Cara's Weightloss Journal

I had a great day!

Check out what MyFoodDiary told me today:

I love that last line. Wasn’t that special? If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s a link to where I talked all about this new website this morning.

The coolest part about today was tonight. I went walking after dinner, like I do every night. Four laps around the neighborhood (1.6 miles), one lap with Emma (our 85-pound “little sister” to my 10-pound “big brother” chihuahua) and three laps around with Mocha (big brother). Mocha’s 8, Emma’s 2, hence the little sister, big brother funnies. When all of the sudden, after one lap around with Mocha, my daughter pulls into the neighborhood! I call her on her cell and ask her where she is. She’s like “um, I’m in the driveway”. I said “yea, I know, I can see you, come walk with me”!

We never get to walk together any more. She’s so busy with her college life. Working 2 jobs and going to school full time keeps her away almost from sun up to sun down and beyond most days. So it was so cool that she got to walk with me for the last 2 laps. Was only 15 minutes, but it was so cool catching up with her again!

So that finished off my good day to make it a great day!

I’m feeling really good lately. I haven’t weighed myself at home for several weeks, now, but I feel thinner. I’ve been working out a lot this week. I’ve already done 2 Jillian Michaels’ workouts. Tomorrow I’ll walk with the girls and then Friday one more Jillian workout.

Man, I love ExerciseTV. It’s on-demand on my cable and it has hundreds of workouts to choose from. I think whoever thought up this idea sincerely deserves a huge bravo star! There’s just about any kind of workout you could imagine. And it’s all free!

I can feel my muscles tight throughout the day. I wasn’t sore today and I was surprised at that. I’m usually sore the 2nd day after a hard workout and yesterday morning I did the Shred #3 (third level). It was a bear!!! But I actually did it. I thought I was going to die, but I did it! I can really feel it in my arms and today I could feel it in my inner thighs and stomach especially.

I’m drinking lots of water, lately. Is there such a thing as too much water? I’ve heard it can be bad for you. I’m having between 80-96 ounces a day. I just can’t get enough of it. I used to have the hardest time drinking my water, but now, I love it so much. Hope it doesn’t make me sick or anything.

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Well, I went walking with the girls this morning and plan on going tomorrow, too. I’m back to my routine. Yea! Finally. Two weeks of not doing it was a drag. And I know me… once I stop doing it, it takes me the hardest time to start doing it again. You just don’t know how bad I wanted to text the girls and tell them I was too tired to walk this morning. Man I hate walking. I love the company, though.

I lost a pound yesterday. Hope that trend keeps going. I have 4 more to lose before Saturday morning. I’m gonna do it!! I am!!

I just spent some time reading some of your blogs and I love reading about your lives and your weight loss journeys. That’s what it’s all about, you know?

I learned something fairly significant about myself yesterday. Actually, a colleague shed light on it. I won’t get into the whole big story, but I learned that I have a problem admitting that I’m good at my job. Or my life, for that matter. I’ve always been the type to let others shine and to help them shine and when they succeed I feel my job was done well and that’s my reward. I’m not the type to look for the spotlight or look for the “at-a-girl” for a job well done. My satisfaction comes from within.

But he (the colleague I was telling you about) brought it to my attention that I come across as very negative about the design work that I do. I’ve always thought I was a very talented designer and I’ve always thought I was proud of my work but I was showing him my portfolio the other day and afterwards he told me how I really put down my own work and it came across very negative. I had no idea. But you know, he was right. I totally put down every piece I’d designed.

But why?

Like I said, I’ve always thought my work was good and even great sometimes. But I kept picking it apart to the nth degree.

So I spent last night in contemplation about the conversation and I can’t believe it but he was right. How can anyone else like my work if I don’t. Sure I like my work, inwardly. But I have to like it outwardly in order for anyone else to like it or give it any merit.

About a year and a half ago I had applied for a job in one of the design departments where I currently work and I didn’t get the job. I just assumed it was because they didn’t like my portfolio or my design talent. Isn’t that funny? I thought I wasn’t talented enough. That’s where my thoughts immediately went to when I didn’t get the job.

