If You're Unhappy, Fix it.

This blog is dedicated to one of the sweetest guys I ever met. CM. You are missed and loved more than you could have ever possibly known.

It is with a heavy heart that I type this. I just woke up (for good). I woke up feeling nauseous and sick to my stomach (same thing?). I couldn't find the strength to even get out of bed. So, needless to say, my sickness kept me from bootcamp today for the first time!

Thinking of CM makes me reflect upon all those who we may have lost contact with and never realized how much of an impact they had on our life. CM ended his own life and at such a young age. You can never fully know how sad someone is inside. I feel like, if I hadn't made this change in my life...that could have been me in a few years.

I was soooo unhappy with my body that I would literally stay at home rather than go out. I would miss friends birthday parties, and if I went, I would make sure they took pictures from the chest UP. THEN I would ask to see them and delete any where a hint of my double chin showed. I lost contact with a lot of people I loved either 1. because I was too lazy to go see them or 2. because I was too embarrassed for them to see me like that. It got to the point where I was the fat girl making comments about being fat and those jokes were funny...or I thought, but mostly I think my friends were giving me nervous laughter. I was the fat girl who could make fun of herself but inside I was dying.

If you find yourself making fun of your body...CHANGE IT!

Don't let this happen to you. Prove to yourself that you can get up and conquer your fears, whatever they may be. The great thing about having body issues is...YOU CAN CHANGE THEM WITHOUT SURGERY! (I am not one for surgery, unless it is like a breast lift or something). God created us all equal but being healthy is both a mental state and a physical state. Working out helps me both mentally (I don't mind going out even though I'm still big!) and physically (I can actually get my lazy ass up to go out)!

Anyway, all of that aside, after speaking to F on FB and finding out she was the only one in bootcamp today, I felt HORRIBLE. I then got up, turned on my tv and started looking for a workout I could do in our apartment.

I found a Jackie Warner full circuit workout and did every move for 35 minutes. I was sweating and in pain and my head is still throbbing from being sick but I feel better! CRAZY!

I'm so proud of myself. Maybe that is weird. I missed bootcamp but I still got up and worked out...and I did it on my OWN!!!

Full circuit workouts are the BEST! You feel your entire body tingling afterward. I still like working out at boot camp better (people actually talk back to me there)! I can't wait for tomorrow's session. I plan on pushing myself harder than ever before.

Alas, I must go relax.

Love you all!!!
-K

ps. TOMORROW IS PICTURE DAY!!!! Nervous as all get out but eh...we'll see!

sidebar: New song by Willow Smith (first I guess)...AMAZINGNESS!! Wanted to hate, but can't even....

Whip My Hair - Willow Smith  YES that is Will Smith and Jada's daughter! Give me one more month and I promise you I will be in some club (okay maybe lounge) Whippin my hair back and forth...

Monday - WEIGH IN #2 !!!

Hello my lovely readers =)

I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend! I know I did!

I went out to eat twice this weekend, and each time before we left I checked out the restaurants menu's online to figure out what I would order BEFORE we got there. This was such a helpful tool to me. I do not want to give up the things I love to eat but I also want to plan for it so that I can make sure I'm still keeping within a healthy range of foods.

Restaurant # 1: Red Lobster.
Yes I know I know. The typical "hood fab" restaurant of choice for us black folk! Kill me, I can't resist!

I chose to order 1lb of crab legs (only dipping every 3rd piece in butter - I'm NOT giving up my butter!) and shrimp and grilled broccoli. I wanted SO BADLY to get dessert but alas, D was NOT in the mood to share one so we decided against it. With A LOT of attitude coming from me. I mean I was totally full but I was being utterly greedy.

I mean, I went OFF on him. As if it were HIS fault that he was full and couldn't share a dessert. Needless to say, once we made it out to the parking lot I realized how happy I was that I didn't eat half of a dessert that I had to apologize and thank him.

It truly is a blessing to have him in my life.

Restaurant #2
IHOP

Who knew IHOP had a menu for people who want to eat healthier? When I was on their website looking at what to eat I couldn't BELIEVE my eyes! My normal meal there was over 3000 calories! WHAT!?!? 3000 calories in ONE sitting?! CRAZY TALK!

I instead ordered off of the IHOP for Me Menu . I ordered 2 buttermilk pancakes, egg substitutes scrabbled and two pieces of turkey bacon all for 400 calories. I ate slow and enjoyed my meal thoroughly.

It's the small things folks!

