9 posts tagged “lessons learned”

I'm at my MIL's now. :)

Yesterday I had emailed the "coach" at leanness lifestyle and told him that I needed to cancel my membership b/c it was just an additional cost I couldn't afford to do right now. I checked this morning and I could still get on, but by 10:00 am it wasn't even recognizing my name anymore. Ah well. I've switched over to the *FREE* www.fitday.com which I don't think is as accurate with calculating calorie expenditures, but it'll do. It's saving me 45.00 so I'll do it.

For workout this morning I did the Biggest Loser DVD which has weight training and cardio. I was POURING sweat by the end. I immediately went into the Fit Channel's "Namaste Yoga" that I had recorded the day before to help with my stretching. So I got a little over 1 hour and 20 minutes of workout.

So here's what my workouts logged as 312 c

Food (still doing the 6 day diet April suggested)

2 glasses of water first thing.

M1: 1/2 grapefruit, 4 egg whites scrambled w/ 1oz banana peppers.

M2: 3.5 oz turkey breast, 1/2 potato, 1 c raspberries, frozen

M2: 2 oz turkey breast, 3 oz raw sugar snap peas

M3: 2 oz turkey breast, 3oz carrott chips

M4: 3.5oz turkey breast, 2/3c green beans steamed, 1/2 steamed sweet potato (WHILE watching everybody else enjoy lasagna & garlic texas toast.... but I stayed strong)

M5: (8:45pm, should have been in bed already and could have avoided)  1pc texas toast, 1 slice amish bread, 2 oz turkey breast.  (if I would have just eaten the apple I could have avoided my overall fat content being so high. It was the two breads that knocked me "outta wack".

Total cals: 1127c, 118carbs (40%), 104 protien (38%), 26(22%)

Had over a gallon of water today. :)

So I have MADE it overall, considering. I wish I wouldn't have buckled, but I'm not beating myself up. Keep Moving Forward. I dont know if you've seen Meet the Robinsons, but its a SWEET little movie and I LOVE the part about where the Motto "Keep moving forward" comes from. It ran across my mind so I thought I'd share. :)

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It seems like it was YEARS ago, but I use to be pretty hard core on Body for Life. One of the things the author wrote in his book was that if you fail to plan then you should PLAN to FAIL.

I am accutely aware that the times I normally "fall off the bandwagon" is when I travel. If I go to my parents in particular, but I've also noticed I occasionally go by the wayside at my MIL's and forget about it on "vacation".

Well, this weekend I'm planning on SUCCEEDING. So I went ahead and measured EVERYTHING out for every meal, placed it in a baggy (including steam fresh bags) and packed it by day in gallon size bags. On the outside I wrote my meal plan for that day.

On Saturday I'm short ONE meal b/c I'm planning on taking a "splurge" when we take my Mother In Law out for dinner Saturday night for Mothers Day at one of the local resturants. I'm hoping to get a nice juicy steak and a "loaded" baked potato, and of course some dessert. The county is dry so I wont be getting in any alcohol, but its ok b/c right now I'm not really craving it so much. I know Creekside (resturant name) is a seafood resturant though, so if I can't get that I'll just go for the fish. I'm not craving anything fried at all, but would enjoy some hushpuppies if available, YUMMERS. Right now I only wanting sweets to be honest.

See all the pretty colors planned for Sunday?

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So there you go, my plan for this weekend. My mil has a computer at her house so I'll be mosting "actual consumption" and workouts in the evening as planned. They have a big walking track that I'll be visiting every morning to run it out with my fabulous new MUSIC. :)

So there you go. I planned, now I plan to succeed.

Instead of taking my scale and measuring tape with me to my MIL's house today I went ahead and weighed.

In the past 4 days I've lost 2.6 lbs. :) which avgs about .65 lb a day.  Not bad.  I've also lost 4.6 lbs over the course of

11 days.

Last weeks stats:                  This weeks stats:              Change

Ok, does ANYTHING in this picture look natural? NO?! Well thats cause only CRAZY people can do it!. Let me explain....

Pilates_work_4

We had bootcamp again this morning with April b/c she has a wedding on Friday in FL. Intead of my good sweat-filled workout I had a torture-filled pilates session. Can I tell you that I SUCK at pilates?!

First off, from years of running and NOT stretching my hip flexors are in terribly tight shape. There are times when I cannot do ab work with my legs even at table-top b/c it KILLS my flexors so much. I also have had two LARGE babies, which has given me some mommy damaged abs that are quite a sight. Now, I'm not complaining, I know I can do anything I put my mind to. But do I REALLY wanna put my mind to THIS? ----->

We were also on some lovely HARD concrete and with my 50-cent mat I bought at the Thrift Store I was feeling it. My sweet sunburn on my shoulders has still not subsided either BTW.

