Dancing with Myself in 2014

I am 164 pounds today.

In four more pounds, I will have lost 20 since Christmas Eve.

I cannot even begin to say how ecstatic this makes me. I'm very close to my goal, which is 150 at minimum, 140 at maximum. I'm 5'9" and I was my happiest at that weight range. Not too skinny, but I didn't run past the bathroom mirror while naked to avoid looking in it.

The first 5 were lost by portion control at my meals. I started eating actual serving sizes rather than just eating until I was full. That was a challenge at first while my stomach shrank to a normal size. I also mostly stopped drinking soda. After that, I decided it was time to start working at it.

When I had to be at work at 11am, I had an hour and a half after getting my son to the bus to do whatever I wanted. For awhile there, I was napping. Then I conceived a walking plan. It's roughly a block from where the bus picks my son up to my parents house. I started walking, I downloaded a pedometer to my phone and got to it. Before my time became limited in the mornings, I was up to 20 minutes and 1 1/2 miles. It felt GOOD. Adding in 40 to 50 jumping jacks after the walk rounded out the morning, and after a hot shower, I felt more ready to tackle the day than I had in a long time.

I don't get to walk much in the mornings now since I have a limited time. I try to squeeze a ten minute walk in on Thursday and Friday mornings. Once we get moved, unless I want to walk around the apartment complex, I won't be walking anymore.

I'm trying to devise a good workout plan. A friend gifted me with copies of the P90X two years ago. I only tried it once and that lasted about two weeks. Most of the arms, chest and back exercises I can't do. We can blame a strained rotator cuff and finicky muscle in my neck for that I found this out the hard way. If it involves push up's or pull up's, it can go straight to hell, I refuse to hurt myself even further. It really is a shame because they are so good for you. But there are disks that I CAN. The Cardio X disk is fine, as is Polymetrics, Kempo X, Ab Ripper X and Yoga X. I hate the Polymetrics disk. HATE IT! One hour of squats and nothing but squats. They even have you do jumping jacks while squatting. You find yourself walking funny for days after that one. One of my old coworkers said it best, "Are you insane???" Wellllll, that has been up for debate for some time now, so probably.

Once I'm at my target weight range, I will start fine tuning and sculpting, adding weights in for my arms, chest and back (I can do light to moderate weight lifting), ankle weights if I feel I need them.

I don;t have any before pictures from when I started my fitness journey. I refused to take any. But I'm getting to where maybe I could stand a picture or two showing where I am now. :)