Thank you for the insightful post. I think that I am sleeping into the "knowing" as I ease into the final ten pounds. I'm still stuck at 115, I've been there for maybe four months. I know I need to exercise, so I do it every day. I know I need to eat healthier. I need to sit myself down and hash out what exactly I want so I can alter my current plans to achieve it. I think my problem is that it's not simply about losing weight anymore, it's more toning up and putting on lean muscle. I'm still stuck with the scale mentality.

Yeah, I find that that the WANTING is easy to lose though. I recently found it again, and it makes all the difference!

Went in for my weekly weigh-in this morning. Another 1.5 pounds gone! Yep, I'm at 172 exactly. I have 7 pounds to go! WOOHOOOO!!! Now originally I was going to go to 170, so if I still were I'd be 2 pounds to go. But I decided on the 5 pound buffer while I'm going into the maintenance phase and focusing on taking off more body fat, toning up more & building more muscle.

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I really need to focus on getting more sleep during the week. I've just been so stressed out at work lately its kicking me into insomnia, so I end up not getting enough sleep. Its like I end up pacing for a couple hours instead of going to bed. Or I'll stand in the middle of the room and stare off into space for periods of time. Combination of not enough sleep and crazy stress at work... I have virtually no fuse right now. My coworker, the IT guy, was talking to one of the managers on his speaker phone, I found her stubborn stupidity so irritating I wanted to go upstairs and stab her in the head with a pencil. Normally I can just ignore her or grumble a little... but there's times she brings out my inner homicidal maniac.

Ah well, thank GAWD it is Friday. I think I'm gonna say calories be damned and tie one on tonight. I do believe my good buddy Jack is gonna have to come visit.

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I've really been noticing how much stronger I've gotten. My leg muscles are pretty much rock solid, but the strength in them was really brought home to me this morning while I was working out. Guess all those lunges are starting to pay off. I'm getting to where I can kick a lot higher in my martial arts class too. Finally getting more accuracy with my roundhouse. I'm pretty jazzed about the Indonesian Silat workshop in a few weeks. My arms are looking pretty good these days too. Getting definition in my delts and biceps... and I think I saw a hint of tricep the other day. I need to build my upper pecs a little more though... I can see ribs.

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I'm gonna have to grab some of the text I've written in other posts concerning nutrition and put it here... I think its worth keeping.

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Alright, back to work!

This is going to be an ongoing post... I'll continue to add to it at my whim.

(and this is all observation, opinion and personal truth... I'm hardly an authority on this)

So I'd say the bulk of us (bad pun, sorry ) are here because we didn't eat right, ate too much, etc.

So while I've been on this weight loss/lifestyle change journey, I've learned quite a bit. Enough to make me interested in studying nutrition. For now that is limited to what I can read, but I'm hoping to take some classes eventually. I'm also a lot more interested in cooking. Kind of a necessity since I need to make sure I can eat something that doesn't taste like cardboard sauteed in vaseline.

I picked up a cook book recently called "Every Calorie Counts" by Dana Carpender. She is also the author of "500 Low Carb Recipes" and several others. I have both of those books and so far what I've cooked out of both have been pretty tasty, or easy enough to tweak to my liking. The Low Carb book is a tad too fatty and caloric for the way I eat now, but I've been modifying what looks good to something more geared toward how I eat now.

What's very valuable about these books is the first section where she talks a lot about different foods & nutrition. And the Glycemic Index.

Carbs & The Glycemic Index

You can find good explanations of the Glycemic Index by searching on this site, or by Googling it, but in a nutshell, the Glycemic Index, or GI, is basically a measure of how carbohydrates affect your blood sugar levels. If the foods break down slowly, gradually releasing the carbs into your blood stream, it has a low GI. Foods that break down quickly and release the carbs rapidly have a high GI.

Ever wonder why you might feel a little tired or loopy after eating Chinese Food... especially things like fried rice, sweet & sour pork, etc.? Because it is laden with sugar, full of white rice, and if its battered & fried... refined flour. All of these are extremely high on the GI. You get that rush of sugars through your blood and it makes you go then you crash . Then you're hungry again a very short while later.

Your body basically broke those high GI items down quickly, ran it through your blood sugar in a surge of energy, and since you probably couldn't use all that energy right then and there, stored what was left away as fat. Why fat? Because that is how your body stores energy to be used later.

Thanks to modern technology in food processing, many things are so processed they lose their nutritional value. Like white flour. Like white rice. Like instant oatmeal. Things that are fairly nutritious when in their whole state have their outer layer stripped off and discarded, and while this may make a tasty white bread, its also a sugar bomb.

So to help avoid the high GI with breads and grains if you just can't take them out of what you eat... stay far, FAR away from white bread, white rice (egads don't even think about instant rice!), instant oatmeal (has a bunch of sugar in it anyway), and in their stead, go for whole wheat, whole grain products. Go with rolled or steel cut oats. These will contain that outer layer of the grain that helps slow down the release of the sugars into the blood. And... it contains fiber. Fiber is good. Fiber helps clean out your insides, helps keep you regular!

