January 28, 2010

We have been on a sabbatical Mel and I.  The rest period has been good for me. The awesome news is that I have maintained the 25 pound loss through the holidays.  It has been two months since we ended the last session of Biggest Loser Innate Style and everyone that I have seen is stilling working out and watching their food intake.  I am so proud of the group.  C, has taken this two steps farther and has gotten a program set up between the Kalesium and the schools so all the teachers have access to the gym at a good family rate.  Also her husband and her have entered into competition with their oldest daughter who is 12,  so far their daughter has lost 6 pounds which I think is fantastic.  Their daughter is packing her own lunches and becoming responsible for herself and her choices.  Way to go!  J, has set it up for all the county workers to have the same access.  I never thought that when I started this program how far out it would reach, it was my dream, but I need to honestly say I couldn’t see it that far.  Now I have changed my thoughts and expect is to continue to grow out to the community and beyond.

We begin session 2 next week.  Mel and I have changed a few things around which I think will result in even better results.  It will be required that all classes be attended, workouts and food prep nights.  The only two exceptions ; illness and work.  We have one gentleman who will be gone for a week for work.  We are also going to assess everyone’s food charts as well. This will make sure that they are getting enough calories, water etc.  Also to make sure that they are not getting too much, or too much of the wrong thing.  Monday’s class begins with the Innate diet, and why we need to eat better. Monday the 8th is the first weigh-in and workout.  This is a real diverse group.  We are three folks who are over 70 which may present as a challenge, but Mel and I are up for it.  So till next week; Strive for better.

Doc

Day 85

Well it is over the first running of the biggest loser innate style.  We presented awards last night voted by those in the program.  There was hardest worker, most competitive, most positive, most encouraging, most committed, the unsung hero (goes without recognition), the one who causes distractions (brings humor to the class), and of course the biggest loser.  Then we all enjoyed a bountiful meal, potluck style.  Everyone brought a wonderful dish to pass and everyone showed that they had truly learned how to make better choices.  There were some very surprising numbers last night and I was amazed at how much some of us took off this last week.  Including myself because I traveled and didn’t get a lot of time to work out last week, to be honest I really didn’t think I had watched my food very well either.  Oh well my innate healing abilities must have kicked in some this week. So for the final numbers and the announcement of the biggest loser.

R 8.6 lbs, 4.81%.  A 21 lbs, 7.18%.  Kareen  23.2 lbs, 7.82%.  C 19.4 lbs, 8.35%.  S 17.8 lbs, 9.88%.  Shannon 26.6 lbs, 12.21%.  B  18.4 lbs, 13.05%.  and the biggest loser is J with 29.4 lbs, 13.23%.

It has been an amazing twelve weeks.  J was in tears last night as she expressed that “she truly believed that this program saved her life.”  I am so very honored to have been part of everyone’s transformation, physically, mentally, and spiritually.  I will always remember this first group, they are my family.

Here’s to a new life, with new hopes.

Doc

PS.  See you in February for the next Biggest Loser Innate Style

Day 84

Last work out was tonight.  Everyone was in high spirits and full of laughter and jokes.  It was fun and the time went by very fast.  A couple weeks ago I was thinking that twelve weeks was a long time.  Tonight I was thinking it went by very fast and I was sad that it was over.

The goal of this whole project was to save lives including my own.  By helping folks see that what they eat, how they move and how they think effects their lives.  I had commented a month ago that A was told by his doctor that if he continues on this path that he should be able to get off some of his medications.  He informed us tonight that he is off his diabetes medication.  It brought tears to my eyes.  Goal accomplished.  At times the whole project was tiresome for myself, Mike and Jared.  Tonight at dinner we all agreed that with the news of A reducing his medication it was all worth it. Next month A is hoping to be off the blood pressure medication.

Tomorrow is the final weigh in and awards.  It will be a bitter-sweet night.

Till tomorrow – here’s to saved lives.

Doc

Day 81, 82, 83

So I missed posting for the last three days as I was in Baltimore MD with my partner on the Biggest Loser and the fitness coach Mel.  Our arrival on Thursday started with checking into the hotel having a quick breakfast and heading right to Mt.Vernon district in Baltimore.  It was approximately a 2 mile walk from the hotel. The sun came out for us and the weather was a wonderful 60.  It took about 45 minutes to get the Washington Monument which was our destination.  The monument has 200+ stairs that you can walk up and that was Mel’s plan for us.  Upon our arrival it was closed for a lighting ceremony and Christmas fireworks show for that evening.  So we did not get to walk up the stairs.  I do not know about the rest of the group but I was disappointed I had been building myself up for this adventure for a few weeks.  The walk was nice, the grade changed, and my knee did not suffer to badly.

