Tearing down the walls

Well, it happened – I fell off the wagon.

A little back story. When I started on this journey, I began watching a lot of videos on personal development. I came across a man by the name of Brendon Burchard. It was actually through his video that I was introduced to Jim Rohn.

Anyways, Brendon was talking about making a list of your goals. He said to take a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle, and on the left you were to write down your goals. It doesn’t matter how big or small or silly the goal may seem – write it down. Write down the goals you want to accomplish today, this week, this month, this year, and many years from now. Then, on the right side, write down your accomplishments. Everything you have done to bring yourself closer to reaching your goals. Again, write down everything, both big and small. Eventually, your list of accomplishments will be bigger than your goals.

So, I did this very thing. Once I had done this, I noticed things starting to change. It seemed as though everything was aligning to bring me towards my goals. This was a great thing, but it’s also what led to my downfall. There was so much changing in such a short period of time, and I got really stressed out. These changes that I’m facing require a serious mental shift, which terrified me, and that’s where the wall of resistance hit. Everything was so new to me. It’s not something I had ever been through in my life, and I have no idea how to navigate this new territory.

With all of these changes happening I started to develop shortness of breath, which lasted about a week. I remember having the same thing happen when I moved away for college – the doctor said it was caused by stress. While this was happening, my husband and I decided I would stop working out until it passed. Once that had passed, everything spiraled out of control.

I’ll be honest with you, through most of my teenage years – if not all – I suffered through some pretty serious depression. My past has not been pretty, and life has thrown a lot of curve balls my way. Thankfully, I managed to pull myself out of that. Even though I would consider my life to be good at the moment, it’s not without its struggles. This past year has been especially difficult with the immigration process and moving to the United States. It has put a ton of barriers in my way. With all of these new changes on top of that, I got so overwhelmed, and I allowed myself to slip back into that dark hole. That’s not somewhere I want to be again.

So, this morning while I was eating breakfast, I Googled “How to pull yourself out of depression.” I opted for a video. Of course, there were tons to choose from. I decided to follow my gut, and I chose one that stood out to me. It just so happened that particular video, at that particular moment, was exactly what I needed to hear.

I’ve come to the realization that in order to move forward and make progress, I’m going to have to face my past and deal with my underlying issues. I need to let go and heal myself. I’ve decided I’m going to create another blog – an anonymous one – and use that to write about my past. There are many things that have happened to me that I would like a certain level of anonymity around.

This journey is not going to be an easy one – but sometimes the hardest things are the ones worth fighting for. For now, I need to muster up my courage to face my fears. Watch out world – I’m going to come out on the other side swinging.

What’s your motivation?

I’m just going to start off by saying, this week was a little tough. Poor Remi wasn’t feeling well. She started throwing up, and had a rather unpleasant accident the other night while I was sleeping. So, I’ve been making her rice, boiled chicken, a bit of egg and some pumpkin. That seems to be working, thank goodness.

Between not sleeping very well for a couple of nights, and the worry over Remi, when I woke up this morning, quite honestly, I really didn’t want to do my workout. I even had a moment where I said to myself, “Oh, maybe I can just skip this one.” But that was the kind of thinking that got me in trouble before. As soon as I recognized this negative thought, I went through my mental list of all my reasons why I am doing this.

A little back story here … Sometime last week I came across some videos of this incredible man, Jim Rohn. I ended up listening to a 2 hour seminar, in which Jim Rohn was speaking about personal development. He talked about motivation, and finding what your motivation for doing something is. He mentioned that there are a lot of people who may not put as much effort into doing something for themselves, as they would if they were doing it for somebody else.

Up until this point, I didn’t have my motivations set out clearly before me. Jim Rohn inspired me to make a list of all my reasons why I’m going through this journey of eating healthier, and getting fit.

Here it is (in no specific order):

Myself – to maintain my health, and feel better inside and out
For my heart – I was born with a heart condition, and the more active and healthy I am, the better it is for my heart.
My family
Future family – Already being considered a higher risk pregnancy, the more active I am now, the better for when we decide to have children.
Remi, as well as any dogs we have in the future – So I can run and be active with them

So, that’s my motivation, and that’s what got me to do my 30 minute workout this morning. I was actually rewarded with a mobility-based workout, which I really enjoyed. Most of it was doing stretches on the mat. Regardless of what it was, I’m thankful for finding my motivation and sticking it out.

