Week 17

I think once I finish the 30 Day Shred I'm going to re-evaluate things.  I'm not sure if I need to lower my calories by a couple hundred a day or if my lower losses are coming from just not exercising the way I was before I started the 30DS, but it needs to pick back up again.  This flabby shit needs to come off!

I was only down another .6 today.  Granted its .6 I'd rather be down that up, but it's still frustrating.  Overall from Aug 1 to Aug 31 I lost 4.2 pounds, so that's good.  And I'm only 2.2lbs away from a total loss of 30lbs! Great right?

I am going to be happy with this loss since I did eat horribly for 4 of the 7 days and I'm going to move on to the next week!  I have to, life is going to keep moving so I must too.  We don't have any big plans for the holiday weekend so I am going to try super hard to stay on track with my food and have a nice healthy loss next week. But if some one wanted to pour a few too many beers, mixed drinks, whatever down my throat, I won't fight you!

I did forget to mention is my obsession with food yesterday, that I moved up to 5lb weights for my workout. Holy shit can I feel it.  I wanted to put them down during the second set of punches today, but I didn't, I pushed through it!  I can feel that I have been pushing myself more again.  My quads are sore and my arms are weak!  Oh yeah and twice this week I've opted to carry a 30+ lb box to the building next door rather than using a cart to push it!  My safety department probably wouldn't be too proud, but I don't really care, I knew I could do it!

Here's a question for you, can anyone really do those jumping lunges?  I can't do it, I fall over just about every time.  Maybe it's because my balance isn't all that good first thing in the morning?

I can't believe I'm only 4 days away from completing it!  I think this is truly the first program I have followed through from beginning to end.  Maybe because it's in 10 day sections?

Parfaits

Seems all my blogging is about food today!

I might be just a little a lot obsessed.

It all started one day when I forgot to bring a snack to work.  I went down to the cafeteria and there was the greatest looking strawberry and yogurt parfait, with the granola in a separate container on the top!  It was D-Lish-US!

So I had them several days and then realized they were most likely using regular yogurt, not non-fat and I had no idea how many calories the granola had.  Then I remember I had some granola I bought a while back and decided to make my own.  O.M.G.

1 cup Strawberries, sliced
3/4 Cup Fit & Active Vanilla Yogurt
1/4 Cup Bear Naked Vanilla Almond Granola

278 calories!  And so filling!

I ran out of granola and went to buy more and guess what!  There are a million kinds out there.  I got the Peanut Butter and the Pumpkin kinds because my new favorite parfait is banana!

The banana with the peanut better is A-MAZE-ING!

Maybe this weekend I can get out the ingredient to that one and give the calories and such. (see I've been bad about logging them)  I'm pretty sure it's right around 300 though, the perfect breakfast!  It's also helping me get my dairy in without so much cheese, I <3 cheese.

Tomorrow is weigh in day...

Well, Almost

Dinner:

I had two plates of salad that looked like this (only 1.5 bread sticks) and I caved and had a piece of pizza, it was a small pie so I'm estimating the slice was maybe 300 calories.  Since before dinner I had only consumed about 800 calories I don't feel all that bad about the pizza.

Post Workout:

I can't even tell you how many times I had already wiped my face.  I don't know if I pushed myself hard enough with in the arms, but my quads are feeling it and my back.  I hate that it's other parts of my body that give out before the abs do in the abs parts.  Like the leg crosses kill my quads, not my abs.

And here I am looking all good today.  Ok, not one of my favorite outfits, but I'm happy to say that the pants are a size 16 and start falling down when I walk!!! (I started this journey in a rather tight size 20!

PS I love long skinny mirrors!  But I'm starting to not hate my big wide mirror in the bathroom so much. (who puts a huge wide mirror right on the wall next to the shower so you can look at your gross naked body EVERY time you get in?  I certainly didn't put it there, but I did leave it.)

Fighting Back!

This morning I was going to write about my emotional eating, how I hate it and how I’ve been spiraling out of control.  But then I read this Post on Spoken Dreams of a Realist and decided I want to talk more about fighting back.

If I am honest and think about all the times I gave up before I can probably pin point one stressful thing that caused me to eat horrible, and then I got down on myself for eating horrible, then the scale showed it and then I gave up.

