Some people have been noticing the lack of posts this week. This was due to two factors: 1-I am very busy with my summer classes and spend most of my lunch hours doing homework instead of updating my blog, 2-I have been a naughty, naughty girl in regards to the weight-loss competition and I knew if I posted anything, I'd have to fess up. Ah well, since I am down again this week, I'll come clean.
The big badness is that I skipped my Wednesday and Friday workouts again. I know. I'm terrible. I wish I didn't like sleep so much or that I could bring back the insomnia I had a few months ago. My mornings are a mess-if I don't get up at the same insanely early time as my husband, I sleep right through the later alarm. It wasn't as much of an issue before, but with the late classes I am just so tired. Hopefully I can make it through the next few weeks without gaining weight or getting fired. My late classes end soon and the next class gets out before 9pm. I am definitely looking forward to the 2 weeks in August that I will be free of classes. Since we are too poor for a vacation, I will be drinking ice cold diet soda and watching TV on DVD. I miss TV.
Speaking of school, I have excellent news from my accounting class. Last night we got back our first full test and .....drum roll..... I had the highest grade out of both classes that my teacher teaches (over 60 students). I only got one question wrong, which was worth 1.5 points, but I got the 2 point bonus question right, so my score was 106.5 out of 106. My teacher came over during break and asked if I work in accounting (I don't). I told him I was taking the class for fun out of curiosity. When he left the room, everyone wanted to know who had gotten the highest grade (he had written the score on the front board). I was shrinking down in my seat, but the woman next to me sold me out. Then she started telling everyone that I'm so nice and I help her out all the time. It's true. She and another student have been saving me a seat between them so they can ask me questions. It makes me feel good. I love helping people.
Another warm fuzzy moment happened later in the class when I was helping the woman who blew my cover. She stopped me and said, "You should be a teacher. You're so calm and patient and the way you explain things makes them make sense." I almost started crying because my number 2 reason for finishing college is so that I can teach. The number one reason is to put my past mistakes behind me. Anyway, when she said that to me so genuinely, it made me so happy. I happy now just writing about it. Warm fuzzies!
To get back to my confession of naughtiness, I ate about 20 pounds of sugar this week. During the day I ate only healthy foods, but I ate very small amounts. One day, all I ate until 11pm was a chicken breast and a piece of cheese. That night, I hit the Neapolitan ice cream sandwiches again. I don't usually have much of a sweet tooth, but the last two weeks I've gotten into this weird pattern where I'm not hungry all day and then I want sweets at night. The good and bad thing is that I've continued to lose weight. The only negative thing is that I've been tired, but I've been tired ever since classes started. This weekend I plan on preparing several days of prepacked meals for next week. I also plan to go to kickboxing class tomorrow (for real this time).
And now for the numbers. As of today, I weigh 196.2 lbs. That's 1.2 lbs down from last week. My pants are very loose.
Have a great weekend, y'all!
Friday, June 22, 2007
Naughty, Naughty
Monday, June 11, 2007
I Like To Hit Things
Saturday afternoon, I attended my first cardio kickboxing class. If there were ever a workout made for me, this is it. I was expecting a cardio class where we'd be standing in rows and punching the air, but it was so much better than that. We got to wear boxing gloves and whale on the heavy bags. Punches and roundhouse kicks are much more fun when you are actually hitting something. It was an intense workout, but I didn't want it to end. As soon as the hour was up, I called my husband and told him I wanted a heavy bag for my birthday. Having this class once a week is not enough. I am in love....with kicking ass.
This morning's workout seemed boring compared to the kickboxing class, but at least I made it (almost) on time. I got to tell my trainer the results from Friday's weigh-in-he was proud. We added one new exercise to our routine today, which Jeff referred to as "hop-hop-squat." It's exactly what it sounds like. I didn't think it would be very difficult since squats have been getting easy for me, but after doing them for a minute straight my legs were burning. At one point I caught my reflection as I was coming up out of a squat and...I think I saw a thigh muscle. I'm not used to seeing muscles in my legs. I can always feel them, but they are hard to see with all the fat covering them up.
