Day 27 and Month's Photo Progression

Here is day 27 with day 21.(Revised: I have placed day 21 next to day 27 so that you may better see the definition of my waist and the slimmer face and neck that I was talking of below because the month photo below doesn't zoom in like I thought it would.) It has almost been a month now and I have put all of this months past pictures for you to view below. Sorry for the terrible tank top. I don't normally show my arms because of how big they are. It was a last minute "I forgot to get a blog picture and I was out with my dogs right before this. Hence the non-makeup, ewwwy, sweaty face. I believe if you click on the month long photo below, that you will be able to see that I have more definition in my waist and that my chin and neck are slimmer when you compare even last weeks with this weeks photo. I realize I look a bit hippy but thats because these jeans are starting to not stay up anymore around my waist. So I have on a belt that is a little bulky making me look like I've got "nanohips"...lol. Imagine this. I had to go shopping for a belt in the mens section because the womens aren't big enough or are too tacky. I found this mens belt one day after noticing my jeans(that normally, I am poured into... )were getting too big around the waist(...thighs?-not so much still-tend to build too much muscle and always have). So anyways, back to the belt. It's a braided belt (thick) but it has a hole between each braid all the way to the buckle so that it can shrink with me(which I love). So YAY!!! I realize also that I have gained a little but that's ok. I am determined to loose FAT and I think I am accomplishing that nicely. Plus the fact that things have been going kinda poopish lately. (car blew up, both mowers stopped working, hubs and I BOTH had wisdom teeth pulled, family emergency/catastrophe!!, me having 2 infections + meds for those, knee injury, bike tire problems(now I have another flat as of today...I'm sure I'm forgetting some things but all in all... I think, with how depressed I can get, that I have done WONDERFUL for myself and have still kept up my challenge thus far) YAY! Let me know what you guys think of how I have done!!!

Day 21 Pic and Day 7 Pic-Difference? I think so!

I thought you all would get a kick outta this. I wore this same shirt for my day 21 as my day 7 and I think there is a huge difference. I didn't loose much weight but I think my body is starting to tighten up. Sorry that my belly button is kinda showing...ewwy! I was trying to show you all how my sides are starting to thin out. I think everything is working so far. Sorry that it took so long to post these by the way. Okie doke, well I'll be posting my past weeks pic now.

Praise the Lord...

Hi everyone, I promise that I haven't fallen off of the face of the Earth. This past week has been a little messy. First off... that knee of mine has been giving me really bad problems with how bad it hurts. So I didn't get as much outdoor exersice in. Then we have had some family issues... not in my home but more like...brothers, sisters and parents. It's been a heartaching day and I just wanted to check in at least for now with you all. I did take a picture of myself on Thursday because I knew I couldn't on Friday. Tons of things going on. I did also manage to lose another lb. Not what I was hoping but ya know... if you don't work at it... it doesn't do it on it's own. So that's my fault. BUT, it was still a lb! Anyways, I hope to post my pic on here tomorrow. I have to go to the dentist to get a wisdom tooth pulled. That's going to postpone another day of working out but... I need a day to rest and think after what went on today. So I am going to ask that everyone who reads this to PLEASE .... please... pray for my family and their peace of mind and for them to find God a little easier right now as I have come to ask Him myself in times of hardship. And also a prayer for my knee and my tooth pulling adventure. I really need lifting for my family though. I wish I could make this terrible ordeal go away or at least wish that I could do more healing with my hands towards their minds, bodys and souls. But for now... I'll settle for a prayer that God can do it for me. Thanks so much everyone. -BrittanyJo

Day 14

Well here I am on day 14. That's 2 weeks of work now and I must say that I am still feeling really good. I am starting to really enjoy my running and walking time. I feel energized after I get past all of the first initial huffin' and puffin' as I go. Once I start, I can hardly stop goin'.

Yesterday, I experianced a little bit of a hurdle. I twisted one of my knees. This would probably be just a minor thing if I didn't already have horrible knees. Best I can figure is that I either tore the cartlidge in them or fractured both in a really bad fall when I was little and since then they have been troublesome. I remember very vividly having to be carried by teachers out of the gym in gradeschool and then sitting in class with them elevated and covered in ice. I couldn't even enjoy the fact that I had won an art judging for a portrait of George Washington and Abe Lincoln. I just sat there in tears and in pain. Ever since then I have always had grinding and popping ( a lot like poprocks) when they flair up. So yesterdays twisting has been felt with every step I take. After I twisted it, I thought I might still be ok for at least a walk...after all, we were on our way to our bike path when I did it. Puppies don't just walk themselves! Well, they kinda do but you know what I mean. So after we had walked a good ways with minimal pain, I decided to jog and well ... that didn't last long. Once we got home, I iced that sucker down and tried to get some sleep (we went really late so when we got home it was time for a shower and then bed). Even taking the shower was a little rough. Just standing didn't feel good.