One Week

It was a week ago today that I made a promise to myself, and committed myself to this journey. I’ve decided that I am going to do a weigh in every Sunday morning to see if/what progress I have made towards shedding the pounds. Then, once a month I’ll measure my waist, and check the inches.

(Drum roll) The results are in!

My weight one week ago.

My weight today.

I have dropped 3.5 pounds in the past week. Let me tell you, I was pretty stoked to see that! I’m so happy that my efforts are showing some progress.

Here are some of the changes I’ve made in this past week:

I’ve started eating healthier, and have stopped eating junk food/fast food.
I’ve committed myself to a workout regime, and have completed all of my workouts thus far to the best of my ability.
I’ve been consistently getting up at 6 AM – about 3 hours earlier than I used to.
I’m working on shifting my mentality, and focusing more on the positive side and reaching my goals.
I’ve started drinking more water and green tea (nothing added), as opposed to juice, orange pekoe tea (with sugar and milk), and the occasional pop.
I’ve cut back on snacking. If I do have a snack during the day, I reach for an apple or some veggies and hummus, as opposed to chips or a chocolate bar.

Some things I’ve noticed in the past week:

I feel a lot better. My stomach isn’t all up in knots anymore from eating crap.
My cravings for junk food are diminishing.
I actually really enjoy waking up at 6 AM. I love watching the sun come up. I love the peace and quiet before everybody starts getting on with their day. I also love the fact that I don’t feel like I’m wasting my day away.
I really enjoy the sense of accomplishment I get after a workout, especially when it’s been difficult for me to get through.

Moving on to today’s workout, Core Crunch 2.0.

As I mentioned in my last post, I really need to work on my core strength.

This workout was especially difficult for me to do. I made a point of trying each exercise the way it was originally intended – without modification.

Some of them I had to push myself hard to get through. Some of them, even though I made every effort, I just wasn’t physically able to do without modifying. The rest of them I got part way through before my body would just collapse, and I would have to do the modified version.

However, I gave it my best, I didn’t sit anything out, and I know the strength will come in time.

Next week I only have two workouts. One on Wednesday, one on Saturday, and they are both 30 minutes. I’m not much of a runner, but I love rollerblading. So, I think I might add some of that in as well.

See you on Wednesday!

One down … Many more to go!

I had intended on writing a post yesterday, but I was so busy I never got the chance to. Friday was my first real 30 minute workout, and I’m proud of myself for making a point of getting up early and getting my workout in.

My husband and I were about an hour and a half from home for the majority of the day, and because of this we ended up eating out. Brian got his Wendy’s, but I went into the grocery store that was in the same plaza and picked up a salad (I wasn’t really interested in the ones Wendy’s had on their menu). I’ve been working really hard at eating healthier, and I felt good that I was sticking to that.

Anyways, back to the workout … This one was a full body workout, and it was what Nike calls “Sweat and Shape 2.0”. Man, did it ever deliver! Well, it delivered on the sweat part anyways – the shape I’ll have to be a little more patient for. I found it to be a bit of a tough workout, but I gave it my all. I definitely need to improve my upper body and core strength.

I have to say – I hate burpees. I remember doing burpees several years ago when I was working out consistently, and I hated them back then too. Let’s just say, a lot of colourful language was used.

And never mind the side planks – No matter how hard I tried, I just could not lift myself off the ground. Maybe next time!

Well, I’m going to keep this short. My next workout is tomorrow. This one is only 15 minutes, but is more focused on core strength.

See you then!

Struggles and Humiliation

I was going to wait until Friday to post, after I had completed my first 30 minute workout, but in short … I lied (unintentionally).

I told myself when I started this that I was going to keep an honest account of my journey. This includes my successes, my struggles, and yes, my humiliations.

Let’s start with the struggles.

I’ve decided that I’m not going to go on some fad diet, or starve myself to lose weight. I’m simply going to make better, smarter choices. I don’t need to drop 20-30 pounds in one month and do God knows what to my body in the process. I really just want to not jiggle anymore, but I want to get there in a healthy way. Anyways, I’m saying no to fast food and junk food.

And here’s where part of my struggles lie. I know I haven’t even gotten to my first “real” workout yet, but I have been trying to eat healthier, and in the process have been getting cravings for junk, mainly chocolate bars.