This weekend I started to get a lot of comments on my weight loss. It is so good to know that other people can see it. I can tell a difference, but I'm consciously checking myself out in the mirror looking for one. It means much more coming from someone else. I was a little down yesterday after seeing myself in some pictures and thinking, "I still look huge!," but I guess I am still huge. That doesn't take anything away from my weight loss though, and I have another 6+ weeks of guided workouts to shrink through. The power of positive thinking helped me last week, so I'm going to stick with it.
Damien, the head trainer, sent out a spreadsheet with the results of the top twenty people so far. I didn't make the top twenty, but it was good inspiration to see where everyone is. I need to step up my efforts. This weekend was the third weekend in a row where I took both days off the diet. That has got to stop. It hasn't really hurt my results yet, but I imagine I'd lose more without, say, the four slices of pizza I ate last night. It shouldn't be too hard to buckle down on the weekends as long as I head into them with a plan. This weekend I'm going to kickboxing on Sunday, but there is a good chance it will be followed with alcohol. I'm not sure what else to do on Fathers' Day since my dad recently died and both grandfathers are gone, too, so drinking it is! I figure if I hit the bag hard enough in class I won't need to drink as much.
Tonight I have my first Ceramics class. I'm excited to find out what we'll be doing. I'm sure the class is going to be fun, because I am having a blast in my Accounting class. Yes, I said I am having a blast in my Accounting class. It's not as much fun as I used to have in Calculus, but I dig it. I'm such a numbers person. I love it when problems have answers. I wish life was more like math.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Breaking News
I finally found a way to make the protein shakes taste good! When the overly sweet powder is mixed with unsweetened soy milk, it comes out perfect. It is almost delicious. I'm so happy I finally found a way to like this stuff, because many of my meals have to be consumed on the go. My new schedule is wake at 6:30am, workout from 8-9am, work from 9am-5pm, commute from 5-6pm, class from 6-10pm. That's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Holy. Wow.
Monday, June 4, 2007
No Skeletons In My Closet-Only Fat People
Last night I ate three Neapolitan ice cream sandwiches. Earlier in the day I ate an entire burrito from Chipotle. In between, for a snack, I drank 4 glasses of juice. Saturday, my husband and I ate and entire loaf of garlic bread in one sitting. For the rest of the day, all I 'ate' was vodka and beer. Oh, and Swedish fish. And some taco dip. Friday night, we ate giant heaps of greasy Chinese food. Just in case anyone reading this thought that I never pig out, now you know. This weekend, I hogged out.
The one good thing I can report food-wise is that my husband and I finally went to the store to restock our kitchen. We bought a 12 pound bag of frozen tilapia fillets to add some variety to the chicken or chicken that we eat whenever I actually cook. We also raided the frozen veggie case and the deli counter. Once my classes start (TOMORROW!), I'll be eating my dinner in the car while I drive to school. Sandwiches and roll ups are the only things I could think of that are portable enough. Tonight I am going to make something up with tilapia, lemon, and tomatoes to enjoy my last fork and knife dinner for a while.
My husband is helping me get through the disgusting cookies and cream protein powder so that we can buy a better flavor. He tried it with milk and said it tastes like the milk that's left after you dip cookies into it. I tried it with milk today and I still think it's disgusting. I am gladly donating it to the "get my husband to eat breakfast" cause.
My approach to exercise lately has been better than my approach to food, but not as good as it should be. I haven't missed any training sessions, but I didn't do any extra cardio last week or over the weekend. I will do some tonight no matter what, because I was late to my training this morning and because I won't be able to work out after work once classes start.
