ONEderland in site - can almost taste it

I am now very close to saying good-bye to the 200's forever!  Just 0.6 of a pound away now.  So that will be a great milestone to reach!  I am looking forward to it and I am tasting forward to it.  I really wonder where the saying "I can almost taste it" or the saying "the sweet taste of victory" come from.  There are a few different types of sayings linking success and taste.  So I thought I would like to explore that idea a little bit.

The taste I am associating with this first really big goal (the 199 mark) is the taste of fresh ripe cherries that are nice an firm and crunch when you bite into them.  A great summertime taste to go with the accomplishment of this goal!  I also want to add another taste and that is the taste of a refreshing cool glass of water after a great pilates class.  Both of those tastes are the tastes of victory at getting to my current goal. Think I might have to set some new ones once I am shooting for the next goal after that (50 pounds).

Now for a few tastes I am definitely not going to associate with this - the overly sweet ice cream I had last night - and am just thinking of who I could give the rest of the container to so it is out of the house since I didn't enjoy it that much and I would really like to avoid that thing where I eat things I don't really like that much.  It is also not the taste of cheezies which I really wanted last night but couldn't find one of those really small size bags of them - so I didn't have them.  I suspect I would eat one of them and just find them hideous anyway so I am not sure why I want to have them.

Well I think it is a good time for a walk - maybe see if I can go over and be crazy aunty to my nephews ;-)

My Million Dollar Butt

So back many years ago now my aunt offered me a million dollars for my butt.  It was in pretty good shape in those days.  Well unfortunately a few years later when I went to collect because obviously someone else now had my million dollar butt - she wouldn't pay up.  So I was forced to realize that I had given away my million dollar butt for a bag of chips and container of dip (well in reality many of them) and a comfy spot on the couch traded in for my roller blades.

But fantastic news - I am confident that I will get my million dollar butt back and without any need to pay one million dollars for it.  Instead I am going to pay for it with a big jug of water, a crisp fresh apple, a bag of spinach, a walk to and from work, and a pilates class traded in for that comfy spot on the couch.

Jolk or Wog

So I don't know which one to go with Jog/Walk as Jolk or Wog.  I figure since I think I actually did more of the planned jog as jogging than walking that I will go with Jolk.

Now can you believe it - I am not at all sure I can, I chose to jog today.  I wanted to do something different than my standard routines, and jogging is something I haven't done in a very, very, very long time.  So I figured out a 1 km route (and I know people who run probably would laugh at that distance but hey it is a start!).  And I went out and did it.  I figure I jogged around 60 or 70 percent of the 1km and then did my planned walk home.  I actually think I am going to consider working on this once a week or so for the next little while to see if I can build up to jogging the full 1km.  I don't know how long it will take me to get to that stage but I suspect it will be a while.  But it is all good and I look forward to having a new challenge in front of me.

Beginning of the month pictures

The last couple of months I keep expecting to see no real change in my picture.  But I can still see the changes happening.  They are more subtle now than they were in the first few months but they are still there - at least I see them, not sure that anyone else will.  So the big thing I saw this month is just a tiny peek through of light between my thighs just above my knees.  It might simply be the way I am standing but I know I have really been seeing the reformation of muscles in my thighs lately so I choose to believe it is the start of some serious leg transformation action!  And I am very happy to see the continued flattening of my abdomen.

Well here it is for your consideration.  Click the picture to see the full sized version of it.

Wrist Weights

Well I put on my wrist weights for the my routine part of my workout this morning.  So for the 26 minutes of yoga and strength moves I had the wrist weights on.  Seems to me like it did some good for the workout.  I definitely felt like it did some good for my abdominal muscles.

I also included some wall push-ups (great for the triceps), and I also did three rollovers concentrating really hard on the rollback down.  I am doing really good on the first part of coming back down, really great articulation and control.  The last bit is still a bit bumpy - not quite as graceful or fluid as I would like it to be - but it will get there.  I plan to do a couple of them every day for the next little while.

Finally I also did a round of rhythm boxing and super hula hoop - got the blood going on those ones as per usual.  I especially love the hula hoop - it feels like my best bang for my buck - 4 minutes of good solid cardio - not to mention good for the waist!

Working out here at home I work out in my shorts.  And it is very interesting to see how the muscles in my thighs have developed.  When I am just standing you can't tell - there is still some padding over top of them.  But when I do some of the exercises I can see how the muscles are developing and I am liking what I am seeing.  In time some of the padding will go away and my hard work will be much more notable.  Am definitely going to be looking to see what kind of changes my legs will show in my pictures over the next few months!

Roll over frustrations and Basketball thwarted

Okay, so in Pilates I am now at the stage where I do really well doing the roll over starting from seated and then going into the rollover.  But I know that starting that way means I am still using a lot of momentum to accomplish the move - and I really want to move forward from there.  But I just can't seem to do it from the start with the legs extended in the air.  I don't know if it is just that I still don't have the muscles to accomplish it, or if I am just not quite doing the technique properly.  Whatever it is I am a bit frustrated.  Going to ask for some homework assignment in the hopes of getting myself there!

Bought a basketball today.  Always one of my favourite sports to play - not that I have played for many many years except for shooting a bit of hoops back 10 or 12 years ago now.  So I went over to the court in the local park but sadly there were guys already playing there - and I just wanted to shoot hoops.  Oh well, at least my arms got some good exercise as I dribbled the ball around a bit on the way home.  Since I am mentioning sports I enjoy, I really miss playing squash.  Definitely need to figure out how to get that back into my life.

Background on last post

My previous post is one that got me thinking a lot.  One of my WW online friends commented about losses slowing down (which is exactly what has happened to me this past month).  I accept it but I also occasionally feel frustrated by it - especially since at the start things went so very well and so quickly.  So it got me to thinking, since I know slow loss is actually good and more likely to stay off than a really fast loss, so why does the slow loss get to me sometimes.  You can see below my exploration of that.  I could say it is just some irrational thing I am doing to myself when I think/feel that way.  But the simple fact of the matter is that I am a fairly rational person - so I thought it was very important to explore why this rational person is having those feelings.

I certainly knew lots of counter arguments for the feelings/thoughts but delving into the why was really important. What rationale was supporting my thoughts that I wanted to lose more quickly?  I definitely feel like this was actually the more important part of that process - the counter arguments are easy, the searching for rationale was more challenging (especially for a few of them).

The process must also have unlocked something in my brain because I had a dream that helped me to recognize another one.  So here is one more:

I want to lose faster because I am jealous of other women who have figures like I aspire to.  So what is at the core of this? I think it is many things - socially it seems like they probably have an easier time being accepted; they have much more selection to choose from when it comes to clothing; plain and simple I feel like they look better than I do - and I think we all often want whatever it is that we don't have.  Some of the counter arguments: when I was young and thin and in shape I never felt like it was significantly easier for me to fit in and be accepted, I had a whole host of other things that caused self-consciousness etc; I am now to a stage where I have more options than I used to have and soon enough I will have more - and quite frankly I am not in the market to buy a lot of clothes right now, so the amount of selection I have shouldn't really bother me; I may very well have some features or characteristics that those women would covet as well and I should rejoice in my own traits rather than wanting what others have - I am lucky to be who I am living where I live and with such abundance available to me - I should cherish that.