Ok, day 14... Got up and went to the store today and afterwards my little one and I got suited up to go biking. I finally got my bike back after it needing tube repair and such. Little gal and I set off to ride and of course that is more of a balancing act than excerise because she rides her trike and I ride a bike with lots bigger tires than hers...and her little legs can't keep up to compensate the size difference. So I mostly get a sore butt and have to do a lot of stoping and starting. After our ride we went home for a bit of water and got ready to take the puppies out for a run. My husband went as well and he walked with little gal and our well mannered pup while I ran with our rowdy puppy. It was a good run/walk tonight. I got a sweat goin' and muscles were feeling used and ....SHIN SPLINTS... can't forget those. So today we probably did somewhere around an hour of biking and close to 45 mins to an hour of jogging in. I feel like I'm accomplishing something at least. Although, right now...my knee is totally feelin' it. Not gettin' around all that well but my brace kept me pretty straight. Tomorrow I will probably stick to just a walk with the pups to keep the swelling and such down. Don't want to injure myself so bad that I can't do any good with my weight.

In conclusion, I think my weightloss is right about on target for the life that I lead. I would like to hope for more of a loss but knowing how my body processes exercise... I know that I build muscle at a more rapid speed than I loose weight. That is a FACT! In highschool I used to weight lift in the boys range and got a little carried away with it and started to muscle up so much that jeans and shirts would not fit right in the arms, thighs and calves. So I could have possibly lost more weight but the muscle might be fighting with the scales. Either way, I'm very pleased with myself and my progression. By the way... water is really starting to taste even better than it used to. Soda's and things with sugar in them... are starting to taste toooo sweet for my liking. So hopefully... one thing will lead to even more... BETTER things. (losing weight, drinking water, eatting better and not wanting to eat bad...eventually leading to wanting to keep these behaviors...YAY!) To the right: Me gettin' ready to go get my "jog on". Haha, my face looks a little like one of those exlax commercials or something. Hahaha!

Alrighty, I'm gonna go ice a knee. Until next time!! Keep the prayers! And thanks so much to the ladies that have been commenting to me and emailing. I do SO appreciate it. It really makes my day and I tell everyone that I talk about my blog to -about all the things that your write to me.Thank you. I'll also be looking into trying to figure out why the leave a comment thing isn't workin'.

Pics and my Story of Determination

Trudging through the Forest Pictures.

Here are some of the pictures that my husband took of my little girl and I with our pups. These were taken at happier times during the whole trek.

Above:

Little gal and myself walking the pups.

Above:

Here was Dotty and I running. She sort of just took off and of course, being strapped to my arm. I shot off like a rocket! I might add that I kept that up for a good while.

Above:

Venturing further into the woods. This was the path before it got to be ... no path what-so-ever. You would think that seeing this path ... that the rest would look the same, boy were we wrong!!

And finally... the finishing line. Kind of. This was the levy by the lake. Afterwards, we went to the concession and then did the jaunt around the entire bottom of the lakes campsites. Much better, even with the ups and downs, than the wooded area. I mean this was like deer huntin' country. Something I like to do, but wasn't expecting on this outing. I told my husband, "Breaking my shoulder deer hunting was more fun than that!"

( My husband accidently broke my shoulder when our daughter was 9 months old. Here's THAT story.)

