The story of the jeans

About 5 years ago I was given a pair of jeans. They are Eddie Bauer jeans and for whatever reason I LOVED them. I tried them on, They didn’t go past my knees. EVEN though they said they were a size 14. (Just remember as I tell this all jeans are made different) As the years have gone on I have tried these jeans on and off and still never been able to put them on. The story of my jeans then goes like this.

It may surprise you to learn I’ve been trying to lose weight. (I know I know I never talk about it. I’m just such a private person.)

Feb-I tried on the jeans they still didn’t go past my knees. They are put back into the closet.

April-I tried on the jeans they didn’t go much past my knees. They are put back into the closet.

July-What! The jeans go up to the middle of my thighs? Thats awesome. They are put back in the closet.

September-No WAY the jeans now go up to my butt!!! They are put back in the closet.

November-The jeans GO OVER MY BUTT!!! I never saw that coming. They are put back in the closet.

Feb-Its been a year. The jeans can button but its not cute. Too much is falling out. They are put back into the closet.

March 12th-The jeans come out. The jeans go over my butt. The jeans button. THE JEANS LOOK GOOD!!! Stop it! So excited. They are in my pants rotation now but I don’t plan on taking them off for a few days because I’m that happy.

The moral of all of this. First just because the jeans have a number on it doesn’t mean they will or won’t fit you. All my other jeans are 10’s at this point. Except for this. I don’t think Eddie Bauer makes jeans for big butts. Second…Never give away clothes. Ever. No matter what people say. If that dress, pair of pants, that skirt , that shirt is your goal KEEP THEM! Its going to keep you going and one day they WILL FIT

Who do you lose it for?

As my weight and my body has been changing I keep asking my husband if he thinks I look good. He says you always look good. You look as good now as you did when you started losing weight. I never know if I should be upset about this or not. When I first started losing weight I was doing it because I always wanted my husband to be attracted to me. The longer my weight loss has gone on the more I realize he honestly doesn’t care. He loves me for me(let all the awwws be said)So who do I lose weight for now? Can I lose weight just for myself? Isn’t that selfish?

No one knows my number. No one knows my size. I’m the only one that knows these things. No one actually cares that I was fat and now I’m less fat. My friends love me regardless, my dad loves me, my kids love me, my husband loves me. So if everyone loves Fat Shawna then why even try? Oh because I want to be more then Fat Shawna. I want to be the girl that gets on the scale at the doctors office with my shoes on. I want to wear cute dresses without being asked how far along I am. I want to be able to wear leggings because they are cute not because they are the only pants that fit me at the moment. These are now my reasons for weight loss. Of course all the healthy stuff blah blah blah. That’s a given. But I think people are scared to admit why they REALLY want to lose weight. I want to be hot. I want to be Stacy’s mom. I want people to look at me and say I want her butt. Vanity? Very much so. I had to find good reasons to keep losing weight! If I’m not doing it for the people that love me there has to be other reasons.

So the question is who do you lose your weight for? Or what do you lose your weight for? Do you feel like your friends/family will love you more if you lose weight? Or have you realized that you are amazing as you are and you need to do it for yourself? Can you give up the cookies and cupcakes long enough to begin loving yourself as much as everyone else loves you?

For the Hate of Cardio

Everywhere you look people say no cardio…just lift. Let me offer a different point of view.

There is a girl that started working out with Crossfit in February. She did Crossfit 4 times a week, watched what she ate and lost 2 pounds in one month and 2 inches from her waist. She moves to Texas and starts a workout group. They workout for a few weeks and they are working out 5 times a week for at least an hour each time. She still watches what she eats and loses no pounds but a few more inches. She feels great and she is looking better but at the same time her weight doesn’t change. She weighs way too much for her short frame and the pounds need to change. Its not healthy. She goes to see the doctor finally and he asks her if shes doing any cardio. Well no of course not. I don’t need no cardio. The doctor says try it. Add in some kind of cardio. For the next 3 weeks she adds in running every day. She goes back to the doctor for a follow up and finds out she has lost 6 pounds. The ONLY thing that changed was the running. Then people from the group start falling out and not coming back. A RBFF(running best friend) suggests spin! Spin ugh more cardio. What about all the weights, pushups, burpees that I NEED to lose weight? Spin becomes a daily thing. Weight starts falling off this girl. Spin has been a daily thing now since August 4th. Since spin has started this girl has lost 17 pounds. So now what? Cardio is suddenly awesome.

Since I’ve started working out in Feb of this year I’ve lost a total of 27 pounds. I actually have lost inches but I haven’t measured. I know I have lost 4 sizes in clothing as well. As someone that is 5’2 it doesn’t take much for me to look like I’ve lost or gained weight. I feel so fantastic at this point. I’m wearing clothes I haven’t fit into in years.  I’m following Trim Healthy Mama and my food has never been better.(Except for cheat days. I pretend like those don’t exist)

My point in everything is that you have to give every kind of workout a chance. Don’t just stick with one thing. I’ll try anything once. I loved crossfit, I loved doing my workouts, I want to try hot yoga, I want to try barre, I want to try aerial workout! Always trying new things is what keeps working out fresh and fun. It never gets boring that way. Lifting works for some. Cardio works for some. Yoga works for some. But what if you combine everything!! Can you imagine how amazing you would be? You’d be able to fly by the end of your workouts!! Don’t bash what you don’t try. Cardio is a little more awesome then people give it credit for.