I refuse to give up this time.  Right now I’m very frustrated.  I’m mad at myself for making excuses this weekend not to work out.  I’m mad at myself for not getting my ass outta bed yesterday to do it.  And I’m mad at myself because I feel like I had a major lack of effort when I did work out this morning.

Let’s not even talk about the train wreck that was my eating yesterday.  I had a big juicy mushroom burger for lunch and then pizza and wings for dinner.  I don’t even want to say how many pieces of pizza I ate!

I know what triggered my eating yesterday and when I ordered my lunch I even said to my sister “I should be getting the salad, but I really want this…” and when B suggested picking up dinner I said “how about pizza, I feel like eating my emotions tonight.”

Now that I know I try to eat my emotions away, I get more upset at myself for not fighting the urge.  I obviously knew very well last night that I was totally stressed and overwhelmed and eating horribly because of it and I did it anyway.  The healthy girl inside really wants to punch myself in the stomach and say “This does less harm to your body than that shit you stuffing your face with!”

I am going to fight back!  I’m going to let the healthy girl inside punch me!  I’m going to listen to her!  I'm going to feel excited about having the chance to lose this week and fight the urge to say "well what's the point, I already ruined this week."  You know what, every time you eat, it's a new start, not just every morning or every Monday!

Since my MIL just informed me she is ordering pizza for dinner tonight (gee thanks) I’m going to ask her to get me a salad.  I am NOT going to eat pizza!  I am going to take a picture of my salad and post it!  I am not going to give in!!!  I CAN do this!

I am also going to bust my ass tomorrow morning!  I’m going to work for the 30DS results I want!

3 Days

Regrettably that is how long it has been since I've worked out.  Friday night we left for my mom's camp.  I was so excited because I was able to fit my workout mat and weights!

Friday night when it came time for Lillian to lay down and watch her movie we found that daddy only packed the car plug for the DVD player, not the house plug.  So I made her watch TV.  To my disappointment Saturday I put my workout clothes on only to find that apparently there was no charge to the DVD player at all.  I actually considered using the DVD player in my mom's room (it's the only one there) until I remembered there is jumping and I really didn't want to be waking the girls, they were sleeping in there.

So no work out.  Although we did go for a few walks in the sweltering sun and I sweat so much that Lillian was nice enough to wipe her hand across my forehead and say "What's this mom?"  Gross!!!

It wasn't until I was complaining to my mom later that she said "why didn't you just take my computer and do it outside (which was my original plan with the portable DVD player we brought).  DUH!  why didn't I think of that?  By then it was after 7, I had consumed a few drinks and working out just wasn't what I wanted to do, especially with all the people around!

Yesterday I just wasn't comfortable doing it.  I couldn't get the computer without waking my mom and by the time she got up a bunch of other people were up and again, I'm not into a bunch of people I barely know watching me do a DVD that I can barely do.

This morning was a complete fail!  Last night Laney couldn't sleep.  She didn't wake up to eat until 3, so when my alarm went off at 3:30 I hit snooze and apparently did so for almost an hour and a half!  It was time to shower by the time I got my ass out of bed!  Hopefully I can get it in tonight when I get home.

On the plus side, even though I ate fast food twice, yes twice this weekend, I'm still at 188.  Let me just say that fast food was enough to last me 6 months.  I can't believe I used to eat that shit all the time!  I thought I was going to be sick for an hour about 2 hours after I actually ate it.

Hope everyone else is doing better than me!  Get off your butt and move!

Week 16

Fist I want to say a big Hello to my new followers!  Hi ya'll  I'm guessing your here from Mama L's FitCamp.    Isn't it such a great place?  If you don't know what I'm talking about you should check it out! You should also check out her blog Mama Laughlin!  Great read!

First today was weigh in day, I was fully expecting a gain.  I'm getting to the point where my losing has slowed and every week I'm starting to think I'm just not going to lose anything.  This week was a loss of 0.6lbs.  That's right, a whole half a pound.  I'm glad I didn't go up, but I'm not happy with myself.  I feel like I should be pushing more, but my body just doesn't seem to want to.  One of those things where I just want to punch myself.

