It had to happen

I'm running out of steam. It could be partially my diet yesterday - I didn't track and ate pretty poorly. But today is my favoite circuit class at the gym and I think I'm goign to skip. The past couple days have been jam packed full of activities - running from one thing to the next, and I'm just run down. I have a playdate today and I'm excited to go there, but I don't want to rush to the gym, then the playground, then the grocery store, then home in time to get Paige and then deal with the mess that follows. So, I'll skip the gym and see where that takes me.

I'm worried about this weekend. We'll be going to camp - which is not as rough as roughing it... but still away from my element. The goal is to focus on activites and not on the food. And what I need to do is bring foods that I want to eat... but I'm really looking forward to the pancake and sausage breakfast... and the late night smores and hotdogs... I need to plan ahead.

I didn't post this right away - and now it's afternoon. I skipped the gym, but I've been doing some weeding in the gardens. I am just loving the outdoors so much I even like weeding! The kids are doing pretty good outdoors too, well, at least in spurts. It's hard when mommy doesn't play with them. It's rewarding to see some progress in the gardens - there's a few too many of them at this house! Hopefully I'm burning some calories as well - I suppose I could look it up.

I should have gone to the grocery store - but I haven't decided what to buy - and frankly - I'm tired of going indoors when it's so nice out! it seems like I always have somewhere inside to be. I guess that's how it is when it's cold 75% of the year. I don't know if I was depressed before - but I'm just soaking up this nice weather! It's good for my soul!

After Vacation WI

Well, I finally got to a meeting. I wasn't there very long - time is short this week! But I weighed in. I was nervous. Yah kinda hold your breath and somehow - you feel like you're stepping lightly onto the scale and that will help....

well, the lady told me the bad news that I gained 1.6 pounds. I told her it was okay - I was on vacation! Well, when I looked at the sticker in my book - it said I gained only .6lbs!!!! And I asked her about it - I had heard her wrong! WELL ~ that's is so much better!!! I thought for sure I put on 5 pounds... and was hoping my diligent eating the past two days would help... WHOO HOOO!!!!!!!!! I guess it did! or I looked at my scale wrong - quite possible when you're sued to seeing the same thing for months ata time... I'm not used to the scale consitantly moving down!

So I'm verrry happy about all this - can't wait to see what next week looks like after a good week of tracking and eating clean. All I have to do is figure out how to make it thourgh the holiday... hmmmm....

Vacation

Well, I just returned from a glorious 10 days down south - partially with family in Alabama and partially at the beaches of Florida. Both are nicer than PA! I just loved the warm weather and time away. I purposely stayed away from the computer - which is always good for me, because I am a social and info junky and spend too much time ignoring my duties as a wife, mother and maid.

So, vacation is always good, but there's up and downs. Some deep downs.

The Up Side!!
I exercised at least every other day, sometimes more than that. I walked when there was no gym, and took advantage of the gym when I could - despite the lack of air conditioning!!! I had my HRM, so I knew how many calories I was burning, and I always kept it high (700+). So that was good. Mike was very accommodating and took care of the kids if I chose to exercise.

The Down Side. :(
I ate horribly!!!! I took a bunch of WW stuff and never tracked a point. I did try to make some healthy choices. I picked a very veggie meal for when we cooked at home. And I tried to order grilled fish when I could - but you'd think it was a crime to serve green veggies in Florida!!! Everything was fried! and the only choices were potatoes... come on people! It was rather ridiculous. I expected it at some places - but not the $200 fancy restaurant on our last night. They were willing to switch the fried platter and give me grilled grouper - but when I asked for something other than french fries... he winced. So I order a side of asparagus - which was over cooked and incredibly salty - I almost couldn't eat it. and I was trying to avoid salt. Sheesh!

So what's the damage?? Well, I can't stand fast food - so that's good! Actually, eating in general doesn't sound good to me, but I'm sure that will change. I weighed myself this morning and I was 5 pounds up. So I skipped my WW meeting and will go tomorrow. I went to the gym to help combat some of the damage. I'm hoping a few pounds will just drop now that I'm home eating normally.

