Gone Shopping

This morning I took the kids out to the mall so they could play at the play area before it got way too crowded.  So we arrived around 9am, a whole hour before the Mall opens up.  I decided to make today my rest day since I felt like I needed a recovery day after yesterday and so I took advantage of my free morning and decided to take the kids out and go looking for a green dress for Chloe for my Sister-In-Laws wedding.  You won't believe how hard it is to find a fancy green dress for an 18 month old.  I went to every store in the mall before I found a green dress and even then the top portion was a little more casual than I would have liked, but beggars can't be choosers I guess.  To my great relief, it didn't cost a fortune like I was worried it would since I found the dress in Dillards, and usually everything in there is over $50.  I ended up finding two dresses, one from Macy's that was $60 full price but I could get half off for $30, but it had so much white lace on it, the dress seemed more white than green.  So I settled on the Dillards brand for $28 full price with the more casual top, but the bottom half is so pretty.




 I had to get a 24 month dress because they only had size 6-12 month, one 24 month, and one 4T size.  So even then I couldn't get an 18 month dress!  So it is a little big but that means she can wear it for a long time :)
















While I was at Dillards I decided that I should get fitted for a new bra, since they have the best fitting service out of anywhere I have ever been.  The ladies that work that department really seem to know what they are doing and they are very helpful and nice.  The people at the maternity store are less competent, and I have had mixed results at Victoria Secret.  Anyway, when I started losing weight I was a size 40E (I always go up a cup size when I am pregnant and nursing, so for comparison sake lets say 40 D).  And today I fit into a size 32 D!!!  I thought that was awesome!  I had on my Victoria Secret Bras that I bought after I stopped nursing Lily and they were a size 38D.  And now I am in size 32!  Woo Hoo!  That was a great pick me up after being so down yesterday.  The only thing now is that my clothes definitely feel tight.  Really I was between a size 32 and 34, but the 34 they said left a little too much room and if I could tolerate the tightness, I should go with the 32 especially if I planned on losing more weight.  So I decided to go with 32 since they should last me through the rest of my weight loss.

Since today was my rest day I didn't do any exercise, but I tried to be active.  That got much harder in the afternoon when Chloe was sleeping and Lily was watching a movie.  I think I failed because I ended up on the couch browsing different weight loss blogs while Lily was watching Thumbalina.  One thing I am really trying to focus on right now is eating right and not splurging and not eating sweets, since I am really trying to prepare to look the best I can in Emily's wedding photos.  I can't believe how hard it is to stay consistently within 1200-1300 calories a day!  I have only been really focusing on my caloric intake for four days and it seems like years. Ha! Four days, not even a whole week, and I still have a whole month before the wedding!  Well, it will be good for me to get back into the eating healthy mode and avoiding sweets.  I can't wait until I hit maintenance and I can eat more calories in a day.  It is really hard to just eat 1200-1300 calories every day, especially when I start to get really hungry in the evenings, or in the afternoons.

Speaking of getting hungry in the afternoons I have started to eat lunch later, like around 12:30 instead of 11:45 and it has helped a lot for me to not get so hungry in the afternoon before dinner.
In case you were wondering and I suppose it is a good thing to mention, here is what I ate today:

Breakfast:
3/4 cup 2% cottage cheese
1/4 cup non sweetened applesauce
2 tbsp pumpkin flax seed granola (from costco)
4 strawberries
cinnamon to taste
directions: mix everything together and eat

This is one of my very favorite breakfasts now.  It keeps me much fuller than cereal or even omelets since it is actually quite a bit of food.  According to My Fit Pal, it is only 230 calories!  I really like cottage cheese now.  I can't quite eat it plain yet, but I love having the applesauce with it to sweeten it up.

Snack 1: Clif Kid Z Bar- 130 calories (I forgot to pack myself a snack when I went to the mall so I snitched one of the kids granola/protein bars,  I had packed them cheerios and goldfish and fruit snacks and two granola bars so I didn't think one would be missed too much).

