Goings On

I know I have said this before but wow, time goes by fast. I didn't realize it's been 3 weeks and 3 days since the last time I blogged. A lot has happened since then. I lost my job, I have had a birthday and I have decided to have some surgery that I have been wanting to have. When I decided to turn my life upside down and leave the comfort of my home, family, friends, etc and go to the BLR I had know idea what was in store for me. All I knew is that my life would be forever changed. For the good or for the bad. It was all up to me. I didn't know if I was going to lose the weight. I could hope and pray, but to be honest that was my greatest fear. That I wouldn't lose any weight or I would lose only a little bit. My body doesn't like to lose weight. It likes to hold onto it. When I first got there and I weighed in after my first week and only lost .7 lbs I freaked out because my greatest fear was coming true. I wanted to pack up my bags and leave. I wanted to give up. But the awesome staff and trainers talked me through it and encouraged me and supported me. So I didn't weigh myself for the next 7 or 8 weeks. I learned that the scale isn't the end all. It is only one component to the whole equation. Not to focus on the scale and focus on the important equations such as how you feel, how your clothes are fitting, etc. I am saying all this because I need to remind myself of the big picture. Why I am doing this. I have lost focus and drive to continue this path. I need to get that back. As I stated earlier I have decided to have some surgery that I have wanted to have and knew that I would need when I got close to my goal or to my goal. So on Monday I am going to have a breast reduction and lift done. I am so excited but also so nervous. I know that it's not going to be easy and the recovery time is long, but I need to do this. I am hoping that once I have recovered I then will be able to have skin removal surgery (tummy tuck). Then I am hoping that this will help motivate me to continue on this journey. I am trying not to focus on the scale and just focus on how I feel and what my goals are.

Man up and admit you are wrong!!!!

Hey everyone. I have to be honest and say I just haven't had it in me to blog the last few weeks. I have had a lot going on. I have had to take some time and reevaluate where I want to go and what I want to accomplish. When I returned to the Resort in June I had a lot of fears and insecurities that I needed to work through. I had a lot of lies that I allowed myself to believe and make part of my life. I had to break through those lies and learn to believe in myself again. I had to relearn to love myself. I got complacent. I worked hard with Essara to let go of those lies and to embrace the truths in my life. So when I returned home I had a whole different outlook on what I wanted to do and what I wanted to be. I was ready to hit the big leagues so to speak. I got home, met with my trainer, came up with our schedule and hit the road running. The next thing I knew I was entered in my first race. My dream of running my first 5K was going to come true. Although in reality it was a 6.4K. I finished it under an hour. I was really happy with that accomplishment. I had the time of my life. I was excited to start training for a 10K. So I met with my trainer on the following Monday after my race. I ran/walked a 5K on the treadmill and then met with him to talk. He told me that we were going to start hitting it hard training for a 10K. I was feeling a little insecure because during the race he had informed me that he was going to be retiring on August 1st. I was pissed. I had a hard time wanting to finish the race after that. But on Monday we sort of talked about that and he said he only said that because he felt like I was giving up on myself. He wanted to motivate me to keep going and to believe in myself. He told me when we meet on Wednesday that I was to go straight to the treadmill and run/walk 3 miles and then come find him. Wednesday morning before I went to the gym, I got a text from Vincent saying he wasn't going to go into the gym. That it was a long story but he would call me later that afternoon and tell me what was going on. I went about my morning and then headed off to work. As I was leaving work that evening I looked at my phone and noticed I had an email from Vincent. I got into my car and opened up the email to read that he had decided to no longer train at the gym I'm a member of. I was devastated and pissed. I felt he had been lying to me and he had abandoned me. I tried to call him but he didn't answer. I got home and sent him an email asking him to call me. That I was really upset by his email and I felt he wasn't being completely honest with me. About 10 or 15 minutes later he called me. He explained what happened and to give him a few days and he would find somewhere to train. He said that I was one of his favorite and best clients and that we had a 10K to train for. That we weren't finished. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and told him how I felt and as far as I knew we were good when we hung up. He told me to keep my membership at the gym but to cancel my training. I did that. I texted and corresponded with him a few more times and then nothing. It's been almost 3 weeks and he won't return my calls or emails, or messages. He refuses to acknowledge anything. I have tried pleading with him, begging him, yell at him, screaming at him, all to no avail. I am devastated at the least. I trusted him, put my whole self into our training. I believed in him. I feel so betrayed and abandoned. I have lost all faith in him and in myself. I feel like there is something wrong with me. All my fears and insecurities from what happened with Teri have come crashing in on me. I haven't been to the gym in two weeks. I just don't care anymore. I have lost all motivation and drive that I had. I can't believe that the one person that I had so much faith in and I looked up to let me down. He needs to grow some balls and deal with this. Admit that he's handled this poorly and that he's sorry. I will get through this, it's just going to take me some time. I am meeting with a new trainer the beginning of next month. My whole being is screaming why. But I need to take care of myself. I refuse to go back to where I was in July of last year.

