September 2015 – Page 2 – Sweat & Sparkle

This week has suddenly stomped the gas pedal and lurched into all-out madness mode. Yesterday our executive assistant quit, and our company has a huge anniversary and awards event in two weeks. Guess who gets all that extra work dumped on her? Yep, yours truly, and this is not the first time this has happened. Let’s just say my boss can be a bit difficult, so she burns through assistants like crazy. I just try not to get too attached to any of them.

I was so frazzled when I got home from work yesterday, I was tempted to just say “screw it”, order pizza and wings, and crash on the couch to gripe and complain to my poor boyfriend.

No. A thousand times no. I refused to fall back into that mindset. What would it get me, besides a few pounds heavier and a stomach-ache? My problems would still be there when I gulped the last bite.

I dusted off an old workout DVD I haven’t done in so long, I can’t remember when I did it last. It’s part of the Supreme 90 Day workout set, and it’s called Tabata Inferno. As the name subtly suggests, it’s high-intensity and quite the sweat producer.

I was fairly certain I would die before completing this workout. It’s 45 minutes of desperately begging the workout to just end, already, for the love of all that is holy and good and merciful!

But I made it, with some modifications and admittedly with some just standing there getting angry because I hate mountain climbers with every cell of my body. My legs and butt are sore today, so I did something right.

This morning I got up at 5:30 to hit the treadmill at the gym and fit in a run. This evening is my younger stepson’s first football game of the season, and my boyfriend and I are traveling to the game (it’s away) to root him on and to model our new football shirts. They are pretty snazzy, if I may so myself, personalized with my stepson’s jersey number.

Looks like the next two weeks are going to be insane, stressful, frazzled, and hectic. I need to brace myself and make sure I don’t let that become a reason that I overeat, skip workouts, and start sliding backward into self-destructive and stupid habits. I am down 19 pounds, I want to get out of the 190’s this weigh-in, and I want to keep moving in the right direction!

My gym started a 60-day challenge, and I debated joining, talked myself out of it more than once, then finally bit the bullet and paid the $20 fee (hey, at the very least I will get a t-shirt out of the ordeal). The person who loses the highest percentage of body weight gets a cash prize, and runners-up get prizes like a free membership for a year or sessions with a personal trainer.

Last night I went to the gym to do my starting weigh-in and picture, which I’m sure won’t be gracing the cover of Vogue or Sports Illustrated anytime soon! I felt like I should slouch and make that pouty, miserable frown like in “before” pictures in those magazine advertisements, but I had just made a joke about mug shots, since I had to hold the paper with my name and starting weight on it, so I was laughing in my pictures.

So now I have 60 days to lose as much weight as humanly possible. I actually kind of like to eat, so starving myself is out (that’s a joke, as starving myself was never a viable option), so I suppose I need to fall back on increasing the intensity of my workouts. Once upon a time, when I was younger and had more energy, I used to work out twice a day, in the morning and again after work. I don’t see that happening, but it’s not a bad idea to double up maybe one or two days a week. It won’t kill me.

I like the idea of pushing myself over the next 60 days and using this challenge to stay motivated and on fire to keep dumping this weight. I don’t know if I have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning anything, but I will try my hardest!