Featured – The Shrinking Jeans of Nancy

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January 3, 2012 By Nancy

It has been a long time since I have been on my personal blog here at Shrinking Jeans and I’m sorry. It is my plan to post here no less than every Tuesday for True Confessions in the new year.

I saw the picture below on a friends Facebook page and thought it was perfect for how I’m feeling about the new year. 2012 is my chance for a do over, so to speak and I am grabbing it with both hands. My brass ring, if you will.

My biggest confession today is that I have just been going through the motions of weight loss and fitness. I have been eating right (when it suits me) and I’ve been exercising (when I make the time). I’ve been making excuses for both of those things. Not good excuses, but excuses none the less. I am a contributing writer here at Shrinking Jeans. I am one of the oldest people here. Should I not be doing my best to set a good example and not going through the motions and calling it good?

I am confessing here and now that I am ashamed and embarrassed by my attitude and lack of motivation this past year. I was talking the talk, but I sure wasn’t walking the walk. That all stopped yesterday.

Finally, here comes the good part of this confession. I have found my motivation again, my mojo is back. I have begun the very long process of losing the weight and doing my best to be the very best me I can be, inside and out. I am back on My Fitnes Pal and tracking my eating. I am back to classes three days a week. The classes are zumba, piyo and kettle bells. The last two are intense workouts and I’m loving them. I am doing January with Jillian over at the Hood. I am also doing 52 changes with Christy also at the Hood. I am doing a few other things that I will save for another time, but you get the picture.

I confess that I have very intention of making 2012 my bitch. That is my new mantra for the new year. When we go on vacation next summer at the lake again, they are going to see me in a bathing suit. I am going to be strutting my stuff (as much as you can with family) and feeling really good about myself.

Look out 2012! I am gunning for you and you are in big trouble. This is my year and not yours!

June 28, 2011 By Nancy

Happy Tuesday! Time to confess our faults and slip ups for the last week. I had a few, but nothing that I’m totally embarrassed over.

1. Like Thea, I missed doing the bursts twice this week in the boot camp. Doing two boot camps is hard and sometimes I guess that I need to pull back a little. It is easier to do that in my own backyard than in front of a bunch of other people.

2. Twice now, I have eaten a 3 ounce bag of Quakes in one sitting. In the grand scheme of things, it’s really not that tragic. They are only 330 calories and with the two boot camps, I can afford the extra calories. Still, two bags!

3. I missed my other boot camp once last week and I missed zumba both days. It was a crazy week. I did my stuff at home though.

4. I went to the Farmer’s Market on Saturday and I bought cupcakes and I ate cupcakes. If you saw them, you couldn’t pass them up either. I won’t be buying any this weekend.

5. I didn’t drink as much water as I should have, but at least I drank some.

That’s all I can remember. I think that is enough. I’ll try to do better for next week, but we do have a holiday weekend coming up. So…how’d you do?

June 21, 2011 By Nancy

Happy Tuesday! I’m in a good mood today. I have some really good confessions for ths week. Ready, set, confess….

1. I have done really well with my eating. I’ve logged my food every day of the challenge so far on My Fitness Pal and I have been under my calorie goal every day.

2. I worked out every day but one. I overdid it yesterday. I did the SJ boot camp and my usual boot camp and I walked three miles. Let’s just say that by the last circuit of boot camp last night, I really wasn’t giving it my all. I’m going to do SJ boot camp on T/Th/F. That way I won’t be doing boot camp twice a day.

3. My water intake was great. No less than 64 ounces of water a day. Most days I had more than that.

4. I haven’t missed a day with my vitamins.

It feels great to have an all good confession. I haven’t had one of those in a long time. I’m actually excited for tomorrow morning. I’m looking forward to a good weigh in for Team 4. We rock!

June 1, 2011 By Nancy

I don’t even know where to start on this one. I have sucked at so much lately. Really I have. I’ll just jump in and see where it leads me.

May is a really bad month for me. It is the manic month of May. There is too much going on and I can’t control any of it. The end of school is the worst part of it. So much to do and so much going on. Most of it is fun stuff, it just requires tons of work on my part. I just keep going like the energizer bunny and hope for the best.

Here’s my problem….with the exception of doing the tworkout while I type this, I can only remember working out twice in the last two weeks. I am scared to death at what it is going to be like when I get back to zumba and boot camp. It is going to be like starting over and I have nobody to blame but myself.

Believe it or not, my eating hasn’t been too bad. I’ve actually been losing a little in this last challenge. I guess that is one good thing I can think about. I guess I have been too busy to eat. That is one good thing busy has done for me. Unfortunately, I haven’t logged on at My Fitness Pal in two weeks.

My nerves and emotions are on edge. I have a couple people in my life that just love to jump on my last nerve. The kicker is if you said something to them about it, they would say I was crazy. The truth is they like to talk about me in the third person on blogs and Facebook like I won’t catch on. It still hurts my feelings. These are people who are always going to be in my life. I may see a showdown on the horizon. My feelings count for something, right?