This morning I went and talked with the guy I had originally interviewed with a year and a half ago and would you believe before I could say anything to him, he said he’d been wanting to talk to me for some time and he was so glad that I stopped by. And when I asked him why, he said because he never did tell me why he didn’t hire me. I was astonished when he told me that he thought I was extremely talented and had a great portfolio of work. I couldn’t believe it. So why didn’t he hire me? He was looking for a different type of designer to fit a specific need in his department. I couldn’t believe that. Here all this time I thought I wasn’t good enough and all this time I was totally good enough.

I am good enough.

I’m a great designer.

I’m also a great person and I need to give myself credit for that. Outwardly.

God made me this special and wonderful person and I shouldn’t be ashamed of my flaws or shortcomings because the gifts He gave me far out way the little things that don’t really even matter. And I can’t believe it’s taken me all these years to see that.

So this is the first day of the rest of my life of being proud of the person, designer, mom, friend, co-worker, daughter, sister and wife that my God made me to be.

Go me!

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Well, I’m finally back from vacation.

:(

I sure do miss WV!! …and my mom!

We got back late Sunday night, drove 14 hours straight. Hit a bad rain storm about 4 hours from home and it lasted until we got home! Ugh! It got so bad that at several points we had to slow down to 40-45 mph and turn our emergencies on so the cars around us could see us. I hate driving in the rain! I hate driving after dark worse! But I absolutely hate driving in the rain after dark!!!

There was one bad accident where an SUV had flipped over and was laying on it’s side, with the top facing traffic, in the middle of the storm. It looked like everyone was okay, though. They were all standing in the median with the cops. I’ll bet it was horrible, though!

But we’re safe and sound and home sweet home!

So it’s back to work, exercise and the daily grind again.

I was supposed to go biking yesterday and this morning but I couldn’t find the energy to do it. We walked all over God’s green earth while I was up there and my legs were so darn sore when I got back. They’re still aching a bit. Tomorrow I’ll start walking with the girls again, though. Then again on Thursday and I’ll bike again on Friday. Back in the ole routine.

I was surprisingly good while I was on vacation. I actually lost a pound after the first few days and then by the end of the week I was up 3 pounds but by the time I got back home it had all come back off and I’m now down another pound. Just hope I can hold that pound off until Saturday’s weigh in.

I thought I’d share with you two last photos from vacation.

This first one shows the massive stairs (and believe me this is only a small portion of them) that we had to walk down (AND BACK UP) to get to the 3rd waterfall.

This was my viewpoint from standing directly under the waterfall looking up.

I need to visit each of your blogs to get updates on your weight loss. Sorry it’s out of date. I’ll update it tomorrow.

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Challenge Update! – Week Six (updates in bold below)
“18 Pounds in 18 Weeks“

Bento Box Diet (sat WI) – Gained 3 pounds.
Katschi (tues WI) – Lost 1.2 pounds.
MaryFran (tues WI) - Down to 178.4 lbs (not sure if that’s a loss or gain)
Karyn (mon WI) – Lost 4.4 pounds. Woo Hoo!!! What a loss!!
Donna (mon WI) - Lost .9 pound.
Spunkysuzi (sun WI) – Lost 1.6 pounds.
Cathy (fri WI) – Hasn’t weighed-in in 3 weeks :(
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Well, I didn’t go WWTGs this morning. I went to bed around 11 last night and when 5:30 came around this morning, I was dog tired. I tried to get some energy going, but nothing was doing. I’ve done pretty good the rest of the week, though, and tomorrow I’m so looking forward to my bike ride. I’ve already got the protein/power bar ready to go. Daughter is going to go with me tomorrow. She has no idea what she’s in for. I got her a bar, too, so she can keep up. I’m still trying to make it to 10 miles. Tuesday was 9.25. If I left maybe 15 minutes earlier, I’m sure I’d have time to do the full 10 miles.

