Day 1

So today I was up at 153.  I'm not surprised and I'm not upset.  I know the last three days were not great to say the least, and I know that my weight will go back down fairly quickly.  I think I am going to weigh in every other day or so and if it starts affecting my mood then I am going to back off to once a week.  I really want to win this challenge and I cannot afford any days where I fly off the bandwagon because of a disappointing weigh in.  Today is day 1 of Feel great in 8 and it is day 1 of Turbo Fire.  I love turbo fire!  It is kickboxing based, and high energy and still a little dancy.  Coming from doing Zumba so much, it is perfect for me.  I love it!  I finished my workout today and was sad that it was over haha!  Now that is a workout I can live with!  It is definitely high intense and I was struggling with cramps for most of it.  Probably because of how poorly I ate the last few days. 

Source

I stuck to the plan I made almost perfectly.  The only differences that I made was adding half a banana to my oatmeal instead of half a cup of berries.  I also nixed the tbsp of brown sugar that I usually put in my oatmeal since the challenge is about making healthier choices and adding extra sugar, while it may not count as a treat, just seemed wrong.  I want to make sure I am being fair and honest and I still intend to win :-)
I even drank all my water today and then some!  I downed two out of three bottles of water before lunch and then finished the last one somewhere around 3.  I used one of my two treats this evening on a diet Pepsi.  I plan on saving my other treat for Thursday when we have our church activity.  They usually have good stuff there.  And if there isn't anything there to spend my treat on, then I get to have it another time!  Also we got an email today and we get a free day on Mother's Day!  So we just take the average of the week for each category and use that.  I am going to still try to get in all of my points by eating fiber, protein, fruit, and veggies, but I'm not going to have to be penalized for having extra treats.

So for today, the only thing I have left to do is to write in a gratitude journal which I figured I could just do on my blog.  So here it goes:

Gratitude Journal
I am grateful for my husband who works all day and all night at two jobs and goes to school in order to earn enough money to provide for the family.  Because he tirelessly works away we get to live in this wonderful house, we have internet, cell phones, health insurance, heat, water, food, and all other necessities of life.  I am thankful that he was able to get a new higher paying job last year when we needed it the most and now I can go to Costco without worrying we won't be able to afford the things I am buying (such as diapers and lunch meat and vegetables, and fruit). (This being on my mind because I went to Costco this morning!)  So Thank You Matt for all the hard work that you do.

Out with the old, In with the New

Changing over.  Finishing one program and starting a new.  Chalean Extreme is over and I kind of messed up the last few days.  Finishing strong was never my strong point.  I tend to binge eat sweets right before I start a new program and this time was no different.  Friday and Saturday I ate until I felt sick.  Mostly all that Easter candy that I have been ignoring up until now.  I don't really feel bad about it.  It means my weigh in on Monday won't be as good as it would have been but I have learned that if the scale is up a pound or so after eating a lot the day before it doesn't really mean a whole lot.  It's just excess food.  Besides that I kind of cheated and weighed myself on Friday morning.  I was 151.2.  I was upset that I didn't go down any, and I am still stuck here at the 150 mark, but I also know that I have lost inches and built a ton of muscle.  I was talking to my neighbor yesterday for the first time in several months and he remarked that I had lost weight, so that makes me feel good because while the scale hasn't gone down, I know that I am looking different.  I also know that on Monday I am starting Turbo Fire and returning to a mostly cardio workout, and I even signed up for the Feel Great in 8 Challenge and I intend to win!

