Zumba Goodies and a new haricut

I have been thinking for a while about writing an e-mail to Majesco thanking them for making the Zumba games, especially the game for the Ipad since that is what I used for almost a year to exercise.  It's hard for me to exercise since we can't afford a gym membership with two kids needing daycare, and I don't have a jogging stroller, and I think it would have been way too hard for me to go jogging with two kids anyway.  Besides that, I really despise running and I would not have stayed with it.  So the Zumba games were a life saver for me!  I was debating waiting until I had lost some more weight ( I originally thought of emailing them when I was around 170 pounds, and now I was 148 so I just decided to go ahead and email them).  I didn't really expect much back from them, maybe an automated message saying they received my email, and really it was just a thank you letter anyway.

I was surprised about two weeks later when I received an email back from the company congratulating me on my weight loss and they said they were going to send a box of goodies to me!  They were so supportive and nice, and really made me feel like I had accomplished something amazing even though I have not reached my goal weight yet.  They asked a few more questions about how often I played the games (which was three to four times a day and my goal was to play for three hours a week) and about the kinds of food I ate and I told them about starting out with portion control and then eventually training myself to eat healthier food.

A few days later I received a package in the mail, and what was inside was totally AWESOME!!!

Majesco is such a great company, they are amazing!  I can't believe that they sent all of this to me for free just for writing a thank you letter to them for helping me loose 63 pounds so far.  They sent me the Zumba wrist bands that I have been wanting to get, but just could never justify.  I also got the carpet gliders that I have been wanting to try out, two Wii games: Zumba World Party (yay!) and Zumba Kids (popular songs instead of classic Zumba songs, as long as the moves are good, this will be fun to play even if the avatars are kids instead of adults), and 3 CDs!  I am so excited!

Yes my kitchen table is a disaster zone

So now I have to get a Wii to play my games :)  Fortunately the new Wii U is out and so Wii consoles are going for about $50-$70.  However, that is still a bit expensive for a non-essential.  However, Dad is thinking of buying Chase a new Wii U (one of the benefits of being the youngest and still living at home :)  and he said that once he buys Chase the new Wii that I can take the Wii they currently have!  Wahoo!  I don't know how long it will be until they buy a new Wii, but with me and Chase bugging Dad about it, it probably won't be too long ;)  I still have a month and a half of my weight lifting program, so hopefully by the end of my program he will buy it and I can start playing my new awesome games!

Lily helped me take that picture, not bad for a 3 year old :-)

In other news, I got my hair cut today and I love it!  It will require a bit more maintenance than just wash and wear, but I was never happy with how my hair looked before and if I want it too look nice I guess I am just going to have to do something about it.  I actually feel like I look good now.  I don't feel like I look messy or disheveled, I will just have to figure out how to spend a few minutes fixing my hair after my shower and working that into my routine. 

Can you see the difference between this picture and the picture above where I'm holding the Zumba stuff?  This is much better, looks much neater and more put together and less messy and less bumpy/poofy. 

Zumba World Party

Coming up on the last few days of phase one of Chalean Extreme and I am making sure my eating is spot on as well as getting in plenty of exercise throughout the day.  Today was a Cardio day and instead of doing the Burn it off 25 minute program I decided to go over to my parents house and try out the amazing new Zumba World Party game on their wii.  It was so much fun! I loved every song, and my heart rate stayed over 140 the whole time, and was in the 160s-170s for most of it. The load times are faster and there is less wait time between each song as the demo before and after each song is shorter.  I like that because it feels more like a real class and your heart rate doesn't drop too low in-between songs.  I chose a 60 minute class with high intensity.  In one hour I burned 576 calories according to my heart rate monitor and the game told me that I burned 575 calories during the workout, which was spot on!  I have never seen an estimate so close to the actual number of calories I burned, so that was pretty awesome and earns my seal of approval!


 

I love the new settings and the new graphics.  Also, it tracks your "Zumba moves" and once you hit a streak of 6, the game adds more dancers and background light and once you hit 12, the game adds the last set of dancers and lights to the point where it looks super awesome!  You start out with only one dancer at the beginning of the song which is different from the other versions, it makes it feel more like you are working towards something in every song and adds an extra component of "play".  I loved the new feel.  I just tried out the full class mode and I did not play around much in the world party mode (where you can free select songs).  However I did visit this screen and it had more of a DDR feel where some songs are locked until you reach certain levels.  They have also added "flier miles" and passports which I didn't look too close into, but all of the this gives it more of a video game feel instead of just an exercise program.  Translation: Awesome!

Image taken from Amazon

Zumbathon

You may be wondering why I have not posted at all this week.  I have been incredibly busy this week and I like to make my posts in the evening, however this week has been a little different.  Several months ago I found a dance studio that offers Zumba classes on a pay as you go basis.  I bought a 10 class pass which expired in 6 months.  In that amount of time (6 months) I only managed to find 5 days that I could go to Zumba class.  I thought I had until the end of this month to use them but as I went to sign up for classes on Monday I realized that I only had until the 24th!  So I had to sign up for class every night in order to use all 5 of my remaining classes before they expired.  So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I went to Zumba class and I was so exhausted afterwards that I had no energy for blogging and went right to bed.  On top of that Robert came down to do strength training with me and my neighbor Charlee on Wednesday.  So I ended up working out twice that day!  So 5 exercises in 4 days, and I am exhausted and sore and angry at my scale.  I need to go on a scale strike where I don't weigh myself.  I know I have been doing really well this week, and I have gotten in a ton of exercise, however my weight stubbornly stays at 153.4.  I am really upset because yesterday I was at 151.9 and today I am back at 153.4.  I know that it is probably because I am building muscle, or it could be water retention, or because I need to use the bathroom, or any various other reasons, but I have been so obsessed with reaching my goal of 150 that I am stressed over it and the numbers on the scale.  Which I know is stupid, but I am only human and I do it anyway.

Yesterday I was able to have a really fun day with my friend Casey and we went to Charming Charlie's and then to a store called Down East and she helped me with my bad sense of fashion.  I am slowly learning how to better dress myself and what to wear and when and what goes together.  It is a lot to learn especially for someone who has been so ignorant of this topic for so long.  I will have to post some photos of my new clothes once I reach 150.... so very close.  I will weigh in again Sunday for my official weigh in.
Happy Holidays