My saddle is back!

My saddle is back with brand new billets! Pete is back to work, and I'm positive he's gonna kick my ass for giving him so much time off.

I have a really tough time riding on a regular schedule for five days a week. I can ride three days a week regularly, but when I hit five it seems like I always have an excuse or a time shortage. And, honestly, if I want to improve enough to compete, I need to be riding five days a week.

So I'm setting a new goal.

I will ride 5 times a week for the next two weeks. I won't ride both horses every day, but I will ride at least one horse five times a week. After I accomplish that, I'm going to set a new goal. I plan on snowballing little changes into one huge change - with my end goal being to ride both horses five times a week.

I passed!

Well, I passed the bar. I cannot express how relieved I am that I don't have to take that test again. I actually had something to celebrate at that party last Saturday.

I managed to mess up my back Sunday trying to do a workout video. It actually had been twinging since my lesson the Sunday before, and I was pretty silly and thought it was good to go. My lesson really drove home to me how weak my core is, especially my lower back. I decided I needed to do some exercises to improve my strength in that area...but I clearly overdid it the first try. I haven't ridden or worked out since I hurt my back on Sunday, and I know I need another day to let my back heal up. So that means I have two horses who will not have been ridden for three days, and I have a canoeing adventure scheduled for Saturday. I'm going to go into my Sunday lesson with only two rides for the week under my belt. Not ideal. But I think if I rode this afternoon I might reinjure myself, to that's the way it's going to have to be. Maybe I can sneak in a ride late Saturday.

My last lesson can be quickly summed up as this: I can do a shoulder in on Avalon, but it's harder for him towards the right. By the time we were working on the right I had exhausted my core strength, and as a result he was running out at the shoulder. An improvement on my seat and core at the time could have fixed that. We actually did it later that week, but I started trying far earlier during the ride, so I had the stamina for it.

This is the first time I have ever had problems during a lesson where I clearly had the skills but did not have the strength to do it.

This is a really great additional motivator to continue trying to lose weight and get fit. I just need to try to do it more carefully!

Pot, meet Kettle...

                                                          Source: Michelle Meiklejohn

I'm posting about how Pete's blown up like a balloon, but let's be honest here - I'm definitely fat, too.

I gained a lot of weight in law school. Forty pounds in three years, most of it in the first two. I've been out of law school for almost a year, and I gained another 5 pounds while studying for the bar. I clearly do not deal with stress well. I am incredibly unhappy about it, and last night my dad called me and gave me a little speech about paying attention to my health. My mother is having lots of health problems because of her weight. She's been morbidly obese for as long as I can remember. My dad is normally pretty content to leave those kinds of comments to me alone, it really embarrasses him to talk about it. And the fact that I looked so bad the last time I came home that he mentioned it despite how uncomfortable it made him? It makes me feel like crap.

I managed to lose five pounds right after the bar during March, but I slacked off during the first week and a half of April. I got on the treadmill today, which I hadn't done in almost two weeks. I really need some form of accountability, so I'm going to start posting my stats, even if no one reads them. They're pretty painful to look at.

Progress so far:
3/11 - 190
3/13 - 188.6
3/16 - 188
3/19 - 187.4
3/22 - 186.8
3/25 - 186.2
3/30 - 185

And I haven't weighed in since March 30th. I'm afraid to. Which probably tells you how good I feel about my diet and workouts for the last ten days.

I would like to get back to my high school/Japan weight. I weighed 145 in high school, gained the freshman 15 (though in my case it was 20), and then lost it all again when I went to Japan my junior year of college.  I maintained 145 until I got into law school. So 145 is my goal weight, even though it's on the higher end of normal for my height according to the BMI scale.

I keep asking myself how I got here. I am deeply ashamed of how I have "let myself go". During law school I got into the habit of eating out too often, because I never felt like I had the time to cook. I also spent all of my time behind a desk, except for the few times a week I rode. I do live with my boyfriend, but his eating habits are actually worse than mine, and got even worse when he was unemployed for two years. He finally got a job a little over six months ago, and I don't really see his eating improving. Unfortunately, he's not very interested in changing anything just yet (I don't think he's gained as much as quickly as I have), so I can't count on too much support from him.

I've tried to get motivated to lose the weight I've gained before, but I always fizzled out or had to deal with some impending crisis or deadline or test which sidetracked me. I keep telling myself this time is going to be different. It's going to have to be, I seriously need to fix this.

Here goes.

Getting there...

Well Pete has decided that I'm no longer screwing up when I'm supposed to be leg yielding, which is good. I haven't had any hissy fits related to the right rein for a while, though he's still throwing his random "I don't wanna!" pops in there. I'm actually ok with that, since its not something I'm causing, and therefore not a pain reaction.

Pete is, however, FAT. We've got more grass in the pastures right now than we've had for a long time with South Carolina's drought/flood cycle, and boy is he taking advantage. He's a porker. This is normally not good, but Pete has bad hocks, which means all that extra weight can cause him some real problems. I've cut his grain and hay down by half, and I've been riding him almost every day it isn't raining. He hasn't lost anything, but then again it doesn't look like he's gained either. I've started to do intervals on him, hopefully that will help. Maybe I'll drop some pounds, too.

Avalon has been kind of avoiding me in the bit, not quite getting as deep as he needs to. He's also been popping his head up and trying to run through my half-halts. Yesterday I had him long and low in the bit (Finally!) and I while he's still popping his head up and resisting during some half-halts at the trot, he's not running through me at the walk or canter. It's not perfect, but it's getting there.

Progress!