March 4, 2015 - Revisited

I worked out! Yay! It was torture, and to be honest I skipped one of the videos. I really am not up for the 100 Burpee Burnout. That sounds like too much torture.

As promised, here is my sweaty pic:

That's 21 minutes of HIIT torture right there. And, even though I skipped one workout, I still had to do burpees. I hate those so much. Especially single-legged ones.

Good news, I feel so much better and happier and ready to kick my homework in the face!

I wish I had saved the Snapchat I took to send to my boyfriend because there was a bead of sweat right on my eyelid. It was gross, but kind of proved how hard I worked. However, you can still see me glistening here.

Well, I'm off to take a shower, settle into my sweats, and tackle my homework.

As a side note, I made my own logo/signature or whatever so I can just sign it here at the end of every post. I'm pretty excited.

Well, here I go!

March 4, 2015

So far, I have not missed a day of working out. It's still very hard for me to get up in the morning, especially Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Tuesdays are one of my busiest days -- my day on campus begins at 10 am and doesn't end until 5:30 pm. I usually stretch those days. It relaxes me and I feel like at least I've done something to reach my goal of becoming healthier.

I don't like getting up on Wednesdays because my day on campus doesn't begin until noon. It's very hard to get motivated when nothing starts at noon. However, I have things planned, like exercising and getting some homework done before I have to head to campus. That usually never happens, but I'm still working on it.

I haven't worked out today, but I plan to after class. I'll post after so that I can have something to make me commit to working out later today.

As promised, here is my monthly progress picture. I really don't want to post it, but I know I should. Having it here, staring at me, will hopefully get me in the groove to get back on track.

Here I am. I am not fond of this at all, but looking at it does make me want to go exercise right now. I know I am not fat, but I am not comfortable in my body, and I feel like that's one of the most important things about being a person. I want to look in the mirror and like what I see.

This is all the weight I've gained since I started graduate school. It's take a tole on me. So much so that two pairs of jeans I brought down with me don't even fit anymore. My goal is to be able to fit into those jeans. I don't have a specific time, but I know it takes about 12 weeks for the world to start noticing your body change. So, by April, I should be looking good. We'll see, I suppose.

Alright, I am going to drink the rest of my tea and get ready to go to campus. I'll post a sweaty picture of my workout later today.

Here I go!

March 1, 2015

This is the first day of my turn around. I worked out and it felt amazing. It hurt like a bitch, but felt so great.

My goal was to start up running again, but the weather had other plans. Snow for days! Very cold and I don't want to slip and hurt myself while running up and down all those hills here. So, I decided to give Blogilates another go.

This morning's workout focused on the butt, so I'm going to be very sore there later. I was sweating almost immediately and now I feel refreshed and ready to take on the day.

I'm starting to plan out my meals for the remainder of the week. I have a bunch of eggs that I'm going to hard boil and eat as part of my breakfast for the week. I feel very hopeful that this will work. I even made a weekly meal planner that I stuck on my fridge and I can use it to plan out my meals and hopefully will remind me to stay on track.

I still am very stressed and depressed, and I know that won't go away anytime soon, but I feel like I'm getting better and on the right path to where I want and need to be.

I'm going to outline my goals for this blog:

• Every month I will post a progress picture
• I may share some great recipes that I've found
• I plan on detailing my feelings of the moment and how my workout went every day
• I hope to blog every day, but if I don't, then I'm not going to get stressed about it

Sometime either today or later in the week, I'll post a progress picture. I don't want to, but I know that having it up here will help motivate me to continue working out.

I just need to eat well, get as much sleep as I can, not stress as much, and exercise. Easy, right?

Here I go!

Kelly-Rae

Trying to get back into this

It has been a very long time since I posted last.

I'm in graduate school, pursuing my master's in English, and I am busier and more stressed than ever. I have gained a lot of weight and I am not happy at all with my body. While this was going, I was doing great. I was running and exercising every day. Now, I find it very hard to get up in the morning because of all the work I have to do.

I don't really know how to get back into working out. I want to pick up running again and I want to work out every single day like I used to. One of my biggest issues is hunger. I am hungry all the damn time. It doesn't matter what I eat or how much of it, I am hungry very soon after. I've started taking an appetite suppressant, and that has helped a little, but not enough. I'm getting to the point where I really dislike food. I dislike eating. I've never been this way. I've always loved food and I've always enjoyed eating, but now that I am so busy and tired, I don't want to eat. It feel it takes away from precious homework time. I know that eating is very important to living a healthy lifestyle, but what happens when everything you eat doesn't work? What about then? I don't know what to do and I don't know how to handle it.

