Tag Archives: weight loss

Orangetheory Week 4 (or I Can’t Believe I’m Halfway Done!)

I’ve completed half of my Orangetheory challenge! I can’t believe it! I remember before I started the challenge I wondered how I could manage to do this. Now, I’m to the point where I’m starting to miss my workouts on days I’m not there (but I know my body probably can’t handle more than 3 Orangetheory workouts a week yet). I’m also starting to think long-term about this. Right now, I’m thinking about getting the top-level of membership at Orangetheory after my challenge is done so I can continue my Monday, Wednesday, Friday workouts.

I’m starting to feel much stronger and powerful and even one of the managers at Orangetheory said that he’s noticed me looking more agile. While my weight loss is slow, it’s going the direction it needs to go. And I know that muscle weighs more than fat, but I’m not going to use that as an excuse. But losing 2 pounds a week is good and maintainable.

Last Monday, I had a friend join me for my class. It was the first time I had a friend there, and it was pretty awesome! I’m still hoping that more people will join me (if you are in LA and want to come please let me know!), but having a friend there this past week really helped give me a boost after feeling a little frustrated.

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On Wednesday, I was having a bad hip day (technically all week last week was a bad hip week). I wasn’t too happy to be on the treadmill, but I pushed through it the best I could. I had to take a lot of breaks, but I always got back on the treadmill.

I think the highlight for me on that workout was that we did a little rowing race. The group that started on the rowers (I started on the treadmills) did a race and the person who rowed the farthest in 1 minute rowed about 330 meters. So the challenge was set for my group to have someone beat that. Prior to Friday, I was averaging 250 meters in about 75 seconds. But I wanted to see how hard I could push myself.

I didn’t win the challenge, but I did manage to row 313 meters in 1 minute! It was really hard and I thought I might pass out for a second, but I did it! I did have some time before we starting rowing to rest, so that helped. But I now have a new benchmark for the next rowing challenge.

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Friday marked the end of my first month of my challenge. It was an exceptionally bad hip day and I had also worked the graveyard shift the night before. It was a recipe for disaster and in the past, I would have tried to find a way to get out of the workout.

But I still showed up and I did as much as I could. It wasn’t my best workout and it wasn’t pretty, but I was there. And that’s what counts.

To celebrate the end of my first month of my challenge, my trainer for that day Ashley wanted to take a photo that proves how tough I’m getting. So she decided to have me plank and then she would balance her plank on me (so I was supporting her as well). I used to be great at planks when I was skinny, but I’ve lost a lot of core strength and I’m working on getting it back. And I think this picture proves that I’m getting my core strength back.

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My hip issues are still bothering me now and I’m taking more painkillers than I used to. I’m not doing anything bad for my hips, but technically almost anything I do is potentially bad for me. Part of the annoying part of my problem is I have to allow things to get back so they can be fixed (there’s no reason to fix things before they hurt).

I’m trying to remember that fact and I’m going to do the best I can in week 5. Even if that means taking breaks on the treadmill again.

Weight Loss Update (or Why I’m Trying Not To Get Frustrated)

So I’ve completed 3 weeks of my Orangetheory challenge so far. I’ve been working out 3 days a week (and burning about 500 each workout) and I’m trying to eat below my calorie goals (which seems to happen about 6 out of 7 days).

You’d think that I would have lost a good amount of weight so far. Maybe even in the double digits. That’s what I thought I would have done by now.

But instead, I am currently down 6 pounds from where I started at the beginning of the challenge.

I should be happy with those 6 pounds. They say that you should lose 2 pounds a week to have a maintainable weight loss and that’s exactly what I’m doing. And I know that my body composition is changing and I’m gaining muscle so that could also cause my weight loss to stall a little.

But I still keep thinking about how when I did the RFO diet I would lose about 6-10 pounds a week (my first week I lost 14). And I’m aware that that was a medically supervised starvation diet and that the weight loss was not maintainable. But I still miss those days when I lost a pound a day.

It doesn’t help that all over the media there are people losing weight at a rapid fire pace. On Extreme Weight Loss, people lose 100 pounds in 90 days. And yes, almost all of those people have more weight to lose than I do, but it’s still a message that sticks in my head. It’s possible to lose more than I am right now.

So why am I stalled?

