Hydroxycut-failure!

Hello again,

It has been nearly 6 months since I posted this initial blog. I thought about hiding the evidence but decided to continue with my candid account of my weight struggles. Let's do some catching up...

In short, hydroxycut was not for me. Weirdly, I felt none of the benefits that others claimed to have (super energy, lowered appetite, etc) nor the disadvantages (high heart rate). I felt pretty much exactly the same except I started getting these really painful blemishes (pimples) that would develop in less than a day and be like a full pustule by the night time. I was getting like two or three a week so I decided to stop taking it. All together, I tried hydroxycut for less than a month and no I didn't eat less or exercise more...

I was so ashamed that I had tried hydroxycut. I finally felt guilted into "Confessing" that I tried it (like it was a bad drug lol) to my brother, Bren. He's almost three years younger than I (see above photo) and an incredible athlete. Just like my dad and I, he's been involved in sports his whole life. At one point he was a ranked runner in southern california for cross country and probably could have been a great soccer player if he would have stuck with it (he gave it up for running). Anyhow, one day I told my brother I was ashamed of something I had done, and I told him I tried hydroxycut. Surprisingly, he did not respond with a verbal lashing or belittling (what I would normally expect)...he responded rather comfortingly by telling me, "we all get desperate, Jidger" (his nickname for me since he could speak-it was his attempt at saying "sister"). He pretty much said to just use that as motivation.

The following month, September, I began my 2nd year of graduate school. This was, by far, the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, thus far. Harder than running a marathon! To be blunt, I have been blessed with a strong academic mind. I'm not necessarily that intelligent-I just have a strong ability to focus, organize, and learn, thus I've never really had to "try" in school. A's were my most common grade with nothing under a B in highschool (except for the C+ I got in my first semester of Freshmen geometry-I fixed that quickly!). In my undergraduate years, same deal. I just naturally got high grades. Grad school, however-not the same deal!

The program is very intenstive, as the field I am going to be in is as well. Speech-Language Pathologists treat a multitude of disorders and impariments and we need to learn how to treat disorders effectively within two years. I had several classes, one clinic, and an online course that added a lot of extra stress and extra hours sitting at the computer. Basically, I was sitting in class 3-4 hours/day then coming home and sitting 4-5 more hours to do research, type papers, email, etc. I even gave up two of my three soccer teams because everyone had convinced me that it was adding too much stress. Let me digress about this...

This recommendation to drop soccer was probably the worst recommendation ever given to me. It taught me that I need to stop trying to listen to everyone around me so I may please them. I know what I can handle and NOT playing soccer was way worse for me than if I had continued to play. Now I already mentioned how hard grad school was and I was inundated with work and obligations related to school BUT I do believe that if I had kept my exercise outlet, it would have helped me make it through the semester with a little less stress. I have returned to the two teams and added an additional team and I'm already feeling better! :) Okay, back to the story...

So there I was, sitting 10 hours/day and getting less and less exercise. I was ALWAYS tired and always felt hungry. I did not discriminate what I ate very well. I tried eating healthy during the week but pretty much Thursday night through Sunday night was all junk food (takeout, fast food, pastas, sweets, etc) in execessive amounts. I was back to ordering a meal at Del Taco (my achilles heel) and an additional order of chili cheese fries and would finish it ALL. Yup-a quesadilla, two soft tacos, chili cheese fries, and a big ol' coke. I was lucky that the weight increase didn't show up right away...I still felt somewhat trim in September for my birthday party on the 26th , but by the end of Fall semster (early December) I could see a definite weight gain...I refrained from actually stepping on the scale, out of pure fear.


I didn't do much better during the holiday break. I planned to wake up early to exercise but I ended up sleeping in nearly every day. It was the laziest I had ever felt. Part of me doesn't feel guilty about it-I had worked my ASS off for three months (ask my boyfriend who dealt with two or three crying stress breakdowns he endured from me lol) and I wanted to do NOTHING. But the "reality" part of me knew I was making myself worse. It was common sense:

Low activity level + Unhealthy foods =increase in weight

My metabolism was already floundering again and not exercising much definitely didn't help it. Toward the end of November, my brother gave me some simple fitness/nutrition tips to get me back on the path to healthy: 1) watch my carb intake (don't do atkins or go non-carb, just be aware), and 2) reduce my salt intake. I have manged to do those things and he's right-just those simple changes make me FEEL better (less bloated!). He also suggested I start scheduling in thee days of exercise per week. He emphasized that it was not to be strenuous- this could be dispairaging to my motivation and wanted it involved simply to start building the habit. He informed me that all my committments to others were taking priority over my committments to myself and it needed to change. It was hard to work in the exercise at first but I MADE myself do it. This brings me to a big point...

Changes take time! Of course even with the nutritional changes and slow increase in exercise, I wasn't really getting the results I wanted. My brother stressed that this would be the case but I was not to let that defeat me! In fact, I can use my dad as a good example. As I was re-reading my previous post, I saw that I referred to my Dad as "obese" but this is no longer the case!! At thanksgiving, after not having really seen my dad for a couple of months, I was shocked and excited to find that my dad has dropped about 30 lbs! Of course this didn't happen over night. He has been trying to do this since about June but it just now, in late 2008, started to be really apparent. So, it was encouraging to get that first-hand reminder about how long of a process it can be to become more fit-but how worth it it is!

On Christmas day, I saw a picture of myself wearing my most "slimming" black sweater and wanted to vomit at the sight. I am back to overweight. The next day I set forth to REALLY get back into shape. I got in contact with my friend, Bobbi, who is a true fitness nut! She recommended I come to her kickboxing class (they use real bags, not just cardio) and instead of saying "oh I'll wait until the new year," I decided I couldn't waste another day! I went to the class and felt embarassed at my size as compared to all the fit and trim folks around me, but I just had to ignore it as much as I could. After all-I was there so I didn't have to look like this anymore!

I went to her class again the next week and am pretty much set to sign up for a membership. I made my semester schedule that includes cardio scheduled-in to my agenda. I also hope to fit in some yoga and resistence training in the evenings!

Once again, we will see what happens. I spoke with my Dad tonight about my goal of losing 25lbs and this is a big step for me. Once I verbalize a goal, it becomes a reality for me. In the past year or so, I haven't verbalized a specific goal because I don't think I was really serious about it. This time-I am serious! Stick with me and I shall keep you updated.

Thanks!