I took a rest day yesterday. I kept under my 1200 calories (I eat a lot more when I work out) and wasn’t hungry. Maybe I’m finally getting to the point, after doing this for 5 days, where my stomach is shrinking. I’m down about 4 pounds now, which doesn’t sound like much but it feels like a lot. You know that feeling when your clothes are just a bit too tight and sitting is just a bit too uncomfortable? That’s the point I was getting dangerously close to before Sunday when I had my breaking point and re-joined My Fitness Pal.

I had a great conversation about weight loss and attitude with Kayla yesterday. We seem to struggle with the same things, it’s nice to have someone you *gets* it to talk things out with.

I don’t love the idea of rest days but I think they’re pretty key in ultimate weight loss. I’m not sure if every 4 days is the right amount, I think it’s going to be a learning process for me. I’m working on not feeling guilty for taking rest days. I wish someone was holding my hand the entire time through this process.

Last night I finished 5:1 in C25K. Tomorrow will be the mid-way run, I’m pretty satisfied with that. I’m not getting any faster but I’m certainly not as exhausted while running. I can feel my endurance getting better and I can see my arm fat starting to disappear. My leg fat too.

The problem with being dedicated to weight loss is that I become obsessed with weight loss. I read success story after success story and wonder if I’ll ever be destined for that. It’s all I can think about. How many calories have I burned? How many am I eating? Am I eating enough of the right kind of calories/sugar/fat/carbs/protein? Why isn’t this working faster? Should I be working out 2 times a day? When should I take a rest day? When should I take a day and eat whatever I want?

It’s an endless bunch of questions stored in my head that get repeated over and over. I become obsessed with how many spoonfuls of frozen yogurt I’m consuming. I worry about my water intake. I get hungry. I convince myself I’m full. I drink more water. I work out an extra 20 minutes just in case I want to have a snack later on. I don’t eat that snack because it might tip the scale in the morning. It’s a struggle every day to have a healthy attitude about weight. I’m not sure how people do it without becoming a bit neurotic. Maybe I need to be a bit neurotic until I lose the weight I want to lose.

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Trying very hard this week to actually work out 5 days in a row and finish start/finish week 5 of C25K. Last night I elliptcalled for 33 minutes. With about 1 minute to go a woman started talking to me about losing weight and how when she rolled onto her side she could see a round belly and how much she hated it. She was in great shape, I’m not sure how long it took her to get there but she seems very diligent about not quitting. She mentioned she weighs her food and works out an hour or so to try and keep fit. Actually she wouldn’t shut up. I was trying to go back up to my condo and ended up stranded with her for 6 minutes. She was really nice and maybe a workout angel sent down to show me I could attain what she did. Except I’ll never talk to strangers with that much candour. No way, man.

I tried to get up this morning at 6:50 to go to the gym but I just rolled right back over laughing at myself for even attempting it. Getting up at 7:45 is already a huge stretch for me, but I’ll keep setting my alarm and maybe one morning I’ll actually go work out. Tonight I’ll do C25K 5:1 when I get home from work.

I joined an aqua cycle class, it starts at the end of November. I’m terrified.

I told Dave how much I weigh today. He kinda was surprised which made me feel bad. I’m sure he didn’t mean to sound shocked when I told him but it still stung. I know I’m fat, I’m working on it  (again). Sigh. Onward, I suppose.

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Last night I finished week 4 of C25K. I accidentally hit the pause button while trying to reduce my incline on the treadmill and couldn’t get it to start again so I quite literally leapt off the treadmill and ran around outside for the last 4 minutes. You gotta do what you gotta do, right?

I’m trying to get more active on the MFP forums. Last time I used the site pretty successfully I think. I lost 20 pounds, joined some groups and met some like minded people who also struggle with weight. I like reading the success stories most. I’d love to be a success story.

I stepped on the scale again this morning. I lost 1 whole pound. Probably not really as I know weight fluctuates during the day but it’s still better than 0 weight loss. I get so easily discouraged.

Ugh. What a long, frustrating process.

