In Which I Am Insane With Insanity

Here lies the sweaty Beckie Young
who keeled over like a piece of dung.
She wanted to work out
despite the feelings of doubt
and now she is dead on the floor.

I started Insanity today. I didn't start the diet yet, as I had to get all the shit that was left over from when Amanda and Evan visited out of the house (read: in my digestive system) and go to the grocery store.

Did my measurements (what the crap, when did I get flabby again?) and weighed myself. After talking myself out of hanging myself over the number that flashed on the satanic scale, I did the Fit Test, which apparently you're supposed to do every so often so you can see how much better you're getting as the time goes by.

I made it halfway before I ended up on the floor like this. Cue twitchy lungs, the need for albuterol, excessive (even for me) sweating, and the urge to curl into the fetal position and pretend that I never spent $80 on that workout again.

So we all know that I'll be doing it again tomorrow.

In Which I Overindulged

I met my original goal this past year and then promptly gained twenty-five pounds back.

I am ashamed.

Yesterday was Valentine's Day, and I took full advantage of the chocolate, the heart shaped doughnuts, the hibatchi lunch, the steak dinner with a bottle of wine and cake balls dipped in chocolate.

I'm paying for it now.

Not only am I sick as hell from all that fat, but I don't fit in my skinny pants anymore. I have two pairs of pants that fit and don't make me feel like an Ice Road Trucker needs to be putting an "Oversize Load" sign on my rear end.


Why yes, yes I do have an unhealthy obsession with Ice Road Truckers. Disregard this level of nerdiness (more like AWESOMENESS).

In other news, my sister got herself a boyfriend. Even more shocking, I adore her boyfriend. He's at almost the same level of epic as I am. 98% to my 100%. Anyway, the two of them will be visiting next month and so he and I agreed to a friendly bet. Biggest Loser. Let's do this, Evan.

In Which I Have Flatulence

As a nursing student, I come across some really nasty stuff. Coffee ground emesis (that's indicative of an upper GI bleed, thank you), that unique smell of someone with C. Diff, gangrenous toes (vomit), diarrhea after someone drinks CT contrast (which I had to clean up after and almost died) and weeping wounds.

I try my hardest to not gag and embarrass the patient, though I always go back and laugh about it with my fellow nursing students. Sometimes I think humor is the only way to get through nursing school.

But I digress.

After a consultation with my physician, it was suggested to me that I try Alli to get those last "20 or so pounds off", to quote the MD. Since it's FDA approved and worked for my uncle, I figured I would try it, what with being on my whole "I'm going to lose the rest of this weight or die trying" kick.

So after I drop the kiddos off at school, I head to Hell-Mart, get myself the Alli starter kit, some Slim-Fast, a pedometer, a new scale and some Crest Whitening Strips, because if I'm gonna be skinny, I want to have a beautiful white smile as well, right?

I get home, shimmy off my clothes, step on the scale and...I've only gained one pound from the last time I weighed in, so I was 178.6 this morning.

Commence happy dance.

Feeling uplifted, I drink my Slim-Fast and eat half a banana, take my Calcium supplement and the Alli pill and head to the gym. Now, being a good girl and doing what my MD said, I set the timer on the treadmill for 60 minutes, figuring that I'll do the weights for the other 30. No biggie, right?

Wrong.

So I'm happily jogging along at a fine speed of 6 mph at a 2% incline, and all of a sudden, I feel my stomach lurch. You know the feeling, don't tell me you don't. And I've got 20 minutes left on my timer for the treadmill and I'm all like, I can do this, no problem.

Then they start coming. Farts, toots, foofies, flatulence, passing gas, whatever the hell you call them. First they're the little ones that you can pass off as a squeak of your chair if you're in class, or the sound of your shoe on the floor. Then the big guns started. It was reminiscent of my grandfather after a ham and bean dinner during the holidays.

Good news is, it stopped eventually and no one was harmed in the noxious fumes.

In Which The Wagon Runs Over Me

Beckie's diet=EPIC FAIL

I don't even want to talk about it.

What I do want to talk about is that this is only a minor setback, I think. I'm going to Hell-Mart to go buy a new scale (I returned the other one, it broke...guess how THAT made me feel), buy some more Slim-Fast, fill the Halloween candy dish with apples that we picked yesterday at the orchard instead of the yummy goodness that is Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (mmmmmmm) and start hitting the gym...hard.

