For those of you who love motivational quotes about fitness, exercise, and weight loss, I’ve got a quick link for you. Check out these 38 fitness motivational graphics.

Ran across this video in my Facebook feed and I have to post it here for you guys. It makes me realize I have absolutely NO EXCUSE for skipping workouts or saying to myself, “You can’t do it.” Watch it all the way through to be amazed. I hope it gives you the motivation it has given me.

I ran across this video on YouTube the other day and I just had to share it with you. This woman went from 293 pounds to 126 in about a year and a half.

The purpose of her video was to show the loose skin she is left with. But that’s what I found so inspiring – it wasn’t that bad! Her upper body especially looks fantastic. If I saw her on the street, I would never have guessed she had lost so much.

The loose skin is more obvious on her legs but again, I would have expected a lot worse from a 167-pound loss.

The reason this inspires me is that I often worry about having loose skin when I reach my goal. But since my starting weight was about 100 pounds less than hers, I really don’t think it’s going to be a problem, based on what I see in this video. Assuming I work hard at it, that is.

Take a look—she starts showing her upper body results at the 3:22 mark. She looks great!

Right now I own only one pair of pants that fits me. The tag says “Jeanstar” and the size is 14. I hate them.

They are unfashionably faded in weird places. The hems keep curling up. And although they fit right just below my waist, they are saggy under my rear end for some reason. Blech.

I bought them at a secondhand store just as something to wear around the house until I can fit into nice jeans. I didn’t despise them so much when I bought them, but now every time I put them on I shudder because I know they look terrible.

But I refuse to buy any more fat clothes. I am slowly shrinking (very slowly), but hopefully it won’t be long till I can burn these jeans. I mean that; I really will burn them once I don’t need them anymore. And I will dance around the fire.

I’ve started this whole “I’ve gotta lose weight” process over and over again so many times and I’m tired of saying “This time I’M REALLY SERIOUS.” I don’t even believe myself anymore. But it’s never going to happen unless one of these times I actually follow through.

I’m 46 years old and not getting any younger. My younger sister is going to be a grandma this summer, and that means I am plenty old enough to be one myself. I don’t want to go into my grandma years looking and feeling this way about myself. It is high time to stop; I don’t have much time left. No, I’m not dying, but my physical limitations due to age, fibromyalgia, poor nutrition, and my sedentary lifestyle have gotten to the point where it’s not going to be long before I won’t be able to exercise to the degree needed. I won’t need a wheelchair any time soon, but this fibro is kicking my butt, and I know that I could make it better to a significant degree if I gave my body what it needs to function properly.

So I am looking at my 47th birthday coming up in three months, and that’s as good a goal as any to see if I can stick with something longer than two months. I have a terrible time getting past that two-month mark; I don’t know what it is. Usually by then I’ve lost 10 or 15 pounds, and that should be enough to really motivate me to further loss. But for some reason when I hit 60 days, I come to a screeching halt. I have no idea why I have such a mental block at that point.

I’ve got to take control. I’m not the person I’m supposed to be. I don’t like the fact that I’ve allowed myself to get off track from what I saw for myself when I looked toward my middle-aged years from the teenage perspective. I simply have to start changing.

Some of my most common excuses follow.

“I don’t have time because I have so much work to do.” But while I’m depressed and beating myself up about not exercising, I’ll sit on the couch and watch TV for an hour and don’t get my work done anyway! It’s stupid. Sure, there are days when I am genuinely too exhausted or sick due to the fibro or whatever, and that’s okay, I’ll deal with it. But on most days there’s absolutely no reason I can’t take an hour for the sake of my health. I waste an hour every day easily. I don’t like to admit it, but I know I do. I need to recapture that time.

“Exercise is too hard.” I recently realized that I have been waiting for it to be easy. Well, maybe not EASY, but at least not very hard. And that’s also stupid. It’s never going to be easy. But it can be enjoyable while also being challenging.

“I love food too much.” Well, get over it, Serena. There are a lot of things I love that I can’t do to the extent desired. I simply have to learn to love good food. And I am. Veggies are pretty good when your palate isn’t ruined by sugar.

“I’m too old to make such big changes.” Pfffft. I’ve seen a lot of women a lot older lose a lot of weight and look and feel great.

“I’ve failed before; I’ll fail again.” This is probably the biggest excuse for me and toughest to overcome. I view myself as someone who can never finish what she starts. And yet I know deep down I can do it if I just stop whining and get busy. I don’t know 100% for sure that I will succeed this time, but I know 100% for sure I won’t if I don’t try. Maybe I need to pretend to be confident until I really am.

What’s your excuse?

Here’s the deal. I am not going to weigh myself anymore, at least not for a long time.

I did weigh myself weekly when I (re)started this blog back in May 2011 so I could report my progress here, but it got to a point where I couldn’t do it anymore. I have never been successful using daily or weekly weigh-ins, and I don’t know why I thought I would be this time.