Losing weight is hard. I realized this last week when I was feeling pouty and wondering why I'd been putting in so much work and not seeing the results I want. I realized that the answer isn't in finding what I'm doing wrong (unless you look at this past weekend, but I had my epiphany before that), but in accepting that this is is going to take a long time and a lot of work, and sticking with it. Throwing a tantrum in my head about how I think I should be losing weight faster isn't going to make that happen. If it's going to come off slowly, it's going to come off slowly, but it won't come off at all if I quit because I think slow weight loss isn't fair. Which reminds me of my favorite quote from my favorite movie, "Labyrinth." The main character says, "It's not fair!" and Jareth the goblin king says, "You say that so often. I wonder what your basis for comparison is." Ah, "Labyrinth." I'm convinced that movie contains all the secrets of life.
My workout this morning was brief since I was late, but I'm still sore. We didn't do anything particularly challenging (other than 10 minutes of ab work with no rest), but my shoulders and thighs are killing me. Maybe it is the lack of nutrition this weekend. Hopefully that means that if I eat right, I won't be sore on Wednesday.
This Friday is the halfway point in the competition. I feel like I've lost my mojo. If you see it, please send it my way so that I can have a stellar week and break 200 lbs by Friday.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Thank You, Internet
My covert ops at the bookstore yesterday were a success. I managed to obtain the real ISBN numbers of my textbooks and ordered them online today. I still ended up spending around $150, but that meant I got all four books for less than the price of one, which was $178 in the bookstore. My husband lucked out and found his online for $1 each, so the internet saved us some big bucks. School starts next week. This is real. Eek.
I have a few confessions to make. I haven't played DDR at all this week, in spite of my plans. I've been sitting very still under the ceiling fan in our living room trying to stay cool. Last night, I didn't want to heat up the house by baking chicken so all I ate for dinner was a bag of frozen broccoli that I microwaved and sprinkled with olive oil and Parmesan cheese. I definitely didn't meet my protein requirements, but I wasn't going near those shakes again.
Today's food was much better. I had cottage cheese for a late breakfast, a Lean Cuisine with 22 grams of protein for lunch, South Beach bars for my snack, and I'm going to get chicken or steak with a salad or steamed veggies for dinner when we go out tonight. I have no idea what the scale will say tomorrow considering it's taken me so long to get my act together this week. However, I vow to keep my cool, even if the number stays the same or goes up.
A few weeks ago, my husband made the point that this whole process is more about the end result than the weekly weigh ins. As long as I don't give up, the end result will be a smaller me. A smaller, but stronger, me.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Dreams Can Come True
This morning I dreamt that I slept late and missed my workout and ended up having to join the 11am class. Then I woke up early, like I usually do when I have dreams like this. When I laid back down to catch another 15 minutes of snooze, however, I slept late and missed my workout and ended up having to join the 11am class.
The workout was good, although I missed my group. One of the people in the 11am class was surly and another left pools of sweat on everything. Our trainer actually had to tell the sweater to go get a towel-it was that bad. As for the workout, we did one circuit of legs and then spent the bulk of the time on our arms. Nothing fancy, just a variety of presses, curls, and pull downs. At the end of class we did a short ab section that was basic, but really worked every muscle in my gut. I think the intensity was because I was moving through a wider range of motion now that my abs are getting stronger.
It felt so good to work out again. I moved around a lot this weekend, but it wasn't the same as an intense guided workout. My body is happy today. In fact, extra happy, because Jeff let me warm up on the elliptical machine instead of doing jumping jacks! I got there early, so I did 15 minutes on the elliptical instead of 2 minutes of jumping jacks, but it was worth it. I have blisters on my feet from a pair of evil sandals I wore yesterday and I don't want to jump on them.
I'm a little worried about this week's weigh in even though I'm only shooting for a pound. My eating has been off for the last few days and I desperately need to go grocery shopping, so I'm still not back on track. I didn't have anything for breakfast today, but I picked up a salad for lunch and sardines for a snack. I have food for dinner, but I don't know what I'll eat tomorrow if I don't get to the store.