Wouldn’t that be awesome???!!!

I can’t wait. I want to go to bed early so I can get up early and try it.

I’ve been weighing myself every morning and I’m going down. I think I might be down a pound. Hope it’ll stay off. I really think it’s this extra exercise that’s making the difference. And I’ve been going over my original goals for this Challenge and making sure I’m sticking to them.

Have you guys written out any goals? If you have, I’d love to see them.

I remember one of our WW classes, the leader passed out a “Story Boarding” flier to each of us and told us to pick a goal that we wanted to reach and it didn’t have to be weight related and then figure out the steps it would take us to get there and to write each step in a different box on the flier until the boxes pointed to the final goal. Kind of like a cartoon where you have the different cells or frames of the story that all leads to the punch line or the last box in the story. And I remember thinking how lame it all was. I thought, I know what my goal is and I know what I have to do to get there—quit stuffing my face! But you know, what I did with stating my goals in my original post about the Challenge is essentially doing the same thing. But it was more than that for me. It was actually being able to visualize what I would actually do to accomplish such a rigorous goal. And it really help me take ahold of this challenge and take it seriously.

I just took a break to read over everyone’s blogs and we have quite a menagerie of Challenge participants. Let’s keep each other motivated! We’re gonna do this together!

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Challenge Update! – Week Two (update)
“18 Pounds in 18 Weeks“

Bento Box Diet – Week 2 loss: Lost 2.5 pounds. Way to go!!
Katschi – Week 2 loss: Lost 1.6 pounds. Woo Hoo!!
MaryFran – Week 2 loss: zero She’s holding the scale at bay for now but big losses are on the way.
Karyn – Week 2 loss: no report. (please send your blog address to carashow at gmail dot com or leave it in your comment. Not sure when her WI day is or how she’s doing.)
Donna – Week 2 loss: Lost 3.6 – Way to go, Donna!!!
Spunkysuzi – Week 2 loss: Lost .6 of a pound. (sorry suzi)
Cathy – Week 2 loss: zero, she’s just starting
Koala – I somehow missed adding Koala to my list of challengers. I apologize, Koala. Let me know how you’re doing and I’ll update you on the list here tomorrow.
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So I went WWTGs this morning. Went 3.25 miles in about an hour. It started raining when we were maybe 5 minutes from the finish line. It lightened twice. Aaaahhhh! Here are my stats for this morning’s walk:

Total Calories Burned: 450
Minimum HR: 73
Maximum HR: 140
Average HR: 121
Total Time Biking: 62 min
Total Distance: 3.25 miles

And I told you yesterday that I’d post pictures of my bike route. So here they are:

This is the bottom of the walking bridge that goes over the interstate. Not a very good angle because I was completely out of breath trying to take a picture on my cell phone while holding my bike. (whew)

This one is a full picture of the bridge:

Then this picture is one of the wide paths:

Another lady at work told me she wanted to join WW. I’m so excited that I’ve contributed in any way to them wanting to lose weight and get back into shape. It’s so cool. Cathy also wants to join the 18 Pounds in 18 Weeks challenge. She knows she’s coming into it a week late, but being as she’s just starting the plan, she’ll probably have a big loss the first week to get caught up with the rest of us.

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Challenge Update! – Week Two (update)
“18 Pounds in 18 Weeks“

Bento Box Diet – Week 2 loss: Lost 2.5 pounds. Way to go!!
Katschi – Week 2 loss: Lost 1.6 pounds. Woo Hoo!!
MaryFran – Week 2 loss: zero She’s holding the scale at bay for now but big losses are on the way.
Karyn – Week 2 loss: no report. (please send your blog address to carashow at gmail dot com or leave it in your comment. Not sure when her WI day is or how she’s doing.)
Donna – Week 2 loss: Lost 3.6 – Way to go, Donna!!!
Spunkysuzi – Week 2 loss: Lost .6 of a pound. (sorry suzi)
Cathy – Week 2 loss: zero, she’s just starting

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