I don’t know about where you are but the weather around here sucks.

We’ve had nostril freezing temperatures for the past week. I’m not kidding… the second you step foot outdoors the inside of your nostrils freeze up. It’s a very unpleasant feeling, actually. I even had one of my eyelids freeze shut for a nano second this morning while I walked to my car. These crazy temps have forced me to wear my outdated glasses because every time I wear my contacts I feel like they are freezing onto my eyeballs.

Our weather in Colorado has been colder than the actual North Pole! At least that’s what the weather person said on the news this morning and I believe her because she’s usually forty percent right half of the time.

This has been troublesome for my workout schedule as of late. Brent and I have decided not to take Penelope to the gym daycare anymore because she has come home with a new illness every other week for the past three months. We’ve gone through stomach viruses, fifth’s disease and croup just to name a few. Add in the random days her mouth has had to birth a new tooth and the total hours of lost sleep is astronomical.

I haven’t come up with a plan B yet and without the ability to run outside my workout options have been limited. This means for the past week I’ve been hibernating and for me hibernating usually entails one of these festive suckers…

I have a feeling that little concoction you are looking at is partially to blame for my less than stellar weigh in this morning. I weighed in at a whopping 187. But here is the real problem. I think I look good at 187 pounds… at least I can fake looking good. Here is the other problem,  I’ve been doing a lot of shopping to bolster my teaching wardrobe and I’ve been able to find some really cute stuff. You would think that since I need to lose roughly around 40 pounds that I would have had a dressing room melt down or two but I haven’t. In fact, I actually like what I see these days.

You don’t understand, I need those melt downs to keep me going…

We can blame all of those YM articles I read back in the day about self-esteem. We won’t mention the Cosmo articles I snuck-read about sex positions as well, even though I had no idea what they were talking about half of the time.

Um… what was I talking about?

Oh yeah… I look good… even though I’m still technically fat. Weird.

I did however, have an awkward encounter in Express when I asked them if they sold their dress pants in size 14 because I had seen them online. Brent was standing there with me when they said that they didn’t sell pants that big in the store. Brent pretended like he didn’t hear the conversation for fear of a melt down. I contemplated having one until I went  into another store and found what I was looking for.

It also helped that when I went shopping for shoes my Bilbo Baggins feet didn’t fit into any of the shoes either. (I wear a size 10.5 to 11) To me this just illustrated I’m just a big girl and wearing bigger clothes is simply the norm for me. Unfortunately, I’ve used my acceptance of how I look as a crutch for not losing weight.

However, I’ve had a few reminders as to why I need to stay persistent on this journey during this past week…

1. I tweaked my back again because the muscles in my core are still too week to support my weight.

2. I’ve had a headache every day for the past week. (Thanks a lot Starbucks sugar crash!)

3. My feet hurt almost every day.

4. I probably still have high blood pressure but I’m not sure because I’m too scared to make an appointment to check.

5. I can feel the crazy creeping up since I haven’t worked out in a while.

So, even though I don’t have vanity pushing me to lose weight I still have that whole health business working for me. This means that I’ve got to make time to go to the gym even though I can’t take Penelope with me anymore. This whole week I’ve been working around Brent’s schedule to find a time that I can work out.

This hasn’t worked.

He has a new training partner and they work out at 6 in the morning (the time slot that I would have like to have taken). I also have to contend with all of his personal training clients throughout the day when he isn’t at the fire station. By the time we’ve figured out the best time for me to workout something else has taken that time slot up as well.

That means I’m going to bite the bullet and start waking up at 4 in the morning on the days that he’s home to stay with the girls. This seems really drastic but in reality I’m going to have to take drastic measures while I do my student teaching anyway. I’ll have to be at school by 7 and I won’t get off until 4. I’m not going to want to work out in the evenings because I’ll want to spend that time with the kiddos. Therefore, 4 it is.

I’m starting tomorrow before Brent leaves for work at 5:30. Brent doesn’t think I’ll do it but I have a sneaking suspicion he’s using reverse psychology on me…

What is your designated workout time? What do you do to make sure you follow through with it?