Maybe some of it is my eating.  I haven't been perfect and logging quite as much as I should I guess.  *If I'm really honest with myself I've done a lot of guessing on servings and not measuring*  This week *meaning starting Monday, cause damn it it's the weekend and I have fun plans* I'm going to start planning and measuring better!  I need to enter more recipes into MFP and stick to the serving sizes, it's just so damn time consuming!  I HATE entering recipes!

As for exercise, today started Level 3 of the 30 Day Shred!  OH EM GEEEE!  This is where I say my body won't let me push more... Before I finished Circuit 2 my head was throbbing from my blood pressure being up. During circuit 3 of the cardio I couldn't keep up, but it wasn't because of the cardio, it was because my calves were burning so bad they just wouldn't get my feet off the ground.  I will not give up, I will push through this and in 10 days be amazed with myself!!!

Level 3 Day 1 Complete!

So what exercise have you done today?  And please if you have an infant, toddler, pre-schooler tell me how you get it done with them awake!

Failure and Success

Lunch was a complete fail yesterday!  All the way there I was thinking how I was going to be good, I was going to be able report back that I did it, I got the wrap and be happy with myself.  Well then I got there and the noticed the special on the sign said Mushroom Guada Burger.  I said "Nope" to myself and walked in.  Then my boss hands me the list of specials and I for some reason read the burger one.  It had all my favorites on it!  Bacon, mushrooms, cheese.  It was also cheaper than the wrap and right now $ is tight, cheaper is better.  I caved... to the tune of about 2000 calories once you get the home made chips in there :-(  It was good though, just don't really think it was worth it.

On the success side, I finished Level 2 of 30 Day Shred today!  I'm not sure I'm totally ready to move on since I still have a little trouble keeping up, but I'm going to give it a shot, it's how we push ourselves right.
According to my measurements this morning Level 2 got rid of 4.75 inches! For a total of 7.25 inches. I'm not so sure how accurate those numbers are though for 2 reasons.

1. My beginning and Level 1 measurements were taken in the evening and after noon, not first thing in the morning.  (I may possibly be more bloated adding inches in the evening?)
2. My 3 year old has hidden my measuring tape on me and I had to use ribbon and metal measuring tape for measurements this morning.

Either way, I know I've lost something and I'm still feeling good about it.  I think I've decided to try a Couch to 10k program.  

Feeling Good

I’m feeling good about myself today.  I’m not really sure why, but I have a positive attitude this morning.  I’m obviously not focusing it towards my work like I should be, but eh.

I was exhausted when I got up this morning and really had to push myself to work out, but I did it and I feel better.  I can’t believe today was Day 9 of Level 2!  I’m a little nervous about moving on to Level 3 because at time I still can’t keep pace with Level 2.  I do all the exercises, but not at the same pace.  I almost thought about moving up in weights this morning because with the hammer kicks and some of the rows I don’t feel like I’m getting much resistance on those muscles, but damn do my shoulders still throb by the time she says it’s time for the last minute of abs!

This is one of my favorite outfits right now (minus the shoes, we have a closed toe policy at work).  Unfortunately after only 2 hours of wear, the pants are starting to fall off!  Basically when I put them on they just rest on my hips so by the time I bend and sit a little, they are stretched too much to stay up.  Not that I’m complaining, but part of what I was talking about yesterday, they just started fitting me 3 weeks ago, max!

I’m a little nervous about this week’s weigh in.  While I’m back to wear I was Friday after a Sunday of practically no water, I have a work lunch today.  My plan is to order the Chicken Bella.  It’s a wrap with chicken, baby portabella mushrooms, onions, lettuce, tomato and balsamic dressing.  It comes with a side of home made chips (my favorite!)  What I really want is all one of the following, mild garlic chicken wings, chicken quesadilla, big mouth burger smothered in cheese and bacon, garlic cheese bread.

Please give me the strength to only order the wrap!!!

Good Problems

Now there's an oxymoron if I've every heard one.

Since I'm nursing I wear a nursing tank pretty much every day.  Truth be told, I love my nursing tops.  No bra needed first of all, and second they help keep the belly/pant junction nice and smooth.  I like it better when it isn't smooth because the pants are too big, but either way I like to cover it with a nice fitting tank before I put my shirt on.

