Rockin' the Goal Pants!

Hello Support Team,
Well, we're 5 weeks away from GOAL DATE (i.e. walking down the aisle) and I slipped on my "goal pants" EASILY this morning. No longer do I look like I've been poured into a sausage casing! I'm not only wearin' these pants, I'm ROCKIN' them!

Several more pounds to do 'til I'm fit to work the bikini on the beach, but I'm happy so far. You haven't heard from me in a while because I've been crying in my beer over all the other health challenges that surfaced on this weight-loss journey. But I learned a big, and expensive lesson. My kidneys, liver and spleen were weak and my immune system on it's last legs....which explained all the inflammation and joint paint....crazy response to allergy season, etc. I cut out simple carbs, sugar, bread, alcohol...and started to get enough sleep....and voila: right as rain. So I'm back in the gym, doing a course of HCG, and feeling awesome.

Sho and I agreed that we're crazy busy right now and a weekly commitment to this blog is unrealistic...so we're going to throw up "after" picture the middle of May. I'm shooting for May 15.

So stay tuned...and for all of you coming to Wilmington - I CAN"T WAIT TO SEE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1st Day of March and the rest of Sho's life

"Always be a first-rate version of yourself,

instead of a second-rate version of somebody else."

-- Judy Garland

Welcome to the first day of March. What a ride the last 4 weeks have been. Phew! February was an intense and yet enlightening month for me all the way around: family, finances, health, and the future. So many simultaneous breakdowns and breakthroughs. Challenges that were sometimes totally expected and some that seemed surprising. As they say in a course I just finished, “this is what it looks like when life is working!” Seriously, not always the way I thought it was going to go but life was still working.

First major thing is I have dealing with my health in a new way. I think I have mentioned it previously, but for those that didn't know, I was diagnosed with PCOS 5 years ago. It is disorder of the ovaries. 100's of little cysts grow on the outside of the ovaries causing all sorts of problems with their functioning. It is both an ovulation and metabolic disorder = periods come whenever they want, last for forever (ok they only last 2-3 weeks), and my body is insulin resistant.

At the time of my diagnosis, "being healthy" equaled "being thin." It was no surprise that the doctor I had at the time felt the same way. Well in my new view my body is only one part of my health to be managed. My emotional well being, my spiritual health, my integrity, and the health of my relationships all factor into the "Sho's optimal health".

So I dove in. Looked honestly at finances (integrity), my family relationships, the future, my emotional well being, and my physical health. What came out of it was a date for Steven and I's wedding June 18, 2011, a new outlook on finances, a new relationship to my business, new relationship with 4 members of my family, and me taking on my emotional, spiritual, and physical health. It might seem like a lot, but to me everything is connected anyway so when I raise the health in one area, the health in other areas improve as well.

At the end of the last 4 weeks, what I feel right now is freedom. Discovering the freedom to decide how I want the future to go free from the "shoulds, have-to's, and expecta's".

Starting today I am starting the "Psychic Pathway" a book I have wanted to read and go through for 10+ years. My spiritual health will feel well cared for inside of this practice.

For my physical health, I am staying on the Metaformin for at least 2 weeks and the Birth Control pills for another 2 months. I am taking the Fitness Game launch course in two weeks. I look forward to sharing about that.

My focus is on these two areas right now. Blessings to all and happy almost spring.

Countdown Continues

OOOh! The wedding is just around the corner now! We finalized the location at this newly remodeled Tiki Bar on steroids...with a mini-bandshell and a new wood dance floor surrounded by an outdoor adobe fireplace and palm trees wound with white twinkly lights! I am so excited to glide onto that dance floor with Dave for our first dance as bride and groom. Peacock feathers pinned up in my hair, all a-bling with emeralds, and a little green petticoat peaking out from under the hem of my dress---Ahhhh! I love being daring and adding color to my virginal white ensemble. It's driving my mother nuts, but oh well....it's not like I'm a twenty-something blushing bride in the 1800s.

It looks like we might have hired a band for the dance, and they'll come early to play for the ceremony on the beach. Guitars and an upright bass on the beach!!!!! This will be epic, and far beyond what I dreamed we could do. Mucho gratitude to my mother for lending us a hand, financially. I totally didn't expect that...but she surprised us with a check last week that gave us a huge sigh of relief.

This whole process has been an exercise in letting go. Everything time I get too attached to my vision of how things out to be, it all sort of blows up in my face. If I think I'm not dropping weight fast enough...not down to my ideal size soon enough....well, then the stress and pressure make me eat more. If I get too attached to what music I want played or how the reception will go, something falls apart.

Such an exercise in faith to just let it unfold...and now it's better than I could have imagined.