Lunch: Sandwich wrap with:
1 tbsp basil pesto
2 oz deli sliced turkey breast
onions
pickles
tomatoes
spinach
zucchini
Wrapped up in a 100% whole wheat tortilla wrap from Costco (100 calories for the wrap)
 Apple

With the apple on the side my lunch was 360 calories.  I don't like putting mayo on my sandwiches because I don't think it gives it much flavor and it is about the unhealthiest thing to put on a sandwich.  I like to put hummus or pesto instead as you can get both in a wide variety of flavors to suit your mood.  The pesto is higher in calories though so you have to be more careful with how much you put on your sandwich.

Snack 2: Chobani Greek Yogurt Blackberry - 120 calories

Dinner: Turkey Burger with French Fries approx 453 calories

Total calories for the day: 1,291

I went a little overboard on the dinner calories, I probably ate a little more home baked french fries than I counted.... since I didn't count.  The recipe was great, I found it on spark recipes.  Basically you take a pound of ground turkey, mix in one cup of reduced fat cheddar cheese, one quarter cup green onions (although I went overboard on the green onions they still tasted great) and one packet of ranch dip mix.  They were really flavorful! Every time I eat hamburgers it irks me how many calories are in one bun.  I even got the small buns and they were 150 calories for one bun!  Maybe next time I will just get two big pieces of lettuce and cut out the bun all together. 

Discouraged

Maybe it is just a mid-week thing for me, or maybe I am just tired today, or most likely it is because I have been working so hard for a month and the numbers on the scale still haven't budged.  Up at 150.6 for the past several days.  It is a real let down since I was planning on being at 140 by this time.  Of course I have started lifting weights and I have been doing less cardio.  I am almost done with phase one, and so on Tuesday of next week we will see if I made any progress by taking my measurements and body fat percentage and taking new photos.  I am going to try to get down to 148 before then, that will be about a 5 pound loss, but right now I am just stuck. 

This is my first real plateau since I started losing weight, and maybe it isn't a plateau at all because my body is changing.  Hopefully I am losing inches and the scale isn't moving because I am building muscle.  I am sore every day from lifting weights.  But my cloths don't feel any loser.  In fact, today everything seems much tighter.  My pants feel tighter and even my shirts feel tighter around my arms.  Maybe that is just because I am tired today.  I am always tired after doing the Burn Intervals workout for the week.   It's the hardest workout I have encountered in the circuit and it always leaves me shaky and exhausted.  But still, I feel like I am working so hard and getting nowhere. 

Maybe that is just apart of lifting weights though.  I've never stuck with  a weight training program for so long.  I am determined to finish all three months, but today I am not feeling the love.  It's a good thing I have my determination because I am not feeling very motivated right now. 

I am focusing on doing the absolute best I can with exercising and especially eating from now until my sister-in-law gets married the last Saturday of March.  I have a dress I need to fit into, and I am determined not to let the same thing happen to me that happened at Julia's wedding (namely have my dress be a size too small for me).  I am excited to get my dress in.  Here is a picture of the dress I ordered (only in royal blue) and the shoes I am going to wear with it.

The trouble with cookies

So today I was not planning on splurging on anything since we were not planning on going anywhere.  However, once we came home from my sister's piano performance (which was awesome!) I was hungry, and the kids were eating cookies.  See I always get my kids excited to go to the grocery store because they get to have a free cookie at the store, which is usually no problem for me.  The trouble comes when the store runs out of free cookies which happens every so often.  This happened a few days ago when we went to the store to pick up some chili seasoning that I forgot to get earlier in the week, and Wal-Mart had about five boxes of kids cookies on the counter, all of which were empty.  So, of course my kids are being so good so they can have a cookie and there aren't any to be had.  So I go over to the $2 cookie section and bought a box of cookies.  So the trouble with these is that they stick around the house, and now there are 12 cookies instead of the two that the kids are currently consuming. 

So today I came home, and those cookies were just staring me in the face and the kids were eating them, and I caved.... The cookies are now all gone. So I burned 350 calories this morning during my workout, and each cookie is 120 calories and I ate about 5 cookies so I need to burn off another 250 calories to burn off all the cookies I ate this afternoon.  Poo

There are a couple of things that are very hard to resist: cookies being one, and chips being another. 

