Susan Carter

So now what am I supposed to do with no more blogs to read?  Just wanted to let all of the challenge ladies know I will miss your blogs and reading about the 100 day challenges and accomplishments you have each conquered.  Good luck to one and all in maintaining the changes you have made and meeting future goals you have set for yourself. 

Time to bid the 100 day challenge good-bye.  The time passed quickly, too fast actually.  I want to always remember how good it feels to feel good.  That will become my challenge hence forth.

 Since the final weigh out on Friday morning I have experienced a wide variety of feelings and emotions.  The only thing I can compare it to would be high school graduation, leaving home for college, and realizing I was really out on my own.  There has been the feeling of freedom.  Because I only have myself to report to now if I choose, there is the freedom to do or not do what I have learned.  I have had to remind myself once again that all calories count, even if no one sees me eat them.  Freedon actually lies in practicing the principles learned in the last 100 days.

There is a vague feeling of lonliness.  I have enjoyed the friendship of the other participants and the challenge team.  I know we can stay in touch, but it will be different.  I will miss the encouragement and common goals we shared with each other.

New discoveries are ahead.  The unknown brings with it new experiences in making smart choices.  It will be fun and frightening to move ahead in maintaining smart heart health and lifestyle changes.

So as we bid adieu to the 100 day challenge proper, we say hello to a new, healthy lifestyle going forward.  Again, I say good luck to all of ladies in the challenge.  Remember where you were, where you are  now, and where you want to go from here.  Step up to the challenge of following the training we have experienced and learned.  Set a goal to work for, believe in yourself, and move forward with confidence in yourself.

I always want to remember how good it feels to feel good.

“Only those who risk going too far will ever know how far they can really go.”

Yesterday, Saturday May 17th, I did something I have never done before. . . “Running with Angels 5K”.  This experience will be the highlight of the whole 100 days.  Never would I have imagined participating in said event prior to the Heart Health Challenge.

The 5K experience brought with it so many different emotions, thoughts, and feelings it is impossible for me to describe in words what I was and am feeling.  I just know it was a new kind of “high” for me, something I am hooked on and want to feel again and again.

My thanks goes to the Heart Healthy Challenge team.  How lucky I have been to associate with them in this challenge.  Thanks to each of you for your part in teaching, coaching, and encouraging me to a healthy life style.  You made me believe in myself and challenged me to be better.  I owe success to my hard work and your belief in my abilities to change.

On February 15, 2008, myself and 14 other participants began on an unknown trek to a more healthy lifestyle.  I think we all thought we knew what was ahead and what we could expect to experience.  But speaking for myself, this has been 100 days of discovery.  It has been an awakening for me.  Life is good and can be better.

 Good luck to each of us as we complete our final week of the challenge.  How does it feel to be a winner, because we all are.

I love this time of the year.  Everything is renewing and beginning the cycle of growth again.  I liken our participation in this heart health challenge to Spring and renewing our bodies in healthy ways.  It is our opportunity for growth, just as the spring flowers bloom, so too can we bloom into something beautiful. 

This morning in nutrition class as I listened to the comments and information shared with us, I began thinking how each of us are so individual in our needs and expectations in relationship to this challenge experience.  This challenge isn’t “one size fits all”.  There isn’t any magic recipe that makes it all happen for us.  There aren’t any “quick fixes” that will give us the end result of cardio well being.  It has been a challenge based on our individual needs, a program developed specifically for each of us, with the same goal for all of us.  What works for me won’t necessarily work for Tracey, Wendy, or Angela.

 Each Wednesday morning we meet and listen to good information from Jalaine.  And as we listen and learn, we share our experiences, our expectations, our disappointments, and our victories with each other.  Back in February when we were just beginning, I used to feel left out because I wasn’t having the same experiences and results as every one else.  I wasn’t sure if I was as “successful” as I should be.  But I have come to realize that as individuals, all that has happened and is happening to us in this challenge, will be very individual.  We each will leave this challenge a better person than we were on the 15th of February.  We each will have been successful in our own individual way.  And it is okay to have individual results.  One size doesn’t fit all in this experience. 

Never have really understood just exactly what “pay dirt” is.  It must have something to do with mining, don’t you think?

 Today at work an acquaintance of mine stopped to say hello.  I used to frequent her hair salon, but it has probably been close to a year since I have seen her.  However, it hasn’t been a year since my last trip to a hair salon, just so you know I am not a shaggy, unkept type of person.

 We chatted for a few minutes and her parting comment was, “you’ve lost weight haven’t you, you look so good, so healthy.”  What a treat to hear.  But don’t get me wrong.  We as participants in the challenge have seen the changes take place in each other, make comments on how well we see each other doing, etc., but it is nice to hear it from someone that has no idea I am in the challenge.  Someone that hasn’t seen me for awhile and notices. 

