Thick to Fit

Blog post written before I traveled!

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Sorry all! I’ve been on a tear lately. Well, this last week, anyway…

As some of you might know, I’ve been in Freetown, Sierra Leone for the past few months. In the last couple of weeks I had been looking for work in NYC and anticipated on being back mid-June. I threw my resume out there and [thankfully] received positive results quite quickly. After two weeks of going back and forth on the phone (interviewing), I decided it was do or die time, especially with the current job market. So – off I go, back to the concrete jungle; And as usual, RIDICULOUSLY last minute.

Needless to say that my exercise regimen and diet have been SO far gone, it’s quite embarrassing… We all make mistakes, but I won’t make excuses. I’ve been BEAT! Going back to NYC means so much more than just being back in America. I suppose one could look at it like this:

The bad news is: I had to leave before my better half.  I’ll have to wait a few weeks before I can see him again [insert violins playing here!]. Time will fly by, I’m sure of it.

The good news: I can get completely back on track once I arrive in NYC. Healthy eating habits are sometimes hard to keep in third-world countries. Unfortunately, the lack of money calls for cheap ingredients in places like Sierra Leone. What does that mean? It means that I’ve been eating LOADS of white four products, LOADS of fries, LOADS of rice and let’s not forget the palm oil, nut oil, and OIL oil! I swear, first stop when I arrive at JFK: McDonald’s. Fruit & Yogurt Parfait… Here I come! Okay – maybe Starbucks… A “tall skim latte” is calling my name – I can hear it all the way from across the Atlantic Ocean!

The thought of that parfait just made me super hungry… I wish I had a banana.

Anyway, look forward to posts about my Bikram practice, runs in Central Park and the East River and especially… my random ramblings. Isn’t that what blogs are about anyway?

Which reminds me, sometimes, I get tired of “only” talking about health and fitness, I may begin incorporating other things to the blog. Maybe fashion finds, how to tutorials (I promise I won’t do one on wearing body shapers, that’s a little much, even for me!), etcetera. I’ll definitely be doing video blogs… I’m totally looking forward to those.

Actually, I think I may just be looking forward to awesome internet access. Yeah… I think that might be it.
Okay – I’ll stop now. Ciao!

In a world so small, you sometimes think you’ve heard it all… Then, someone bursts your bubble with something that you’ve never heard before and is HOT as hell! I fell in love with this song on my way to the beach yesterday.

Go in for the kill, y’all! Kill those fat cells!

I was taking my workout gear out today and I realized that I just MIGHT be the strangest woman… EVER. Yes, ladies and gentlemen… along with my running tights, sports bra and sneakers, I took out – (insert drum roll here) a BODYSHAPER. POW!

I’m not sure what it is about SPANX that has be soooo addicted to the point where I even wear them when I work out. A part of me believes that when I was here:

I truly needed ALL the [ahem] “support” I could get! From wearing my bodyshapers (which I now realize weren’t exactly the size I needed to be wearing as they didn’t really support me) to wearing two bras because the “girls” were just too heavy to deal with. And now – I feel NAKED without them! I have slowly been trying to wean myself from this second skin on mine, but when the pounds start creeping back up, the Spanx stay on longer and longer.

I really believe I have a good rationale for my bodyshaper wearing habits. Particularly when I work out. You wouldn’t run without a sports bra, would you? Same concept! I embedded that old bodyshaper video blog I did some time back to explain WHY I wear them… and which kind. You were curious!

Sometimes – when I feel like my progress is being stalled, I have to sit and reflect on what I’m doing wrong. Maybe, just maybe that’s been the wrong approach. Maybe – I need to focus on what I’ve done RIGHT!

Today, I went on Facebook and noticed my cousin was beating herself up over a two pound gain – I had to comment and bring her back to reality. The reality is this: She’s freakin’ awesome! She’s gotten on the bandwagon, lost a ton of weight, and has become a true inspiration.

So I thought about it today… I thought about what motivates me most and I realized that nothing, absolutely nothing, motivates me more than to see how far I’ve come. There’s work to be done, but my God, its been 100 pounds. A whole person and THAT is absolutely AMAZING.