Today I'm doing real good with tracking and I'm using my new food scale - which is awesome. Especially witht he fruits and veggies. Alot of my fruits have been zero points... although I'm sure together it all adds up, so I'll account for it.

I was actually thinking of looking into the zigzag diet. It's just calorie cycling, and I could still do that with WW - I would just need to figure out ~ roughly~ how many points to vary. I found another site that kinda figured it all out - very cool.

http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm#

I'm not 100% sure what my calorie set is for WW, but I've heard that 1 point is between 50-70 calories... so that's between 1350 and 1890. So if I stayed with in that range - just varied the actual amount of calories - it shoudl work out well. I just need to start realizing how many calories things are again. So far so good for today - my calorie counter on Spark People says around 550- but the one recipe is a bit different that thiers... so maybe a little less.

I'm on the move!!!!

Workout Summary

So I think I want to keep tab of the calorie burn of certain workouts. I'm sure it will change as I loose weight(suppose I need to update my heart monitor now...) but I'll keep track of them on this post, so it's all in one place.

- Total Body Class(@ gym): 895 calories
- 30Day Shred (Level 1): 388 calories
- Cross Trainer(@ gym): 450 calories
- Turbo Jam (PKJ): 750 calories
- Turbo Jam (Abs): 130 calories
- Turbo Jam (20 min): 250 calories
- Running (4.3mph - 20 min): 350??? I forget - I'll have to update later.

Success!!!!

I lost 2.6 pounds this week!!!!!!!! I'm sooo excited!!! I'm getting further and further from the 200 number!!!! I want to do really good over vactaion - I hope I can!!!

I was looking at it now - I've lost 15.6 pounds - and it's been exactly three months. So, at about 5 pounds per month - not too bad - 1.3 pounds per week, 5 per month, wish it was more though. But the thing that excited me, is I keep loosing. If I follow the plan and actually TRACK - I have success. and it keeps adding up. It's not 3 pounds a week, but the numbers keep going down - and I'm very excited about that!!!

I am also excited about my new purchase - I bougth the WW food scale. I can't wait to use it!!!!! There's so many things that I just don't know - and WW doesn't help me figure it out - like italian bread from a loaf that I cut... I just don't know. Is it 1 point per piece - it could be three if it's thick... I have no idea - so then I don't knwo what I have left for the day - and I don't knwo if I should restrain and just have the one piece, or maybe I could enjoy two(or three!!!!) so today I will have my homemade soup for lunch and I WILL KNOW how much bread I can have!!! And she showed me how to add up my whole meal on one plate - I was just about in tears I was so excited!!!! I can't wait to KNOW when I'm eatign three points worth of chicken or that my casserole is 5 points or 6... and if I'm goign to have seconds - I'll just have 1 more point worth.

and if I want only three points of cereal - I can have ANY cereal that's 3 points worth - then add 1 point worth of milk. I can do that now without too much fuss!!!!!!

Well, I need to go and exercise while the babe is asleep!!!!! gotta get my heart monitor on tooo!!

Happily Surprised

So apparently I like to use the emotion as the title to my posts.

Soo... it's very wierd to be loosing weight consistantly!!!!!! I'm SEEING differences - little things everyday!!!! And Then I realized something today - I got on the scale, and I'm down 3.5 pounds since my last WI (awesome!!) And that means I'm less than 10 pounds away from my pre-Ryan baby weight!!!!!

Can you tell I'm excited?!?!?!

Wow. I am just in shock! It's all to WW (and myself!!) for eating better and making this more of a lifestyle so I will be consistant. I've never lost weight slowly but so consistantly. And it's not really the same weight each week, I actually feel stalled alot, but I think it's my WI day and I think the big thing is - I'm not giving up. I have a great support system and yah know what - it might only be .6 pounds, but added up - it's alot, infact, it pushed me over the edge! I'm getting somewhere - and I'm not going to stop just because I ate too much over the weekend. And I'm close to the prebaby weight goal - well, the first one anyways!!! but I'm not goign to stop just because it's summer. I'm finding it easier to workout at home in the mornings - so that's a real option now. Not my preferred option, but a real one.

well, I shoudl go to bed. It's funny, I don't always feel thiner, but I'm seeing other signs, like close being looser, my image looking smaller - I can see the difference - even if I don't always feel it.

