Today marks week 12 for weight loss.

I started my "diet" on May 24, 2010. In 12 weeks I have lost 42.6 pounds!

HUZZAH! That is an average weekly loss of 3.55 pounds per week.

I just got home from the gym. I did 48 minutes on the treadmill.

I tried to do c25k week 5 day 3 again which is:

5 min warm up, 20 min run, and 5 min cool down - but I failed. This is the 2nd time I have failed at doing that 20 minute run.

Yesterday I had a negative attitude and gave up before even 8 minutes.

Today I lasted more than 8 minutes...but I couldn't do the full 2o minutes.

Last week I only worked out for 3 days when I usually do 6 days of work out...So I had FOUR days of rest IN A ROW. WOOOOOW that was not good for my endurance.

I am working on getting better and better each and every work out.

I sweated like mad today - which is good!

OK that is all for now.

Until later.

peace & love,

becca joy.

I believe I said earlier that I do not want sympathy - that is NOT my goal here. I started this blog in order to document my progress.

I can not believe how many Personal Messages and comments all telling me I am an inspiration to them and what am I doing?

Well, I am living my life. That is that. I am living a healthier life. Thank you for all of your kind words - it means a lot.

And yeah, making life style changes is not always easy but being fat was easy.

It's kind of...hm...I am not sure of the word...But it's like people are proud of me for doing something that I should have been doing all along. Which is fine...but it's almost like they're treating me like a little kid. And I don't really like it.

Another thing that is really bothering me is when people come up to me and say "Hey Skinny". OK - Number one? I am still morbidly obese. Do NOT call me skinny. When I am 145 pounds...sure! Call me skinny. But right now? No.

Honestly I find that SO offensive and it really is disturbing. For one, I know that is not the truth yet and I don't appreciate those kind of comments. It's kind of like...making fun of where I came from.

Now, if you have told me "Hey Skinny" I am not trying to dog on you or call you out. I just want to get it out there that I don't appreciate that comment...because I KNOW I am not there yet.

I am fat, I am not blind. Hah.

That's all for now. I'll write again soon.

peace & love,

becca joy.

How I've done it...thus far.

OK! So... this is more of my strategies section.

I can not tell you how many personal messages I have received on Facebook about you guys telling me that I am your inspiration to lose weight. Well, thank you. However I am not all I am cracked up to be.

I have flaws, cracks, and broken parts. For some reason, today I am feeling especially down. I do not like to feel this way...but I do. I feel like I am all alone in everything that I do. I know that that is not reality because I have my family...but at any rate that is just how I feel.

OK...but that is not the point of this blog. To date I have lost 41 pounds. That is since May 24th, 2010. OK. That's pretty darn good!

SOooo..

First off is exercise. I exercise like MAD. I am at the rec every day or every other day. If I am not at the rec I am (USUALLY) doing something. Now, sometimes I feel lazy and skip the gym all together...but! When I am at the gym this is what I do:

Right now I am doing the C25k Program. Let me tell you about this. C25k = Couch to 5 K. This program is designed for people who DO NOT EXERCISE or NEVER HAVE....and it's designed to take these couch potatoes (ME!) and get them running a 5K (3.11 miles - STRAIGHT - NO STOPPING) in 9 weeks. Crazy, right? Well...maybe! But it WORKS!

If you have never heard of it and want to try it - check it out! www.c25k.com You can download the workout sheets off of the website. There are music apps available on iTunes to where you can overlay the voice (to tell you when to run and walk) to your own music. Pretty cool.

So...how the program works:

It's interval training! Each week gets progressively harder...Week 1 you start out walking for 5 minutes...and then jogging for 60 seconds and then walking for 90 seconds and you do the 60/90 intervals for 20 minutes. Then cool down for 5 minutes. Each week it gets progressively harder so each week you spend MORE time jogging and less time walking.

Right now I am on Week 5 day 2 and today's work out is 5 min warm up then jog for 8 walk for 5 then jog for 8. Not exactly easy for an obese person. But I DO it because I CAN!

