Chelenka

Just tell you were sick of being fat!

Thank you! You look awesome!

Oh Honey! I'm so sorry you're in so much pain. I hope all the love and concern that has been expressed for here helps ease it a little.

Missed yesterday cuz I got a late start in the morning. Got all my planks and bridging in today though. I really am struggling to hold the plank for 40 secs but the side planks are getting a little easier.

Hope you're feeling better today!

Sending you lots of love and healing light via the cyber cloud! I hope you pain is decreasing and your healing increasing. You have persevered thru so much already. This new issue really sucks! How you keep your composure I don't know. I think I'd be raging at God!

My goal for the rest of the month is to not go crazy and back away from all the cookies and candy! Couldn't have possibly been me who ate that! Must have been the cat! Anyway, I've been keeping up with the plank challenge but not so good with my goals here. Work schedule, snow and I think a mild case of the winter blues all adding on to a crappy workout schedule on my part. I find it difficult to be motivated to work out after all the snow shoveling. The irony is I work part-time at a gym and racquet club in an administrative position but I don't belong to that gym and they don't give you a break on the membership if you work there.

Having a major chocolate chip cookie attack!!!! Heeeelllllppppp. Meeeeeeee!!! One of my students brought me fresh-baked cookies as a Christmas gift. She's 18 and knows nothing of my history or that for me this is like crack cocaine. My hubby is eating most of them but I've had my share. They won't be here to tempt me much longer! LOL!

So started my 3rd week this am. 45s bridge, 20s side planks & 40s regular plank. Those side planks are killer! Plus all I see is my loose flab hanging off me! Ugh! My hips and thighs are where I carried most of my excess fat and I still do but there's muscle underneath, somewhere!

You are doing great! The less you have to lose the slower it goes. I'm closing in on my goal but also am losing much slower now. I keep playing with the same 2 lbs back and forth, AAARRGGGG! I do believe strength training helps you burn more because it increases your metabolism but in the beginning your weight might go up slightly. It's also important to try to maintain your muscle mass as you age. I can't say that it has helped me tighten my skin but my abs are tighter underneath. I'm 54 yo so I didn't realistically expect my skin to shrink back. My butt looks like a shar pei! LOL!

Same as yesterday. Donna450. Just google it, you'll see lots a pictures. You can start with a modified plank if you want to.

Awe! You can still hang out here too! Happy Birthday!

Are you pre or post-op? Have you had an MRI of your spine. It sounds more like a nerve problem to me but I'm not a Dr. Have you been to a Chiropractor? I've got bad knees and don't do squats for that reason. The elliptical machine is the least stress on your knees but can be a challenge to the uninitiated. The trick is to go slow and start with a very short amount of time with no incline and minimal resistance. Also strengthening your quadriceps helps stabilize you knees. There are machines for that or you can do knee lifts in a chair and add ankle weights to increase the difficulty. Best of luck to you.

40 mins cardio and 30 on the weight machines. Added 10 lbs and 2 reps to the weights. Had to switch from the elliptical to the bike after 20 mins. My back was giving me twinges. Must have been that nekkid snow shoveling. That'll teach me!

40s bridge, 15s side planks, 35s reg plank plus a down dog and frog pose to stretch everything out.

Bwahahahaha! That's my evil plan!!!! Actually shoveling in the buff would be very unpleasant. Might freeze off something sensitive! ;-p.

Looks like I'll be shoveling snow nekkid again Butterman! ;D

RJ - Thank you for your kind words and your continuing bravery, not only in openly sharing the pain of your childhood but for you perseverance thru the adversity of the complications you have endured. One of my uncomfortable truths is that I have always been critical of other fat people, especially if they were slobs and didn't try to look their best regardless of their size. I came to realize that I was really just holding up the mirror and thinking all those mean thoughts about myself! I now sometimes catch myself feeling superior to people who are overweight, as though I am somehow more virtuous because I've had WLS when my logical mind knows this is total hogwash! I'm not sure where this sort of thinking comes from and I'm not proud of it. I feel like a real shitted that I have these thoughts from time to time and I fight against this hyper-critical aspect of my personality. Perhaps it's a hold-over from my hyper-critical family. Guess it's time for more therapy! To answer your questions, I had some success in my operatic singing career despite being so large. I got to travel and perform in Europe and performed once with the New York Philharmonic. It was thrilling and fun and a wild ride at times but also extremely stressful and very expensive to pursue as a career. After 2011 my singing career had pretty much fizzled as I had so many difficulties with the physical demands of the stage work. My back went out and my knees couldn't take all the kneeling they want you to do in opera productions. No one wanted to give me an audition much less hire me. It took me a while to accept the reality of this rejection even though it was what I had expected to happen when I first started out. Ironic, no? Also I was in denial about how much my weight was affecting my body and quality of life. De-Nile is deep! However it was the physical pain rather than emotional pain that tipped the scales (pardon the pun) and got me to decide on WLS. My hubby has been incredibly loving and supportive and proud of me in everything I have done both at my fattest and now, at the thinnest I've ever been. I'm not really thin though, I'm just not as fat. I think as long as the girls don't completely disappear he'll be OK with it! LOL!