I think that the bottom line is that I dont like NOT being able to do something well. I mean, I simply could not do it, once again proving to me I'm not as strong as I thought I was. That doesn't mean I COULDN'T get good at it with some practice, but I think honestly I'd rather try out some yoga.

Also, I have this weird sweat complex. Like if I dont sweat then I feel like I didnt "technically" work out. My leanness lifestyle plug in proves this calorie burning deficit by only registering a HOUR of pilates at close to a 1/3 of what I normally burn during that time. Sooo.... me and my nerd self HAD to get on the treadmill again this morning.

I decided to do building interval (speed and height) climb today (listening to my aformentioned rad music). Started at 3.5 speed at 7.0 incline for 5 minutes, then moved to 3.5 at 9.0 incline for the next 5. The next 5-minute set I did 4.0 at 7.0 incline, then 3.7 at 9.0 incline for the following 5 (that makes 20 minutes). The next 5 I really cranked it up and ran at 4.5 at a 10.0 incline, then did 3.5 at 6.0 incline for the final 5. It was a good workout and the impact was not as hard on my legs as with running. So overall I felt good about it. AND I was sweaty, which I like.

Took Lo to school and Jo and I chilled at home a bit, then we got ready to go and watch the Kindergarten class so our teacher could go to the teacher appreciation lunch. When I was driving there I passed a bus and there were KIDS on it. I was like "what the heck?!"  As I approached the main street I saw buses everywhere, and teenagers passing me in cars. "Something's wrong," I said, " I bet they've shut down the schools." We had been watching DVR recorded Mickey Mouse Clubhouse all morning and hadn't gotten a wiff of the school closings. So we drove back home to wait for the bus to drop off Lo Lo.

I'm from Tuscaloosa, which has a tornado pass through every 5 minutes, and my moms scared to dEATH of them so she passed that along to me, but I promised my husband I'd do EVEryTHING I could do not pass the fear to my kids. So I tried to be casual in the sun room watching the news talk about potential tornado after potential tornado spring up. When they said the name of my town I took a deep breath, ready to move to our "safety" spot of a tiny laundry room (crammed with smelly needing to be washed workout wear). Anyways, it came and passed, with no damage to my area. But I just kept wondering if this was how Dorothy felt all the time....

OverRainbow

"I dont think we're in Kansas anymore Toto"

 I think "Kansas" is a code name for Alabama.

So here's what my workouts logged as 390 c (which I'm sure is not accurate, but just using the tools on the computer thats what it said)

Food (still doing the 6 day diet April suggested)

2 glasses of water first thing.

M1: (Enough spoonfulls of my daughters honey nut cherrios for me to count it as a 3/4 of a cup), 2 oz turkey breast 216 c

M2: 2 oz turkey breast, 1 c Berry Medley 141 c

M3: 3.5 oz turkey breast, 1/2 potato, 3 oz carrott chips 245 c

M4: **HERE's TORNADO TIME.. nervous eat much? 6 sheets low fat graham crackers, 2 oz turkey breast 430 c (CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT!!!!)

M5: 2oz turkey breast, 2 med stalks of celery 77c

Total cals: 1108c, 142carbs (51%), 98 protien (35%), 16(13%)

Only had right at 3 liters of water today.

I was slow with my water and felt much more HUNGRY today then I have been feeling. I know that I made an emotional decision to eat those graham crackers which is something I'm working on. I felt like my body WANTED sugar and carbs today. But I think that a major contributor was starting off weak by eating some of those cherrios.

Tomorrow we go to my MIL's for the weekend which will be a big test, but I'm packing my workout gear AND my food.

Today wasn't half-bad. I was thinking on my drive home from teaching my night class that I've been spending money like its water. I started to realize maybe I'm displacing my food addiction onto a spending addiction? I bet I've dropped 500.00 in the past three days? Not good.

So, bootcamp with April this morning 5 am... It was raining which kept us under the awning again, thereby somewhat limiting movement. The good part was I felt like I got to lift a decent amount of weights, which I've been a little slim on considering I'm not driving all the way into town to use the gym like I was when I was teaching daily. So when I logged it I logged it as 30 minutes lifting weights and 30 minutes doing calestinics (yeah, I cant spell that). When I got home I honestly did NOT feel as though I'd gotten much cardio, so I jumped on the treadmill and ran 30 minutes. I ended up finishing 2.8 miles in 30 minutes, which isn't half bad.