I don't know if I'll have time to go to the store tonight, though, because I need to swing by my school after work. Classes start next week and I need to order my books and get a form signed for my student loan deferment. I tried to look for my books online, but the college is listing some cryptic ISBN number that isn't showing up in any searches. I have a feeling it doesn't match what's actually on the book. Since I need to get my deferment form signed in person, I'm going to do some detective work at the bookstore while I'm on campus.
As excited as I am about all of my new endeavors, I'm getting nervous about my soon to be packed schedule. Really I'll only be utilizing time formerly wasted in front of the TV, but it's still scary. At least the summer classes are only five weeks long.
Does hyperventilating burn calories?
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
The Good, The Bad, and The Meh
The Good:
I spent a solid two thirds of this holiday weekend walking around outside. Saturday we went to Brew at the Zoo and walked around the vendors stalls and ventured into the zoo for a long walk. Animals are extra interesting when you've been drinking. Especially the odd ones: "Wait, does that deer have stripes? What the.." On Sunday we woke up early to go to Six Flags. It wasn't crowded at all, so we didn't waste time standing in lines. We covered the whole park at least twice. There was so much walking that I passed out on the couch as soon as we got home at 10pm.
The Bad:
My eating was all over the place this weekend. I barely had an appetite, so my eating schedule was way off. The only thing that made me want to eat was drinking, which only made me want to eat bad food. I haven't filled in my food diary for the past three days yet. It wasn't pretty. I don't think my total calories were excessively high, but the food choices and timing were bad. The only upshot is that it made me feel slow and icky, so I'm craving green peppers now. Green peppers are the only thing I want to eat though, which brings us to "the meh".
The Meh:
In order to keep my protein intake high despite my low appetite, I bought a huge tub of protein powder to make shakes. However, it tastes terrible and is giving me even less of an appetite. The guy at the store said that this is his favorite brand and one of the best flavors, but we apparently have different taste. The powder is cookies and cream flavor and tastes like melted ice cream. I don't have much of a sweet tooth, so I can barely choke it down. Unfortunately, holding my nose and chugging is more appealing to me right now than eating a plate of eggs or chicken. I'd even be up for an IV drip instead of eating. On one hand, this is better than over eating. On the other hand, an alien has clearly possessed my body. How else could I not want to eat?
The Etc.:
I was too pooped from the weekend to workout yesterday, and our training was cancelled due to the holiday. Tonight I'm going to do an hour of DDR. My body needs to shake and sweat out the alcohol and grease of the weekend. I can't wait to get back to training tomorrow. The most weight lifting I did this weekend was doing squats with my husband on my back because I was in a silly mood.
I did end up buying shorts on Friday, although it took nearly three hours at Target to find them. I didn't want capris, nor did I want denim underwear. Denim underwear is all they were selling in the Juniors department. I found one pair in a decent length in the misses section (if you can call it a section-it was one rack), but they were acid wash. Apparently, I time travelled since I was there so long. Eventually I went to the women's/plus size section and found some nice denim shorts in a cut and color from this decade. I bought a pair in 16W and wore them with a belt. I may have to continue cinching these forever, because I refuse to wear shorts with less than a one inch inseam, even if I'm in a size 6.
In happier shorts related news, I didn't feel self-conscious at all wearing them all day Saturday and Sunday in public. No pictures to show though-all I have are pictures of animals' behinds (remember, I was drinking at the zoo).
On Monday morning, my husband was rubbing my leg and he stopped, shocked, and put both hands around my thigh. He said my thighs are getting much smaller. Ahem. He said my thighs are getting much smaller! I'm still floating over this comment (this is the same husband who bought me roses on Saturday-he's the best). I had asked him to tell me as soon as he noticed any changes, but he hadn't said anything yet. Every time I pull out another shirt that fits anew, he just kind of grunts & nods. So, this genuine comment about my least favorite body part is just wonderful.
Having a plan of action last week brought me great results. Here's this week's plan: South Beach Phase I plus icky protein shake, DDR for an hour every night until the weekend. I'm only trying for one pound of loss this week since I know the weekend didn't go well. It will be a quality pound though, because it will put me under 200 lbs.