We were deer hunting and my bad knee was starting to pinch really bad. So he decided that when we went out for round 2 that we would bring the 4-wheeler. Thoughtfull, yes, but we ended up rolling the wheeler down a steep hill into a tree. I hit my head, blacked out for just a second, was pinned between the wheeler and a tree. Hubby was thrown off down to the base of the hill. I was left 2/3 of the way up between 2 of the hardest surfaces I'd ever been between. Laying there holding a more than 400lb wheeler up off of my body with my legs so that it wouldn't crush the rest of me. All with a dislocated arm. I can imagine I looked a lot like a pretzel. Hubby pulled the 4 wheeler off of me with super human strength(im sure thats how i was holding it off of me until he got there as well.) Then hubby proceeded to attempt lifting me up by my under arms as the wheeler slid down the hill beside us. THAT.... HURT! It was then that I realized my arm was out of socket. And actually it was sort of laying above my head in a really weird way. I told hubs to stand back and wait a second until I could catch my breath from THAT. I then I took a deep breath, grit my teeth, closed my eyes and rolled with as much force as I could muster in my almost lifeless feeling body and managed to lock that arm back into place. Yes, I set my own arm back into it's socket. AND ... YES, it hurt and I said some no no words. A lot of them started with HOLY...(I figured I might as well get some prayer in -in some form). My husband just stood there shaking, in tears, looking at me in shock from what I had just done on my own. He then, VERY slowly helped me up and as luck would have it. I did all this on a day when I had my own custom sling...My hunting bibs! I managed to place my arm into th side of the bibs and use them to my advantage as we trudged the rest of the way to our cabin where Leif's father and pa-paw were waiting on us to come in from the hunt. They hollered "My gosh, did ya hear them kids a hollerin' a bit-ago. They were makin' a terrible bunch-a noise!" Then realizing we were not happily coming along... and that the wheeler was not with us, they both came running. My husband was sobbing horrendously by now and I was trying to stay calm because the hit in the head that I took from the tree worried me that I might have some serious problems. It was like being in the dark and watching an electical fire start up... reds and blues and gold. Wild, lemme tell ya. So hurridly we got our important things gathered and headed to civilization. Our cabin is literally in the booneys. I sat in the truck as hubby drove me into the next available town to get to the ER. I kept having to make him slow down because he was so upset and driving ...not so slow. I even remembered asking "Babe, do you need me to drive. I can if you don't think you can manage." He was still just sobbing. I then remembered that our 9 month old baby was at momma n laws house and was looking for us back soon since it was dark by now. I said, "Ok Leif, you need to try to stay quiet while I call your momma." He shook his head and I proceeded to call once a signal was available.

*Cheery tone* "Hey Connie, what's goin on ?"

"Oh nothin' baby. You guys have fun?"

"Yea, we had fun. How's that baby of mine doin'."

"Oh she's been sooo good. We've done this and that.......(told me all about their day)"

Then I proceeded with.

"That's awesome. But Hey, um, Leif and I are gonna be a lil' late gettin' back. Eric and Pa-Paw will be back before us. Now don't worry or get upset but we've had an accident and I may have broke my arm or something."

*Connie's panic sets in and the rapid questions fly*

"I'm ok. I'm not even really in pain. Actually, I'm more calm than Leif."

.....blah, blah, blah....

I tell her not to worry and that we need her to calmly take care of our child while we deal with the arm business.

We then get to the ER. Tell my parents that we are there and they show up. I sit there still wearing my custom camo sling. Horror stories from nurses are told. ( I roll my eyes and think, what kinda idiot do you gotta be to tell an injured gal how bad her life is gonna be now. ) Mind you, I have never broke anything. I then get xrays and a catskan, etc, etc. And THEN the xray tech goes..." Haha, no wonder it hurts... it AUGHTA!..haha". I say what and he says... "Oh, I can't tell you. The docotors have to but I can tell ya that it SHOULD hurt..haha" It's at this time that I'm thinking - where do they find these people?

I'm then wheeled back into the room and the doc says to me. Yep it sure is broken. After all that ... that's what I got. He then tells me I will need to go to a specialist because there is nothing they can do because of the kind of break and where it is.

After all of this mess. I find out that there is nothing anyone can do. No surgery, no cast, no pins...nothing. I just have to sit like this until it heals. It was broken in such a place that if you did anything to it ... it would never heal right and become a useless arm. So there I was with a 9 month old baby and lots of physical therapy (6 months or so). Can you imagine not holding your baby for that long!! It was an extremely challenging ordeal. Just to sleep, do dishes, laundry, PEE!... and forget about trying to put a regular bra on. Everyday things were terrible and hurt ...A LOT! But when I started doing extra physical therapy, staying longer hours and focused so hard on my weight lifting that I would zone even my P.T. out... I came back faster than they had expected. I remember my P.T. saying..."hey! Rambo... jeez girl, I been trying to get your attention. What's with you... ". I said... "Determination". And that's what gets me through.

