Thin By Thirty…

Something clicked this past week.  I’ve been complaining about how I’ve gained so much weight since my wedding (about 60 lbs in 15 months - OMG!) but I haven’t really been doing anything about it.  I half-heartedly worked with Dodi and a Personal Trainer for the month and a half leading up to her Wedding in September, but my heart wasn’t really in it and I didn’t make much progress… and any progress that I did make that that time has since been reversed.  I was my most terrible around Halloween - scarfing down candy all day long at work with no regard for the fact that the scale was heading in the wrong direction.

So I don’t know what did it, but something finally clicked.  I woke up on Monday morning and got on the Wii Fit right away and then was awesome all day recording everything that I ate and managed to stay within my calorie goals.  I’ve been using Gyminee off and on since January since it’s got a great iPhone optimized interface that allows me to look up nutritional info and exercises (and even view video demos!) on the go - and it’s free.  Yesterday, I got back on the Wii Fit in the morning and recorded my weight again - and I was down four pounds since Monday!  Now, being a former Weight Watchers girl, the four pound loss doesn’t “count” for me until I see that on Monday - it’s got to be a once a week weigh-in.  But I’m still excited.

Gyminee recently started challanges on their site.  I joined a “lose 15% weight by Thanksgiving” challange back in August, but, like I said, my heart just wasn’t in it.  Today, I started my own challange: Thin By 30.  I want to get back to my goal weight before my thirtieth birthday.  I’ve got 8 months to go and I need to lose 25% of my body weight to get back to my goal.  That’s about 1.7 lbs per week… which is ambitious but completely within the healthy range of 1 to 2 lbs a week.  So far, I’m the only one participating in my challange, but I encourage others to join!  The winner will get the “Vanquisher of Pounds” award for the most percentage of weight lost by my 30th birthday.

I’ve got a widget on a sidebar of my blog that will show my progress.  I’m feeling great that I’m finally getting back on track and I really hope that it sticks!

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The Gym is Bizarre at Night…

I got to the gym late tonight. I didn’t mean to, but I got out of work really late - after 7:30 - and then was starving so I went to Panera, as I usually do when Alex is on a case. I ate my dinner and then went to Target out of habit to wonder around. When I left Target and it was already after 9 o’clock I was tempted to go right home, but I had my gym clothes and sneakers with me and the gym was basically literally on my way out of the parking lot so I figured I had no excuse.

I walked in the gym and immediately noticed the difference in the people who were at the gym that late at night compared to those who go to the gym earlier in the evening when we usually go. There were packs of 3 to 5 younger guys sauntering around the main weight floor, periodically lifting weights in between bragging to each other and staring at any female who was at least mildly attractive. There were a few terribly overweight and haggard looking women on cardio machines. There were a couple of really nerdy looking skinny middle aged men and a couple of white hairs. And then there were a few representatives of “the beautiful people” looking perfectly made up and sweat-free even as they worked twice as hard as most of the other people in the gym. It was a population of extremes.

I realized after I’d already started to change into my gym clothes that I’d forgotten my armband for my iPhone and also my bluetooth headphones - which meant that I couldn’t really listen to my iPhone while I did weights. I decided to just stick with cardio. I chose an elliptical machine at the back right of the cardio deck. One of the really fat women was already there, pedaling away on the elliptical machine closest to the wall right underneath where the air conditioning blew down. I picked a machine close by so that I could get the benefits of the air conditioning, leaving a machine empty between us so that I didn’t seem like a weirdo close-exerciser.

I was about a quarter of the way into my workout when I noticed a relatively normal looking blond girl on the elliptical machine at the end of the next row over. I noticed her because as soon as she started pedaling, the machine made a bunch of odd knocking sounds - almost like she’d dropped a bunch of ping pong balls onto it. She kept going, seemingly not noticing the weird sound. She looked kind of intense.

A few minutes later, I noticed some overly exuberant movements in my peripheral vision. I turned my head to look at the girl and almost fell off the machine. Blondy was holding herself ramrod straight on the machine. Her legs pedaled furiously while her arms, instead of holding onto the heart rate sensors to either side of her, were swinging wildly back and forth in time with the rhythm of her legs. One of her arms would swing all the way up past the top of her head, while the other arm swung way back behind her. She was moving so fast, it looked like she was going to take off. I had to turn my head quickly in the other direction so that no one would see me trying to stifle a laugh with not much success. I had to steal another glance in her direction to see if she was still exercising like a madwoman. She was. One of the white hairs came to the top of the cardio deck and just stood a few feet away from her machine, staring at her with his mouth open. Insanity.