Hey, did you hear the one about my thighs getting smaller? Can I tell you again???
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Still Going Strong
I am literally working my butt off. I've been consistently putting in my hour of DDR each night and sticking to my low carb diet. My jeans are feeling looser, enough so that I wore a belt today. It's been a while since any of my belts even fit me. I'm so excited for the weigh in tomorrow. In addition to weighing in, the trainers will be taking our updated measurements. I'm expecting some great news.
I've decided that even though I've changed the diet a little bit, I'm going to keep the idea of taking a day off. This Saturday, I'm having S'mores ice cream for breakfast, heading to a beer and wine festival for lunch, and going to a pig roast at my neighbor's house for dinner. It's going to be a delicious piggy day. I even have an excuse for eating a lot: eating more a few days a week keeps your metabolism high when you're on a diet.
I deserve the indulgence. Last night, my husband was eating Chunky Monkey ice cream right next to me and I refused his offer to let me taste it. It smelled really good, but I stuck to my diet cherry coke. Tonight I will be practicing the will of steel again. We're going to see the new Pirates movie at the theater with the best popcorn around here, and I'm not having any. I can't even sneak in some nuts to snack on, because I'm staying away from them until I have proof whether they were causing my headaches or not. So far, it looks like they were, but I'm giving it a month.
On a daily basis I am wowed at my new ability to make decisions and stick to them. It might be easy for some people, but I usually get sucked in by TV or beer or tortilla chips or the couch or my kitties. I have a remarkable ability to do nothing. In the past two months, I've been so productive and focused that I feel...I don't know...it's like I'm growing up or finding myself.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
She's a Maniac...
...And She's Dancing Like She's Never Danced Before.
Last night I played another hour of DDR. I was tempted to lay on the couch all night (and did for a significant portion of it), but I got up and did my workout anyway. My husband was playing on his Nintendo DS while I boogied in front of the TV and when the screen declared I had achieved my workout goal, he said, "I can't believe you actually set that for an hour and did it." He wasn't being rude, it's just that usually once I'm on the couch, that's where he sees me for the rest of the night. This whole idea of making commitments to myself and not breaking them is very new, but I like it.
After a nice night of DDR, broccoli, TV, and kitties, I got to wake up at 6:30 am to get ready to go to my real workout. I got there early and decided to pass the time by testing out the scale that reduced me to tears last Friday. I'm trying to avoid all of the extra scale hopping, but I was pretty confident that the strict diet and extra exercise had at least gotten rid of the evil .8. Boo yah! I've lost 3 lbs! (I'm not bolding that just in case I jinx Friday.) I was so excited that I ran into the gym and interrupted the early class to tell my trainer. I was so excited that I lifted heavier weights during our workout. I was so excited that I almost got stuck in the mirror after I changed because I was so busy gazing at the hotness that is I minus three. (I know I shouldn't get so caught up in a number, but I don't know how I ever got to be over 200 lbs and I am very close to being back under it.)
Our workout today was pretty standard: jumping jacks, frogs, abs, and various weight stations. We did squats on the BOSU again, which we haven't done since way back in our first workout. I am a squatting machine now, but the BOSU still made me do them extremely slowly. Trainer Jeff remembered my comment about the wall squats from Monday, so we got to do those today, too. I still can't get over how intense wall squats with a medicine ball between your knees are. I could even feel my abs getting involved and shaking today. I love this exercise, but I think I'll wait a little while before requesting it again so no one throws a dumbbell at me.
In less than an hour, it will be time for me to go home and play DDR for another hour. I'm having salad with baked chicken for dinner. You won't hear any complaints from me, because I saw hotness in the mirror this morning. I can't believe it's been almost a month since I started this whole shebang. If the program doesn't get extended and ends in two months as was planned, I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. I never thought I would utter these words, but I have an exercise routine.
Monday, May 21, 2007
I'm back!