Well, here are some interesting things that happened over the past few days.
1. Matt was in such a hurry to leave one morning that he took his breakfast oatmeal upstairs and was eating it as he was changing and getting ready to go.  After he left I went back upstairs and this is what I found.

A bowl balanced on a bear. haha, I had a laugh and then took the bowl downstairs and put it in the dishwasher.  Matt does not make a habit out of this and this is the first time I have seen him do this so I didn't get upset or anything.

2. I bought my Matron of  Honor dress for my sister in law's wedding.  It should arrive in about a month.  I bought a size 10, and when I took my measurements I was inbetween a size 10 and 12, so I figure with my current exercise program, I can lose a few inches in a month and a half.  A much better goal than when I bought my dress for Julia's wedding, and I was trying to lose 2-3 sizes, I had 5 months to do it, but it was just too much weight to lose going from 211 to 165 (where I needed to be to fit into the size 12 dress.  I didn't fit comfortably into that dress until I hit 165).  So now I am 15 pounds under that and working on size 10!


3. I groomed Pippin!  He is so cute and cuddly now.  I cut a ton of hair off of him.  I hadn't groomed him in a long time and he had gotten pretty matted.  He looks good from this angle, but I cut his pom short in the back because of mats in his hair, so the back of his head looks kind of funny, but you can't tell from this angle.  He looks like a poodle again!  I should have taken a before picture.

Living Life

So often when we are losing weight we get so caught up in the numbers on the scale and worrying about how many pounds we are losing and what to eat and what not to eat that we forget that we need to live life at the same time.  After all, if we can't live our lives while we are losing the weight, then there is no way we are going to be able to maintain our weight loss.  You already know I am not an advocate of fad diets, or anything that asks you to replace a meal with a shake or a protein bar or something equally as silly.  I love to eat, and I love to eat real food and I love to eat junk food, and I love to eat sweets! I love to eat out at restaurants and I love to eat at meet ups and I love to eat at church activities and family gatherings.  Fortunately we are at a time of year where there are not too many special events going on where a plethora of food is offered.

I think that if we are so worried about what to eat every second of the day we are missing out on life. Yesterday I got a surprise from a good friend of mine, she gave me these white chocolate covered brownie truffles.  It was an expression of her friendship and the love that she has for me.  Now eating these truffles would totally blow my calories for the day, most likely causing me not to drop in weight the next day.  So what did I do?  I ate ALL of the truffles!  HAhahahahahahahah  And I have to say, they were good.  I didn't even have time to take a picture of them to show you :-)  But that is living life, I don't stuff my face with chocolate every single day (although I would like to and in fact that was my old way of life) but I also didn't throw the whole day out the window either.  I made sure to eat sensibly for the rest of the day and the truffles were a wonderful treat for the week!

It's called living your life because food is a part of our lives and our society.  Food is an expression of love and friendship and community, and nourishment.  We have to build a healthy relationship with food where we are not over indulging every day, but not starving ourselves or missing out on special events.  Eating one dessert instead of twelve.

Matt and I rarely eat out at restaurants, so when we do it is special!  Everyone has to tackle the
restaurant challenge sometime, and how you overcome it will be different from how I overcome it.  Truth be told, I eat out at a restaurant about once a month, so for me eating out is a special event and I don't even care about the calories in what I am ordering.  That being said, if I order a drink, it is a diet soda (or something without calories or sugar in it), and we almost never order dessert or appetizers.  So I am just getting the calories of the main meal, which I am sure is way more than I still need.  But it is a special event, a once a month event so I don't really care.  Now, if you eat out more than once a week you will have to make some smarter decisions with what you are ordering and control how much you are eating because splurging like that more than once a week isinadvisable.  That is part of what we are changing.  We are making changes that we can maintain for life!  We are making changes that we can live with and commit to.  

But I want to live and be happy, not grumpy because I'm missing out on something that looks particularly delicious at an event.  Sometimes we will have to say no, maybe it is your third dessert of the week and it is time to make some sacrifices for your health and weight, but sometimes I just want to indulge my sweet tooth.  And you know what?  Sometimes I do just that.