Besides the reasons that I’ve already listed, I know that the weather is affecting me as well. It’s very hot right now, and with my house having horrible insulation, it’s very hot even when I go to bed (averaging at 90 degrees when I go to sleep each night). I have a fan next to my bed, so that helps, but I’m still overheated. And when I’m overheated, my body swells up. So my clothes feeling tighter is an illusion. It’s a frustrating illusion, but I know that I haven’t gained weight.

Right now, there’s not much I can do to make myself lose weight faster. I’m thinking of cutting my calories back a little (maybe from 1600 to 1450), but I’m not going to do anything drastic.

I just have to keep pushing along and eventually my body will catch up to all the hard work I’m putting in. I just have to make sure that I don’t give up before that happens.

Spending The Next 2 Months Going Orange! (or A Bombshell Partnership!)

I have some exciting news to share with  you all! Orangetheory Fitness was so inspired by my story and how I want to lose my extra weight (and not gain it back again) that they have offered to help me.

Orangetheory will be sponsoring my workouts for July and August! For the next 8 weeks, I have committed myself to working out there 3 times a week (right now I’m scheduled for Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays). This is both super exciting and scary.

I haven’t worked out 3 times a week regularly for a while. I know that this is something that I should do, but it hasn’t happened. 2 times a week seems doable, but the whole idea of this partnership is to push myself and to see what I’m really capable of.

And I’m so excited because this is a commitment. I can’t back out if I’m tired or just not feeling up to it. I’ve given Orangetheory my word (and I take that very seriously).

I start my 8 week challenge/partnership with them next week. And I’ll be posting on here at least once a week with updates on my workouts. I’ll be sharing my challenges and my goals as well as updating you all on my progress.

And I’d love to have some of you come with me to a class over the next 8 weeks! If you go to the Orangetheory website, you can get signed up for a free class! Just let me know that you want to workout with me and I’ll let you know what times I’ll be going that week.

This is a major positive step in my weight loss plan. I know that I need to get better about working out, and this is exactly the push that I need. I know that it will be tough and I’m sure that I will wonder what I got myself into at least once or twice, but I know that after 8 weeks I’ll be stronger and hopefully weigh much less than I do right now. And they say that it takes 21 days to create a habit, and I’ll have 60 days of this ahead of me!

I can’t wait until Monday for my first class of this new journey!

Unreal Reality TV (or I Need To Stop Comparing Myself)

I’ve talked about my love/hate relationship with weight loss reality shows in the past. They are still a guilty pleasure of mine. I really don’t know why I still enjoy them when they make me feel so bad sometimes.

The only weight loss show on during the summer that I watch is “Extreme Weight Loss” (I think “The Biggest Loser” isn’t coming back until the fall or winter). I was watching it last night when I started to think more about why I watch these shows.

On “The Biggest Loser”, time is condensed, obviously. You are watching one week of footage in a single episode. But each week there is only one episode on. So it’s almost like it’s in real-time.

On “Extreme Weight Loss”, each episode represents an entire year (each episode follows a single person for one year). Every week, it’s a different person’s year.

I think I’m holding myself to the standards that these reality shows are creating. It’s not normal to lose weight like that. And I think that “Extreme Weight Loss” is making me judge my weight journey really badly.

Within a 2 hour episode, you go from seeing someone who is even more overweight than I am to seeing someone who is pretty much at a goal weight. That all happens in 2 hours. But in real life, that took a year. It makes things seem so quick and easy when they aren’t. Even though the contestants on these shows have pretty much no distractions while losing weight so they are able to focus on it 24/7, you still don’t really see the struggles someone has when the scale jumps up suddenly. You only see the weigh-in where the weight is down (this is not technically always true, but the majority of the time it is).

Why should I think that my journey should only take 2 hours as well? And the weight loss goals that they reach are completely unreasonable for me. On last night’s episode, the guy features was challenged to lose 118 pounds in 3 months (he was over 200 pounds overweight). If I lost 118 pounds in 3 months, I’d pretty much be done. That’s not possible (or if it is, it is definitely not healthy).

I should not look to these shows to be examples or even inspirations. They are for entertainment purposes only.

It’s hard to find inspiring people in the real world who have gone from obese to a goal weight. Most of those people either gain the weight back (like I have several times), or they aren’t out and about sharing their story. And some of the ones I have seen are people who had weight loss surgery or have used some other method that I don’t want to do.

So I need to turn myself into my own inspiration. I need to start thinking that losing 2 pounds in a week is awesome instead of horrible (since all the people on reality shows seem to lose double digits every week). I need to start think that it’s ok if my journey takes a year, or two years, or even a decade. As long as I keep going. And I need to start thinking of all those reality shows as mindless entertainment instead of examples.