Wow. Friday was not a good day for me. To anyone who was concerned about me over the weekend, I climbed out of the hole. I'm back to my usual self today and I was raring to go for the workout this morning. It was a good one. I even enjoyed the jumping jacks, because I was so ready to dive back into this competition. I did a lot of thinking Friday and over the weekend and here's what I decided: I would eat whatever I wanted this weekend to get my poutiness out of my system and to prepare to crack the whip on my diet. Starting Monday (today), it's back to South Beach Phase I, because the only time I ever lost significant weight was when I followed that diet. If energy during workouts becomes an issue, I'll add some fruit. Along with the diet changes, I'm adding 5 extra hours of cardio this week. These are the changes I need to make this week to ensure I get the motivation of seeing results on Friday.
I apologized to my trainer today for ignoring him after I got my results. He said it was fine and that he went in and checked them after I left. The other trainers told him I wasn't too happy. He was surprised by my results last week as well. He told me that he's been noticing that I'm really slimming down and toning up, which was awesome to hear since he always sees me at my grubbiest. He said that when he saw me in my regular clothes on Friday that I looked even smaller so he was expecting a big loss. In so many words, he said that I've been busting my butt at the workouts and that I should stick with it and not be discouraged. It was a lot more effective when he said that today than when the other trainers said it on Friday, since he's actually seeing my progress. When someone who works out for a living and sees you turning red and dripping with sweat says you're getting slimmer, it blows away the biggest of gold stars that any teacher could give you. [I can't wait to get home and tell my husband, who I'm sure will respond with, "I told you so."]
Now for the actual workout part of today's workout. We started with a similar breakdown to Friday: weights, abs, cardio. At the weight station, we did bicep curls for the first time in this whole competition. We also did leg work, revisiting the band-around-the-ankles move (hereby dubbed The Band Shuffle) and wall squats. Anyone who has ever done a wall squat will tell you that they are hard, especially when your trainers make you hold them for minutes on end. Today, our trainer made them harder. While in the squat, we had to hold an eight pound medicine ball between our knees. Every muscle in my thighs was burning. It started with the inner thighs, then spread until even my outer hips were burning. I asked Jeff if we could do these again on Wednesday since anything so painful must be very effective. I only got a few dirty looks from the other girls.
Another interesting move we did was a variation on the bridge pose. We did it with our heels on the center of the BOSU trainer, slowly lifting each heel to take tiny steps up and down while holding our hips as high as we could. I could feel my thighs working to maintain stability. A few days ago, we did a different variation where you get into the bridge pose and then hold it while straightening one leg after the other, keeping your knees together. Frankly, the pose is challenging enough for me in its original form, but I guess the variations keep it interesting.
At the ab station, we did bicycles and dying bugs and then moved to leg extensions. I've never been good at them. You lie on your back with your hands under your tail bone and your knees to your chest. Slowly, extend your legs until they are straight and about six inches from the ground. I remember the first time I attempted these in middle school-I could not even do one. All of my weight is centered around my hips and thighs and my abs couldn't hold them. Well, today, I was able to do them! My legs were closer to a foot off the ground, but my abs still got a good workout. Speaking of progress, I did so much better at the incline push-ups today that Jeff noticed and commented.
Summary: Workouts work and I'm back in the game and ready to work even harder.
[It may pay off even more than I thought, because there are rumors that the program will be extended if most people stick with it. I can't say no to free training!]
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
CHOCOLATE
Last night, I had a craving for something sweet that could not be tamed by my usual diet cherry coke. I needed chocolate. Luckily, there was nearly a full carton of chocolate soy ice cream in the freezer. I bought it a while ago, but hadn't eaten much because the flavor wasn't quite right. However, since I've gone several weeks with barely any dairy or sugar, it tasted delicious last night. It tasted like the richest, chocolatiest ice cream I've ever had. Not bad for 130 calories and 3 grams of fat per half cup serving. I went ahead and called it a meal and had a whole cup. To make sure my meal was balanced, I added a tablespoon of peanut butter-all natural, of course. What a yummy dinner! A few hours later, I had a salad with chick peas as my dessert.
