E-mail comment I received:

“hi
i am 26 yrs old and i have been following the same routine u have mentioned above but somehow it is not working so well for me.i am going for 80 mins walk daily plus following the above food routine,,,please helpdont know what more to do.”

Have you talked to a doctor to find out if you have a medical reason for not losing weight?  I have found that walking is not enough to lose weight.   I suggest changing up your exercise assuming you are a healthy person and you are able to do high intensity training.   I have also found that I have change around my caloric intake to trick my body once it gets too accustomed to the the same routine.

“Hi I first heard about this website from your videos on YouTube. What an inspiring lady you are! I have been thinking about blogging my journey as well. I have 100 lbs to lose to be healthy and I am not going to wait any longer to do it. I am sick of “living” this way. I want to put my emphasis on health not being skinny.
Congrats,
Mandy”

Mandy,

Thank you for the comments.  I have to tell you blogging has been so helpful to me in my journey and I strongly urge you to do the same.  If you need help getting started, just let me know.  I will be happy to help you get set up.  Blogging gives you accountability and a venue to measure you success.  I can look back on here and see where I started to see if I have made progress.  This helps when I get discouraged.  The encouragement from others is definitely a motivator and having to post results is a huge kick in the pants to keep me going.  I know 100 pounds sounds like a lot of weight, but attack it in small increments and it will go quicker than you ever imagined.

Deciding to make the journey is the first step. Congratulations!!

Now that my headaches seem to be under control a bit, I have decided to set a new goal for myself.  I am going to train for a half marathon.  They have one coming up in June locally, so I figure why not.  It will give me something to work towards and I can ease back into running again.  I tested myself yesterday to see if I could even run 3 miles anymore and I did it just fine and without a headache last night.  I wasn’t very fast, but I did finish without feeling too winded.   So here is my schedule I will start next week.  Today I am going to walk a mile, run 2 miles and then walk 1 mile.  I am really testing my head to be sure I am not going to get a headache.  I have never done more than 8 miles, so I doubt I will be able to get up there in this 12 week schedule, but even if I have to modify it a bit I am going to give it a try.

I haven’t been writing again!  I get busy and put it off.  No excuse I know.  I have been doing better with headaches and exercising a bit more.  Trying to balance the two is rough.  I really need to take some new photos.  I realized I haven’t taken pictures since before my accident.  Time just flies by.

My goal this weekend is to tackle the rest of my Christmas shopping.  I also want to get a good leg workout in tomorrow.  Legs are hard for me because I have a tendency to stop breathing while I work legs.  I am going to use lighter weight in an effort to prevent it, but we shall see.  I really do not need a headache this weekend though.

I am about a third of the way through my nutrition class.  It is interesting and boring at the same time.  Some of the stuff just gets old after a while.  Same crap they feed you about the damn food pyramid blah blah, but some of it is neat.  I will talk more about it tomorrow when I am not so tired.  About to crash.  Night!

Okay…there wasn’t any Thanksgiving Drama, which is unusual in my family LOL.   Had a great Thanksgiving.  My only mistake was going to the movies.  It was my first time in a movie theater since my accident.  First issue is there are too many sounds at once, so I have no clue what people are saying.  Missed a lot of the movie.  Second, it gave me an intense migraine.   We went to see “Old Dogs,”  which the critics gave ZERO stars to, but everyone in the theater absolutely loved.  It was a really funny and cute movie.  I would definitely recommend it.  I had to keep asking my son what was happening because there were things I missed, but I still enjoyed it myself.  We have a tradition of going to the movies on Thanksgiving Day.  I love it.  The trick is to go to the earlier shows or it is mobbed though.  Most people go in the evening and it is just too crazy for me.

Normally we have a bunch of company, I cook a ton of food, have a huge mess, blah blah.  This year we went to someone else’s home, so that eliminated all the work.  It was nice.  Most of all, no family fights or drama, which my family is famous for.

As for eating I grabbed a spoonful of sweet potatoes, a slice of turkey, some green beans, a spoonful of stuffing because I love it so much and then a little ham and that was it.  It was just enough to satisfy my stomach.   It was nice not having any desserts or leftovers in the house last night either.   Nothing to pick at later.   My kind of Thanksgiving.  I hope everyone enjoyed theirs.

I haven’t looked into alternative medicine for my headaches, but I know I should.  It may be the only way I am going to get real relief.  So far, the traditional methods have failed me.  I certainly do not wanted to spend my life as a medicated drone.  I am also frustrated with my hearing issues and the top hearing specialists tell me there isn’t anything they can do for me.