When I first started this journey I would make a batch of chocolate chip cookies every Sunday and I would eat about half of the cookie dough!  And it was gooooood! I don't do that now, but I do get treats every week.  And some weeks are better than others, some days are better than others.... Heck, some months are better than others!  Make changes, try different things, if it doesn't work, change it again.  It is a learning experience, a growing experience.  We all know what works: burn more calories than you consume.  But just how to do that is the challenge.  I didn't even focus on healthy eating until seven months into my weight loss journey.  I didn't start working on strength training until a year into my journey and an injury to my food forced me to do something other than cardio.  We all want to be at the end of our journey right now.  To have reached our final destination.  I know I do!  I wish I were at my goal weight and had the body of my dreams, but it isn't going to happen until I learn how to create the body of my dreams.  Until I learn how to live a life that balances food, nutrition, exercise, and splurging.  I have come a long way, but I still have a long way to go.  I have more to learn, but I know one thing.  I am not going to stop learning, I am not going to stop living.  Lets keep life worth living!

A return to cardio

Before I hurt my foot I was doing about an hour of Cardio when I was working out.  Since I started Chalean Extreme the exercises have not been as long.  Of course the first week I was so incredibly sore I couldn't hardly move, so that was a good week.  The second week I was sick and it was a challenge to just get the 35 minutes in.  Now in the third week I have been missing my cardio, so I decided to add a little bit of cardio back into my exercise after a couple of my weight lifting workouts.  Yesterday I did a whole Turbo Jam session, which was great but took me a long time to do.  Today I did not have quite so much energy.  I have my heart rate monitor and it keeps track of how long my exercises are so after my weight lifting session (took me 40 minutes) I decided to put in my burn it off cardio dvd and do that until I hit my one hour mark.  I made it half way through before I dropped.  My muscles are already weak *phew* but I did good and burned 365 calories, which is better than the 200 I was at when I finished lifting weights. 

I have to keep the big picture in mind.  I'm use to burning over 600 calories in an hour of Zumba (I guess that is just an estimate though since I didn't have the heart rate monitor before).  I'm building muscle, and muscle burns fat.  I'm sore again today, but not as terrible as the first week. 

I'm back to focusing on my exercises and making sure that I put my weight loss and fitness first.  I have not been very good at losing weight when it hasn't been my number one priority (next to family of course).  I was able to maintain, but not really make any progress.  I finally have a routine of sorts down.  Kids wake up, eat breakfast, kids watch a movie and play with toys while I get my one hour of work done.  Chloe takes a nap at 9:30, then I do an hour of exercise, write in my blog, shower and get dressed, and then by that time Chloe usually wakes up.  Then I am set for the rest of the day and I don't have to worry about exercising or working on the computer!  (I still need to get stuff done for Pampered Chef and I haven't quite figured that part out yet).  But I feel like I am getting somewhere.

Back to Blogging

It's been a little while since I've had time to write, the few weeks have been less than pleasant.  The first week of my Chalean Extreme workout, I was so sore that I almost couldn't move come Saturday.  Every muscle in my body hurt and then on Friday night I started getting sick (again! can you believe it?)  The whole next week I was really sick and I was so tired.  Despite that I was determined to get my exercises in and I made sure to do each exercise video every day.  Fortunately weight lifting does not require as much energy as cardio and the one day I had the hardest time was Wednesday which was the cardio day.  I almost didn't make it through the 45 minute video and I had to stop several times.  After I finished I couldn't move for the next two hours.  Fortunately Lily was on the Ipad and Chloe was taking a longer than normal nap.

I did not get my workout in on Friday because we went to Crested Butte to go skiing and I was exceptionally sick on Friday and the DVD player wasn't working at the condo my in laws own.  I was so worried on Friday that I was not going to be able to go skiing on Saturday, and I already had my lift ticket and I was getting really upset, but I couldn't go very far from the bathroom.  Sometime around 3:30am I started feeling better and come Saturday I was able to get two and a half hours of skiing in.  I had a great time while I was skiing but I was really disappointed that I only got to ski two and a half hours.  My goal had been to ski all day (something I haven't been able to do since I first met Matt 7 years ago).  But I think my sickness caught up with me and I was exhausted from not sleeping well the past few nights and being sick.

