Pass or Fail?

Goodness, It's been forever since I checked in! With my illness and near death experience (ok, ok, it wasn't THAT bad, though I did feel like a train had run over me, backed up, and hit me again a couple of weeks ago) and then starting a new job, the first week of school beginning, and just general every day happenings, my life has been a circus. I wouldn't have even raised an eyebrow had a group of clowns entered my house and began a juggling routine. It was seriously THAT crazy.

But, I have persisted in my push ups challenge each day, no matter how exhausted I have been. Unfortunately, because of scheduling with my new job and the boy's school schedules, I was not able to get to the gym. That, coupled with the fact that I haven't been blogging daily on my fitness and eating, does that mean I have failed the challenge?

This is something that has been persistently bothering me. And I have been thinking about it much today. And I have finally decided that no, I have not failed the challenge. Because, despite it all, I am still pursuing some sort of fitness each and every day (even if it is only my push ups and a few sit ups) and I am no longer sitting on my butt every day, all day bemoaning my weight and doing nothing about it. I also decided I have to make allowances for myself and life. Nothing is ever going to go smoothly consistently. Life happens, things take precedence (in this case, of the past couple of weeks, my health and sleep were at the forefront) and I will have to continually make adjustments to my schedule to ensure that I do get at least some sort of physical activity every day, whether I can blog about it or not. It's not the blog that is going to make me lose weight, it's the exercise.

Agree? Tell me what you think? Have I failed this challenge?

training

I got a new job! It has completely farked up my blogging, but it IS helping me make ends meet (or it will. you know, once the pay checks start rolling in.) Once I complete the training phase that accompanies any new job, I will only be working 2 graveyard shifts a week. But, right now, I feel like I am chasing my tail in the dark living on a couple of hours a sleep a day, work, the kids, the house (that is slowly falling into pieces around my ears because I am just too damned tired to do more than pick up and vacuum). You know how it goes. If you don't, just imagine a stressed out mom with bored kids home all day while she tries to catch a few z's in between bouts of screaming arguments, listening for the back door to open indicating kids sneaking out of the house, and trying to keep the messes under control, the kids fed, the dogs pottied. . . all before her hubby comes home to "relieve" her to get some sleep while he, um, falls asleep himself on the couch. You can see where this is going, right? *sigh* I am exhausted. Bear with me, I am still working on my push ups and still trying to lose weight, even with the blasted cough that refuses to go away and my exhaustion and my messy house.

My boys started school today, so I should be able to get some more sleep this week while they are in school. And I hope and pray this damn training session doesn't last much longer. I don't think I will.

Not dead

Just wanted to check in quick. I have been super sick these past few missed posts and either resting with a vague haze of the world around me or sound asleep in bed in between bouts of hacking cough, soothing the fire in my throat, and generally feeling like complete crap.

BUT, I have kept up with my push ups challenge all but one of those days (and on that day, I could barely move or breathe, so, in a sense of self preservation, or the fact that my body just couldn't get out of bed, push ups was the last on my list of things to do that day). However, after discussing it with my fitness pal Lori, we agreed that me not dying was better than doing a few push ups for the challenge.

I am now starting to feel better, if this blasted hacking cough would just go away, I would be back in tip top shape. So, look for more posts from me form now on. In the mean time, I will keep on pushing on with my push ups!

sick

I know I haven't been here to log my progress on my challenges for a couple of days. I have been besieged with the dreaded summer head cold and feel like a slug. Add to that the incessant pounding in my brain that always accompanies a cold for me and I haven't really done much the past 2 days.

I have, however, kept up with my push up challenge everyday. I just haven't logged it or changed the settings on my app to have it log onto facebook. But, once I am feeling better, I promise to get right back on track with my updates and blogging.

Off

Today has been an off day for me. Not off in that I feel yucky, but off in that my sense of time has been.

All day, I kept thinking it was earlier that it really was. I spent the day cleaning and scrubbing the house, washing, drying, folding, and putting laundry away and before I knew it, it was after five o'clock and I still had to run to the grocery store to get a few things for dinner. So, off the boys and I went to the store, only to spend far too much time there and getting home so much later than I wanted to. And then, when I did get home, I realized that I didn't have enough chicken for the fajitas I wanted to make. So, I improvised and we had beef soft shell tacos. Of course, we didn't eat until 7, and then clean up and, before I knew it, it was time for my kids to get into the shower and go to bed.

And then I had to write a resume and cover letter tonight. I am going to attempt to go back to work, part time, now that both of my boys will be in school. Talking about yourself to make yourself seem appealing and wonderful is hard. And it took me four hours to get it all done. But, it's done now, has been emailed off and I hope to hear back soon from the job I applied for.

It's now midnight. I am exhausted. But, I will complete the challenge before i head to bed, though I am forgoing the gym tonight. Since that wasn't one of my challenges, I am not feeling too guilty about skipping out tonight.

I will let you know tomorrow how I did with the push ups tonight. My arms are still killing me from last night's challenge. I did take my phen today, as well, so both of those challenges have been completed for today. Yay for me sticking with it for two days so far!

Weakling

Day one of my challenge has been completed. I weighed myself this morning, took my Phen, did day one of the push up program, and went to the gym for an hour. All in all, I am actually quite impressed with myself.