All of our lives we have been told that we can NOT do something. So...we get it in our mind that we can't and we believe it. Fighting the self talk (for me) is one of the HUGEST battles I have gone through and will go through. We have to fight our minds and we have to fight our bodies....double battle! So...when you switch the self talk to I KNOW I CAN I KNOW I CAN...and then once you finish to I DID IT! That self doubt erases a little bit. Now...I still have a LOT of self-doubt to lose...but with every pound that comes off a little bit gets erased.

Let me tell you, I saw a number on the scale this week that I have not seen in YEARS. And I mean YEARS...so that was kind of cool. :)

Ok...so I do the c25k (awesome) and then I do strength training! I do the machines (circuit training) at the rec complex on campus. I do this to build muscle...

"Wait...I don't want to GAIN weight...I want to LOSE it."

OK...well you need to do strength training! Muscle burns almost 2x if not more calories per minute vs. fat...so the more muscle you have the more fat around the muscle gets eaten. So if you have very little muscle and you have a lot of fat your BMR (Basal metabolic rate) will be very low. If you put on some muscle your BMR will be higher...without even having to do anything! You will burn more calories per minute for just being you! Now isn't that special?

So...I am doing that. My body has changed due to the "running" (jogging) I have been doing with the c25k...which I am loving! I am hoping to start swimming too because that is a great resistance work out.

I am for 10,000 steps per day (minimum).

So get out there and get UNCOMFORTABLE! A large reason that people don't want to lose weight is because they don't want to get all gross and sweaty..well..sorry you will be fat then. people want to sit in their huge comfy chairs and watch tv with air conditioning.

I have a new found love of being absolutely exhausted...yet absolutely excited, thrilled, happy, and sweaty after a good jog on the treadmill.

Yes. Becca can jog.

And no...that has never happened before.

And yes...that is exciting!

Losing weight brings new adventures to the table. This is just one of them.

More tomorrow? Maybe.

peace & love,

becca joy.

What is eating at me? Or... what am I eating?

Welcome to the really sappy post about how I got fat. Most people won't even read this or understand half of what I write...but for those of you who cronicle this..congratulations to you. You will learn a lot about me by reading this blog and 99.9% of this stuff is not something I go around boasting to everyone I meet. However when I enter deep conversations with people about my struggle with my body image...one of the questions people WANT to ask (but are often too shy to) want to know why I got to be the size I was. How did I get to be so big? Why did I get so fat? Why did I let myself be this obese ugly person on the outside when most people feel that my heart is "beautiful"? Why did I not care about my body, etc etc.

OK. So...it all started when I was in the 2rd grade. My father was in the military at the time and we were living in Germany. Over there my friends and I (and I had PLENTY) were running around the block from seriously 12 pm to 10 pm and barely came in for 10 minutes to eat dinner. If you've seen me as a child - I looked anorexic almost - I was teeny.

Then when I was entering into the 3rd grade we moved to America for the 2nd time. Only this time, to good ole' relaxed and sedentary Kansas. Fast food was almost non-existant in Germany in our diets and when we came to America it was our primary source of food. Now, I am not saying that my mom and dad did not cook - because they did - but I was so picky and they didn't make me eat it if I didn't want it. They would go anywhere in the world to satisfy me - and most of the time that was fast food. I fell head over heels in LOVE with Chicken Nuggets...and little did I know that turned out to be the devil in food form.

I would eat fast food constantly (even as a young kid). So, this new McNugget diet and the lack of exercise I was getting packed on the pounds. By sixth grade I was wearing boy's husky pants (they didn't make girl pants big enough). I remember crying in Sears because eventually I couldn't even fit into the fattest husky pants they had. (Husky=Fat)

So then in about 7th grade my father went overseas to serve in Kuwait for a year. I was SO close with my dad and all I did every day was seriously worry about whether he would be OK...or whether I would see him again. I began eating my emotions instead of talking about them...and I developed a really bad habit of doing that.

