Wednesday, December 31, 2008

12/31/08 part 2

Well we changed our dinner plans tonight. I just couldn't deal with paying 30 bucks per person to go out to eat and not really be able to eat everything. I am to focused right now in this journey to give it up so soon. So Dennis went to our favorite greek restaurant and picked up an order to go. We got tzatsiki, regular gyro, chicken gyro (OMG this was good and will be what I get from now on), pita bread, and greek salads. Super super delish! It also came with greek cooked potatos which were good but I only had 1.5 slice and let Roo eat the rest of mine. She LOVED everything and loved dipping the pita bread in the tzatsiki.

I decided to start cleaning up Christmas decorations instead of doing an afternoon workout today. I think I got more exercise in than I would have had I done a 20 minute video. I went up and down the stairs who knows how many times this afternoon.

Dennis and I did the Shred Level 1 tonight. This is our fourth day of doing the shred and holy cow it hurts but I pushed through it tonight and I mean really pushed through it. There was one point I thought I was going to pass out because my shoulders hurt but I got through it. This is only the fourth day but I am noticing the difference in my endurance. The jumping jacks were a LOT easier tonight than they have been all week. I am still having trouble with the jump rope portion but that's mainly because I really hate how it hurts on top when I jump. Big boobs SUCK! I seriously cannot wait until I can have a reduction but that's an entirely different topic for a different day. LOL!

We are going to split a bottle of wine tonight in celebration of the new year but we will make up for it tomorrow. I hope to get three cardio workouts in tomorrow. Time will tell if it happens or not. I know I have to get a least an hour in since tomorrow is the cardio focus.

Ok I better quit typing and get to the upper body weights portion. I can do this because 2009 is my year and results will only be visible if I actually do the work.

ETA: I got my 30 minutes of upper body weights done. OUCH!

12/31/08 Part 1

Today is off to a great start. Yesterday actually ended on an awesome note with the weights and shred workout. We did level 3 and it was HARD but so so worth it. I can't wait to see how far I advance as time goes on. I know that I will.

This morning for breakfast was a egg, bacon, cheese english muffin. It was just that and it was pretty good. I need to remember to season the eggs next time I was half asleep as I was making it today. Roo and Dennis also enjoyed theirs.

Morning snack was tuna w/ some may and celery sticks. I added some Frank's to mine to kick it up and it was DELICIOUS! Roo ate all of hers and even munched on the celery. I was really impressed with that.

Lunch was a turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread w/ mustard, spinach, and swiss cheese. It was supposed to have tomato as well but in my hurry to get food to a little girl I forgot to cut that up. Oh well it was just as good without it but next time I will make sure to add it in.

I'm waiting until a little girl goes down for her nap to get a workout in. I think I am going to do a walk away the pounds today and stretch out some. Tonight I need to do upper body weights and of course the shred. Tonight is back to level 1 so WHOOOO.

We're skipping our afternoon snack (although Roo will have one) so that we can go out for dinner tonight. We're going to a brazilian steak house and both Dennis and I have a plan in place. We are going to sample but NOT overindulge. It's not worth it.

Health wise I am feeling so good right now about how I'm working out and how I'm eating. I am really ready for the scale to get here so I can quit guestimating on oz's but it will be here soon enough. Stomach wise I have not had any problems since we started back hard core. Maybe this will be the answer to the problems I guess I'll see how tonight goes......

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

12/30/08 part 2

I just finished with weights. I did not get 30 minutes in but I did the full circuit one time so it was 17 minutes long. Man it HURT! I was amazed at how much it hurt so I know I have to take it slow and easy and not totally push it right now. I am so angry at myself for letting myself get this out of shape. Two years ago what I did tonight would not have raised my heart rate at all but tonight OUCH and man oh man was it a struggle. It's going to be ok though I have turned the corner and I am going to focus on this and focus on getting through it. Slowly but surely wins the race and gets the body looking the way I want it to look.

Dennis is putting Roo to bed right now so when she's down we'll pop the shred in and get that knocked out of the way. I would really like to skip it right now and just relax but relax is not allowed to be part of my vocabulary in regards to work outs. I MUST keep the momentum up and keep it going.

Dinner was grilled chicken parmesan w/ marinara sauce, 1/2 cup of cooked whole wheat spaghetti, sugar snap peas, and some mozarrella cheese sprinkled on top. It was DELICIOUS!