I feel like there is some external, unseen force that is fighting me losing weight and changing my life around.  Ever since I hit 150 it has been one problem after another.  The day I hit 150 I hurt my foot and I couldn't move for almost a month.  Then, only a week after I start lifting weights, I get really sick.  But that isn't going to stop me!  I am determined to reach my goal.  I can see the changes starting to affect other areas of my life as well with how I talk to others, and other tasks.  I think I'm starting to be nicer and not so snappy.  I'm not quite so jealous of my husband for being able to eat whatever he wants and stay so thin.  When I went over to my inlaws a few weeks ago I washed the dishes for my mother in law (something I usually never had the energy to do, especially to take the initiative to do). 

I really thing that lifting weights and gaining muscle on my body is going to help make life easier and make me happier.  I can't wait to get to my goal weight!  I am super excited to be getting closer.  This morning I weighed in at 149.9!  Under 150 for the very first time!!! (granted it is only .1 pound under but that is a start, especially since I've been between 155-150 for the past month and a half).  So close to 145 and my healthy weight range!  And from there it is just a hop, skip and a jump to my goal weight!

Half way through phase one on Chalean Extreme.  Today I did the extra fat blaster workout that came with the dvd, which is a turbo jam session using HIIT training.  So I added an extra 30 minutes to my exercise because I missed my workout on Friday.    So today I exercised a total of one hour 13 minutes and burned 531 calories.  Whoot Whoot!  I am feeling better today, but I think its a good thing that the rest of the day is going to be more restful. 

And now I leave you with two amazing meals that I piked up over the past few weeks.  The first one is a great lunch: Chicken Caesar Salad: 4 oz cooked chicken, 2 tbsp low fat Caesar Salad Dressing, 1 tbsp shredded Parmesan cheese, 2 cups torn Romaine lettuce, and 5 whole wheat croutons.  Love this lunch, but I love Caesar Salad.











Next is Spaghetti Squash!  I tried this for the first time and I am in love.  My 3 year old loves it to because I told her it was pasta/noodles and cheese.  She tried some and said "ooo!  Crunchy noodles!"  Just cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds and bake for about an hour at 400 deg.  Then get the squash out with a fork making the noodles.  Put your favorite marinara sauce on it and presto! you are done.  Now I made some turkey meatballs with this to add some meat, but you don't have to do that if you don't want

87 days

This morning I rolled out of bed incoherent and exhausted. I am so incredibly sore from the last several days and last night I didn't fall asleep until very late because I was so cold.  It was -10 degrees outside and although we have our thermostat set at 70, our room gets very cold.  I had five blankets piled on top of me and I was still shaking all over from the cold and had freezing cold hands and feet.  Normally I am fine if Matt goes to bed with me since he produces so much heat, but last night he stayed up a little later.  I eventually snuck into Lily's room and warmed myself with her space heater.  We don't have one in our room because we keep the door open to better hear if the girls have any trouble at night.  After about 10 minutes I felt defrosted and went back to bed.  Fortunately Matt came to bed soon afterwards and soon I was very toasty warm.  So anyway, I woke up groggy and tired.

At first I didn't think I was going to be able to exercise today because I felt so crummy but after a few hours I finally woke up and felt better and I completed Burn 3 where we did a lot of shoulder work.  Now my shoulders are more sore than they have ever been!  My hamstrings are still very sore from the workout a few days ago.  Basically.... I hurt all over.  But I was glad that I completed my exercise today and my foot is feeling better.  I still can't do high impact cardio but it doesn't hurt much anymore while walking or doing lunges and squats.  It is still darkly bruised by the toes and is tender when you put pressure on top of it but for the most part it is healing well. 

For breakfast I had cottage cheese with strawberries, 1/4 cup applesauce and 2 tbsp organic pumpkin granola.  The recipe in my book called for walnuts, but I didn't feel like chopping walnuts in my state of mind.  Besides Granola is also healthy and I think it is fairly comparable to nuts.  I also had a  greek yogurt for snack today since we still have several containers that are rapidly approaching their expiration date.  I don't feel bad at all and I think it was a good choice since Greek yogurt is very high in protein, and has about the same amount of calories as all the other suggested snacks. 