Weekends are where I need the most work. It’s so easy to go out to restaurants and not watch what I’m eating. I really need to work on weekends. This weekend I had sushi, shawarma, crepes and soup/sandwich. And that was all at restaurants. Falling into the weekend restaurant hole is a huge detriment to what I’m trying to accomplish. I need to be way more mindful of when I’m eating out and what I’m eating while out. Eating out is also really expensive, I could be saving a lot more money than I already am if I stopped eating out as much.

I stepped on the scale for the first time today, I didn’t like what I saw. Which means I really wouldn’t have liked it had I stepped on 3 weeks ago before I started running. I’m guessing I had already lost somewhere around 5 pounds in the last 3 weeks.

Saturday morning I woke up and did C25K 4:2. I had a great run, I definitely could have gone longer than 3 or 5 minute intervals. I’m going to keep running inside on the treadmill. It measures distance and speed for me so I find my runs a lot more even and I’m way less winded by the end.

I have 1 day left at week 4, I’d love to get it done sometime today but I’m already showered. I also joined My Fitness Pal again. I shutdown my first account and made a new one. I’m going to trying my best to use it again, it worked so incredibly well last time. I lost 20+ pounds in just over 2 months writing down everything I ate and working out for around 45 minutes 4 or 5 times a week. Some days I did WiiFit,some days I ran, other days I did the elliptical. I had a good balance going and I still ate whatever I wanted, as long as I logged it and didn’t go over my daily calorie intake. I know this is the only way to lose weight, it just sucks having to be so accountable.

Here is a picture of the finished gallery wall photo project I did. I am really pleased with how it turned out. I just have to put stuff up in the 2 bedrooms in our condo now and we’ll finally have filled the walls.

Nailed it! You have to run 16/21.5 minutes in week 4. I ran at 6.5 kms/hr to begin and then by the last set of 5 I was running 8 kms/hr. I never felt over tired or like I was pushing too hard. I actually find the walking parts the hardest during the 21.5 minutes. Slowing down seems like a waste of time when I could be continuing my run when I feel good. The run never starts off well or strong, it takes me a few minutes to get into a groove with breathing. But once I’m there it feels awesome. I really do like running. It’s maybe the only exercise I don’t completely hate. I feel awesome when I run. And afterwards I feel very accomplished. I can catch up if I run tonight and on Sunday, or twice on the weekend. Alana is visiting so probably I’ll skip tonight and just do tomorrow morning and then Sunday night before my fantasy football league drafts.

Yesterday Blacks had a deal on 8×10 prints. I got 9 printed for under 10 bucks, which is the lowest price I’ve seen them. I headed over to Dollarama and bought 9 8×10 canvases and then painted the sides black. After that I just applied a layer of mod podge and placed down my photos. It worked really well and the whole project cost me around 25 bucks. 25 bucks for that much wall art seems pretty reasonable when you price out how much a real canvas picture is. I think I’m going to buy some 3M wall hangers for them, the kind that just adhere to the wall and don’t leave marks or punctures. The canvases are incredibly light and if I ever have to re-do one or change it out for a different one, or add another canvas to it, I’ll be able to.

So far I really like how it turned out. If it actually makes it up this weekend I’ll be really impressed with myself (and Dave and Alana who will likely have to help).

This afternoon I finished week 3 of Couch to 5K. My goal was to be caught up by Sunday so that this week I would only have to do week 4, but I can still only do week 4 if I’m diligent and I run every second day.

Today’s run was great. It was slow but I wasn’t never winded and I didn’t hurt afterwards. Maybe I’ll never be fast, but at least I’ll be done.

My co-worker asked if I’d lost weight today, I likely haven’t but I have been working on portion control and not drinking pop. The pop thing has been OK, I’ve only had 2 sips in over a week, the portion control is going really well. I wait to start eating, I drink water first, I’m conscious about how much I’m having. I hope I don’t have to worry about this forever, but until I lose at least 20 pounds I probably will be a bit neurotic about food. I’m not telling myself I can’t have stuff, I’m just telling myself I can’t have as much as I used to.