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 Discover I Have a Butt

I've lost 15 pounds since I started dieting! Whoop whoop!

My clothes are fitting differently. I look skinnier from the side. My butt? It's almost...there. Like, I can see it. Sort of.

If you know me and my family, you know that my sister Amanda got all the butt. And the boobs, but we won't go there. My pants never fit right because I just don't have any junk in the trunk. It was once coined "Beckie's Saggy Butt Syndrome". <--and that right there is why there is a love/hate relationship among nursing school students. White scrub pants? Do not accentuate the buttocks. Case in point: Anyway, so I'm working out really hard, I'm keeping my calories around 1200 kcal/day, and I'm drinking so much water that it sounds like I've turned into the Hoover Dam every time I use the bathroom.

AND I HAVE A BUTT!!

(one that is in significant need of a massage. my poor glutes)

In Which I Eat Crackers...Lots of Crackers

I am finally starting to come back to life after the evil that is known as the Norovirus. Five days of crackers, soup, and instant breakfasts. There also was a cheese debacle, but we won't discuss that (yes, Amanda, you were right, I shouldn't have tested my luck).

So basically I planted my ass on the couch and didn't do anything for a couple days. I did try a walk on Friday, and we went to the hockey game (where I was back to overcome funnel cake temptation). Sunday we went to church, but then an apple fritter got the best of me.

FYI: just because it supposedly has apple in it, this does not balance the deep fried pastry. Trust me.

Also, let us discuss cheesecake for a moment. Cheesecake is a wonderful thing, and they've got those awesome tubs of JUST THE FILLING.

TWO WORDS:
So far I have been able to mostly avoid the tastiness that is my cheesecake, but it's a daily fight. I'm trying to limit myself to small slices. Miniscule slices. Slices that could hardly be considered slices.

As far as working out, I haven't really. I've done some walking, but that's the extent. I'm going to attempt the gym today after I bring my kids to school, so we will see how that goes. I may have to bring my trusty barf bucket.

Charming, eh?

Original Weigh In: FAT.
1st Week Weigh In: LOST 11 pounds!!

In Which I Curse The Holidays

It is what every dieter hates to see. Turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie. Ham, macaroni and cheese, corn, pecan pie. Chocolate in the stocking. Birthday cake on my birthday, which falls between the two holidays.Tons of alcohol and appetizers at my best friend's house to ring in the new year.

I have gained twelve pounds in the past 6 weeks. And my ass has grown from the size of Rhode Island to the size of Texas. My double chin is coming back and my spare tire has gone from a bicycle tire to that of a monster truck.

Enough self-hatred and beating myself up. Time to do something about it.

The good thing is that right after the holidays, New Year’s comes. I usually make several resolutions, which haven’t always been achieved in the past, but this year, actually got done. I finished my book. I lost a crap ton of weight. Forty-five pounds, to be exact. That’s a lot of weight. The size of a small child, at the least. I started being more active. I got into nursing school and have done well so far.

Even with the weight gain, I’m really only 15 pounds from my ultimate goal. It was suggested to me to try out Insanity, a DVD workout, which I’ve heard can leave people vomiting and wishing to die.

Sounds perfect.

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 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!