Another issue I have is fatigue. I wake up in the morning feeling just as tired as when I went to bed and I'm tired for most of the day. I don't want to do homework or lesson plan or clean or exercise because I just want to sleep. All day. Every day. For maybe the rest of my life. I know that depression runs in my family, and I've been depressed before, so I know that I am most likely depressed. I am far from home and my roommate, who was the best roommate I've ever had, moved out recently due to some life changes and I'm now living alone. It's new and different, and I kind of like it, however I'm lonely. I don't get out much because of my busy lifestyle and I know I'll feel guilty if I go out without all my homework being done. I don't have anyone to vent to who will really understand what I'm going through. That's what was nice in having a roommate who was a graduate student. Now, I come home to a messy apartment that I am too lazy to clean and nothing else. It doesn't give me much to feel motivated about.

I am stressed all the time. I am stressed about homework, about my teaching, about the fact I feel like I haven't made very many close friends, about being in a long distance relationship, about gaining weight, about being hungry all the time, about my messy apartment, about not accomplishing anything, about distancing myself from God, about my jeans not fitting. And probably a lot more. I don't know how to handle this stress. It overwhelms me just about every day and I find myself bursting into tears maybe every other day. I haven't found a church here because it's very hard to find one when you're so busy. I would like to say that's an excuse, but I fear that it's not. I should post what my week looks like on average sometime.

I hope that by turning back to this blog I will find some of my old motivation and get back on track. I don't know. Nothing so far has helped. It's very, very difficult and I honestly feel like I have no one to turn to. I know that my family will not understand and will just say that grad school is supposed to push you, or something like that. My friends who aren't in grad school will be sympathetic and caring and encouraging, but for some reason, that doesn't help me. And, now that I live on my own, I don't have that one person who I can vent to and who can help me through this. I didn't realize how much I relied on those interactions until now. And, yes, I have made friends here, but we're all so busy and I am so introverted that I don't actually want to go out to a bar to hang out. I want to say in in my PJs, maybe some wine, and some good food. I want to be able to vent to someone.

So, tomorrow, I am going to post my workout. I am going to post every workout until I get back on track and then some. I think I really need this to help me from spiraling down. I mean, really, what can it hurt?

Here I go!
Kelly-Rae

December.

I have not posted in a long time. I've been a busy, busy girl, with work and getting grad stuff together, I've barely had time to workout or post. Well, I have been working out. Not as much as I would like, but I'm still moving. What is the most difficult for me is my work schedule. I don't have a set one and it's so hard to stay on track when I have to wake up at different hours every morning. My house also appears to not be made to workout in. There are hardly any large spaces where I can roll out a yoga mat and get my Pilates on. I make it work though. As of now, we are redoing our dining room floor, so junk is scattered everywhere and the kitchen counter is taken over. There is also the problem of eating healthy. My dad claims he wants to eat healthy and lose weight, but he does nothing to get there. He munches on chips and ice cream. When I want to make something healthy, sometimes the food is already gone because he ate it already. I know these are excuses and obstacles I must get over and I know I have to suck it up and do it. But, the process is hard and I am tired. I am just plain tired. Not tired enough to give up, but tired enough that I wake up late and don't workout and say I'll get to it after work and I never do. I hate playing catch up. It's my least favorite thing. I hope by the end of this week, I'll be caught up with my workouts and I can start fresh on Sunday.

Winter always gets me down. All I want to do is read and wear sweats every day. No work. No workouts. Just me and my book. This is the problem of not being a natural athelete. Maybe I'm wrong in saying this, but some people are more active than others because they are born that way. I was not. I've discussed this. I'm not an athlete. I do not like playing sports. I like running and I like Pilates. But, I don't think that makes me a runner. I have a hard time living this active lifestyle. Part of it is because it's new to me and the other part is because of my living situation. If I lived alone, I could haut get it done without worrying about space and my noise level. I could workout when I got home because I wouldn't be anticipating hanging out with my family. Again, these are excuses. I know. But, I think by voicing them, I am letting myself know what I need to get over and what I need to do to just do it.

I know I'll never regret a workout. I always feel great after and I love that adrenaline rush. Even though I can't see a difference right away, I always feel thinner after a good workout. There are so many positive things to working out, but I feel like the negatives are just weighing me down.

Something else bothers me. A coworker told me I didn't need to workout because I am already so thin. This made me kind of mad because she doesn't know how I feel when I wear a swimsuit or when I sit down and I can feel my stomach bulge a bit over my pants. True, I may be thin. I may not look like I need to workout, but that doesn't matter. What matters is my own personal fitness journey and I really dislike when others put me or anyone else down for trying to be fit and healthy. If someone says they are working out, congratulate them. Tell them to keep moving. Keep pushing. Don't say they are so thin anyway, don't work out. That's not fair. There are so many reasons why people workout. To get fit, to stay fit, to lose weight, maintain weight, because they want to, because it makes them feel invincible. Let them feel invincible. We all need to feel that sometimes. 

In an effort to post more, I will not say how much I miss running. I'll leave that for tomorrow. 

Here we go!