Snack tonight is drunken apples and it looks really interesting. It's essentially just sliced apples soaked in orange juice for a couple of hours. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

So another day of being focused is almost over and I am THRILLED with how I feel about myself at the moment. I know I can do this and I am so proud of myself for keeping focused.

Today

Man it's difficult being back on the wagon but difficult in a great way if that makes sense. I am really trying to get used to the eating all the time again thing. I feel stuffed right now but it's stuffed on the right stuff like carrots and broccoli.

For breakfast I had the strawberry oatmeal it was Eh I need to find a better strawberry preserves instead of the one I bought but that's doable. Roo gave it a total thumbs down and only ate a couple of bites before taking off.

The roast beef open faced sandwich was out of this world good! I used a slice of whole wheat bread, spread a light laughing cow on it, some low sodium cajun flavored roast beef, spinach, and 3 green olives. The recipe only called for two but I put three on because well I love olives LOL! Roo LOVED this and ate over half of one which is a lot for a 17 month old.

Lunch was a crispy taco salad and again it was out of this world good. We made taco meat our of ground turkey and we seasoned it to our tastes even though the recipe didn't call for any seasonings in the meat sorry I'm from Texas taco meat better have flavor. We added in the ranch style beans which were ok but next time I'll use black beans as I prefer the flavor. Ranch style isn't bad and I love em but in Mexican black beans are just better to me. The rest of the salad was lettuce, tomato, a little bit of cheddar cheese, 1/2 tbs of sour cream, and I used quite a bit of salsa, and some green onion. YUM YUM YUM! Then on top for the crispy part of the salad I crushed 1 serving of baked doritos. Roo really enjoyed this meal as well and actually ate lettuce. I hadn't given her that much but she was happy with what she had. Then of course the tomato, salsa, and cheese were inhaled. She dipped her chips in the sour cream and thought that was super silly.

Afternoon snack was a ranch dip made out of cottage cheese and seasonings. We didn't have the seasonings in the recipe so it was not that great but we know now and will get the right stuff for next time. It called for 1 cup of cottage cheese, some green onion, and italian seasonings. You blend those together and it's two servings. You serve it with toasted pita bread and veggies. Our store didn't have pita bread yesterday (not surprising) so I got flat bread and it was honestly healthier and had a great flavor. I also had it with broccoli and carrots. Since we didn't have the right seasonings I thinned it out some with fat free sour cream and then added some franks buffalo sauce to the mix which helped it a LOT. Franks buffalo sauce and I are good friends LOL! Roo had hers without the buffalo sauce and seems to be enjoying. She's eaten the toasted bread and broccoli and keeps going back for more dip dip.

I have not worked out yet today I'm going to have to come back and report on that later. Roo did not sleep well last night and since I'm on vacation I am taking care of her at night which is killing my sleep. I woke up with a major headache that would not stop so when she took her afternoon nap I decided it was in my best interest to get a nap myself. I woke up and the headache was gone YAY!

The workout plan for tonight is the 20 minute shred at level 3 and then 30 minutes of lower body weights. I can do this!

I'll be back about dinner and evening snack and how they were. It feels so good to be back on plan and doing what I know is best.

There might be some who are questioning why Roo is eating what we are if we're dieting. Well Roo is not dieting but she is learning a healthy lifestyle. That's really what the body for life food plan is it's a healthy lifestyle and paying attention to getting in the major food groups as well as healthy portion sizes. And in our house Roo eats what we fix she is getting plenty of food and healthy choices. As she gets older she will have a say in the menu planning and get to pick meals and snacks for us to fix that she enjoys. I tried the lettuce with her today just to see what she would do as we have introduced it in the past to mixed results but today she liked the crunch.

Monday, December 29, 2008

Week 1 Menu

Tuesday:
B: strawberry oatmeal p 37 of biggest loser family cookbook
S: open faced roast beef sandwich
L: taco salad
S: cool ranch dip w/ veggies p 305 of eating for life
D: grilled chicken parmesan p 117 of biggest loser family cookbook w/ green beans
S: drunken apples p 195 of biggest loser family cookbook

Wednesday:
B: Bacon, egg, cheese on english muffin
S: tuna in celery sticks
L: turkey and swiss sandwich
S: skipping (oops)
D: new year's eve dinner at a brazilian steak house portion control is the name of the game as is the salad bar
S: glass of champagne to toast in the new year

Thursday:
B: apple turnover sundae (it's yogurt w/ apples and raisins)
S: english muffin melt p 97 of biggest loser family cookbook
L: bbq bacon meat loaf p 124 of biggest loser family cookbook w/ black eyed peas and brocolli slaw
S: texas caviar
D: Turkey Sandwich
S: ff pudding

