Well it's about to get even tougher to try and get my weight under control.  The beginning of the year is extremely difficult for teachers and I almost forgot just how exhausting it is.  We work constantly and usually go home so exhausted that I'm surprised we have time for anything else.

 Ok hello everyone!  Probably no one will really read this journal and care, but I feel like for this to be effective for me I have to know that there's a possibility that people will read it.  Basically I am on a mission to lose some major weight.  Life has kind of kicked my ass for the last couple of years and I went from a figure skater/dancer to...well...what I am now.  I was never tiny, and I won't even try to be because I'm just not built that way, but I was muscular and trim.  When I started college in August of 2004 I was 145 pounds and now I am deeply, deeply embarassed to admit that I am 240 pounds.  I weigh literally as much as my father.  I honestly don't know when I got to be this weight, but I hate stepping on the scale and seeing that number.  My only consolation is that I don't look like 240 pounds.  I look more like 180-190, which I guess is a small blessing from the fact that I was an athlete for so long.

Anyway, here's the basic breakdown. In August 2004 I started college at the University of Miami as a member of the Hurricanettes dance team.  This is what I looked like then:

Now, that took a hell of a lot of work to look like that the summer before I went to UM.  The Spring of 2005 saw me go through an extremely difficult time in my life.  I was diagnosed with Major Depression and I was suicidal and all kinds of other things, so watching what I ate became less important than keeping my butt alive.  Anyway, the summer of 2005 I looked like:

I was about 160 pounds there and frankly I would more than settle for that.  I still looked pretty darn good.

Anyway, I now look like this:

Really different huh?  I'm telling you, I don't know when that happened.  Kills me.

So, the fact of how fat I actually was hit me twice recently.  Once was when I went out for an exercise walk on the paths outside my new condo and came home half an hour later feeling like absolute shit.  I was hurting...my back, my legs, my ankles...granted, I have a bunch of figure skating related injuries, not the least of which is three herniated disks in my back, but still...I didn't even run and to hurt like that for that long really made me think.  The second thing, and I think the thing that really got to me was over 4th of July weekend with my family.  I was always the waterskiing maven of my family...not that my sister couldn't ski, but I was just the one that always did it more...plus I had some pretty cool tricks up my sleeve...no hands skiing (pull the rope so that the handle goes in between your legs and you hold it behind you knees), swings waaay outside the wake...all that.  Anyway, I hadn't skiied in a couple years, but I figure, hey, I'm still me, I have muscle memory, I'll go out and just pop right out of the water like I always do.  Ha!  Definitely did NOT happen.  I didn't get out of the water on the first try for the first time in YEARS and that was absolutely devastating to me.  It took me three tries to get out, but damn it was hard...Very difficult and very painful and not only to my body either...my pride took a major hit.  Those two things combined really drove home to me the fact that I really have got to do something about this.

Well, what's my plan you ask?  Ok the plan is twofold.  One, is the diet - Low Cal, Low Carb.  Simple.  Well, in theory.  For me the practice is really hard, but I am one stubborn bitch.  Two is exercise.  I have the next week and a half or so completely off before I start working again, so the plan is twice a day workouts for now dropping down to once a day during the school year while I'm teaching.  The gym I got to is open 24/7 so I have no excuse on time, and it's literally 30 seconds from my house and on my way home from work, so there's no excuse there either.  I will do this.