People that I am around all the time don’t seem to see the changes taking place and don’t often comment.  I know it probably seems vain to want that recognition, but it validates all of the hard work and effort thus far in the challenge. 

So my friends comment was “pay dirt” for me.  It gave me a boost to re-commit for the end lap of this challenge.  Exercise just a little harder and longer, give up another less than healthy food choice, drink that extra glass of water, feel excited for each new day I have to become a heart healthy person.  All this from just one simple comment. . .you’ve lost weight, haven’t you?  Thanks Brooke, you made my day.

I’ve read everyone’s blogs as we go along.  Lots of good information and positive encouragement has been shared. 

I just want to write something profound, but can’t seem to figure out what that might be.  As my body has become more accustom to what I am doing, it seems the changes are slowing down somewhat. 

So this coming week I have challenged myself to be more disciplined in keeping an accurate food journal.  Along with the food journal I am going to make it a point to use my food scales and measuring cups more effectively and keep an accurate calorie count instead of “trusting the look” of what a serving might be. 

When I start feeling like this is all too hard to continue, I am trying to remind myself  how hard I have worked to this point of the challenge and how crazy it would be to have all of that work be in vain.  It really is worth the hard work and discipline to improve. 

 So much for profound. . .

 Hope everyone has a successful weigh in on Monday,  :))

Part of our goal is to build more muscle, get rid of fat mass and become leaner.  Sounds pretty simple doesn’t it?   Yeah, right!! 

There seems to be more muscle to build and develop than just those we associate with holding our bodies together.  I was reading some “dieting” news on line and came across information about a couple of muscles I had not been paying attention to, much less exercising.  The first muscle they talked about was our “resistance” muscle.  I am guessing it is located somewhere in our cranium, part of what holds our ears apart.  The second muscle was the “give in” muscle.  Here again I am assuming it resides along side our resistance muscle, but I am thinking it probably is a larger muscle and much easier to use.  It probably doesn’t require the same amount of exercise as the resistance muscle.

 Shortly after reading this information I was at Smith’s doing some grocery shopping, which now takes double the time it used to.  Why?  I am now a label reader and that takes time.  I felt my shopping trip was moving along quite well and a quick glance in my basket assured me I was still on track in my choice of items.  I was cruising along the back aisle, along the meat department, when I saw a bin full of large bags (like 2-3 pounds) of salt water taffy.  Oh yummy!  A whole bag of peppermint taffy.  It rates right up there with Cadbury chocolate bars or Cadbury Mini-eggs.  I wheeled on by this display and headed for the dairy case.  I was proud of myself for not stopping to get a closer look.

After getting my milk and egg substitute, if I would have been exercising the right muscles, I would have just headed for the front of the store and gone to the check out counter.  But no, I was exercising the “give in” muscle.  I walked back to the taffy display just to check it out, honest, I wasn’t even going to touch the stuff.  And then with no effort at all, I picked up a bag and tossed it in my basket, all the while telling myself how I would handle it when I got it home.  As I stood there looking at that bag in my shopping cart, I could feel something start to take place as the resistance muscle and the give in muscle started to struggle with each other for the most exercise time.  Each muscle was determined to be the winner.  I must have picked up that bag of taffy seven or eight times and put it back.  Each time I picked it up I told myself I really could control how I ate it.  And I look like I look, why?  Because I can’t control how I eat sweets.  Finally the resistance muscle took over and started exercising at top speed.  It started asking me why I would put myself at risk by doing something stupid like buying that bag of taffy.  Why even tempt myself and my will power.  The resistance muscle reminded me how little will power I have most of the time when it comes to making smart choices about sweet, sugary, no good food.

 Finally it dawned on me it really was easier in the long run to let the resistance muscle win this exercise battle.  Easier in the long run not to have the candy in the house and not have to make the choice multiple times of whether to eat or not eat taffy.  Easier in the long run to maintain a healthy heart life style without putting obstacles in my way.  So the resistance muscle won this battle, hopefully just the first time in a whole bunch of battles to come. 

We are at 52 days in the challenge.  Somethings are getting easier, others still remain difficult.  I just wonder how long it will take for all the things we are learning to become second nature to me and I won’t have to think so hard about what is a good choice, or what would be better left untouched.  Some days I feel like I am so consumed with thinking of food, wanting food.  Other days it is the physical side of being healthy, exercising, being more active all the time.  I just hope somewhere in the next 12 to 18 months it all becomes a habit, that I just do it all without thinking about it.  Then I will feel the pure sweetness of success in this challenge.