Friday:
B: bacon, egg, cheese english muffin
S: cottage cheese w/ blueberry yogurt
L: Spinach salad w/ chicken, feta, and mandarin oranges
S: texas caviar (black beans, corn, fresh pico YUM) served w/ 1 serving of baked tostitos
D: beef and brocolli w/ brown rice
S: ff pudding

Saturday:
B: tex mex mini frittata p 20 of biggest loser family cookbook
S: apple and 2 string cheeses
L: grilled chicken smothered nachos p 57 of biggest loser family cookbook
S: pinwheels
D: avacado tacos
S: fruit

Menu completed for week. We will plan next week's menu on Saturday.

Day 1

I weighed in this morning at 180.6. I hope that the 180's have enjoyed their stay because they are about to be gone and never seen again (or at least I hope not seen again)

Breakfast: nutrigrain bar
Snack: 1/2 tbs love dip, 1/2 tbs queso, 1 serving sweet potato chips
Lunch: roast and potatoes
Snack: 1 serving popcorn
Dinner: Pizza Burger (totally delicious it was a turkey meat patty w/ italian seasonings, served on a bun w/ marinara sauce, and mozarella cheese we also had spinach, cucumbers, and tomatos on the side) Very filling meal and very healthy.
Snack: Yogurt

Workouts:
30 minutes of Biggest Loser Boot Camp accomplished
20 minutes of Jillian's 30 Day Shred accomplished

I planned our menu for the week and will get that posted shortly.

January Goals

My goals for January are:

25 hours of cardio
7 hours of weight lifting

I plan on doing Jillians Shred video daily. I want to incorporate other videos such as my biggest loser workout series videos in on a rotating basis but the Shred video will be my do it daily for the month of January no matter what and no excuses.

I would love to get 209 workouts in 2009 but we'll see how life happens with that one.

My diet goals are:

To plan a menu that we stick with each week. There might be substitutions made in case an ingredient goes bad or something like that but overall the menu that we set on Saturday will be the menu we stick with for the week.

Ok so I have fitness goals set, and diet goals set what about weight goals?

I am not going to set any weight goals because I know my body and I know that I don't lose normally and I do not want to get frustated this early in the game. I know that weight will come off and I will be weighing in weekly but I will not get frustrated when the numbers do not move.

A little about me to start

Weight has always been an issue in my life. In High School I fought to lose the pounds and was successful on slim fast and strict diet. It all went kaput in college when I gained the Freshman 50. I wised up real fast and got back on the bandwagon again and started losing.

During a bad relationship I was told that I was fat even though I was at the smallest size I had ever been (a size 6) and when the relationship ended I gained weight again.

When I met my husband I was working on losing weight, actually not really I was working on changing my lifestyle. I tried Jenny Craig, Weightwatchers, Slim Fast again, and when I was home sick one day I heard someone on the news talking about Body for Life. I really bought into what was being said and went out that day to buy the book. When my husband got home I showed him and after he read it he said let's do it. Life changed at that point and the weight came off.

When I got married I was happy at the size I was although I was still losing. Body for life does not focus on just diet but rather incorporates fitness and diet and shows how the combination of the two brings about a healthier life style. I was so beyond happy with how I was eating, working out, and feeling that I vowed to stick with the program.

Then the year came that I got pregnant. I followed the general principles of the program while I was pregnant and vowed to get back into it 100% as soon as the baby was here. Yeah that didn't exactly happen. I was no longer able to go to the gym for an hour after work as I wanted to get home to spend time with the family.

This year we bought a home gym and although I have been using it I have not been focusing on using it like it was intended to be.

2009 is my year and I am going to make some serious changes in life.

Each month I am going to challenge myself fitness wise to a certain number of hours per month of cardio and weights. I am going to do cardio everyday because I know it's what works, I know it's what helps, and I know it's what is going to get my body back to where I am happy with it and don't mind looking in the mirror or trying on clothes again.

Diet wise I am back on the body for life bandwagon. 6 small meals a day sound like HEAVEN right now. My food scaled has been ordered and I am ready to focus on this again. My husband is back on the wagon as well. We are both going to make 2009 our year.

I am not going to set a weight goal because I don't lose weight fast. It is a very long tedious process to see the numbers on the scale start to move down. I usually see inches fall off much sooner and I am so ready for that!

We're not starting in 2009 though, we're starting today as today is the first day of the rest of our lives.