Then we arrived at the Baltimore aquarium, which is huge.  We spent almost three hours in the aquarium, until hunger overtook us.  We ate lunch and then headed back to the hotel.  Shannon had started to feel not so well on Monday and by our arrival in Baltimore it was a full-blown expression of yuk!  I feel for her as she was not able to enjoy the sights of Baltimore only the sight of a dark room were she healed and slept.

The cool part was the attached Maryland Athletic Club to our hotel.  WOW!! is about all I can say.  Oh the other thing I can say is that I was excited to work out there.  It was clean, brightly painted, the equipment was amazing, the pools were out of this world.  I love to swim.  The pools were salt instead of chlorine, it is very refreshing to swim in a salt pool instead of chlorine.  I truly wish that the Kaliseum could just step it up a few notches.  We went to the gym Thursday afternoon, Friday at noon, and Saturday morning.  I got on this fitness bike which has an attached T.V. screen for road tours.  It takes you through different video terrain with inclines and grades etc… I rode 2.6 miles in 15 minutes and it felt like 5 it went by so fast.  I really wanted to sit in on a spinner class but was unable to because of our seminar schedule.  I am planning to take a spinner class at one of the fitness clubs in Traverse City to see how it is.

I honestly have to say that I was glad to have gone to work out every day.  My energy level was maintained and even though my sleep was less do to the seminar I still felt alive not dog tired.  All of my friends at the seminar noticed the 20 pounds as well and it was nice to know that I look different.  My outside is now beginning to reflect how good I feel about me on the inside.

Tonight is the last work out, and tomorrow our final weigh in and dinner together.  I am looking forward to this event.

Till tomorrow – here is to maintaining balance.

Doc

Day 80

We are currently in Detroit getting ready to depart in the morning for Baltimore. This is day three of my big plan to work with my planner and do the items on my planner such as exercise for a certain amount of time per day.  Well it didn’t happen today.  I still had to pack at lunch and get all my things caught up at the office.  I will also say that Mel is a bad influence we stopped at Big John’s subs because she said that her husbands said they were the best subs.  Well it was in not a very nice part of Michigan (rough city) and I am now burping up the sub.  Then she called her husband and found out that it was another location that they would get the subs from.  So she totally sent me to the wrong place and now I am going to have to work my bum off to get rid of the uck I ate. 

I am looking forward to tomorrow and to going to the Washington monument in Baltimore and climbing all 280 stairs.  Of which Mel says we will be running. 

Till tomorrow – no more gross subs.

Doc

Day 79

I have placed my schedule in my planner and Monday all was done and checked off.  Today was another story.  I did not make it to the on time I was 15 minutes off my schedule so I only got 45 minutes in between the bicycle and elliptical.  I also got my dips, crunches and push-ups in.  Mel would be proud.  My plan had been to go swimming tonight but I did not want to pack a wet swimsuit.  We leave tomorrow night for Detroit to fly out first thing Thursday for Baltimore.  Plus I had no vehicle mine is in the shop and won’t be done till Thursday or Friday, so I needed to get home to find alternative transportation.  It is very easy to plan another thing to accomplish but I did get more than half my goal accomplished so I am good.

So I have discovered a few things if everyone is a little okay with some graphic honesty.  For about a month now I have been having difficulty in the bathroom (constipation).  To the point that I was becoming concerned.  So I have been assessing all aspects of my day, am I drinking enough water, am I relaxed, am I getting enough greens, etc…  So we increased my green consumption for a week no change.  I increased my water that week no change.  So what is the issue what am I not doing now that I was doing when we started this program cause things were working before we started this program and at the beginning they were even better.  So on Friday I remembered that I was not eating my mid morning snack of fresh fruit or my mid afternoon snack of fresh veggies.  I had reduced my fiber intake by half even though I was eating greens at two meals it was not enough.  Saturday I changed that and began eating my snacks, and low and behold there is some improvement.  Tomorrow I plan to recap the nutrition portion for those reading that want to know how to supply your body with good wholesome nutrients.  I also noticed that my finger nail is split again.  Hmmm, where’s the balance?

Till tomorrow – cheers to lots of fiber.

Doc

Day 78

I am very tired and just a little testy currently.  I managed to get my goals for workouts put into the planner and I hope that I don’t stress myself about it.  I got to the gym at lunch for 1/2 hour workout and then this evening with the group for an hour.  Goal for today accomplished.

Tonight was the last weigh in before the final weigh in.  Our last work out together is Sunday evening.  I have mixed emotions about this ending.  I would like a sense of life back but will also miss aspects, like cooking together.  I received feed back from everyone on how they think the program was. I feel pretty good about the responses some were surprising, but I am very thankful, it will help with some other directions for the next one in February.  I managed to do stairs tonight and walked a half mile around the ice rink.  I forget about being able to walk around the rink it is nice for a change of pace.  Sometimes the elliptical gets very boring.