Another thing that helps slow down the GI is fat. Little butter on your bread, or go Mediterranean style and dip it in a bit of olive oil. Drawback to that is the fat and caloric intake that goes with it.

more later...

Awesome post! Will be coming back to read updates I know some of this, and haven't heard of other stuff, sop thanks for the interesting read!

And well done on the 1.5 loss!

Thank you! I'm pretty happy because I'm .4 away from losing a true 70 pounds, and 7 pounds away from 'goal'. That's HUGE! I feel pretty accomplished on this.

Wait until you read my diatribe on eggs and only eating egg whites.

So, Mr. Jack and I didn't tie one on nearly as bad as I had originally thought I would. Had a stressful evening because I drove all the way out to my chiropractor only to find they were closed. When I called and they didn't answer, I thought they were too busy because the voice mail message didn't say anything about them being out. Geez, one minute to change the message would have saved me time, gas, and the aggravation of being stuck on Hwy 4 during rush hour.

I got so pissed at being stuck in traffic (this was the topper to a stressful week) that I took a detour off another freeway and stopped at the mall. There's a gathering of car folk every Friday evening, so I stopped for a while and de-stressed by taking pictures of some lovely hot rods, muscle cars, and classics. And talked to some pretty cool people. I'm heading to another car show in a bit.

"D" (my husband and I) got together with a friend of ours for dinner last night. Went to a Mexican restaurant. I've figured out how to eat at a Mexican restaurant without totally blowing it. I had a few chips with the salsa, but instead of anything involving shells or tortillas, I ordered the fajitas, but didn't use the tortillas. Ate the meat, the onions, some of the beans, a couple bites of the rice, and of course the guacomole. Didn't feel like a total slug afterwards.

Then I came home and had some Gentleman Jack on the rocks. Probably a couple shots worth, but not nearly the amount I wanted earlier. That's ok, less damage control to do afterwards.

Did a longer workout this morning with the Belly Dance DVDs. I was doing just fine until I was stretching afterwards and strained something in my lower back. I'm trying to breathe through it right now, but OUCH!!!

Lately I've started to drink a glass of 2% milk right after working out. Seems to be helping with the deterring of muscle cramps. That is, when I don't do something stupid and pull a muscle.

I hope it passes... I plan on working with the weights tomorrow.

Ok, need to get some food in me and get to the car show. Hot Rods WOOOHOOOOO!!!

Excuse me a minute...

Had to stop at Work World today to get a new pair of Carhartt's to wear at my welding classes. All my fat pants are WAY too big now. Considering I was wearing men's pants, and my old Carhartt's were 42s... yeah, they were a 'tad' too large.

Decided 'what the heck?'... looked at the Carhartt's for Women pants. Grabbed 3 pairs... a 14, a 12 and a 10.

Tried on the 14s... they were freaking HUGE! Almost to the point where I could pull them off without unbuttoning them.

Tried on the 12s... they fit a little better, but still pretty baggy. They'd be on the 'too huge' train before long.

Tried on the 10s... a little snug... BUT THEY FIT! And they'll fit even better 5 pounds from now.

I'm just ecstatic right now... I haven't gotten my ass into a size 10 in YEARS!!! I know there will still be brands where I'll be a 12 right now... but hell, I was wearing 18/20s and even 22s before. A 12 isn't going to faze me right now.

I wonder if I should go for size 8, or would that be too much? Meh, I don't know. I do know that I want to start getting off the phentermine at the beginning of September. I'd like to get it out of my system and hopefully be able to continue the way I have.

So I went to that car show today. Saw some friends that I haven't seen in a few months. Guess a couple of them noticed I'd slimmed down a bit because the sentence 'holy crap, girl... you're wasting away!' escaped his lips. Man... that felt good! And another had asked what I had been doing. Always nice when your hard work is noticed. Makes it even more worth it.

Awesome! You deserve to feel absolutely proud and good about yourself! Enjoy the clothes, the compliments, and yourself!

Sunday was an odd mix of cool and frustrating.

My workout was with weights in the morning. Trying to keep consistent about at least twice a week with weights. *Mantra* Pecs and glutes... gotta build up those pecs and glutes!

We decided to go to Target to grab a few things, and I figured that would be a good place to look at some inexpensive jeans, and pick up some new work out leggings because my XLs are baggy and uncomfortable. They had virtually NO jeans in the 'women's' sizes... you know, the even sizes. Odd sizes are Jrs... hence no room for curves. Pleny of Juniors, plus sizes and maternity... but no 'normal' sized women's jeans. Their selection of workout wear was rather sucky too. The leggings I tried on fit really weird. Only cool thing about that episode was that the larges were too big, and the mediums fit, even if they looked bad. Yes, I care what my workout gear looks like, so shoot me.