It’s not easy to change how you think, but I’m really going to try.

500 Posts! (or A Reason To Celebrate!)

Today’s post is about a lot of good things that have happened lately.

First of all, like the title of this post says, this is my 500th post on Finding My Inner Bombshell! That’s so bonkers to me! I write 5 days a week so that means I’ve been writing for 100 weeks. So yes, that also means that my 2 year anniversary of the blog is coming up soon as well.

I’m still in shock how this blog really has become an important part of my life. When I started, I hoped I’d be able to keep it going. Now when I’m not writing on the weekends, I feel like something is missing. I’ve made new friends because of the blog and I’ve become closer to old friends because of my honesty here. It’s just awesome.

The next part of my awesome news is that my mom got her BRCA test results back and she doesn’t have the gene mutation! When my mom texted me with the news, I cried in relief. This is a weight lifted off my shoulders (and I’m sure the rest of my family feels this way). When I talked to my mom that day, she said that getting these results have allowed her to relax and she can go on and enjoy life. And for me, it means that while I still have a higher risk of getting breast cancer in my life because my mom had it, it’s not nearly as high of a risk if I had had the gene mutation.

I’m still going to be monitored much closer and I’ve already talked with my gynecologist about setting up a mammogram appointment after I see her (I’m sure I’ll be writing about that appointment when it happens because I’m still crazy nervous about it).

The third, and technically, final good news is that I’m finally starting to get back on track with losing weight. I’ve lost about 10% of what I had gained recently. It’s not a lot, but it’s totally a start. I’m working on my eating and I’ve been working out again. My journey is still going to be a long one, but I’m happy to be moving in the right direction again.

And in other celebratory things (but not technically good news), today is my friend Kate’s birthday! I’ll be seeing her next week, so we’ll get to celebrate her birthday then, but I wanted to acknowledge how amazing of a friend she is. She was the first person I talked to when my mom was diagnosed with cancer. She kept the news a secret for a while until my mom was ready to go public with the news. And she was there to listen to me whenever I was freaking out or having a tough time. Not many friends would or could do that and I’m so insanely grateful that she was willing to be there for me.

So to recap: yay for 500 posts, yay for my mom not having the BRCA gene, yay for me losing some weight, and happy birthday to Kate!

I love how my life has become so wonderful and positive!

Honesty Time (or Going Backwards)

I haven’t talked about weight loss on here for a while. And it’s because things are going so great for me right now.

In fact, I’ve gained a decent amount of weight. I haven’t gained everything that I lost, but I gained back a good chunk of it.

And I haven’t wanted to share that on here because I don’t want to disappoint you all. But then I realized that everyone who is going through weight struggles has this moment. I’ve had it before and I’m sure I’ll have it again.

What makes this different is I stopped it (or at least realized it) before all the progress I had made disappeared. And I’m trying to take steps to go back in the right direction.

Why the weight gain? Well, lately both my food choices haven’t been great and I’ve been skipping workouts. So of course I should expect weight gain.

The thing is, I didn’t realize how long it had been since I last worked out. When I finally looked at my history at SoulCycle, I realized that I haven’t been there in a month. And my last workout was the blogger event at FlyWheel. But that was several weeks ago.

Since realizing this over the weekend, I have had a big workout (but that will come in another post). But missing workouts was only part of the picture. Food is always going to be a battle for me and I don’t want it to beat me. So I downloaded several books onto my kindle about eating disorders (mostly on binge eating but some on eating disorders in general).

I starting with a book that I saw recommended on another blog that I read. I’m about a third of the way done with it and it is eye-opening to see that other people have the exact same struggles that I do. Somehow it feels like eating disorders are a very lonely thing and nobody understands how you feel. But when you are really open and honest about it you find that there are other people who get exactly what you go through.

I’m hoping to get myself back on the right track quickly. I have another 5K coming up in less than 2 weeks and I don’t want to be unprepared for it.

But if nothing else, at least I recognized that I was slipping before I got back to the start line.

Hating The Heat (or Again, My Body Is Lying)

I’ve mentioned before how I don’t like when it’s really hot out because my body feels like it’s gained a ton of weight. Well, with the current heat wave in Los Angeles, I’m having the same problem again.

First of all, let me say that I know that the heat here is temporary and I’m grateful for that. And that most of the country has much worse heat waves that last for a lot longer than this will (it should be normal again here by next week).

