This Red Neck Mama's Fitness Blog: November 2014

playing in the leaves

my new grandbaby and my new doggie

My "After Picture" After the Abd Challenge last May

I could HARDLY believe it when I went to this blog and realized it has been 9 months since I've last posted. Then I thought about it and realized that with all I've been through, there really wasn't much I could post about!! I guess I should explain my predicament :-)
Back in March and April I was starting to slack off. In May I got REALLY SERIOUS and challenged maybe 100 of my facebook girlfriends to an "ABD CHALLENGE". A bunch of us did abd work "Every Day The Month of May And In June Your Man Will Swoon" was my motto. It was a big pile o'fun and really put the pressure on for me. As you can see by my "after shot", it worked for me. I was also super excited that a lot of other women got inspired and were sporting super ripped abds :-) I had about a week or two of glory and then all hell broke loose and my world fell apart and crashed down around me.
We sold both our houses last June and officially became homeless. First we lived with another family (AWKWARD), then we moved into an RV (gulp). By that time everything I was trying to do went out the window. No more grinding grains or buying all organic. Oh, did I mention my husband also quit his job? Yep, so I was really on a budget. I had a tiny refrigerator sometimes when it worked, most of the time we lived out of coolers. My trips to town for groceries were limited. I never had much empathy for people who told me they couldn't cook healthy. Then I had to survive out of an RV cooking for a big family and I was really humbled for having that attitude.
After that, we had a cabin on the property we bought, but for a long time (months), I still only had a grill and burner to cook on. It was really really hard just to produce something edible and the idea of making myself something different was EXHAUSTING.
Being homeless I didn't do any special activities. No Bloomsday, No Mud Run, No Long Bridge Swim, NADA. After looking over the past 9 months, I realized I didn't train for any athletic event because I was overwhelmed just trying to get by each day. Big ol' bummer!!
Its not like I just let myself go and gained 100 lbs. I tried to keep running, swimming, hiking, etc, but my motivation took a nose dive and the scale did tilt upward a good 10 lbs.
When we started building our house, I made coffee and treats for the men every morning (and I ate them). A lot of times I made them good lunches too. None of them cared all that much about calories or nutrition. The most cost effective way was lots of yummy carbs like pizza and spaghetti. You must see where I'm going with this - yep, I ate it too. I was working like a dog painting and oiling and doing all the things I could to help out. I worked all day and collapsed into bed at night in an exhausted coma (or was it a carb coma)?
Admittedly, I picked heaps of huckleberries and kept with many of my "healthy habits", but being homeless just plain wrecked havoc on fitness and healthy eating for me.
Thankfully I have this nice neighbor lady who has been encouraging me to work out with her. She's really awesome. I showed her what I used to look like, and she is pretty sure I can get there again.
So here I am, once again crawling back into the fitness and healthy eating lifestyle. I should be moving into my house in the next week and then things will be easier for me. I will unpack my kitchen stuff and begin again with a lot more humility than I had before.