Kelly-Rae

P.S. Here is a fairly recent before and after pic. :D

Running in the Rain

Motivational Quote: "That some achieve great success, is proof that others can achieve it as well." - Abraham Lincoln

Run Time: 21:00

Distance: 2.05

Average min/mi: 10:15

Calories Burned: 204

~~~

If you know me well, then you know how much I hate running in the rain. Snow, fine. Wind, fine. Rain, no way. However, I had no idea it was raining this morning, so by some kind of miracle, I actually ran in the rain. It wasn't terrible, but it was also windy. That was fun. I enjoy running in the cold far more than in the heat. I feel I have more motivation to run. If I stop, I freeze or I'm just uncomfortable and my legs are cold. Cooler weather makes me move faster while running and I think (or feel) that I run harder in the cold. 

Nothing much has changed since my last post. I'm still running and doing Pilates. My work is still kind of boring and not something that I want to do for the rest of my life. I think this retail job is good for me. It motivates me more to be active about applying to grad school. I know for a fact that I don't want to stay there forever. Good thing my coworkers are nice, at least. 

Tomorrow is my birthday party and I can't wait. I'm going to the corn maze with some friends. It's going to be a lot of fun. On my actual birthday, I'm having a family dinner and will probably just hang out with my family. September has been good to me this year. 

Here we go!

Kelly-Rae 

September update!

September Progress Report

Motivational Quote: "Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever." - Keri Russell

Run Time: 21:00

Distance: 1.98 mi.

Average min/mi: 10:37

Calories Burned: 194

~~~

Wow.  It's been a while since I posted last.  I can't remember if I mentioned this in my last blog post, but I have a job.  I'm a sales associate at Bed, Bath & Beyond.  Yes, you guessed it, it's my dream job.  Love it.  But really, I'd rather be back in school than working in retail, however I am very thankful to have something that will help pay off my student loans and help me save for graduate school.

Another reason I haven't posted in about a month, aside from working almost 30 plus hours a week, is that my internet is being a little dumb and has decided to not work from time to time.  That, and I'm crazy tired almost all the time.

Before my run this morning

That being said, I have been trying very hard to keep up with working out.  I just came back from a 20 minute run and even though I haven't had the time to run in the mornings for about a week, I fell into it very quickly.  I was very happy about that.

Cassey Ho, creator of POPilates and Blogilates.com, came out with an iPhone app that has some amazing features.  I downloaded it, mostly because I needed some motivation to keep working out, and I wanted to see how the app was designed.  The whole layout is great.  There's a place where she has the calendar with all the workouts for that day; there's a forum where people can connect with other POPsters; there's a recipe list.  Super great and super helpful.  I use it almost every day.

Action shot!

The problem that I've been running into lately is my work schedule.  I, as some of you may know, love to workout in the morning.  I hate evening workouts because I'm already burned out from the day and I just want to sleep.  In the morning, I'm so tired that my brain and my body are not in sync and therefore, I can get up and go.  I've been going to work at 7 am most mornings.  This means that if I wanted to get in my hour and half exercise, I'd have to wake up around 3 or 4 am.  I decided to try working out after work, and I think that only succeeded one time.  I may just have to force myself to go to bed early and wake up earlier than normal to get in those workouts.  I don't want to, but I'm tired of not feeling great after a workout.

Sweaty Pic

Aside from all that, I believe I'm doing a great job at keeping up with working out.  I have also been eating better.  We finally went grocery shopping and most of the food was what I wanted.  We're gonna need to go again soon, but at least I know what I need and want.  The only problem I have with eating clean is my living situation.  I seem to come from a somewhat lazy family.  I don't want that to be taken the wrong way -- my parents work very hard and I know that when they come home, they want to relax.  I get that.  But, what I'm trying to say by lazy, is that they don't put effort into their food.  Many times I've come home and someone has popped in a pizza.  Pizza's great.  I love pizza.  But not every day.  There is also a problem with constant munching.  I've gotten a lot better with it.  If I feel the need to munch, I either drink a bunch of water or I eat an apple.  I never knew how yummy apples were until I was craving ice cream and used that as a substitute.  I mean, I've always loved apples, but it certainly hit the spot.  I don't know how to talk to them about it without sounding like I'm chastising them.  I suppose those are challenges I will have to overcome in the long run.  But, all my snacks get eaten quicker because of all the munching.

I can feel a huge difference in my body this month.  I think my thighs don't rub together as much (yay!) and my stomach feels flatter than it did a few weeks ago.  I know I need to do more cardio to melt away that fat, and I'm working on figuring that out, but I'm just glad I'm seeing some improvement in myself.  I feel more energized and ready to go in the mornings, at least on the mornings I exercise and eat a healthy breakfast.

My goal is to see a difference in my body by October.  I know it takes a while, but I'm hoping that by forcing myself to exercise every day and making a lot of my food beforehand that I can see that improvement.

Here we go!

Kelly-Rae