Stopped by a sporting goods place and picked up some more weights too. My dumbells went up to 5lbs, so I grabbed a pair of 8s and 10s. I'll work my way to where those are light and get some 12s and 15s. I used to curl with 20s a long time ago... don't know if I'll get there again or not.

I'm feeling that muscle soreness... and that's a good thing. Looking forward to the martial arts class tonight.

Awesome class tonight. I think most of the others are involved in watching the Olympics so it was a small class. I'm the only female that showed up, so I got to spar with one of the guys again. I love that. Sparring really gives you a good arm & upper body workout. We punch the target mitts, so when you are the one holding the mitts, you have to resist the punches your sparring partner lays into them. When I spar with one of the guys, the don't tap the mitts, they hit 'em. Most likely not full force, but they give enough oomph behind them to feel it in my arms. I can punch the mitts a bit harder with them too. I need to keep getting better so I can spar with the guys more often. I learn more that way.

Unfortunately tonight was the end of this session, and there's not going to be another one until the beginning of next month. Fortunately for the next couple weeks my instructor is teaching a martial arts conditioning type of class, and it sounds like its a pretty intense workout too. I'll be signing up for that.

I'm doing a lot of traveling in September. Right after Labor Day I'm heading to Las Vegas for the Photoshop World conference, and towards the end of September I'm heading to Kansas for a week. Gonna go experience the race weekend out there (yes, NASCAR!), and then hang out for a few days, explore, that type of thing. Never been there, it should be fun.

One challenge for both of these trips is going to be finding ways and time to work out. I think the Luxor has a gym, I hope I can hit it a couple times. I'll also be packing my iPod and resistance bands, do what I can in my room as well. Plus I'll be walking a lot. In Kansas, I'm staying in Lawrence during the race weekend, and I've found a gym about a 1/2 mile from the hotel I'm staying at (no exercise room there). I need to see if they have day passes, and how much they are. I can at least hit the gym on Friday since we'll be at the track Saturday and Sunday... and walking a lot. Still need to find a hotel in the town we're staying in after the race... hopefully one with an exercise room or near a gym.

Another challenge is going to be the food. Its going to be tricky to behave when I'm out there, especially since I'll be eating at restaurants most of the time. Our hotel in Lawrence will have a small fridge, so at least I can get some snack type things that won't wreck all the work I've done. Just gonna have to be as good as I can be, allow myself to misbehave a bit, and do the damage control when I get back.

Well, good news... there IS a gym at the Luxor. Not so great... $10 day pass to get in. Still, I guess that's not too bad, and at least it opens early enough. Ah well, still bringing my resistance bands.

Been dealing with insomnia lately. Can't figure out why, but when time comes to go to bed, I'm not tired, so I either go lie in bed and stare in the dark, or I'll pace the house, or read... if I had a giant hamster wheel I'd probably run on it!

Probably work related stress. Ironically, this just makes it more difficult and stressful when I'm bloody exhausted and have to drag my knackered arse into work. Man I need a vacation.

I'm so glad that some things just don't go out of style, or that our current 'fashion' trend is a mix of a lot of different things. (Can you say 'anything goes'? I thought you could).

I have this denim skirt that I haven't worn in YEARS. Right back with the skinny black jeans. Its fitted through the waist & hips, then flares out and hits about mid-calf. Its been in the back of the closet because it was another piece of clothing I just couldn't get rid of. (why oh why did I get rid of that leather skirt?)

I tried it on about a month ago, and while I could get it on & zipped up, It wasn't attractive (eeeek! muffin top!).

I wore it yesterday. No muffin top. Also wore my Jack Daniel's tank top that's an XL that used to be really tight on me 70 pounds ago. I practically swim in it now. Had it belted like a tunic. The belt was a leather & concho thing that I made back in '89, and I'm almost tying it in the same spot as I did back then. Yay!!!

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Slept like crap, again, last night. I'm not taking any caffeine or stimulant type things for hours before I go to bed, try not to eat anything within 3 hours of going to bed, etc. Yet I am still having the insomnia.

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On another fun note, my total fitness class is tonight. Can't wait! Unfortunately its also rather hot outside, that means its gonna be warm in there, regardless of the A/C. Ah well, sweat it out & hydrate.

If you're at all willing to look into natural supplements, try to get some Melatonin pills.... this is the chemical your brain SHOULD produce in adequate enough quantities to get you to sleep.

This way you won't have to resort to prescription sleeping pills, that have many negative side-effects.

Your outfit does sound stylin... yeah, it's crazy what's making it back!

I already take 5-HTP, maybe I should up the dose and see if that helps.

I used to dress pretty crazy all the time before I got fat, now that I'm getting back to 'fighting trim' I'm going back to dressing crazy. Its fun stuff.