Category Archives: weight loss

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Fighting for the same cause?

*****LOST, UNFINISHED POST*****

*****RANDOM THOUGHTS*****

This week, as I have been watching and reading bloggers and vloggers that I am subscribed to, I have been pulled into a dispute among some body positive creators.  Now, I love this movement because I am all for it!  I think that as long as you are happy and healthy, you should be able to look any way you choose.  It has always bothered me that the health community try to put everyone in a bubble according to height and size.  Not every 5’3 person is going to be 125 lbs or whatever weight that stupid chart tells them they should be.  There are many facets to body shapes which are not conducive to that chart, but I digress.

Back to the subject at hand.  There are so many parts of this cause that you can choose to be in.  Everyone can pick a corner, a different corner, and still be pushing for the same end goal. It reminds me of the message in the movie School Daze which had the light skinned black people vs. the dark skinned black people.  You are all black!  In this regard, the 250 lb plus size person vs. the 400 lb plus size person, you are both plus sized!  So, part of the argument was that someone felt that you couldn’t  be body positive if you have decided to join weight watchers or Nutrisystem.  First of all, no one knows the health situation of each individual.  Maybe the person is joining to drop the pounds for health reasons, or maybe she just want to be the best person that she feels that she can be. The truth is, you don’t even have to be plus size to be a part of the body positive community.  Body positivity means you an accept yourself and others no matter what their size is, correct?  By saying that this person can’t have involvement with weight loss program and be body positive is like saying plus size person who enjoys exercising can’t be body positive.  It’s a stereotype.

My point is…worry about the part of this cause that bothers you the most and let the other person worry about the part that bothers them the most.  If you are anti diets, fine.  Don’t focus on that part, but don’t try to tear down someone who is ok with.

Til next time…..

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Update on my New Year Goals

Well, it has been some time since I wrote on my blog.  Half the year is gone and I have been thinking about how I have done with my goals for the new year.    There has been some good and some not so good.

The good has been that I successfully paid off one credit card and have managed to keep it paid off.  Now I’m working on the next one. I successfully eliminated meat from my diet for the entire month of January. It was an interesting and eye opening experience.  Once I put my mind to it, I did not have any issues at all with the no meat thing.  I altered a lot of meals to be meatless just by adding mushrooms.  I may decide to do another month in the future.

I was incredibly focused on my goals during the month of January, but one goal fell well short!  Physical fitness, weight loss, etc.  Honestly, I did nothing.  I concentrated on the eating and finances, but did not incorporate any changes to my exercise habits which is one thing that I really wanted to do.  I really do need to get it in gear for health reasons.  I am going to continue to work on this.

Well, that’s it.  I hope to have even better news to share in the future.

Til next time…..

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Happy New Year! 2018

^The picture above was at my personal trainer’s studio many years ago.

It’s a new year!  I am extremely happy to see the back end of 2017.  It wasn’t a horrible year, but it wasn’t a great one either.  I honestly can’t say that I achieve a single goal that I wanted in 2017.  As a matter of fact, I was very lax in everything last year.  I did nothing.  Well, I’m determined to make this year different.  I honestly want to take charge of my health and finances this year.  I’ve decided to tackle it month by month instead of making a goal for the year.  Well, I guess taking charge of my health and finances would be my goal for 2018, but I’m going to break it down in monthly goals.

My health is something that I need to get in control of.  Here is the honest truth..I’m diabetic and I have high blood pressure.  It’s not a good thing.  At all.  About 10 years ago, this started to rear its ugly head and I did my best to get out in front of it by hiring a personal trainer to help me with my fitness.  I was very involved in my nutrition by reading and researching everything I could online.  I counted calories, I stopped eating processed food.  I stopped drinking soda. I had pizza every once in a while (maybe once every other month).  I was ON IT!  And I was successful.  I dropped 50 lbs.  I lost many many inches and I felt good.  But, it was hard!  Anyone who tells you healthy living is easy is lying to you.  It was hard.  It was so hard only drinking water and taking more than 10 minutes looking over a menu when going out with friends to see what I could eat.  It came easier with time, but..still…it was hard.  At some point, I hit a plateau and that is honestly the most frustrating part of losing weight.  Plus I started to have financial problems because the recession was starting to hit….so I ended up losing momentum.

Well, here we are many years later and I’ve completely gotten off the wagon. I stopped working out.  I stopped paying attention to what I’m eating and here I am..taking pills for blood pressure and diabetes.  I don’t like it at all, so it has to change.  My goal for the month of January is to exercise five days a week.  I have a treadmill in my bedroom right next to the bed.  There is no excuse to not hop on it almost every single day for an evening walk.  So…there it is.  In writing.  Five days a week in the month of January.  I will add on to this goal in February.  Small steps is all I need.

Next is finances.  My finances spiraled out of control last year.  I did start to change things in the fall of last year, so I just want to continue that path.  I hate being in debt.  I hate credit cards.  I would love to pay cash for everything and have extra cash on hand for emergencies. I hope to never have to pick up a credit card again!  Again, when I bought my house over 10 years ago, I was completely debt free.  I had paid off every single credit card I had.  It was great.  I felt so accomplished.  I had set a goal and followed through.  I was proud of myself for doing it.  Today, I have about five credit cards, all with balances.  I’m ready to get rid of them all and that’s going to be my goal for 2018.  The month of January, I’m tackling the first card.  Lowe’s.  My goal is to pay this card completely off in January.  It’s about $160, but that’s money that I can free up to tackle the next card.  I also plan on putting about $200 in savings during January.  I plan on doing this by not dining out AT ALL during the month of January.  I will only eat what I have in the house.  I will be doing a strict monthly budget so that I can work to get both of these goals done and maybe even get a running jump on the February goal.