The problem? My nursing tanks aren't so form fitting any more :-(  As a matter of fact, some of them a slightly baggy!  And a lot of my other shirts are that way too now!  Yes I have T-shirts that fit, but finding a nice work outfit in my closet that isn't too tight or make me look like I'm wearing a sack is getting difficult.

It probably wouldn't be so difficult if I hadn't tried to stuff my over sized body into undersized clothes for a few years, but I did, cause really who wants to go buy BIGGER clothes?!

I now have a bunch of nice work pants thanks to my aunt who is a little ahead of me in the weight loss department, but no shirts.  And I really don't have the $$$ to go out and buy new shirts.  Truthfully I'm glad some of the healthy stuff isn't so expensive any more or I wouldn't have this problem cause I wouldn't be able to eat healthy.

I'm not going to complain because when I all of a sudden have a great new wardrobe, when I can fit into my (out of style) clothes from 5 years ago I'll be happy again (and starting a new fad with the "old" style).

Week 15

Well the week definitely ended better than it started!  This weeks weight... drum roll please...

Why is this so great???  Well besides the fact that the last few weeks I haven't felt like I've made much progress, this is my first major goal.  This is my PRE-PREGNANCY weight!

To me this is like starting a whole new journey.  This is where I left off before I got pregnant.  I at one point made it down to 186, but never maintained it there.  It was 188 that held steady.  So here is my baby girl that is worth all the weight and then some...

Yes my baby girl wears lots of camo

 Oh yeah and what better day to hit a goal than your 5 year anniversary?  Happy Anniversary my love!  Thanks for all the support!

Push It

I definitely pushed it to the max yesterday.

The day didn't start off too good when I turned off my alarm and fell back asleep!  Good thing my body automatically woke me up at 5 when I normally start getting ready for work.  I was down all day about random stuff and I really think some of it wouldn't have been so bad if I had been able to work out.

Guess what, I went home, put on my workout clothes and sneakers and popped that bitch in!  That's right, this girl did Level 2 30DS at 5pm with an infant and a pre-schooler at home, while daddy made dinner!

I will be honest, I don't know how people do it with a 3 year old running around the whole time, all the time, but it was cute the way she tried to do everything with me.  Biggest problem is her mouth never stops *I think it gets more exercise than the rest of her* and she always wants me to look and talk and well I just can't do that!  But my point is, I made the time!  I worked so hard I had to wait to eat because I felt weak and sick to my stomach, I felt pride!

And guess what, I got up this morning at 3:45am and did it again!  That's right folks, less than 12 hours later I did it again.  I couldn't keep up the way I wanted, but I felt like I was gonna die when I was done.  And that feeling makes me feel like there is a whole new world out there, it gives me hope.

A Good Start

Nope, not really.

Sunday was supposed to be my first day of Level 2 on 30DS.  Well I had a little too much fun Saturday night.  I honestly can't remember the last time I drank like that.  I'm pretty sure I was still drunk Sunday morning when we got up and went to breakfast.  We got the girls from my MIL's and then we spent half the afternoon in my room watching Shrek over and over (yay 3 year olds).  Then we went and picked up stuff for spaghetti and had a wonderful dinner with my sister.  After getting home after 8pm I was not about to do day one of level 2 and then get up at 4am and do it again.

So 4am Monday morning rolls around and guess who wakes up, the baby.  I tried, I fed her, I put her in her swing and I started, she let me get through circuit 1 before she had had enough.  I tried to figure something out, but she just wasn't having it.  Before I knew it I had to get in the shower and there went my work out.

I tried to be good eating cause I was pretty sure that I wasn't getting work out in.  Thank god I ate well at work cause dinner was a 3 Meat Pizza and bread sticks.  And since I felt like I'd been starving all day (and I resisted the urge to stuff my face), I had 3 *gasp* slices of pizza and 2 of the smallest bread sticks.  Yeah, holy face stuffing at dinner.  At 6 though I had convinced my 3 year old to sit in the over sized rocking chair with her sister and watch me work out.  I even put my work out clothes on!  The second I set the baby down she started screaming and for the next hour I had to walk her around the house to keep her quiet.  I'm still not sure if it was gas or teeth, but hey the walking got me sweating a little so I guess its better than nothing.