The Most Amazing Race of My Life

Sorry I didn't blog on Thursday or Friday. By the time I got home Thursday night I was so overwhelmed and elated that I just needed to veg. Got to Green Bluff a little after six. Went and found my cousin Heather and her family. It was good to have them there. Met up with Vincent (my trainer) a little bit later and introduced him and his wife to Heather and her family. I was getting so nervous. About 20 minutes to 7:00 Heather decided that she was going to run the race with us. I was so excited. It was one thing to have her there cheering me on and everything, but it meant the world to me that she would run with me. The race started out kind of slow. A lot of people were walking it. We started out jogging at a slow pace. I jogged/walked the race and I finished with a time of 56:03. My trainer wanted to finish in 40 minutes but he's crazy like that. I was really happy with my time. My goal was to finish under and hour. There is no words or feeling that describes how I felt after crossing the finish line. It was a tough race. It was really hilly and there was one hill that went on forever. I am glad I did it though. My dream came true and it was so amazing. Just think if you would have asked me 7 0r 8 months ago if I would run in a race or have any desire to run in a race I would have told you to go fly a kite. I had no desire what so ever to run, let alone run a race. As we were running, Heather asked Vincent how long he's been a trainer and he answered her and then turned around and informed me that he was retiring on August 1st. You should have seen the look I gave him. I was pissed. First of all, telling me as I am running a tough race is not the time to be telling me. 2nd with that said, when were you going to tell me this information? I am still not happy about this. I haven't had a chance to talk to him about it, but he's got a lot of explaining to do. Anyway off my soapbox now. I got to about the 3 mile marker and wanted to give up so bad. I was tired, cranky, and hot. I just wanted it to be over. Heather was a little ways ahead of me and she would turn around and look for me and then say "Come on Karen, you can do it". Vincent was encouraging me to continue and getting frustrated with me because all I wanted to do was walk. He went as far to say "Do you want me to give up on you?" I didn't want to disappoint him so I continued on. I was allowing my head to get in the way and those negative thoughts to take over. Then we came around the corner and up the last hill and then I saw Heather's kids and Husband. Boy were they a sight to see. It was so good to see them. I only had a little bit to go to get to the finish line. Heather slowed down and I caught up to her and we crossed the finish line together. Over all it was a fantastic time. Heather is in training right now to do a 1/2 marathon in May of 2013. She informed me at the race that I was going to run it with her. Yikes, talk about overwhelmed and scared. I'm not sure I'm fully ready for that. Anyone want to do it with us?

