Mini Me, are you in there?

The sole purpose of this blog is for me to track my fitness goals. Hence the name, Mini Me. I am on the search to find a smaller version of myself.

Let me give a little background first. I am a 30 year old mother of three boys. My oldest is 12 years old and my youngest is 2. In the last 13 years, I have only really liked the way my body has looked twice. After I first got married in 2000, I worked in an apartment complex and walked A LOT. During my hour lunch breaks, I worked out. I went tanning. I got a great body. I hadn't seen my parents from June to November, and when they came to visit for Thanksgiving, my dad was actually concerned that I went anorexic. Me? Anorexic? Um, no. I really love food, so that would never be something I would do. I was happy with my figure and had no concerns showing it off to my husband.

The most unfortunate thing happened. I quit that job and went to work in the dental field. Sitting on your butt 8+ hours a day does nothing positive for your figure or your natural energy level. Plus, people bring in lots and lots of great, yummy food to dental offices. From vendors, to employees and even patients. I gained weight. I gained a lot of weight. Fast. Not good. After 3 years of that, I decided to knock it off and get back into shape. So I did. With the help of Herbalife shakes and an obsession with exercise, I was able to get down to a Junior size 6. That's incredibly impressive for me. I was skinnier than I was in high school. Once again I had no problems sharing my new body with my husband.

Another unfortunate thing happened. All this sharing meant that I soon became pregnant. Becoming pregnant was not the unfortunate thing. I was trying to get pregnant. I wanted another baby. What was unfortunate was the fact that all my training of my body of the 'right' foods to eat went out the window as soon as I got pregnant. I was always hungry and ate like a pig. I gained 70 lbs.

Since then, I have had a major struggle losing the extra weight on my body, especially in my stomach region. I have tried many, many things. Things that worked for me in the past simply do nothing for me now. Let me see if I can remember them all.

I have tried:

• Exercise
• Herbalife shakes
• Lipo-Dissolve
• too many diet pills to count (some of them so harmful to me they made my heart physically hurt)
• Slim Fast shakes
• Gym memberships
• HCG
  

I am sure there are more. I feel like I am always on some sort of diet. I have wasted so much of our hard-earned money on losing weight. What has been frustrating is the fact that when I tried to go at it the healthiest way possible (watch what I eat and exercise), yet nothing came off. Not even 1 tiny little pound. My sister and I would plan healthy meals and get up really early in the morning so we could be accountable to each other to exercise and the months we did that I had no improvement in my body at all. I paid for the HCG drops at least 3 times. Once, I didn't lose any weight. The first and third time I did, though. I was finally able to lose 10 lbs each round. Not as much as they advertise, but losing 20 lbs for me is a major accomplishment! After three attempts, I decided that was enough of those, however. I just could not make myself stick to their strict diet plan for longer than 2 weeks, so I always hit a plateau. Ok, tried that, lets move on.

This last August I picked up running. I was able to go running 3 times a week. I completed my first 5k run in November. Now this was a major accomplishment. I have never been able to run before. I remember high school gym class and having to run. I couldn't make it more than 2 minutes. My face would go all red and I couldn't breath. I hated running. Now, I love to run. With this running 3 times a week you'd think I would lose some weight, right? I didn't lose weight, but I do know my body changed a bit but only because my running pants are stretchy and they fall off my body when I run. I fit better in my size 10 pants. I have not gone running since Thanksgiving day, though. It has just been too cold and too dark in the mornings before work and by the time I get home. Plus, I now work 5 days a week instead of 3, so it is much harder to find the time to go running. I am hopeful that once it starts to warm up and the sun comes up earlier and stays later that I will be able to go out running in the early morning hours before work or have enough energy to go after work.

I have decided that I am going to get in shape this year. 2011 is going to be the last time one of my New Years resolutions is to get in shape. I am sick and tired of being in the top of my weight bracket. No longer am I going to ride the fence, teetering on the edge of 'just a little bit fat'. I have even gone to two different doctors complaining of no energy and a resistance to losing weight. They ran blood tests and came up with nothing. No hormone problems, no thyroid issues. Nothing. Their solution: exercise more. Oh, ok. Why didn't I think of that? Oh, wait. I did, but do you not remember me telling you that I have NO ENERGY? And when I did try hard it still DID NOT WORK.

Alright, so what are my motivations?

1) I am disgusted with the look of my body. I want to put on any shirt in my closet and not be grossed out by the spare tire that is situated around my middle, tear my shirt off, and put on an oversize t-shirt. I want to be more willing to share with my husband again. I know he loves me how I am, but I have a major mental block because of my figure and the squishy-ness of it.

2) I know getting in better physical shape will give me more energy. I struggle through my days. Don't talk to me until at least 9:30-10:00 in the morning because I am still grumpy from waking up. I am completely useless by the time I get home from work around 6:00. All I want to do is plop in front of my T.V. and do nothing. I slack off on my mother, wife, and home duties. I want to change that. I don't like being like that.

3) I don't want diabetes, heart conditions, high blood pressure and all the other medical issues caused by being overweight that run in my family.

So, what is my plan for this time around? I fell victim to another diet pill. Yeah, I know. Spending (or is it wasting?) money on another pill that probably won't work for me. But I am going into this round full of hope. I have purchased and started taking HealthyTrim. They advertise that you will 'Get High School Skinny' and have tons of energy. The energy boost was what ended up convincing me to try it. I take 2 pills with 2-3 glasses of water first thing in the morning, then wait 2-3 hours before I eat anything and drink 8-10 glasses of water a day. The only restrictions it says is for you to avoid caffeine and artificial sweeteners. This means no soda or chocolate for me. Not even diet soda. I have been taking them since Thursday the 6th. I have already seen an increase in energy. I have certainly decreased the amount of food I eat in the day. Before taking these I would snack all day long. Not so much any more.

I will also be exercising. Since I am a wimp for the cold, I will do more with my exercise videos right now. And it's not like I have a shortage of those to use. I have a huge library of probably close to $1000 worth of exercise videos. This morning is the first time since Thanksgiving that I have exercised. I did the Fit Test of Insanity. Now that is crazy stuff. I am not planning on doing it's program because I have had bad knees from birth and it would be more damaging for them, but I will use some of its videos.

I have had a good first few days on HealthyTrim. I know I have more energy. I am actually already down 1.5 lbs from where I was before taking these pills and I have been able to exercised once. This is a great start for me. Oh, also taking the pills is not difficult. They are not hard to swallow and do not taste nasty or smell bad. Some diet pills are majorly disgusting. I generally have a hard time taking pills of any kind but I don't think that will be a problem this time.

So, even if no one besides me knows the blog exists or reads it, I will take measurements every Saturday and list them at the end of each blog post. I do this in hopes that it will keep me going and hold me accountable to myself.

Weight: 165 lbs
Body fat% (as stated by my scale): 39%
Chest: 39"
Upper Arms L/R: 12.5"/12"
Waist: 32"
Hips: 40"
Thighs L/R: 23"/23.5"

Ok, there it all is. Me, stated in numbers. I know I am more than that but I have always been very aware of my body and rely on it for my self-worth a lot. And because I do, it is time that I get it in shape so it does not rule over me so much.

See you next week.