The Journey

I haven’t been able to write all that much frankly because my life is pretty boring. I’m totally fine with that though.

I wanted to write about Trim Healthy Mama though. This book is changing my life and I couldn’t be happier. I am on day 24 of following their plan and I can’t even begin to say how happy I am. My weight is down. My inches are down. My energy is up! Its all such a blessing. The book is written by Serene Allison and Pearl Barrett. If you are looking for a way to begin your weight loss, super charge your weight loss or just maintain this is the book for you. Its Christian based as well so thats mega plus plus!

Since I started losing weight back at the first of the year my body has changed dramatically. Since I have started doing THM I started taking pictures every day. I haven’t got to look at them all side by side but I thought sharing them with others would help keep me motivated too!

So far on THM I’ve lost 9 pounds in 24 days. It doesn’t seem like a lot but I will take it. What I do love about taking these pictures every day is my mood is normally reflected in them. Every day is hard. Every day is a fight Every day is a workout. I can’t skip a day. I can’t slack off. I may come across as obsessive and crazy but honestly when you are losing weight its the only way to be. If you aren’t then you aren’t being truthful with yourself or you just don’t have a lot of weight to lose.

If you have started on a weight loss journey and feel like you aren’t making progress look at before and during pictures. It will blow your mind how much you’ve changed!! Even if its just in your face or in your arms. Always look where you started not where you are trying to end up ❤

Whew updates!

Its been a month since I posted?? Thats crazy. So this is what we’ve been doing. 

We spent the last week in Disney World. We did 7 days and 6 nights with an 18 hour drive on either side. That was no easy feat with the 18 month old and the 14 year old. I thank God I have such an amazing husband that endured princess after princesse, every Disney song ever made  and yes my love for Gaston as well. 

I actually lost weight at Disney! The bad thing was my second Fitbit broke and I didn’t get my replacement before I left. I know I would have gotten my 20,000 steps in one day from all that walking!

Speaking of weight loss. I started seriously losing weight in Feb. I had started a Crossfit class in Korea and then we moved back to the states in March. I then started up a workout group in May and once the workout group had run its course I started spin. NOW here we are almost 8 months later. 

                                          

The top photo is me at my first Crossfit class. I’m the pink fatty with all the gut hanging out. The bottom picture is today. I’m down 23 pounds, 2 sizes and I haven’t felt better in years. These jeans I’m wearing are jeans I bought without trying on and couldn’t even pull past my thighs when I got them home.

As I have gone through this journey I have found out a few things about myself.

Trying on clothes is exhausting. 

Having a cheat day doesn’t mean it needs to turn into a cheat week or month. 

There are days I want to give up, that I get tired of counting calories, that I hate exercising. 

I have to have like minded people around me to stay on my diet and to keep motivated.

Putting jeans on that are a smaller size makes everything worth it. 

OH and we didn’t make it to either of our 5ks. One I was sick for and the other was canceled. We are trying for the Monster Dash in October. Lets see if we can make that work. 

Just keep rocking it everyone 
❤

5k 5k 5k 5k

 

I’ve gotten pretty good about not being afraid of much when it comes to working out. Then it gets to where its a week before the first 5k I will run here in America. I’m TERRIFIED. I’m hoping all this spin, running every other day and eating all this good food will help me on Saturday. We are trying to decide between a Hot as Hades run and the GeekFest run that is all glow in the dark that night. Either way….I’m terrified. The only thing I can do is pray that I don’t fall or come in last. I’m hoping at Geekfest they aren’t that big of runners there. So I can at least keep up with them!! Wish us luck ❤

Spinning it out!

I think one of the most fun things of working out with a group is listening to everyone’s ideas. Susie loves spin and I haven’t done it since we lived at Fort Meade! We finally decided to spend this week spinning it out. Let me tell you. If I hadn’t been working out and running as much as I had been these past two months spin would have killed me. It wasn’t easy by any means but I didn’t fall of the bike and I didn’t quit. Those were two goals for today. I LOVED every second of spin today. She had us doing workouts with weights, pushups, these up and down things that I don’t know if they have a name. I sweated so much that the floor was covered in Shawna DNA. I cannot wait till tomorrow to go back.

