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I know, I know, it sounds nuts, doesn’t it?  I’m sure some folks will wonder if I have really lost it this time by saying that “I miss my workouts.”  But…it’s true.  Something has just been off kilter with me lately, more than just being sick or the occasional blues I go through every once in a while.  I’m unable to focus, my mind is going a million miles a minute, I’ve been suffering on and off with insomnia, and I’m just, well, “off.”  I couldn’t really put my finger on it until tonight.

While I was sitting on the couch a while ago, eating a late night snack and relaxing, it hit me, what exactly is “off.”  I haven’t really put in a good work out in over a month!  WHAT?  It’s true.  I’ve been keeping track of my steps with my handy dandy pedometer, but to be honest, I need more.  Another mom and I had been walking together, which I guess satiated my desire for some type of workout, but she quit on me a couple of weeks ago when the weather started to get a little cooler (not cold, just cool).  So basically I’ve been getting my steps in by doing housework, which is great because I get a lot done (hey, it takes a lot of walking to get in 10,000 steps in a day!).  But it’s not enough.  Crazy thought, isn’t it?

You have to understand that I was a hardcore and faithful exerciser (is that even a word?).  I worked out 6 days a week, sometimes 7, putting in a grueling workout with P90X or some sort of cardio/weight training program that I put together on my own.  Every single day without fail (unless too sick).  So it’s no wonder my mind has been fuzzy, I’ve been unable to stay focused, and I feel like I’m missing something.  I am missing something - my beloved workouts!!

Since my surgery is less than a month away and I know I won’t be able to workout for a bit after, and definitely no weight training for a while either, I am going to just do 6 days of cardio for now and stretch on the 7th day.  I’ve decided to just do Slim in 6 because it’s an awesome cardio workout with some resistance training and it makes me sweat and I really like it.

I’m downright giddy with the thought of actually getting up early in the a.m. and getting in a kickbutt workout.  I really think this will do the trick.

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Several folks have emailed me to check on me, so I thought I would post a little update to let everyone know I am still alive!

I do have to have surgery, which is the pits.  I’m scheduled to have my sinus surgery on November 21st.  Yes, the day before Thanksgiving!  My mother is going to cook for me, and since I am sure I won’t feel like eating, she can just freeze it for me and I’ll celebrate Thanksgiving a little later on. 

I am scared, of course.  There are risks to the surgery, but the risks of me not having it are greater (brain abscess and/or meningitis being the two most concerning).  I have been sick and on antibiotics since June.  I just came off two rounds of antibiotics on the 14th of this month, one was for 10 days and the last was for 14 days with a 4 day break in between, and I am sick once again.  I have not went back to the doctor to get more antibiotics this time and am trying to take alternative measures such as taking mega doses of garlic supplements since garlic has antibiotic properties.  I honestly am at my wit’s end, but I am hoping that the surgery will allow me to get back to normal.  The worst part of this whole thing has been the fatigue.  I cannot stand not having any energy and can’t believe how much I miss being an “energizer bunny.”

I have not restarted P90X yet.  I was going to go ahead and restart it for the third time, but I decided that since it will be awhile post-surgery before I can do exercise of any sort, let alone weight training, I will hold off and start then.  I ended up losing 11 lbs. in total last month when my body went on this weight loss kick without any extra help from me (except for the walking) and I have maintained that loss.  I am a bit surprised by that since I haven’t been eating all that great.  One thing with me and fatigue is that when I am super tired, I eat all the time!  I guess to say awake, I don’t know.  All I know is I am thankful to have kept these 11 lbs. off.  The only thing I will need to do post-surgery is tone up and I have to be grateful for that.

Thanks to those who have checked up on me and I will try to keep posting to the blog regularly until my surgery.

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I’ve made an observation about weight loss.  It’s not a mind-blowing new discovery in the area of weight loss, but it has been insightful.

I had a doctor’s visit today.  I’m still under the weather and am 99.9% sure I will be having sinus surgery quite soon, so I still haven’t had the energy to put back into P90X just yet.  When I do go back to P90X (and I will!), I am going to start back with week 5, which is where I left off.  I had already lost some additional inches and body fat in those 5 weeks and have kept it off, so why start over yet again due to illness?