I am starting to understand what people mean when they say that your weight costs you money.  By following this food plan I am noticing how much longer already our food is lasting us this week than I thought it would.  Especially in the snack era.  I bought some chicken sausage and I thought I would be eating half a link with my snack today (Zucchini on the bottom, put some pesto on top of the zucchini then top with a slice of chicken sausage and top that with a little bit of mozzarella cheese).  You get 1/3 of the zucchini, 1/2 ounce sausage, 1/2 ounce mozzarella cheese and 1 tsp then bake in oven at 325 for approx 10-12 minutes.  If I ate this every day it would take me 18 days to eat the whole package of chicken sausage!  Normally when I cook chicken sausage we eat the whole package in about 2 days.  

I also have noticed that we have a lot more leftovers now that I am sticking to the portion size suggested.  Last week our grocery bill was $80 and it is usually about $100-120.  I am just hoping that the decrease in our grocery bill stays consistent!

I have been hungrier today than the last several days and I did break down and eat a little bit of the left over granola bars from the girls and I had a second soda today but I don't feel particularly bad about any of that especially since Chloe is still nursing morning and night (I am going to cut one of those out very soon, she doesn't seem so interested in nursing both times and she is over a year old).  And diet soda has zero calories.

So here is something cute to leave you with: Lily is pretending to nurse her little stuffed hippo just like I nurse Chloe.  Super cute.

89 Days remaining

I bought a new water bottle yesterday to carry around the house with me so I can make sure to drink water more often.  I bought one with a straw in it, which is a different style from the typical ones I usually use.  It has actually helped me over the past two days to drink a lot more water.  That and the fact that I am making absolutely sure I stick to my food schedule and so when I am hungry I drink more water to avoid eating.  The one major downside is that I have to pee every hour.  An annoying side effect since I feel like I am pregnant again and spending too much time in the bathroom. 

Today I did Burn Basics 2 where we worked our biceps, triceps, and we did rows.  I am incredibly sore from yesterday and I am sure I will be even more sore tomorrow.  I altered my rest day (today was supposed to be a rest day) but since I will be super busy on Saturday, I know I will not have time to exercise unless I got up at 5am which is not something I am willing to do.  So Saturday and Sunday will be my rest days this week, and probably next week too since next week we are headed to Crested Butte to go skiing). 

This morning I made a Peanut Butter Smoothie made from 1 cup non fat milk, one scoop protein powder and 1 tbsp cocoa powder (since I only have vanilla protein powder), 1 tbsp peanut butter and some splenda.  I had planned on having this for breakfast every day this week, but I am going to change it tomorrow because I have already gotten tired of it.  It doesn't taste very peanut buttery and it isn't my favorite concoction.  Maybe if I put some PB2 into it but that would add more calories and I am trying very hard to stick to the food plan for the 90 days. 

Cool thing about the food plan is that after the 90 days you can branch out into whatever you want as long as it says within the same basic nutrition layout of the other food in the book (so I will add chia seeds, quinoa, PB2 back into the mix along with other favorites like greek yogurt) and the plan for maintinance is to add 100 calories a day for one week (so if you are eating 1200 calories then week one you go up to 1300 and week two you go up to 1400 and week three you go up to 1500 until you find that happy place where you are not gaining or losing weight).  So adding an extra 100 calories could be adding a side of rice or quinoa or adding a whole wheat biscuit or slice of bread or adding an extra snack.  Cool thoughts, but that is still at the end and I am at the beginning. 

For Lunch I made a Caesar Salad with Romaine lettuce, grille chicken strips (4 oz), 2 tbsp Caesar salad dressing (reduced calorie) and some whole wheat croutons.  I loved it!  I really like salads though. 

Dinner I discovered that I could broil chicken really easily!  I made chicken bruchetta and I was supposed to have green beans on the side but we didn't have green beans so I substituted in some Asparagus which I thought would be about the same. 

My total caloric intake today was about 1250, doing good on day 2.  Starting to feel the desire stronger today to snack more on sweets or go and grab some bread.  I love bread, I will need to incorporate some whole wheat into my meals over the next few days (there are recipes in the book that include whole wheat, I just haven't picked them out yet, probably a mistake, I should make sure to get some whole wheat tomorrow).

