This Program Has Been Temporarily Interrupted

Sorry I haven't posted in a while but life has been hell on wheels around here for the past two weeks. My husband has been very sick and was in the hospital for three days earlier this week. I've had to tend to him pretty much every waking moment. I've been doing my exercise and following my food plan to the best of my ability but the hospitalization forced me to put that aside. Now that he's back home, I've come down with a hellacious cold from all the stress. I'm doing what I can to get back to routine but it will probably be another 3-5 days before all the pieces come back together as they were before his health crisis. Blogging will resume once I have something interesting to talk about again. Sickness is not interesting.

April Results

It never ceases to amaze me how weird the weight loss journey can be. I was stressing all month that I wouldn't lose much weight but at the end of the day, I had lost 3.8 lbs. Almost hit my 4 lb. goal so go figure.

I'm going to also do monthly measurements as a second progress check and I'll have pictures posted in the next couple of days.

Here's the measurements. We'll see how much change there is from month to month.

Torso (bottom of the rib cage): 35"
Waist (at the bellybutton): 39.75"
Hips (at the point of the hipbones): 43.5"
Thighs (point of the femur): 26.75" (right) and 26" (left)
Knees (right above the kneecap): 21" (right) and 21.5" (left)

I'm having some joint problems this morning. Now that I know I have RA, I need to be superviligent about this. My wrist is more sore than usual, my right knee was sore when I did squats, and my right ankle was giving me twinges when I walked the dog. I stopped the squats at two sets when I couldn't find a position that wasn't painful. The rest of the workout went just fine but we'll see what this means and whether I need to contact the doctor. I'll be increasing the meds dosage this weekend and hopefully things will settle down.

A Germ of Thought

I may not be losing weight very fast but I am killing it in the gym. I'm working so hard and loving every minute of it. You probably couldn't tell by the look on my face when I'm trying to get that last rep on the leg press but I love it because it represents progress.

I've been having this crazy idea lately. It's not a new idea. It's one I've toyed with repeatedly over the years. When I was in my early 30's, I was deeply into bodybuilding and the bodybuilding scene in Illinois. I trained at a bodybuilding gym. I attended the shows and even began the process of certification as a show judge. I was starting my first prep for a show when I got pregnant and that pretty much ended that story. I've tried getting back in the gym on and off over the years but haven't been able to dedicate myself to training until two years ago. I gained so much weight that I screwed up my health and obliterated any gains I had made both with my weight and my musculature.

But I never completely lost the dream of competing again. Usually I look in the mirror and tell myself there's no way I could ever get my body back into competing shape, not at my age. And maybe that's true. I don't know. But I'm starting to have the crazy idea that maybe it's not such an impossible goal after all. Difficult, yes. Lots of hard work and sacrifice, for sure. But impossible, maybe not. It's just a gleam of a germ of a thought right now but thoughts become things. Maybe if I think this thought just right, it will flower into reality. Just maybe...

Arthritis Win

Just dropping a short post because I've reached a milestone (for me) in this saga of my RA. Today I was able to lift the 15 lb. dumbbell I used for the dumbbell bench press with my left hand alone. No assistance at all either lifting it up into position or putting it down on the floor. I consider that huge because my wrist pain has prevented me from doing a large number of exercises.

When I saw the rheumatologist last Thursday, she said it would take a few months for the medication to fully kick in. It looks like it is doing that and now my wrist can get stronger so I lift heavier weights. I think the next time Rog changes my workout we can incorporate a lot more exercises. I am so pleased!

Starting The Week With A Win

Despite all my protestations that I didn't want the scale to run my weight loss journey, when the number on the scale goes down I'm a happy camper. I'm down two pounds this morning and am at 214 lbs. This will not hit my goal for the month but it's the best news I've had in a week.

Rog wants me to start doing measurements for progress. I'm reluctant simply because I have so much trouble being consistent between measurement time periods. I've had numbers go up when it makes no sense and is surely related to small differences in where the tape measure is hitting. Maybe I'll use some indelible pen to mark where on my body I should put the tape! Or not.

We'll be talking about making changes next week and probably after the pictures are available.

Progress Pants

Here's my Saturday win and then I'll explain the title of this post. My win is the workout I did on Saturday. It was leg press day which has already turned out to be the exercise I like the most and dread the most. It kicks my ass (or more specifically my quads and hammies). I got one more rep on my first set than last time which will be a win for me since these are so hard. The rest of the workout kicked ass too. I was definitely one sore puppy at the end of the day.

But let's get to the title of the post and the story behind it.

Yesterday I weighed myself, as I do on Saturday morning. No weight change. None for the week. In fact, I'm up almost a full pound from the week before despite no breaks from the food plan. And I'm bummed of course. Now I don't want to make this journey all about my weight because that's short-sighted and rather stupid. I'll take pictures, as I've said, at the end of the month. However, I felt I needed something else to help me gauge my progress. I decided that, since I had some cash and a discount at one of the clothing stores I shop at, I would try on a pair of jeans a size smaller than the ones I'm in now. Just to see how far away I am from downsizing. And it wasn't too bad! I was able to get them on my hips but not button or zip them. Probably about 20 lbs. away from fitting into them comfortably. I thought this would be a great opportunity to have something to not only gauge progress but to know where I need to take a diet breather. I'm about 20 lbs. away from my intermediate goal of 194 or so lbs. and I want to stop dieting for awhile once I reach that weight. If I don't reach that exact weight but am able to fit into the size 14 jeans comfortably then I know I'm where I want to be. I really don't know what it's going to take to reach that weight or where my ultimate weight will land. If I build some solid muscle and lose fat, it may be higher than I think. Or not. Either way, size 14 jeans will be the place I take a breather.

I've got those pants hanging in my room so I'm constantly aware of my goal and can try them on every week or so. One way or another I will see my progress.

When The Levee Breaks

Today's weather put me in mind of one of my favorite Led Zeppelin songs. "If it keeps on raining, levee's gonna break." It's rained a steady downpour since last night with no sign of stopping today. The retention ponds all around us have either overflowed or will soon. That means heavy flooding for our subdivision and it means no way in and no way out. We've seen this twice before since we moved here 15 years ago and it is not pretty. The village is doing everything it can to pump the water out so hopefully if it does flood it won't be too damaging.

This morning I was thinking of not going to the gym due to the potential flood. Last time this happened I went out to do my Saturday shopping and when I got back a few hours later I barely made in back into my driveway. But I decided we weren't at that point yet so out I went for a great new workout Rog gave me. Today I have a flood win! And a goblet squat win! Double win!

I haven't been squatting much due to bad knees and bad body mechanics. Rog has had me working on glutes and core mostly the last few months. Today it paid off big time when I did goblet squats for the first time since last summer. Not only was my form great...stable, hips low, knees out...but I did them using a 20 lb. dumbbell. The last time I did goblet squat I did them with a 10 lb. dumbbell holding onto a wall. Not this time. I was very pleased.

Not so pleased that I weighed today after two low days with no change in weight. I need to talk to Rog about this on Monday. I don't want weight to be the sole criteria for progress. I wasn't going to take pictures until the end of May but I think I'll do them at the end of this month to see if there is any visible progress. I'd rather not make changes if things are really happening. It's hard for me to be objective about these things and I need Rog to give it his professional eyes.