On the plus side, I logged all my food and I was just within my calorie goal!

Today Jillian kicked my ass on Day 1 of Level 2, but in the next 10 days I will own that shit!

Week 14

Not much of a loss this week, but 0.6 down is better than 0.6 up!  It's gotta be the damn breakfasts we've been eating!  Ok, so I know that's it and the not so healthy dinners a few times this week too!

"Sure, I'll have a second piece of pizza and another chicken wing."

"What, you made peach cobbler.  Of course I'm going to have some! Oh and ice cream to go with it, why not?"

Oh yes and my sister surprised with cake batter puppy chow.

I guess I should be happy I didn't gain anything.

Saturday I did day 10 of JM 30DS.  I don't think I've been pushing myself quite as hard as I should be, but in 10 days I've lost a total of 2.5".  1 from my waist, half from my hips and 1 between my thighs.

I will do better this week!  I will track ALL my food!

Compliment or Not?

A little background... I have an aunt and uncle who are pretty open about their lives, and I mean every part.  Any way, they like attention and to talk about themselves.  They've tried changing their diets several times over the last 10 years or more and nothing ever sticks.  I get it, I know it's hard and every day I tell myself that this time it HAS to be for good.  So this is what happened...

We are all hanging out at my mom's camp on the 4th of July.  This is the first time several of them have seen me in at least a month and a couple since I was pregnant.  Well above uncle says to me (when we are in a large group and rather loudly) "Brandi, have you lost weight?"  I said "I have, thanks for..." He cuts me off with "I've lost 8lbs this month, your aunt has only lost 6 though, even though we are eating the same."

I have so many issues with this.  First off, if you are going to compliment someone for their weight loss, don't just use it as an excuse to bring up your own.  Yes I know the first 2, 4, 6, whatever lbs is hard, but it's sticking with it that is even harder.  I had lost 20lbs at that time and I was proud.  Second, my poor aunt was right there and I could tell by the look on her face the fact that he mentioned that he was losing weight faster bothered her.  As if losing weight isn't hard enough?  If you aren't in a competition, don't make it one.

So anyway, I'm pretty sure he just mentioned my weight loss so that he could bring up his own.  Personally I never mention mine because to me if you can't see the difference what's the point?

7 Days Down

I've now done 7 days straight of the 30DS and I'm proud.  The first 2 days left me very sore!  The next 2 not as sore so I bumped up the weights.  I've been sick and feeling like crap, but I am pushing through, I HAVE to, mostly because I know I can and because I want to push myself.  I even feel like I'm not pushing myself during some of the video so I try harder.

I can do girl push-ups!  And I can do several of them!  I am ashamed to say that a few months ago I could do one and not be able to get up from the next one.

I'm kind of nervous about moving to level 2 in a few days.

I want to bitch slap JM every time she says "just a couple more" and then we do like 10 more.  And when she says "don't stop, we're right there with you."  I want to punch her and say "Bitch those girls might be with me, but the only thing you've been moving is you lips!"

Now I just need to get my eating back on track.  I've really been wanting to eat my emotions away, but I'm resisting!  It's HARD.  I haven't been tracking the best and that normally means I'm not eating the best.  I need to get myself in check!

Week 13

I was happily surprised by the scale this morning.  I thought I was going to be down a little, maybe even a pound, but not 1.8lbs!  I was at 190.6 this morning, I'm so close the the 180s I can taste it!  These next 3 weeks are going to be hard, my grandparents are visiting and every weekend we go to breakfast both days.  If I can make myself stick to veggie omelets I think I can do this.  I just need to watch my coffee (with milk and sugar) intake.

I also started Jillian.Michaels.30.Day.Shred yesterday.  All I can say is that it looks a hell of a lot easier than it is! My muscles were still sore this morning from yesterday's workout, but I pushed through and still feel like I had some improvement.  Making sure I still do it on the weekends is going to be the hardest part of this for me.  I can do it though!  I know I can!