Lace em up...

Lace em up...

Sunday, March 13, 2016

A bad month, slow progress and loose skin...

Blogging is hard yo! Okay, life has been super hectic over the past 6 weeks. I've had a bit of a personal crisis, an emotional breakdown and my household was sick for a couple weeks. But I'm still alive and kicking. February was one of the worst months I've had in a while. But all the turmoil and anxiety worked itself out. Things are looking up. Spring is here after all. Today I talk about progress and loose skin. Progress is slow, and loose skin and stretch marks is still my most asked question via my blog and social media accounts.


Transformation Tuesday picture from 3 weeks ago.
I weighed 300 pounds on the left. I weigh 177ish now
(or I did the last time I weighed myself in January).

My progress could be much faster if I ate properly. I'm not talking about clean, I'm talking about enough. I still follow Paleo for the most part. Except for my pre-workout protein smoothie, I don't eat anything processed or use supplements. And I tried to do fasted strength training workouts, but they weren't working for me. I'd get too light headed. I can do fasted runs, but not gym visits. Hence the only reason I use protein powder (Genuine Health Whey Proteins).

I still eat the way I did when I ran. Which was great for fat loss when I weighed 230 pounds (that's how big I was when I started running). But doesn't work so well when I want to build muscle and get rid of any residual fat. That fat would be hanging out on my upper outer thighs and my back. And my lower abdomen, right above my c-section scar. Anyway, bottom line is I'm not eating enough protein and when you're not eating enough for the physical activity you're doing (especially strength training), your body holds onto fat and burns muscle tissue. So I need to really up my protein intake.

When I was losing weight, I lost quickly and steadily because I ate so much protein to keep myself fuller longer. I was allowed to eat lean protein till full, and I did. And I lost a ton of fat that way. Maybe I need to go back to basics and just eat like I did for weight loss. Protein, protein, protein and veggies, veggies, veggies. It's a lot of work though and that shouldn't be a deterrent. I've goals, so I just need to suck it up and get on with it already. I've got my workouts in order, food planning has got to be a priority too. End of story.



Hunching my back to highlight my loose skin and stretch marks.

I get questioned several times weekly on loose skin enquiries. Yes I have loose skin and stretch marks. How could I not? I lost 140 pounds, and most likely 160+ pounds from my highest weight when I didn't weigh myself for years but was noticeably larger than 300 pounds. One area I have been lucky is that for an old broad, (42 when I reached goal) who lost all the weight in 15 months, my stomach fared well (I credit good genes and Q10. Moisturize, moisturize, moisturize. Best advice I can give you). I can definitely still improve it and that's why I'm a bit obsessed with working my abs 5x per week. Of those 5 workouts, I do a couple days of abs for 20 minutes which include machine and floor exercises and I always do a couple exercises when I train with Tony. He has me do abs right at the end of every workout.

There's definite improvement from when I started training 9 months ago (as seen in my previous post), but again, if I want actual abs, I'll need to get better with my eating. Abs are made in the kitchen after all. I will write a post about my ab workout since I get asked for it so much. I need to collect some photographic visuals because me using words like doohickey and whachamacallit would be confusing, no? And I'm finally going to be training with Tony again this week. He abandoned me to visit his daughter in the UK. Unacceptable if you ask me. But at least he can be my official photographer.

And something else about the loose skin. I've had my extra skin removed from my arms, and if I still don't like how my abs look a year from now with muscle gain (meaning loose skin hasn't firmed up enough), I'd consider getting a tummy tuck in a hot minute. I'm very pro gaining confidence however that might manifest itself. I have a hard time saying nice things about myself on a good day. And I've accepted the fact that I'm never going to be 100% happy with myself. But confidence after extreme weight loss is not instantaneous. It just doesn't work like that. Which is my reality. But I'm always a work in progress and more times than not I do like what I see when I look in the mirror. So it is getting better. It's just slow. I will be a work in progress for the rest of my life...