My ZUMBA Documentary

If you've been keeping up with my blog, you read the Life's Twists and Turns post. Since then, I've started working out. There's been good and bad that's come with this fitness. I know the first thought that would go through my head after reading that last statement would be, "bad? How could there be a BAD side to being fit?" Well, the bad side is the negative comments I receive about how skinny I am now. Nobodies that think they're somebodies saying things like, "you're disgusting" or "you need to quit throwing up". Some people insist they know me better than I do. They'll ask me what I want to eat. If I tell them I don't want anything, they fix food and bring the grossest and greasiest thing they can find.

Most of you know how I am, so you can imagine my immediate, fireball responses. For example, there's this idiot who supposedly has a thing for me. He tells me about twice a week how disgusting I am. He's said, "you look disgusting." My response was, "you're a dick. How are you gonna tell a female she looks disgusting?" He'll say, "I'm sorry, I just don't like girls that look bulimic." By this time, I'm pissed beyond all reason so I say, "I'm not bulimic. I'm healthy and if I gave a flying F*@# about how YOU think I look, I'd be dating you instead of being repulsed by you. You don't like what you see? Do us BOTH a favor and go the F*@# home!!!" I know that's pretty vulgar, but in my defense, I'm dealing with this shit at least twice a week.

On to the good part! So I kept hearing about how much fun ZUMBA is. My mom ordered the Nintendo Wii version and I made fun of it at first. We had it almost three weeks before anyone tried it and I was that first person. I felt like a flaming idiot, but I couldn't stop. I did it the next day too...and the next...and the next. I took a break from it because I had to work a couple days at the V. The following week my sister wanted to try it. I'd had so much fun and sweated so hard without severe bodyaches, I decided to put this ZUMBA to the test.

For two weeks, I did ZUMBA for almost every single day and here is the proof of my progress:

This was after day 2 of ZUMBA

This was after day 14 of ZUMBA

After two straight weeks of having a blast while working my ass off, I'd definitely say it paid off. Obviously the baby bump is still gonna be there after only 2 weeks, but you can see the difference between days 2 and 14 BIG TIME! I still look a little mushy around the middle in the Day 2 pic. Whereas I look much firmer in the Day 14 pic. I started to show the muscle definition around my love handles and actually lost my love handles almost completely.

All of this seemed to happen so quickly, the rude "you're disgusting" comments started flying even more often. The only people that were truly positive about it for me were my current boyfriend and my ex-husband. They were very supportive and proud of how hard I'd worked even before I started exercising. If you remember right, I actually lost most of my weight switching my diet. When people say it's hard to make such a change, they mean it. It's not just a change in eating habits. It's a change in lifestyle and lifestyle changes are the hardest to overcome. If I had tried doing exercising before losing at least 60 pounds, I would've ended up with even more health problems than what I had to start with because of all the stress I was putting on my body.

I stopped weighing myself when I reached 200 pounds. I couldn't handle looking at the scale anymore. I started checking into the Biggest Loser. Jillian Michaels is a psychotic bitch that thinks she's better than what she is. Bob Harper was DEFINITELY more up my alley. He uses more positive reinforcement and positive motivation to get you to realize: "I CAN DO IT!" Jillian is like a drill sergeant from Hell. She is too hard core - almost to the point she makes it sound like if you don't follow her rules to a "T", you're sinning and God will punish you by making you fatter. I understand where Jillian is coming from, I really do. She looks at the weight loss she went through as hard work and without hard work, you get nowhere. What she doesn't understand is that there are different levels of hard work. Starting out just making small steps and working you're way up can tend to be more motivational to a larger demographic than practically beating their mental awareness to a pulp. She almost makes it seem like she's brain washing you. For example, she'll say something like, "you're never gonna get anywhere unless you work you're ass off. It doesn't matter if you weigh 10 pounds or 1000 pounds, you HAVE to do this move to get anywhere and you WILL complete it." Then she'll add this little, "you can do it," at the end as if she had a cue card in front of her saying, "HEY! YOU'RE BEING A BITCH. CHILL THE F*@# OUT!" Lmfao.

Bob Harper is so positive. Not to mention, absolutely adorable. He's very modest and motivational. He supports starting out just taking the stairs instead of the elevator. He doesn't expect you to be able to do the moves as fast as him or as perfect as him. He even has modified versions of every exercise he does for people that are having difficulties. He just wants you to keep moving. If you aren't coordinated, he's got a simpler modified version for you. If you're having trouble catching your breath, he says to keep moving, but just march in place or don't go down as far in your lunges or don't use the weights if you feel like you can barely handle it without the weights to start with. Bob understands that every person is different. Jillian expects everyone to do what SHE did to lose weight. She'll even make little nits and digs about how Bob runs his programs. When they discontinued Bob's exercise program On Demand and added Jillian's (because her team has won the most challenges on the TV show and she felt she wasn't getting the credit she deserved), I started doing Jillian's program. I mentioned before that Bob has modifications for his exercises for those who don't feel like they can make it. Well in Jillian's program, at one point she says, "DO NOT STOP. DO IT EXACTLY LIKE THIS AND ONLY LIKE THIS. NO MODIFICATIONS. MODIFICATIONS ARE THE WUSSY WAY OF GETTING OUT OF HARD WORK."