I considered monthly weigh-ins, which are better than weekly, but I have to keep going back to the fact that the only time I successfully lost all the weight I wanted to lose, I did not weigh myself until I was very close to my goal size-wise. That was 20 years ago now. I began on December 1st of 1991, and between then and early June ’92, I did not step on the scale at all. When I finally did, the number was 121, a loss of 26 pounds in that 6-month period. It wasn’t fast weight loss, but it was almost 5 pounds a month, about a pound and a quarter per week.

After that, I did lose another 8 pounds, ending up at 113. I wasn’t trying for that; I was pretty happy with 121. I was trying to maintain but was obviously doing more than I needed to. So I let up a little and gained a few pounds back.

And you know the rest of that story. I couldn’t stop. Over the next 2 to 3 years I gained every last miserable pound back and then some. And ever since then I’ve been anywhere from 150 to 190+ for most of the last 17 or 18 years.

So I’m going to measure my progress simply by how my clothes are fitting and how I’m feeling. I’m not going to take regular measurements either. They too, being numbers, also have the ability to mess with my mind and throw me all off. I guess I am just not capable of taking the power away from numbers on the scale or measuring tape. If they don’t show what I think they should, I lose motivation.

Some people need the scale to stay motivated, and I say, more power to them. We’re all different. We should do whatever works for us individually!

My scale is not dependable anyway. It never shows the same number as other scales, such as the one at my sister’s house or at my local clinic. I’m going to assume that I’m somewhere around 191 again, my all-time high, since the last few months have been very difficult and I know I’ve gained some or all of the weight back that I lost last year. It is not a number I am interested in knowing at this point. All I know is that I weigh more than my husband again and I hate that.

The exact number doesn’t really matter anyway; it really doesn’t. I just know that I am having more and more trouble getting out of the car or up off the couch with any semblance of grace! And I know that when I pass a mirror in a department store or see a photo of myself, I’m shocked all over again, wondering when I turned into that lumpy frumpy middle-aged woman.

So my intention is to stay off the scale for at least 6 months, maybe more. And then stay off for the next 6 months too. A year from now, I hope to reach my goal of 135. At that point, I’ll reassess whether to continue or stay there.

It’s the NO-WEIGH WAY! Do you weigh yourself regularly? How often? How do you keep those numbers from messing with your head?

The exercise part of my regimen I’m also going to approach differently than ever before. My plan is to exercise for an hour a day five or six days a week. So far, no change from most of my previous efforts. But in the past I focused 90% of my time on aerobic activity, using a DVD or the elliptical or treadmill. Weight training was a very minor addition to that, and it was hit or miss. I’d do a few lunges, squats, and curls, which was better than nothing but not enough.

This time I’m going to do 30 minutes on the elliptical or treadmill or walking outside when weather permits. The next 30 minutes will be spent on weight training. It seems like the general consensus of the experts is that weight training really should be a higher priority for most women. So I will spend a full half-hour after each cardio workout doing various free weight exercises with my dumbbells. I don’t have a weight machine (no room) or a gym membership (no desire).

I’ll be alternating days——lower body one day, upper the next, and abs every day——and see what happens. Right now, I’m kind of just doing basic exercises as they occur to me, not in any particular order and not always with a set number of reps in mind. I’m still working on figuring out which exercises are the most effective and essential, and I plan on having a written plan in place soon. I’ll share it here when I do.

Since I’ve never given weight training this much emphasis before, I am looking forward to experiencing the effects of a faster metabolism and stronger muscles. Speaking of muscles, my core specifically, I’m ashamed to admit that I can only do a plank for 20 seconds right now. We’ll see how much I can extend that after doing this for a few months.

How big a part does weight training play in your workouts?

As I outlined in my previous post, I’m starting fresh in my attempt to lose weight and get in shape. There are four aspects to my new approach, and the most important one right now involves veggies, veggies, veggies!

It all started when my husband discovered Netflix. (Bear with me; there will be a connection ) Once we had watched all the regular movies we wanted to, he started on the documentaries. Now we’ve seen just about every food documentary ever made. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but believe me, I don’t care if I never see another one. Anyway, after learning more about our food supply and because of our own feelings about the matter, we have become sorta kinda pseudo-vegetarians. We’re not being real strict about it; we will eat meat on occasion, like at a friend’s house or when dining out, but we just came to the conclusion that our bodies will do best on a diet of mainly vegetables and fruits.

So rather than building our meals around meat, we are now building them around vegetables, and in fact, since we started doing this, we have not yet felt the need to add any meat. We’re experimenting with vegetables we rarely ate before, such as Brussels sprouts, cabbage, and some varieties of squash. We’re also trying out various fruits that we never had before. We haven’t really been eating salad much because salad requires dressing, and dressing gets us into trouble, but we are going to try to do more leafy greens and stuff going forward. We’re still having some dairy as well as brown rice and whole wheat bread, but those will supplement our veggie-centric diet rather than dominate it. It’s working well so far.

In the past, I dismissed most diets without even considering them because they were too far out, dangerous, difficult, or the results were questionable. So I’m not one of those people who can say they’ve tried every diet ever conceived, but of all the things I have tried, this is the first time I have really put the focus on veggies. During most of my weight loss attempts, I have tried to “eat right,” knowing that meant more vegetables, but that was more lip service than anything. This time I mean it. This will be a new experiment because it’s never been that big of a part of my diet plan.

