Stellar Path

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

I have never taken a photo of myself in the mirror with a cell phone, and I don’t plan to get into the habit of it because I am neither a 14-year-old emo kid on myspace nor a douchebag. However, Tina is not home, and I wanted to take a photo of myself after my first taekwondo class in literally months.

No, I am not on Myspace right now...

I was honestly nervous going in to it. I was really surprised by that; I have taken classes at this school for years. I’m going on four years there. However, I was so rusty, I felt like a green belt walking out onto the mats today.

However, it was the most fun I have had working out in a LONG time. It was a pretty simple workout, and we didn’t spar today, but it was still so much fun. I’m sure we’ll spar next week, and I guarantee I’ll feel rusty again, but I have made the first step back and I am so happy about it!

Meanwhile, while I’m here, I’m going to post my second giveaway! I had planned to wait ’til tomorrow, but I’m going to go ahead and do it now because that $14 is burning a hole in my pocket.

The giveaway this week will be coming to you directly from Amazon, but no, Amazon did not donate it. (I will happily accept donations and give them out in giveaways, just in case some corporation or company out there is thinking about branching out into blog giveaways. Let me know. )

But this is something I’ve read about on several blogs, but I have not yet used this item myself. I want to, for two reasons, which I’ll explain as soon as I tell you what the item is.

30 Day Shred

As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, Jillian Michaels is one of my five freebies, so I’m interested in anything she does.  And two, I’ve heard this DVD workout will kick your tail.  I’m typically not big on video workouts anymore, now that I have a gym, but there are times that it would be nice to have a video here at the house that could give me an intense workout.  (All I have are Sweatin’ to the Oldies, and those don’t really challenge me anymore.)

There are FOUR ways you can enter this contest.  You can do one, some, or all, for a total of up to four entries.  You must come back here and leave a comment for each of the four you’ve done.  (In other words, if you’re going to post it on your Twitter account, make sure you come back and post a comment with your twitter user name.  If you post it on your blog, make sure you leave the link.)  And I will ship this anywhere, so it’s open to anyone on the planet.

1. Entry One – Answer this question right now, in a comment.  “What is the most intense workout that you do on a regular basis?”
2. Entry Two – Post this on your Twitter account.  “@stellarpath is giving away Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred! #giveaway http://bit.ly/d4uTwj”
3. Entry Three – Post about this giveaway on your blog, including a link back.
4. Entry Four – Follow me on Twitter and let me know, so I can follow you back.  (If you’re already following me, just state that in the comment you make for this entry.)

This giveaway is going to run until March 12, 2010, at midnight, so you’ve got almost a full week.

We have beautiful weather here in Kentucky, so I’m getting off here to go enjoy my day.  I hope you do the same!

This is my last blog post before my post-sickness post-Train 2 Lose weigh-in tomorrow. There will be no fanfare or fireworks; I’m quite positive I’ve gained. It’s just a matter of how big a gain, at this point. But you know what? It doesn’t matter. This isn’t a quick fix or a matter of toughing it out to goal weight. This is a lifelong battle and journey, and this is just a bump in the road. I’ll have many more along the way.

I know that I won’t make it the entire month of March with a daily post every day, but I’m going to keep riding this train for as long as I can.

Today, I have decided I’m going to write about something that I do that does, at least a little, seem to help. I collect motivational images.

Basically, my motivational images are anything that inspire me to continue working hard at my health.

Some are funny, like this one.

Some people are dead set against self-deprecating humor. I love it, and this cracks me up. And for me, it’s frequently true.

Some of my images don’t make sense to anyone but me, like this one.

Yes, that is the Power Rangers. That is a motivational image to me for a rather odd reason. Power Rangers came out when I was a teenager. I thought it was the stupidest show in the entire world. In the summer of 1995, when I was 17, I took my nephews to see the Power Rangers movie while I was babysitting them. I thought the movie was amazing. It had cool special effects, martial arts, and everybody was fit. At 17, I should point out that I was not fit, I did not know martial arts, and I had no special effects. Power Rangers represented, and I’ll be honest – it still does, a healthy lifestyle for me. I can’t explain it, but there it is.

This image is motivating for fairly obvious reasons.

I want to look like Ryan Reynolds. To make it clear, I do not want to do him; I want to look like him. Still, I can’t deny that I have a man crush on him. And the thing that’s a little amazing and I still sometimes have a bit of trouble getting my head around – with hard work, perseverance, and dedication, I could look like this. Albeit with a few stretch marks, but I’ll still take it.

This image motivates me, but it also makes me a tiny bit sad.

That’s me, about four years ago, at the thinnest I have ever been. I weighed around 270 or so in that photo. Some bad decisions led to me ballooning up to 350 recently. This picture is motivational to me because I know that I can get back down to that weight, and even lower. Granted, there is still a gut that has been cropped out of that photo, but I think I look pretty good there. I want to look that good (and better) again.

This is the last motivational picture I’ll share, and this is the one that kind of got me started in collecting motivational images.

I found this one night while stumbling around the internet. The sentiment in it really rang true for me. I hope to someday have a healthy marriage and healthy children and live in a healthy house with a healthy yard and a healthy white picket fence. The key word for me was someday. It was always “someday.” Well, how can I make that happen, if I don’t start now? Not in the morning, or on Monday, but right now?