Every bit of effort to improve myself is worth it.  Did I mention that my pants are getting longer.  That’s right, they are getting longer!!  Now you figure that one out.

 I made some mental notes today as I went about my business and found the following to be true.  It is easier to bend over now.  I don’t feel like my eyes are going to pop out or the top of my head is going to explode anymore when I bend over to pick something up or tie my shoes.  It used to be that my pants or belt would cut into my middle so tightly when I bent over that it always seemed my life was in danger.  That feeling is gone, I now bend with more ease and comfort.  Stairs (lots of them) are still a challenge, but I am able to manage them better and not be so winded when I reach the top.  I even tried whistling as I did some stairs today.  It worked, I could whistle.  I feel lighter too.  It’s nice to move with more ease and actually feel lighter on my feet.  I haven’t lost a whole lot of pounds, but I am feeling the difference that good consistent exercise makes within your body.  And it feels soooooooo good.  You know that yummy kind of good, the feeling that a Cadbury chocolate bar gives you, or if you are Dr. Steffan, that total delight that a Pina Colada milkshake from Dairy Keen provides.  Or maybe it is that yummy good feeling you get from a total body massage or how good it feels to just linger in a nice warm bed some mornings.  Anyhow, no matter what you compare it to or how you describe it, it is a yummy good feeling to be getting into shape.

 I don’t have to do the “grandma rock” to get off the couch anymore either.  Nope!! That is out of my routine until I am 95, and then I might reconsider using that technique to get myself off the couch.  But for now it is gone, outta here.

 So back to the longer pants.  As the inches disappear and my bottom and thighs are trimming down, my pants are getting longer.  I love the feeling of baggy pants, to actually feel fabric move on my legs as I walk.  Any of you that don’t carry more junk in your trunk than you need, maybe don’t understand how wonderful it is to have baggy pants. 

Hope all of you in the challenge enjoy a good and successful week end.  Catch you all later.

Convenience is a must.  Having to hunt weights and measures down gets in the way of my success.  So I needed to simplify how I was able to track amounts of food.  I made copies of the food lists in the book Jalaine gave us in our first nutrition class.  Then I laminated them so they would withstand the wear and tear of being in the kitchen with me.  Now I have them posted on the inside of my cupboard doors so I can quickly get the information I need without thumbing through my book.  So, if you open my cupboards it looks like I am in first grade again with my “art” on display.  My art project is a leaner, healthier, improved me. 

It’s much harder to live a healthy lifestyle than I remembered.  It takes thought, commitment, planning, and determination to be the “winner” in this challenge.  Winner in this case is not referring to the participant that takes all the prizes home.

It’s not hard to really get discouraged.  This afternoon Traci got me thinking the right way again.  I am overwhelmed with thoughts of how far reaching this 100 day challenge is to the point I felt a pity party was in order.  The staff we are privileged to work with to reach our goals is impressive.  I am sure Traci had other things that needed her attention but she sat with me and heard me out.  She knew exactly what I needed too.  I didn’t need her to agree with me life is tough and some days suck.  She knew positive encouragement would get me further.  Thanks Traci for making me realize the only loser is the one that gives up and gives in to discouragement. . .the one that doesn’t stick to their commitment to change.  For every minute on the treadmill, every pound lifted and pushed in weight training, every sensible meal eaten, every healthy choice made, I AM A  “WINNER“.  However, I left Traci’s office still convinced I needed the party tonight to get me back on track.  Only thing was, my party wasn’t going to involve food, only hard work, blogging, and a long outside walk.

 I want to share a few things I have come to realize in the last 40 days.  Some of these things I knew all along, but didn’t pay attention to.   I now know for sure the ten minute rule works(blog entry #2).  Smile daily, it improves your face value.  Calories really do count, even if no one sees you eat them  :)).  People generally are happy to see you succeed at something.  Never under estimate your tenacity.  Tell yourself on a regular basis you are an achiever and you love yourself.  SMILE.  Chocolate can be your friend, really.  Mind over matter. . .it really works.  Your body will do what your mind tells it to, so always think positive(Traci reminded me of this today).  I am capable of more than I expect of myself.  SMILE.  Have positive interactions with those you are in contact with on a daily basis, it helps you remain positive.  Every day is a new beginning, 24 brand new hours to make myself better.  Greet those you pass with a ‘good morning or afternoon’ cheerfully, it will make you feel good.  Appreciate your health daily.  And don’t forget to SMILE.

 So the pity party is over.  Hope you had a good time and enjoyed yourself as much as I did.  I am ready for a new day tomorrow, another new day to become healthier than yesterday.  I hope all the challenge participants have a successful week ahead and realize the goals you have set for yourself.  Catch you all later!