While browsing around at Goodwill (don't judge, you know you do it too), I found 4 new pairs of workout shorts/capris (no more wardrobe malfunctions! YAY!), some tops, and the "Thighs of Steel" dvd. And a yoga one too.

Plus, I went to the doctor and he told me some bullshit about how exercising releases endorphins and so I'll both feel better physically and mentally and yadda, yadda, yadda, and then actually prescribed to me that I work out for an hour and a half five times a week, then to at least walk for a 1/2 hour those other two days.

Seriously dude???

We'll see how long this lasts. But depending on what the newest evil scale tells me tomorrow morning, I only have about 15-20 pounds left to reach my goal of 160.

If I don't reach it, it'll be time to talk to the plastic surgeon. I hear they do payment plans.

In Which I Cry In Happiness

Let's face it. I have an almost two year old son. His favorite pastimes include eating Reese's Puffs cereal ("ball cereal"--that's a whole other story that I'm going to have to clear up when he gets older. I don't want him to think it's okay to eat balls for breakfast), trashing the house, tormenting his sister and taking baths. While in the bath, his goal is to get as much water as possible out of the bathtub and onto the bathroom floor.

Alas, my digital scale was a fatality in the carnage that was leftover after one of his tsunamis.

I've been too broke to get a new one, because let's face it, it's not like I'm getting paid to do these clinicals, which really blows because I'm essentially doing the nurse's work. Let's just say that when I'm a nurse, I'll love having nursing students with me.

Anywho, so after dropping the kids off at school, I headed to Wal-Mart (aka Hell-Mart) and searched the store for a scale. Of course, my local Hell-Mart is in the middle of a remodel and the scales are no longer where they used to be. I spent fifteen minutes in the freaking store trying to find the aisle that held the bane of my existence. I finally found it in the Automotive section (WTF?!) and proceeded to be astonished by the cost of scales.

THIRTY FIVE DOLLARS FOR A FLIPPING PIECE OF CRAP SCALE?!?!?!

You've gotta be kidding me.

After pawing through the poorly marked scales, I finally found one that didn't measure my BMI and record all my weights, because let's face it, I don't really wanna know. So I get up to the register and of course, it doesn't have a scan tag on it. I waited at customer service for ten minutes so they could find another scale with a UPC on it. Grr.

So I finally get home with my scale and impulse buy of cherry chapstick, and I do the ritual of taking off all the clothes, emptying the bladder of those few precious ounces and step on the new scale of wicked. Look down and...

177.4 pounds!!!!

Oh, happy day! This means that I have lost 23 pounds (give or take) in the past seven weeks! I'm sure that I can thank the side effects of Prozac and Ativan for my weight loss (for some strange reason I got the rare weight loss compared to the more common weight gain of the meds) but I think I can give myself a pat on the back too. I mean, I've dieted, I've suffered through the SlimFast shakes in the morning, been doing the vegetarian diet for five days and not cheated once even though there is bacon in the fridge, and drank enough water to keep a camel hydrated for two years. I've fought the elliptical and treadmill every day. I think I can rejoice from this.

It's just hard not to celebrate with a Bud Light Lime and Chinese food...

In Which I Say "HOLY CRAP!"

Holy shitnuggets, Batman!

I started this weight loss program one month ago, and while I decided I'd do a weekly weigh-in so I wouldn't stress myself out too much, I'd kind of gone lax on it. So when I woke up today on the dreaded weigh in day, I padded into the master bathroom where the digital scale stands. Normally I cower from it. I try to not look at it, pretend it isn't there. But today, that scale was going down.

I did everything I could to make sure that I had lost weight. I did ten jumping jacks. I took off all my clothes. I made sure I didn't have to poop. Finally, I realized that I had to get on the damn scale or I was going to be late for clinical, a huge no-no in the life of a nursing student.

I stepped on the scale, eyes closed, pleading with God and any other deity that was watching that I had at least lost SOME weight. Finally, I realized that I had to look down because this scale was not going to read itself.

I lost FIFTEEN pounds! Amazing! I'm so stoked. I happy danced on the scale. It was awkward and ungraceful, and after I was done I looked around to make sure that my husband hadn't seen me, which fortunately he hadn't.

WOOT!