I went to bed last night at 10pm. It was extremely hard to pull myself away from the Emmys and not watch Enterouge or Hung or Big Brother (I'll catch up tonight!)...but I did it! My body isn't fully use to whatever my sleep pattern is, I think I confuse it a lot. I woke up at 4am when I didn't have to get up until 5:30am. That totally sucked. 

Mondays Bootcamp

Today I pushed myself 110%. Shin splints were KILLING me yet I found I could push through it. Not sure if it was just because of the rest this weekend but I decided I wasn't doing those lame moves and instead I would run with the rest of the girls. Everyone was ahead of me but I tried to stay within a block of the last girl and at the end I pushed myself and made it. May not seem like much to you, but to me it really felt good...even though I was battling splinters inside of my damn leg.

It was/is EXTREMELY hot out today. I was sweating BEYOND what I normally sweat. L then let me know that the more you sweat, the better in shape you are because it is your body's way of releasing or something like that. I'll have to look it up.

Okay so the time we've all been waiting for! WEIGH IN!

The goal was to lose 4lbs this week. Although, I must admit, I was hoping to lose more like 5lbs. I just weighed myself and I lost EXACTLY 4lbs. It isn't great but it IS goal so I can't be too disappointed in myself. I have a feeling if I didn't go out to eat at both restaurants this weekend, I might have lost more. Good to know so that I can stay motivated this week.

So that is 10lbs in two weeks. Not too shabby but not too great either. I found myself crying this weekend when I saw my face in the reflection of the car window. That double chin just WONT go away!!! I want collar bones! UGH!

I'm in an extremely weird mood but damn do I feel GOOD and motivated! I'm back to a healthy week of food. We did all of our grocery shopping and I'm looking forward to one of the girls, Y, from bootcamp, sending me a recipe later on this week that I'm going to try!

I hope everyone has a great day!

Thank you for your support and advice!!

Love,
K

Day 4 - I Get High High High High...

Not in the puff puff pass sense, but more like the "I'm on cloud 9 and it's gonna SUCK when I come down" sense.

Let me start off by saying yesterday was one of the worst days personally that I've had in awhile. I think I cried about 10 times. Crying for me isn't something that happens once in a blue moon. I am a FIRM believer that everyone should cry whenever they feel the need, scream when you wanna scream, and laugh when you wanna laugh. I try to do all three at least once a day just because IT IS GOOD for you. Seriously, my best friend Ang did a study on it in like High School haha.Uh...moving right along...

Needless to say when I awoke this morning I was actually looking forward to boot camp for the first time! When we arrived we immediately had to run laps. Today's bootcamp was at the park (it alternates between 2 different places so we get a different view each day). I have a love/hate relationship with this park. Love, because it is gorgeous. Hate, because it is crawling with people. Today he had us on one half of the basketball courts (they are pretty huge) and of course all of these guys are out there shooting hoops.

You do NOT know embarassing until you are in a dri-fit tight ass shirt and pants and are struggling physically and sweating profusely and you just feel SO gross in front of a TON of dudes watching while you work out. I don't care what anyone says, they totally were watching and I felt beedy eyes. I'm not sure they liked what they saw at this point. I swear, I can't wait til the day when I am not so self concious and I actually don't give a f*** what other people think....Wow. Did I just say that? I can't believe I admitted it.

So often in life I honestly don't give a f*** what people think. But when it comes to my health or weight, I honestly do.

I get really discouraged when I think of how many years I wasted thinking I was "fat" when I truly wasn't and was a healthy size 4-8. Something was seriously wrong with my body image and I guess that's how I let it get this far. You have to be educated about your health before you can go in the right direction. Even the skinniest of women or men aren't necessarily healthy.

Body image & nutrition is something everyone should really study up on. I know they teach it both in high school and college, but the only thing I remember from that class is a teacher asking me if I knew what oral sex was and me saying it was when you talk during sex. (Yeah, I was THAT girl, totally naive).

I am, of course, on a natural high at the moment and I do NOT want to come down! We did serious suicides (you know the ones where you go to a line, touch, go back, go to the next line, go back and so on and so forth). I come from an entire family of athletes, I played basketball for a bit but got too wrapped up in my dreams of NYC and decided to stop and just focus on choir, drama and newspaper staff. (Okay you got me, I was always on the bench). Anyway, I used to LOVE suicides and so I really wanted to push myself when we were doing them, and I did! I ran each one (except the last, i more like jogged/walked) and it felt SO good!

Anyway, we did a lot of all over training today. Tons of cardio, tons of lifting and tons of squats.