I was wearing a smile and my headlights were on!

This morning did my 35s plank, 35s bridge and managed 25s side planks.

I have bern lurking here reading this thread for the past few days. (Slow reader). Anyway, I feel compelled to say how much I admire everyone who has had the courage to share so openly the deep wounds that are a part of their past. You are all very brave, strong resilient and through your journeys have and are becoming deeply conscious and compassionate people. We have all gone thru some shit! It's just life. My own life, for the most part, has been comparatively easy but I was tormented because of my size and weight problem particularly during my teen years. I sprouted ginormous boobs at age 12 which brought me a great deal of unwanted sexual attention some of which was abusive. My family are all thin and the focus on my weight and eating was constant. I do think they meant well but they simply drove me into secret, food sneaking and addiction to food=love since I felt so unlovable. I was constantly told how pretty my face was and if I would only lose weight, blah, blah. I think the ultimate low was my parents telling me they feared i would never get married and no one would ever love me if I didn't lose weight. Yes, they actually told me they thought I was unlovable. The deep, emotional pain only made me eat more, of course. By age 17 I weighed over 300 lbs and they sent me to a fat camp. I did learn from that experience that I enjoyed physical activity but once you're back in the environment that made you fat in the first place all the weight returns, of course. So fast forward many years and thru ooodles of therapy, i gradually came to a place of self-love and even met and married a man who openly admired my plus-size body. After we married, since he's my enabler, I put on more weight and was at my heaviest 357 lbs. I eventually decided to lose weight because I was pursuing my singing career. I got down to 295 but just yo-yoed after that. In 2009 my dear brother died after a long and very painful battle with Leukemia. We were close to each other and part of my soul left with him. The pain sent me into a deep depression and of course I ate my grief. Who doesn't? People either eat or stop eating altogether in those circumstances. I flirted with getting the lap band in 2011 but chickened out at the last minute. I wasn't ready then to face my food addiction but I'm so glad now because I think the sleeve is a far superior WLS. Anyway, the point I'm laboring to come to here is that we all have emotional demons that can drive us to self-destructive behaviors. The gift is that it creates such an amazing opportunity for personal growth. I also think that everyone uses food and eats for emotional reasons whether or not they have a weight problem or any food-behavioral issues. It is human nature. All cultures either starve or eat for significant events. Most eat. Food is symbolic of life and thus love. Learning to love ourselves and each other and show that love in ways that doesn't use food is always going to be an ongoing challenge. Lastly, I too still struggle with my desire to eat myself into a temporary numbness. I too keep trying to test the limits of my sleeve. Why? Why the self-sabatoge? WTF? I think for me I have a glitch in my brain that just yammers for food all the time. I've come to the conclusion that it's not the result of any of my past hurts but has always been there from my birth. My earliest memory is of steeling cookies. Oy! So what does that tell you? I was 3 and my parents thought it was cute. They also got an adorable photo of me at age 2 climbing onto the table and helping myself to the sugar. I think I was born with the addiction but life circumstances just made it worse by adding shame on top of it. So just love yourselves! You are all incredible and amazing and I am so happy and proud to know you even a little thru cyber-space! God be with you!

And according to my Loseit app burned about 700 calories! It was sooooo much easier for me than the last time I shoveled any significant amount of snow. Didn't bother my lower back at all!

I'm sucking at this challenge so far but I got to shovel snow today so I guess that burned a few calories. ;p

Haha! Thanks but it was my saggy butt I was referring to. My back side looks like the saggy, baggy elephant! Did 35s plank, 35s bridge and two 10s side planks again. Those side planks are tough and I really struggle to hold the left side (my weak side) even for 10s. I can feel it working me though. Glad I'm in on this challenge cuz I'm blowing the December fitness challenge so far.

GG Where did you get that naked photo of me planking? I'm not referring to the naked, photo-shopped Barbie Doll either?