Well, that’s the ugly confession. No exercise, sad case of nerves, but eating in check. The good news is that there are only seven days of school left. I may be teaching summer school, but that is so much easier than this month was. Only four mornings a week and the pay is great.

The final analysis is that I have to get my head out of my you know where and get back to basics. I can’t use busy as my scapegoat anymore. I had told myself that I was going to get up at 5:00 and workout, but that hasn’t happened, but it really needs to. I have to make time for me in this crazy month. Oh wait, tomorrow is June. Maybe that will help. I guess we’ll see.

Tomorrow is the final weigh in for the May Your Way challenge. How’d you do?

April 29, 2011 By Nancy

I took a personal day off today from work. It was totally selfish and I admit that.

My husband is on a golf trip and my daughter is at a conference. Nobody but little old me at the house for about 36 hours. That just never happens and I couldn’t pass it up. I had to take the day off and relish in the house to myself.

I got up at the crack of dawn to watch the royal wedding. I was a little disappointed. Kate looked pretty, but I was expecting a little more. Her hair looked like she was going shopping. Once that was done, I got busy. Or at least I had planned to get busy.

I wanted to clean house really well. Don’t I know how to have a great day off? I haven’t actually cleaned anything yet though. I’ve sorted, I’ve rearranged cabinets and drawers, I cleaned the fridge and took out the garbage. I cleaned out my purse. I paid some bills. I wrote a post I have due tomorrow. I read other peoples blogs. I read April’s new post here and loved it. But, I have not cleaned my house one little bit.

One thing I did that was productive is I worked out. I got on the treadmill while I watched part of the wedding. I did a little wii zumba and some weights. I guess if I don’t get anything cleaned, at least I did that.

So, now it’s 1:30 and my husband will be leaving for home in an hour or so. It’s a five hour trip. I guess it’s do or die now. I’m thinking that maybe I’ll just hit the shower and go get some grocery I’m pretty sure he’ll want to eat when he gets home.

I would have been better off not planning anything. Then I would have felt like I got a lot accomplished. Have a great weekend. The sun is finally out here.

March 30, 2011 By Nancy

I’m happy to say that I have nothing but good news today. I had an awesome week. So awesome that I don’t even know where to start to tell you about it.

I guess I should start with the change I made. I cancelled Weight Watchers and started My Fitness Pal. I really love it. Most of the girls that I work out with are on there and talked me into trying it. I wasn’t getting the results that I wanted with Weight Watchers and to be honest, it was a lot of work. My Fitness Pal works with calories and there has yet to be a food that I put in that wasn’t already in their database. With Weight Watchers, I was always having to figure out points and I was having trouble changing from the old way to the new Points Plus way.

I have been working out a lot. I’ve been doing zumba four days a week and boot camp twice a week. I’ve been alternating at home with the treadmill, elliptical and bike. I’ve also been doing sit ups and weights.

One thing that I have fallen off on is the 100 push up challenge. It’s not that I stopped doing them. It’s just that we do so many of them at boot camp, I have a hard time keeping up with the challenge at home. Monday night, we did 60 push ups in a 10 minute circuit. We also did a different kind of push up in another circuit. I only managed 42 in that circuit. Try making a diamond with your hands together and do a push up. It’s tough!!

So, here’s the weigh in news. After starting My Fitness Pal on Sunday, the Bacardi part of Team Bacardi and Diet Coke has lost 1.4 pounds this week. I’m anxious for next week to see how I do in a full week.

I feel like I am in a good groove now. How are you all doing? My partner seems to be MIA, so I’m not sure how our team did this week. Hope I find her soon.

March 13, 2011 By Nancy

It’s been a rough couple of weeks over here. My husband was in an accident in Georgia on his way home from a golf trip in Florida. The accident was totally the other guys fault (the state police agreed), but my car was totalled. After driving 24 hours of a 36 hour trip with my brother-in-law to pick hubby up, I got hands on him and was reassured that he truly was okay. That in itself was a miracle. If you saw my car, you’d never believe it.

We came home and began the process of dealing with two insurance companies The guy that caused the accident wouldn’t answer is phone, mail or door for over a week and when he did, he said he didn’t do anything wrong. Lucky for us, with pictures, witnesses and the facts, he was proved wrong. We got a new car on Wednesday and we should get all of our travel expenses back next week and then we can put this nightmare behind us.

The one thing that I learned through this whole experience was how lucky we truly are. The outcome of this could have been so different. My husband called to tell me about the accident. He was bruised and shook up, but he was fine. It could have been a doctor, nurse or police calling to tell me he wasn’t okay. We are truly lucky and very blessed.

There are some people who are not as lucky as us. They have children who need our help. I am trying to help some of those children by walking in the March for Babies headed up by the March of Dimes.

I have the honor and pleasure of walking with Team James and Jake. Most of you know James and Jake’s mommy. It’s Beth (I Should be Folding Laundry) that used to write here at Shrinking Jeans. Their mommy lost them at 19 weeks gestation. We walk hoping that we can help that heartbreaking experience not happen to another mother and father.

