Thursday, September 30, 2010

Weigh in day!!! :)

I lost another 2.6lbs this week. I am so happy to keep my weight loss momentum. 190 feels so close! Maybe another 2 or 3 weeks and I'll be there.

This past weekend I sorted through my clothes and separated all my size 18 stuff to take to the goodwill store. I am comfortably fitting into all my old size 16 pants, and incredibly enough, I did fit into one size 14 non-stretch jeans! It was still a bit too snug, though, so I'm waiting on that one.

Today I went swimming at my gym. Add that to the list of things I've been doing lately that I hadn't done in forever:
Swimming, jumping rope, jogging, cartwheels, jumping jacks... 

I love it! I love being active and feeling like my body can do anything! Zumba and "So you think you can dance" have really inspired me to keep finding new ways to dance. One of my dreams is to be good at swing dancing, so I'll start looking into that soon. I also want to get to a point where I can jog/run comfortably.

My heart rate monitor helps me keep on top of the fat burning zone and keeps me accountable for mazimizing my workout, so now I've started to do short bursts of jogging interspersed with my lunch time walk. That helps keep my heart rate in the 130s.

I feel like I'm just rambling on and on about fitness now, and I can hardly recognize myself. Time to end this post. Good night everyone! Stay healthy!


Original weight: 222lbs
Current weight: 194.4lbs
Pounds lost: 27.6lbs

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Feeling Great - keep leaving me, pounds!

Last night I felt sore all over! The GOOD kind of sore: Abs tight and slightly aching, legs hurting a bit as I went up the stairs, upper back and triceps making themselves known every now and then...  It turns out this class I took Monday night did the trick: "Power Hour" (or more like "Power 45 minutes"!).

The teacher is new to the gym and she seems to be from a slavic country (judging from ther accent). The class consists in a series of rotation exercises, some cardio and some weights. She had us spend 1:30m in each exercise, and during the last 30 seconds she'd have us speed it up. Then it was time to move onto the next one. During the class I got tired and kind of breathless a few times (jumping rope, anyone?).

I also was very much challenged by the push-ups on the ball, and the steps on the bosu ball. After 11 different stations (there were 11 of us), she had us pair up and do some squats while squeezing the big ball and throwing it to each other. To top it all off, she had us finish with a tough partner ab exercise where I had to lift my legs from the ground, while my partner pushed them down! A few weren't bad, but try doing it for a minute and a half! That was killer!!

One of her tricks is during the final count-down of every exercise, the teacher would go "5, 4, 3, 2, 2, 2, 1"! Nice...

During the class I felt challenged and wasn't sure whether I was liking it or not. The next evening I felt "the good kind of sore" I mentioned above, and now I'm convinced I have to take this class again. After all, "change is the right combination of discomfort and hope" :) 

Happy exercising!

Friday, September 24, 2010

The Cowboy Hip Hop

This made me laugh so hard today at work, I had to re-post it here. Priceless!

I just love the psychotic look on her face when she says "Cowboy Hip Hop"!

Thursday, September 23, 2010

I love those old-school scales!

What a satisfying feeling! I actually got to move the big weight down from 200 to 150 this week. I know the little weight had to go all the way up to 48, but that's still better than being above 200! Now it's only down from here!
To celebrate, I'm posting the picture of my weight at the Gym tonight:




Wooohoooo! :D

Today was also my Weight Watchers meeting/weigh in: 2lbs down from last week (despite my weekend escapade!) 197 it is. Goodbye 200s!

Original weight: 222lbs
Current weight: 197lbs
Pounds lost: 25lbs

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Back on Track - new challenges

Thanks to my light eating, exercising and drinking tons of water, my Wii Fit plus showed me back where I was on Friday again. Now it's a matter of 25.5 hrs to see what my weigh in will say. And that is enough obsessing about a number on the scale for this week.

Yesterday I went to Zumba class after having missed the last 3 classes and it felt amazing. Zumba has truly become the best aerobic exercise for me. It's so much fun, and I hardly notice 1 hour passing. I'm too busy keeping up with the steps!!!