Day 13... a day away from weigh in

Hey everyone, I know its not weigh in day but today I felt pretty good and decided to share a pic of how I compared to the earlier pictures. I didn't look GREAT becaue of my lack of makeup but I thought I looked a little slimmer. My arms don't seem to be looking as much like the size of tree trunks either. Maybe it's just wishful thinking BUT, that's fine with me if it gets me motivated to keep up the work. As you know, I weigh myself throughout the week as well but they don't count until the final weigh in day... but it looked as if I had lost 3 more pounds. Let's hope!! That would be THAT much closer to a 10 lb loss. YAY! I put two pictures on here so that you can see that I'm starting to actually get more of a waist in the second photo. For the Day 13 photo I pulled my pants back up over my lovely muffin tops..bluccckk! I also think it's toooo funny that you can tell which side has always been my baby packin' hip. Seems to be more defined...LOL! OH, and by the way, sorry again for the poor picture quality. It's hard to teach a 4 year old about lighting.

Trudging through the forest...

Well, I decided to wait a day before I would post what happend last night-to kind of get over it...lol. I was home with my husband and our little girl when my hubby decided that we should try the trails at Glen O' Jones Lake. He suggested that we bring Kory and Dotty (our pups) along as well. I agreed and thought this would be a great exercising opportunity. So I leashed up the pups and got some water for us all and we were off. We arrived at the lake all rearin' to go. What a fun thing to do! I took the camera as I always do and off we went. At first it was great. Walking and jogging a little as we went. Then a lil' more of a hiking type of trail...then the path got smaller and harder to stay on. As we went a lil futher...Kory...decided she wouldn't budge (later on I would find out she's smarter than she looked at that moment). I finally got her to go a little more and by this time we were all 3+the dogs standing there going "where's the trail... i can't tell where we are supposed to go". So we decide to try to map it out ourselves...up steep hills... accross a bedrock stream... over fallen trees... then through briar patches... then thickets. Did I meantion that my 4 year old daughter and I were not dressed for hiking in the woods. We were both in cotton capris, no show socks and tennis shoes! Terrible when walking through briar bushes and such. We finally see, once we get to a little bit of a clearing that we have only made it half way around and I being the hard headed type say angrily..."We've gone this far... I'm not turning around to go through that crap again!" So... we went into the same "crap" only worse when we trudge forward. Me falling over my scared puppies and tripping on branches...getting them shoved into my ankles, scrapes, bruises, sweating, can't hardly breathe!! (Did I meantion that I suffer from anxiety) Almost in a panic attack, wanting to cry, angry at my husband for even suggesting that we go, wanting to call someone to come float a boat across so that we may jump in, actually contemplating jumping in the water to swim across a mile or so of the lake, wondering how much a divorce might cost, mosquitos swarming... wondering how bad the ticks are out here, wondering if we will ever get out of here, hoping my husband knows how mad I am, thinking that he better not let my baby get a scratch on her porclin baby skin, looking at my capris thinking "oh he owes me a new pair!", STILL no defined path!...feet hurting, legs hurting, knees feeling like they're breaking, puppies pulling me, more mosquitos, more stupid branches scratching my ankles, ahhh more briars, big hole, fell in, really angry now.
Ugh! terrible!
Finally, a car atop the ridge, could it be... we're almost there! We were....2 hours later we were almost there. And there it was... the levy. Dear Lord, solid, FLAT, grasssy, GROUND! I then decided to talk to my husband and tell him that never again will our family be taking another one of his "trails" again. Divorce urge was lifting. Smile not there yet but trying to peek out. I then tell hubby that I am going into the t-shirt making business. This is a weird time to decide this, I know but when he looked at me strangly... I replied with. Yes, I will be making t-shirts to sell here that say... " I kicked Glen O' Jones "TRAIL'S" A$$!" We both laughed and finally, FINALLY... we were close to the concession. Water, oooohhh water!! *Lemonaide - 1.00* ... no, i change my mind... Lemonaide, ooooohhhh lemonaide! Finally we had returned to where there were people... people that were no where near the ones that my mind had conjered up...hmmm *thought enters*= (movie: Deliverance). What a day! Our little girl, (yes, we made it back WITH her) was so happy to be back as well, even though she got a ride on her daddy's shoulders the whole time... darn those wide shoulders for not having enough room for me!!
Needless to say, it was bad... but I also MUST SAY... that I did it! I went on a "hiking" trail for over 2 hours and did it in those darn capris that are now tattered from briar thorns and my little no show socks that did nary a thing to protect my ankles AND last but not least my tennis shoes... with no ankle support what-so-ever. I did it. So take that fatness! You'll be gone in no time, just you wait and seeeeee.... mwwwwaahhhahahahahaaa!

In conclusion I just want to say..... I kicked Glen O' Jones Trails A$$!