Week 2: 30 Day Shred

Number of shreds: 4
Additional workouts: 1.5 (the 0.5 is bowling)
Weight: 229 lbs (-1)
Neck: 15″ (0)
Arms: 13+1/8″ (0)
Bust: 47.5″ (0)
Under bust: 41+3/8″ (0)
Waist: 46.5″ (-1.5)
Hips: 46″ (-1)
Thigh: 26″ (-0.25)
Calf: 18+3/8″ (+0.25)

I am down one pound and 2.5″ which is great for a week of 5 work-outs.

Today is the first day of week two and I have already done my work-out – YAY ME! The areas where I am struggling the most are both in the last circuit. In the weights section, there is a side lunge with shoulder raise is hard for me (watch it on the video here at 19:28. I’m not sure if it’s because its the end of the work-out and I’m fatigued or if it’s just a challenging exercise for me. It’s probably a bit of both!

I’m also struggling with the abs work out. If you watch the video at 24:23 you will see the exercise, a side crunch with bicycle legs. Today was the first day that I managed to complete the abs section in circuits one and two and the first time I attempted bicycle legs with the side crunch (previously, I had been combining a regular crunch with reverse crunch). I have 5 more days to perfect these exercises.

Here are the photos for this week. Not much of a visible change from last week but there are a few more weeks to go!

Sweating and Smiling :)

The first day of the 30 Day Shred was brutal. My attitude was poor and Jillian just plain old kicked my butt.

Not impressed

But yesterday and today (days 2 and 3) were much better. I guess I was just feeling better about me and about working out. All that translated into a better work-out for me. I was able to push myself a bit more and enjoy the sweat. Today I even smiled throughout the work-out!

Day 2, happier

Day 3: Yay sweat!

The structure of the 30 Day Shred is:
Warm up
Circuit 1 – 3 minutes of strength, 2 minutes of cardio and 1 minute of abs
Circuit 2 – 3 minutes of strength, 2 minutes of cardio and 1 minute of abs
Circuit 3 – 3 minutes of strength, 2 minutes of cardio and 1 minute of abs
Cool down

Each circuit is uses different exercises. In the last circuit of cardio, you go through the 4 different types of cardio you had done in circuits 1 and 2. In the last 30 seconds of cardio Jillian says, “I want to see you floating off the floor. You strong! This is easy for you!” That puts a huge grin on my face! It makes me want to push myself hard.

I hope you’re all out there sweating and loving it!

35 Day Shred

Stating the obvious here, but I have obviously been waffling over weight loss for the past 6 months. My lowest weight, was 211 in January. Today, I stepped on the scale to see 230, a number I’ve seen WAY TOO MUCH for the past 3 months. I’m still trying to be balanced and embrace a new lifestyle of healthiness. However, it seems that I can go for about two weeks before I throw in the towel and have to start from scratch. Ugh.

I am trying something new. Something that I was afraid to try for a while. I am doing Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred. Being realistic, it will probably end up being the 35 Day Shred but I’m okay with that. I am not a failure if I don’t work out 30 days in a row. My goal is to complete the three levels, 10 days a piece.

Yesterday was day one and it was tough. I watched the dvd first and thought, it doesn’t seem so bad, since I have been doing a little circuit I made up myself. But with Jillian, I was moving a lot faster that I did on my own. One of the benefits of someone else directing your movements. I sort of hated it and was really frustrated during the video and I did skimp on some of the exercises, but I completed it. I will continue to work at it. I can give myself 30 (or 35 days). My starting place is really crappy, but it can only get better, right?

Anyhow, here are my starting stats and pics. I will be updating these every week.

Weight: 230 lbs
Neck: 15″
Arm: 13 +1/8″
Bust: 47.5″
Under Bust: 42 + 3/8″
Waist: 48″
Hips: 47″
Thigh: 26 + 1/4″
Calf: 18 + 1/8″

I tried to make my pics especially awful.

A little motivation

Just wanted to share this with everyone since we all go through times where we lack motivation. I stumbled onto this HuffPost site and I read some weight loss stories nearly every day. It often helps me to go from “I don’t wanna work out! :’(” to “I NEED to get outside and run!!! “

Check it out here!

Big Sweaty Mess!

That is how I would describe myself the past few days.

Since I have refocused my goal to becoming healthier by being more active and making healthier food choices, exercise isn’t really a ‘chore’ for me, like it was about a month ago. Instead of begrudgingly committing to 40 minutes on my treadmill, I’m spending approximately 2 hours in a new routine.

I stretch to warm up.

I do squats with weights, lunges with weights, modified plank/modified push-ups (my neck and back are still a little weak from my car accident in January) and crunches.

I do a little more stretching

I hop on my exercise bike for 20 minutes – I’ve used a few of the different programs on my bike trying to find the right level of challenge.

Then I get out my exercise ball and do a few basic exercises to strengthen my core.