Also, I wore my heart rate monitor watch for the 2nd time on that class, and this time I burned 494 calories in 1 hour (last time it marked 534calories). This is great! If I had zumba 7 days a week I'd be burning off 1 lb a week (3500 = 1lb). Sadly, Zumba is  not offered 5 days a week at my gym, so on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I end up doing elliptical and weights. I have heard Turbo Kick is good, so I'll try that someday. Does anyone have recommendations for good cardio classes?

Another challenge I've been faced with recently is how to adjust my planned meals and snacks down by 1 point. As you may know, when you lose weight and go down to the next lowest 10 pound threshold, WW recalcs your points and you usually end up going down a point.

When you start, part of the big change is eating within your points, but what happens when your points keep shrinking? I'm down to 25 now, and starting to face the challenge of minimizing the "pointage" on my snacks. Usually my snacks are 2 points, but that eats up my points for the day very quickly due to the fact that lunch and dinner are about 6 to 7 points each, and breakfast is about 5. Without snacks, that's 18 points. This means I either take my snacks down, or take my main meals down. What do you think I should do?

Monday, September 20, 2010

Being Sick Sucks!

So my last post was about my lack of energy. Guess what? It turns out I really was sick. I had a cold that lingered all week long. Thursday I took a sick day from work and spent all day horizontal.
I had been so happy that evening, when I went to my WW meeting and weighed in at 199lbs! I had finally made it below 200. My plan was to take a picture of the scale at the gym, with the little weight thing sliding down to the 150 mark (of course the other one would be at the 49 lb mark, but whatever... ) The problem is that there were several factors dampening the progress:
1) I was sick
2) I had not been able to work out all week due to # 1.
3) I went on a weekend trip from Friday night to Sunday night where I ate out more than I should.

On point # 3, it's so hard to stay on plan when you're out on a trip. Even if you try to make good choices, it's still not the same as cooking low fat meals at home.

This morning I was rudely reminded of the consequences of eating too much and not working out when I weighed myself on the Wii Fit Plus (I decided to use that as a gage for my daily progress because it shows the difference from the last time I weighed in). It told me I was UP 4lbs from Thursday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That means if my weigh in was today, I'd be at 203. Yikes! How do you recover from that? I was so hopeful that I had left the 200s for good, but I have a little bit of damage control to do in order to make that happen.

It's ok, though. I'll get back on track: I'll go to the gym tonight, since I'm feeling better, and I'm back on my low points routine.

It will all work out.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Where did my energy go?

After last Thursday's weigh in, I continued to strongly pursue a higher level of fitness and to challenge myself. Both Thursday and Friday nights I did 1 hr on the elliptical followed by weights. Saturday morning: Zumba.

After that, I went to a pic-nic with my kids. We had a great time in a larger group of friends. We played badminton, danced, I even flipped a few cartwheels with some little girls (guess how many years it'd been since I'd done a cartwheel!). Later that afternoon a group of us went on a walk to go see Elk in the nature preserve we were in. That was a good walk, but not super long. Another hour of dancing and I was exhausted by the evening.

I went home and listened to music while reading my book on my couch. My feet never felt so relieved!

Sunday morning I went to Zumba again. I love that class so much and can't miss it. I wore my new heartrate monitoring watch and saw that I burned 530 calories in one hour of that class!

After returning home I was completely drained! I spent most of the rest of my day in the couch doing nothing! I couldn't believe my exhaustion and blamed it on my adventures of the previous day. I'd concluded all my crazy working out had finally caught up with me. Little did I know, I was starting a cold and didn't know about it. This morning I woke up with a sore throat and feeling generally crappy.

So now I'm wondering: was my exhaustion caused by all the activities I've been doing lately or was it caused by my impending cold? I'm leaning towards the cold answer. I really believe if I didn't have this cold, I might have been tired but not completely drained like I was yesterday.

Tonight I'll either not work out at all, or maybe go to the hot tub at the gym. I'm having some muscle soreness on my back which could use some hot water relaxation.

Does anyone have any suggestions to get my energy level back up?

