My wonderful boys accidently deleted my entire music library from my iTunes, lucky I still have about 600 songs on my iPod, but my shuffle which I use on my runs has been wiped clean….luck would have it that my DS is on vacation and took my iPod so I need to add some music to my shuffle ASAP….soooooooooooooooooo I want to know….what moves you?  What’s on your iPod?  What music pumps you up during exercise?

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated!

I have hit high and low notes on this journey and today, I find myself as frustrated as I have ever been.

I am not giving up, it’s not like me to do so. 

I will continue to persevere and one day, I will win this battle.

In the meantime, I need to re-group and re-focus.  I need to do something different.  I need to work from the inside out.  I have tried everything you can think of….and I still find myself in the same place. 

This has been a long time coming….back in mid-January, my life was so shaken that I knew right then and there that some things needed to change….that I needed to change.  I have been dazed and confused ever since, KNOWING what I need and what I want, but feeling so lost and so overwhelmed that I simply don’t know HOW to go about it.

February wasn’t any better for me….and as most of you know, my life and the life of my family changed in an instant—a heart beat.

Life is too precious….and I need to start living it.  I need to make the BEST with what God has given me…this beautiful gift called life is far too valuable and too fragile to take for granted.

Buddies, I am taking yet another break from the site to re-group and re-focus.  I am veering off this road and I am embarking on a new journey—one of self-discovery.  I hope that when I come back, I will be a stronger and healthier person, one who can be of better service to all of you who have been generous with your support and with your friendship.

This isn’t good-bye, this is a short vacation from the site.  I will be very tempted to check in on a daily basis, but I know that right now, this is best for me.

Thank you for your kind words in the last three years, for your friendship and for your understanding.  Thank you for cheering me up and picking me up.  This is by far, the best online community I have ever been a part of!

I would like to thank everyone who commented on my last blog and those who sent messages of condolences, it really touched my heart and I sincerely hope everyone remembers to live each day as if it were our last.  Life is fragile and oftentimes, very brief.  Enjoy each day my friends!

I have been living in the Twilight zone for the last 2 weeks, so exercise and a healthy diet have had no place in my life.  I set out to exercise 21 days in February and I failed miserably.  I got the idea to grade myself from Anj and my grade was a D+ having completed only 12 workout sessions of a possible 21.  The good news is that I lost a total of 1.8 lbs. this past month.

Two months down, 10 more to go, 10 more opportunities to reach goal OR 44 more weeks to reach goal.

My goal(s) for the month of March are as follows:

• Lose 7 lbs.
• Exercise 24 days (earn 24 stickers)

Plain and simple!

I am back and reporting for duty!

I am turning this baby around in March!

I know God has a plan, but during these times it is almost impossible to fanthom what plan could He possibly have by calling this child away so soon—only He knows.

This is the second loss of one of the babies in our family in the last three years, the shock of losing my little cousin under similar circumstances three years ago has not worn off even as we visit his grave.  Both tragedies incomprehensible!

I am not writing this blog for sympathy because as you all know NOTHING anyone says can lessen the pain of losing a loved one, specially under these circumstances and at such a young age. 

I am writing this blog to remind you that today is the ONLY day which truly matters.  I am sure my nephew, his sister and his parents didn’t think 24 hours ago, that his life would be coming to an end.  Hug your children today because trust me, this morning when my DS was getting ready to go to school it occurred to me that his grades, his unmade bed or his lack of responsibility are a BLESSING at every moment.   Nothing is of any significance when we are faced with the reality that we are all on borrowed time.  Nothing matters when we are faced with the reality that tomorrow may never come.  So hug your children and live today the way God intended—as if today, was your last day on Earth.

I know we often times hear people say “live today like it’s your last,” and we tell ourselves this from time to time.

Maybe, just maybe it takes sacrificing the life of one so young for God to remind us that yes, TODAY is the ONLY day that truly matters!

I don’t know why or how it happened actually, but after writing that blog I realized that I am being too hard on myself.  I realized that I supressed my feelings of disappointment over gaining back so much weight during the Holidays.  Like everything else in life, if you supress something long enough, one day the pressure gets to be so that whatever it is that is bothering you blows up in your face—THAT is exactly what happened to me.  Once it blows up, it’s hard to ignore it.