But it doesn’t help the feeling of annoyance that I feel whenever I try to get dressed in the morning. Lots of clothes in my closet don’t fit right right now. I spent the past few days in yoga capris and tank tops since those have a lot of stretch in them.

And I’m sure my annoyance isn’t helped by the fact that the past few nights I haven’t slept well since it’s very hot in my bedroom at night. I have a fan on full blast next to my bed, but it only blows hot air around.

This heat wave is one of the first times I’ve missed having to go into a job every day. At least when I had to go somewhere else for work there was air conditioning. Working at my house is pretty warm. But staying in yoga clothes helps a little (since those clothes are pretty breathable).

But the most important thing for me to remember in this heat wave is not to give up on trying to lose weight while it feels like everything is suddenly 2 sizes too small. I’m avoiding my scale until the temperature goes back into the 80’s (or lower) and I’m going to live in my yoga clothes unless I have to go out dressed differently for some reason (like when I went to work last night at my box office job).

Sorry to have a rant on here after having 2 really fun posts the last few days. Since getting back from Disneyland all I’ve done is work from home and try to survive the heat the best that I could. If I had something more interesting to share, I would. But this has taken over my life the rest of this week.

Biggest Loser Finale (or I Wish I Didn’t Have To Write About This)

On Tuesday evening, the finale for the most recent season of “The Biggest Loser” aired. This is the season that had the contestants that I saw at my birthday spin class. I’ve already written about how the show is a guilty pleasure of mine and that I have issues with how weight loss is shown on the show. But now I feel like I need to write about the reactions to the finale.

In case you aren’t too familiar with the show, the finale is a live event (or at least live for the east coast). Everyone who was eliminated prior to the finale weighs in for the at-home prize. The contestant with the highest percentage of weight loss wins. Then the finalists come out and the finalist with the highest percentage of weight loss wins $250,000.

When the finalists came out, the two men who were finalists looked a little thin, but that’s to be expected when they try to be at their lowest weight to win. Then the girl finalist, Rachel, came out. And you could hear gasps coming from the audience.

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(photo courtesy of US Magazine)

I thought she looked pretty thin. Her legs were muscular, but her arms and face seemed very very skinny. When she weighed in, her weight was 105 pounds (she’s 5’4″). She lost about 60% of her body weight in about 8 months.

Immediately people were posting various sites online that Rachel must be anorexic now. People seemed shocked by her appearance. And two of the trainers on the show looked pretty surprised in the live show and later released a statement that they would not comment on her weight since they weren’t her trainers during the show.

It seems like people are finally seeing some of the problems that I’ve noticed with “The Biggest Loser” years ago. When you reward people for the highest percentage of weight loss, people do drastic things to make sure they win in the finale. Historically, the contestants gain weight back after the finale because they are extremely dehydrated (to make sure there is no water weight causing them to lose the weigh in). Many contestants gain back a lot of the weight they lost because the show is not realistic. And when you lose weight with a finish line in mind, you aren’t looking at it as a lifestyle but a temporary situation.

I know that last one for sure. When I did the RFO diet the first time, it was in preparation for my hip surgery. I knew that the less I weighed, the easier my recovery would be from surgery. And since I was about 90 pounds lighter going into surgery, I did have a very easy recovery. But after surgery, I didn’t have the same motivation any more to lose weight. And I gained a lot of it back. I did the RFO diet again, but again looked at it as a temporary situation (you have to when you aren’t eating any real food). And I gained it back again.

The other thing that makes me pretty mad at “The Biggest Loser” is the fact that many, if not all, of the contestants are at high risk for starting anorexic or bulimic behaviors. It’s a pretty safe guess that most of the contestants are going in to the show with an eating disorder. Probably the same eating disorder that I have, a binge eating disorder. When I was in therapy for my eating disorder, the biggest thing that I remembered is that I will always be at a high risk for another eating disorder because I have a history of having one. I’m also at high risk for another addiction of any type.

When you take away the food from a food addict (which is similar to a binge eater), they have to find their addiction somewhere else. You can see this a lot in people who have had weight loss surgery. When you can’t turn to your comfort item, you find something else that gives you comfort. And if it isn’t comfort that you are seeking, it’s order or control. And anorexia or bulimia gives you a sense of control (even if it’s a false sense).