Michelle (my neighbor) and I have decided to build a little business plan for this summer to put together a weightloss support group. She's getting ACE certified as a personal trainer and I'm sort of being trained by a doctor of natural health to teach others a 12-week nutrition program. We'll combine my knowledge of nutrition and Michelle's knowledge of training and eating for weight-loss.....and we might have a shot at helping some other women. This is motivating me to be vigilant...because it'll be OUR before and after pictures in the marketing materials.

So this week we're starting with an all veggie cleanse. So far so good. It'll be what I need to break the barriers. My weight has been jumping around between 184 and 187 for weeks now....even though I'm getting leaner from lighting weights. Today I'm at 181 and if I can just drop below 180 and stay there then I think the ball will be rolling on it's own from that point on.

But I'm not going to get stressed. If I still have a little bouncy bouncy celllulite on my wedding day, the world won't come to an end. I can't stress about this... I can only affirm my health and well-being.

Miracles and BloodSludge

Well, I asked for it and I got it. Dear God, I said...please, please....take away this pain in my back. And poof: I got a recommendation to see a therapist who waves his magic machine over my ass (lower lumber and sacrum) and Voila! my bone crunching back pain is gone! Gone I say! Gone!

What is this magical machine, you ask? Something wonderful that the Russian space program invented years ago that shoots electrical impulses into your site of pain to reorient your nerves to go in a new path....a lovely path....the yellow brick road back to your spinal column, merrily humming a new tune of freedom and painlessness.  I am amazed. Almost 5 days later, and still...no pain. It's a miracle. And what I get I keep. I won't lose this progress... I'll only build on it.

So now I can run....jump, hop....do jarring, liberating, twisting, turning, skipping exercises! Vive La Eryn!

But, alas...yes....a shoe has dropped. The other shoe. And it's the by-product of the miracle. Dr. Painless took this lovely machine and dragged it over my "enteric system" to detox my liver and gallbladder. Oooh, lovely...I love to get detoxed, I thought! But little did I know how sludgy my blood really was. Ohmigosh, by the time I got out to the parking lot from his office my tonsils were swollen with the workload of pulling and processing all the offensiveness out of my circulatory system. And now...yes, 5 days later, I'm still on my back with a pseudo cold, draining from my nose and lethargic from the Herculean job my body is doing with this toxic dump in my blood.

Poor Eryn's body...so dirty inside, and who would have known. But I'm not upset. No, I'm actually rejoicing....because I'll be that much cleaner when this whole thing is done. And I'll take my lovely pain-free back and go skipping off to the gym.

We're still human. Sometimes you gotta take the bad with the good.

The Birth Canal of the Times

Last night, during the Skype meeting at had with The Red Door team, we talked about how these last couple of years and a few more in front of us are feeling like the birth canal into a new era. God is putting the squeeze on us....the economy sucks, the Earth is pissed off at us, and many of us are out of work. Everything is being reevaluated. I'm excited....it means that we're about to be reborn pretty soon, into a much better world.

But for now, it's still this pressure-filled, highly uncomfortable birth canal. Most days I don't even realize we're here because I'm slipping through with little to no effort. Life is good. I'm really happy these days. But other times I get a reminder of what's going on for the "whole". It seems as though disease and illness, of all kinds, is ramping up in unprecedented ways. Cancer is now as common as a cold. Can you believe that? Cancer is as common as a cold. And my aunt, just in her early 40s, will be going into a doctor's appointment today to find out what sort of MS she has. The whole family is on pins and needles. I'm not really...I'm trusting that this is all happening as it should, for some reason that we can't understand right now. But nevertheless, she's terrified of being told that she'll have a disease that may put her in a wheelchair someday.   And my chiropractor told me that even MS is becoming a common diagnosis.   Common.
This crazy. Cancer and MS should be rare, not common!

And today I go into the doctor as well. Last year I had high-risk cervical displaysia and LEAP procedure to slice off a little piece of my unhappy cervix. Today I go in for a check-up to see if I've got a clean bill of health or not. I've heard so many stories of my female friends getting cervical cancer at my age that I'm just a little nervous as well. This is starting to become......common.

I'll also have my IUD removed, which is supposed to be a very happy and momentous occasion. It means that Dave and I are getting ready to get preggers. We need about 3 months for my womb to get back to it's normal PH before we try, but it's time now for that little piece of offensive copper to be gone. I've had too many people tell me how bad it was for me to begin with.

So it's a bit of a somber day. I can't muster up the normal enthusiasm I normally have for my BodyProject,which seems a bit self-centered right now. But the facts are good....I'm still dropping weight and this morning I discovered a new line....a long lovely dent down the front of my abdominals that indicates there truly is potential for a 4-pack in there. All those sit-ups are paying off. And I'm almost down a whole size.

Life is good. I'll trust in the old adage that God doesn't give us anything we're not strong enough to handle. My Aunt, who has been like a sister to me.....she'll be fine. No matter what the outcome. And so will I. So will we all.