I don’t know if it’s coincidence, chance or a desire to improve but all that night binging came to a screeching halt.  In the last couple of nights, I have sat infront of the TV to unwind, the first day I had a bowl of ice-cream and STOPPED.  Last night I had a lollypop and that was the end of that!  As a result, the scale has started to move in the right direction and I couldn’t be happier.  It’s not the number on the scale that brings me joy, but feeling in control again.  I feel that I will reach my goal(s) so long as I am commited to myself and to my health.

As I said in my last blog, I need to CHILAX.

I need to slow down and not be so hard on myself.  This week, I planned to workout 5 consecutive days, but I have thought about it and I will continue on my 3 days on/1 day off of exercise.  I will not earn my 21 stickers this month, but that’s OK.  I need to be flexible and I need to continue to put one foot infront of the other.  I am going to concentrate on crossing off most if not all of my daily goals and again, I will be patient with myself.  I am in this for the long haul, binging episodes and bad habits will rear their ugly head once in awhile, but as long as I hold my ground and don’t let them break my spirit and my drive, my commitment, I WILL BE OKAY.

I will reach my goals in 2009—no question!

I don’t feel as if I got a workout but I “exercised” for about 3-1/2 hours, give or take little breaks here and there.  I am leaning towards NOT counting yesterday’s activities as part of a workout, but I am not sure! Indecision is the root of all evil!

Anyway, I re-read yesterday’s blog—what in the world got to me?  It was crazy!! Crazy woman in the house!  Seriously, I know I have been doing some serious self-sabotaging, but for a minute there, I lost my mind.  The idea is to develop life-long healthy habits, no matter how long it takes.  Yes, I want to reach my goal this year, but reading my blog I realize, I need to CHILAX!

I have to catch up on some blogs which I will do later today!  Buddies, have a great week!

I am disgusted with myself.

I have been seriously sabotaging myself lately, more so than usual.  What I have been doing is not even sabotage, but rather something darker and more sinister—I have been purposely binging.  I gorge large amounts of unhealthy foods for no other reason than I WANT to; not because I am hungry, not because I am sad, not because of any legitimate reason.

It doesn’t matter that I go to the gym and workout like a bandit, if I eat more than my share of food for the entire week, in one sitting.  It is shameful and it is disgusting.

Every night I tell myself, “this is the last time I do this,” and with this, I give myself permission to eat, eat and eat some more.  It’s called the “last meal syndrome.” 

I am sick and tired of wanting and trying to lose the same 21 lbs.  It’s been FOUR months and I am ALMOST back to where I was when I first started.  It’s been THREE years and I am no where near close to where I need and want to be!Sure my clothes are smaller because I am exercising but seriously, I am not making real progress. 

I am out of excuses. 

Here’s the bottom line, the ONLY way I can reach my goal(s) is to put in the work, that means following the healthy guidelines and not just shooting for once per month, but EVERY SINGLE DAY!  That means no more night time binging, no more mindless eating, NO MORE EXCUSES.

Buddies, I don’t know about you, but I am tired of telling the same old story over and over again!  I am tired of the ups and downs and ups again!  As cliche as it sounds, I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.  I just want to move on with my life and I don’t want this weight to keep dragging me down.  If I am going to be sad and depressed, I want it to be for more reasons than the size of my pants and the number on the scale!  If I am going to be ashamed of myself, I don’t want it to be because I am fat but because I have done or said something shameful….in other words, I don’t want to feel bad about myself for something as superficial as my weight!

I am rolling up my sleeves and getting to work and I need to start seeing some real results!

It’s a good thing that I am shooting for at least ONE day this month and I still have 16 more opportunities left!  Speaking of opportunities,  we have 46 weeks left to meet our goals for 2009.  I pulled my handy-dandy calculator and for me, it means losing 1.6 lbs. per week for the next 46 weeks to reach goal, so I have to start getting those 100% days in…the more of them I have, the better chances I have at reaching my goal(s).

Good news before I continue—I lost ONE pound this week.  I will take it, thank-you-very-much!!

So yesterday I set out to have my first 100% day and I had everything going for me: I had the umph, the motivation I need to carry me through the day.  I had all the fruits and veggies in the house, the stars were lined up…the only thing I didn’t have, was a PLAN.  I figured I would device a plan as the day went on, except you know, LIFE HAPPENS and without a plan, LIFE HAPPENS too quickly to react appropriately!

