I’m going to start with the ‘bad’ and get it out of the way.

The alarm went off at 4:00. I hit snooze a few times and then drug myself out of bed. You would think that going to bed at 8:40PM would make this easier. BAH. I flipped on a few lights – used the bathroom and then went back in the bedroom to kiss my honey awake. He woke up enough to tell me he didn’t want to go to the gym today! ? Since we commute together (and the gym is right next to where I catch the ferry – over 30 minutes from home) that meant _I_ couldn’t go to the gym.

Now – now that I’m awake and moving and stuff I realize what I SHOULD have done was put on my workout gear and went in the other room and gone for a run on my treadmill. But THAT thought didn’t occur to me at 4:15 AM (although now that I’ve thought of it I’m going to DO it next time he pulls this). Instead I walked through the house deliberately turning off each light and then crawled back into bed. The worse thing was that I wasn’t any more rested when I got up at 5:45 and he STILL didn’t want to get up so I ended up being late for work! BLEH!


Now for the good news:

Today’s my free day – so food is no issue. My abs are SORE from yesterday’s ab workout. This is awesome because DOMS in my abs is a rare occurrence.

And the BEST news?

I am currently sitting here wearing a size 14 pair of pants! Not just pants but JEANS and in a Misses size too (as apposed to 'Woman's size'). Now they don’t exactly ‘fit’. I’ve got a slight ‘muffin top’ going so no tight shirts – BUT The button, and zip and I can sit down in them and still breath. In July when I started BFL (for the second time this year) The size 16 pair of these same jeans fit in almost the same way. So I think I can HONESTLY say I’ve lost one pant size in four months. According to my scale at home – as of this morning I’ve lost exactly 0 lbs. That’s right – 0! Of course it also says that my body fat% has gone from 51% to 47% ?

Now – none of this is especially eye opening for me. I’m WELL aware that the scale is a Bitch. I know it’s not the BEST way to judge progress and hopefully someone else will look at this post one day and say – Ah Ha! The Scale’s a Bitch!

BUT – truth is I need to lose weight – SCALE weight. BITCH or not my feet don’t care what my body fat% is. It doesn’t care if the 205 (or 208 according to the home scale) pounds of weight they are carrying is fat, muscle, or rocks that I like to carry around in my pockets. They just know that it’s too heavy for the poor ligaments in them to support – so they hurt. Some days they throb. Some days I want to cry because it feels like someone has hit me on the heal with a hammer. I’m sure many of the problems with my hips are due to that excess weight as well.

Two years ago when I did BFL I didn’t have this problem losing weight. Heck you can even check back on my blog and see… I had started in July and By October I was down to 175! But I did what so many do – I skipped a workout here and there – my free day started sliding in to a free week and the next thing I know it’s two years later and I’m worse then when I started.

Then at the beginning of this year I decided to pull it all together. Only it was harder this time. The same effort didn’t seem to give the same results. About six weeks into it I finally started dropping and finally in April I had managed to get down to 191. Not great but it was happening.

But this time – this time it’s been even HARDER. Four months – four month with no discernable drop in scale weight – and I keep trying to figure out WTF is going on!

That being said – I think I know what’s going on here. I’ve lost my ‘newbie’ status. I’ve gotten past that point where my body can gain muscle and still lose copious amounts of fat. Basically – I’ve been unconsciously ‘bulking’. Something that up till now I’ve been able to do and still lose – or at least lose MORE fat then the amount of muscle I’ve been gaining.

It’s time to get serious. I know I’ve said this before – in fact I said it just a few days ago? But there are some things that life had to beat me over the head with before I ‘get’ it. Even when I say – yeah, I get it. But I’m really just saying that to get that little voice to shut up for a while. ?

I could continue to do what I’m doing and I WILL lose fat – albeit slowly. I’ll also change my body shape. BUT – I will NOT lose scale weight. And even though she’s a Bitch – I still have some goals that revolve around what that SCALE says.

So – my goal for the remainder of this month is to MAINTAIN my muscle – and lose the FAT.

This weekend I’ll be taking ANOTHER look at BFFM. I’m going to pack a second workout bag so that I can take it to work. My new haircut was the first step to being able to workout at lunch time. Next step is to have the clothes. From now until the end of November I will spend my lunch doing EXTRA (LISS) cardio. I’ll leave my morning workouts as they are (Running for miles via my training plan and MAX-OT for weights).

Food – well this is my biggest issue. I have NO TIME. But I used to say I would NEVER be able to get up at 4:00AM and workout either and I’m doing that. I’m going to have to do a LOT of planning this weekend – and I’m going to be starting a list of foods to prepare so that I have things ready for the week. Cooking up Chicken – Pancakes etc. I’m also going to do some High/Low Carb cycling cause I KNOW my body loves Low carb. Seriously! I always drop weight that way.

Hang onto your hats people – I’m getting my 1000th wind and I’m ready to sprint for the finish again!