need to let you in on a secret. I know in the last post I said that I was tracking again. That wasn’t a lie, per se, but it became one. I tracked for a day. I don’t even think half a day before I stopped again. For no reason this time. I’m not working right now, and I don’t have money to warrant any sort of social life to distract me from it. I just didn’t do it. I feel awful. I feel awful for not doing it, and I feel awful for feeling awful about not doing it. I have been doing some soul searching, and really trying to find out what makes me do the things that I do, and I have realized that I need to work on not being so down on myself, especially in situtaions like this. It is ok for me to not track, it’s not the end of the world, and I can always start again, yet when I don’t track I give up and think of myself as a failure. It’s going to be hard to work through, since my entire life has been this way but knowing truly is half the battle, and I feel that I can work on this and in the long run help me out with my goals.

That being said, I am tracking again. Well, I will be starting tomorrow since the day is already gone (considering it’s past midnight now). There has been this trend on Youtube for a while to do a “21 Day Challenge”. The concept is that it takes about 21 days for something to become a habit, and so by challenging your self to do something for 21 days, it will become a habit. I have decided to incorporate that now, and I have challenged myself of three things:

1. Track my food
2. Drink 150 oz of water daily
3. Pick up at least one thing a day, to keep the place tidy

It will be nice to challenge myself, and hopefully after these 21 days things will be a bit easier. I hope to get back to doing weigh-ins on Sundays, and to update this blog more, and also update my Youtube channel more. I in fact just put up a new video announcing my semi return.

Youtube will still be hard since I still do not have internet, but I enjoy putting up videos. I realized after I stopped doing the collab channel with my friend Evelyn, I missed having a document of my life to look back. So maybe my Youtube will incorporate more of my life outside of weight loss. I don’t want to put those things on my challenge, because honestly right now they aren’t the much of a priority for me.

Yesterday was Thunder Over Louisville. If you don’t live anywhere near here, Thunder is the big kick off for the anticipated Derby. There was an air show in the morning and fireworks display at night. I walked down to the riverfront (which is only about a mile away) and watched the air show, walked back to the apartment and then headed up to the roof of our building to watch the show. It’s pretty convenient to have that option, even though the Marriott blocks the view of the cool fireworks on the bridge, but it’s still better than trying to deal with the crowds. It gets insane. It’s crazy watching all the drunken people walk back to where they are parked (which is usually 2+ miles from the riverfront) and all the cars trying to leave downtown, it’s like a massive apocolypse had just occured.

That’s it for me. Hope all is well with everyone.