Excited!!!

Well, I'm excited for a couple reasons -

The first is, I actually got up early and workout out!!!! Haven't done that in a looong time. Coupled with that - is I think I look thinner! it mgiht just be the outfit - I have my more fitted capri pants that are dark - so it hides the imperfections and then my really loose tank top - hiding the bulging stomach. Although the other day when I weighed myself I was down a coupel pounds!!!

I'm also excited because TurboKick(TK) is comign to our area gym!!! and I've always loved TurboJam(TJ), I just stopped doing it because I need to go to the gym to have uninterupted time. But this morning I did my TJ PKJ video. I am bummed because I forgot to wear my heart rate monitor(HRM).

I'm really intrested in doing to TK, although I don't know that I'd be good enough to teach. so Mike wants to know why I want to do it! Fair question - why pay over $200 just to have someone show me to twist a bit better?!?! I can't explain why I want to - I guess I really want to teach - I just don't have confidence in myself.... plus we might be busy that day... I don't know - I'm very excited - just like I was with BeautiControl - I just couldn't stop thinking about it!!!

It does give me motivation to stay on track for the summer - or at least the first half! I never would have gotten up this morning if it wern't for the TK thing... I want to practice my TJ!!!! and I have to do it first thing in the morning, or else the late afternoon, which really takes away from getting things done around here. It worked out well today - now to get kids ready and off to school!!!

Another week - no progress???

Well, I was actually relieved to have not GAINED weight this week!!!! Sunday's seem to be my worst day! we eat out at Moes - and then yesterday in particular was bad... too many snacking opportunities... and I snacked, but not toooo much, but apparently enough. I need to change my Sunday routine so Monday can be more successful. I need to track more. So I bought the members kit today. I'm hoping havign all the tracking guides will be helpful. I want to track while I'm away - and with not using the computer as much, I'll need these tools.

So, according to WW I've lost 13 pounds, but I round it up to 15 because I did loose a few before I started. So I have before and after pics - which Mike put together for me - what a sweatheart!!!! And you can definitly see a difference. I feel slimmer too - and it's nice to see the difference. It won't let me upload the pic, sorry!

So I will track this week - that should make a big difference. I think I might buy a scale too - so I can really know my meat portions.

I'm kinda confused though... I exercise alot. We eat sooo much cleaner than before. My carbs are down - we never have pasta anymore.. hardly rice. I eat carbs for breakfast and then maybe bread or something at lunch... Jillian's book made it sounds once I removed all these processed foods, my metabolism would be working for me and weight would seemingly dissapear - so what's up? I know I'm not being perfect - but I'm so much better than I was.. the only solution is to keep better track of my points.

I just don't know! I do need to cut out my nighttime snacks... that could be better too. Alright - that's the plans... track track track - no nighttime snack!

WoW!!!

So - I have a heart rate monitor - and these are pretty cool. I have a Polar F11. They monitor your heart rate and use that info - along with weight and age to determine how many calories you burn during exercise. Some monitors can be worn all day to see what you burn naturally throughout the day. Mine is specifically for exercise. But that's okay.

Well, I apparently bought and used it two years ago - for a while. Well, I finally got it back out - I was curious how many calories I was burning for different activities. I had to "reset" it, since I'm at a differet place now. It was intresting to see my old stats though. I was 175 pounds and my vo2max(maximal oxygen uptake - commonly used to evaluate aerobic fitness.) was 36 and 'fair' for my age. Now I'm 199 and my vo2max is 46 'very good'!!! So intresting that I'm in better shape now than when I started at a lower weight. But I remember when I did that - I was just starting to exercise... I've been exercising for months now - it better be better!!!!!

So - here's the Wow! of my post... I for it for my Total Body class at the gym, it's pretty much circuit training, making sure to focus on strength training every muscle group... Well, in just over an hour, I burned 895 calories!!!! Wow! I didn't think it'd be that high!!!!

So I can't wait to wear it for my other activities... This is a really encouraging boost for me. I've been doing okay this week, but not really motivated. So now I'm encouraged that my efforts are really benificial. This info can really help me keep track of what I'm doing.