Waking up again?? by Sho

Hello from your very absent (for 2 weeks) blogger. I have been dealing with a heap of health issues. Mostly from a diagnosis I received 5 years ago. PCOS - Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. It causes my body to not ovulate and to have a resistance to insulin. I thought it just meant that I had erratic, typically heavy periods, and an inability to get pregnant. 5 years ago I didn't give much thought to it. I wasn't concerned about getting pregnant.

Then 3 weeks ago I had by far the worst period I have ever had. It was heavy enough that they checked my red blood and iron levels. They thought I might need a blood transfusion. Long story short. I didn't need a transfusion as Zombie like as I felt. They put me on an anti-hormone medicine and recommended sleep and recovery.

I spent the next 14 days recovering. Sleeping. Eating. Working part time. I got frustrated by how tired I felt. I felt helpless. My body wasn't working the way I expect and want it to. On top of that I was on a pill. It made me REALLY REALLY hungry.

So I just stopped. Stopped what you ask? Well I stopped paying attention. Didn't work out. Slept a lot and begun to feel sorry for myself. It turned into a 3 week hiatus, which if you look back, I took a 2 week one during the holidays. All in all in the last 6 weeks, I had 5 weeks of unconsciousness. Sweet.

So as always I can beat myself up some more or... Just start again. I choose wake up.

WAKE UP

I realized something this morning. When I have failure, I don't question my playing of the game instead I question the game. Everyone and their brother gives me their advice and I get overwhelmed by the options. It would be like if every time Tiger missed the hole, he switched his swing. Like completely changed his philosophy of his game every time there was one failure. What I am realizing is that it isn't a question of the game but how fully I am play it. I know what works and what there is to work on.

Now feeling better what works is to work out. So starting tomorrow I will be back to my 5 days a week goal. I like sticking to it and it feels good.

Food oh food. I am out to master eating healthy. Giving my body the optimal fuel to reach my goal fitness, weight, and health. MY BODY. Not anyone else's. Mine. For me right now for the next 5-6 months, I will be following weight watchers. Tracking points and tracking every bit of food I eat. It means getting support to be honest and talking about what I am dealing with around food. 2010 is my year of mastery around food. Like a Kung Fu master of Weight Watchers. A friend of mine has lost 100 pounds on weight watchers cause she follows it to the letter. My Turn.

Thanks for reading....

Help? Is Muscle Really Heavier than Fat?

This blog is an inquiry to my readers... I need some answers from any of you who have experience in the gym. I can't get the damn scale to budge, but my body seems like it's changing every day! It's so confusing and discouraging at the same time. I work out SIX TIMES A WEEK, I pump iron three times a week, I'm sore every day (the good kind of sore) and I can feel a HUGE difference in my muscle tone. I can even see it...my arms are getting slimmer, my butt is getting perkier...but the scale is just hovering in the same general spot that it was when I started.

I need to understand the biology of what I'm doing. I'm eating maybe HALF of what I used to eat. My diet has cleaned up considerably and even in the last week I tried going down to nothing but protein shakes and vegetables...but hardly any change on the scale. I'm working out harder than ever, eating less...feeling good, but weighing about the same.  Just frustrating!  I've heard from others that when you first start working out (especially for women) you'll notice that you get thicker. But how long is this going to last?

On another note, Michelle (the perky neighbor) has me signed up for another Challenge at Gold's Gym. I've got 12 weeks to compete...before pictures, after pictures and a chance to a win a few thousands dollars. Today I go in for my "before" photos and measurements, so I'll compare those to the measurements from when I started to see if there's been a change.

This has been so much fun...frustrating, but really fun!

Blowing My Own Mind

How, exactly, does one go from dreading the gym to craving the gym? I'm in amazement. Little elves must be running around in my head, cleaning old programs off of my internal hard drive. I am actually on my way to having a gym "habit".

We're at Week 5 now, of this new experience .I so enjoy the community...seeing the same faces every day on the treadmills, getting the same waves or smiles of camaraderie as I climb off the sweaty stationary bike and wipe it down for the next user. We've all got this habit now... and we're doing it together.  The Monday after New Year's Weekend the place was packed and it was almost insulting. All these eager and excited new faces pushing themselves to the limit, basking in the new feeling of hope and discipline. I felt encroached upon. I took comfort in the familiar faces. This was our territory and all of these newcomers were sort of messing up the vibe. But not to worry...they were all gone by Wednesday.  Short-lived devotion. A one-night stand with Lady Fitness.