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Another 3 bite the dust!

200.2!! If all goes well this next week, I'll be under 200lbs next week. I'm so happy.

I've even put up pictures in this blog  to show my progress. Almost 22lbs lost and I feel healthier than I have in a long time. I feel generally more fit and energetic. This alone is already incentive to keep me going. Today I actually sprinted through the hallway at work! When was the last time I did that???

I've been doing good with working out: Zumba 3 times a week, elliptical & weights the other days. I've also been reading this awesome series on my ipod touch while I'm on the elliptical so I don't get bored.

Foodwise, it's been mostly easy to stay on plan. The hard times are usually at night, after all is said and done. I end up craving chips, or cheese, or butter! NOT GOOD! So for chips, I have popchips (2pts). For cheese, I have low fat string cheese. For butter.. I have one of those no cholesteral spreads...

Now, if only they could invent a low fat low cal Nutella, I'd be all set! :)

Good things that are helping me along the way:
- my pedometer
- low fat cottage cheese
- greek yogurt
- my Avi-motion shoes
- new sports bra
- ipod touch
- deli flats
- egg whites
- brown rice
- fiber one yogurt
- salmon
- low fat popcorn
- email motivators: newsletters from Jillian Michaels, Hungry Girl and Weight watchers.
- my Wii fit plus, for daily accountability.

On to another 20 lbs!!! See you soon 180! :)

Original weight: 222lbs
Current weight: 200.2lbs
Pounds lost: 21.8lbs

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Getting closer...

I had another weigh in today and I'm getting closer and closer to 200lbs! I can't wait to get into the 190s!!!! :)
I feel great! I had my doubts about whether I would lose this week because I feel I indulged myself a bit more than ususal with beer and a couple of low-point desserts (I also had the pre-cursor to "that time of the month" which only complicates things on the weight loss trail.). And yet, I still managed to lose another 1.4lbs! Wooohooo!

The meeting was about exercising, and I was surprised to find out there were still a few people who didn't exercise on a regular basis even though they're on weight watchers. Then everyone was giving this one guy ideas on why he should exercise and helpful things they can do, until this one older guy started rambling about his family member who had a stroke due to diabetes.

That's when I had to leave to go to zumba class, but I ask myself: Is a scare tactic like that likely to work? Don't most of us become obese despite the general knowledge that being so is bad for our health (much like smokers, who are sick and tired of knowing the ill effects of cigarretes and yet still do it anyway)? I hope this guy starts exercising for his own good, not because someone scared him into doing so.

Onto lighter subjects, this past weekend I went shopping and bought myself a pair of "aspirational jeans"! They're a nice pair of size 10 boot cuts. I'm going to be taking pictures of my progress with the jeans, until the day I can fit into them. I have no idea what exact size is my goal of 137 lbs, so If I get there and I'm a size 10, fantastic! If not, I'll just get a smaller size! ;)

My size 18 jeans are really lose on me, and I'm fitting into a 16.  Soon it will be 14, then 12, then 10!


Original weight: 222lbs
Current weight: 203.2lbs
Pounds lost: 18.8lbs

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Why are weekends so tough?

This past weekend, though busy, was truly challenging towards my staying on points. A couple of beers and late night muchies probably set me back more than I'd like to admit. On the other hand, I did spend most of my waking hours on my feet and not on the couch, so that's a win.

So far this week I've been able to get back on track with my points and routine.  Going to the gym for at least 1 hr every night is really changing my habits. I've been coming home to feed my kids, do homework, and then off to the gym for 1 hour. By the time I get back (I often stop somewhere afterwards for a quick errand), it's 8:30 or almost 9. I shower and only then sit down to "do the internet" while watching TV. Since I'm tired from the day, I soon go to sleep sometimes before 10:30. Just like that, my evening routine has gone from 3:30 hours on the couch to 1:30 hours on the couch (if that!).

This is making me consider dropping HBO and reducing my cable package. For a TV junkie like me, this is truly remarkable!

Change is good, if it will make me stop being a couch potato and actually have a healthy lean body. :)