Other than last night's treat, I'm getting into a routine (or rut) with my weekday eating. I have a peanut butter sandwich with cinnamon or apple butter for breakfast in the car on the way to work. I have an apple and ten cashews for my morning and afternoon snacks. I have salad or leftovers for lunch. I have salad or soup for dinner. There's not really a problem, but a think a little more variety at dinner time would help. As it is, I wait as long as I can to eat it because I'm just not interested. Also, I miss cooking. Chopping vegetables is not as interesting as juggling a bunch of pots around the stove and seeing what I can whip up. On the other hand, I don't have much time for meal preparation, so I'm not sure what the solution is. I'm going to be even busier once school starts, so I guess now is the time to experiment.
The diet is definitely working. This morning I noticed that I am losing fat. How could I tell? My boobs are shrinking. While I'm not exactly overjoyed about this, it's not the worst thing that could happen. All of my bras were too small anyway. Maybe now I won't have so much of an issue with the dreaded quad-boob.
Interestingly, the same morning I notice the shrinkage, I get a ton of (unwanted) male attention on the walk to work. First, a shuttle bus driver pulls over and leans out of his window to say hello. Then I had to walk through a group of construction workers who were standing on the sidewalk and all wanted to say good morning and then talk about my body as I walked away. I guess they didn't see I had ears since they were so busy looking at my butt. I hate being looked at like that. It's not a compliment. Guys start eyeing you up from a block away and stare with their eyeballs gogging out like idiots. It's so uncomfortable. I try to avoid eye contact so they won't talk to me, but I shouldn't have to walk around with my head down because some men don't understand that it's not polite to stare.
It's going to be interesting to see how I deal with this as I get smaller. Of course, if I lose all the weight and start walking around buck naked all the time, people will probably stare more. At least then it would be understandable.
Monday, May 7, 2007
It's Monday already?
This morning, in spite of an obnoxiously loud alarm clock and a cat licking my face, I did not wake up in time for my morning workout. Old Me would have accepted this and gone through the day feeling down on myself for sleeping late and missing something so important. New Me decided to be resourceful and stay on track. On the way to work, I stopped into the gym to ask the trainer if he had any classes today that were under capacity. I may have missed my 8am workout, but I made it up at 11am. Take that, comfy warm bed! (Admittedly, a huge part of my motivation to make up the workout was that I didn't want to have to admit to my husband that I skipped a workout on the second week. Ah, accountability.)
It turns out you can sweat just as much at 11am as you can at 8am. Guess what we did today? Did you guess jumping jacks? Good job! We also jumped rope, which made me feel like a boxer. It was a little tricky to do in a basement gym though. The rest of the workout consisted of weight & ab circuit training. My abs are so much weaker than when I was doing yoga regularly. On a brighter note, my legs are already getting much stronger. If only the fat would melt off as quickly as the muscle builds up. Maybe by the end of this competition I'll be ready to run again. That should speed up the fat melting.
This weekend went fairly well food-wise. Friday was supposed to be my day off from the diet because I was heading to a party. However, all the food at the party was healthy and I didn't even drink that much because I had a headache. That's how Saturday became my day off. I ate movie theater popcorn with butter on it. And two slices of pizza. And a few brownies. Honestly though, I consumed less than I would have on a typical Saturday before this all started. Sunday I was back on plan and carried food with me so I could eat right and on schedule. My friend surprised me by bringing over steamed crabs for dinner, but that still fit in my diet because of all the protein.