Cherry Pickers Trot-6.4K (4 miles) Run

Hey family and friends. Well it's been 2 weeks since I left the Resort in Utah and headed home. It has been so good to be home in my own place, sleeping in my own bed and being with my own animals and family. Things have been going pretty well. I have been struggling with staying on my program and being motivated to continue. I took the first week off from exercising when I got home just to chill and get acclimated back into my life. So I gained a few pounds over the first week or so. Last Saturday I decided that I needed to kick it back into gear and I needed some accountability so I went and joined Weight Watchers. I am so glad I did. This week has been pretty good food and exercise wise. Been staying pretty close to 1500 calories a day. We shall see on Saturday if this has been successful or not. So when I got home I went to see my trainer at my gym to say hi and to tell him how much I missed him while I was gone. I walked into the gym and walked up to the desk where he was sitting and the first thing he said to me was, want to do a triathlon? I started laughing and said I haven't even done a 5K yet. He then proceeded to ask me if I wanted to do a 5K. I said yes that I have wanted to do one for a while. He said ok then lets do the Cherry Pickers Trot in Green Bluff on July 19th. I said ok not realizing that it was only 3 weeks away. So I committed to do the race. So this Thursday at 7pm I will being running/walking a 6.4K race. I am so excited but so nervous. My dream of doing a race is finally coming true. So in preparation for Thursday I was promptly informed when I arrived at the gym this morning that I would be running/walking 4 miles on the treadmill. I wanted so badly to turn around and run out the gym door and not turn around. The first thing out of my mouth was that my knee had been bothering me. All the negative thoughts and feelings started to take over. Well my trainer wouldn't take no for an answer and so I headed over to the treadmill and started walking/running. There were so many times that I just wanted to hit the stop button and say I can't do this, but I pushed through it. I finished the 4 miles in 51 minutes. I was so proud of myself and so was my trainer. He said now you are ready for Thursday and you are going to kill it. The hard part is done. So now I'm back on track and ready to kick this last 15-30 pounds in it's butt. Life is good. I am feeling so blessed and so grateful for all that I have done and accomplished. I just need to believe in myself and believe that this is the way it's going to be for the rest of my life. Last week I skyped with Essara and we had a good session. It was so good to talk to her. I miss her so much. I will post after my race on Thursday and let you know how it went. Take care my family and friends. May God bless you and keep you safe.

Getting Closer To My Goal

Hey everyone. I know it's been about a week or almost a week since I blogged last and I am so sorry that I haven't. The only excuse I am going to say is that I have been EXHAUSTED. I made it to the Utah Resort on Sunday and have been here all week. It has been so fantastic to see everyone again. When I came here the end of January for my week I was not in a very happy place. It was really tough to be here and I wanted to leave and go back to Malibu so bad. I am happy to say that even though I miss everyone in Malibu and I miss California like crazy, I am so anxious to get home and see everyone and to see my babies. It seems like I have been gone for forever when it has only been a month. I can't wait to sleep in my own bed and be in my own home. I feel like so much has passed me by with my family and friends back home with me being gone. In a sense I feel disconnected and like I'm looking in a window from the outside and it saddens me. This trip has been AWESOME and I am so glad that I did it, but it's been hard being away from my family and friends this time. Something very interesting happened to me today. If you know anything about my family or me one thing you know is that we are a very close knit family and love each other so much. We have our problems and our issues but we don't let the issue or the problems come between us. We work hard to keep most of the drama out of our lives. Well, I met with the Life Coach, Jen Morton, here at the Resort this afternoon for an appointment and we were talking about my body image and "all or nothing thinking" and how it doesn't work when it comes to losing weight. I had mentioned to her that I have this image in my mind of what I want to look like when I get to my goal and she asked me what that looked like. I said that I guess in a way I compare myself to my sister and I want to look like her. I showed her a picture of my sister. Now my sister is 2 1/2 years older than me and about 5 inches taller than me and has never had a weight problem. She then asked me how long I have been comparing myself to her and how long was I going to continue to compare myself to her? Which was a great question. I never thought of it that way. I didn't realize that I was still doing that. How sad is that and how stressful is that? My sister and I have always been pretty close. But I have always felt a competition between us when it came to my weight. I know that my sister doesn't want anything more than me to be healthy and happy. It's me that is causing that competition and strife. I can almost guarantee that my sister has know Idea that I feel this way or have ever felt this way. That was a big deal for me to figure out today. Maybe I can ease up on myself and let myself be me now and stop comparing myself to others. Letting go of the expectation that I have to perform a certain way or lose a certain amount of weight to be happy or content. In reality, I don't think even when I get to my goal which is only about 10 or 15 pounds I will happy with that and satisfied with that. Reality for me is that if I continue to think the way that I have been thinking and comparing myself to my sister or to others that I won't ever be happy with my life. So I am going to work on learning to love myself in the moment and loving myself because I deserve to be loved. Jen also said that I should think about changing my goal and going down to 130-135 and then seeing how I feel from there and concentrating on lowering my body fat percentage. So this has been a fantastic day of discovery for me. I am so grateful for all that has been shown to me and will continue to be shown to me.

