Smashing IT!!

I have been seeing Sarah about 3 times a week and each day she pushes me little harder.  My body is sore but I know what I am doing is working.  She is showing me the correct way, or more beneficial way to workout and get results.  I am only weighing in with Sarah one day a week!  This week it will be Thursday.  I am really hoping for a good solid loss.  I feel like I did really good this week and I just hope the scale reflects that.  I know it is not all about the number on the scale but it sure does help when that number goes DOWN! 

  
 The other day we had a session and my butt cheeks hurt so bad the next day.  I was seriously walking around holding on to my butt.  However I did like the fact that my jiggle bum was feeling the burn.  Today was serious.  We did a smash up today.  This circuit included: steps with weights for 2 mins per leg, squats with weights, a side lunge thingy with weights, the row machine (400 meters in uner 2 minutes), press machine, and ending with squats while passing a weighted ball for 2 minutes.  One round of all this was one circuit.  We did this (I think it was) 3 times.  Than we followed up with sets of crunches and leg lifts. Finally the stretching came!  I was sweating like a CRAZY today.  I asked her if it was normal to sweat as much as I was and luckily it is!  Sweating helps get the toxins out which is AWESOME! 
   

Looking back...

Sometimes I feel it is important to look back, not for too long, but to look back to where u came from or this case where I started.  When I started this blog I was at my heaviest and hardest time with my weight.  I was literally tipping the scales at 289 LBS.

This picture was taken shortly after I arrived in Alaska, where this journey began..

And now here I am, January 4th 2013

 That is so crazy to me to think I let myself get to that point.  Here I am today still blogging about the hardships and the happy times of this journey.  I went to my 3rd session with Sarah and we checked my weight again.  I am happy to report another kilo (2.2 LBS) down which brings to me 209 LBS (95 kg).  Here is the time I have to look back and say what the hell?  I have lost 80 lbs (36.3 kg) since I started.  WOW!  80 LBS that is literally another person, small person but still a person.  My drive is only getting stronger now.  20 more pounds I will have lost 100 LBS!  I am very much looking forward to that day I step on the scale and I realize I had lost 100 frickin' pounds.  I know it is still going to be hard and I am going to have to work like hell to get there but I KNOW I can do it!  People keeping asking me what my goal weight is, but honestly I don't know. Just throwing a number out there and hoping that, that amount weight looks good on you or saying at such and such weight I will be healthy is very unrealistic to me.  However I am a person who needs to know what I am going for (well as far as this instance anyway).  So I am going to say somewhere between 165 lbs. and 175 lbs.  I am sure these numbers will change as I get closer but just a point of reference to where I am heading. 

Personal Trainer session 2...

I had my second visit with Sarah today.  We started off with taking some photos to be my "before" photos.  I was in my workout pants and a sports bra.  We took the pictures in the bathroom at the gym.  I am currently debating if I want to post these pictures.  It is important to lay it all out there and maybe if I do post them it will help encourage me to keep going.  However nudity is not a problem with me.  For those of you who actually know me know I am very comfortable naked :) OK, so it has been about a week since I wrote this post and was unable to publish it.  During this time I decided I was going to post some of my "before" pictures we took at the gym. 

Anyway on with the training time.  She had me doing more lunges and this time my legs were shaky and felt like jello.  When I told Sarah that she said that is normal and that is what you want to feel.  So go me, at least I was doing them right! She worked my legs a lot today actually.  Then we went over to this one machine that works your back and I felt pretty good on that one.  We stood back to back and passed a ball weighing between 3-5 kg back and forth to each other and then back to the machine.  We did a circuit a few times.  Lets just say I was really sweating and feeling it today.   My next session is on Monday at 1PM, I am very much looking forward to it!

POSTS

I have 2 posts waiting to be published.  For some reason I can not upload pictures again today or yesterday.  As soon as I can upload the pictures I will publish these posts.  Until then I will keep writing them as the news keeps happening.  Hope you stick with me..

Personal trainer

Today I had my first visit with my personal trainer, Sarah.

 She took my weight which is 96.1 kg (211.8 lbs) I was actually very happy about that even though the loss I have experienced has not been healthy.  It is due to working way too many hours, not eating and it being so damn hot and I work in a kitchen, I am sweating my weight away.  She also took measurements of my thighs, chest, hips and stomach.  I don't really know all these numbers right now.  I roughly looked at the sheet as she was filling it out but sadly I didn't note it myself.  I will find out and post them when I can.  This way we can track my loss all the way around.  I am super excited about that because I know the number on the scale is not everything.  What was really embarrassing was when she tried to take my blood pressure (Normally my BP is great) but the cuff barely fit on my flabby arm and we could not get a good reading.  What a slap in the face huh?  We are going to try again in a few weeks.  Hopefully my arms will start to get toned enough for the cuff to fit.  After all that she had me doing some lunges, push-ups, planks, and messed around with the big ball.  She also had me on the roe machine.  I have to say I actually really like the roe machine.  I did 407 meters (roughly a quarter of a mile) in 2 minutes.  Originally she said lets do 300 meters in 2 minutes and I smashed the 300 way early so she said go to 350 and I smashed that and then she changed it to 400 all in the same 2 minutes.  I nailed it!  Go ME! I think I will be using that machine a lot more when I go on my own.  I feel like I did the lunges ok until she gave a 5 kg (11 lbs) disk to hold above my head doing lunges and she was pushing me, I had to hold my balance and not drop the weight.  I didn't drop the weight but I did struggle a bit with the balance part when she was pushing me around.  My next training with her is on Thursday at noon.  I am looking forward to the next visit because she said next time she is going to push me harder.  On another positive side she said I actually surprised her with some of the assessment.  Since I have never had a trainer before.  We have a lot of work to do on my core.  I guess I didnt' stick with yoga enough in Portland hahaha!  Today was a good workout day for me and it really opened my eyes.  I am more ready now than I have ever been.  It is happening my friends I am finally going to be a smaller version of my self and a healthier one at that! 