To everyone who reads my blog, know this: If THIS girl can do it – YOU can too!

Economic trouble? No worries! You can still get an INSANITY-like workout in the privacy of your own home!

I discovered this youtube gem while in TX last year and I had forgotten all about it! (Whoops!) At first I was a bit skeptical, especially with because of the super hot girls, but after I got past my initial jealousy… I really enjoyed the workouts. I only became a believer after my first workout and taking a peek at the blog site.

Check out these awesome workouts!

OR

You can just pick one from any of these workouts. Don’t forget to subscribe!

I went for a long run this evening… I had the hardest of times on the second leg, but I plugged away. I invited my BF’s little cousin to come on the run with me for two reasons – he was complaining about needing a run and the sun was setting, so I didn’t want to run in the dark… alone.

On that second leg of the run, we were walking briskly next to each other and as I began to complain about my sides hurting and my inability to control my breath, he says these “choice” words to me: “Yeah, you haven’t really been running and you’ve put on weight, which is probably why you’re having a hard time”. My heart sunk.

What? Excuse me? I’ve been busting my ass… kinda. That can’t be.

I contemplated his comments, and before beating myself up, I thought really, really, REALLY hard about why he would say something like that to me.

The fact of the matter is that I’ve been eating TONS of white flour products, not to mention FRIED things ever since I got back to Freetown, but I’ve really been monitoring the amount of calories I’ve been consuming. At least I have since I started INSANITY. I was baffled. But even with my bad diet, I’ve lost an inch and a half off my waist, an inch off my hips and an inch off my neck. I don’t have a scale, so I have no idea what my weight is looking like these days.

I thought long and hard about it and the only conclusion that makes sense to me is the following:

I have the fattest arms in the world, at least it feels like I do, and lately, I really don’t care to be all that covered up around the house. Sleeveless shirts… they’re the devil. The little cousin had never seen me with my arms out, since I ALWAYS cover them up, I asked him if he meant my arms… and he said yes. Proving to me two things: a) I need to continue to conceal my arms and b) I really need to work on my upper body.

This is so disheartening to me, but I’m glad he was honest and blunt enough to tell me the truth. I’ll have to use it as fuel to keep me going.

Shit. **sighs**

I’ve been having such a hard time with motivating myself to get back into workout mode. The last year has been the toughest yet. After my initial 100 pound loss – I felt AMAZING. Maybe TOO amazing. I let myself believe that I could afford to let my “strict” workout routines and calorie budget become LESS strict. BIG MISTAKE. I’ve only fallen back in the trap and I’ve gained 10 pounds in the last year.

For a person like me it should be easy, right? I mean… I lost 100 pounds over the course of 3 years, the bulk of it between 2010 and 2011. So what happened between 2011 and 2012? I don’t get it! Where did the discipline go? I work out, but I have to push myself SOOOO hard to get up and go.

Life has brought me to a place where I just don’t feel motivated. I procrastinate like its nobody’s business. In fact, I don’t even know what I want to do with my life, in terms of career, on most days.

Hard to understand, no? I’m educated. Slightly accomplished. Have a good man beside me and an EXCELLENT support system… So why do I feel so lost? Why do I feel like I have no control over what happens next in my life?

What do I need to do to take it back? How do I take back control? How do I go about getting myself off my ass and getting back into the mindset of having a healthy lifestyle?

It starts HERE. With YOU. I’m my best when I feel like I need to be accountable to someone or something… YOU keep me accountable – whether you know it or not…

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for continuing to see me through this journey.

I started INSANITY back in March and I later on decided that it would be a better idea for me to put it on hold for a few weeks since I wasn’t really feeling like myself.

Since I decided to start the program over again, I did a new Fit Test. Here are the results:

Switch Kicks 90
Power Jacks 46
Power Knees 74
Power Jumps 22
Globe Jumps 9
Suicide Jumps 9
Push Up Jacks 12
Low Plank Oblique 17

Turns out, it was just as hard this time as it was last time – mental preparedness made absolutely no difference in completing the test – but I feel much better a day after…