My Least Favorite Exercise

Sure, there are a LOT of exercises that I hate, but the one that is the MOST hard for me to do:

The Plank

I mean, I've been doing the ab workout for quite a while and I still can't hold this position on my feet for very long without shaking and my back hurting.  I kind of think that means I need to work on it more.  I wonder if my personal lack of muscles in that area could be a source of my tailbone problems?

Who knows, but I know if I hate it, I need to keep working on it.  Thanks to Lindsay, and Jenny I'm sure I will.

Encouraging

Tonight, while waitng for Drew to get me my Yumi Yogurt (he's a dream, he really is) I was clicking on some of the links on the blogher ads.  They're other blogs that fall in the same "genre" as mine.  Weight loss, fitness, health, etc.
They're super inspiring.  If you are feeling a little down, click on them -- and you'll be amazed at what these women have accomplished.  It definitately made me feel inspired.

Monday Weigh-in

After figuring out my points fiasco I'm down 2.2 points.  That even saves my buns from the .4 I gained last week!  That's an average of 1.4 per week and I'm excited to see my measurements when we do them this weekend!

Do you like the new layout?  It's pretty fancy.  I know. :)  I wanted my header to show ALL the reasons I'm doing this.  I'm not going to say I'm not vain.  A lot of it is wanting to look good in cute clothes.  The dress is from Shabby Apple and I always think their clothes are so cute.  However, they're also sized small and out of my range ... for many 2.2 weight loss weeks.  Perhaps by the end of the year...  But there's many reasons, as I'm sure there is for a lot of us!

Workout Du Jour was one from The Firm.  I will probably review them more in depth one of these days but suffice it to say that they are robotic calorie busting machines.  They do an amazing job of ridding those calories.  Being fun, not so much. :)

Back on the positive wagon.  Last week was really frustrating but I plan to just find the place to re-calculate my points each week so I never have this little problem again! :)

Before and After

So I'm not generally keen on posing in a bikini but I did it in part for motivation and in part to see the true results. Since my tummy has always been a problem area for me. 14.6 lbs. Wowza!




And can I just say this diet is HARD. Emotionally more so than any other diet I've ever done. Then again, I always broke down and cheated or just quit on all my other diets so I filled that emotional void with food. Not this time. Nope. It kicked my emotional butt....but it works.








I am thinking I will do the three weeks of maintenance and then maybe try to kick the last 5 or 10 on another round. I know I won't be able to do it "on my own" without the CRAZY strict structure that this plan makes you follow. But I'll let you know in 3 weeks when my maintenance is up just how I feel.

Booooooo

Ok, ladies -- it's time to vent.  This whole thing is really getting me down.  I haven't lost ANYTHING, ALL WEEK.  I do tend to make "jumps" down, but I've been working out hard, keeping to my points and I am NOT seeing the results.  But, I thought I'd pick something specific that I hate about my weight loss regeim.

I hate using spray butter instead of the real stuff.

That's right, I just said that.  I appreciate I can't Believe It's Not Butter for making the stuff, but there's something so gratifying about the cool chunk of butter along with warm bread...

Well, that' just no more.  Perhaps on my "free" day (aka, I save all my points for one day, usually Saturday, to just splurge on what I want).  It's nice that weight watchers allows that, but i miss it on the other six days.

What do you hate this week. Somehow, just saying that made it ALL better. :)

That isn't to say that I'm not feeling positive about my journey (ok, a little less positive this week), but there's things we do for our healthy bodies that just aren't our favorite.  No need to keep it a secret, complain a little. :)  But just a little.  No whiners here. :)

Edit:  Well, I finally went back to weight watchers and had them re-calculate my points... turns out I've been eating THREE POINTS extra every day.  Now, honestly, that shoudln't be THAT big of a deal, and I think I'm just going to be able to absorb it into my extra this week.  Anyway, maybe that's the culprit.  I hope so, but I'm gonna miss those 3 points.  Seems like it should be more gradual.....

Just another reason

Just another good reason to work out.  I'm following the mantra of moving more and eating less... I'd ilke to see lots of grandkids. :)

Wahhhhh...