After showering I got the kiddos up, took logan to school and took josie to her ENT check-up on her tubes. They're doing good still so a-ok there. Then since I was in town I caught up on a little shopping. Bought a TON of shorts for Josie, which were needed since my MIL's old washer tore some of her previous clothes up. Then went over to Shoe Carnival where got my great shoes (see post below).

When I got home I remembered that I still hadn't used my ITunes gift card from Christmas so I went online and got some GREAT running music. Which has me pscyhed to just have new music honestly the other stuff was getting a bit old. Nike has some cool like coaching runs w/ music inserted, but I didnt realize that I could buy the whole cd till half my money was gone. None the less I got styles and sounds liked and can actually RUN to without having to constantly forward my mp3 player through slower paced songs.

When George got home we took a 20 minute walk around the neighborhood w/ the kids then I had to change clothes and drive BACK into town for my Interior Design Communications & Marketing course tonight. The presentations tonight were good though and I'm actually learning some stuff about Interior Design, which is interesting. Then a quick stop at Wal-Mart for a few essentials (steam bags!!) and home. When I got home I realized that my back was still KILLING from the sun-burn, but alas.... nothing I can do for now. Though I do appreciate all of yalls home remedy's I'd rather hurt then smell like vinegar! :)

Anyway, here's what my workouts logged as 1025 c

Food (still doing the 6 day diet April suggested)

2 glasses of water first thing.

M1: 1/2 grapefruit, 2 oz Jennie O turkey 118 c

M2: 2 oz turkey breast, 3 oz carrotts

M3: 1/2c (precooked) brown rice, 3.5 oz turkey breast, 2 Tbs ff sour cream, broccoli & carrots single serve 371c

M4: 2 oz Jennie O turkey, Berry Medley (frozen strawberries, rasberries, blueberries & blackberries) 141 c 

M5: Low carb tortilla, 3 oz chicken, 2 tbs salsa, 1 tbs ff sour cream, banana peppers & 3 oz carrots 299c

Total cals: 1029c, 111carbs (43%), 112 protien (43%), 14 (12%)

Also have had over a gallon of water AGAIN! Third day in a row!!!

When I use to sing the B52's song Roam I always thought it was RUN if you want to.. Run around the world. It was not till my husband, AKA the song-lyric police, informed me it was ROAM. Oh well.. I'll still say Run just to tick him off.

After boot-camp this morning with April I noticed my knees had been bothering me pretty consistantly. Know what that means? Time for new Tennies! This is NEVER dissapointing to me as I love buying new shoes and luckily Shoe Carnival is having buy one get one 1/2 off so I went ahead and bought George (Papa, my husband) a new pair. He keeps them a 2-3 year time period usually so we need to break this new pair in before walking around Disney in May.

So... check out me new shoes matey...

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Yep,. those are size 11 you be seeing me dear. Thanks to my fathers fabulous DNA (he wears a size 14!!!) and two children I've got size 10.5 feet which means I have to go up to 11's (according to Fleet Feet).

I'll be sportin these pretty shoes for tomorrows boot camp (maybe two, I'm not sure if I'll go in for the afternoon one or not). 

BTW, to keep records. Today when I got home from bootcamp I ran on the treadmills. Intervals again for 30 min. The intervals were 5.1/5.6/6.1/6.5 my level 10 minute was an 8.0 all done at a 1.0 incline. I finished my 30 min having completed 2.8 miles. I'd really like to get in 3 miles in 30 minutes, so thats my goal for the end of the month.

Sunburn2

I AM BURNED!!!!! CHAFFED & SUNBURNED!

Sunday I spent a fair amount of time in the sun. I washed the cars, without suntan-lotion which is not a great idea for a pale-face like me. So I got a little burned, not major, but some. Yesterday I walked around the neighborhood for about an hour all together. So it added a little bit more. Today however, today I got roasted.

This morning I had a meeting with the head of the Interior Decorating program I teach a Communications course for at 8:15. So I had to get a baby sitter for the day. My workout class was not till 11:45 so I had some time to burn between the two. After I left my appt around 9am I went to the office and did a little bit of work, not much, but a little bit. Around 10:15 I left and went over to the Disney Store (which they're closing by the way) to see if I could get some good deals (they're only at the 10% mark) but I still dropped around $90.00. I'm a sucker for disney stuff.