The feel great in 8 challenge is hosted by Tiffany at www.feelgreatin8.com   It costs $20 to join the challenge, and $10 goes to Tiffany for orchestrating and hosting the challenge, and the other $10 goes to a communal pot that you can win!  You get cash prizes for coming in 1st-4th and also for being the person with the highest percentage of weight loss.  The challenge is 8 weeks long and the way you compete is by tracking points.  It is rather involved so I will just briefly outline some of the sections you get points in. You get points for eating vegetables, fruit, fiber, and protein (servings per day are: 4,3,3,4 respectively and you get points for each serving you eat but don't get more points for eating more servings than required).  You also get points for sleep, uplifting reading, service, family time, exercise (points depend on the length of workout: 15 min, 30 min and 45 min, each amount of time earning more points as the time increases).  You get points for drinking water and keeping a gratitude journal.  You also have to subtract 5 points for every item you eat on the "bad" list.  Such items include but are not limited to: candy, cookies, fried foods, soda (regular and diet), chips etc.  You get two items each week on the bad list that you don't have to subtract points for.  This is to remind us that we are trying to live a lifestyle not a fad diet.  You can still eat the items on the bad list, you just have to subtract points for it.  You also select a goal you want to complete during the challenge and an addiction you want to overcome.  You get points for every day you don't give into your addiction and you get points for completing your goal at the end.

My goal is to get in 10,000 steps every day except for Sunday.  Since I just got my fitbit, and it is something I have been thinking about I thought it was an appropriate goal (it is also on the recommended goal list so I know it is an approved goal).  Your goal can't be anything covered by the challenge and it can't be weight loss either.  For my addiction I chose lying down on the couch in the afternoon and putting a movie on for the kids.  I get really tired in the afternoon and usually from 3-4 I put a movie on for the kids and pass out on the couch.  Your addiction has to be something that is hard for you to overcome and can't be covered by the challenge (for example I was thinking of giving up diet soda, but you already have to subtract points for drinking it so I couldn't use that as my addiction.  You also can't choose sweets either.)  I know this is going to be very challenging for me as I get very very tired in the afternoon to the point where I almost can't function.  It's not so bad if we are out of the house, but most often we are home.  So that is my addiction and my goal.

The average number of people in the challenge is 150 so usually the first place winner gets about $300 and the second place gets $270 and third gets less and fourth gets less.  You can read all about it on her blog and website.  Anyway, it's about making healthy choices and while it is focused on weight loss and improving health it also has a more well rounded view instead of the narrow view of just food.  Since it also includes the spiritual aspects and family time and service into the challenge it is about improving yourself as a whole.

I am ready for this challenge, and I really want to win.  I am hoping that 8 weeks from now (challenge ends June 29th-ish) I will look and feel even better, and have some money to buy new summer clothes!

Emotional Day

This post really has nothing to do about weight loss, but it's more for me anyway.  Today started out pretty normal.  Lily has been waking up much earlier lately since the sun has been coming up earlier.  The last few nights I have actually been able to sleep so that has been good.  This morning was a bit challenging lifting weights because Lily kept fighting with Chloe, and Chloe kept sitting on me and Lily kept getting in the way and even got her head bonked when I was lowering one of the weights.  She was alright, she didn't get hit very hard, so that is good.  Anyway, that was a bit frustrating, but I powered through my weight lifting: Lean phase 1 workout: biceps and triceps and was glad when it was over. 

Recently, I was put in charge of play group for my church.  Moms with kids too young to go to school will meet up once every other week and hang out.  Today was my first time organizing the play group.  We were supposed to meet at the park but typical Colorado weather threw us a curve ball and I told everyone to meet at my house instead since it was only 40 degrees and had a wind chill that made it feel like it was about 10 degrees outside.  I was expecting a few people to come, but I was surprised when no one showed up.  I guess that goes to show just about how popular I am, which is to say not at all.  I was a little upset that no one came, and I didn't want to take it too personally after all people are busy, and we did have to change the location of the meet up just one day ago.  Even though I told everyone that we would move it to my house a week ago if the weather was bad.  Still... giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, lets just say no one wanted to go anywhere because it was cold, or maybe the time was just bad.  The real test will be in the coming weeks if no one continues to show up. 

