Humble Brag! (Edit: Not Humble)

Posted on April 15, 2015

The really blurry awful picture you see before you is a pretty major victory for me. Please excuse the quality, as I was somewhat near-death.

4 weeks ago I began working out after a pretty sedentary life and made some solid changes.

Making better food choices was the easy part, for me. I knew it needed to happen, and it was a pretty quick fix and easy to research, easy to stock the fridge/pantry, etc. Don't get me wrong-- I'm not saying it's easy to squelch cravings or drastically change your eating habits over night. I'm just saying it was the simplest part of this endeavour so far.

I switched from the cheap gym to the expensive gym with the awesome childcare so my kid wouldn't die, so she'd WANT to go, and hopefully she'd bully me into going when I didn't want to go. Then I paid for 3 years up front with my tax return, so, no going back. There's a single parent struggle (and maybe a dual parent struggle, I don't know your life) with guilt-- at least for me-- about picking up my kid from daycare and driving straight to the gym where I put her in daycare. Anyway, we worked out a series of snacks and bribery which is working out for us. It helps that the gym daycare plays Frozen fairly often.

I spoke with my doctor, and ignored most of his food advice. I mean, yeah, I get that buckets of carbs are bad, but I'm so annoyed with the buzz-word dieting fads and I could go on for days about why I probably think your diet is stupid and placebo, but you didn't ask and I'm not a jerk, so I won't. My point is just that I do better counting calories and knowing that if I want to eat a cupcake, then I can, but that the rest of my meals that day are going to make me sad. I don't particularly enjoy being sad, especially about food, so I tend to make better choices with calorie counting rather than food-shaming diet plans.

I began logging my food with an enthusiasm to rival Richard Simmon's love of short-shorts and sweat bands. Then I took it a step further and commited to a "pro" account and paid for a year. More accountability. I'm not wealthy, I'm maybe upper-poverty level (single mom lyfe), so money is a big incentive for me. If I'm going to spend my money, I better be sure I'm sure about where I'm spending it.

That's how I found Diet Bet.

But back to my Picture of Accomplishment.

When I started working out, I mentally committed to 4-5 days a week minimum. I told myself that as long as I clocked 30 minutes and kept pushing a little more, added a few minutes a week, that I'd be successful.

Now, let me just tangent here for a minute to say that gym anxiety is REAL. I know it's a thing for people of all sizes and athletic backgrounds. I am speaking as a Person of Size. I go to a pretty people's gym. There are plenty of people working hard and sweating like pigs and looking tired, buuuuut there are an equal amount of people walking around in make-up and Ed Hardy shirts watching themselves in the mirror and trying to act like they were not staring (at other pretty people and/or sweaty not-pretty people). So I think that's a whole blog post itself, but for now let me say that it was a big deal for me to walk in the gym, climb on a machine, and make it do what it do, nawmean?

Anyway, after a week, I had gone from 15 minutes on the elliptical and 15 minutes on the treadmill to 20 minutes on each. Then, I was up to 30 minutes, then 45 minutes. The third week I fought my insecurities and added a weight circuit. IN FRONT OF SO MANY PEOPLE.

So here we are today, 4 weeks in (on the 19th) and I am EFFING JAZZED to say that yesterday I did a ten minute warmup on the treadmill, an upper body weight circuit for 15 minutes, and ONE WHOLE HOUR (and one minute) on the elliptical. And I didn't even die. And I still came home and made dinner, bullied my kid into eating AND bathing AND going to sleep in her own bed, then made myself do all those things plus laundry. So, what I'm saying here, is...

I'm kind of a big deal.

*drops mic*

Comment Now!

Les

04/15/2015 10:35AM

You should author a book:) Great job!

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bahhhhh

Ha! Thanks. I used to write and have quite a lot of online/indie lit publications (from before my daughter came along and sucked away all my time and brain power). I guess those traits never really go away.

bahhhhh

04/15/2015 10:21AM

Thank you, thank you, all you kind, encouraging people. I'm stoked. I've gained the momentum, now I work on keeping it rolling. Forward, forward, ever forward.

GlampingGal

04/15/2015 10:06AM

You are makin' this happen, Tia! Like me, you've made significant changes to your diet, but I have to give you big 'sweatband wearing' kudos for the exercise component. You're going go from being "kind of a big deal" to "kind of a healthy and thinner deal" in no time! :-)

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Abbie

04/15/2015 10:01AM

Whoa! That is nothing short of amazing! You should be VERY proud of yourself! Raise your hand, really high, bend your elbow and pat yourself on the back! Well done! (insert double double high 5s here)

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Alice W.

04/15/2015 9:52AM

Good for you! You're totally freaking awesome. My work offered weight watchers and I signed up for that. We got a free 14 week subscription to the eTools and I track my food like it's my job. Because, well, right now that is my job. Making sure that I don't die because of the choices I make. The sooner I start making better choices, the longer I'll actually get to be here in this life. I try to add a couple of minutes to my treadmill work every few days. And I'm loving the workouts from blogilates.com. I'm much sorer (more sore?) doing those than even the Jillian Micheal's workouts I've done. I sweat more with JM, but I can feel a difference more with Blogilates. Anyway, go you.

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bahhhhh

I just checked out blogilates, thanks for mentioning it! I'm awful about working out at home-- like I can find 83486458648756765 other things that have to be done YESTERDAY to keep me from exercising. That said, this looks pretty cute and fun, so I'm thinking I might watch a video with my daughter and maybe we'll do it together. She stretches with me after the gym, so I bet she'd be on board. I've always had good result with Pilates/isometric style workouts in the past and I could use some new ideas in that arena.