I also had the heartbreak of losing a child to miscarriage many years ago. There is always that little hole left by that experience. You never forget it and you always have the “what ifs” in the back of your mind.

You probably know where this is going to go next. I need your help to raise money for Team James and Jake. Everything we raise goes to March of Dimes. My goal this year is $1000. and that’s the biggest goal I have ever set for myself. This is just so close to my heart. I hope you will see fit to help me in my quest. No donation is too small or too big. Here’s the link to my personal fundraising page. Thank you so much for considering helping me. You are the best!

February 23, 2011 By Nancy

I honestly don’t know that I have ever been this excited to write a weigh in post before. This has been my best challenge ever. There has been so much that has happened since the start of this challenge. It’s been awesome!

Seeing how this is a weigh in post, let’s start with the obvious…I lost .9 pounds this week. The great news is that I lost 11.3 pounds this challenge. Can I get a WOO HOO please?!?! I can hardly believe it.

Early on in the challenge, I was chosen as one of the new contributing writers for Shrinking Jeans. I was honored and humbled, but mostly I felt a new sense of responsibility. I felt like I really had to give this whole fitness/weight loss journey my all. If I was going to be writing on a fitness blog, I had to be a totally committed participant in my journey. I think I’ve done just that.

To start with, I joined Weight Watchers. I believe that is how I had the loss I did in this challenge. My first week on the program, I lost six pounds. I’m doing pretty well on the program. I have to still remind myself to log my food and figure the points, but it is still pretty new to me. It will all come together. I have no doubts.

I have joined a fitness center and have been going to classes four nights a week. Sometimes I even go on Saturday morning. They are starting a new zumba class on Sundays on March 6 and I’ll be going to that for sure. I really love zumba. I was worried about trying it and looking stupid, but I tried it and I loved it. I don’t even care that I look like a dorky klutz. It gets my heart going and I work up a good sweat. I also go to boot camp two days a week. This is awesome! Every time is different. You can’t get tired of it because it keeps changing. It’s hard and I love it. I’m still hitting the treadmill and doing the wii discs. I even did April’s challenge.

The only thing that I can honestly say I am having trouble with is the running. It hurts my knees and my bad ankle. I keep trying though. Maybe as I keep losing weight it will get easier. I really want to do a half marathon on June 4th that ends on the 50 yard line at Notre Dame football stadium. Anybody that knows me, knows that I love Notre Dame football and this would be so cool. I’m going to walk/run a 5k on March 12th. It’s the annual Runnin with the Irish fundraiser for the school that I work for. We’ll see how that goes.

So that’s my Power of One wrap up. I loved and enjoyed this challenge so much. I can’t wait for the new challenge to start next week. I think you are going to like it. Keep checking back for all the details.

February 16, 2011 By Nancy

Can you believe how fast this challenge is going? One more week and it is done. I have really loved this challenge. I have learned a lot and changed many things. I suppose I should leave all that for next week and the final weigh in post.

I had another good week. Not as good as last week, but I really wasn’t expecting to do that good. Six pounds in one week is something that I can’t do every week. I’m pretty sure most of that was water and starting Weight Watchers. It was a great shot in the arm though. I lost 1.2 pounds this week. Just .1 of a pound from a new decade. That will happen next week.

I’m looking forward to a big finish to the challenge next week. My husband is leaving on Friday for a trip to Florida to visit his dad. He’ll be gone about two weeks. Eating healthy is much easier when he’s not around. I can cook for me and not have to worry about what he likes. It’s a good time for him to be gone.

Like I said, I’m looking forward to a big finish. How about you? How are you going to finish?

February 9, 2011 By Nancy

There are absolutely no sad songs here today. Let’s just do the best news of the week right now….

I LOST 6 POUNDS!!!!!!!!!!!

We had two snow days last week from school. As promised, I spent those days seriously thinking about Weight Watchers. I pulled the trigger and joined on Thursday morning and seven days later, I am six pounds lighter. To say that I am happy is a total understatement. I am elated, joyous and very surprised. Lots of people told that your first few weeks in Weight Watchers are big losses, but I had no idea. This was awesome and a real boost to want to do the same thing next week.

I know that all my exercise has contributed to this loss. I am still going to boot camp twice a week, zumba twice a week and yoga once a week. I have been doing April’s challenge as well. I’ve also had days of throwing some wii discs like the EA Sports Active 2 and zumba into the mix. I love both of those. I love that I wake up most mornings a little sore and some mornings I’m more than a little sore. I’m just plain old sore. I love it though. I truly believe that I have turned a major corner in this journey.

Friday night I am involved in a Zumbathon with all the proceeds going to the American Heart Association. It’s two hours long and it is going to be so much fun. A few months ago, I would have been dreading two hours of exercise, but not now. I’m really looking forward to it.

So that’s my story this week. I am excited to write the next chapter next week. I have a feeling it is going to be good. This book could end up a best seller!