So far, so good.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Food, Food, & More Food
As I mentioned before, eating right is a huge part of this program. We have to eat small balanced meals every few hours. Everyone is going around work saying "Ugh, I have to eat again!." I'm a little bit more comfortable with this way of eating, because it is similar to the South Beach diet I did a few years ago. I'm used to carrying snacks with me and watching the clock so I eat on time. It worked really well for me before, so hopefully I'll get awesome results with all this exercise piled on top of the diet. Here's a sample day of what I'm eating so far:
Meal 1 (7am): egg sandwich (2 slices of Canadian bacon & 3 egg whites on 2 slices of wheat bread w/ hot sauce)
Meal 2 (9:45am): apple, 10 cashews
Meal 3 (1pm): small mixed salad w/ 1 tbsp. light Italian dressing, 3/4 c. homemade FF black bean soup w/ 1 oz. cheddar
Meal 4 (3:15pm): apple, 10 cashews
Meal 5 (6:30pm): spinach salad (baby spinach, 5 baby portobella mushrooms, 1 c. cottage cheese, crushed cherry peppers, salsa, hot sauce)
Meal 6-optional-I've been opting out of a 6th meal most nights and having some diet cherry coke as a sweet fix instead.
For now I've just been jotting down my meals in the journal they gave us, but I might plug some of this into SparkPeople.com to see what the actual calories look like if I have time.
Updates:
*I almost forgot to mention that I've had 10-11 glasses of water to drink each day since this started.
**I plugged it into Spark. This day I came in just under 1,200 calories with 84 grams of protein. I'm not aiming for a particular calorie range, just balanced meals, so that total is interesting. I'm particularly surprised that my dinner was under 300 calories. It was huge and I was stuffed afterwards.
Friday, April 27, 2007
The First Meeting
This morning was the first informational meeting about the weight loss competition. Bottom line: this whole thing is one heck of a sweet deal. Set aside the fact that right now I'm munching on a gorgeous Mediterranean panini with goat cheese and gobs of olive oil and let me tell you how I'm going to lose weight. The competition doesn't start until Monday after all.
For the next 12 weeks, I get regular workouts with my own personal trainer who will kick my ass and monitor my weight, body fat, and measurements. They'll also be keeping tabs on my food journal. If at any time I have questions or need motivation, I can call or email my personal trainer or one of the other trainers running the program. When I'm feeling discouraged and want to give up because I'm not seeing results, I can talk to a pro and get my program tweaked instead of just complaining to my friends. There are also over a hundred other people in my company participating in this challenge, so there will be plenty of people who 'feel my pain' that I can turn to. And if the thought of winning $1,000 and losing weight isn't enough to keep me accountable, our results are being reported weekly to the company CFO.
We spent about an hour at today's meeting going over nutrition information and meal plans. One thing that I already love about this program is that they acknowledge what a huge role diet plays in all of this. According to them, nutrition makes up 70% of the weight loss equation, strength training and cardio make up the rest. In conversations I've had with trainers before, they were much more focused on the exercise portion and gave very vague instructions to "eat right" or "eat a lot of protein" without much further guidance. I'm very happy to have specific direction.
The main guidelines they gave us were pretty familiar: eat plenty of lean protein and veggies, moderate amount of complex carbs, and drink lots of water. They also want us to eat 6 times a day which will probably be challenging at first, but I'm going to lean on their sample meal suggestions for the first few weeks to make it easier. You hear that? They gave us 5 days of sample menus that include 6 meals a day. Thank you! I am going to be waking up 2 hours earlier than usual to go to the gym. I can't handle too much extra planning on top of that. As far as the food journal, I think it's going to be a lot easier than the online versions I've tried in the past. They gave us mini notebooks that are preprinted with blocks for each of the meals and little boxes to check off for how much water we've drank. The beauty thing is that they are not going to make us monitor calories unless our weight loss gets stuck, so all I have to do is write down the foods and not spend hours looking them up.
So. Whereto from here? This weekend I need to plan out next week's meals, clean out my cabinets, shop, and prep as much food as I can. Monday I face a treadmill, a scale, and a measuring tape. And a fun electrical doohickey that will measure my body fat. No calipers! Yay!
...It should also be noted that they gave us a whole page of information as to why we should take off one day a week from our plan. I like these people.
Weight Loss Progress
