Everybody Loves a Top 10 List!

aka the NSV post inspired by a huge victory on the scale. haha.

First, I just have to do this. So here is a different picture of the fat vs muscle density difference.

Grapefruits and Tangerines

So here is the representation of my 50+ pound victory so far.

50 lbs of fat = space of 30 grapefruits

I've lost over 30 grapefruits worth of fat. lol. That's pretty awesome. At my next big mark I'll go fill a basket with grapefruit or something. lol I dunno if Walmart would appreciate that.

SO, here are the Top 10 Non-Scale Victories associated with my big scale victory

10. Having officially completed two 5Ks and actually WANTING to run more.

9. Feeling full without finishing a meal. It's amazing how much your stomach shrinks when it doesn't have all those grapefruits up there encouraging it. haha

8. Doing a mile on the elliptical in 7:08. I have essentially cut my mile in HALF[not in real life, unfortunately] on the elliptical from where I started.

7. Being down 4 sizes from where I was. Size 24 pant to size 16. Almost able to shop at ITG stores!

6. Leg pressing more than I weigh and doing more than half my weight on the seated dip. How soon is too soon to strap myself into that thing? lol

5. My boyfriend's jackets being too big on me. I dunno about the rest of you fat girls, but I always wanted to be that girl wearing my boyfriends too-big letter jacket. Goal achieved.

4. Being able to touch my elbows to my knees when doing bicycle crunches. You have no idea how much this always bothered and shamed me before and now I have to be careful not to bruise my legs with my elbows.

3. Talking to women at the gym after classes and seeing their faces when I mention how much I've lost.

2. Being able to do compound abs! Such a huge victory for me!! Oh, and being able to hold a plank for over a minute! Big time, y'all.

1. Going to the doctor and hearing nothing but "You look great!", "Wow!", "I am SO proud of you." and "Keep it up!"

I still have a long way to go but I am one HUGE step closer to being where I want to be! Thanks to EVERYONE for all the love, support and endless encouragement! I also feel the need to "shout out" to Kacee aka Butterbean4283 for keeping me accountable on MFP and achieving her own 50lb weight loss! Yay! Guys, this is possible! I'm not the only one doing it and YOU can do it, too! I honestly have the "If I can do it, anyone can!" attitude about this. You just have to find your motivation. 

Run, Gorda, Run!

GUYS! HOLY CRAP! Can I please tell you what just happened? Well other than me accidentally eating a surprisingly fattening sandwich....We'll come back to this. More importantly, tonight I DID 3 MILES in TWENTY THREE MINUTES AND NINE SECONDS. That averages out to 7:43 a mile....I am just blown away. I feel like I need to write an acceptance speech or something because it's like the elliptical has rewarded me for hard work with a time warp or something. One of my friends recently posted she wanted to  average 8:30 for 3 consecutive miles and I thought "Wow, I'm gonna try that next time" and then kinda surprised myself that I had the same time goal as a thin girl who I know goes running in her neighborhood all the time.

I somehow did my first mile in 7:30. I slowed down considerably after that, but I picked it back up because I wanted my next mile to be between 8-8:30. So then as I was getting closer I just kept the pace up and finished in 7:51. I slowed down again and decided if I could do 2 under 8:00 then I could get the 3rd one under 9:00 for sure(even though 2 months ago I was happy with a 10 minute mile). So with the combination of some good music and my boyfriend going twice as fast next to me, I managed to finish the 3rd mile in 7:48. Wow. I am seriously, sitting here like triple checking my math because this is still hard to believe. I dunno what my body figured out on my birthday, but it's continuing to improve on it. Maybe one thing that has helped me get better is that I used to also have to keep an eye on my heart rate. I have a feeling that all that Zumba helps more than I realize because I used to push myself until I had to slow down to get my heart rate down, but I haven't had to do that since I really started up again on the elliptical. That's exciting, I didn't think about that until right now. =)

So ok, let me try to break this down into some helpful advice. When you're on your chosen form of cardio, whether it be the elliptical, treadmill, crossfit, or maybe even on a real track: Pay attention to your time and speed. Sure you'll get good results if you think "I'm just gonna go on here and give it my best and work my butt off". But if you have a specific goal in mind, it will help. So like tonight, I knew that 8 mph would be a 7:30 minute mile so I was shooting to keep my mph as close to 8 whenever possible. Sometimes it dipped down to 6, sometimes it went up to 9, but I tried to keep it in the high 7s, low 8s depending on the resistance I was getting(I have it set to random, which is basically uneven rolling hills). Now if you don't have a mph display on your machine or you're doing your mileage outside, you're gonna have to do math in your head and gauge your pace. "I just did that quarter mile in 3:00 so if I keep this pace I'm set to do a 12 minute mile" or whatever. Again, all about being self aware and knowing what you need to do to get what you want.

