Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Selling myself Short

I'm a bit frustrated today.

  I dont' know what's up with the personal trainer.  Originally we talked about exercising tonight.  I asked, but I haven't heard back a time.   I'm not worried about the weight.  Hello, I lost 3.1 pounds this past week dn 2.9 pounds the week before....on my own!  I can and will continue this journey one way or another.  No worries about that.    My frustration is stemming from the fact that I usually have a rough schedule in my head of when I'm working out and what I"m doing. I try to plan my runs so that I'm not doing two incredibly difficult workouts on the same day.  Intervals kick my butt, so I typically have not been doing them on zumba days.  I save them for a day when my only formal exercise is running.  But,  it's hard to plan when I don't know.  So normally I would have run this morning but should I not run because I don't know what's happening tonight.  When I pack my gym bag before work, should I take zumba shoes or regular tennis shoes?   Will I be inside at zumba or outside with a personal trainer?  That affects what I wear.  Planning is huge!   It's just frustrating to not be able to plan well.

I opted to not run.  My legs were heavy.  My gym bag is packed tonight.. capri workout pants and a teeshirt with a sweatshirt thrown in for good mesure and I have both sets of shoes in my gym bag (however, since it's 8:30 and I haven't heard anything I am pretty sure that it will be a zumba night).

However more frustration mounted.  I planned on riding the exercise bike this morning.   I got myself all set up (laptop on a bar stool beside me to keep me company, music on the stereo) and I hopped on.  I spun the bike bout 10 rotations and heard a horrible grinding noise and the resistance raised to sky high.  I lowered the resistance as low as possible and the noise persisted and even on resistence of 0 it is hard to spin.  Uhhhh not good......my exercise bike is broke!   More frustration!!!


I've been starting to ponder something.  Something very serious.  Am I selling myself short?  When I was going to weight watchers I got my weight to the 180's and then stalled.  I beat my head against the wall and stalled.  Every once in a while I would dip down into the 170's but it didn't last and when I did get down there people would literally panic about my weight.  I eventually went to my doctor and talked to him about my weight.  In fairness I will say that when I went I wore a spanx type article of clothing and I sucked it in the whole time.   I told him my concerns about reaching the recommended weight to become  lifetime member  (the high end for me is 164 pounds).  He looked at me and his exact words were "honey, You look great and furthermore I think you would have to be working out like a professional athlete to be 160 or less at your age and body type"   I was happy with that.  He signed a note and I took it to the weight watchers meeting and my official goal weight (doctor recommended) is 180...and yes, I made lifetime at that goal weight.  So this 180 mark is big in my mind.  Personally though, I know that my belly was stil pudgy and fat at 180 pounds.  But yet I put this 180 pounds as the end all be all weight that I want to be at.  It's where I say I would be 'happy' at.  But I honestly think I'm selling myself short.  I think that I need to say "I want to lose it ALL!" I think I've been selling myself short!!!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Mary Fran! I actually like this post a lot. It contains enough information that I understand the situation.

Firstly, I am an exercise freak--no doubt about that with huge bench presses and super good yoga, but I exercise less than you do. You are tiring yourself out. I've been there and done that too. Exercise will not lose that weight for you. I tried walking 600 miles in 5 months to get slim--it did NOT work. So pace yourself with the exercise. You are definitely doing enough exercise.

You have to tighten up your eating more. I believe that 100 daily calories roughly equals 10 pounds on body weight. So if you want to weigh 20 pounds less, you need to figure out how to *NOT* eat 1400 calories (200 calories x 7 days) every week that you are accustomed to eating right now. For a 10 pound loss, eat 700 less calories per week. This *cannot* be done by exercise.

Yes, that sounds really hard. I'm a size 10 and can't really imagine eating like a smaller-sized person--because size 10 is hard enough for me already. :D

:-) Marion

MaryFran said...

I actually have my eating under control. I'm losing great weight not from my exercise, but from spot on eating! The exercise is toning and yes it does give me a small amount of leeway with my eating, but that said...I don't eat my exercise calories that I 'earn'. I am pacing myself, thus no running today, my legs needed the rest and I knew it!

My frustration simply came into play with the disability to plan my week. I'm a list maker and I can't make my lists!!!

Stained Glass Butterfly said...

I don't see anything wrong with re-evaluating your goal and wanting to be sure it is where you are happy and at your best. But instead of focusing on a number from the scale, why not focus on maybe a fitness level or a clothing size or something else that measures how you think you will be happy? There are very skinny people who are out of shape and lack muscle tone, so weight is not the entire picture at all.

timothy said...

you know your body and if you want to get below 180 i say go for it!