Remember you don’t have to stick with the same workout all the time. Change it up do something interesting. Try something new. All you do is run? Try Crossfit! All you do is Crossfit? Try Spin! All you do is lift? Try running. Add new exercise into your routines all the time. You never know whats going to grab your heart and hold on. Never be afraid to try the new stuff either. Get a friend and go do something you’ve never done before. I am so thankful for the girls I workout with. They are go with the flow roll with it lets do it all type girls. I couldn’t be more proud to be part of their group ❤ 

Workout day 30

Yesterday we tried to go to spin but spin class was canceled! So, us 4 having husbands who are in the Army, decided to go do one of the obstacle courses on Fort Hood. Let me tell you. If someone could have been filming us…we would have made it onto Funniest Home Videos. We looked crazy trying to do all those obstacles. It was so FUN though!!! Even if we couldn’t climb the rope, or the wall or jump the logs we had a great time trying. That is part of working out that people forget about. The having fun part! We were silly, screaming and running around like kids and we even got some exercise in! 

Now todays workout. We tried a different place just to shake things up a bit. We went to a track at the college. The plan had been to do a partner circuit workout but only 3 of us showed up. We laid out weights at half miles and then there were bleachers at each side. Every quarter mile was a workout. We then ran to each station and did the workout 20 times for 2 miles. 

Station 1-tricep dips(bleachers) 
Station 2-Kettlebell swing
Station 3-Step ups (bleachers)
Station 4-Fly ups with 8 pound dumbbells. 

I also had a mat down that we stopped and did situps on as well. We tried some partner workouts like leg throws and some over unders but it was hard with just the three of us. We still rocked it out and wore ourselves out! 

Next week we are stating a new workout with trying to do spin as much as possible. My 15 year wedding anniversary is in 1 month and we will be in Disney World! I’d love to lose at least 5 pounds between now and then. 

Remember guys workouts can be fun and challenging at the same time! Have a support group is very important too. Make sure you find a handful of people that you can workout with or that you can talk to when you feel like you are getting down about working out. 

Until next time! 

Workout Day 29

 

I need to admit something before I type up the workout. I am a horrible, horrible dancer. I have no rhythm and I can’t move all my body parts in different directions at the same time. That being said I still dance and I still try to do the workouts that Jessica puts out all the time. She has a dance out to the song Cruise by Florida-Georgia line and I LOVE it!! It works abs, sides and thighs to the extreme. The problem? I look like an elephant on crack doing it.  Today as we were doing the song Susie filmed me and at first I was upset because I was embarrassed then I thought…why am I embarrassed? Because I’m not perfect? Because my body isn’t perfect? Because I still have weight to lose? Isn’t that the whole point of working out? To get better, to be better, to feel better! So I uploaded the video and now I’ve told all the girls that workout with me that they have NO excuses to do the dances. If I can put it out there for the world to see they can do it outside in a park where only a handful of people see us. Never be worried about how terrible you start out looking. I promise you are doing more then those people who refuse to even try. Who knows! One day you may bust out a move or a workout that looks so awesome someone films you doing it!
NOW the workouts ❤

First Workout

Sun Salutation x3
Cruise-dance with Jessica

Main Workout

Kettlebell workout
Two hand swing x15
1 hand swing x10 each side
1 arm clean and press x10 each side
Windmill x10 each side
Turkish get up x10
KB pushups x10 each side
Goblet squat x15
Goblet thruster x10
Overhead press x20
Surrenders x10
30 second rest
Two hand swing x10
1 hand swing x5 each side
1 arm clean and press x5 each side
Windmill x5 each side
Turkish get up x5
KB pushup x5 each side
Goblet squat x10
Goblet thruster x5
Overhead press x10
Surrenders x5

Last workout

Warrior Pose
Bridge Pose

Today was also a run day! I’m trying to take it easy on my knees so I did two miles running between light post and walking the other times.

Remember. Everyone starts somewhere. Not everyone jumps up from the couch and can do a whole workout, run a whole mile OR can even do a whole dance. It takes time and practice. It takes patience and encouragement from others! Everyone gets there at their own time and pace but the point is when you start…don’t quit. Get there and make yourself awesome!!

 

Workout Day 28

Thursdays are always HIIT and run days. Unfortunately my knee is kicking my butt. I tore my ACL in half a few years ago and had surgery to replace it. I really thought it would be perfect by now but my knee has different ideas. I wrapped it today and thought I’d take off and see how it went…2 minutes running and I had to stop. Stupid knee. I did try running from pole to pole and I even had to quit that after a mile. Stupid knee. That all being said this is our workout for today:

First Workout 

Sun salutation x3
Plank ups to Flowers

Main Workout

Using dumbbells
Plank and rotate x20 (10 each side)
Single leg scarecrows x20
Squat and curls x20
30 second jog
Lying chest fly x20
lying overhead reach  x20
Russian twist x20
30 second jog 
Reverse lunge and press x20
Plank and straight arm kick back x20 (10 each side) 
Weighted squat x20
30 second jog

Repeat each exercise again but only 5 times without the run in between

Last Workout

Toe taps
Kick backs
Opp arm and leg planks

If there is ever something I put down that you don’t know what it is just ask. I can post pictures if you don’t know. 

Today was also a run day! We have several 5ks coming up that requires all the running and all the amazing dressing up!