Then the years passed and my dad came back...but I had made food my replacement for my dad. Sounds weird, right? Well...I didn't know how to get rid of that...and all I wanted was junk food. No one ever told me no because I would throw a fit if they did.

I remember one time my mom had tried to make me eat chili (I hatttted (and still do) chili). She sat me on the counter of the kitchen until I took ONE bite of the chili. It was stone cold after 3 hours and I hopped down and ran away crying. Later that night, I fixed myself some stupid frozen chicken nuggets.

This was when the closet eating began. I would buy things for myself that no one would know about...and eat them in my room. I was constantly bribed with food in order to do something. And it worked...for a while.

My fascination with food became this overwhelming obsession - not something that I THOUGHT about but it was just something that I did. That was Rebecca. That was me.

I was taught (not purposefully) that food=comfort. Food=Love. Food=The WORLD.

Those lessons helped me ruin my own self esteem and gain a BUNCH of weight.

I wouldn't say that I had that many friends during high school. In fact I would say I almost had none. Especially during my junior year of highschool. I went out to eat EVERY. DAY. No joke. EVERY DAY. I would rotate the fast food restaurants so the employees "wouldn't know" I ate out so much. All I did that year was drain my bank account, and pack on the pounds. I think I gained 60 pounds more or less.

I think my lack of friendships here in KS has negatively effected me in so many ways...and I still feel I do not have a "group of friends".

Something you probably don't know about me:

1) I have never slept over at anyone's house here in Kansas.

2) I can count on one hand the number of times someone has called me just to have a conversation

3) Even when I am surrounded by people...my heart feels so alone.

4) Never had a "boyfriend"...not even close!

All of those factors contribute to my over-eating and stuffing my emotions. I am not sure what is wrong with me...but all of those things are true. And it makes me want to cry thinking about it.

Those play a big part in my weight gain years - the factor of loneliness being the biggest one.

All I really wanted out of highschool was to gain some friends and lose some weight...but that didn't happen.

So...that is really how I have GAINED the weight and how I've gotten fat. I basically overused food when I was a kid...and then that ballooned tremendously when I was a young adult into coping with food.

It wasn't about the flavor at all. It was about "how much food can I stuff inside of me in order to get rid of these feelings?"

Obviously, I didn't logically think that out...but that is what it equates to.

I ate when I was happy, sad, mad, glad, excited, nervous, bored, lonely, anxious, depressed, you name it - I was eating during that time!

The fatter I got the worse it became.

The fact that I have never shopped in a normal store...EVER!!! depressed me for YEARS.

So when my peers were shopping at Hollister and Abercrombie and American Eagle...I was shopping at Lane Bryant.

The store with no style and big sizes. YAY what a treat!

SO.....I am done with this depressing post...because these days are over.

I hope this gave you some insight.

If you have questions, let me know. I'd be happy to answer them.

peace & love,

becca joy.

Where I've come from. Where I am going.

This is the story of an average (maybe a little dorky) obese teenager trying to lose weight. I am not sure where this will go or where this will take me, but I thought a blog would be a good way to document my progress.

I guess I should say trying to lose weight - because I AM losing weight...but, whatever. :)

In this blog I will talk about the following:

Mental Struggles

Physical Struggles

What am I doing?

What is my exercise routine?

How do I stay motivated?

Plus whatever else I want to talk about.

Now, I am not going to post my weight...so if you're looking to find out how much I weigh...search on. I'm just not ready for that yet. I know my weight is apart of me and it has been for 10+ years and it's become apart of who I've become. Maybe once I get down a *significant* amount I will post all of my weight records. But not right now.

But quite honestly, that is NOT who I am on the inside. I think this blog will let me be completely honest about how I feel about being obese and the lessons that I have learned and am still learning.

So that's my introduction. I am going to write another post after this one...I just don't want one post to be super long. Who knows, maybe some of them will be extremely long.

Next up - how I got fat.

peace and love,

becca joy.