Clearly, I am not continuing with Atkins. Not because I don’t think it works or that it’s bad for me, but simply because it’s not the right approach for me. I’ve tried and failed at it three times and it has become clear to me that it’s simply not my style.

It seems like whatever diet I’m on, what I miss is the sugar and empty carbs. My sweet tooth is absolutely out of control. I’m just going to have to reconcile myself to the fact that that’s always going to be a struggle for me, and of course I’m going to try to substitute fruit whenever possible. And I love it, I really do, but I’ve gotten so used to heavily sugared stuff that sometimes fruit isn’t enough. But now that my taste buds are adjusting, fruit is tasting better again. That will go a long way toward controlling those cravings, but it’s not going to go all the way.

I’m in charge here!

So I’m getting serious and simply not allowing the contents of my refrigerator or cupboard to dictate how heavy I am. It’s ridiculous. I’ve been acting as though there’s some other force in control that makes me put those things in my shopping cart. They only control me because I allow it. I don’t know when I gave food the wheel. But I’m taking it back.

My hubby has lost about 25 pounds simply by cutting out obvious sources of sugar, saying no to cake, cookies, and bakery at work, but making no other changes. He still had heaping huge plates of pasta for supper and steak and potatoes and pizza and all the stuff that I was eating, but just by cutting out a few snacks, the weight melted off in about 3 months. That’s just not possible for me, and probably not for a lot of women. It’s incredibly annoying but a sad fact of life. Of course, I am happy for him. At least I pretend to be.

He’s been maintaining it for a while now, even with some splurges. He would like to lose another 10 pounds, and fortunately, we both got the “vegetarian” bug at the same time, due in part to those documentaries. His main purpose, though, is overall health. He contracted Lyme Disease this summer and was on a rough road for a while. Lately, he’s better, but it’s up and down. He’s focusing more on vegetables to get more vitamins and minerals that he needs to help him deal with the pain and fatigue. It’ll be much easier now for me to stick with my diet, knowing that we’re going to eat the same way.

I’d love to hear from you! How do you feel about veggies? Love ‘em, hate ‘em, or sort of ambivalent? What part do they play in your fitness regimen?

Hey all, I’m back!

As you may have noticed, this blog has been kind of dark for a while (Hello-ello-ello-ello! Anybody there-ere-ere-ere?) while I reevaluated my entire approach to weight loss and fitness. I just didn’t feel like it was honest to come here and try to help motivate others until I had my own head on straight and could motivate myself.

I now have a new diet and exercise plan. The abridged version is simply this:

MORE VEGETABLES

MORE WEIGHTS

NO SCALE

NO EXCUSES

More details will follow over the next few days if you prefer the unabridged version.

A couple of things in my life have finally fallen into place so that I do feel ready now to tackle this again, just in a different way. One is that I have simplified my work situation in such a way that I am not spread so thin trying to do a million things at once. I find it very hard to put any concentrated, consistent effort into getting fit when I feel like I’m herding cats in other areas of life. I just can’t multitask like I used to.

I hated to put my health on the back burner, but I had a lot of work projects going on at once and was being pulled in a hundred different directions. Some of those projects were very stressful and I just had to let something drop. So I’ve been letting my fitness plan simmer in the back of my mind over the last few months. I carefully considered and then discarded several options that I didn’t think would work for me. I just sort of let everything I know about myself and about fitness percolate together until a cohesive vision of my physical future emerged.

The other thing that has worked itself out is the fact that now my husband’s approach to diet is finally congruent with my own. Not that we were diametrically opposed to each other food-wise, but our eating habits were different enough to mess me up; I’d invariably start eating the way he was during times when he wasn’t being as strict as I was.

Those two things—work and husband—are both big changes now that have brought me to the point where I am ready to dive in again. I don’t know whether I’ll be successful this time, but I know for sure that I won’t be successful if I don’t try again.

As I mentioned, over the next few days, I’ll post in detail about each aspect of my new approach. Feel free to subscribe using the yellow button at left if you want to read about it but are afraid you’ll forget to come back.

Well, this isn’t working. I find that posting my weekly weigh-ins is about as fun as getting a root canal. It’s time for me to go back to what has worked for me before, monthly weigh-ins. I had hoped for the sake of this blog that I could deal with watching those weekly numbers, but I don’t think I can.

Also, my diet is a problem. Let’s just say I’ve strayed quite a bit from the low-carb way of eating. It really wasn’t that bad but it’s hard to get back into it when you’re enjoying carbs as much as I do.

So I need to reevaluate what’s going to work in my life. I’ve been thinking about it a lot and wonder if I should go back to the very basics of plain old portion control, at least for a while. This next month is going to be super-super busy, so I need to have a plan that doesn’t take a lot of my attention for the time being.

I’m going to weigh myself on the first of each month as I used to, but I’m not starting until December 1. I really don’t want to know how far I’ve fallen right now.

I will try my best to post here on a somewhat regular basis, but don’t be surprised if I’m still mostly absent for the next month. I hope to get back in the groove well before the new year rolls around.