Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Working Out Isn’t Working Out…

So I have been working out and eating healthier for almost a year now. 



It hasn’t been easy and most of the time instead of getting soup like I should, I get the chicken fingers and fries like usual, BUT I am working out every day.  At first I just watched what I ate, and lost A LOT of weight the first month. 



Then I added in exercising and the weight just flew off.  Now I am in a plateau of weight loss.  After all that hard work I am now stuck at this stupid weight!  It’s annoying and frustrating and makes me not want to do anything else but sit on my couch, surrounded by chicken fingers and curly fries with a bucket of ketchup, watching my favorite shows for a whole month nonstop.  But since I can’t do that due to I would probably have a heart attack, I am still working out and trying to eat healthier. 



Since starting my journey, I have joined a weight loss website, and I have made a ton of amazing friends from around the world who have helped me through my journey and they are now putting up with me and my stupid plateau.  The website is free and very simple to use and lose weight with (All HUGE pluses in my book).  So now since I have been stuck at this plateau for a few months I plan on telling you about how my work outs haven’t/have been working out and my experiences with the different trainers I have used. 

The first DVD trainer I ever used was Heather*.  Heather is bubbly and fun.  She smiles and does the whole workout with you.  She walks 5 miles and after an hour you have completed them all.  That’s right ladies and gentlemen I walk 5 miles in an hour and love it!  I look forward to turning her DVD on and starting my relaxing, but fast paced, walk.  I just walk around the living room while doing the steps she tells me to do.  This means I don’t have to go out in the big wide scary world full of bugs and allergies that will make me sick or make me scream (sick = allergies, scream = bugs).  After the walk is over your legs feel all twitchy, but firm.  Your body is all sweaty, but you feel great.  You drink about 10 gallons of water (sarcasm), but it is refreshing and gladly drank.  Heather is amazing, it’s such a simple routine but she makes it fun and something you look forward too.  Heather encourages you to only walk one mile if you can’t do all 5, because any workout is better then no workout. 

Bella stars at me from her pillow while I do this.  I have no worries of her jumping on me or wanting me to play with her because I am not down on her level.  With Heather, and eating healthier, I lost 25lbs.  BUT with Heather I also felt like after a few months I wasn’t getting anywhere (hence the plateau). 



The second DVD trainer I have used is Sara*.  I just started Sara's DVD in early April, this was the first time doing any other workout DVD other then Heathers.  Sara is someone who pushes you to the extreme, but never does the whole workout with you.  She yells at you, and tells you she knows you are hurting but to shove through it.  She also tells you that pain is normal (umm what?) and that it will get easier each day.  She also doesn’t let you take any breaks.  It’s only a 20 minute workout so you have to take each workout to the extreme to get results.  There are different levels to the workout and each one gets harder and harder.  Through working out with Sara I lost 8 inches from my waist and hips and I felt my thighs toning up.  My arms also felt stronger.  I started Sara’s DVD during my plateau to try and break it.  During her workouts I can barely breathe and all I want to do is cry out at her.  I curse her and do the workouts out of hatred and stomp my feet and put more movement behind everything she asks us to do because I am so mad at what she wants me to do and I feel like I just can’t do it. 

She makes you do punches in the air while doing squats and that is one of my favorite exercise because while doing that move I imagine punching her in the face (I know really horrible here, but while you do this workout this is how you feel).  After the workout, all I can do is sit down and breath and hope I don’t get sick.  Then I can’t do anything else the rest of the night but watch tv and wait for bed. 



During the workouts, Bella, thinks I am playing with her.  She has jumped on my back when I was doing push ups, which made me fall flat on my face.  She has jumped on me while I was doing lunges which made me fall backwards.  When I go on the ground to work on the abs, she has pounced on my stomach with her duck in her mouth to try and get me to play. 



I never took my measurements with Heather, so I don’t know about that, but I did lose a lot of weight.  With Sara it gave me a new thing to do for a month, and I lost a lot of inches.  Bebe has been great through this whole thing with me.  He encourages me to eat in more (which I usually don’t), he tells me how great I am doing by working out, and he tries to keep Bella away from me while I am working out to my DVDs.  Overall this year has been a great success in my health and lifestyle.  

I have found out that with Sara it just isn’t working out.  I saw results, but overall I don’t like feeling angry at the trainer or hating having to go and workout for that day.  So I am breaking up with Sara and going back to Heather.  I feel like I cheated on Heather for a full month and I want her back.  I may pick a Sara DVD up again after a few more pounds are lost, and when I feel up to the challenge.  But for the moment I am missing my walks.



*All names of trainers have been changed since they are very well known, but you should be able to figure out who I am talking about just by the way I describe them