Believe it or not, I had already met a goal before I even got upstairs. Today was the first day I ever "Maxed out" on something. Today was a chest day (Have I explained this? Maybe this will be my next post.) and I have recently added bench presses into my routine. Again, last time I was doing them with the bar alone so I would get glances from the free-weight beefcakes varying from amused to offended. Because we didn't have any time constraints, the gym was relatively empty, and we were both working chest: I told Will I wanted to try to max out my bench press. So, I wasn't really sure where to start, so I started with a 25 on each side which is 95lbs total. I actually managed to do 2 of them! So, we agreed that I could safely say I maxed out at 100. haha. I switched up my usual routine of 3 sets of 15 and did 5 sets of 8. Bench press is a lot easier with a spotter who you know can lift you much less the puny-in-comparison bar you're lifting. So I did 5x8 at 75 pounds, which is obviously 30# more than I was willing to do by myself. I have a feeling my chest is going to be very sore tomorrow because I then proceeded to do my normal chest day minus the incline press I usually do.

Ok this is getting longer than I thought so 2 quick things: I need to not get the Tuna sub from subway again unless I do Zumba on Fridays. The footlong Tuna on wheat with cheese is 1,470 calories!!! 93.6 grams of fat!!! I mean, it's also 48 grams of protein but goodness! I was so surprised when I started trying to put it into my calorie counter. So even with a 700+ calorie workout I'm over my calorie goal for today. So, BEWARE! Next Friday I'll have to plan ahead and get some healthy fish or make my own Tuna because damn, that's not gonna work. Second thing is that I'm doing the aqua bootcamp tomorrow with Will! So that will be exciting, I'm sure. Except that I'm 95% sure I can't wear my heart rate monitor in the pool so I won't know exactly how many calories I'm burning. Hmm, guess I'll have to see what MFP can come up with for me. Well, that's all for tonight, guys. Again, thanks so much for all the encouragement and sharing your stories with me! I really appreciate it and enjoy hearing about how hard work pays off for others, too!

Birthday Breakthrough

Hey guys! I'm gonna see if I can restart this blog. Turns out having a job with daytime hours is not as easy of a schedule as I thought it'd be. Let me catch y'all up briefly. I spent this summer celebrating my boyfriend's return from the Navy by eating ice cream and ignoring my calorie counter app. We were still working out but not so much keeping track of what we were eating. So by fall I was back up 10 pounds and my scrubs were starting to get snug so I kicked myself back into gear.

Here are the newest things in my life: I have officially kicked my Diet DP habit. DONE. No more soda for me at all. I've had like 2 carbonated drinks in 2013, and after the last one my stomach revolted so I'm pretty much done. I've also limited myself to very very small amounts of sweet tea every once in a while. I mean, I'm a southern girl through and through, I will never be done with sweet tea. But I can get away now with maybe one every 2 weeks. If that. It's pretty satisfying to know that you're not drinking your calories and you can eat them instead.

I've officially, consistently, gotten under a 10-minute mile on the elliptical. I dunno how, or why, or WHAT it finally was. It was like my body had an epiphany a couple weeks ago. I went from struggling to get a 9:55 mile to doing a couple miles under 10 minutes each. My biggest breakthrough was on my 26th birthday of all days. I had eaten Cane's for lunch and then a Braum's hot fudge sundae, so I did not have the best fuel to go on. We only had 30 minutes at the gym if we wanted to make it to the movies on time so I decided "well...I need to burn off all that fried food" and went straight upstairs to an elliptical. It was like something in me got out of the way and I stopped fighting myself. I did my first mile in 7:48. That's SEVEN MINUTES and 48 seconds. My second one was in something like 8:30 and my third was in around 9:30. Overall I finished 3 miles in just under 26 minutes and clocked in an unprecedented 3.42 miles in 30 minutes.

Now, this may sound like something I was working towards and worked up to, and in a way it was. I've been doing LOTS of Zumba and still the occasional spin class, and I feel like my endurance is slowly but surely getting better. But I have been avoiding upstairs for a while now. [Side note: If you're not a member of a gym, I will explain. The way most of them are set up there are 2 floors, the first floor is mostly weight equipment and the second is usually exclusively cardio equipment. Aka torture devices known as treadmills, ellipticals, step climbers, stationary bikes and recumbent bikes. Although nobody's ever burned calories efficiently on a recumbent bike, let's be honest.] I'd only been on an elliptical maybe twice since new years. Partially because it's over-crowded with resolution-ers, but also because when I did my times were worse than they were before. So I was discouraged and kept burning my calories in Zumba. But on my birthday I didn't have time for Zumba, and I didn't want to do half a spin class. So I took myself upstairs and proceeded to show myself WHY I can do this if I just put my mind to it. And my legs.

So, in short, I want to get back to this because I miss sharing with you guys my thoughts on all of this. And I need to remind myself that while I'm trying to keep myself on track, there are tons of you out there fighting the same fight to GET HEALTHY! It's not just about fitting into a smaller pair of jeans(although that's definitely a motivator) it's about being around to enjoy the pant size that you have for as long as you can, until they are elastic waist because you've earned it along with your white hair.