Here we go...

     It is starting, I finally got my key card fully activated for the gym.

 Today I bought a workout outfit

 and before Christmas I bought new kicks for working out.  I got to talk to the gym manager, she is the one that helped me back in October.  She is bad ass and she said she is going to KICK my ASS!

Michelle (the gym manager) and me!

 Yes please, I am in NEED of a good ass kickin'.  I haven't seen her since October when I joined originally and she said she could tell I have lost some weight since then.  GO me!!  I got a personal trainer too.  I start with her tomorrow at 11 am.  She said she was really going to kick my ass.  She is a results driven person and she wants results!  I think I am in for  it for real!  This is the year for change!  I am changing all over the place.  Tomorrow we will start with a physical, checking my current weight, getting measurements and all that jazz.  This way we can really track my progress.  I am super excited and I can't wait to start losing weight and toning my body.  Her goal is to turn my body into a fat burning machine, even when I am sleeping!  My response to that is YES PLEASE!  I believe 100% this time I will achieve my goals! 

Over a year....WHAT!!

      I can not believe I have neglected this blog for over a year!  I guess life and priorities get in the way.  Tonight I got on blogger to check my sisters blog and after reading her updates I switched over to my blogs and realized that I had not updated either one a very long time, but this one I really let go.  I know there has got to be an underlining reason like, I have really gotten off track and let my weight take over my life again and I was just down right ashamed that, in the going on 2.5 years with this blog that I could not meet a goal.  A goal that I had such a drive for. What happened?  Why could I not do it?  Why was this something that I failed at? 

This picture was taken a few days before I left Portland, Me and Mitchell at my going away party.

     The time has come, things WILL be different, things WILL change! I knew this would be an on going life battle for me.  I moved from Portland, OR to Sydney, Australia, graduated from culinary school

Last day of class, about to head to our externships

The day I arrived in Sydney Australia!

and now I am working as a "pastry chef".  Life is still busy.  Stuff is still going on to cause excuses, but excuses no more.  I am taking control once again and I will reach my goals this time.  I have a lot of driving force this go around.  First and foremost I want to be HEALTHY, secondly my grandma Koehn is turning 90 in September and wants to skydive.  I so badly want to jump out of a plane with her.  Now this is where my cheap side kicks in, if your over 200 lbs you have to pay more to jump.  Thirdly I bought myself a Christmas present this year, since I was alone for Christmas, I bought a 3 day Scuba Diving voucher to learn to scuba dive and become a certified diver up to 18 meters ( which is about 59 feet).  Fourthly I want to travel the world and bigger clothes weigh more which in turn makes my suit case heavier which equals more money for luggage and/or more bags (again with the cheap side kicking in).  I have many reasons this time and yes some sadly are probably superficial.
     Back in October I joined a gym here in Sydney.

  Well, the job I had the hours picked up so much I only went the first 3 days.  I was working 80 plus hours every week and getting really drained and unable to make it to the gym.  Since then I have switched jobs working less in hopes of getting to the gym at least 4 times a week.  Working as a Chef and being friends with Chefs I have found that drinking is very common after work.  We all were going out almost every night to have a beer, but it was never just one or two beers, it was beer and tequila for a few hours after working 14-15 hour day.

 Months of this behavior I realized something had to change, I did not want that to be my life.  Like most people I knew I could not make that change during the holidays so I of course I waited to after the first of the year.  However about 2 weeks ago I started going to back to the gym and when I joined the first time I checked my weight and I was 114kg (which is about 251 lbs).  If you have been following this blog you know I started this journey at 289 lbs.  I lost a crap ton of weight and then put a lot of it back on while in Portland.  So when I went back I checked my weight again and I weighed 98.7 kg (about 217 lbs).  HELLO!!  Do you see what that means? Since being in Australia I lost  15.3 kg ( 34 lbs!)!!  WHAT WHAT!!  That was the extra push I needed.  My original goal was to get to at least 199 lbs and now my friends that goal is only 18 lbs away! I plan to lose more than that but what was once my long term goal has now become my short term goal. What feeling!
This next picture is the most recent picture taken today...

Here I go, ready to take on my challenges and achieve my goals...hopefully you will follow me.