Week 32 Wrap Up and a Plateau

I haven't had much to post about, so I haven't been posting weekly. Sorry about that. Not too much has been going on. I've hit that dreaded plateau. Everyone does, apparently, and I'm a little surprised it took about 7 months for it to happen.

The scale hasn't moved in about 5 weeks now...a couple pounds up and down, but still staying around  the same number. Two weeks ago, J had me add 3.5 hours of cardio per week to my current workout plan. You would expect that to start the weight loss back up, but it didn't. At all. So, during training Monday we discussed several different options that I could try to jump start the loss again. Our conclusion? Take a week off. Just take a week off of working out. Not work out for a week. So, that's what I started yesterday and it's what I will be doing for the next week...nothing.

I feel guilty already haha :) I didn't go to yoga yesterday, didn't go to yoga today and I kind of miss it. It feels like I'm doing something wrong or playing hooky or something. If going from not working out at all to working out normally again doesn't work, I don't know what else to try. Maybe eating more? I can't exactly eat less. I'm currently consuming between 1300 and 1400 calories per day...I could bump it down to a strict 1200 per day, but that's the lowest a woman should go and I don't want to do that.

Nutrition has been back to normal, so that hasn't been an issue for the past 4 weeks or so. I did run out of my Raspberry Keytones for a couple weeks, but have been back on those for 2 weeks now. I feel at a loss at this point. So, I'm really REALLY hoping not working out this week will do it.

Even though the scale hasn't moved in over a month, my body is still changing and I have to keep reminding myself of that. In the past month, I'm down another pant size and my clothes feel different. So, it's not like I've stalled in every area; my body is still changing and reshaping itself. There's that, I guess.

School is more than half over. I'm getting pretty tired of it, honestly. December cannot come soon enough. It feels more like a nuisance than a learning experience. But it's all for the best and it's all a stepping stone to the next phase of my life. Everything just feels on hold right now....between the weight loss plateau and school...SOMETHING HAS GOT TO GIVE!

So, I will just keep going. I won't give up. Things will start changing again. Things will start progressing again. I just have to be patient and not give up. There's no quitting here. Not now. Not ever.

Week 30 Wrap Up and a Motivational Video that everyone should watch

I know. I haven't posted in a couple weeks. It's been a rough couple of weeks. A number of posts back, I wrote about depression. A new wave hit and was crippling to the point where it has taken every ounce of energy just to get out of bed for the day. The past few days I have literally woken up crying and haven't stopped for the rest of the day. It's been a difficult funk.

Because of this, I've slacked with the workouts, missed a couple days, didn't put my heart into other days...just went with the routine but did nothing extra. My nutrition has been crap. I wasn't eating, and when I finally would, it was never a nutritionally sound meal. There were a couple weeks where I could count on one hand the number of meals I ate. Breakfast had gone out the window. Because of all of this, I ended up gaining a couple pounds.

Last week, I started to get back on track. I've made an active effort to eat regular meals again (especially breakfast), working on getting motivated again to workout with more vigor and to just try to start caring about my own well-being again. I weighed in yesterday and was able to get back down to where I was in my last post. In fact, I'm down .6 more pounds from that, for a total loss so far of 63.2 pounds.

Training has been off and on lately. I don't blame J...he's a very busy person. But I'm going to have to make some decisions as far as my next step and how to move forward. I don't want to overload anyone, but I also have to consider my needs, as well.

But anyway, I'm currently being punished. J asked for my workout diary and was apparently not very happy with what I've been doing the past couple weeks. So now I have to do an extra 30 minutes of cardio every single day...7 days per week. "No days off" he says....  :(
I hate cardio. With every part of my being. Don't get me wrong. I WANT to like it. I want to be able to think, "boy, I could really go fo a run right now" and just change clothes and run and run and run and clear my mind and just run some more. I really want to have the mindset to be able to do that. I actively try to have that mindset, but I then start to jog and realize just how much I can't stand it. I fear adding this extra cardio every day will just cause more resentment toward it because that's how I'm currently feeling. Hopefully that will change. Shoes will also help. My current running shoes have holes, are broken, my feet hurt in them and cramp up. I'll have to get a new pair ASAP.

Motivation has been my struggle lately. Last week, I had so little motivation to go down to the gym and do weights, I decided to go onto youtube and look up sports motivation videos. Some of them honestly felt a little discouraging while watching them, but some of them helped. There was one that was able to push me enough to get dressed and go workout. I went down and pushed myself harder than I've pushed myself in several weeks. I was dripping sweat. I was doing chest presses with higher reps at a higher weight. And I cried while I lifted. And then I pushed myself harder. I finished the cardio after weights and was exhausted. The following two days, I was sore. It's been a while since I've made myself sore. I'll be sore from training or from a hard yoga class, but I've noticed I haven't been very sore when I workout on my own. If this is the case, then I haven't been pushing myself enough. So that's what I'm focusing on now...pushing myself to what I think my limit is, then pushing myself even further. And you know what? When I think I can't go on any longer and then push myself more, I'm always able to more than I think I can. I hit my mental limit before I hit my physical limit. It's just a matter to pushing past that mental barrier to reach that physical limit.

Check out the video below. It's 15 minutes long, but it's worth it: