A few thoughts...

It's a new month. Well, as of yesterday it's a new month. And I am grateful. Looking back on October, it felt very....blah. I can't really pinpoint a main reason or even a main thing, the whole thing just kind of weighed me down. Which is weird, usually its my favorite one, for several reasons. Not this year, however, and so I am extra grateful for November. There is just something about a fresh, clean start that really encourages me. Not that I don't have that option everyday, (Thanks to Jesus), but for some reason, when the calendar coincides with my renewed motivation, it just seems right.

And so I'm back on track, mostly. I finally feel healthy after that cold/flu thing I had, so I'm jumping right back into working out and let me just say, Jillian kicks my butt in a workout video pretty hard. I was sweating buckets yesterday after her Blast that Metabolism (or something like that) workout video. I can't even fathom what it would be like to workout with her in real life! Kind of makes me a little sympathetic to those Biggest Loser folks. (Which, by the way, I'm excited to watch tonight. that and Castle, which was on last night, are the only shows I'm really into this year.) Oh, sorry I digressed there, back to the subject at hand: Working out. And I went for a run outside today, which was awesome in the 50 degree air and light rain. It felt so good, too, for the first time no gimpiness anywhere, so I was thrilled. I love my runs outside because they help me think, too. I love that I live not quite in town and so I get to see more than just houses, it is refreshing to spend time in God's creation and helps remind me why we are all here, anyway.

I'm back on the eating wagon too. Actually, I've never left that wagon, in fact I've been really good at eating lately. What I mean is that I'm back to tracking all my calories. I've got a little over two months before Erik and I go to Mexico, and I want to make as much of a dent in my weight loss battle as possible before we go. I know I can't reach my goal, but any progress I make will be encouraging, so I'm trying to plan meals with more intention towards healthiness and log every single bite.

In other parts of my life, like my "job"  and my relationships, I'm trying get back into it as well. I've figured out a little better use of my calendar and time and planning and all that to try and make sure I'm doing more productive things before the lesser productive things. I tend to go all or nothing (ha ha, see a trend?!) as in I spend all day at home doing absolutely nothing, being by myself, or I'm out and about all day hanging out with friends and letting my laundry and dirty house pile up or, I'm so focused on cleaning and all those things that I don't do anything fun or hang out with anyone. Right now I'm working on balancing those things so that I get a little of each every day, but making sure to prioritize correctly. (i.e. my quiet times and workouts come before blogging, facebook or even scrapbooking.)

So, even though I'm working on quite a bit right now, it feels good. I feel refreshed and energized and motivated and I love it when those are the feelings coursing through my head and heart. How about you? Are you working on anything? Today is a new day, its as good a time as any to start something fresh and new. :-)

A little results and a boost

Okay, I could hardly wait to share this post with ya'll. I have officiallly finished "Making the Cut", which as you know, is 'the 30-day diet and fitness plan for the strongest, sexiest you'.  Okay, so you know from my earlier post that I gave up on that specific 30-day diet, but I am proud to say that I stuck with the fitness aspect. The last couple weeks I got behind for some reason, so I actually have 2 workouts left, but I will do them. Then I'm going to keep cycling through the workouts, probably 3 each week, not because I enjoyed doing them so much (I actually hate all the moves and feel like throwing up during a good majority of them) but because I have seen results. Yes, that is right, RESULTS! Woohoo. Would you like me to tell you the results? Well, I hope you said yes, because that was my plan.

I weighed myself on Monday for the first time since the first week of the plan, (on which I had lost 2 pounds) and I was disappointed to see that I was still sitting at that two pound loss. Hmmm. I knew my pants were fitting looser, so I was surprised to see the scale still at that same number. I tried to pep talk myself that day, but it didn't work and I still found myself reaching for the comfort of dark chocolate the last two evenings. Not too happy with myself. But, I decided I'd do the fitness test from the book today to see if I'd improved there and then I was thinking about pulling out the measuring tape and seeing if there was any difference there.

I did the fitness test this morning and found that I had improved in every single area. My pulse was 6 beats lower on the step test, I could do ten more push-ups, 11 more sit ups and six more seconds of wall sitting. I liked seeing improvement there, so I braved the tape measure.

I lost 2 inches in my bust (not exactly excited about losing it here, but oh well, beggers can't be choosers)
I lost 1.5 inches in my chest
I lost 1.5 inches in my waist, which I am most proud of because I am officially out of the danger zone!
I lost 1.5 inches in my hips
I lost half an inch on both thighs and on both arms (upper arms).

It doesn't seem like a ton, but I am so tickled pink with these results!!! This has given me exactly the kind of boost I need to keep going down this weight loss road. I know that if I stick with it, I will see results, because the numbers on the scale are bound to follow the ones on the tape measure. :-0 I am smiling big today.

Making the Cut

I have been trying to "make the cut" for eleven days now and I wanted to share some impressions so far. I am a fan of the television show The Biggest Loser, and I've tried several workout videos either associated with that or Jillian Michaels alone, all of which I got a pretty good workout. So, when I saw this book and read a ton of great reviews on it on Amazon, I decided to give it a whirl. I figured since I'm already in decent shape and I only have about twenty pounds to lose, that it would be perfect. (I say only twenty pounds like it is nothing, when in fact its been the hardest pounds to lose to date in my life). I had visions of me dropping all twenty pounds in the thirty days it takes to do her program. High hopes, I'd say, but still, I hoped.

Here are some complaints, errors, contradictions, whatever you might call them that I've discovered while reading and implementing her plan...

1. Her menu plan, overall, sucks.
She gives you a menu for the whole month based on your "oxidizer type". I dont know how much of that I buy into. As a runner I know that pairing carbs with proteins at each meal is best and so I do that already, as well as count my calories, but I figured I'd try her plan just for variety.  THere is no rhyme or reason to her menu. She says to follow it religiously but then tells you to stick to your BMR for calories which is interesting considering that her formula for figuring that out is way off, like 400 calories too high. One day you'll have a cup of cottage cheese with a whole wheat toast and the next you'll have the toast but only 2 Tbsp of cottage cheese. Weird.  Everyday is something different for each meal, which makes it hard to buy the things and not have them spoil before the next meal of that same item. I would've liked to see the same items throughout one week for things like lunch, breakfast and snack in order to cut down on costs. She had very little fruit and vegetables on the plan, maybe two servings total. That seems odd. Then, she wants you to cut out alcohol and cut down on coffee and not eat packaged food, yet calls for things like butter substitute and Splenda. One recipe called for Smuckers sugar free apricot jam, guess what the second ingredient in that stuff is? High fructose corn syrup. I don't eat that crap as much as I can help it, so it seems contradictory to me to have it in a "healthy diet". Sure, you'll have muscles but you'll have cancer too, yippee.

2. Her recipes were not tasty.
I did give them a try. I made about a weeks worth of dinner recipes and tried two lunch recipes and two breakfast recipes. Without fail all the chicken recipes for dinner sucked. No flavor, very bland and just yuck. The shrimp fajitas, fancy fish sticks and chicken/onion/apple tacos were good. I will make them again. The lunches, roast beaf philly roll up and rueben (like I shared the other day) were good. The breakfast, her pancakes are awesome but the breakfast in a bowl was nasty.

I will not be following her diet plan for the remainder of the month. I can cook healthy and stick to my calorie intake just fine without her bland food. I feel like I wasted so much money on groceries to cook her recipes. :-(

3. Her exercises kick major butt.
Literally. I think I may have discovered muscles that didn't exist before. My core is tighter and sore. My legs are sore and my arms are getting there. The moves challenge me and some of them make me want to throw up. I don't have all the machines for some moves, but she lists enough variations that I can still work out the same muscle group, so its good. I dispise spending four days a week lifting weights and doing the circuits, but its exactly what I needed, so I do it and I will continue the month exactly as she has it layed out. Each week there are different moves, so it doesn't get boring. I may even continue rotating through them after the month is over, only a couple days a week instead.

Despite my complaints about the food, something is definitely working. I lost 2 pounds the first week, which is pretty good for me. So all in all, the book is doing what I wanted it to do. It's challenging me and giving me a kick start to this year of weight loss. Since January first I've lost a total of 7 pounds, which makes me quite happy. Now its just a matter of sticking to it! :-)

Dear Blog

It's not that I've been terribly busy, (I'd estimate I've only been "somewhat" busy) its just that I haven't exactly felt inspired enough to bore share anything with you. I've been doing all the things I typically do, as a mom and all that, but I just haven't felt inspired and so I haven't been here.

I still don't have much inspiration, but I felt like I should probably come around here and say something, at least.

Something.

I've been reading....finished "Sweet Shattered Dreams" by Gordon Stanley West, another five star read in my opinion, the kind you stay up til midnight or so just to finish it. Excellent, excellent book. Go read it.

I've been running and working out. Started training for Bloomsday (a big run in Spokane in May) and have had the pleasure of an addition to our typical Sunday morning running group, which has been fun. Am only up to four miles for long run but the race itself is only 7 miles so the distance doesn't scare me. It's the hill that scares me so in a month I'll start some hill training once a week, that is if I make it. Why would I not make it, you ask? I'm challenging myself with a diet/exercise plan for 30 days based on a book by Jillian Michaels (you know her, from the Biggest Loser, more about that later) called "Making the Cut". The diet part isn't much different than I've already been eating (down 5lbs since Jan 1 already, woot!) but the workout is like five days a week of weight/circut training. I'm only on day two and I already feel muscles I'm not sure were there before.

Tangent: If anyone out there watches or has watched the Biggest Loser, you know that its not only a weight loss challenge but a "game". Well, I must confess I don't like watching the "game" portion of it. Why can't they all be there to lose weight and not be so tricky and conniving? I haven't watched every single season, but on the few I've actually watched completely, there has always been at least one person/couple that I simply don't like very much. Well, I don't know them but I don't like how they behave and act, lets put it that way. And watching it last week I had to wonder if the trainers (Jillian and Bob) ever have contestants that they simply don't like as well. What do you think?

I've been focusing a little more on my "job" as well. You know the "job" where I'm the mom, wife, chef, etc? I decided that I hadn't been using my time very wisely, there's no telling when this gig will be up and I'll have to go get a real job work elsewhere. I don't want to take this for granted, so I'm trying to be more appreciative of it by being more productive. If my "job" is to be a mom and wife then I want to do my best, by putting that stuff first before my fun things (like blogging, scrapbooking and facebook). And then on that same train of thought I also decided I needed to make more time for others, too. Because at the end of the road called life and I look back, I want to see more than a clean house and well-tended family. Although the happiness and well-being of my family is important, I don't believe its all there is to life. So I'm trying to make more time for others, too. Its kind of a tough balance I'm finding out, but it'll be worth it.

So, I haven't been blogging (or writing) but my house is clean, my kids are clean, my family is well fed, my muscles are sore and my calendar is filling in delightfully with the correct focus, so its all good. :-) Well, actually the bathrooms aren't clean but I'm going to go change that right now.