90 days to a new me

Today is day 1 of my Chalean Extreme 90 day challenge.  I have decided to count down instead of up just to switch things up a bit.  I seem to always be starting at 1 and then I feel like it is hard to get my momentum going.  So if I start at day 90 and work towards day 1 it changes things up in my mind. 

After looking through all of my materials and preparing my food plan for the week and looking at the guide book and wondering if I was going to use it to record my data or record my data somewhere else I had a realization.  I was looking at other people's results and saying "that can't be me, I still have way too much weight to lose to look like that after 90 days".  And yes, I do have a lot of weight still to lose.  I am at 153.4 (maintaining my weight from last week which is good because that means I didn't go up) and my goal is 121 meaning I have about 32 pounds to lose.  Well, many people whose results are shown lost 30-35 pounds while gaining tons of muscle and definition.  I realized I don't have 90 pounds to lose anymore, I have 32 pounds to lose.  Basically I realized that I could be my own success story, I could get the results advertised if I stick to the program, follow the exercise schedule and the eating plan.  I love the eating plan because you have 80 recipes to chose from and you can really customize your day.

 So for today I made a peanut butter protein smoothie for breakfast, and then boiled some eggs for my snacks (one deviled egg for morning snack). I am making a Cesar salad for lunch, having a mini turkey slider for afternoon snack and I am making cherry tomato salmon for dinner. While water is encouraged and you are told to try to drink your 8 8-oz glasses of water every day, you are also allowed one diet soda a day, and you are allowed a cup of coffee (which I don't drink but I thought I would mention that coffee is allowed) and you are also allowed to drink tea (herbal/iced as long as it doesn't have calories).  Sweet!  I am really happy that the drinking plan is much more realistic since most programs say "only water and nothing else" but I am really going to try to drink my water every day.  I bought a new waterbottle to carry around with me so I am not always filling up a glass of water by the sink, and I am going to put some lemons or limes in my water with dinner so I will actually drink water with my meals.  And I still get my one diet soda a day! 

So after a trip to the grocery store this morning I was feeling prepared to start my exercise.  I borrowed some adjustable weights from my parents:

These will work well for me I think, but they do have one downside: for some of the lower leg and core workouts we are supposed to use very heavy weights and I only have two 5-pound weights so I can only make one weight with both five pound weight on them (I would need four 5-pound weights to make both of the weights).  Anyway, I hope that made sense.  I can put two discs on each side of each bar so if I need two weights and each weight needs to be 16 pounds I can't do it.  I can only make one 16 pound weight (by putting a 5 pound and 3 pound weight on each side of one bar).  So I might have to improvise or use the band once I outgrow these weights on the lower legs.

Anyway, if that wasn't confusing enough lets move on!
So I went to do my first exercise video today: Burn 1 and the DVD wouldn't play!  I was soooooo upset.  I checked all the other DVDs and all of them worked but that one.  So I thought I was going to have to wait until Amazon could send me a new set since one of the discs wouldn't work.  (It displayed "Disc Error") and I found out that Amazon couldn't replace it, they could only refund the money once the product was returned.  So I figured that would add over a week delay to my start time.  Fortunately I had the idea to put it in my Computer and see if it would play and thank goodness it played!  I am still furious that one of the discs in my $100 workout does not play on my DVD player but at least it plays on my computer and I do not want to waste any more time waiting around for a replacement. 

So I was able to do Burn 1, my very first workout of the program and it probably took me twice as long as the 35 minutes that the program was because I wasn't sure which weights to use and if I set my weights to the wrong weight, I would have to switch them which took more time.  Plus Lily wanted to eat and then she hit herself in the head with one of the 1 pound weights (thank goodness it wasn't heavier than that!)  I think it will be much faster next time because I wrote down which weights I used for each exercise.  I am just thankful that Chloe was napping through all of this. 

So day one and I am on track (I guess day 1 isn't all that hard to stay on track though) and I am very nervous but I know what I want.  I will post my results at the end with pictures if I feel confident about it (because I actually took my before pictures in my sports bra and swim bottoms so that you can actually see my body and the way it changes.) 

90 days left