I decided that I’d have to keep staring straightforward - maybe even a little bit to the left - so that I wouldn’t risk seeing Blondy. About halfway through my workout, a new freak made his debut. A lanky teenager mounted one of the treadmills two rows up from me. He was wearing a baggy red t-shirt and long, baggy silver mesh athletic shorts that went down to a little past his knees. His white socks were pulled up so high they almost met the bottom of his shorts and looked strange coming out of the top of his black uniform-appropriate sneakers. So far, his offenses weren’t really enough to earn him the “freak” title. No, it was his hair that really pushed him over the edge. The kid wore big, dorky looking glasses and his stringy brown hair fell down so far that it covered the very top of his glasses. His hair might not have done this if he didn’t have a red sweatband on his head, plastering his hair down. His expression made him look as if he was channeling Napoleon Dynamite. Next to him, an older guy who was probably his father walked slowly on his treadmill. He wore very close fitting warm-up pants with a gray T-shirt tucked in. They were quite a pair.

I was running out of safe places to focus on while I finished my workout. Every direction I turned my head I saw someone who made me want to giggle. I spent the rest of my time at the gym with a slightly suppressed smirk on my face.

I realize that I’m not exactly a normal person, but I think that my freakishness is only evident on the inside - at least, I hope so! I’m glad that Alex wasn’t along with me - if he was there, there is no way I would have been able to hold my giggles in.

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Here’s the News…

Well, the BIG news is that Scott proposed to Dodi last night!!! Yay!!!! I am SO excited for them and SO happy for Dodi!!!! Congratulations!!!!

In other news, we put up our tree and other Christmas decorations this weekend. The place looks very cheerful. I posted a lot of pics here. Our tree is looking rather beat and tiny, so I think we’ll be getting a new one when this Christmas season is over (and they’re on sale). Less than 30 days left!

And lastly, Alex and I finally got our butts back to the gym this morning. I think this might be the first time since we got married. I’m already sore and was not a very nice person when Alex woke me up this morning. But I appreciate that he got us moving because I’ve gained about 20 lbs since the wedding (MY GOD!!!) and I REALLY need to do something about that!

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Back on Track!!

I am FINALLY back on track with losing weight! I weighed in at Weight Watchers this week and found out that I lost 5 lbs this week!! YAY!! I switched to doing the Core plan this week - which means that instead of counting points for everything i eat and having a daily limit of points with weekly “bonus” points, I now can eat as much as I need to feel satisfied of any food that is a “core” food and if I want a non-core food, I can use my weekly bonus points for them. Core foods are fruits, veggies, non-fat dairy, lean meats, brown rice, potatoes, grains… Basically whole or non-processed foods. Doing the Core plan makes me make better choices about the foods that I eat. I feel satisfied more and better about myself.

Along with switching to the Core plan, I got my butt back to the gym. I did weight training every other day along with daily cardio. I feel great! I’m really excited about my progress and I know that if I keep up my good work, I’ll be back at my goal weight by the wedding - which is three months from yesterday!!!!

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So much to say…

I hate when it’s been forever since I’ve updated my blog. My whole purpose for having a blog is so that I have the ability to look back at what I was doing last week, last month, last year - whatever - and see what I was doing/thinking/feeling etc at that time. So, I get really disappointed when I suck at updating. And now, it’s been so long and we’ve done soooooooo much that updating becomes an enourmous task!

But enough whining about that.

Let’s see… Well, in the past month, we’ve had a cake tasting and ordered our cake, had an engagement party at my parents’ house, got a new car for Alex, discovered that Alex’s dad is giving us Marriott points for the honeymoon, and ordered our wedding bands. It’s all sooooooooo very exciting!

The cake tasting was a lot of fun! I was so adament that we were not going to pick out or order a cake while we were there, but I had one taste of the mocha cream filling and I was sold! Alex and I really enjoyed the cake tasting - sampling all of the different cake flavors and fillings while sipping on cappucinos was a nice break to a Wednesday. We found a design that we both loved and Alex decided that since he’s not too into cakes anyway, I could pick out the flavor. Since we both loved the mocha cream, we went for that. The price was surprisingly affordable and so we just went for it!

We had a fab time at our engagment party at my parents’ house. Wham and Amy worked hard and pulled off a great party! There was lots of food and drink and everyone had a great time. Alex and I tried to make sure that we kept circulating to socialize with everyone and I couldn’t believe how quickly the night went by - I can’t imagine what the wedding is going to be like! Of course, I was exhausted for the party because of some unexpected car business the night before and hopefully the night before the wedding will find me sleeping more so that I won’t have to battle exhaustion through the night.

Speaking of the car business… Alex went out with his friend, Dave, the night before our party. They took Alex’s car - the 91 Escort that was his sister’s then his father’s and became Alex’s when we were in need in December - to Albany. On their way home at 2:30am the car died. Dave was driving and wasn’t used to the quirkiness of the clutch and it ended up burning out on them. So I got the call at 2:30 to go find them on the side of the Thruway. Of course, I’d only been asleep for about an hour at the time so I was TIRED. I ended up finding them and driving them back to our apartment, only to have Alex realize that he left his wallet in the car. So we drove all the way back out and then tried to have the car towed but gave up after not getting thru to AAA after being on hold for over 45 minutes. I didn’t get to sleep until close to 5am. Got up early that morning to go to Weight Watchers and then kept running all day to find the Escort which had been towed and impounded and get it taken care of. Needless to say, Alex and I were pretty stressed out about it.

