Weight, riding and working out

So I turned on my TV and 'My 600 lb life' was on. (I like to watch What Not to Wear in the mornings when I'm getting ready, sue me) and first off I just want to say Way to go! to everyone on there who made those life choices and lost a significant amount of weight. I'm sure it wasn't easy.
It's also good motivation when I don't want to get up and workout or do my squats. If they can get up and go exercise and workout, I certainly can too. If you ever want a steady source of good actually helpful, motivation, check out http://theberry.com/category/daily-motivation/

I'm watching the show right now and I admit I do wonder how on earth someone can get to weigh over 650 pounds. Now I'm not a terribly large girl, I'm err, curvaceous, but I've never been overweight so I won't pretend to understand that struggle. Maintaining a healthy weight has always been relatively easy for me- although I have always been fairly active as well. Sure I put on some pounds in college that I'm now working to lose, but still. Nothing like the difficulty some people face and I know it. So that's the preference to this post.

The episode ended with the lady (Who went from 600+ to 349!) saying she was going to go ride horses with her daughter. I admit, I cringed a little. It actually turned out that she took her daughter to a riding lesson, which was quite sweet and I completely approve of. But the reason I cringed is because of my time as a trail guide.

We had a woman come out who said she'd recently lost a lot of weight and was so happy that she was finally small enough to go ride horses, which she's always dreamed about! The only thing was... she was still a very large woman. Honestly not small enough to ride quite yet in my opinion. And my boss didn't buy very big horses. They averaged 14.1-15 hands. Not a one was over 15.2.

Our smallest horse being held by the tallest rider we ever had come out. His shirt said "It's good to be the Big Guy" We did have trouble finding a horse tall enough for him. He was over 7 feet tall if you were wondering. The stirrups didn't go long enough either... He needed a Moose sized horse.

My boss claimed big horses scared people. I said that bigger people need bigger, stockier horses. I wanted him to get a draft or a draft cross.... Anyway, my boss at the time didn't have a weight limit for riders. Now we were in the south and we got bigger riders pretty frequently, but this particular woman was the biggest.

So I put her up on what was our stocky but safe horse and apologized to the horse because this was not a big horse, maybe 14.2 hands? I felt so damn bad for the horse and so mad at my boss for not getting a horse that could accommodate a heavy rider. Taking a trail ride was this woman's dream, and that's a good dream and she worked hard for it. ... It just happened that she still should have been mounted on a draft sized horse. Two of us had to help brace the horse so that she could get on. The 20% rule was so far out the window we could have sent it a post card.

The end of the ride was particularly awkward. Why you ask? Well, that would be because when she tried to dismount, she wasn't able to. Not even with help. She was literally stuck in the saddle. I'm sure the poor woman was mortified. We had to undo the cinch and slide the saddle off before she could get out of it. Totally not safe by the way.

So there does come a time to say 'I'm sorry but you just weigh too much for our horses to carry safely'. Now I'm not talking about someone who's a bit overweight, there are plenty of horses who can carry them. And I'm not talking about if it's your own horse and you've been caring in your tack selection and horse selection and your seat is good.  I'm talking significantly so, and when it comes right down to it, I'm going to side with the horse.

Now my metabolism slowed down in college and I ate unhealthy foods, drank and didn't exercise. And it showed. I gained weight. My muscles got all sad and pathetic. I waved 'bye bye' to my abs.

This was kind of how I felt when I started wearing my breeches. 

I realized I could see cellulite... On my butt, with the breeches on! I'm only 23 and I was so not cool with this. This is what prompted the Squat challenge I'm currently doing. I'm pleased to say that it's working. My friend asked me if my butt had gotten less 'voluptuous' the other day. Maybe, but it's certainly gotten perkier! 

This is month one

This is month two... yikes. 

The other reason for my getting back in shape is that one of the places I applied to said it would be helpful, but not essential, to have a rider under 9 stone (about 126 lbs) because some of the horses are small. I'm about 5'7 and I do not weigh 126 lbs. I actually don't know what I weigh at the moment- hold on.

Okay I'm back. I just dug up a scale (it was buried in stuff in the back room.) I see why they say not to use a scale on carpet... I just got on and it said I weighed 140. I had a heart spasm, I admit. Then I tried it on the hard floor and it said 130. I'm okay with that. Sheesh. Okay, I know I might be a bit ridiculous but I was not okay with putting on weight when I've been working out and eating healthy. On the plus side I have dropped like 6 lbs and put on muscle since graduation and later when I decided I wanted to be 'fit'. So I'm actually closer to the weight they want then I thought, which is nice. 

This is my breakfast (and usually lunch as well). 

It's super delicious. It's organic oats/oat meal with 1 whole shredded apple, 1-2 handfuls of ground up pecans, coconut milk (I'm lactose intolerant plus it's delicious), a few shakes of ground cinnamon, 1 cap full of vanilla flavoring, chia seeds, a bit of brown sugar, a couple handfuls of raisins, a handful of dried cranberries, 1 whole banana, 3-4 fresh strawberries.  It's the most amazingly delicious oatmeal ever, incredibly filling (I also make enough for two meals worth) and it's a great way to get a lot of fruit into your system. Sorry, I had to share. It takes like 15 minutes to make but it's so worth it.

Also if you want a really amazing smoothie, make it with frozen blackberries, blueberries, pineapple, strawberries, peach or mango greek yogurt, a fresh apple or a pear, and if you want to add a little bad for you, some canned peaches. Or fresh if you have them- yum. You can even toss in a handful of spinach and a carrot... but it's not as tasty. We grow our own fruit and then freeze it for winter. 

Now I'm hungry and I forgot what I was actually trying to write about. I swear there was supposed to be a point somewhere.

Oh well. I'm going to go eat supper. If I remember what it was I'll come back and add it.