I love watching how the demographic changes. In the early morning it's the older crowd....50s and 60 somethings who have learned through the School of Hard Knocks that starting your day with this routine is the best way to create consistency.  The Gray Hairs rule the 8 a.m. game, along with a few 30 somethings who are most likely busy moms squeezing in their cardio while the kids are at school.  Then around 5:30 all hell breaks loose and the gym is over-run with 20 somethings...an an air of vane insecurity is so thick in the sweaty vibe that you could cut it with a knife.  Tatooed boys with bandanas are swinging around the bar bells with no attention to controlling the weight....just obsessions with poundage and how their grunting and breathing accurately communicates the size of their penis. It's hilarious, really.  Last night some guy was grunting so loudly that he was drawing attention to himself from across the room, and when he dropped the bar bell on the floor with a loud ringing thud, the whole treadmill brigade swung their heads around to see if he was okay. I was hoping he'd be embarrassed, but instead he strutted around like a peacock...proud of his poundage.
Gimme a break.


The rest of plunged ahead...raising the elevation of our treadmills and turning up the volume on our Ipods.

It feels good to be a part of this tribe of soldiers....fighting the good fight against fat and laziness. I feel filled with possibility....even ready to entertain the idea of a surfing lessons this Spring. Wow.....I'm blowing my own mind.

She'll be round as the mountains when she comes

Falling off the Wagon

A cold came on hard the week of Christmas and stayed for a bit. Not much fun really. Plus I got a toothache. The kind where Advil, Tylenol, and any pain medication became my friend on an every 4-6 hour basis. I was tired, snotty, and felt like my head was floating above my body. So I did what I do when I don't feel great and there is food everywhere. I ATE and ATE and ATE... Came up for a breath on Christmas day and ran in the cold anyway then... I ate and ate and ate some more.

I got my tooth fixed a week later. My face was numb on the Monday before New Years. btw it was the first time my mouth has seen the inside of a dentist office in a very long long time. Needless to say I was feeling a wee bit sorry for myself. Pain. Dentist. Drilling. Numbness. I didn't want to face up to the reality of jumping of the wagon for the week of Christmas.

So Instead of: talking to someone, writing a blog entry, or screaming at the top of my lungs "STOP THE MADNESS"

I ATE and Ate and ate so more.

Then suddenly I awoke from my stupor. It was January 4th. I felt kinda ill honestly having eaten so much for two weeks and really having eaten foods that don't make me feel good. Especially the kinds of foods I eat in binge size quantities. 'Hello brownie bites, cookies, and trail mix [damn trail mix]'. Awaking from my stupor is normally crippling for me. I seriously beat myself up. (Nadine that dirty b....). Something new happened though. I got in communication.

My fiance had great advice:

1) Stop beating yourself up, feeling guilty, feeling bad etc. you can't change what has already happened

2) Learn from what happened and empower yourself

3) Hello it is the frigging first week of a the New Year. Consider it a new start and get back on wagon.

In the past I would have truly quit. Very likely give up. Gotten resentful. Gotten frustrated. Gotten righteous. Gotten a breakfast burrito smothered in green chile and cheese ; ) and gone numb again.

Instead...

I am reporting my results to you for week twelve and thirteen. I am declaring that I will end 2010 at my goal weight 160 pounds. I will join up for the transformation thingy Eryn is talking about. I just signed up for Weight Watchers online and will do the Fitness launch course by March 1st (I am currently playing the 12 week game but would like to do the launch weekend). Lastly that I will run a half-marathon by the fall of this year. Just cause. What the heck? Say new things (BIG THINGS) and have a new experience. yeehaw!!

Results for Week Twelve and Thirteen

Starting Weight Oct. 5th: 257.2

Last Reported Week 12/21/09 : 249

1/04/10: 249.4

+.4 pounds

T0TAL To Date Loss: 7.8 pounds

The Naked Truth (Before Pictures)

Okay....are you ready? I'm about to bear all. Michelle (the perky neighbor next door who lost her pedunka-dunk in the trunk) has got me signing up for www.transformation.com: an 18-week mind,body, spirit challenge to drop weight and get super-sculpted. I WAS IN THE GYM AT 8 A.M. ON NEW YEAR'S DAY!!! I have to take a lovely "before" picture and post it on line. They're also running a contest...whoever can make the most inspirational transformation (and write about it well) can win $50,000, a vacation, etc. So, well, I'm motivated.    Okay...here they are. The lovely "before" pictures. Dave is doing this with me, sort of. He did the photo for moral support, but then he plowed into a bag of chips afterwards so I'm not going to hold my breath for his "transformation". That's okay though,...I like his belly (for now).

AHHHHH! That was really hard!

Vince is kicking my ass at the gym, and I've significantly reduced how much food I'm eating, but I still haven't seen the scale drop. What I didn't realize is that in the first few weeks that you start lifting regularly, you actually sort of swell up and feel thicker. So I've got to past that part. I have felt a big difference in my legs and butt...sort of an emerging hardness, and a few new lines of tone that weren't there 3 weeks ago. Sort of like my "real" body is fighting to get out from under that layer of fat. Keep fighting, body! Keep fighting! You can do it!

I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. I can do this......