We ended up going car shopping the next day and actually found a car for Alex right away. He knew that he’d wanted a Toyota Camry after driving the rental that I had after my accident over December. We found a 2005 Camry for a great price and were able to get excellent financing for it. Alex was super-psyched because the car looked great - it’s black with chrome accents - and was actually a standard. Alex was very happy about that. We were even able to pick it up the next evening. I am sooooooo happy for Alex because this is his first “new” used car bought through a dealer. He is so in love with his car and I am so happy for him!!

My dad had told me a couple weeks back that he’d be able to give us air tickets using frequent flier miles for our honeymoon flight, which we were hella excited about. It brought us one step closer to going on a honeymoon, which is something that we weren’t positive was going to happen. We still had to figure out how we’d pay for a hotel. Alex told me this past weekend that his dad was going to be able to give us Marriott points - enough for a week’s stay in a “category 7″ (five star) hotel. So we are definitely going to be able to go on a honeymoon!!!!! We are soooo excited!! We decided that we’d like to go to London. We’ve got to figure out all the particulars now, but it looks like the honeymoon will be a week in London with day trips to Paris and Edinburgh. We’re SO happy! It’s fun to plan our honeymoon - less stressful than wedding planning. Not that I think that wedding planning is stressful - I’ve actually been having a blast with it! But there are a lot of details to the wedding planning and only so much I can do at a time. The honeymoon planning is a lot of research and daydreaming right now and that’s a welcome change of pace.

Yesterday, we went out and bought our wedding bands! Alex has known for like 3 months which band he wants. We’d gone to Frank Adams jewelers in Stuyvesant Plaza a while back and Alex tried on a ring there that he really connected with. It’s yellow gold on the inside, white gold on the edges, and hammered rose gold in the center. The ring is large (which looks right on his hand) and very heavy. Every ring that he’d tried on after that didn’t feel right to him. They didn’t have the same heavy feeling. He wanted his “one ring to rule them all”. That ring was pretty expensive, though. After I did our taxes, I figured that we could use our tax returns to buy our rings and we’d totally be able to afford the one that he wants. I kept thinking about a piece of advice that Beck gave me - don’t skimp on the wedding rings because those are a forever thing. How could we not get the one that Alex really wanted? I didn’t think that I would find a ring at Frank Adams that I wanted because the last few times we were there, nothing looked right to me. The salesgirl that was there yesterday was awesome. She pulled a bunch of rings for me to try on and I finally found one that Alex and I both really liked. My engagement ring is so intricate that most bands looked odd next to it. A plain white gold band looked too plain, but a band with prong set diamonds looked like it was too much. I found a very thin pave set diamond band that had a single row of small diamonds halfway around. It’s very delicate and vintage looking and looked great with my band or alone on my finger. We’re very excited for our rings - we both want them right now. The order is going in tomorrow and I guess I’ll find out then how long it will be until they get here. Can’t wait!!

And now it is time for me to go to bed. It’s almost ten (gasp!) and I’ve got to get up at the crack of dawn to get to the gym. I’ve been pretty good since January when I started back at Weight Watchers and have lost 17 lbs so far. I’ve learned, though, that I really can’t skip out on the gym and I’m trying really hard to get there in the mornings so that I don’t find excuses not to go after work. I’ve got an appointment on Tuesday with one of the Fitness Trainers (included in the membership) and I’m hoping that he can help me design a good upper body and abs routine. I really hope that I hit my goal for the wedding - I really want to love my pictures!

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So very tired…

…But it’s been forever since I’ve updated and I just wanted to post a few thoughts before I drag my butt to bed…

1. Date has been set! 7-27-07 I love the sound of that date. Seven is my lucky number. We’ll be married at the Franklin Plaza. We’ve ordered the save the dates already - fun stuff! For more details (although there’s not much more than what you’ve read here already up yet), you can visit Our Wedding Website.

2. Went out for my first dress shopping trip! Went do David’s Bridal with the Wham and Meredith on Saturday (geez, that was only yesterday?). Tried on many dresses and came away with a top three. Took some pics, but of course you won’t see them here - gotta have some secrets, right? Also, I look like a whale in them. Which leads me to number…

3. Went to the gym five times last week - made my goal! Need to work on the eating part now. Am rejoining Weight Watchers. They have a monthly pass thing available now which is going to save me around $17 a month - not bad. I started tracking my points again today - did awesomely! I’m going back to my first meeting tomorrow. Not looking forward to what the scale says, but I’ve got to face the music at some point.

4. Had an awesome weekend which included dinner at Justin’s and drinks at Noche on Friday and a Halloween party at the Skyline on Saturday. Because I’m an old lady, I’m exhausted from two nights of fun times in a row. Bed now.

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