So FINALLY it was time for my "bootcamp" class at the fitness center. This class is NO JOKE btw. I was happy to see more women there today though and met a nice woman in the changing room who I partnered up with and I think we work well together and will partner up more in the future. Anyway, LAST time I went to the class it was inside the large basketball gym. TODAY however, it was outside!!! Yeah, I didnt have any sunlotion. I asked another woman who I know is in the class if I could use some of hers and it was that spray on stuff you cant tell for the life of you if its on or not. I have a burn to prove it on one shoulder and my back is HORRIFIC. But my workout was awesome. I really felt like I relaxed into it and was challenging myself. So thats a must-do for me weekly. And I DID need some sun, just not the burn to go along with it.

On the way home I stopped by lowes and got some pavers we'd been needing, some pea gravel and some mulch. Just getting that on and off the cart was a workout. After picking up Jo from the babysitters and putting her down for her nap I just went ahead and did the pavers and pea gravel, trimmed all the hedges, laid the mulch and weeded some. I figured I was already burnt so why not?! ( I DID remember to put on sun tan lotion before doing all that though).

So anyway, it was a busy day. And I missed my now-daily nap, but I'll survive. At least I wasnt up at 4:30 this morning.... but will be tomorrow.

Anyway, here's what my workout logged as 640 c

Food (still doing the 6 day diet April suggested)

2 glasses of water first thing.

M1: 1/2 grapefruit, 2 oz Jennie O turkey 118 c

M2: 3.5 oz turkey breast, 1/2 potato 209c  (at work)

M3: 2 oz Jennie O turkey, 3 LONG stalks of celery 84 c

M4: 2 oz turkey breast, 1/2 potato, 3oz carrott chips, 1 oz Bruchetta 163c

M5: 2 oz Jennie O turkey, Berry Medley (frozen strawberries, rasberries, blueberries & blackberries) 141 c 

Total cals: 714c, 74 carbs (41%), 86 protien (48%), 9 (11%)

Also have had over a gallon of water so far today and its only 6:20pm (but planning on heading to bed early tonight).

Scale

Ok, so I admit it...

When I work my hiney off one day and eat lower calories and lower sodium foods and I STILL gain it makes me flat out pissed off.

Am I over-working? Whats this crap everybody says about "its really quite easy....you just burn more calories than you take in and you lose weight"?? In what PLANET does that happen? Not where I am livin sista.

So anyway, you can guess my scale was BACK up this morning. Quite frankly it ticked me off. I moved it all around the room (hoping it was off center or something) then stepping on again and again to see that I was up 8oz from yesterday's weigh in. Thats almost a bloody POUND!

So as I was driving home from my lunch with this weeks official "splurge meal" still warm in my tummy and ice cream chasing it, I decided maybe my scale needed to take the week off.

I still put too much stock in that stupid thing. And although everybody tells me I need to make peace with the scale and realize there just "water fluxuation" (boy that phrase chaps my hide!) day to day I'm over that crap. When I have a day that I'm up after I've worked really hard before that it makes me take a "oh what the heck, eat whatever you want b/c its not gonna matter ANYWAY" day. Now, today was my scheduled splurge meal at lunch. Supposedly we do this to remind our bodies we're not starving so they'll let go of the weight, but quite frankly I was HAPPY it was today b/c I'm still ill about the dern scale.

So I'm giving my scale the week off. I'm not going to weigh again till Saturday and see how I feel and how much I'm weighing then. Life's too short for me to keep yoyoing everytime I dont "get my way".

So there we go....

Fat-v-muscle

Years ago I found this picture of 5 lbs of muscle vs 5 lbs of fat. They WEIGHT is exactly the same, but look how much smaller the 5lbs of lean muscle looks compared to the 5 lbs of lumpy, frumpy fat. Takes up a lot less room.

About 5 years ago I was obsessive about numbers on the scale until I decided to just throw away my scale. I have always had high "muscle mass", at least thats what everybody told me. The lightest # I can actually remember on the scale (when I was running track in 10th grade) was around 145 and I was in a sz 6!!! I honestly belive that if I was around 130 lbs like most women claim they want to be I would look like a bobble-head.

Still, numbers have a tendency to get under my skin. This, after all that work yesterday and burning more calories than I even ate, I was up on the scale. I'm not sure the trigger here. It could be that the pork loin I ate last night had a high sodium count that I just didnt notice, the sugar from my chips -a-hoy break down, or it could just be my body rebelling.

I've heard many times that you body is your biggest setback to your weight-loss. Really its just doing what it was designed to do, keep you alive. So when you d things to try to make it change it will rebell against you while in "survival mode", but once it realizes this is long-term it will begin to comply. So if I quit when this rebellion happens, when I get discouraged from random weight gain and quit, then my body has no reason to CHANGE.

So today I'm going to sweat that number LESS and remember what I'm looking for is that 5 lbs of LEAN muscle.

What about you? What do you do when you body rebells?