Still Hanging in There

While I haven't had the time to blog about it on a daily basis, I have continued to stick with my daily exercise un-routine. I vary what I do to include Oxycise!, Pilates, 2 hour long treks through the still-deep snow in the woods, Shimmy (belly dancing), Zumba, and other programs that look like they might be interesting and fun. 

I would like to report that I was immensely heartened on measuring day (at the one week mark) when I discovered that I had lost a total of 5 1/4".  I told myself that I wouldn't worry as much about the scale, because I know how radically my weight fluctuates from day to day, and even when I lost inches in the past there would be times that the number on the scale went UP.  So, while I did buy a scale in the middle of last week, I will not beat myself up at the way the numbers go so long as I continue to get a positive movement in my inches. (And by "positive" I mean that I am losing them!!)

On another front, I also continue to wade through my feelings of extreme guilt at leaving my babies behind in Kuwait. Just this morning I had a rather vivid and indescribably heartbreaking dream that my son, Omar, had a brain tumor and he was dying from it.  I'd been running around looking all over for him to finally find him and when I tried to wrap him in my arms, he pushed me away, angry. When I asked him why, he told me that he'd been thinking all along that I left because I didn't love him or want him in my life. I was immediately hit with the realization that that was the cause of his brain tumor and then I enfolded him in my arms and cried out over and over again. I woke up (and woke Little Bear and Daddy Bear, too) crying out in rending sobs.  

I'm not under any illusions. I know that I made the choices that I did and now I (and the ones that my choices affected) have to live with the results. That being said, however, I wish the adults -- I use that term liberally -- involved would show a bit of maturity and not poison my children by telling them that they are or were ever unwanted or unloved. That is the farthest thing from the truth that one can get and it only causes more hurt to those that said "adults" purportedly love. 


Life is about change. Sometimes change is difficult to swallow. Sometimes it hurts -- a lot.  But in the end, assuming the change was for the right reasons, change is a wonderful thing.

Day 2 of My Quest for a Healthy Body

So, because I enjoyed myself so very much yesterday doing the Pilates workout, I decided that I'd do it again today. I have to say, about 15 minutes into the 1/2 hour workout, and I was feeling my thighs and abs! Still, it felt AWESOME and I didn't want to stop there, except my poor Little Bear isn't feeling well and he let me know that he thinks his Mommy is perfect the way she is. Or at least he let me know that he thinks his Mommy should give him her boobies the very second he wants them.

At any rate, I am chalking Day 2 up as a success and looking forward to tomorrow. I might even Zumba.

I know, frightening, right? Just be glad I haven't posted pictures.

Day 1 of my Quest for a Healthy Body

Oxycise! works. I know this because several years ago, after the birth of Omar, my fourth child, I had grown to epic proportions and felt like I would never again be able to fit into a single digit jean size. After a long conversation with my mom where we discussed different breathing programs that claimed to help you lose weight, my mother, who had switched to BodyFlex, sent her Oxycise! tapes to Kuwait, where her so-desperate-I'll-try-anything-even-ridiculous-breathing-programs daughter waited anxiously for them to arrive.

Well ... imagine my surprise when after the first week I'd lost 2 pounds and several inches over-all from my hips, thighs, waist and tummy! I figured it had to be a fluke, but I stuck with the daily 15 minute routine and low and behold the next week I dropped another pound and a few more inches. Breathing was actually helping me shed excess pounds and inches. It was CRAZY!

Anyhow, that is what I did today; 15 minutes of Level 1 Oxycise! and it felt invigorating. So much so that a few hours later I did a 30 minute Pilates routine. I'm feeling pretty good about myself right now.

March Has Arrived

So now that the month of February has finally moved behind me, I can move on to better things. I almost wrote "bigger and better things" but decided that since my plan is to start shrinking myself this month, I would just avoid references to "bigger" anythings.

I never used to have to worry about my weight. I was a size 5 all through high school and then when I got out of boot camp at the age of 18, I had shrunk into a size 3! But ... six children and a bunch of years have happened to me and now I find that I am not very pleased at all with what I see in the mirror. I am humiliated that I have to buy Women's size 16 jeans and that if I want them to be comfortable at all, I need to make sure they have at least 20% lycra in them. And so, to that end, I am committing myself. No, not to an asylum, although that has been recommended in the past.  I am committing myself to a regular program of daily exercise and this blog is going to keep me accountable. I don't own a scale, though I will be investing in one very soon, but for now, I will simply start with basic body measurements and pray the numbers get smaller as the days pass.< So, if there is anyone at all that reads this with even a modicum of regularity, I would appreciate the odd note of encouragement or two. 

And so it begins ...