I'm up .4 pounds.  I worked HARD last week, on Tuesday, about 3 hours of heavy labor and I paid for it all week in soreness.  I'm pretty sure that's where the issue was...
I'm keeping positive, but it's hard not to get down on yourself.
Last week's workout du jour was Denise Austin Pilates.  It wasn't pretty since I was already sore.  I did realize that pilates might be a good thing to do after a harder workout, but on its own, I don't think it does much.
Kind of a short entry.  I hope it's nice and long with lots of happy faces next week. :)

Monday weigh-in

Two pounds lost this last week.  I seem to make "jumps" down -- I swear my scale was stuck at the same numbers for 3 days and then it jumped down.  Who knows (mostly, I think it's from being sore, I guess).  Super happy about it.  Just continuing on with my working out and my weight watchers.  I thought I'd lose a point (as my first two numbers went down) but I still have 29.  Good times.

Slowly, I'm having to learn how to count points better as I eat away from home.  Luckily, having 3 kids doesn't lend itself well to eating away from home, but it's going to happen.  For instance, I think I mis-calculated points while at our church fundraiser dinner on Friday night.  I jumped up in weight, so I had to just throw all my week's extra points at that night, and keep myself good for the rest of the weekend.  It's a learning process.

Workout du jour: Lindsay Brin's Dance Jam -- as I'm doing one of my workout tapes each week (1 day Your Shape, one day wii fit, along with some cardio inbetween segments, and then a DVD/video day, plus walking and yardwork) I thought I'd review the one I did last week.  Lindsay, I guess, was a cheerleader in her pre-mom days.  This is a really fun workout. It's giving you the feeling of doing a "halftime routine" instead of pukingyour guts out while doing knee-ups.  There's 3 ways to do the workout which will vary your time from aroun 20 to 45 minutes.  The moves are fun and do get your heartrate up.  I wasdn't a huge fan of the outfits, but perhaps they're motivational. :)  All in all, a great cardio routine to fit in between those days you do weights.
**I did a lot of Lindsay Brinn workouts when I was pregnant, I loved her pregnancy series.  In general, I realy like her and how she motivates moms to workout.  You should see her blog, she's showing her weight loss post-baby.  It's facinating stuff. :)

Discipline

So this protocol is working so well for me because it is incredibly strict but incredibly structured as well. I think if I didn't have to track every single calorie, food, spice ect. every day that I eat, and didn't have to weigh myself daily and track that as well, I would NOT be down 10.8 lbs! But... I AM and I am elated!!! My jeans are fitting so much better, I do not have to jump up and down to get in the tighter pairs anymore and that just feels so good.

So....if you're someone who is having a hard time finding THE ONE plan that works for you, don't give up. Everyone does better with different types of structure. But just always remember that if you're wanting to lose weight, it IS a lifestyle change if you want to keep it off. No more chocolate or desert after every meal. It's called a "treat" for a reason. It should be special and not a regular thing. (Hopefully I can stick to that when I'm in maintenance now, because lets face it, I LOVE SUGAR.)

So here's to becoming healthier and more confident!

And....

down another 1.8lbs! Yah baby!

Progress...

Another little carrot to dangle. I am 6 days in to my new regime and have lost 3lbs. so far. Encouraging...? I think so!

Goal Met!

Drew and I started out with a goal of 20 "point" weight loss.  We measure weight, body fat % (on our scale), waist and I measure hip measurement too.  We lost 21 points as of this weekend.  Crazy thing, wii fit is now super hard to find... luckily, I found it at a Walmart about 20 minutes away.  It's now in our possession, and everyone is super happy.  Next 20 point goal: Tickets to a show (possibly Cique du Soliel, or whatever is playing nearby).

HUGE NEWS, I only measure myself monthly, it's kind of a pain today and normally I don't notice much change.  BUT, this time I coudln't BELIEVE it!  I thought maybe 4 inches would be a great # for a month of weight loss, but I lost almost NINE INCHES.  Here's the rundown: 

• Arms 0.5" 
• Hips 1.5"
• Waist 1.5"
• Thighs 1"
• Bust 2.75" (pffttt.... )
• Calves 0.5
• Neck 0.75

Crazy huh?  I had a 1.2 pound weight loss last week which puts me almost to a 10 pound loss (9.8 pounds) in 6 weeks.  Yay! 