When researching the bootcamp I would watch their videos and see the exercises they do and I would say to myself, "Yo, seriously...I'm not going to be able to do ANY of those" and what do you know? I can actually DO them! I may not be able to have the coordination EXACTLY down yet but W is SO good at helping me get it together. It really is like having a personal trainer, only you have the teamwork of others to help push you along! One lady even ran back to help me! I mean seriously, can it get any better?

I did make ONE mistake today, he was trying to make us do an exercise that I had seen in the videos and I knew immediately that I just couldn't do it. So what did I do? I said "I can't". Man, if you say "I Can't" he makes you do ten pushups. So...yeah. You guessed it. I had to do TEN horrendous pushups. But I think I was more stoked just to do them! I would even love to work out for an extra 30 minutes after every class!

With that said, in September the pool near my house has swimming lessons and I think I'm going to start taking those as well twice a week. Yes! I can swim! I just want to get better at it and with my endurance getting stronger I know I can swim even better! Why not, right?

On a serious note, to all of you out there wondering if you can do it? If I can, you can. I know you hear that so much. But it really is true. There is no secret or miracle weight loss or miracle anything.

I can easily drop 30lbs in 6 weeks. I've done it before, but I have never done it by exercising. Just by lowering my calorie intake. I've found that counting calories doesn't work for me! After I lose 30lbs I always go back to eating what I want! I'm from the midwest so steak and potatoes has always been a mainstay for me! And I LOVE to cook yummy down south food! But now I'm trying something different. PORTION control!

Have I had a steak yet? Nope! But if I want one, I'll have one. It won't be huge and I won't load my potato up and I'll definitely eat slow and wait for my body to tell me it's full, when it is, I'll stop. Food is FUEL now. That's all it is.

Usually I try to eat a really healthy cereal full of flax and grains when I get home. But today I just wasn't in the mood. Instead, I treated myself to a cup of apple jacks and skim milk of course! Ha! I know, I didn't go CRAZY but it's much better than an sausage egg and cheese I would normally have from McDonalds. But, the point I'm trying to make here is that you don't have to give up everything you love. Once you do the research on places like McDonald's etc. you'll start to view that food as disgusting. It's true! Now, that's not to say that on Day 30 I won't treat myself to a small fry, I just might! But I won't be super sizing or even getting a medium size!

I don't know if I will stick with everything on the nutritioin. I can't see the future. But I do know that for now, I'm praying with all of my heart and really positive that I CAN do it. And if I can, so can you!

Again, thank you to all of you who read the blog! Your support has been more than amazing on Facebook!

If any of you have questions on the boot camp or want to join, let me know =)


Love,
K

Day 3! Cardio!!!!

Today was Cardio! Yay!!! Okay, not so much. Really though, Is there a better way to lose weight than doing cardio? Don't answer that. I'm not ready to lift more than ten pounds, thanks. (We'll save heavy strength training for a few months down the road).

Today was a day full of cardio, W specifically didn't tell us this yesterday so that he could make sure we all showed up today! Ha! Oh ye of little faith!

Monday was an upper body day (yet for some reason I came home with both sore arms AND legs) and Tuesday was lower body (did I mention that in order to SIT yesterday I had to first prop myself up on something? The pain was horrendous!).

However today, Wednesday, not so bad! I was actually able to walk up my stairs normally (with a little pain) instead of taking one step at a time. Yay! Go me!

When I woke up this morning I totally didn't want to get out of bed. I wanted to sleep! It didn't help that I took a nap yesterday and wasn't able to fall asleep until 3am! So technically I got about 2 in a half hours of sleep! I was a crab when L picked me up and once we got there, he immediately had us running what seemed like a MILE away. I know it definitely wasn't a mile but it totally seemed that way.

Next it was onto a bunch of running and jogging and squats of all kinds (who invents this stuff?!?!?).

The girls in the class are AMAZING. I mean AMAZING. We are definitely there to work out but without teamwork I KNOW I wouldn't have been able to push through on so many of the obstacles today.

At one point I had to stop, I just knew I couldn't go on...one of the girls grabbed my hand and began to pump me up and drag me along with her, it was AMAZING! I wasn't able to finish with her but it definitely pushed me about 20 seconds longer, which in my estimation is pretty damn good. 20 seconds longer is 20 seconds longer and each time I go longer than before I smile inside.

Sometimes, I feel like I'm the class loser. Having never worked out before I get REALLY down on myself. That's when I begin to feel the tears well up in my eyes (I'm a VERY sensitive person, also a VERY rude person, I know it's weird). If everyone else is running the entire length and I'm jogging 30 seconds, walking 20 (and so on) I feel like I'm such a failure! I dunno.