My Body Keeps Blowing Me Away!!!!!

It just blows my mind how my body responds to all of this exercise and low calorie food when I am here at the resort. Why can't it do that same thing when I am at home? Maybe I should just get a job where I work out 6-8 hours a day. That would be realistic huh? Well last week the resort decided to revamp their menu and their lectures and get away from focusing so much on calories. They also up'd there average daily calorie intake from 1200 to 1500 calories a day. I am having a really hard time wrapping my brain around this new concept. When I was at home I was eating on average about 1200-1400 calories a day. Now they are saying I should have about 1600-1700 calories a day but to not focus on the calories. I just am so scared that I'm going to gain this weight back. I know it's time to "get back to reality" and learn to live on life's terms, but I am just really confused with this whole new concept. I am ready to go home this time and dive into life. This has been a tough 3 weeks. Don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed it and am glad that I came back, but my mind and my thoughts have been at home. I was just starting to really get into a groove at home when I left to come here. Now I feel in a lot of ways like I have to start all over. Well this time I am in a much better place. I am looking forward to going home. I am looking forward to spending time with my family and friends. So when I left home to come here I made a goal that I wanted to lose at least 15 pounds while I was here. I am so excited and stoked to say that I reached that goal. I lost 15.2 pounds, 3% body fat, 2.25" in my chest, 2.25" in my waist, and 3.75" in my hips. I am so proud of myself. I have to be honest and say I didn't work my hardest every single day, but I did work hard. Well I hope everyone has a fabulous week and focuses on making your life better than last week. Focus on one thing that you want to change and go for it. Until I post again, may God bless you and keep you safe.

Radio Talk Show Debut

So this morning I was on the resorts Chiropractor's talk radio show and talked about my weight loss journey. The good, the bad, and the ugly. I was so honored to be invited to be on it. I will put the link on here so you can all listen to it. I was so nervous and all that before the show but after starting and everything it was like I have been doing it all my life. I was really proud with what I did and said. If I just touch or inspire just one person with my story I have accomplished what I have set out to do. My life has changed so much in just 1 short year. I have so much to be grateful for and so much to be thankful for. I have a family that I ADORE and adores me, I have friends that mean so much to me and that I invest my life into, and I have a Father in Heaven that loves me beyond my comprehension and blesses me every single day of my life. Even when I don't deserve it. The resort part of my journey might be over for now, but I have so much to look forward to. Yes I will miss everyone here at the resort more than they will ever know, but I feel like I can now take the tools that I have been taught and put them into practice. This has been a great 3 weeks and I am so excited to go to Utah on Sunday and see everyone there. I'm anxious to get home and meet with my trainer and to get to my goal. Here is the link to my interview. It is about an hour long but is so worth listening to. I hope you all enjoy it. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/the-revolution-of-health/2012/06/19/karen-williams--the-weight-loss-journey