Sounds like a rehab program, I guess it kinda is, rehabbing my health, detoxing from all the garbage I consume, and still consume. I don't feel like the exercising is doing anything, or the smoothies, but I think you need to give anything about 30 days of consistent effort before you see if it's working or not. I remember when I first started doing cardio and weights consistently back when I was 25. At first I was a very puffy 150 lbs, with bad skin. I started in October, and it probably took a year to really look different, with better skin and less poundage. But I did start losing weight within a month and kept on until I hit an equilibrium about 2 and a half years later. It started slow, with simply doing cardio and weights with Denis Austin. Then over time I eliminated and changed things in my diet, as I wanted to. I can get obsessive though, so I need to be careful. I was driving trucks about 12-16 hours a day, so I was always trying to squeeze in exercise where I could. I would walk around a shipper or receiver's building or do lounges, squats, and wall push ups in the empty lady's room. I would do step aerobics in and out of empty trailers. I would do leg and ab exercises while driving long stretches, even lift a 5lb weight. I would squeeze a water bottle or tennis ball to work my inner thighs while driving. Or do knee taps up to the steering wheel to work my abs. I was a pretty creative and talented driver. It all added up in the end and helped me lose flab and gain muscle. It seems like a reached a low weight in 2003 and once I started taking Effexor my weight slowly began to creep up. Despite being a vegan and doing a job that required strenuous physical labor for 10-16 hours a day. Pushing and pulling heavy carts of laundry. Then I moved to Georgia in 2005 and even though I rode my bike a lot and still did some cardio and weights my weight still kept creeping up. Then I started driving for JB Hunt in 2007 and drive over the road with them for 8 months. I would be out for 12-14 days sometimes 3 weeks and home for 2-3 days. I had a mini stepper in my truck, weights, and resistants bands, I mostly ate well with salads, fruit, veggies, salmon, my weakness being pretzels. I would also go for long walks and tried jogging, but didn't like being so sweaty with no place to shower. I really needed my rollerblades or my bike. I'm always more aware of my eating habits when I'm trucking, because I'm afraid of getting fat from sitting there for so long. 8-11 hour stretches of driving, broken up by the occasional Wal-Mart visit. This is really where Shine Radio began. I noticed a few of the Christian songs I've heard would make good aerobics music, so I downloaded some and would exercise on my stepper to it. Despite all my efforts to keep further weight gains away, I must have gained some weight because when I went to Delta's ramp training the outfit I brought to go home in was way too tight and almost didn't fit. This was an outfit I was able to wear a year before. Kinda depressing. The only other time I was able to drop a lot of weight was in early 2008, I was doing a lot of Enduro riding and starving myself. I lost weight, but looked kinda sickly from it. Then I got pregnant at the end of 2008, and immediately started swelling. I think if you have any fat cells they can swell up from time to time, like once a month and when you're pregnant. Mine did, within a month of being pregnant, my thighs where so wide that my pants didn't fit. I come from heavy legged women. Even at my thinnest (117) I still had fat legs, fat calves. By the time my daughter was born I was a very round 185lbs. I tried to eat sensibly and do water aerobics, but it was like my genetics had other plans. In all honesty, if we ever have a famine, my people will survive, because our bodies are so good at retaining everything we eat into hardy fat stores, nothing gets burned off. We are so efficient. After my daughter was born I stayed at 185 for about 6 months and then I started to lose weight and within a few months came back down to what seems to be my natural weight of 145. Only now a more flabby and wide looking 145. I look like I've been run over by a steamroller. What happened? It's like I'm all stretched out, all my ligaments and stuff that pulls your abs together in the middle got all stretched and weird. And I also have something I didn't have before a pot belly and a muffin top. Even in my chubby days, I didn't have love handles, muffin tops or big round belly. Plus I just look bad. Bedraggled. Tired. Puffy. My big mistake was not getting into some sort of cardio and weight routine right away. Forget waiting six weeks, I was healthy and strong enough to go exercise right away. But I kept putting int off out of depression and what not. I didn't get fed up enough until last August of 2012. I remember my niece was staying the night and it was really late and I had enough of feeling so gross and fat. So I went for a jog with my little radio and listened to our Christian music station called Way Radio. I had a blast and felt like I had connected to something as well. So I decided to keep it up. That summer I had been so depressed that we never even went to the nice pool that was always empty. I had started an Appalachian Trail hike training program almost a year earlier. It consisted of weights and lounges, no cardio. But it was making my knee twitch, and I got turned down for a job near the trail head, so I just kinda stopped my program and sank back into my depression. The jogging was challenging and I felt like it was a nice time to commune by myself through Christian music. But after a couple weeks I started having pain in my left hip and the outside of my right knee. I didn't want to stop what I was doing so I decided to break out the rollerblades and see if the neighborhood had good roads. It did, and it was pretty quiet, with no cars coming and going. At 2 am I could jam skate all I wanted without worry of anyone seeing or hitting me. I had also been developing over the summer a terrible pain where my left shoulder met my neck. At my job we look down 99% of the time, and I had a lot of pain while at work, even though I was only part time. I also carry my daughter on the left side. A chiropractor said I was off balance which was the cause of most of the pain. I was built up more on one side from carrying my daughter around all the time. It's funny though once I quit my job, and we got rid of our mattress, the pain started to go away and is now gone.
But what about now? We moved in November of 2012 and didn't have a residence until February of 2013. I've just now been able to pull myself out of a funk enough to attempt another regular cardio program. But it's been about 4 years since I've exercised regularly. Plus, this might have been during a key age 31-35. It's like any work I had done has been erased, drained, and replaced with free radicles, cortisol, grey hair, dry skin, and sag. I'm only 35, but I look and feel so old and worn. I've added in the smoothies for a nutrient boost, but I'm worried that the extra calories from drinking and eating more fruit will make me gain weight. It's like I can't win. Oh well, if it makes my skin look better, then it's worth it. Still got about 3 weeks left in this trial run. Having Shine Radio to do helps keep me on track.