When I went to the doc’s office today and stepped on the scale, I already knew that I had lost weight (see my earlier post about that), but thought that it wasn’t much more than 8 lbs., so I looked all around, trying to avoid the scale at all costs.  At the very last minute before my weight disappeared from the scale, I looked and was speechless.  Since September 14, when I was last weighed at the doctor’s office,  I have lost a little over 10 lbs.!  So I have lost almost 11 lbs. in 18 days, less than 3 weeks time.

What am I doing?  Nothing fancy, just wearing a pedometer and drinking 80 oz. of ice water every day.  I am not watching what I am eating as far as ratios go (carbs, fat, protein, etc.).  I am not dieting.  I have actually had some soda here and there (okay, okay, I know I shouldn’t have, but I seem to have it under control now).  I have ate out at restaurants and chose the meals that I wanted to have instead of what I “should” have eaten from the healthy side of the menu.  I have kept track of my calories only because I want to make sure I am eating enough and I am definitely eating enough calories (between 1600 and 1800) for my body.  I have not gotten in 10,000 steps every single day, but I do come close.  The main thing that I have done is I have stopped obsessing about it because I am focusing on ME right now and getting back to normal health-wise.

I think the thing that surprises me the most is I am also losing body fat (I know this by keeping track of my body fat percentage), which means I am not losing muscle and I am at least maintaining the muscle that I have worked so hard for.  THAT is an awesome feeling!

So what’s this insightful observation that I have made?  That I have come full circle.  This is exactly how I lost my weight after both pregnancies.  I didn’t obsess over the scale; I didn’t obsess over every single morsel I put in my mouth; I didn’t obsess over having “too many” carbs or “too little” protein.  I didn’t exhaust myself mentally worrying about every little detail.  I was active and I ate normally and lost the baby weight both times.

Keeping things simple (expending more calories than you’re taking in) is what I am sticking with.  It was my philosophy for almost 10 years, but somewhere along the way, in the past year or two, I have lost sight of that and let others influence my way of thinking that weight loss has to be so much harder than it actually is.  Not anymore! 

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I was reading some message board posts over at the weight loss forum wahm.com.  I’m a moderator there, so it’s kind of my job to go through and read posts by members there.

I noticed a post by someone who had a craving last night for a candy bar and some type of sugary drink.  She went out to get those items, but came back from the store with healthy snacks instead.  Her thoughts after that were that “being skinny” and feeling deprived go hand-in-hand.  It doesn’t have to be that way!

I came to the conclusion years ago that life is too short to walk around feeling hungry and/or deprived.  I don’t want to - period.  I’m not going to - period.  But that’s what makes losing weight in a healthy and natural way so much fun!  You don’t have to be deprived of your favorite foods.  You don’t have to starve yourself.  That’s not what life is about and it’s certainly not what healthy weight loss is about either.  Now, don’t get me wrong - I’m not saying you can eat a whole bag of Doritos in one sitting or scarf down a gallon of Ben & Jerry’s in one afternoon.  My motto is and has been for quite some time:  everything in moderation.

Okay, so there is one thing I can’t drink in moderation yet and that is soda.  So I stay away from it completely.  If I have a sip, then I will go on a week-long binge and have to start all over as far as getting off soda.  But I rarely miss it, and when I do miss it, I think about how it was ruining my teeth, how it made me feel when I would crash shortly after drinking it, and how much tighter it made my pants feel.  That usually does the trick.

Losing weight and improving health should be fun.  If it’s not, then there is something wrong and you need to re-evaluate what you’re doing and change things to make it fun.  There are hundreds of thousands of healthy foods out there that are delicious.  There are hundreds of exercises that are fun to do; you just have to find them by trial and error.  

I think too many times people make losing weight too difficult and it just becomes too exhausting and they give up.  Don’t let that happen to you - live a little and have some fun while losing weight!  You may be suprised with your results. 

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