So the stats for this week are in B was the biggest loser this week with 2.2 lbs 1.56%.  Congrats to B she is doing an awesome job and you should see her do a plank.  R came in second with 1.4 lbs 0.78%, Shannon 1.6 lbs 0.73%,  J with 1.4 lbs 0.63%, S with no loss no gain, Kareen -0.4 lbs  -0.13%, C  3  lbs  1.29%, A didn’t get weighed in.   It was a great week even if there were some gains, especially with the holiday.  So many of us just can’t stay away from that comfort food, and we just want to sit watch the game, play cards and just be with family.  It is hard to focus on your health at a time like that.  I think everyone did an excellent job.

This week will be another good challenge to see if some of our changes are permanent.

Till tomorrow – to small successes.

Day 77

Tomorrow is the last weigh-in before our final week of work outs.  We work out Monday and Sunday, and the final weigh in is next Monday followed by a potluck dinner with everyone and their families.  I am looking forward to seeing if everyone brings something healthy and what they have learned.  I do not feel that I have fared well this week again.  Funeral church food, traveling two weekends in a row not getting my 9 hours in at the gym.  It has all taken a toll on me these last two weeks.  I thought I would take a break and only work out three days a week until we start this again.  There is no way I will put all that weight on again and I truly don’t want that.  I still need to find a way to get to the gym about 8 hours a week.  No more excuses.  It has to go in my planner.

A while back I read a book by Robin Sharma entitled Leadership Wisdom from the Monk Who Sold his Ferrari. He said that either you put your plans in your planner (schedule) or someone else will put theirs in it.  For about two months last year I was very diligent in practicing that.  I need to get back to it so beginning tonight I plan to plan.  I also plan to execute the things in the planner not just hope that they get done.  So step number two in my lifestyle change;  Plan your time to get healthy.  Step one was get off the couch.

Today it was in the plans to help around the farm, shoveling dirt, and building walls in the new chicken coop.  As I was in the coop waiting for Mike to give the next direction, I did walking lunges (the building is 36 ft long) two lengths.  I also lifted a 12 foot ladder up (on one end) and down building my biceps like a bench press thirty times.  Then I did my thirty push-ups, and did forty squats.  I wasn’t going to do anything but I was freezing and I needed to do something to stay warm.  We did not finish our project in time for me to get to the Kaliseum so the last thing I did was a 3 mile walk video I have, of which I did two miles.  So I did step one and step two.  Tomorrow I will think about what step three should be if one is even needed.

Till tomorrow – execute the plan

Doc

Day 76

Today was my father-in-laws memorial service.  It was one of those bitter-sweet moments.  It is always sad when a loved one departs from this life.  For those with a belief in the here after or life with Christ death is not really a sad thing but can be joyful.  But the resounding message that I heard and that Mike, Kendra and Jared heard was that many people tried to tell Dad that he needed to do something about his weight.  That his diet needed to change and he needed exercise.  But he choose otherwise.  My husbands eulogy to his father was about the tenacity that he had learned from his dad in regards to being a mechanic.  That he was the world’s best mechanic and could fix anything.  He ended by saying that he wished he had had the same tenacity about his health.  If he would have had that, Mike felt he would still be here today enjoying the life he said he loved.

Till tomorrow – in my husbands words “May you have tenacity for health and life to the fullest”

Day 75

Black Friday.  One of the biggest shopping days in the United States, and all I was doing this morning was thinking how much I just wanted to stay home and not exercise.  Where is the motivation the drive the desire?  I thought that putting that 19 pounds on my back would be enough to get me off of the couch.  How easy it is to not do what you know you should do.  Did I do it yes?  I was not at the Kaliseum at the time I had hoped to be, and I did not go swimming as planned but I got there.  Oh you want to know if I did anything once there yes.  Forty five minutes on the elliptical and 20 on the bike. My food choices today were better than yesterday as well.

I know that on Wed we saw S at the store picking up last-minute items and she said she was not planning on being good at all on Thanksgiving.  I truly hope she enjoyed it and that she managed to get some exercise in.  I hope that everyone enjoyed their day.  I know that J said she was going to take her bag of sand all twenty-three pounds of it to dinner.  She said that anyone who tries to tell her she needs to eat more or offers her another piece of pie that she is just going to have them hold her bag of said and say “no thank you”.  I thought that was a great idea.  There is some motivation for you.

The choice to exercise, the choice to eat better food, the choice to have good thoughts all depend on the six inches between your ears.  One of my chiropractor friends always says “be careful who you rent the upstairs out to”.  That maybe is the true area that we all should address first our beliefs.  What were the underlying reasons that brought us to being overweight in the first place.

Till tomorrow –  here is to new renters.

Doc