The gym... The Protein... The Pain...

The gym: My best friend, my nemeses, my arch-nemeses, my "frienemy".  I finally switched my gym from when I moved last year.  I went periodically, went to the free small gym in my building, but never made the solid commitment to go repeatedly for weeks on end.  That changed yesterday.

I joined xyz gym.  I went in yesterday for a tour and was given a "schpeel" on protein (hence the protein powder next to my tour-guide).  I was told to take a multi-vitamin (just next to the protein powder sat the vitamins) and was told that those would both be highly recommended.  I take a multi already so I was good, but this protein powder thing... He said that I needed to down about 30g of whey Protein after a workout. Seriously? Does anyone know if this is true?  He also said that by eating 1,600-1,800 calories a day as I've been doing, I am eating probably 200-500 calories too little.

I got a tour of the gym - it's beautiful, brand new, very nice.  And HELLO they have some hotties on staff. I picked a male trainer (women drive me nuts, no offense to the female trainers out there), and made an appointment for this morning.  I dropped a fortune that I don't really have on training, so I am going to work really hard at doing well!

I went in and met with my new trainer today.  He's really nice, has a great sense of humor. I laughed my way through the assessment, which I often do when I'm nervous; I was nervous for some reason. I'm relatively out of shape, so I think it was partially that.  I've never worked with a trainer before, it's such a different experience than going to the gym by yourself.  I usually choose a circuit workout or a long time on the elliptical or treadmill.

The trainer experience was surprisingly easy, it was nice.  My trainer said that I have better balance than I thought, have more muscle mass than I thought, and am will start to feel better after a few sessions.  We did lunges, squats, some ab work, some work with machines and tools that I'm not quire familiar with...  It was decent, I felt great until I tried walking down three flights of stairs.  What's up wobbles!?  I almost fell down them haha..  So, I'm going to meet with him three times in the first week, three times in the second, and then wean my way down to once per week, on the days that I'm going to do Core strength training.

It interested me yesterday, to hear that the 'tour-guide' told me that I needed only work out three times per week - one day for each: Core, Upper body, Lower body. It also interested me to hear that I should avoid doing the treadmill and elliptical, other than for a warm-up. According to him, too much cardio won't burn the right calories, and I'll plateau out and stop losing weight.  Weight training is the way I'm supposed to go.

So, yesterday during my initial assessment I was told that 140 pounds is way to small for me.  Looking at the Biggest Loser season 11 cast, I'm built more like Irene than Hannah. I'm closer to Hannah in height, but I am not built to be that slender.  There goes my dream of being Kate Middleton's blonde doppleganger.

So, the assessment wants me to be at approximately 177 pounds, and the tour-guide wants me to be around 190 pounds, give or take. I'm slightly flummoxed. Everything I was working towards has changed.. It's great that I'm no longer 100 pounds away from my goal, but my brain isn't accepting this 190 weight as a proper goal. It's still going to take about a year to lose 60 pounds? Hmmm. Seems like a long time. I'm so thrilled to be taking this step though!

Well, that's what I've got going on.  Does anyone want to weigh-in on this? Pun intended.

The Biggest Loser & Emotion vs Intellect.

Tap tap microphone, is this thing on....?

I've been watching this Biggest Loser season like it should be a weekly trip to church. I've watched it off-and-on for years. I took ahold of my life this year and came to terms with what I wanted and needed to do with weight loss and just connected with this season's cast. Hannah and Olivia and Irene: these girls blow me away.

I honestly couldn't connect with Irene in the beginning -- they didn't show her as a prominent contestant, she seemed like a background character..  She is coming out of her shell and I feel like I really relate to her. Tonight when Irene was saying the stuff that she was to Jillian, I so connected with that.

Olivia and Hannah.  These two ladies have been my favorites from day 1. Some nights I watched solely for their wit and comments. I connected with them.  I have a sister I'm extremely close to, and Hannah and Olivia seem like our type of sibling-team. So, I hope that one of these three ladies wins the ranch challenge.

I have a problem. I can logically sit and think 'this is wrong, don't do this' but emotionally I am not able to reign myself in or stop myself from doing xyz, whether it be eating too much, secretly eating an extra portion of something, skipping the gym, etc.  I think that this is why I emotionally eat: instead of connecting emotions with what I'm intellectually thinking, I eat those feelings. compressing them to where I can't feel what I'm doing.

I feel like I have that same problem with emotionally connecting my intellect with my self-worth.  Intellectually I will sit here and tell you that I'm amazing, strong, talented, smart, funny and maybe even beautiful.  Emotionally, I can't connect those things, and therefore don't LIVE them... Like, I KNOW them but I don't truly BELIEVE them.  I'm sure once I lose more weight some of the emotion will connect, as I SEE myself actually looking like who I want to be, but I don't know if that is enough.

I started at 300 pounds in November, down to 290.6 on January 1st.  I've been in the 260s since March 20th. I lost from 0.8 to 3.8 pounds weekly. On April 17 my weigh-in was +1.6 and April 24 was -3.8. Weighing myself again this morning, I'm back up a couple of pounds. I'm looking at ways to combat this hugely plateau, have reached out on twitter, received a few ideas by e-mail and by looking online.  The thing that I need to figure out, is HOW do I beat my emotion?  How can the intellect go to combat with the emotion and make the emotion a believer?  If you've read this far, let me know your thoughts! ARGH!!!