Now let’s take a look at what’s in my pantry.

Favourite chocolate bar: Coffee Crisp.
Favourite chips: Ketchup.

Check and check.

That’s four family size bags of ketchup chips and four 4-packs of coffee crisp.

These are Canadian things, you can’t get these in the US. So, my dad brought me a little stock pile when he came down to visit earlier this month. The sad thing is, there used to be five of each.

Yesterday I almost fell into my usual trap of grabbing a Coffee Crisp or some form of junk when I start to have the munchies. I kind of feel I’m the cookie monster and have been told I can’t have anymore cookies. I’m really hoping this feeling passes, otherwise I’ll have to lock the goodies away and tell my husband to hide the key.

Moving along …

I told you the other day about my love for curly fries, and my husband asking if I wanted Arby’s for dinner. Well, attack of the curly fries strikes again.

My husband calls me on his way home from work (he works weird hours), and it goes a little something like this:

Hey sweetie, do you want me to pick up Arby’s for lunch?

Hesitation. Sigh. No.

Not even a curly fry and nothing else?

No.

Not even a pizza slider and nothing else?

No.

All the while my inner fat girl is screaming YES!

Fast forward an hour later. I’m in the kitchen making hummus (I found this great recipe: https://www.thewholesomedish.com/simple-hummus-without-tahini/). I thought it would be a good thing to put in a wrap with veggies, or to have as a snack instead of junk food, and once again the subject come up:

My husband: What do you want for dinner? Or do you want to just do something easy?

Well, what do you mean by easy?

I know what you want. You want a junior bacon cheeseburger from Wendy’s.

No, I don’t.

We could go to Arby’s.

No.

Maybe later after you finish working on your job we can go to Wendy’s and get a frosty or something.

I don’t really want to.

Needless to say, it’s very difficult trying to stay on the right track, when it seems like everything is trying to push you in the other direction.

Now we get into the humiliation part of things.

When I had gotten dressed yesterday, I decided to wear a shirt that I hadn’t worn in a while. It’s a bit closer fitting, half sleeve.

Later that night, I go to get changed for bed. Normally with that shirt, I have to hold on to the end of one of the sleeves and pull my arm out. Well, I tried that … My arm wouldn’t come out. I mean, it wouldn’t even budge. Not even a little bit.

Okay. Well, let me try to lift it from the bottom. Nope. Nada.

At this time, my husband was in our bedroom, I was in our bathroom. He hears my muttering to myself behind the door, and being the curious man he is, he asks what’s wrong.

I can’t get my shirt off!

Ha ha … No, seriously?

Seriously, I can’t get my shirt off. I need you to help me get my shirt off.

What? Seriously?

Yes, seriously.

So, after demonstrating how I couldn’t get my shirt off, I had to lift my arms up and have my husband take it off for me.

I’ve never had any issues with this shirt before, but as I said, it’s been a while since I’ve worn it. Not only have I put weight in my belly, and my thighs, but my arms have also gained some fat.

Although I was embarrassed, I was also very happy that I had turned down fast food, and gained validation that this journey I’m on is the best thing for me. I’m sure there will be many more obstacles down the road, but I’m going to take it one day at a time.

See you next time!

And so it begins…

I dragged myself out of bed at 6:00 this morning, even though all I wanted to do was press the snooze, curl up in my comfy bed and go back to sleep. On top of that, my puppy – I call her my puppy, but really in the doggy world she’s a senior citizen – decided to come up and snuggle with me.

This is my girl, Remi –>

How could you say no to that adorable face?

So, we had a couple minutes of snuggle time, but then I told myself, “No. Nothing’s going to change if I don’t change it,” and managed to pull myself out of bed.

I’ve decided that I’m going to get up early in the morning and do my workouts, as opposed to doing them in the afternoon/evening. I’ve found that this is also one of the reasons why I got stuck in my rut of procrastination. I would hold off on doing my workout until later in the day, but by that point I was either busy or too tired and never ended up doing it.

So, after taking Remi for a walk, I dug in. The start up benchmark says that it takes an average of 6 minutes to complete. I did it in just under 9 … I don’t think that’s too bad.

Overall, the exercises themselves were fairly easy to do. It was a combination of modified push ups, jumping jacks, squats, and lunges. It told me how many reps of each to do, ranging from 10-20. Then I just marked each one off as I completed it, and repeated the whole drill 3 times.