But even then, I thought someone would come.  I've been to many play groups before and I've been to many play groups where it is the organizer's first time setting it up and there is usually a few people there if not several people.  Well, even if it has nothing to do with me it still drove a thorn into my brain today because it really got me thinking about my friends.... or lack there of.  This is just a sensitive subject lately because my best friend is moving again.  Every time I have made a friend since I left college, they have moved within just a few months of us becoming good friends.  I'm not even exaggerating.  We moved back to Colorado in July 2010.  I had virtually no friends until I met Casey who is my exact age and has a daughter the same age as Lily.  It takes me a long time to really become good friends with people these days.  It takes several times meeting in public (like church or at a meet up) and then it takes several times actually hanging out to actually consider this person a good friend and to be someone that I call and text and enjoy hanging out with on a regular basis.  So after several months of knowing Casey, she became my first real friend when we moved here.  A few months later she moved to California where her husband was accepted to dental school leaving me once again friendless.  Enter Amanda, a Lia Sophia consultant whom I met at party I went to.  I went to a Lia Sophia open house she had at her house and we kind of connected.  I did a party for her and fast forward a few months later, she became my next good friend and was on the way to best friend status when all of a sudden, just about one to two months after we started hanging out, she moves to Texas where her husband got a job.  Leaving me once again friendless.  Then we moved about a mile down the road and switched church wards.  I didn't have any friends in my old ward so I wasn't upset about it at all and I was really hoping to make a lot of new friends in the new ward.  One year later, I know some people and have no friends.  Bonnie then moves into the ward, she is  my age and has two kids, the exact same age as my kids.  We talk, a few months go by, our older kids decide that they enjoy hanging out together because they are in the same class at church, a few more months go by, we decide to get the kids together, it's now early 2014 and around about March is when I would say we became really good friends.  So following my history, what is bound to happen?  That is right, I found out last week that they are moving to Utah in June. 

Thinking about this and the fact that I am soon to once again be friendless sent me into depressive fits and resulted in me crying from about 11am-4pm when my husband decided that we needed to go out to dinner because he loved me and wanted me to feel better.  He is so sweet that way.  He did make me feel better, and I stopped crying.  But by that time I felt so emotionally drained that I was kind of numb the rest of the day.  I have been trying so hard since we moved here to make friends.  I don't require a lot of friends, just a few close friends would be nice.  Late last fall I decided to get to know my neighbors, I met four women who are stay at home moms with two kids and all the same ages as mine, or around about.  Two of them I feel like I clicked with better.  One of them is my neighbor and I invite her over and we hang out every so often and we talk when we are both in our back yards.  We will see where it goes, so the end of this story isn't completely desolate.  There is hope and I am working on forging new friendships.  But realizing today that as soon as Bonnie moves I will have no friends in my church again was very depressing.  Yes, I know people, but we are not "friends" which has become very apparent to me over the past few weeks as when I am in a group of people everyone is talking to someone else, when I see someone I know and go up to talk to them the conversation dies out quickly and we move on.  It's not necessarily a bad thing, I guess we are more acquaintances than friends.  But still, it leaves me wondering if that might be why not one in twenty people showed up today.

One Week to go

This is the last week of Chalean Extreme.  The last week I have to stay off of the scale.  I am totally ecstatic to finish Chalean Extreme and to start Turbo Fire.  A few weeks ago I decided to do the Fire Starter class for one of my cardio days instead of the short cardio in the CLX program (burn it off).  I loved the turbo fire class!  Most of this month I have switched those two classes.  I have to admit that I am very tempted to just skip the last week of Chalean Extreme and go right into turbo fire, but that would be pretty pathetic of me to work so hard and then skip the very last week of the program.  (Doesn't mean I'm not tempted to do it though ;-)

My foot is fully healed and I am excited to return to cardio.  I am hoping that now that I have muscle and I will be switching to doing mostly cardio, I will lose the rest of the weight faster.  One can hope.  Anyway, I get to weigh myself on Sunday and I am nervous and excited.  I am trying to mentally prepare myself for anything.  The scale could show that I have lost no weight or it could show that I have finally dropped down into my healthy weight range.  I'm going to be carefully watching what I eat from this day forth to make sure I don't mess up my weigh in by eating too much food the night before! 

In other news my brother came over today.  He is back for a few days from college before he heads out on a music tour of Europe.  He said that I look a lot different than the last time he saw me, which makes me feel good because he hasn't seen me since before I started CLX which means that I have indeed made progress.  (He said "yeah, you opened the door and I was like WOW!  My sister is getting hot!"   haha, he always knows how to make me feel good).