Then I fire up the Wii and play Just Dance 3! It is so much fun! I may even do a video post about how much I love it! I spend 45-60 minutes dancing. I am literally dripping sweat, the collar of my shirt is soaked and so is my back between my shoulder blades.

I just finished my routine, but I feel ready for more. I may even drag Kdubz out for a walk to top it all off!

I am really grateful that my life allows me to spend so much time exercising! Tell me how you are becoming a big sweaty mess these days!

Staying focused

Many of us have realized that in order to be successful in our weight loss, it has to be about more than just weight loss. We need to change our habits and make adjustments to our lifestyles that will last a long time.

Before I started this blog and my journey to healthiness, I spent months reading weight loss blogs and success stories, checking out healthiness books at the library and visiting countless websites that provided tips and information on how to become healthier. Every day I was spending time reading blogs and mentally reacting to what I saw there. That continued for many months into my journey.

Until I became interested in other things and immersed myself in them and spent hours reading other types of blogs and websites. My focus shifted.

I’m not saying it’s wrong or bad to have other interests and things you are passionate about, but for me, I tend to be a bit obsessive when it comes to a new interest. I can’t absorb enough! I can’t learn enough! I focus all my energy into it. For me, I need to be a bit more balanced in my approach.

I am reshifting my focus back to healthiness (and as a by-product weight loss). I’m reading Fit2Fat2Fit, checking out healthiness blogs every day or so, making sure that I’m active 5-6 times a week and a before and after shot of Hannah from Biggest Loser 11 is my desktop background. I’m trying to update myfitnesspal every day and I’m tracking my activity through mapmyrun.

I need to ensure that being proactive about my own health is an integral part of my life and not just my most recent obsession.

Reset

The last few weeks have been filled with frustration. At first, because I was dragging myself out of bed, hopping on the treadmill for 50 minutes, counting my calories and hating ever minute, not to see the scale change at all.

Then I just said ‘Eff it!” and I proceeded to sit around and eat whatever and whenever I wanted. Even though I want to lose weight so badly! I want to be at least the size I was in high school for my reunion next year (~200) and I hope to be getting married in the next few years and I do NOT want to be a fat bride.

But measuring my success in numbers on the scales and the calories I ate can be really discouraging. When I first committed to losing weight, I wanted my changes to be about becoming a healthier person, with weight loss as a side effect of those changes. So that as long as I was making an effort to be active and make good food choices, I was succeeding in my goals.

I think that’s what I need to get back to. I know I can succeed in that. I know I can enjoy that. My weight and what I eat factor into that but they are not the be all, end all of this journey. I don’t remember the last time I stepped on a scale, but I know it was within the past three weeks. The number was 233. While I want to see that number go down and I know I will, it’s not what I am hinging my success on.

I feel proud that I’ve walked ~20km this week and in the last week, there was only one day I didn’t participate in physical activity. I feel proud of my bowling scores this week (it was the first week of the season) 80, 86 and 84. I’m excited for the hike we are going to attend on Sunday and another we are planning for October.

It’s so much easier to focus on what you enjoy doing, what makes you proud and what makes you happy, than what makes you feel like everything you are doing is for nothing. For me right now, that’s going outside and being active!

I do plan on cleaning up my eating in the next few weeks – less snacking, more veggies, less carbs, more water, less coffee – but I am going to take it step my step. It’s got to be changes that are easily incorporated into my life is order for them to stick.

So where are you in your road to healthiness? Are you loving it? Are you succeeding? Are you frustrated? Are you consistently meeting your goals?

Beat the Heat

Wednesday was a HOT day. I was outside for work, in the sun. By the end of the day, I was SWEATING, I was sunburned and kind of grumpy. I wanted ice cream. Instead of going to an ice cream shop and getting an enormous serving of something calorie laden, like Udderly Devine, I went to the grocery store. I picked up these bad boys.

The mango-orange smoothies are 100 calories each and the chocolate ones (which are DELICIOUS) are 80 calories! They make a nice mid afternoon snack or a yummy dessert.

Yay for making healthy choices!

Serve it up!

Today, I decided to have some green grapes as a snack. Since I am trying to control my portion sizes, I googled “one serving of green grapes” and I found this website, One Serving which shows the serving size of a lot of vegetables and fruit, which is 80g (2.8oz). Green grapes were not on the website, so I decided to take a picture of one serving size and the amount I actually ate, which was two servings. I actually thought that a cup would be a serving of grapes. Good thing I checked!

One serving of grapes – about half a cup

Two servings of grapes!

I also ate an apple for a snack. It was a new variety for me, and Eve apple. Nice and hard but not tart enough for me!

This apple is three servings of fruit (240 grams)!

Ginormous Eve apple!

Sunday stats – August 12, 2012

And the scale says: 229.5! That’s -3.5 lbs from last week! Yay me!