Now, I'm a firm believer in hard work, but after doing Bob's workout and hearing her slam her own teammate from the Biggest Loser television show, I was done. I finished that session and I never did her show again. They never brought Bob's program back so I felt screwed. I knew I had to do something. I'd worked hard for two straight months and still weighed over 200 pounds. Remember, I stopped weighing myself when I hit 200 because I couldn't handle the depression it was sending me into. I started doing some research. Facebook has weightloss application that are absolutely amazing and also offer group support with others in the same predicament as you. We were having trouble with our internet connection when I was using those types of things though so I couldn't put everything into my food journal all the time.

Finally, I went old school. I went back to the eating patterns I had during high school. I also found out that when you have a crappy metabolism, you're body can only handle 360 calories every two hours (including what you drink). Anything over 360 calories is automatically turned into fat. Your body uses carbs while you sleep to keep your heart beating and your breathing going so eating a ton of carbs within an hour or two before bed would be a bad idea. I started with small steps. If I wanted a snack before bed, I would slice up an apple or eat a WHOLE bag of Orville Reddenbacher's Smart Pop popcorn. Yes, both of those have carbs, but not enough to cause any weight problems. The popcorn I mentioned, eating the whole bag is only 45 calories. If you work out at night and then eat an apple to curb your appetite, your body ends of burning most of the apple off before you go to bed.

Now, the rest of my weight loss had a little help from life or it's pretty extreme. I do not eat beef. I LOVE tofu and veggies. When you make Kraft Mac 'n' Cheese, do the reduced calorie version. Put 1/4 block of extra firm tofu in a food processor until its like a cold white cheese dip. Add that to the reduced calorie version of the Mac 'n' Cheese. Now you have a complete meal and you can't even tell you're getting a "meat" version at the same time. It doesn't even change the flavor. Then, if you add hot sauce (which Kraft Mac 'n' Cheese with hot sauce is my favorite meal), you're digestion gets sped up and you'll lose a little weight that way too. Instead of weighing yourself, MEASURE, MEASURE, MEASURE!!! You will lose inches before you'll lose weight. The roller coaster of losing one pound then gaining two, then losing three pounds and gaining two is FRUSTRATING AS ALL HELL. Honestly, I probably got up to about 215 pounds. But, when I hit 200 and started measuring myself instead, the progress I was making made me happier than I'd been in a long time. I kept a journal of "Inch Loss Measurements." I wouldn't measure myself every day. I didn't measure myself even once a week.  Here are the pics of the two pages of my "Inch Loss Measurements:"

As you can see, I had my initial measurement. After the initial measurement, I would compare the current measurement and the previous measurement to track my progress. For example, my initial measurement was on 5-13-09. Hips: 43 1/2", Waist: 43 1/2", Chest: 45", Thighs: 25 1/2", Biceps: 12 3/4". This was immediately after I'd drastically changed my diet. Then on 5-16-09: Hips: 43 1/2" (+-0"), Waist: 43" (-1/2"), Chest: 44" (-1"), Thighs: 24 1/2" (-1"), Biceps: 12 1/2" (-1/4"). Then, after each category I'd lost in, I'd add a star - kind of like getting a gold star if you went a week in school without getting in trouble or something...lol. I would also put an "X" next to a category I'd gained in.

There are six measurements on each page in two columns. At the end of each column, I'd add up how much I'd lost and put the total at the bottom of the column. When both columns were finished, I'd add the column totals together. My first page total was 7". When I hit the second page, the weight started melting off. In three out of six measurement dates there are huge stars next to the dates. Those are the dates I had lost in ALL categories. Those were my favorite! On the second page, I lost 12 1/2" in the first column and 15 3/4" in the second column. Between the two page totals: After 16 months, 10 days, I'd lost 35 1/2" bodywide and 80 pounds. I've lost a little more since then, but once I got down to my goals, I felt good enough to work out. My metabolism was up so I actually lost about 40 inches bodywide and 85 pounds. I'm the same size I was as a freshman in high school and feel better than ever.

There are still issues I have to deal with though. My metabolism is so high that if I skip a meal, I lose 5 pounds. If I stress, I lose weight. It can be hard at times. Those issues I can deal with much better than the ones where people who are extremely unhealthy looking at me and telling me I'm disgusting. I don't think they're disgusting. It's like a cross-country runner being all skin and bones, but no one says something to them because they run cross-country. Yet because I'm a bartender and mother and I DON'T work out constantly, all the sudden people say I'm throwing up or I'm not eating or I'm disgusting. The main thing is, I AM EXTREMELY HAPPY WITH WHAT I'VE BECOME BECAUSE OF HOW HARD I WORKED. It gives me the confidence to go out into the world and be myself without feeling like people are treating me different because I'm not what society feels I should be. These idiots who think they know me better than I know myself can just keep being stupid because the comments they make don't matter. They don't like it, they don't have to look. If I can lose 85 pounds, I KNOW my friends who are trying to get fit and want to lose 20-30 pounds CAN and WILL do it. They just gotta find their niche and I believe they can...