Eight Weeks

Hello there.  I am at work and tired as usual.  I am still a really terrible sleeper for the most part.  It either takes me a long time to fall asleep, I wake up earlier than my alarm or I don't get into a deep REM sleep.  Whichever is happening on any given night means I'm a zombie at work and it really sucks.  Monday, was awful.  I was tired all day and then had class from 7-9:55pm.  I must have slept a little better Monday night because Tuesday I felt human, but today I'm back to zombie status and I have to do cardio at the gym after work.  Sigh.

I finished my 8 week program at the end of February.  For the first 6 1/2  weeks there was not a single ounce of progress.  That was so hard.  Sore body and aching knees every day, not a single work out missed, only 1 cheat meal and nothing.  My parents started walking 10k miles a day in January and had both lost weight by the time I saw them mid February and I had gotten nowhere.  It wasn't until the last week and a half that I finally saw the scale go down.  I lost 3 lbs.  I am now the same weight I was before I gained those three pounds in November/December, but my body looks much better.  Between my bust, waist and hips I lost about 4 inches.  My body fat percentage went down a tad as well.  I am the same weight I was exactly 1 year ago, which is rough but I am happy about the physical changes.  My muffin top area slimmed down, my booty area side profile slimmed down also.  The little saddle bag part of my hips slimmed down and my thighs don't feel quite so large.  The program included 5 days a week of workouts.  Mostly weightlifting, but a good number of cardio, leg, and arm circuits mixed in.  Some core, but very little concentrated ab work.  Weight lifting day in day out is very boring for me and the exercises were so complex that I had to google all of my workouts before hand and refer to my phone during workouts.  Some of her exercises had you jumping from machine to machine for supersets which isn't reasonable in a busy gym.  My gym started shutting down this one area for classes which really annoyed the hell out of me because these classes were extra on top of gym memberships.   The gym only has one class room plus a cycle room, and I didn't think it was fair to cut into everyone else's space like that.   I stuck with it for the first 4 weeks but after that I just couldn't do it anymore.  I was exhausted by the complicated workouts, bored with lifting and felt I wasn't getting much out of it.  Plus, my arms are plenty toned and bulked enough.  After that, I stuck with the circuits.  I repeated some here and there and added in other circuits to keep up 5 days a week.  Her circuits were really, really hard.  Even harder and longer than Bikini Body Guide 1.0.  It took me 45-60 minutes to finish each one and now I have an awesome resource of 24 extra circuits to keep using.  It was a rough 8 weeks, but I'm so glad I stuck with it.

I thought about taking a slight break, but I am not where I need to be so I am now in week 2 of BBG 2.0.  I really liked having nutritional support so I have signed up for another 4 weeks of macro support with someone else.  The first girl was really nice and encouraging.  I expressed frustration at lack of weight loss and she told me she could see the changes in my pics.  Keep going and my body would respond eventually.  She put me on macros that ended up being about 1,500 calories and I was rarely hungry.  I was hoping that by the end, my food would increase.  I saw a few of her other girls say they were eating 2,000 calories a day, but since I was barely loosing weight I guess that wasn't going to work for me.  I was too scared to have a cheat meal so I only did that once.  I'm only in my first week of these new macros and I'm a little nervous about it because I heard that typically you don't ever need more than1 gram of protein per lb of body weight and I'm at 155.  I'm still at 1,500 calories, but the protein is so high that I have to do a protein shake just to get it all in.  The fat and carbs went down and I'm already feeling hungry on it.  She recommends 1 cheat meal and 1 cheat dessert a week and I think I'm definitely going to need to have it.  155 carbs is low for me and I think that's why I'm peeing a lot. It isn't technically low carb.  It's moderate carbs, but I don't want low carb because that would not be sustainable for me.  I would worry about only losing water weight and gaining it all back once I go off.  I got nervous because during bbg week 1, I gained a pound I had lost, but as of today it went away again.  It takes so much effort for me to lose any weight that I am really nervous about gaining any of it back.  I prep all of my lunches and dinners for the entire week on the weekend.  They are pre portioned out into individual containers so that all I have to do is grab it and go.  This is a HUGE help, because between work and working out I don't have time to cook during the week.  My husband is also doing a focused meal plan and between the two of us we spent about $500 bucks per month in groceries in January and February.  I am forcing him to shop at Walmart now even though he claims to hate it because the prices are so much better.  I am eating about 5 lbs of chicken a week.  When we are both eating like this, who cares if the store gets on your nerves.  We need to save money.

I cannot tell you what a thrill it was to actually lose some weight.  This is literally the first time in two years this has happened.  Two years!!  It was only 3 lbs and I have technically made no scale progress, because it was the 3 lbs I gained at the end of last year, but it's something that I have not been able to do for a long time.  I worry that I won't be able to lose any more or that I will gain it right back.  I feel that my body is probably about where I was at after bbg last year.  The difference is that last time I kind of gave up after that, but this time I'm not.  I didn't give up, but I was exhausted by the structure of a strict exercise program and I cut back.  Last year I believed that if I didn't get the results I wanted in 12 weeks it was basically hopeless without considering that maybe it will take me longer than that.  Maybe it will take me double that.  Maybe it will take me all year.  Maybe I was too impatient.  Maybe this is how long it takes me to lose weight when I don't starve myself.

I go to Hawaii in October and I plan to keep at it until then.  My first mini goal for more progress is June when I am supposed to go to Vegas with the girls.  The Vegas trip may or may not happen.  We'll see if people start flaking or whatnot, but no matter what I will be going hard until then.  I can't even put a number on it because weight loss does not come easy for me, but I would seriously hope I have lost 10 lbs.  That would be AMAZING.  12 weeks of BBG takes me to the end of May just in time for bikini season.  I'll be doing 3-4 circuits per week plus 1-2 days of cardio.  Five days a week total.  After that, I will reassess and decide how to proceed from there.

More updates later.