Day 5: How it Went

Can I just say right here right now:

This is the day that everything changed!

Now let me tell you why! I woke up late and rushed out to my daily doctors appointment, making it in one minute before they closed. Once I left the doctors I started to head up to Target to get a pair of sneakers so I could go to the gym that day. It was then that I had a thought. I remembered a sign posted in my JC Centre saying that they $199 Body Media armband was now selling for $89. I had one $100 bill in my pocket I was going to use to buy sneakers but I knew if I didn't buy that armband that minute, I wasn't going to have another chance to buy. That one hundred dollar bill in my pocket was a billing mistake the doctors office had made and a refund I had received. It wasn't often I had $100 to do with as I pleased. I knew I couldn't go to the gym until I got sneakers, not just because I didn't want to work out in flip flops but because the gym doesn't allow it, but my mother had offered to buy me a pair so I could get moving. I weighed out my options and decided it was definitely in my best interest to go buy the armband.

I'm very fortunate that my JC Centre is less than a two minute drive from my home its probably only three miles from my house, up the street left at the light and into the shopping center. Not so fortunate is that the JC Centre is directly next door to a Subway. Every time I head in JC I get hit with the smell of all those fresh baked breads and cookies! I'm using this as more motivation to get my butt through the JC door!

I have to say everyone in my Centre is so kind and so sweet. The ladies that were working that day I had not met yet but were so nice and very helpful. I had asked about my account number not working to log into the JC site as a member yet (not even going to get started on that thorn in my side) and they did their best to help me and then I asked about the armband. They raved about it! As has everyone on the site. At this point I really didn't know much about what the band did, but I knew that people had said it totally changed their program, catapulting them in the best way possible.

So I bought the band and headed home, fixing my lunch meal as I began playing with the band. I plugged it in and charged it up, downloaded all the software and kind of figured things out, at least as much as I understood at that point. I was still playing around with it when my mother came home from work. She said to give her a few moments to lay down and then we'd head to the gym - she'd stopped and picked me up sneakers on her way home. How incredible is this woman??? So, I change into my gym clothes, grab my water bottle, phone and ear buds and off we go to the gym!

Did I mention that my gym is located directly beneath my Jenny Craig Center? On the other side of that Subway door is the door leading to the staircase that leads downstairs to my Exercise Nation gym! No excuses for me lol.

So we head into the gym and pick out a couple treadmills and begin our workout. Now a few years back when I was going to the gym three times a day and was bunch lighter I used to hit that gym and knock out three miles on that treadmill like it was nothing. I knew that I wouldn't be able to do that again but I was going to do my best. My best was hard to do however because the shoes my mother had bought me were itching like crazy! I swear they felt like someone had dumped itching powder into them. My mother and I got to laughing as we walked I kept trying to scratch my feet while on the treadmill. My mother headed off to do some weight training and I stayed on the treadmill trying to get an hour in before I'd hop over to the elliptical. My mother however, who no longer needs to lose weight but has lost all the muscle sin her legs from being so ill, needed to leave after about an hour so we did.

I have to say it felt awesome to get back into the gym and I could not wait to sync my arm band and see how I had done. That was the first thing I did when I got home, as well as download the Body Media app onto my phone so I could see whenever I wanted how much work I had done. While we ate dinner I explained to my mother how it worked and what it tracked.

It was after dinner and after desert that I was thinking about my numbers and thinking about what the JC Centre worker had told me when she sold it to me. She said that it was so nice to be able to see your numbers. The night before she did not feel like going on a walk, and wouldn't have, if she hadn't been able to look at her monitor and see that she hadn't reached her goal amount of steps for the day yet, it was because she was able to look and see that she got up and went for a three mile hike.

I had obviously not met my steps for the day as I had just but the band on around 7pm. But still, I felt like I could do more. That and it was so nice outside, in the mid seventies. It was the perfect weather to take a walk. I decided that was exactly what I was going to do. I grabbed my phone and ear buds and water bottle. This time however I wore my flip flops. I knew that the bottoms of my feet would start to hurt walking in these shoes but I'd rather have the bottoms hurt for an hour than get blisters and itchy feet from the too big sneakers I'd worn to the gym. I didn't have a planned route or any idea how long or how far I was going to walk. I had thought about walking away from my house until my phone died, as it was almost dead, then I'd turn around and come back.

Instead, I walked away from house and straight down the road that I live off of. Its a straight shot for a long ways until the road ends at a court. I figured I'd walk until I reached the court, walk the circle in the court and then head back. I had no idea how far it was but I did know it had three really big hills on it that would push me going both ways.

It ended up taking me an hour and forty five minutes to reach the court and turn around and get home. I honestly wasn't sure I was going to make it at one point, but my music was still going on and one of my favorite songs to work out to randomly came out right when I was about to crack. The first lyric in the song being:

So sick, so sick of being tired, and oh so tired of being sick!

It was the perfect thing to hear at that exact moment and motivated me to keep going. I was tired of being sick and sick of being tired and I was changing it. Right then. Right there. I huffed and puffed but I kept going, even when the bottoms of my feet were burning and my ice water was warm. I just kept going because there was nothing else for me to do!

Once I got home I felt so incredible. I felt so accomplished and achieved and rewarded. I synced up my arm band and could not believe the numbers! I had a 3,458 caloric deficit. I had done 2:01 of moderate activity, 31 minutes over my goal for my intended weight loss. I had done 11 minutes of vigorous activity which was four minutes short of my goal. This doesn't disappoint me because I busted my ass and at my current weight, I did the best that I could. I also took 11,063 steps. When I had left the house for this walk I had taken just over 3300. These numbers also weren't totally accurate because I had been walking about a half an hour past midnight and once I hit that hour everything began logging for the following day. So these numbers were actually even better than what I've posted!

I'm really proud of myself for doing so good tonight and I cannot wait to do it all again tomorrow! It feels a million times better to go on a long walk when I'm feeling depressed about my daughter and daughters father than it feels to just go to sleep. Breathing hard and singing really loud along to my ear buds not caring who heard me, felt amazing. Sleeping all day just made me feel sloth like and sick. I cannot wait to do it all over again!

* I drove my car along my walking route to see exactly how far I walked, it was exactly 2 miles in each direction down to the tenth of a mile. Four miles!