I drove one of my son’s schoolmate’s home for the first time yesterday.  Obviously his mom wanted to meet me and so I went to this boy’s house.  Lovely family, a lot of fun—so much fun in fact, that I spent close to 3 hours “meeting” them.  Long story short, by the time I left their home, I was starving!  I didn’t want to drive home because I was afraid that if I did, the comfort of being at home would keep me from going to the gym, so I did the next best thing, I grabbed some fast food.  Of course, I have been craving Church’s chicken for awhile and since we’re trying NOT to eat out, I figured this was my only opportunity—and now you know what happened.  I didn’t go crazy overboard…only had one piece of chicken, but I did wash it down with Pepsi, which I normally don’t drink.  Ahhhhhhhh, it doesn’t end there…you see, I went to the gym immediately after having this greasy, yet delicious meal.

I had ABSOLUTELY no energy, so I did my scheduled workout at a lower intensity.  Normally, I burn 950 calories per hour on the Arc Trainer, but yesterday’s number was 830.  I knew I had to undo at least SOME of the damage I did at lunch, so I did an additional 20 minutes, burning a total of 1,050 calories in 80 minutes.  Don’t clap and don’t pat me on the back, I didn’t do my scheduled abs workout—which is ok because I will do it today.

Here’s the moral of the story—PLAN, PLAN, PLAN!!

We can’t leave anything to chance.  Looking back, I can think of a million and one ways in which my day could’ve turned out better, but sadly, my 100% day was not to be.  I still have 16 more opportunities!

My personal challenge for the day is to eat all my servings of fruits and veggies!

The photo above is a sneak preview of my calendar for the month of February.  So far, I have earned 7 stickers, my goal for the month is 21.   I EARN a sticker for every 60 minutes of exercise I complete and although the idea is simple and the stickers have no monetary value (I got about 300 of them at the dollar store), they have huge motivational value.  Who knew something so simple would be so motivating?   I got the idea from my buddy Anj who atually got the idea from another buddy—so there you go, if there’s any doubt as to the support of the site, the proof is in the picture—the help and support comes full circle.

Now let me explain for a minute what everything on my calendar means:  Thursdays are my weigh-ins, as you can see, last Thursday’s weight was 205.1.  The check marks on my calendar are scheduled workouts which get covered by the stickers once I complete them.  I have two kinds of stickers so far, the round ones are for regular 60 minute workouts, the oval and slightly bigger ones, are for those days, when I had to work extra hard just to get out the door!  We all have those days!

It’s so easy to exercise and eat healthy when we are motivated, but when we’re not, it’s a real struggle and when we DO despite not wanting to, well that’s called a VICTORY!

Victories should be celebrated and honored for what they are—overcoming a legitimate struggle.  With that in mind, I would like to give a big shout-out to our wonderful buddy Anj/Harleygirl for getting up early to exercise today.  The reason why it was specially significant that she got up to exercise today is because she didn’t HAVE TO!  You see, Anj’s daughter wasn’t supposed to be up at her normal time today, which meant that Anj could’ve slept in.  She chose NOT TO and I know it must have been hard for her to choose between a welcoming warm bed, to a cold and ruthless treadmill!  So kudos to our girl and if I could give her a sticker through cyberspace, I would make it a big one! 

Finally the last part of my blog, a Personal Challenge. 

Now that I am feeling confident about my workouts, I want to concentrate on doing the other things that are conductive to weight-loss, like tracking calories, eating fruits and veggies, etc., etc.  I haven’t had a 100% day since Thanksgiving and I am going to shoot for one today…if I do it, great, if not, it’s ok.  My goal is to do as many 100% days as possible (within reason) and keep building momentum from there!  No pressure though, I have to remind myself that this is a lifelong journey, so there’s no hurry!!

Buddies, have a fantabulous day!

I am going to have another late night again, as I haven’t made it to the gym, but I wanted to come in and share my good news with you guys!  Let me share a little secret–ice-skating is no joke.  My class was 30 minutes long, but I got a good workout!  I was sweating from head to toe!! Of course, I am not going to replace ice-skating with one of my workouts, but it would be a nice addition to what I’m already doing at the gym, wouldn’t it?

Buddies if you can, please show some love to an old-timer who has returned–my buddy Tanae who goes by the nickname BabyFat…please give her a warm, buddyslim welcome! 

Ok sticker crew, let’s earn those babies! I’m off to earn my second sticker for the week!