Well…here we go.  It’s all in writing. These are my goals for January.  2018 is a year for advancement.  Same old me…just a better version.

What will you be doing in 2018?

Talk to you all soon……..

 

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Happy New Year!

Well, here it is. The time for a fresh new start. Toast to 364 days to make some positive changes in life. Not that it takes the beginning of the new year to make positive changes, but just the fact that it’s a new year makes it feel as if life has given me another do-over! Well sorta…..

Anyways, I’m going to be updating on all those resolutions that I made yesterday as well as some other things that are hopefully interesting.

It’s almost treadmill time. Enjoy your day.

Sharon

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New Year Resolutions

Happy-New-Year

Every year around this time, I start to reassess my life and count my accomplishments. I haven’t had many in the last few years, however I am hoping to change that in 2014. With that being said, I am actually going to make a few resolutions this year. I have not, honestly, made any resolutions in a few years simply because I was afraid to fail at them. Is anyone else guilty of this? This will be a year where I will actually make 100% effort to improve my happiness. So here I am, preparing to actually type these resolutions into this blog.

In 2014, I would like to blog more. I enjoy writing. I’m not great at the technical part of it, but it has been something that I have enjoyed all of my life. I am the person that kept a diary from as early as I can remember. It excited me to get one every year for Christmas. As I got into my teenage years, I began purchasing my own. Those diaries are hilarious. I still have a few. They were the ones with the little keys which did nothing for security, but never the less, I loved it. My mom told me that she always read them! I was shocked at the invasion of privacy, but since I didn’t know about it back then..no harm, no foul. She was right though, they were boring as heck and it just gave her confirmation that she had no concern of me going out and getting into trouble. See, this is why this blog is called the ramblings of me. I get off into a tangent with my jumbled up thoughts. That’s ok though. So, this first resolution is to commit to this blog. I would like to keep it updated and do a blog post once a week. I think that’s a very good, attainable beginning.

My second resolution is the ever popular, lose weight! I have struggled with my weight all of my life, but back in 2006, I lost 50 lbs with the help of a personal trainer. I loved it! I loved myself for accomplishing something that I had never done before. That was the most weight I had ever lost. So honestly, I would like to go back to that place where I was so health conscious. It was not only about losing weight, but just becoming more healthy in general. I exercised regularly, I was conscious of all the food that I ate. I ate almost completely organic and I would definitely like to be that way again. I ate little processed food. I took vitamins every day. If I ate out, I was careful about what I purchased and how much of it I ate. I found myself getting frustrated when I reached a plateau, but I certainly wish it would not have stopped my process the way that it did. I have definitely fallen back into some bad habits that I will be working on this new year. The immediate changes are to start walking, stop drinking sodas, and no pizza! Those were my three major concerns that I had back then, so I figure that is a good place to start to get back onto my healthy habits.

My third resolution is to start reading more. I was/am a reader, however when I started back to school, it slacked off. I miss reading for fun. I miss reading for entertainment purposes. I have so many books that I purchased that I haven’t had the opportunity or time to start, but I know I would enjoy them. So my goal is to read some of those books that are stacking up. Reading helps my brain! Maybe that is why I have spent this year in a cloud of misunderstanding and uncertainty of my life.

My final resolution is to BE HAPPY. This is my ultimate goal in life. It has been a struggle the last few years. I just haven’t found my way through finding my joy. I need to deal with all the stress and unhappiness in my life and obliterate it! One of my favorite vloggers always says “Happiness is a choice.” I believe that. I also believe that sometimes your choices are not your own. It’s time to make my choices mine again. What I want to do. Not what others want me to do or expect me to be. I’m going to do what feels good.

Now, I have a ton more other things I would like to do such as making more improvements to my house, starting my own business, and just becoming perfect. Well…perfect in my head at least, but I think that if I stick to these resolutions and work really hard on them, it will make the final resolution and the other small list of things happen. Oh…and I graduate with my bachelor’s degree this year. Yay! I’m excited about that. I don’t think I will continue going to school after that but it will be a big accomplishment for me. That is a goal years in the making. Ohh..and another thing. I had always been a business minded person. I think I lost a little bit of that in the last few years simply because I let people knick away at my confidence. I definitely want that back. I am going to work on all of these things and fingers crossed, come out on top of 2014.

Whew! This was a long one, but I felt the need to write all of this down. 2013 was definitely one of my least favorite years, but I am determined to make 2014 the best! Thanks for reading.

Sharon

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Something that always annoys me.

Something that always annoys me about these weightloss infomercials (besides the fact that they are full of lies) is that they always have people that USED to be skinny but got big as a result of the aging process. I have yet to see someone who has always been big losing all this weight. There probably has been some but I haven’t seen them yet! I have also not seen, in my personal life, someone that has always been big lose weight and keep it off. Maybe that would give me more incentive. I don’t know. Just a thought.

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Today in my everlasting attempt to be healthy and lose weight, I walked 4.1 miles in the park. Now, I have walked in plenty of parks but my new 2 year old park near my house is the first one that it seems as if everyone feels the need to speak to you. I’m not sure if I’m annoyed by that or if I like it. Being the self-conscious person that I am, I often feel like they are watching me and thinking to themselves “oh, look at her out here trying to lose weight.” I know it’s all in my head, but its still how I feel.

This year I am trying to work on getting myself back together. The past year was such a struggle for me. Not only with my weight gain, but also financially. My good credit and good finances were some of the few things that I always felt that I had in hand. The economy and lost wages completely tore that to shreds. I’m working on it all though. My mom would definitely not be happy with my credit situation right now. One of the best pieces of advice that she gave me was to NEVER mess up my credit. It won’t be for long though. I will have it in hand this year. That is a promise.