I’m sorry for the rant, but I’ve been holding this in for a while when watching “The Biggest Loser”. And it seems like many people are now seeing things the same way that I do. I don’t know if they will change “The Biggest Loser” now due to all this backlash, but personally I would love to see them focus on body fat percentage instead of weight. Or maybe on inches lost. But sadly, seeing someone drop 155 pounds still makes good tv.

But at least now, some people will think about it a bit differently.

Measuring My Success (or I Really Shouldn’t Have Stepped On The Scale)

Even though I know historically I always gain weight when I’m sick, I decided to torture myself and step on the scale on Wednesday (on the 3rd day I was sick and when I was finally starting to feel a bit better). I had recorded every single calorie I consumed while sick (even ever 15 calories I drank when I had Emergen-C) and was pretty much under 1,000 calories each day (about 600 less than my usual goal). Want to know what happened?

Compared to my weight on Sunday, the last time I weighed myself, I gained 7 pounds.

I knew this would probably happen. I shouldn’t have weighed myself because now I’m just upset about it. Those 7 pounds weren’t easy to lose. And hopefully they will come off quickly now that I’m starting to feel better. They could just be water weight. But I don’t know why I have to be pretty much the only person in the world who gains weight while they are sick.

Even though this was expected, it still put me in a funk. It didn’t help that I was still dealing with a fever (which finally broke on Wednesday around lunchtime) and was taking a second day off of work (which means less money earned). I wasn’t able to go out and do something to cheer myself up.

So I decided to do another measurement of my body. I haven’t done one of these in a while so I wasn’t sure what the results would be.

While I had gained a half inch on my waist and on my hips, everywhere else I had lost! I had lost 1.5 inches off my arms, 2 inches off my bust, 1 inch off my belly (where my belly button is), and 1.5 inches off my leg! That’s a lot!

It’s also proof that the work I’m putting in is working. It’s working slowly, but that’s ok. It’s going in the right direction.

Even though I’m not happy at all about the scale, I am happy that I stepped on it. It forced me to go back to doing body measurements to look at my progress. I need to be more committed to doing those on a regular basis. Maybe once a month? The scale seems to be such a liar to me sometimes. I need something else that feels truthful.

Hopefully these 7 pounds come off as quickly as they showed up. Even though my inches are down, I want the scale to be down too.

Finding A Balance (or Eating Healthy And Fun At The Same Time)

I’m struggling a bit with food again. As someone with an eating disorder, I guess I should be prepared to deal with this for the rest of my life. I just hope one day it gets easier.

I’m really working hard at staying under my calorie goals every day, but there keeps being something that prevents me from doing that. And part of it is because so much of my social life revolves around food.

Now, I don’t want to make my friends who have gone out to meals with me feel bad. That’s not what this is about. I just don’t understand how they can eat the same things as me (or more) and not have issues with it. I’m feeling insane guilt and sometimes feeling like I screwed up my whole day.

It’s hard to find the balance with healthy and fun foods, but I know it’s possible. I see people do it all the time.

And maybe I do have some sort of health issue causing problems again. I’ve met with an endocrinologist many times and some of my test results have come back suspicious. But whenever they re-test me, everything is fine again. Maybe I have to go through that process again (although it does involve blood work and I’d rather avoid dealing with needles if I can help it).

I know that a big part of what keeps me on track certain days is working out. If I work out in the morning, I have more calories to play with during the day (although I normally don’t eat my exercise calories). And if I work out at night, I feel like I have to be good all day so I feel ok to exercise after those meals. I can’t work out every evening right now because of my work schedule, but I’m looking into doing that when I’m (f)unemployed again.

I also have to think back to the time I was on the RFO Diet. For those months, I literally could not eat when I went out for meals with my friends. Sometimes I would bring my supplements with me and have them there, but more often than not I just sat there and enjoyed the company. I might start doing that again so I don’t eat foods that I regret later.

And trying restaurants I’ve never been to before is another way to prevent my guilt eating. At restaurants that I’ve been to when I’ve not worried about my weight, there are some very bad choices that I used to love to eat. And if I go back there, I’m tempted to have those things again because my memories of them are that they were delicious. There’s one sandwich at Jerry’s Deli that I used to always get. I still think about it from time to time, but I don’t go to Jerry’s anymore because I don’t want to have to deal with how many calories it is.

Sorry for the little rant today. I’m getting frustrated with my weight loss (it’s stalled right now) and I don’t know what else I can change. But I promise tomorrow will be a very exciting and positive blog post. I can’t tell you why yet, but make sure you read here tomorrow to see what happened!