So, now that we have the wii fit I think it might be time to mix-up the workin' out.  Sadly, I don't think the wii fit is that great of a workout, on its own.  I did it this AM and while I was a little sweaty, it wasn't anything to get too excited about.  HOWEVER, I was thinking I could turn it into something kind of like Curves... where I do 30 seconds of high intensity something (jumping jacks, running, etc.) in between the wii fit exercises...  I think that will help rev-up the heart rate, and then wii fit is pretty darn fun.  I hope that makes it a do-able workout that will help get results.  My plan is to do wii fit, your shape and one of my video collection each once a week.  Along with a walk with a friend, and a serious yard work day.

I do think that Your Shape has really helped with the inches lost.  She is just like a personal trainer in doing a lot of the same exercises over and over to help build muscle, etc... but having to re-arrange my living room, and wear the appropriate colored pajamas is getting old...  I guess I will have to re-evaluate in a month when I re-measure.

I went to another weight watchers meeting this weekend.  Frankly, I'm just not energized to lose the weight when I go.  I would say that I'm pretty well self-motivated by just doing it online.  I may end-up continuing my online membership, I'll have to see...  It will be my last meeting for a while though.

Anyway, I will just mention that the people who still contribute to this blog are still losing weight... correlated?  I'll let you be the judge of that.

So I'm lame

and I haven't posted in forever....but I just wanted to dangle a little carrot. I'm starting a new regimen tomorrow...but I'm not going to say what it is until I have some success. Wish me luck. It's very strict but I'm good with structure so hopefully this will be the key for me!

5 weeks with Weight Watchers

I had a rockin' weigh-in today at a 3 pound loss.  Normally, I think anything more than 2 pounds is excessive, but last week -- right before my weigh-in I had a GINORMOUS dinner (eating all of my extra points in one meal, it was delicious).  I bumped up from last week, so overall I'm still losing 1.6 pounds/week'ish. :)

Last week I only ate 11 of my extra 35 points.  We didn't go out to eat at all {boooo}, we had friends over on Saturday night.  We really need to do that more often, because while we still had a great dinner it was figure-friendly.

I actually went to a weight watchers meeting, so I wanted to share a few things I think about Weight Watchers now that I've seen both sides.

1.  The images.  OMG, those women -- they really strip to very little to do their weigh-ins.  Honestly, I think WW should kind of speak-out against it.  I mean, it's open to both sexs and obese women in sports bras and biker shorts just isn't my idea of a good time.  I weigh in each morning in my PJ's.  Yes, that might add a pound or two but I'm looking for overall loss.  Not just a low number.
2.  Costly.  I paid 57 (I think) dollars to be an online member for 3 months.  I went to the meeting and spent just under 40 to get the literature.  I'm really glad that I did.  I can calculate my own points better now and I don't want to be an online member forever.  I am going with my friend to one more meeting on Saturday which will add another 13.  Total cost for just my 3 months will be over 100 dollars but if the weight keeps coming off, I'm fine with the money spent.  It's well worth a few hours at work.  I did keep thinking I could do it on my own, but my life is super busy right now, and I can't realy concentrate on food too well once my kdis are home and in the evenings.  It really helps me portion control.
3.  Points.  I'm fine with my 29 points/day.  I usually have about 10-12 during the day and splurge a bit on dinner.  I save almost all of my points for a weekend evening at a restaurant.  I prefer to have one meal that I don't really have to "count".  I figure if I have like 55 points saved up and I've been eating well all week I won't over-do it.  Frankly, I might -- but I like that freedom.

Anyway, that's what is on my mind as of late about the WW.  I'm obviously quite happy with the results.  I just keep to keep up my good work!  I've done a lot of lowfat recipes lately, I'm gonna post some of the ones our family really enjoyed on my blog sometime today.