Even though it was pretty easy, I gave it 100%, and my legs did start to feel like jello near the end (never mind the fact that I think my thighs already have a certain jello like quality). The push ups were the one spot I had some difficulty with, but I imagine this will improve with time.

One thing I have yet to figure out is how I’m supposed to eat around my workout. If I’m exercising first thing in the morning, do I eat breakfast before or after? And what kinds of things should I be eating? If anyone has any experience/knowledge about this, please share!

At least I have a few days to figure it out before Nike completely whoops my ass. Friday is my first “real” 30 minute workout. I’m very much ~~not~~ looking forward to that. But I made myself a promise, and I’m going to do everything in my power to stick to it.

See you Friday!

The beginning: Where procrastination comes to die.

Hi, and welcome to my first ever blog post! I decided to create this blog to share my fitness journey, and basically to have something to hold myself accountable to.

This is kind of how I feel when it comes to exercising:

Yeah. I’d pretty much rather be doing anything but.

So, I guess I’ll start off by telling you a little bit about myself, my fitness goals, and how I got to this point.

My name is Holly Love. I am 30 years old. I am 5’5″ and at the present moment I weigh 156 lbs. Which, according to the BMI calculator puts me just inside of the “overweight” threshold.

Now, it wasn’t always this way. Just a little over a year ago I weighed 125 lbs. I had been in the 140s for quite a while, but had worked hard and lost 15-20 lbs. I went through some rough years, and stopped exercising, but I worked in a job that constantly kept me moving and active for 8+ hours a day. So, i managed to maintain that weight.

In July of 2014, I met my now husband. I am Canadian born, my husband is American. He was working in Canada on a work permit. We met on match.com, and hit it off right away. He eventually lost his job and had to move back to the United States, and we continued our relationship long distance. When he proposed, we decided that I would move to the United States.

Long story short, I moved to the US in June of 2017, and we got married shortly after. This transition was a lot harder on me than I had ever anticipated. I got home sick, and had a lot of down days. I wasn’t able to work for 8 months (I had to wait for papers to come through) and I wasn’t able to import my car. So basically, I was stuck at home in a place where I didn’t know anybody except for my husband.

I’ve been living in the US for just over a year now, and in that year I have gained 30 pounds. I used to wear a size 5 in jeans (US 6), and now I’m wearing a size 10. I’ve gone up 2 sizes in just the span of a year, and I’m worried if I don’t do something about it now then the scale will just keep creeping up.

I know that just by looking at me, I’m not what a lot of people would consider “fat”. This is more about the way I feel in my body. I’m just not comfortable in it anymore. I look at myself, and quite honestly, I hate what I see. Not to mention, I just feel yucky. I feel like my stomach’s all up in knots most of the time. I guess that’s what eating junk and lack of exercise will do.

This might be a little TMI, but it’s gotten to the point that when I sit down I have a major muffin top going on, and I can feel this fat roll forming. If I look at my stomach after I’ve been sitting down, I can see a red line across my stomach from my pooch. It’s like I have a kangaroo pouch that i stuffed full of cookies (and bread, and ice cream).

I’ve tried a couple times over this past year to get back into exercising – I have an app on my phone called Nike Training Club (NTC), which I used before and found to be very effective – but it seems like I always do one or two days, and then I keep pushing it off saying I’ll do it tomorrow. So, I’m hoping that by making this public and putting it out there, that I will have something to hold myself accountable to.

I’m going to start looking for some healthier recipes, instead of eating pasta all the time. Kind of stinks, ’cause I love pasta! My husband asked me if I wanted Arby’s for dinner tonight, and I rather unwillingly turned it down. Curly fries are my weakness. 😦 But nobody lost 30 pounds eating curly fries and mac and cheese.

So, I sit here on day one, having just finished my salad and yogurt for lunch, and rather grudgingly set up a fitness plan on my NTC app. I’ve decided to ease into it slowly, and do 2-3 workouts a week. I know if I go full out right away, I’m probably not going to want to continue with it, especially since I know how much it’s going to kick my butt!

It has me starting tomorrow with the Start Up Benchmark. This is just a short work out to gauge where I’m at physically, so the app can tailor the plan to work most effectively for me. Then I have three days of recovery, Friday is Endurance, another recovery day, and Strength on Sunday.

Wish me luck!

The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

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