Not much to say about today besides that, so here are some updates from last week:

We went on a hike and Lily walked the whole way!  She absolutely loved it and even ran the last little bit.  She fell asleep in the car on the way home though.  Not surprising as the hike was about 2.5 miles long!

Also last week I took the kids to the Zoo again.  Lily had been begging to go for several days so I finally found a day to take them.  It was nice!  Not too hot, not too cold.  Chloe spent most of the time out of the stroller and they both had a great time.

Lastly, I got a new thermos(?) I am not sure what to call it but that sounds good enough.  Anyway, I keep it filled with water and carry it around the house with me.  It's been helping me to drink more water.  Now just to keep up with it.

Catching up

Sorry for the lack of posts this past week.  Lily has been having increasingly difficult times falling asleep at night and I haven't been sleeping well which results in me being tired and frustrated in the evening when I usually write.  Easter was great, however we now have more candy in the house than we did for Halloween and Christmas combined!  Lily did three Easter egg hunts: one at each grandparents house and one at our house.  Chloe did well for her first egg hunt, she had a good time picking up eggs and shaking them. The whole putting them in the basket concept was lost on her however as she would just drop whatever eggs she was holding to pick up a new one that she found.  Lily had a blast dying eggs and I picked up a few kits the day after Easter so we could do it again a few times as a craft.  Besides, I like having boiled eggs around, they make for an easy snack and they go good in sandwiches and in salads.

Here is a pic of Lily dying eggs.  She's wearing one of my old shirts that she wears for paining.  It's way big so it's falling off, but better than nothing.

Anyway, I feel like I have been doing well, only one and a half more weeks until clx is over and I get to return to my beloved cardio for a while.  I can't say exactly how well I am doing since I am not weighing myself, but I think I have done better this month with eating than with the other months.  No week long splurges as of yet.  I can't wait to weigh myself, but I am also nervous.  What if I haven't lost any weight still? Ah well, at least I got stronger.

I have been very hungry the past several days, possibly due to lack of sleep, all my hormones must be out of wack.  Tonight I made some popcorn but I did not smother it in butter!  I also stayed out of the Easter candy which I was so tempted to dig into.   But I am being very serious about my no sweets on days other than holidays and special occasions rule.  I want to make that into something I just do and that is the way I live.  It is hard right now, but I think over time it will get easier.  The next event isn't until Mother's Day.  And that is several weeks away, good time for me to practice some self control.

I didn't eat a whole lot of popcorn, less than I normally would if I were splurging but I still feel really sick.  That means I have been eating healthy and my body doesn't like so much oily popcorn anymore (I popped it in oil instead of the air popper per Lilys request).   I need to remember this for next time, I hope this doesn't affect my sleep tonight, speaking of which I have some sleep I need to catch up on and I pray I can fall asleep tonight and sleep well.  This whole insomnia thing is not working for me and it is so weird because I have never had a problem sleeping before.  Usually my problem is sleeping too much so seeing it from the other side is an unpleasant eye opener (excuse the pun, it just came out that way).

Another good day

Today I was soooo tempted to weigh myself.  I have been doing good all week, and when I do well, I get very tempted to micromanage my weight on the scale.  You will be happy to know that I resisted the temptation to weigh myself.  I am glad I did because I know that if the scale didn't reflect how good I was feeling, which in all honesty it probably doesn't since I am still focusing on weight training and last week wasn't that great, I would have been very upset and discouraged and I might have gone off the deep end again.  I know I let these things bother me more than I should, hence the no scale challenge.  Because I didn't weigh myself, I just went off of how I felt, and I felt great today!  I had lots of energy for the whole day and I did the Burn Intervals and Ab burner workouts on Chalean Extreme this morning the best I have ever done them!  I can almost do all the triceps reps which has been very challenging to me.  Also, the second set of bicep curls in the middle of the video is very challenging and I can't do all of those reps yet (even with only 4 pound weights).  Also the Burpees are incredibly difficult and I only manage to get 15 out of the 20 done.  I have to rest in between a few sets so my total probably comes out to 15.  But I did the kickboxing units with more intensity than I usually do (preparing for Turbo Fire!) and I even made it through the whole Ab Burner video.  I tried to to the Extreme abs video but it was too hard for me.  The ab burner is challenging enough and it has advanced options which I still can't do yet so I am going to stick with that. 

