My Life in Fitness....cont.

I was not the girl that gained weight in one area.  I had gained weight all over like a marshmellow.  My face looked like a moon pie, my legs were much bigger, my butt was waaayyy bigger,  my arms, stomach, everywhere!  I was fat!  

So I traded my 4-5 cans of Dr. Pepper for water and chocolate milk.  My bean burrito from Taco Bell for "Lunchables" and dinner was a bowl of cereal. I pretty much just cut calories a bit.  In a few months I had lost about 12 pounds.  Call it youth... because I certainly was still not exercising at all.  And as you can see my diet was not much better.   I was doing my student teaching so I thought I didn't have time to exercise. 

When I got a job as a full-time teachers aide, I decided to join Curves.  It was soo silly!  A bunch of women at different stations for a minute or so....bouncing, kicking, lifting 2 pounds...it just was not for me.  I remember they took my body fat by having me hold onto a machine and input my daily workouts...I believe my fat was around 25-27%.  Then after 2-3 weeks of "working out" at their facility they calculated my fat content again - same machine holding it in front of me...they then calculated that I was "working out" 3-4x a week and low and behold I had lost like 10% body fat!!  YEAH RIGHT!  In 3 weeks, not changing my diet at all, no water intake, and at most burning 100 calories a session.  

So I quit Curves.  

It was 1998.  

When I got my first teaching job I joined Gold's Gym - I still pretty much ate the same horrible diet except by this time the water craze had started so at least I had added the "recommended" 64 ounces a day.  I also added a Mexican snack after I would get out of school.  I would pound chips and queso daily!  I discovered Body Pump and the Elliptical machine.  Little did I know that the Elliptical was waaayyy off for caloric burn so when I was thinking that I had burned 450 calories it was really only 250-300!!  So little caloric burn combined with heavy weight lifting and a horrible diet equals a puffy fat bloated look PLUS.....I also was still drinking a lot of  alcohol on the weekends.  NOT GOOD!!!

By the end of 2000 I was still about 27-28% body fat according to Gold's Gym....fat pincheres/aka calipers.  

I then moved to Florida.  I decided I wanted to take up running....surely this would help get some of this fat off my body and make me look the way I wanted.  Little did I know that running was HARD!!!  AND...the elliptical really had not gotten me into very good cardio shape. 

Conclusion tomorrow.......