Now, for my thoughts on what I did today

First, the push up challenge is so much harder than I thought it would be. I did the initial test and discovered I can do a whopping *drum roll* none. Lifting your entire body weight, when you weigh as much as I do, on flabby, non muscular arms is damn hard. However, I did the challenge, where I had to complete 12 total push ups. I couldn't do the regular kind at all and can barely do the kind on my knees. My husband stood over me to make sure I kept proper form throughout the entire push up and I just want to thank goodness that there are breaks between each "rep" of push ups. After I completed all of the reps, I actually did 12 push ups. And then my arms fell off.

Second, after I did the challenge, I got dressed, put my gym shoes on and headed over to the gym. I am not sure what changed, maybe the idea of the challenge or the fact that I took my phen, or that I was still reeling from the push ups challenge, but when I walked into the gym, the sense of dread I always feel wasn't there. The notion to quit five minutes into my work out wasn't there, either. I actually completed all 30 minutes on the tread climber at level two with a resistance of four and didn't watch the clock, praying for it to speed up the whole time. It may have helped that I have the kindle app on my phone and was reading a book as I worked out, or maybe the classical music I had blaring in my headphones to drown out the irritating radio the gym blasts from its speakers helped. Whatever it was, it worked. The 30 minutes sped by and I was actually surprised when the clock flashed that I was done. According to the machine, I went 1.87 miles and burned 362 calories. I am impressed with myself.

When I finished the tread climber, I moved on to the weight machines. Now, let me tell you how intimidating the weight machines are. I have no idea what I am doing when it comes to these. There are a select few that I actually know what to do on them and those are the ones I stick to. I never, ever go on them if there are a bunch of guys there, though. You know the guys I am talking about. I call them the grunters. They know how each machine works, they spend hours at the gym using them all, watching themselves in the mirror, slapping each other on the back as they switch machines or add weights, and look at the fat girl in their midst as if she were a Bedlam escapee. They intimidate me, I won't lie. And I don't use the weight machines if they are there.

But, I know that many reps of low weight lifting is important for fat burning, especially for women (see how my research and diet knowledge comes into play?). The few machines I know how to use are one for my arms, one for my abs, and a few for my legs. I have no idea how to go about placing myself or any weights in any of the other torture devices, so I stick to those.

Since there was only one other man there this evening, an older gentleman on the bicycle, I moved into the weight machine section after I finished the tread climber. Now, the last time I was at the gym, I got myself stuck in the sit up machine that works your abs. Having had such a great work out on the tread climber, my legs were feeling a bit wobbly, so I decided I wouldn't use any of the leg machines today. And, since my arms fell off from the push up challenge before I went to the gym, there was no need to even attempt the arm machines. And, I know if you fall off a horse, you gotta get back on, so I headed over to the ab machine. I made sure to place the pins within reach and not to set the weight to heavy for me and went to work. I finished 50 sit ups pushing 90 pounds. Yeah, I am a rock star.

So, there you have it. Day one of the challenge completed. I may not be able to move out of my bed tomorrow, but damn it, I am proud of myself for getting through this first day.

I did take pictures of myself today. Ok, I actually trusted to place my baby (some people call it a camera) in my wonderful and supportive husband's hands and he actually took the pictures. There are three. One from the front, one from the side, and one from the rear. I am a glutton for punishment and, after looking at the pictures, will probably need a prescription for antidepressants to get me through looking at them again. But, look I will, especially if it serves to remind me just how awful I look and how much I DON'T want to hit a drive thru ever again. I had plans to upload them tonight to go with this post, but I need to still climb the stairs to go to bed. I am pretty sure that will end the amount of energy I have had today. So, I will upload them to tomorrow's post.

Challenges

Starting tomorrow, Lori (click her name and go check out her blog!) and I are going to be working together on our weight loss goals with several challenges to keep us going and we are relying on YOU to help keep us motivated.

First, our goal is and always will be, to lose weight by exercising and eating right. To keep ourselves going, we have come up with several challenges between the two of us. In these challenges, there will be no winners or losers, only consequences and rewards. We have each chosen a consequence to keep us motivated, as well as a reward at the end of the challenge.

Second, we will be posting a picture of ourselves at the beginning of our challenge, and then at the beginning of each month there after. I am a photographer and I hate, hate, hate to be in front of the camera. It is depressing and humiliating for me to see myself in a picture. However, for this, I will do it.

Now, I won't share with you what my consequence is (and Lori may or may not share with you what hers is. Suffice it to say, it is enough to make me NOT want to do it), but the reward I have chosen is a new outfit. I don't buy clothes for myself very often because, frankly, at this size, shopping is just not fun for me. But, a new outfit in a SMALLER size might be just the thing I need to keep me going. So, there is my reward.

Here are the rules of the challenge:

1) We must complete the challenge every day.

2) We must blog about the challenge, what we did to complete it, and whether or not we completed it, every day.

For the first challenge, we have decided to complete the 100 push ups a day program. We have each downloaded an app for our phones that will allow us to complete each day of the program and then, when we have completed it, it should post it to our facebook pages. We will also blog about it.

Lori and I will continue to do a challenge throughout our weight loss journey. As soon as one challenge ends, we will begin another. Of course, coming up with these challenges is tough, so we may be asking for your help in the future.

So, there it is in a nutshell. Lori and I have dared each other to lose weight. In the process of doing so, we will be supporting each other through our blogs and our additional challenges. Who will be the winner? In the end, we both will.

To keep a running tally of the challenges I have set up for myself they are:

1)take my phen every day

2) blog about my weight loss every day

3) complete the 100 push ups program challenge with Lori

The weight can start melting off now.