I am happy with the way I ate, about 1500 calories today and I even enjoyed a Fiber One brownie and a Weight Watchers chocolate creme cake.  I really didn't like the chocolate creme cake so I will probably be stuffing the rest of them into Matt's lunchbox for when he goes off to work and school.  I don't think they are worth the calories, but Matt doesn't have to be so picky. 

Lily had her 3 yr check up today at the doctor and I have been preparing her for it all week.  It helped that Chloe had her check up two days ago so Lily was in the mindset of going to the doctor.  This is the first appointment that she hasn't screamed all the way through!  I was so proud of her.  She even stepped on the scale and let them take her height.  She got a little squirmy when the Doc was looking in her ears but other than that she was perfect! 

When we got home from Costco (we went after the doc appointment) I played with the girls outside to get some of their energy out, and then Lily and I played inside while Chloe took a nap.  It was a very active day and here it is at 8pm and these are my stats in my fitbit tracker

Huzzah!  over 11K steps!  Not too shabby.  I didn't go up and down the stairs quite as many times today, which suits me fine.  I didn't have to work in the basement today so I didn't have all the extra trips from the basement to the main floor. 

All in all I am feeling really great right now.  Getting off the sugar has really helped me get my energy back, and this time I am NOT going to load up on the stuff again and put myself into another sugar coma.  This time, I am keeping my energy.  Who would have thought that it would make such a big difference.

I got a Fitbit!

So I have finally joined the fitbit group.  I have been wanting one for a while to help track my movement and just to make sure that I am being active enough during the day.  I have a feeling that I am doing pretty good in the morning, but when the afternoon comes I slack of majorly!  So I wanted something to help me gauge how I am doing and to motivate me to move more during the day.  I am fully aware that the fitbit mostly tracks movement, meaning that when I do weight training it doesn't account for the energy I put into lifting weights.  My goal is to get at least my 10,000 steps in every day.

This morning I did Lean circuit 2, which is a crazy hard weight lifting circuit.  I am impressed that I am even able to do it, and that is a testament to how hard I have been working over the past few months because I know I would not be able to have done many of the exercises two and a half months ago.  What makes the lean circuits so hard is that you are doing total body moves and you focus on only a few upper body muscles for the whole circuit.  So for Lean 1 you work your biceps and triceps for all 9 exercises, and in Lean 2 you are working your shoulders and deltoids, and in Lean 3 focuses mostly on the chest (you do a ton of pushups in the lean 3 circuit). 

After weight lifting and getting showered and cleaned up we ate some lunch and I took the kids on a walk right before the snow started coming down.  Both the kids were getting fussy and I figured we needed to get out of the house for a bit.  I could tell that Lily was super tired while on the walk because she kept getting in and out of the stroller.  We got home right as the snow started coming down.  I was super excited when I got Lily to take a nap really easily.  She slept for two hours before I woke her up!  It was nice to have a little time Lily free.

Coming up on the end of the day and my stats in My Fitbit look like this:

Only 800 more steps to reach my goal and it is only 7:00!  Granted this is the time of the day when I am the least active but I still think that I can get the last few steps in.  You can see I went up and down my stairs 35 times today.  Now you know why I was dying when I was 211.  I remember being so miserable and upset when I had to go upstairs to grab socks for Lily, or if I needed a jacket.  I would do just about anything to not have to go up the stairs.  Now I try to go up several times just so I can get in the activity.  I can even run up the stairs now :-)

Today was a good day all around, for eating, exercise, and just in general.  I am going to try to get more days to be like today.  I really think cutting out all the sugar has helped a lot!  I am finally out of my sugar coma and today I didn't crash too bad in the afternoon.  I just got a little sleepy around 3-4 but nothing too bad.