What a week for Seeking Slender

There is so much stuff going on in my life I really have no clue where to begin sometimes. I might have some really exciting news regarding the Desperately Seeking Slender Fundraiser but I don’t want to announce it until everything is official. But Heather and Ashli have been working hard at seeing who they could get to sponsor our Fundraiser and who they might be able to get to donate and it looks like Ashli got us the Sponsorship of a very nice exercise equipment and fitness store here in the Pacific North West.

I’m very happy to introduce everyone to Northwest Fitness. One of Portland’s Best every Fitness Supply locations. Heather and I had the pleasure of meeting their Sales Direction Jeff Hahn and we got a chance to look at their Showroom. OMG there were so many things I wanted to take home. When we first started talking to Jeff last week over the phone we had sent him a list of Fitness Supply products that we were hoping to buy with the $3500 we had budgeted for “Equipment and Surfaces” and Jeff got right on it. He even took our list to a Fitness Supply Trade show that he was attending in Las Vegas last week to talk to some of his Vendors about us and the things we were looking for!

We got to meet with Jeff on Saturday morning and we were so impressed with Northwest Fitness it isn’t even funny. From their AMAZING Showroom that literally makes you want to jump on everything, try it out, see how it works. If I had the space for a home gym I’d go broke in that store! And Jeff, was awesome about showing up the options for the products that we were looking for, talking to us about what we thought we would need and making adjustments, and of course he showed us a couple things that were not on our list that are now like The Human Trainer! Oh the torture I will make some people endure someday working on THAT thing. It’s very similar to the TRX Suspension System that my own Personal Trainer, Suzie over at Tym for me Fitness, uses on her clients, and trust me when she first got it a lot of us were cursing at her under our breath in her gym. Maybe not even under our breath so much as just cursing at her. Of course whenever Suzie wanted me to do something new I didn’t really curse at her, I just looked at her and asked “Are you high?”

Suzie went with us on Saturday as well and she was really excited about some ab rollers that Jeff showed us. I would have gotten excited about them too if I had the abs and upper body strength to use them without falling on my face, but I’m still healing from surgery. I know I look all healed up but it wasn’t even two months ago yet that we did my side gather abdominoplasty and breast lift and the fact that not even 8 weeks out I am in a Fitness Equipment Store doing lunges off a step 360 and trying out dumbbells and such is pretty amazing and I think, a testament to what sort of physical health I am in these days. I remember a time when I would not have bounced back nearly that well.

Last week was so full of exciting news for me. It was also my first week back in the gym. I’m starting out slow again with my Cardio, no reason to go crazy right out of the gate and risk an injury that will lay me up unnecessarily, I’ve got enough of those 8 week gym breaks after surgery scheduled for the next year or so. Speaking of which, I know a lot of people have been asking me, I spoke with my Plastic Surgeon the other day and she said we were going to try for an early December surgery date for the next surgery which will be working on my thighs. They say this surgery is the most painful and hardest recovery of all of the reconstructive surgeries that one has after major weight loss and I will be honest, I am NOT looking forward to this one.

Heather and I had our little IPhone adventure. You might recall I waited on a Birthday present this year from Jason to wait and see what the IPhone 5 was going to do and when they announced it I decided that was the phone I wanted for my birthday. Since I had an upgrade available I got the phone at the carriers discounted rate which is like less than 50{6e74c841b8f362d8aea590534016dc569fd3035eeb9e530df8846b42682c6656} the full price of the phone. But I wanted a 64 Gig Black one and you would not believe how difficult it was to get my grubby little hands on one when they came out on Friday. But that’s a story for another time. I did get the new IPhone5 so that too has now come off my Fundraiser list!

Between that and the help of Jeff and Northwest Fitness, we’ve knocked a pretty big chunk of our start-up costs down. The biggest thing here is that we absolutely HAVE to raise the funds to pay for my ACE Certification as soon as possible. Even if only the Personal Trainer one saving the Nutrition one for right after, we have to make sure that if NOTHING else at all we get that Covered so our next milestone we want to meet in the Fundraiser is to get someone to Sponsor the ACE Certification which is $800 for the Personal Trainer one and $800 for the Nutrition one I want to take right after. I need both of these to make sure I can do both Personal Training and Diet Plans, both of which are going to be essential to Desperately Seeking Slender.

I know that we have a couple pledges sitting out there from a few of you that love me! But you know me, I don’t count my pounds before I lose them, or my hatching chickens or something, so we’re not banking on anything JUST yet.

It’s been an insane week for me and everyone around me. Fundraising, Gym Time, Puppy Training and Training Classes, Planning the Oakland Trip, Camping out for IPhones, Doctors Appointments, Meeting Jeff, getting our first Sponsor, it’s been an amazing ride this week and to top it all off, I can officially say that my swelling is down enough to let me back into my skinniest pair of jeans yet… my 7 for Mankind Jeans. \o/ and in case you don’t recognize that gesture it looks something like this… oh and by the way, I weighted 335lbs when this picture was taken 7 days after my Gastric bypass just 23 Months ago….

But you have seen that \0/ Gesture a few times… Like when Heather and Ashli came to visit in November and of course the night we bought the Dodge Caliber that I knew was going to become my Desperately Seeking Slender Mobile Training Vehicle.