I keep these images around to help me stay focused. I don’t deny – I frequently need the push.

I’ll probably post one of my motivational images every time that I post my weight on Fridays.

Do any of you collect motivational images? Which photos speak to you?

As always, if you are viewing this on the main page, the video may not appear. If you click on the title of this post, it will be on the post’s page.

Sadly, the t.v. hosts did not seem to actually watch the video clip before they started talking about it, because while they were correct that Deanna was eliminated, she did LOSE weight, not gain. Stupid newscasters.

I suspect this will be my last week in the contest, and I am at peace with that. There are several benefits to no longer being in this competition.

One, I can go back to taekwondo. My classes meet at the same time as the Train 2 Lose competition, and I haven’t gone in a while. I’m still a Senior 1st Degree Black Belt, and I hope to test for Probationary 2nd Degree Black Belt in July.

Two, the numbers game of weight loss is getting in my head. I want to just be able to be happy if I’ve lost weight, not be upset if I haven’t lost enough. I can’t guarantee that still won’t happen as the wedding date draws closer and closer (we’re getting married in seven and a half months – holy crap!) but I want to relax about it. I really believe that stress may be a contributing factor. It’s also just SO frustrating seeing people who are not working out any harder than myself dropping such big numbers. It sucks. Hard. And blows. At the same time.

Three, I want to experiment with my eating and exercise to see what truly works best for me, and in this contest, I’m afraid to do that, for fear it may cause me to gain weight. Granted, that’s sort of what I’m doing this week, with only exercising one hour a day, but still… I want to experiment a little, and I don’t feel free to do that yet.

My trainer said he doesn’t think I’ll go this week. I think I will. I don’t suspect I’ve lost anything, and I certainly haven’t lost anything substantial, but we’ll see. He did tell me that he could tell my face is thinner, which was certainly nice to hear.

As soon as I’m out of the contest, I’ll resume Friday as my weigh-in day, but I’ll obviously use my weight that I record first thing every morning. I also need to start posting more pictures of myself. I think I may take a photo every Friday evening, just to see if I can track my weight loss as it goes lower.

On other news, I’ve decided to start Project 365. If you don’t know what it is, basically, you take a photo every day for a year. That’s it in a nutshell. I’ll likely take most of them on my cell phone; it’s only a two megapixel camera, but I’ve heard many photographers say that it isn’t the camera that makes a photo, it’s the photographer. Hopefully, my skills will improve over the year. I can definitely say that this first photo is not a prize winner. Anyway, you can check out my page here.  (http://365project.org/stellarpath/)

As always, to see the video if you are on the main page, click on the title of this post and view this post on its own page. The video should be embedded at that point.

Very disappointing weigh in last Friday. And apparently, I have a tic of clapping my hands any time I am on camera.

I hope (and think I will) have a loss of at least three pounds this Friday. I am close to two pounds down now (I think). It’s very frustrating that I am busting my butt and still not losing like others, but what can you do? I’m still hoping I can pull into the top three at some point. I’ve got Jeanette, Chris, Daniel, and Christie as my main competition. If I could have two good weeks (and subsequently they don’t have as good of weeks), I can pull ahead. Maybe I can still turn my three pounds into five by this Friday? We’ll see.

I plan on doing four hours today. One hour of Zumba, one hour of elliptical on my own, one hour Train 2 Lose workout, and one additional hour of elliptical on my own again. It’ll be a busy day, but we’re getting down to crunch time. I refuse to have another bad weigh-in on Friday if I can at all keep it from happening.

In a way, I’ll be very happy when this contest is over, because I’m starting to get to a point where it isn’t enjoyable. I like the workouts, I like the people, but I don’t like the numbers game that I’m starting to play. I just want to be at a place where I can enjoy my weight loss, even if it’s just a pound or two, and not be frustrated if I don’t lose six.

I have decided to do my first giveaway on Valentine’s Day!

Granted, I have only accumulated $3 for giveaways in my $5 Weekly Goals, but this one is totally on me.

Also, I have this sitting in my house, I know that I’m not going to use it, and I hate to see stuff going to waste.

This giveaway is for a product called Carbquik.

It is basically a flour substitute that is extremely low in carbs, high in fiber, and can be used in a variety of different recipes. So far, I’ve made pizza, biscuits, and cookies with it, and the end result isn’t bad. (The cookies were my favorite so far, and that’s what I’m going to make with my leftover Carbquik from my box.)

I bought two boxes which, with shipping, was $30. This isn’t an especially cheap product.

However, I’m trying to eat a more clean diet, and while there are times I want to eat fewer carbs, I think I’m just going to give up my carbs rather than look for a replacement. Thus, I have an unopened, fresh box of Carbquik sitting in my house, and I would rather one of you have it. (Future giveaways will likely be more along the lines of fitness rather than food products, but I’m excited to get my giveaways going, so here we are.)

The contest will run until Thursday night, February 18th. It is open to anyone, anywhere, which means I’ll ship this Carbquik anywhere in the world. To enter, just submit a comment that answers this question.  (Also, please feel free to share news of this giveaway to anyone!)