On a lighter note, my calves actually hurt today from cardio.  I haven’t had sore calves in a long time because I have not been able to workout enough to produce any soreness in my body.  I am quite pleased and hoping the pain will intensify as the day goes on.  Yes, I am a sicko.  I miss sore, tight muscles so much!

I went to my doctor at 7:15 pm last night.  Yes, that’s right I had a night time doctor’s appointment.  My neurologist is so busy he takes appointments 6 days a week and during the week days they end at around 9 pm.   Is that not crazy?  Usually I will wait 3-5 hours to see him.  What I found out last night is if you have a night appointment you do not wait.  I took the very latest appointment they had available and I ended waiting less than 30 minutes.

Since my accident I have dealt with horrible headaches and each medicine they give me for them has some horrible side effects.  Either the pills knock me completely out for the entire day and night or it makes my stomach so sick I can’t do anything or they don’t take my pain away at all.  The last prescription he gave me would knock me out for at least 8 hours, so every time I would get a headache bad enough for meds I would be down for the day.   Not exactly the way you want to live since I get headaches every couple of days.

So last night he switched my meds yet again and this one he tells me will not knock me out, but it will leave me edgy and anxious.  Just what I need, right?  So then he wanted to give me another medication to keep me from getting edgy and anxious.   Does anyone else see a problem here?  I don’t not want to be a walking pharmacy and I don’t want to be a basket case that is on meds for the rest of her life.  I just want to live a headache-free life.

We have become a society dependent on drugs and I really don’t want to contribute to that.  My neurologist did say an alternative to the pills which may help me would be Botox.  Yes, Botox…go figure again.   They inject it all over your head and the problem with it is makes your eyelids droop over your eyes.  Isn’t that great?   Another problem is this crap is actually Botulinum poison.  Hello?  Why would we inject ourselves with something that gives people food poisoning.  I have had food poisoning a couple times in my life and I have to say it was not a happy experience I would be eager to repeat!

What is interesting is if you talk to a doctor about getting Botox for vanity reasons he/she will tell you one of the possible side effects is headaches!  So, then how the heck does this improve headaches if it causes headaches.  The practice of medicine is like Russian Roulette if you ask me.

It is going on two years since I was certified as a personal trainer at the Cooper Institute.  In order for me to keep my certification I have to take a couple classes, so I signed up for my first one yesterday.  I am taking a nutrition course.   I hope I learn something new. I love to learn, but somehow need to squeeze the time in to keep up.  I want to finish my courses and get my re-certification training completed before the summer comes.

I bought a new elliptical the other night so I can do more cardio at home.  My doctor told me to lay off the running until my headaches go away.  It has been 8 months since my accident, you would think I would be all better by now.  I did go see a specialist the other day for my hearing and after he looked at the 23 fractures in my head he said it is a miracle I am alive without severe brain damage. That doesn’t make me feel better about all my problems though.  I want to be 100% already.  I know I need to be patient and thankful to God I am alive.

Anyway, I will let you know if I learn anything good in my nutrition class.  I start tonight.

I didn’t wake up on time this morning.  I went back to sleep twice.  I reset the alarm and even when it went off the second time I just ignored it.  I am going to wait and go this afternoon instead.  Now I just have to push myself to be sure I do not blow it off.  I know if I get it done in the morning I don’t have to worry about anything else getting in the way of my workout time, but man…I LOVE SLEEP, especially  morning sleep.   By nature I am a night owl.  My body and mind hate the morning time.  I think I was destined to work nights and sleep days.  Too bad the rest of the world isn’t on that schedule.

Not much else going on.  Halloween is this weekend and I look forward to giving out candy and scaring kids.  I love to put on a costume and scare the kids when they come up to the house.  Is that evil?  I can be dark at times, but hey they are getting free candy!  They need to give a little to get some.  lol

Okay, I changed the look of the site back to the old design.  The new design just looked too messy to me for some reason.   I like this design better because it is organized and clean.  Let me know which you prefer.

Seems like it was just Monday a day or two ago.  Amazing how quickly time flies.   I over did it last week and regretted it on Friday.  I could barely move!  I took Friday off and then went back to the track on Saturday.  I also went again yesterday just because my boys wanted to go over to the high school to play football.  Funny thing though…it is about a mile walk to get there and they whined the entire time about how tired their legs were and how they didn’t want to walk.  As soon as they get there they run around for almost 2 hours.  Of course on the way back home they whined about how long the walk was and how I should go get the car to pick them up. Once they arrived home they went outside for another hour on their skateboards.  Go figure.

Got my butt out of bed at 5 am this morning to go do bleachers for an hour and then walked an hour with my neighbor.  Weighed myself and didn’t lose a pound!  I was bummed, but I am trying not to let it bother me.  I will just keep going.  It is just nice to see results to help encourage me to keep going.