25 Lbs and counting!

I have officially lost 25 lbs and counting so far! Wahoo! Not bad considering there's a VAT of Halloween candy on my kitchen counter! LOL

Riding the roller coaster

This week has been a roller coaster in the extreme. Thursday was the lowest of the lows but by Friday I'd begun to find the silver lining and pick myself back up. I keep hearing the phrase "you can knock me down, but I'll get back up" in the back of my head. So, I'm exploring new opportunities and thinking about the possibilities that reinventing myself presents. Who do I really want to be? What's my real dream job? Where does God really want me to be?

Of those three questions, the only one I can answer is that I believe that God wants me to be at home with my kids. For the last 6.5 years we've made sacrifices so that could be possible. For the last 9 months those sacrifices have paid off both in a financial way and in seeing our kids grow to new heights! But, I also believe that He wants me to be able to feed my kids. :)

Who is that person? Oh wait it's ME!

I joined a gym...crazy right? LOL I am not a fan of working out, never have been. I've enjoyed being physical, going for walks, or bike rides with the family, I even swim laps when we're in the pool but the whole "I'm going to workout" mentality was just foreign to me! I've started on work out plans, bought DVD's or set goals but never followed through on them for more than a few days.

I hate mornings, so getting up earlier than absolutely required so I can workout--which I didn't want to do to begin with--was never, ever going to happen.

It's all I can do most days to gather up the energy to shower & get ready once for the day so once it is done I do not want to do anything that might undo it...like sweat!

But as I've said I started working out with a group of friends a couple of months ago and the craziest thing happened--I mean CRAZY--the days the workout was the hardest those were teh days I most looked forward to going! I even found myself telling the trainer running the group I thought we could take things to the next level! Me! How did THAT happen?

And then I joined another group of friends who were doing an email version of The Biggest Loser tv show...and I won the first week. Turns out I'm a smidge (if a smidge is the size of the grand canyon) competitive. The weeks I don't win I'm majorly bummed out! The weeks I do win I'm so proud of myself people probably see me and think "what is she strutting around about?"!

So the workout group has started to fizzle a little. My sister is going through a divorce, and going back to school while taking care of 3 young kids, another mom is a teacher, the single ladies stopped coming weeks ago, and one girl's work schedule changed...plus it's COLD outside these days in Illinois. So I found myself persuading the Hubby to join the local YMCA so I could continue to workout.

Last Friday was my first day belonging to the gym, so I went and did about an hour workout. Today I found myself watching the clock looking forward to the time I'd designated I would go workout! I worked out for 90 minutes and really made myself leave because 1) my stomach was growling and 2) I was afraid if I stayed and did more I wouldn't be able to walk tomorrow.

I think I might be addicted to this!

So far I've lost 22 pounds and I can't even guess how many inches...but enough that I've dropped a full jeans size.

9 Weeks & Counting!

I just realized that tonite marks my 9th week of working out! I'm really proud of myself for sticking with this and I'm trying to think of the entire process as a life change not a diet or a temporary phase in any way. Most of the last 3-4 weeks I've been the only one to show up, which makes the work outs less fun, but also makes them take considerably less time which is good!

The only workouts I've missed in this 9 week period have been due to weather concerns (thunderstorms!) since we're currently working out outdoors. Since it's getting towards mid-October now everytime we workout we talk about needing to find an indoor location to continue through the winter months. I'm not sure what we're going to work out and honestly I'm starting to think I might be better off to join the local YMCA or a local gym to continue my workouts through the winter since then I could do it at my own convenience and not be dependent on anyone else's schedule.

In past years I'd have worried that I'd stop going if I left the workout group and started depending solely on my own motivation to keep exercising but I've found that I really LOOK FORWARD to work out days. Especially Fridays when we do abs & legs which is just an absolute killer routine! I come home feeling so proud of myself and with a great sense of accomplishment...and also quite smelly & sweaty but that's another discussion entirely. :)

I'm much stronger and toned than when is started...I've gone from doing the arm routine with 3 lb weights and barely getting through to doing most of the routine with 5 lbs and getting through mostly problem free! And I've gone from not being able to finish the leg & ab routine without weights to wearing 5 lb ankle weights and I'm able to finish!

So far I've lost 15 lbs and I'm sure many more inches than that but I've never stopped to measure myself. I know my jeans are literally falling off of me though which is never a bad thing!

Playing catch up

As you can probably tell by my lack of blogging things have been hectic around here the last few weeks. I'll come back soon and share a little insight into that (it's not my story to share), but I wanted to update you on some other big things going on in my life.

First, thanks to all of you who went out of your way to express your thoughts & concerns for my dad in his latest health issue. While it's still an in progress situation and we don't have any definitive answers just yet, we have made a lot of progress and I'm happy to share that at this point our concerns have been alleviated somewhat. After seeing a specialist in St Louis my parents have been reassured that the chances that the mass on my dad's lung is cancerous is 5% or lower, and if it is cancer it's a type that's easily treatable and very, very slow growing. Their initial suspicion is that the spot is an infection, and since he's currently on anbitiotics for a bladder infection they're going to let that round of antibiotics run its course and then reevaluate him at the beginning of next month. If the spot has shrunk, they'll have confirmation that the antibiotics are working. If it's grown or is unchanged they'll do further scans and discuss biopsy options, etc.

Now, the reason he's on the antibiotics is because over the last few months my dad's bladder has failed to work. He's having to catheterize himself several times a day. The initial suspicion was that it was caused by a bladder infection. Seeing specialists who have looked back through my dad's medical files through the last year the specialist can see that his bladder is enlarged on scans he had last August. An initial round of antibiotics relieved the symptoms temporarily but the infection has returned and is now a different type of infection--so a different type of antibiotics is now the course of action. The concern is that the bladder is a muscle and typically once a muscle stops to work it does not restart so he may have to wear a catheter for life. My dad is 62 years old. Ongoing thoughts & prayers for both situations is appreciated!

Now to end on a much lighter note, several weeks ago I mentioned that I had begun working out with a group of friends and a mutual friend who is studying to become a personal trainer. I'm happy to report that I'm still working out and I'm actually enjoying it. You truly have no idea how shocking that is for me...that I enjoy working out! I've also begun participating with another group of friends in a version of The Biggest Loser. Basically each of us kick in $10, weigh ourselves each Tuesday, and whoever loses the most weight in 10 weeks gets the pot ($150). So far in two weeks I've lost 15 lbs!

More Health Worries for my Dad

I just got a phone call that the nodules in my dad's lungs they pronounced too small to identify back in January were seen today on his follow-up scan and had grown from "smaller than the head of a pin" to "larger than the size of a quarter"! The pulmonologist says they have to be removed now which means surgery on his lungs.

My mom was freaking out when she called my sister and all of us are thinking about the 40+ years of smoking plus the years of off and on working with asbestos materials for work.

More information to come!

Music, Music, Music!

Sorry for the delayed follow up to the post about the musical Maddy was in last weekend--between the show and school starting the days have been flying by! The show went great and they raised over $5,000 for Pediatric Cancer research! Maddy had a blast--which let's face it is the important part, right? And can't wait to do it again next year!

In other news...we have a new family member in our house as of this weekend--say hello to Miken!