I blame it on me always wanting to succeed. I've never failed at anything. I usually do exactly what I set out to do. WHAT DO I ALWAYS FAIL IN? Being healthy!! If I start something, I finish it. If I fall, I get back up. So this exercise thing is KILLING ME when I see others doing better than me I just want to run to the car and go home and forget it ever happened. I am always saying "Sorry sorry sorry" as if I'm doing something wrong. Now in retrospect I know that I'm not, I'm trying. But during the time when it's happening I truly feel as if I'm failing.

There are two things I try to think of to keep me going:
1. I HAVE to get healthy for MYSELF. I will turn 30 in a year and a month. (I'm 28). I don't want to bring kids into this world (uhhh years and years down the line, no time soon!) and be an unhealthy mother! I want to be able to run and jump and play with them and teach them about food and what is good for your body and what they should avoid.

I also think of my dad A LOT when I'm at bootcamp. Everytime I'm ready to quit I try to push myself, even if it's just for 3 extra seconds. I just think of my dad. He was extremely unhealthy. Had diabetes, gout and a host of other issues. When he passed away I had a year left of college and was going to be the first to graduate from college in our ENTIRE family (I was!). Yes I was hurt when he died but more than anything I was SO ANGRY.

I felt he was selfish. Selfish for not taking care of himself so that he could be there for us. I don't have that same feeling but when I'm down and about to quit at an exercise, I think of that feeling and I push through. I don't want my kids to EVER feel that way.

2. I don't fail. I've said it before but this is another thing that keeps me going. I don't know how to fail so how come I'm so damn good at it when it comes to my own health and body image? I want to FINALLY beat this damn demon and live my life!

These two things truly do help me go the extra mile (not literally, figuratively =) ). But what kept me pushing through today was the camaraderie of the other ladies. From one grabbing my hand to pull me along, to another screaming my name and that I could do it! If she thinks I can, why don't I?

With all of that said, I've made it past day 3 and I'm ecstatic! I don't know if this is real or not, but I truly feel like my skin has improved. LOL, is that possible? 3 days in? HA!

Monday I weigh myself. I'll totally let you all know if I lost anything but you are SO not going to know my weight =) Not until I'm at least comfortable with it.

Alas, I am off! Thanks for all of you who check in and read this blog. It helps to motivate me knowing that so many of you are following me on my journey to a healthy and better me!

Love,
K

Day 1 of Bootcamp

Hello (if anyone is reading this) -

Welcome!

Today was my first day of bootcamp. Was it hard? WORSE than hard. Did I cry? Yes. Did I throw up? Oddly enough, I didn't, but I almost did.

A little of backstory - I had been looking at this particular bootcamp for over 3 months and wanting to join but really wanted that extra push of a friend to go with me. What do you know? I went to a friends baby shower and while there met a girl, L, and she was moving to Jersey City! Once she got here, I immediately asked her if she wanted to join with me! As soon as it came out of my mouth (or email) I regretted it. I thought omg I hope she doesn't take this the wrong way. But she didn't! She said YES immediately and off we went! 

Luckily our instructor is extremely understanding, but he's also FIRM. I've never worked out before. I just don't do it. But now starting everyday Monday through Friday from 6:45am - 7:50am, I will be letting the instructor (Let's call him W for arguments sake) W, hold me and my body hostage as I take on this journey.

This journey takes place outside during every season but the winter. Can you imagine?! Suits are walking past us and staring as they go to work but it was SUCH a motivator to keep pushing on. Could I do every exercise? Not at all. But my hope is that by the end, I can and I know I will.

This is a lifestyle change. It's not just about working out...it's about taking note of what I eat as well.

For starters, I had a peach this morning before the work out and when I came home, I had some (quite surprisingly) really great Blueberry Granola with Flax that you can get from Target for about 2.50 and it's so great.

I am utterly sore. Today was an upper body workout but I find that my legs are sore, my arms are sore, my back is sore...I'm just sore all over.

What's great about the bootcamp is all of the women are there to motivate and help each other. They understood it was my first day and I couldn't possibly get all of the steps down. And the instructor was more than helpful.

Not sure about lunch yet, probably 2 eggs and a piece of whole wheat toast.

I'm not going to deny myself food that I want. But I'm also not going to over indulge. NO ONE, I repeat NO ONE should be eating 3 cupcakes in one sitting and man, I totally used to be able to do that ha! Not anymore. After coming from bootcamp, I don't even WANT to drink a coffee or a latte or anything that could hinder what I did this morning. I pushed myself and hopefully in the upcoming days and weeks, I'll push myself harder and faster and I can only go one way...down. =) on the scale that is!